Our little Thanksgiving excursion into Mali.

The trekkers overlooking the valley.

We're gearing up for our 3rd Christmas here in Africa. No gifts will be exchanged but lots of food and beverages will be consumed by all (a holidays tradition we should definitely institute back in North America... it takes the stress out of the holidays).

For US Thanksgiving this year we headed out of Burkina Faso and into neighboring Mali to hike the giant cliffs of the Dogon Country for a few days. We traveled with two other Peace Corps volunteers from Burkina and two visiting PCVs from Senegal. (We're a little slow getting these pictures posted. Sorry. ) It was breathtaking experience. Surely these photos will not do it proper justice, but nonetheles, some eye candy worth sharing...


The sun rises on our rooftop campement in Telé.


An abandonned 7th century village 200m high right in the face of the cliff.


Sonia in front of a traditional storage house.


A traditional Malian mosque made out of mud brick.


The trail at the base of the big cliff.


Going up? Here are the stairs .


Sonia in deep thought looking out into the horizon.


A village way up on top of the cliff.




Beuna vista!


Ryan posing with an overly shy local native woman.


Lots of sand... but no beach?


Thanksgiving dinner in Koro, Mali.

2010 is just around the corner and not long thereafter our triumphant return back to the developed world! No details on that just yet, but stay tuned as we begin to put the pieces together.


Ryan and his little friend Delphine.

Au revoir les puppies.

Just a brief update. All is going well in Burkina Faso. Not too hot right now (you know, low 90's). Very much missing the rains though.

Around village work has shifted from the millet and peanut fields to the gardens. With almost 15% less annual rainfall came down this year, so a lot of crops did not reach maturity and have not provided very good yields. Not to mention that now farmers are starting the garden season with a lot less water in the wells (lower water table this year, already at 7-8 meters deep at our house). So yeah, it's shaping up to be a rough year already.

Sonia just wrapped up a 2-week-long health and nutrition training (FARN/Hearth model) with a group of mothers and their under-nourished babies. The goal was to provide calorie-rich recipes for already familiar local meals that would help to increase the weight of the babies. It also provided a good opportunity to cover a range of other health topics such as basic hygiene, family planning and malaria.


Sonia, the mamas and the babies.

I'm (Ryan) still elbows deep in a large USADF onion farming grant that is just getting off the ground. We're in the process of planning a handful of farmer trainings, sourcing fertilizers and certified seeds and evolving the organizational capacities of the various farmer groups I'm working with. Also, I'm still heavily involved with a village-based Moringa tree planting and leaf powder operation. And in my spare time I'm growing green beans. Really long green beans.


Foot long green beans!

We're both supporting various activities with the local Women's Union, who recently organized a clean-up day at the Prefet's residence. We both rolled up our sleeves and participated in the weeding but unfortunately someone had to take the group picture... guess who didn't make the cut?


Sonia and the Tenado Women's Union.

It's only been just over a month since we became the proud parents of four little puppies, but sadly, the time has come to send them off to new homes. One of the four will stay here with our host family and the others will go to relatives and friends in the village. It's probably for the best. They're super cute, but they do eat a lot and end up turning our courtyard into a litter box. It's like dodging landmines just to get out of the place.


Au revoir les puppies.


Chow time. Four heads, one bowl.


Caution when walking. Puppies will attack your skirt.

Not much else to report for now. We're missing everyone and very much look forward to seeing you all in 2010. Stay tuned for a special post-Thanksgiving (and Tabaski) update from some place called Dogon.

2 years in Africa...

Two years without electricity. Without running water. Without the Internet at the tip of our finger tips. Two years of getting up when the sun does (and the rooster). Of biking everywhere we want to go. Of speaking French like its English. Two years without air-conditioning (nor fan, nor ice cubes) in 100F+ heat. All while living in a rural village (comfortably) on a dollar or two a day. Crazy how time flies, and how quickly this new lifestyle becomes somewhat"normal".

Amazingly enough, we've been here long enough to already have grand kids. Well, grand puppies. Our little Mocha welcomed four little puppies into the world last week. Four little bundles of furry joy.


Mocha and her puppies





With the weather drying up and the heat coming back, it's officially the end of the rainy/harvest season. As soon as the last little rains came down, everyone was busy pulling peanuts out of the ground. We would have made ol' George Washington Carver proud.


Have you ever eaten a raw peanut just pulled from the ground? Tasty.


Everyone lending a hand to remove the peanuts from the bushes.

Despite the dry and golden landscape, the Burkinabe use colorful "pagnes" to brighten up their lives.


Sonia posing with a local seamstress from our village.

And Ryan is now an honorary member of the local women's union.


Vive les femmes!!!

Finally, a super giant thank you to our great friends back in Portland who chipped in to get us a portable DVD player. So now, while sitting in our little mud house in the middle of nowhere, we can watch movies (so long as the sun was out that day to charge the player off our little Brunton solar panel). A ridiculous luxury that we've done without for 2 years, but hey, we're in the final stretch now... need to start reintroducing technology back into out lives.


We have even been watching old Scrubs re-runs, so it's just like being at home.

Merci beaucoup nos amis!

Back in Burkina! Now only 6 months left in our Peace Corps service.

After many prayers from many people, Sonia is back in Burkina!

It's been an eternity since we updated our blog. Needless to say, we have not been camping out in the cyber cafe much recently here in the final stretch of our service. Sonia made it back after spending almost 6 months on the DL list. But like any veteran, she has bounced back quickly already in the thick of things (like she had never left).


Baby weighing day at the maternity.

Ryan is busy too. On one hand he's got a $500,000 agriculture development grant from the USADF just kicking off, and on the other, a fledgling Moringa tree agro-business he's helping grow with a village-based group. But sometimes, when he can find a free moment, he climbs a tree. In this case, the large Mango tree in our backyard.


Taking a quiet moment to learn about a monk who sold his Ferrari.

Weather-wise, we're loving it. Last year we were out of commission in South Africa and missed the entire month of September. Well, it's fabulous. Rain storms almost every day! In fact, there was a massive rain storm on September 1st that made international news. In just 10 hours, 300mm of rain (or 25% of the capitol city's annual rainfall) came down in Ouagadougou causing flash floods and a lot of damage. In our sleepy village all was fine.

Here are some pictures of life around village. Some of these might look a bit familiar but the cloud formations are just so impressive we had to include a "big storm is coming" shot one more time.


Two-toned sky means the rain is coming in t-minus 20 minutes!


One of Sonia's many famous sunset pictures. Ohhh. Ahhhh.


Our mud house.


Ryan's little courtyard "urban" garden.


Ryan's little corner plot garden of green beans, peanuts and Moringa trees.


Pretty flowers. Kills my allergies, but nice to look at nonetheless.


The kids... Mocha and Cafe hanging out.


Out of gas. Sonia cooking on an outdoor charcoal stove.


What is she cooking? Plantains in coconut milk. A tasty dessert!


Delphine is all smiles for getting to cook with Sonia.


A nice shot of one of my 900 Moringa trees with a big storm brewing in the background.



Ryan and his little munchkin.


Go Mariners! Thanks to the Robinson's for the donation. Delphine has no idea who the Mariners are, what baseball is or who Ken Griffy Jr. is, but she's darn cute.


The art of getting your hair done. Our three sisters with all new do's.

Finally, this weekend marked our COS conference and party. COS being our "close of service" in the Peace Corps. We'd adding on a few more months to our service, but we had a nice "going away" party with the rest of the COS'ing volunteers here in Ouagadougou.


Our Burkina formal wear.

We're BOTH in America... but in a few days, we're BOTH headed back to Burkina Faso!

Okay, so that's our big news. No babies on the horizon, no lottery jackpot just yet... but I (Ryan) flew in on a surprise mission to the USA for the 4th of July and to celebrate Sonia's birthday in person. And to top things off, we recently found out that Sonia was cleared to return to Burkina Faso ASAP! But this news meant that I had to let her in on my little surprise visit in fear that we could cross paths somewhere over the Atlantic and actually miss seeing each other. That would not have been good.

So I (Ryan) got back to the US of A in the wee hours of the 3rd of July just in time for a big Independence Day party hosted by our friends Jeff and Jessica Stephens. Most all of our good Portland buddies where there and many were surprised to see me (Ryan), not just because I came back from AFRICA totally unannounced, but also because I have lost a whopping 36 pounds since shipping off to the Peace Corps back in late 2007. (Yes, I am the "Biggest Loser"). The party was great. It was awesome to indulge in American food (hot dogs, burgers and apple pie) and ice cold Oregon micro-brews (especially Deschute's Breweries Black Butte Porter, ahhhh).


Good ol' American apple pie. And yes, that is bacon.


Two thumbs up for hamburgers and pasta salad.


Me, Aaron, Mr. Jeffy and Mexico Matt (who happened to be in town on leave from Cambodia.)


The infamous Adam Stein confusing July 4th with St. Patrick's Day.


Reunited after 5 months!

After that, it was off to surprise Ryan's Dad at the coast. Needless to say he was quite shocked to see his eldest son, unannounced and so skinny. We enjoyed the day at Manzanita for Sonia's birthday, walking along the beach and having a massive "Big Burrito" from Left Coast Mexican restaurant. Oh, and a must-do dinner/beer at Manzanita's newly remodeled and our family favorite, the Sand Dune Tavern.


See my feet? Those are African tan lines. My sandals are in my hand.




Me and me in 30 years. I believe that is Monkey Face Porter in my right.


Of course, Sonia indulged in a little CHOCOLATE.

Then we kept the "surprise game" going on Mom back in Portland. She too was a bit in awe, but at the same time recognized her slender and tan son right away. Moms are good at that kind of thing. And it's always nice to go right to the backyard and pick blueberries off the bushes. Oh how I wish I could grow those in West Africa.

The other night our friends organized a little social soiree complete with pizza (from Portland's renowned Blind Onion) and a movie. It just happened to be the oh-so-hilarious "THE HANGOVER". Lots of laughs. A must see.


Pre-Hang Over at Pete and Alicia's.


The motley crew at the cinema.

Now we're spending the rest of the week in the city doing errands, seeing friends/family and preparing to head back to Burkina Faso in a few days to finish out our Peace Corps service. We've decided to tack on a few more months and will now be living the rural African dream until March 2010.

It'll be tough to go back to the truly simple life after having been back in the Land of Plenty (or Land of More than Plenty), but we're ready for it. It's a good thing that Sonia will be returning during the mild rainy season. She'll still have to re-adjust her intestines to the local foods, but at least she won't have to tackle 100F+ temperatures for a couple more months.

And that is where our adventure continues. Back to West Africa. Back to our little mud house with no electricity or running water in Burkina Faso. Home sweet home!