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.