Mayor's Festival

My village recently built a new office for the Mayor. The building was finished several months ago, but the official opening ceremony was last weekend. Officials came from Ouaga, masks danced, and the soccer and wrestling tournaments held their championship matches. Quite the weekend.

Saturday started off with a big ceremony at the Mayor’s new office. There was a tent set up for the officials and village functionnaires, and the rest of the village gathered around the perimeter of the field. All sorts of important people from Ouaga were there- ministers, members of Parliament, and the Mayor’s extended family. Speeches were given by the ministers, our village Chief, and the Mayor. All the ethnic groups in the region also sent performers, and the interesting part of the ceremony was seeing the traditional masks and dancers. The ceremony ended with the presentation of a goat and pottery (my village is famous for its pottery, which lines the side of the road and is sold to every passing bus, car and white person) to the Ouaga officials to thank them for coming.

After a short break for lunch, the entire village re-convened for the championships of the wrestling tournament. A few months ago the first few rounds were held, and probably 100 wrestlers were whittled down to the top 16 who wrestled in the championships. This is Greco-Roman style wrestling, very similar to wrestling I remember from high school, with one important exception. There are no fancy systems for scoring points, special holds, or positions. The only rules (demonstrated at the beginning of the match) are that you can’t bend the other person’s hands backwards and you can’t grab the other person’s crotch. Other than that, last man standing wins. It’s pretty cool to watch, and everyone is totally into it. Men, women, kids, everyone in village was there. To no one’s surprise, the winner turned out to be the biggest guy in the tournament. His prize: a moto. Not a dinky little scooter like the “B list” functionnaires drive; this was a real Yamaha full-size motorcycle. I’m not sure where they got the money to pay for it (or why that money couldn’t be used for something like books at school), but it was a pretty sweet prize nonetheless.

Check out pictures from the day.
And a video of the masked dancers. (Coolest)
And a video of the traditional hunters.
Video of more dancers.
And a video of the wrestling match. (Very cool)

On my way out of town the other day I swung past the elementary school to check on our Moringa plants. They’re doing really well. The school has build an awning to keep the trees out of the sun until they are big enough to plant, and almost all of the seeds have sprouted. The bank’s internet connection was down the last time I tried to withdraw our project money from my account, so we haven’t started building the kitchen yet, but we should be able to start when I get back to village next week. Thank you again to everyone who donated!

PS To Ms King’s class in Oakland- We got your letters last week! Thank you so much. The students were able to read them on the last day of school (perfect timing!), and they’ll reply in the fall. Everyone really liked looking at the photos and seeing the American money.

Thank you!

I just received word from the Peace Corps that our PCPP project at the elementary school has been completely funded. Thank you so much to those who donated! I called the Headmaster last night, and he was very excited. We’re (hopefully) going to start gathering materials and (really hopefully…but doubtfully) building next week. I’ll keep you posted as we go.

I was over at the school the other day, and we have Moringa! We planted about 175 trees, and I’d say about two-thirds of them have already germinated. We planted the trees in water sachets (bags…many drinks come in small plastic bags bags here. You bite off a corner and enjoy!) where they’ll grow for a couple of months. This process is called creating a pépinière (or nursery in English). The students have been watering the plants each morning for the past couple of weeks, and we now have trees! Sometime this summer, when the trees are 30-40 cm tall, we’ll take them out of the bags and plant them in the ground.

The other big news in village is actually pretty big. Our village soccer team recently won the provincial soccer tournament in Dedougou, the provincial capital! The day of the match practically the whole village piled into a huge camion for the short trip to Dedougou. Throughout the match the Dedougou city slickers were ratting on our team for being too villageois to beat them. It was very much a city kid vs country bumpkin atmosphere…until we kicked their butts. 2-0. No questions. Let the partying begin! Well, kind of. Much to my surprise there wasn’t much of a party that night in village. Groups of small children ran around the whole night screaming “WE WON! WE WON!” but everyone else was pretty subdued. The next morning there was a small ceremony at the soccer field in village to present the trophy and prizes to the village elders and respected adults, each of whom gave a speach thanking the team members. See the pictures! The real party was the following weekend. The team members threw the village a dance, and what a good time that was! Everyone stayed up until 3am dancing at one of the bar/restaurants in town. Good times! And luckily for the kids, staying up late is no longer a problem because…

School is over! Though the “last day of school” date changed three times (not kidding) in the month of May, we eventually made it to the end of the school year. We “didn’t have time” for final exams this year, so I gave my last tests last week, and when I get back to village I just have to calculate the students’ cumulative GPA. It was a great school year, and it would have been really hard to say good-bye to the kids…except that I’ve decided to come back! I’ve talked to the Peace Corps and with my school, and I’ve decided to remain in village and teach for one more school year. I’ll be spending most of my summer training the new group of volunteers who arrive next month, travelling around Burkina saying good-bye to my friends who are COSing (Close of Service) this summer, and hopefully making a trip to Morocco and America. Then I’ll be back in village for the start of the school year in October! I’m really excited to be staying. Who knew I’d love teaching this much!? Or living without electricity and running water. Haha.

Moringa is in the Bag

Hey everyone,

I don’t have much time today, but I wanted to let you all know that our first set of trees is planted and eagerly awaiting the summer rains. We planted about 200 Moringa trees last weekend, and we’re all very excited. Moringa is a fantastically nutritious tree that grows really well in our climate. The leaves can be ground up and put in sauces, and the seeds can even be used to purify water. Check out our pictures from the morning.

We’re still a few dollars short of our fund raising target, so an extra help you could give us is much appreciated. Trees are easy and (nearly) free, but construction materials and labor are not. Please donate here. Thank you!