A Library in Tchériba!

Big news from Tchériba this month!

Last fall the English teacher at my school and I attended a workshop hosted by the Peace Corps about opening a resource room and library in our community. We were quite impressed with the workshop and had lots of ideas that we wanted to try to implement in Tchériba. Once we got back to school in October, we spoke with the school headmaster and the other teaching staff. Everyone was equally excited, and the headmaster told us that he had been working an idea along similar lines for a couple of years. The current "library" at our school consists of a single shelf in the accoutant's office. As you can imagine, for a school of 600 students, this system has proved quite inconvienant and in practice means that no one uses it.

Fast forward a bit. After several months of negotiating with the Mayor of Tchériba, the Parents' Associtaion and the school administration, the Mayor has agreed to completely fund the construction of a new library. Not a new shelf...but a whole new building! Once the agreement was made construction was completely finished in less than a week. (The photo above was taken last Wednesday; by Friday afternoon the door, window and roof were in place, and the inside and outside had been painted.) Everyone is very excited.

The Parents' Associaiton has set aside some money to buy new books, and though this is a very important start, showing their commitment to the project, they don't have enough money to form a selection significant enough for this entire new building. That's where you come in. I've submitted an application to the Peace Corps Partnership Program (same program we used for the project at the elementary school last year) to raise funds to help us buy books. That will hopefully soon be approved and online, and any help you can give us would be immensely appreciated. Most of our students have never read a book for pleasure, and I hope you will agree that magic of Dr. Seuss or Harry Potter is something no one should have to miss. All donations go directly to me, and 100% of your gift will go towards the purchase of new books.

I'll be sure to post the link when the project gets online. Thanks in advance for your help.

In other news, my friend Mimi arrived yesterday for a weeklong visit. We hung out in Ouaga today, and (assuming her luggage arrives tonight with Air France) we'll be heading to village tomorrow. Good times!

Masks and More

Welcome to the new home of my blog.

A few weeks ago a bunch of friends and I went to an international mask and artisans' festival in Dedougou, my regional capital. There were about 20 of us, and we had a great time. We saw masks from all over West Africa- including Burkina, Togo, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal and Mali. "Masks" doesn't really do justice to the get-ups worn by the performers. They are more like full body costumes made from dried and live plants and elaborately painted. I have no idea how the performers got into the costumes, or for that matter how they survived on what was undoubtedly one of the hottest weekends of the year so far. You'll have to check out the pictures. It is also kind of amazing how so many people from around the continent could manage to arrive in Dedougou, a small and difficult-to-get-to city in Burkina. A few of the gang stayed at my place on Thursday night before the festival, and we were treated to a soccer match between the 6th and 8th graders as well as some delicious chicken.

We're on spring break right now, and last week a few friends and I took a little trip down south to check out Sindou Peaks. The peaks are a series of neat rock formations, and we spent a few days camping, biking and hiking. According to our guide, the Peaks are part of the same rock formations that run up Cote d'Ivoire, through Burkina Faso, and into Mali's Dogon Country. It's unbelievable how different the landscape is in southern Burkina: trees and greenery everywhere, hills...and cool weather. I woke up one morning around 4am too cold to sleep. (You don't want to know what temperature it was. What am I going to do next winter in Minnesota?) It was quite a good trip, despite a 2 hour bike-ride up the hills on the wrong road. Oops. Guess we'll have to come back another time to see Addy's village.

The second trimester at school finished well, though the students may not have thought so. All the teachers were really tough on them, so the grades were pretty low. It's OK though; we'll let up a bit the third trimester, and everyone will be happy at the end of the year. Which is in five or six weeks. Every year it amazes me how short the third trimester is- this year five and a half weeks. Yikes! Then I'm done with Peace Corps. My last day as a volunteer in June 24. After that I hope to travel around West Africa a bit and be back in America sometime in August or September. Anyone know of any good jobs opening up? Haha.

Hope all is well. Happy Easter!