Babytalk

It has been some time since I've last written… Well, there’s no excuse really, other than I've been busy during the day and tired at night.

For example, on Mondays, I teach for three hours in the morning, do some lesson planning afterwards, go home to eat, do some errands, go back to school for my tutoring group for two hours, come back home to shower, and then I have my Jula lessons for 2 hours! If I don’t have anything interesting to do after that I’m often completely beat by 9:00 at night. But, man, I guess that’s a bit normal now. I’m getting old…

Right! Jula lessons! Jula is the commercial language most widely spoken in my region of the country. It has a ton of variants in many different West African countries (think American versus Britannic English). Thus, even though more people in Burkina Faso as a whole speak Mooré, Jula’s a bit more practical. Not that I’ll be busting it out back in the states…

It’s… tough.  I’m learning Jula in French. Fortunately, I’m adequately comfortable with French by now that I get by, but the nuances of language-learning can be lost on me at times. I’m also lucky that my Jula teacher speaks a bit of English. But that means we get sidetracked by him trying to speak in English occasionally. Hey, I can’t complain. So far, I’m able to go to my marché, ask people how they are doing, inquire about their families, and chiefly, buy my veggies. The ladies selling the tomatoes, carrots, onions, etc. get quite a kick out of me talking with them, no matter how briefly. So, I chat, I flash that charming, roguish smile of mine, and I often get gifted an extra pepper or tomato or so at checkout. And by checkout I mean the lady putting the vegetables in a sachet for me.

I’d like to mention briefly how grateful I am that there are carrots and cabbages here now. I had found some rice paper that the previous volunteer had left behind but, being the novice chef that I am, I had no idea how to use it! After shattering a circle or so, I deduced through absolutely brilliant intuition that I could soften it with water. It has completely changed my life. Fry up some rice with make-shift chicken broth and spices, add soy sauce and vegetables, boil some cabbage leaves, throw it all on top of a prepared sheet of rice paper, and VOILA! Spring rolls! My former life as Wrap Master at the grill of my college campus prepared me well for this. Next up to make: homemade bagels and chicken pot pie.

Look at me go, talking about languages and food (I'VE MADE APPLE PIE HERE), when I’ve been neglecting what’s really important: football. Yeah, yeah, I heard the results of our Super Bowl back home. (Good job Flacc-attack. I always believed in you, especially since I saw you in that Dave and Buster’s in Philly that one time…) The real event, seeing as the Jets hadn’t made the playoffs, was the Coupe d’Afrique, the African soccer tournament. Burkina Faso finally made its mark on the international football stage when it made the finals for the first time ever this past Sunday versus Nigeria. I told my fellow teachers that when one examines the evidence, the national team only made the finals after I arrived in country… Coincidence? Probably. In any case, we lost 1-0… I’m not stupid enough to take credit for that…

Also, of note, our first string goalie had gotten a red card during one match only to find out afterwards that his father had died in a car crash not far from where I am. It must have been a HORRIBLE day for him. Today, as I entered Banfora, my taxi brousse had to pull over to allow the funeral party to pass. They had waited for the goalie to return from South Africa to have the burial. Maybe a thousand people (a ton of kids) were running down the road, riding bikes, motos, or cars, while wearing tons of Burkina Faso colors and fancy hats, glasses, etc. I got to see Souleyman, the goalie as he passed, standing in the back of a car. It was a pretty surreal moment.

Anyways, I’m still plugging along, getting ready for the impending hot season. I’m pretty busy each weekend for the next month from meetings in Bobo, committee meetings in Ouaga, and plans to canoe with some hippopotami. Safely, of course. In the meantime, I’m hosting some visitors down my way, administering some tests to my classes, grading said tests, and planning for my camps in July and September. I’ll be writing a post shortly to tell you all about Camp G²LOW Banfora! The best camp ever that needs your support! But that will be in another post shortly. Seriously, stay tuned. It’s pretty cool.

Uhmmm…. So yeah…. Until the next time?