A family of trees

Is there anything ambiguous or confusing about the word ‘No’ ? At first, I didn’t think so. And saying ‘No’ forcefully—without a smile or teasing undertone—seems even more explicit. But apparently we females don’t really know what we want because ‘No (smile)’ means ‘Yes’ and ‘No (murderous-looking-for-the-nearest-machete-glare) means, wait for it, ‘Yes.’ Hmm, that doesn’t leave a girl with too many options, does it?

Well there’s a certain nameless dufus in Gaoua who believes this steaming piece of ‘yes means no’ crap is true of me. He’s been pursuing/making me insane for months now; he’s harmless, albeit annoying, and I’m certainly not the most patient person. But this morning, after refusing to give him my number for about 50th time and explaining (yet again) that I’m blissfully engaged to another volunteer (shhh…not really) who lives close by, dufus sat himself down to explain his feelings to me. Here is goes:

I am the trophy for the World Cup. Right now I’m picturing the gold thing that Zidane walked past with his head hung low after he got himself thrown out of the championship game against Italy in 2006. Anywho, I’m the trophy and dufus is one of the teams that qualified to play in the World Cup, and he’s playing to win the trophy. Oh barf. My ‘boyfriend’ is another team and so on and so on. According to him, the World Cup isn’t won until I’m married. Christ.

That machete’s looking mighty appealing right now. But I may just have fatten the lie instead of getting messy, which means that Mom, I might need you to send me a ring to wear—the one found at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box will suffice. I couldn’t help but laugh at this comparison, seeing as how I enjoy all things ridiculous, but poor dufus was serious. I might consider giving him my number if could find me an oreo blast and green chile cheeseburger from Sonic, but then again I probably wouldn’t. I would enjoy the food, though.

In other news, I’ve started an English Club at my school. Most of these kids want to do activities that will help them prepare for the BEPC (middle school exit exam), so I’m trying to come up with some cool songs and games to teach them. I plan on wowing them with my singing voice. Next week it’s going to be ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ with a twist. The twist being that I have to figure out a way to work in the other body parts. I might just have to change the tune.

Also, I’m making invitations to send out to Ouaga, Bobo and Gaoua for 8 Mars. 8 Mars is International Women’s Day and it appears that Bouroum Bouroum will be rockin’ it like it’s 1999. Soccer games and theater pieces are scheduled for the day, as well as a dance at the end of the night. Burkina Faso designs a new pagne every year in celebration of 8 Mars. I can’t remember the pattern for this year (in either red or blue though!), but it’s pretty and I intend to make a dress and/or shirt out of the material. Guess which one I’ll wear more often? But I will get all gussied up for 8 Mars. I’m very excited that Burkina is celebrating its women, and that I’ll be a part of it.

Exams this week! I hope that this weekend my students are dreaming about fractions, triangles/angles, decimal approximations and calculations using powers of 10. What what!