I finally arrived on Monday, June 26th after a 12 hour lay over in DC (Where Anne saved me by letting me come over and hang out with her and the baby and the dogs and feeding me some pizza, which I packed up a slice of and ate at the Brussels airport at 8am). My first week was crazy. The transit house is next door to the PC office and doesn't have any A/C. I was sweating all day every day since I arrived, aside from the few hours I got to spend at the Office and at the Embassy (which both have A/C). I sweated all night. It was so difficult to sleep. There are fans in the room, but the mattresses are foam and just multiply your body heat. I slept a few nights with an ice pack. Yeah, it was that bad.
We went one day to the Embassy to see the CDC Office (just a few cubes on the second floor of the Embassy) and meet the DCM. We ended up meeting the Ambassador and DCM! The Ambassador heard us in the lobby and came out and asked us all into his office. It was a good meeting, they're both really nice and the AMB was previously in Mali so he knows Fatoumata and we were able to bond on that and the DCM worked on AGOA. I recognized him and asked him about it and so we bonded on that.
I got to meet around 20 of the PCVs here, just coming through Ouaga and staying at the Transit House. Most seem very cool. It's nice to have that network. But a few who live near me have been using my house ever since Mira left and when I arrived on Wednesday (4/5), it was filthy! I was so pissed. the place was covered in dirt, they left a basin full of dirty, smelly water and dirty dishes, food scraps all over the table, empty water sachets on the floor, ugh. My whole first day was just cleaning. I ended up asking for someone to come help me and paid her WAAAAYYY too much ($10 for a few hours of work. Pretty sure she makes around $2/day). Oh well. She took me to the market Thursday evening and helped me buy some things. Ouaga is way dirtier and way less developed than Kigali. Plastic bags really are the biggest culprit and most water is sold in a plastic bag than a bottle adding to the ever available black plastic bags all over the ground, stuck in the trees, clogging the drainage ditches. Burkina is one of the poorest countries in the world. It's apparent.
I never posted this and now it's been one month since I arrived! I'm adjusting, making some friends (not really), my French is improving, my work is getting going. Yesterday, I could hear cheers and went next door and asked the neighbors if they wanted to go with me to the soccer match. I had heard it before and asked before where the field was (I hadn't seen it yet) and they said they'd take me another day since this game was pretty much over. So, yesterday one of the guys took me over and we watched that game. There was only 15 minutes left, so after we went and he found a smaller game being played at the Ministry of Economy's parking lot. He joined in and I played goalie! I was wearing flip flops so couldn't really run, but I blocked 2 and let one in :( Then one of the other boys from next door came and I let him take my place. I say boys, but they're maybe in their 20's. They're medical students here on a practicum. There's 8 of them living in the house next to me (which is the same size as mine! Two bedrooms). There's 7 guys and one girl. Three of four of them sleep in the living room and 3 in the other bedroom. She gets her own, I'm assuming. I've only seen the living room. They're pretty nice and I wish I could hang out with them more, but I only see them during dusk and that's when the mosquitoes are out so I pretty much just hang out in my house.
So much more to say, but that's it for today.
No comments:
Post a Comment