Almost a PCV!

Bonsoir! It's about 6:00 pm here in Ouagadougou and I'm taking the opportunity of our pre-swear in week in "civilization" to check e-mail and keep up with what's going on in the world. We spent 3 days in Ouahigouya after leaving our villages last Thursday. Each of the host villages had a closing ceremony on Friday to say thank you and goodbye to our host families and everyone in our villages. It was nice to have an opportunity to formally say goodbye but definitely sad to leave our families, who did such an incredible job of taking care of us and helping us to integrate. I had a particularly hard time saying goodbye to Mariam, one of my sisters, who did so much for me, from bringing my bath water every morning to explaining the incredibly complex geneaology of my HUGE host family to me. As we were saying goodbye, I went to shake her hand (in Burkina you only shake hands or hand people things with the right hand, as the left is considered unclean). I reached for her right hand with mine but she shook her head and took my left hand in her left hand, which is a sign of respect and deep friendship in Burkina and signifies that you expect to see that person again in the future. I can't tell you how flattering this seemingly simple gesture was to me.

We spent our time in Ouahigouya taking several exits tests on the multitude of technical, cultural, and lingual knowledge we've attained over the past ten weeks. It wasn't the most enjoyable element of stage but, all the same, nice to be able to demonstrate all that we've done.

We arrived in Ouaga on Sunday and are staying at a hotel for the week before we swear in and head to our sites. We spend our days in informational sessions, going over the logistical elements of our upcoming departure and highlighting some of the important safety and security and administrative elements of PCV service. We've definitely taken advantage of our time in Ouaga thus far, eating well, enjoying some time to socialize, and appreciating the plumbing in our hotel (though I'll admit that, oddly, I miss taking bucket baths). A bunch of current PCVs who helped out with our stage are around, and many more will be here for swear in on Friday. Yesterday we took a trip to the American Embassy where we met the U.S. Ambassador to Burkina, who gave us a little spiel on what goes on at the embassy and various U.S. projects in the country (things like sustainable development grants, malnutrition studies, etc.). We also spoke with the Political Foreign Service Officer who gave a talk on the political history of Burkina Faso and discussed the current climate - interesting stuff though, as PCVs it's interdit (prohibited) to discuss Burkina politics, though we can discuss U.S. politics as much as we like.

Our swear in ceremony will be held at the Embassy this weekend, followed by a formal reception and then our informal "after-party" at a dance club-type place near our hotel. Swear-in consists of speaches by the Peace Corps Country Director, our training manager, and various other important types, as well as five speeches given by us, in five different languages. Four will be in the local languages we've been learning and will continue to learn at site (Moore, Fulfulde, Gulmanchema, and Jula) as well as French. I'll be giving the French speech, which I finished writing yesterday. I think my English version is pretty great, but we'll see how well it translates. Happily, one of our language instructors is kindly correcting my translation today, so that I'll have a few days to practice before swear-in. Bonne chance a moi!

We'll spend the day of swear in and the day after shopping for household things (gas stove, mattress, housewares, etc.) before taking public transport to Fada, our regional capital, where a group of us whose sites are in the region will stay for a night before being driven to our sites. It's definitely a bit surreal that in a few short days, I'll be settling into my new house in my new village in my new country in the middle of West Africa.

Time to sign off, though I hope to post again before I leave for site.

****I'm pleased to report that I've finally gotten my act together and posted some pictures! So check 'em out! The link is below and on the link bar to the right ->

http://chrissyinburkina.shutterfly.com