ryan et sonia en Afrique et apres.

July 24th cometh and goeth.

2011-08-01T23:19:00.006Z

As of this posting, Sonia is eight days beyond her due date. Through the last 41 weeks, we have managed to keep the suspense alive, not finding out if Baby G is a little boy or little girl. And now the added suspense of not knowing when he/she is planning to arrive. In the meantime, we're doing all the things old wives tell us to do to encourage labor. Nothing seems to be working yet. But no worries. Had an ultrasound today and it looks like Baby G is content just hanging out for now. Can't say I really blame him/her.

Stay tuned for more updates to Babywatch 2011.

P.S. Any final name ideas?

The next adventure.

2011-01-26T23:29:00.004Z

Coming July 24, 2011.

While there are still 6 months to go, we are feeling overwhelmed with the responsibility of choosing a lifelong name for our future child. So, we are opening up a contest, so to speak, to pick the perfect name for little "X".

If we decide to adorn our future child with the name that you have chosen, then you will receive a really fabulous prize (to-be-determined). Please submit all name ideas to the comments section here, or my emailing them to ryanetsonia@gmail.com

Here are our guidelines:

1.) we won't be finding out if it's a boy or girl until the day it arrives, so feel free to explore both sexes

2.) we need a name that works well in both French and English. So please take that into account. Remember, Hailey in French would be pronounced "Al-eh", which resembles the word "aller", or to-go.

3.) all names should go through the standard "how could other mean kids bastardize the name?" So no Chuck, or Richard, or Laird (marde) please.

4.) must work well with the family name Gallagher

5.) name must be unique but not bizarre (Moon Unit?)

6. extra bonus for working in an accent like an umlaut (double dots)

Thank you for your help.
Good luck.

Life 2.0

2010-07-31T11:00:00.000Z

Portland, sweet Portland.

The sun is out, the flowers are in full bloom and the BBQs are grilling. Oh how we missed you Portland, and summertime in the Pacific NW. Our first ten days back were a whirlwind, visiting with family and reconnecting with friends. And worth every minute. But before we could get too settled, we had one more stop to make on our almost-around-the-world adventure: CANADA. No we weren't dodging a draft or off searching for sasquatch, it was time to reconnect with the French/Canadian half of our family. Fleur-de-lis toting Quebecers.

Oh Canada.

Sonia's not-twin sister, Sonia and Ryan (honorary Canadian) on July 1st.

Our first stop was Toronto -- the Manhattan of the Great White North. And just in time for Canada's birthday, eh. We took in the sights of the city, like the CN Tower (Canada's "Eiffel Tower"), and ended the evening on the banks of Lake Ontario (the O in HOMES) to watch a rather lackluster fireworks show. A big thanks to Steve Ng for introducing us to one of Toronto's lil' watering holes.

Canada's Eiffel Tower.

Les soeurs awaiting Canada Day fireworks.

We are not holding hands. But if we were, that would be okay too.

And then to Quebec City (another 250km). It was a great time seeing la mere, le pere, la soeur (et son chum), les oncles, les tantes, les cousins, les amis, les chats, un castor, etc. For almost three weeks, we hiked, we kayaked, we sailed (in solo Lasers), we pedal boated, we swam, we ate, we drank, and then we ate some more. All in all, a great way to end an already amazing trip. Merci beaucoup tout le monde, notre sejour en Beauce s'est tres bien passe. A bientot, on espere!

Sonia's 32nd birthday out on Lake Lambton.

Kayaking.

Three girls, a speed boat and a big ol' floating device.

Our little maiden of the mist. Not Niagara. Les chutes de la Chaudiere.

Vieux Quebec, le Chateau Frontenac sur le fleuve St. Laurent.

So we can unpack our bags now? Yes. We're back to Portland, and this time, to stay. We are ready to roll up our sleeves and begin this new post-African reality. Sonia is busy preparing to continue her career as a physical therapist. And Ryan is looking to reinvent himself as a freelance purveyor of all things good. Cross your fingers friends. Once the jobs are are lined up, the rest of the pieces should fall into place.

Thank you for following our journey. It's been a wild ride.

Following this posting, our blog will also evolve to it's 2.0 version. Stay tuned for future updates about life, imbibery and the pursuit of socially-conscious happiness.

The rest of the journey home.

2010-06-30T15:33:00.011Z

Almost-around-the-world, continued...

Since our last update, we have gone back to Africa, briefly passed through the Persian Gulf, discovered a new continent, saw many golden Buddhas, met a new family member, got reunited with an old friend, went back in time and finally returned to North America.

Sonia at the Great pyramid of Giza. Check.

Egypt - Officially back in Africa, but worlds away from the Africa we knew. Cairo was much more modern and bustling than we had pictured. We spent a few days exploring Cairo on foot, mosque-hopping and trying to learn enough Arabic to find the right bus numbers. The highlight, of course, was visiting the 4,000 year old pyramids at Giza. Wow! And confirming that aliens were absolutely involved. We then headed up North to Alexandria, the once powerful outpost of Cleopatra. Now more European than Egyptian, we were blown away by the new Biblioteca Alexandrina, an amazing reincarnation of the ancient library. After a taste of modern Egypt, we headed back to Pharaonic times, taking a night train down to Luxor (once ancient Thebes). Wow, again! This place was somewhere between Indiana Jones and The Mummy. Straddled by the Nile, and about 115F in the shade (thank God we had lots of SPF50), Luxor is an archeologist's Disneyland. Despite the full-on-assault by literally every Egyptian trying to make a buck from a wide-eyed tourist, Luxor was phenomenal. The Temple of Karnak, Valley of the Kings, Ramses, hieroglyphs, camels... That's Egypt.

One-star hotel, four-star view of downtown Cairo.

Walk like an Egyptian.

You pretty much have to take this shot, right?

The coolest biblioteca in the world, Alexandria.

Ancient temple of Luxor. The least impressive sight in Luxor.

Really, really tall obelisk.

Shower of the gods.

Temple of Ramses III (Medinet Habu).

Four hours camel back. Super cool, but about 3 hours too long.

Thailand - Too bad we weren't earning frequent flier miles from Gulf Air, because Cairo to Bangkok was no puddle jumper. After a quick layover in the Kingdom of Bahrain (cha ching), and 10 hours somewhere over Asia Minor, we made it to Bangkok. But with the Red Shirt uprising still simmering down, we made a B-line 800km south to Phuket. Our first holy-crap-were-in-Asia moment came as we walked through the fish market. It was somewhere between "yuck" and "wow". But the food was amazing and so cheap. Looking to get back to the beach, we headed over to Koh Phi Phi, an idyllic South Thai island with no roads and lots of monkeys. It also happens to be where they filmed the movie, "The Beach" and one of the places most devastated by the 2006 tsunami. Lucky all is back to normal and life goes on. While we probably could have been content staying there FOREVER, we took a ferry over to Koh Lanta and almost got stuck there, taking the very last boat of the season back to Phuket. And then flew back to Bangkok. Khao San road was a zoo, kind of a model UN of backpackers from around the world. We only had 48 hours, so we just explored as much as we could on foot, making sure to see the Jade Buddha and 45-meter-long golden Reclining Buddha, as well as eating as much street food as possible (I think we had lunch 3 times in the same day). Needless to say, we LOVED Thailand.

Fancy Buddhist temple in Phuket.

Koh Phi Phi, a little slice of paradise.

Island taxis.

Chowing on a piece of pineapple.

Ride to Koh Hai.

Far from reality.

Little mermaid.

Scary green demon, but actually a good guy.

Gilded stupa, Imperial Palace in Bangkok.

Cheeeeeeeeese.

Buddha sandwich.

Japan - After having to fly through Beijing, we made it to one of the most populous and expensive places on Earth: TOKYO. We were greeted by Ryan's younger brother Nick, who lives and works in the big city. He is also married to a nice Japanese girl named Nahoko and the father of our six-month-old niece, Luna, a.k.a Sumo baby. 10 days went by quickly, each day discovering another corner of the megapolis that is Tokyo. Shibuya (Japan's Times Square), Akihabara (Electric City), Asakusa (the big lantern), Shinjuku (downtown), Ueno (central park) or just hang out in the "pseudo-suburbs" at Shimo Tokaido. Another highlight was getting to see Hiroyuki Kato, an old college friend of Ryan's that just happened to look him up on Facebook (after 13 years). He took us around, introducing us to horse meat, pickled octopus and "monja". Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. We'll be back to Japan, that's for certain.

Konichiwa everyone. I'm little miss Luna.

The happy family: Nick, Nahoko and Luna.

When in Rome.

Asakusa, with our good friend Hiro.

Crosswalk or free-for-all?

Sushi night.

Giant beer, looking for giant refrigerator.

Uncle Ryan and chubby Luna.

Auntie Sonia.

Two Tuesdays - After flying west (huh, west?) three hours back to Beijing, we caught a LONG flight (12 hours I think) east, crossed the International Date Line and finally touched down at LAX, a.k.a America. Los Angeles, almost home, but not quite. While we had made every single flight going around the world, we missed our last connection to Portland, stranding us in LA for the night. At 9am the next morning, we were finally back in Portland, where this journey began almost 3 years ago. Home, sweet home (at least for the next 10 days)...

The long way home.

2010-05-07T15:03:00.002Z

Almost-around-the-world in not quite 80 days.

On April 1st we said good bye to Burkina Faso, a complicated little country in West Africa that had been our home for the last two-and-a-half years. It was hard, no doubt about it. We had made a lot of good friends and had really became part of our little African-village community. But we were ready to move on. So we said our good byes and began our voyage home. Well, sort of. Here are a few of our favorite pictures from our last couple days as Peace Corps volunteers in the village of Tenado.

Mama Ebou proudly selling her Moringa leaf powder at Tenado's biennial agricultural fair.

Sonia le chat with two little friends from Reo. Meow.

Ryan and his little wifeys giving a goodbye bisou.

At our going away party with two village women who Sonia collaborated with on a series of nutrition workshops.

Ryan with co-workers from the village's union of farmers.

Now instead of heading directly back to the States, we thought it was a now-or-never opportunity to see some new corners of the world. So we started off on our self-imposed sabbatical heading east, not west, on our way back to the USA (although I guess technically we started out by going South).

GHANA - First stop, Burkina's English-speaking and refreshingly more developed neighbor to the south. We spent the better part of four days decompressing on the sands of the Green Turtle Eco Lodge (www.greenturtlelodge.com). It was a much needed break from the heat (oh it was still hot, just not 107F hot). Oh and we rediscovered WATER! Although it's a bit out of the way to get to, we would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a beach getaway. As it were, we were already kind of home-sick from leaving Burkina, so we walked over to the nearest village each day to mingle with local folk and eat street food (the Fufu in Ghana is amazing!) Before we got too used to being beach bums, we packed our bags and bused in to Accra where we caught our first (of many) flights.

Surfs up. Sort of.

The little fishing village of Akwadaa on Ezile Bay.

Coconut that just fell off a tree + Swiss Army knife = free beach side snack.

MOROCCO - We touched down in Casablanca but immediately took the train south to Marrakesh. And the very next day, our good friends Josh and Nicora flew all the way from Portland to travel with us for a couple weeks. We hit the souqs and of course, rocked the kasbahs. Marrakesh was cool, and much more developed that we had imaged. But also WAY too touristy. We heard English far more often than French or even Arabic. After a couple days, we took a bus over the High Atlas Mountains to the awkwardly named Ouarzazate (whar-zah-zat), the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Hollywood of Morocco. Apparently, they shoot a lot of desert-looking movies here (Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, etc.) And as we learned, it's also where they run something called the "Marathon des Sables", an insane ultra-marathon through the desert for 6 days and 300+ kilometers. And of course, it was scheduled for the weekend we were there. We opted to leave the running shoes at home and instead checked out the World Heritage site at Ait Ben Haddou. And we also biked to an oasis at Fint. Afterward, we traveled ALL DAY by bus, then train, to Fez (yes, there is an entire city named after those funny little hats made famous by the Shiners). Although all worked out ok in the end, we probably would not advise arriving at 1am, then walking an hour to the Medina with heavy bags (without a hotel reservation). Luckily, the seemingly high rasta-man who guided us down several dark alley-ways actually led us to a pretty nice little guest house in the end. Phew! Fez turned out to be very cool, although we never really got out of the Medina/souqs the whole time we were there. But why would you? Everything you would ever want to do and see is there, and the locals were way less annoying towards tourists than the folks in Marrakesh. Finally, rounding out our Moroccan experience, we headed north to Tangier to catch a ferry across the Straits of Gibraltar, out of Africa and back into the 1st world.

Ait Ben Haddou, really old mud building. A World Heritage site, but really too many gift shops now to be very authentic.

Community fountain in Fez.

Spices. Lots of spices.

Nuts, figs, dates and dried fruit. To-go.

Josh sipping on authentic Moroccan mint tea at Djemaa el-Fna.

SPAIN - Getting into Algeciras at 2am was nowhere near as sketchy as Fez. No one even noticed us. After knocking on a few doors we found a little pension for the night (or morning as it were). After recharging our batteries with a couple hours of sleep (on a bed) and a hot shower, we were back on the road, heading north through the Mesa Verde mountains to Granada. While only in town for a couple days, we had two simple goals: visit the renowned Alhambra and experience the whole "tapas" thing. Check and check! The Alhambra was breath-taking, in a serene indoor/outdoor museum kind of way. The tapas were equally breath-taking. So how this works is you go to a bar and order a drink. Then, magically, food appears. And every time you order another drink, poof, more snacks. And we're not talking bar peanuts or stale pretzels. Real finger food! It's brilliant. Before we over-abused the tapas, we were on another train, a night train, to Barcelona. And it's there that we met up with two more Portlanders, the soft-spoken entrepreneur power-couple, Mr. Jeffy and Jessica. So like hip Spanish urbanites, we rented a cozy apartment for six on the Barcelona Upper-East Side. Then 4/20 arrived. A day with a storied past. And for 32 years, celebrated as Ryan's birthday. The party crew were given their birthday uniforms (no, not birthday suits) and made their way through the streets of Barcelona, making sure to see the sights like Las Ramblas, Sagrada Familia, Gaudi this, Gaudi that, etc. Afterwards the ladies were sent on a shopping errand while the boys toasted their momentary Bro-celona (complete with man-tapas). The next morning, we reluctantly said adios to Josh and Nicora who flew back to America (barely, with all that Icelandic volcano brouhaha) and spent a bonus day in Spain with Jeff and Jessica.

Tapas. Oh how we love our tapas.

Twinkle, twinkle from within the Alhambra in Granada.

Six Portlanders taking a well-deserved breather at Barcelona's Gaudi park.

Ahhhhh. A 420 birthday Guinness. How very happy.

There was no green screen used here.

Gracias amigos!

FRANCE - Originally, the plan was to take the train to Nice and spend a couple days on the Cote d'Azure, revisiting the youth hostel we first met at 10 years ago. But the hostel was closed and we were invited up to the Burgundy region to visit a couple we had met while in Burkina. Jean-Pierre and Elisabeth have a wonderful summer home out in rural Burgundy, not far from the hillside town of Vezeley (about an hour from Dijon). For five days we indulged in French hospitality and incredibly rich foods (a half-dozen kinds of cheese, meat plates, pate, etc.) Their home, built in 1610, came complete with a well-stocked wine cave beneath the house. Our hosts also felt that any visit to Burgundy without touring the vineyards would be a crime, so off we went to the Chateaus at Meursault, Beaune, etc. Gorgeous. We felt right at home as the only grapes grown there are pinot noir and chardonnay, two varieties we know well being from Oregon. While we could have stayed and become French farmers, we had to say good bye and make our way to Milan, in order to respect our rendez-vous with our second plane.

Tasting the best of Burgundy at Meursault's wine cave.

Vineyards as far as the eye can see. A divine renewable resource.

You ever wonder where Dijon mustard comes from? Here.

Ryan working off all that cheese and wine in the garden.

GREECE - After Dijon to Milan on a night train, then a short flight out of Malpensa, we touched town in Athens, Greece. We were greeted with a subway strike (our first sign of Greece's tumultuous little situation). We found a great little hole-in-the-wall hotel called John's Place in the trendy Syntagma/Plaka area. The next day we did the Acropolis (wow) and a few other archaeological gems around town. But before s-h-i-t hit the fan in Athens, we got on a ferry and headed out into the Greek isles, making shore in Santorini. We took a bus out of Fira to Perissa, a little beach town on the east side of the island. Luckily, it was low season and it felt like the island was just coming out of hibernation. Apparently in just a few week's time, droves of tourists will make their assault on the island. This calm before the storm meant rooms were still readily available and relatively cheap. We checked out the Lonely Planet's recommended Hostel Anna, and landed a cozy little double room in a sister property for 20euros a night. We felt pretty sluggish after our gluttonous time in France, so the next day we took the long hike up to Ancient Thera, continued up to the hilltop Monastery and than walked a leisurely 6km home. After a day on the black sand beach to rest our legs, we took to the streets again, on bike, and rode a good 20+km to a lighthouse and a couple beaches. (Side note: the island is basically one rolling hilltop with villages on top, cliffs and then beaches down below. So when you want to go to the beach, you have to bike down, which is fairly easy, but then you have to bike back up the hill which is pretty darn impossible to do without walking or being Lance Armstrong). We enjoyed Santorini a lot, but wanted to check out at least one more island before heading back to Athens. So we set sail for Naxos. We again followed the advice of the Lonely Planet and found a room in Hora (Naxos City) at Pension Irene I. We like this place a lot. So much so, that we extended our stay from two nights to six. We have a nice room with a balcony, a fridge, a kitchenette and cable TV (albeit most of the stations are in Greek) and UNLIMITED FREE WI-FI (hence how we are able to finally update this blog). And the owners are great too (Mr. Stavros chats it up while his monther, Irene, gives us ice cream.) We've been using this as our base camp and taking little day excursions around the island. One such day trip was up to Mt. Zeus, the Cyclade's highest peak at 1004m. A bus dropped us, along with about a dozen other people, off at the base and we spent the next couple hours walking up. Not too bad once we actually found the trail. The view was amazing at the top, but there was a bizarre infestation of insects (flies, beetles and such) that annoyongly competed with the 360 view of the island. So we took a few quick pictures, paid our respects to Mr. Zeus and made our way back back down the mountain.

Live at the Acropolis.

Athens's Temple of Zeus under a full moon. No lightning bolts in sight.

Oia, Santorini. Once destroyed by an earthquake in 1956. Now rebuilt on the same freaky cliff.

Ready for take-off. Oui Caro, j'ai copie sur toi!

No forks. No bowl. No problem. Hat salad!

Waiting for the sun to set from a church dug into a cliff.

Making port on Naxos island.

And this is where our journey continues. Hopefully all will simmer down in Athens by the end of the weekend and we can catch our next flight. Back to Africa we go -- Cairo, Egypt. The pyramids await!

Stay tuned for more updates from the road.

Goodbye Burkina Faso. Merci beaucoup!

2010-03-31T16:28:00.002Z

The time has finally come to say "au revoir" to this hot and arid place called Burkina Faso. When we first arrived here back in October 2007, our first impression of the big city (Ouagadougou) was straight out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. But once the 3rd world shock eventually wore off, we became very comfortable here. Our experience in our rural village was amazing and the folks we lived and worked with for over two years are hard to leave behind. Not to mention our three puppies (Mocha, Cafe and Dique) that were like little hairy kids to us. Who would have thought that we could have lived in such relative comfort without electricity or running water? But nonetheless, our time with the Peace Corps has come to its inevitable end. We leave this corner of the world with a big smile... and definitely a few tears.

In just a few hours we embark on a 75-day trip home that will take us to Ghana, Morocco, Western Europe, Greece, Egypt, Thailand, Cambodia and finally Japan. We're looking forward to seeing some good friends along the way and witnessing some of the world's most amazing sites. And if all goes well, we'll we back in the US on June 15th.

We'll try to do a better job of keeping our blog updated now that we'll have more regular internet access and are hoping to even catch a wi-fi signal from time-to-time to be able to sync up our iPod Touch!

Thank you to all our friends and family who stuck with us on this adventure. We've loved trying to keep up on all that has been going on in your lives back in the US and Canada, and appreciate all of the warm thoughts and care packages you have sent over the last couple of years. We can't wait to get back and see everyone.

Pictures to come as soon as we can find a decent Internet connection...

T-minus 2 months...

2010-01-29T14:09:00.004Z

This is a picture we took just other evening as we biked into town. We just wanted a pretty sunset picture but happened to catch an over-loaded truck passing an onion toting donkey cart. Pretty typical around here.

The time is really starting to fly by. We're in the final stretch of our Peace Corps service and now starting to seriously look to what lies ahead. It's hard to believe that we first touched ground here way back on October 5th, 2007.

Our first order of business after leaving Burkina Faso is to explore a few other corners of the world. As it's currently planned, we're going to set off on a 2 1/2 month backpacking trip and head East until we make it back to the States (assuming we don't fall off the edge of the world). Flights are purchased but were still working out all the routes in between. More to come on this front so stay tuned.

All that said, we still have activities in village that are keeping us busy and our minds occupied on the couple months of work still remaining. We've gotten strangly accustomed to our new way of life here, so we're really just trying to soak it up a bit more knowing how much we'll miss this place and these people when we eventually say goodbye.

The three hairy amigos: Café, Mocha and Dickie.

More soap making. With all this dust, cleanliness is key.

Going to miss anothe Super Bowl. Hope someone can tape it for me. Go Saints!

Our little Thanksgiving excursion into Mali.

2009-12-14T15:20:00.000Z

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.

2009-11-14T17:30:00.003Z

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...

2009-10-15T10:34:00.004Z

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.

2009-09-18T13:32:00.006Z

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!

2009-07-09T16:26:00.009Z

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!

Rain has finally returned to Burkina!

2009-06-16T10:57:00.007Z

This blog update is long overdue. Need to get back on this. Sorry.

It's exciting to see water again. And the color green. The rains have returned and everyone is now scurrying around like elves on Christmas Eve trying to quickly seed there fields. I too am taking on a small veggie/flower garden and corn plot this year! It's a lot of fun. Now we just need the rains to continue to fall about once every 3-4 days and we'll be golden.

Otherwise, not much else to report for now. I'll leave you with some pictures of life around village and save the BIG news for next time. Stay tuned.

With the rain comes flying termites. This is how you attract them... with FIRE!

Statue of Liberty.

These storms here are intense. I was at an outdoor market 8km from my house when the skies almost instantly turned black. And within minutes hurricane speed winds rushed in with heavy rains. We just huddling in some families home and waited it out in the dark, eating peanuts. It lasted about an hour. It was great. But the ride back home was a bit challenging.

Road or river?

Beautiful.

Poisson grillé courtesy of chef Roux.

Happy white frog.

Smilely.

The front yard.

Moringa tree seedling nursery.

Still rolling solo in Burkina

2009-04-22T12:15:00.005Z

The months are really flying by. It's already the end of April (2009). To think it's been nearly 19 months since we left America to come here to Burkina Faso. Now, in midst of our second super hot season, it still feels dang hot but just not as bad as I remember it being last year. Oh, don't get me wrong, it still makes your skin boil, but I guess I'm kind of used to it by now.

Not a lot of updates on this end. It's still the same old story with me here and Sonia stateside waiting to find out if and when she can come back. That's really the giant question mark right now. So we just wait and see. And all of the while, I'm still here in Burkina. But I celebrated Easter (Pâques), managed to turn 31, am biking like crazy (+100km a week) and I'm trying my best to advance a handful of activities in-progress. The major activity du jour is still the giant Onion grant working with USADF. It would be a lot of coordinating and computer work from a desk in America. Now imagine doing this from a remote West African village(s) with a mountain bike and a cellphone that barely gets reception. Brings new meaning to "logistical issues".

On a lighter side, this last month has provided some interesting photo ops I wanted to share. None of this was staged, I promise. Just good ol' point and shoot action.

Café and the little kitten. Already best buds. I think I see love in those eyes.

Mocha using our table as her new bed.

Obama brothers. This was just too good to pass up. What's with the Union Jack sleeves you ask? I have no idea! Check out the belt buckle on the right.

Snake season. I saw three of these little suckers in the same week. Apparently they are pretty dangerous. Didn't stop the kids from smacking this one dead with a stick.

Sacred Caimen about 6km from my house. Apparently he is just waiting for food to drop in his mouth. A little like catching snowflakes on your toungue.

Onions in gunny sacks kind of look like...

Yeah you guys, come here. Look. WATER!.

Well, that is all from the Land of Upright People. I need to be getting back to village and see if the kids watered my trees.

Et pour nos amis du Québec, bonjour à tout le monde. J'espère que vous aurez la chance a voir la petite Sonia pendant son séjour chez vous. Je suis très jalouse que elle a eu la chance pour vous visiter. Et pour être en Beauce/Québec/Montréal pendant le printemps. Je hâte d'aller au Canada aussi (très bientôt). On va beaucoup causer, danser et boire quelque Molson Canadian ensemble (bien sur avec toi Sebas). Tu va trouver que je peux plus parler francais mais au même temps que l'accent ouest Africain est beaucoup différente des Québecers. Et bien sur les Beaucerons. A plus.

Not the same in Burkina Faso without Sonia

2009-03-16T12:10:00.008Z

Yep, it's true, Sonia is back in America. She's back doing physical therapy in Portland (this time as the patient after another leg surgery). And all the while, Ryan impatiently waits in West Africa for her return to Burkina Faso. But it's not looking like that is going to be anytime soon :( We're looking into our options for the moment, to figure out what we're going to do in the long-term, but for now, she's there and I'm here. It's complicated.

So since Ryan still in Burkina being a Peace Corps volunteer, might as well keep doing what we he's there to do. No reason to just sit and read, waiting for Sonia to get back. There is work to be done. Lots of it.

Most recently Sonia and I worked with the women of our village to plan their March 8th event (International Women's Day). Last year was pretty lame, so we started planning early and the women really came through. They organized a women's bike race, foot race, soccer match, large meal and a dance that night. In Sonia's absence, I gave a health/family planning presentation to about 100 village women talking about things like communication with your partner, birth spacing and contraception options. It was pretty fun. Kind of weird, but cool. Here are a few pictures. Luckily I had a couple other Peace Corps volunteers come visit that day to give moral support and sample the dolo. Can you spot them in the crowd?

Brian and Vinny sit in to support the women and learn about having kids.

These women taking dancing to another level.

Special thanks to Bad Scott for sending this soccer ball halfway across the world!

Otherwise, I'm personally still real busy working with the USADF (United States African Development Foundation) on the hopes of a large-scale Onion development project coming to our village. We're currently in the market study phase, trying to assess our current production capacity and the market opportunities to sell onions in mass quantity. It's been a great opportunity to work on a large scale activity like this that could really impact the livelihoods of this rural population. Because let me tell you, there is no shortage of onions in this place. But they do need to find a more sustainable way to sell them.

And I'm still planting a lot of Moringa trees. We're hoping to get 10,000 in the ground during this raining season. But before we can do that, I have to survive another HOT season. And alone :( It's not going to be pleasant.

Otherwise, all is well. The puppies are getting bigger, and so are the kids (not our kids, but the family kids we live with).

Mocha and Cafe, now not such little puppies anymore.

I think that's it for now. Looking forward to St. Partick's Day and my annual Guinness (which amazingly enough I can find here in Burkina Faso). And for only $2!

Sonia wéné yé? (Where is Sonia?)

2009-02-21T11:35:00.004Z

N wéné ameriki ne.

Sadly, Sonia is in America having her SECOND hip/leg surgery. Please send her good thoughts for a speedy recovery so she can come back to Africa ASAP. Ryan is staying in village to keep things going while she's away. Solo is definitely not as much fun as dynamic duo.

And yes, this is surely the last time I'll make the comment to her, "now that you're 30, don't go breaking a hip on me now". Who would have known?

"Ba ema lala Ecéma!!!"

Otché Bationo (aka Ryan)

Here comes the heat again...

2009-02-08T18:20:00.004Z

February is here and what brief "cold" spell we were enjoying in December/January is now a distant memory. It was "winter" and then, BAMMMM, summer... without ever passing through spring. But for some reason 100F everyday doesn't feel that hot anymore. It's not like 120F after all.

January has been a busy month. Sonia has been hard at work on the village health front. The biggest news is that ambulance in our village had been broken down and in the garage for repairs for over six months. So Sonia helped the community write a letter to the Prime Minister (a neighbor of ours) asking for his help in speeding up the reparation process. Well, instead of fixing the old one, he sent our village a brand spankin' new ambulance! So that's pretty good.

We've also both been active in the weekly vaccination days. Each Tuesday morning we help the local health clinic vaccinate around 50-60 babies. Some newborns, some up to a year old. We can't poke them with the needles, but Sonia registers all of the women in the tracking notebooks and gives health talks while they're waiting. Ryan is the official baby-weigher. It's actually quite fun getting to teach the women all about why we vaccinate.

Sonia, being a health volunteer

Ryan, pinch-hitting in the health world as the designated baby-weigher

Switching gears (pun-intended when you see the picture below), here is us on route to the closest "city" to catch a bus to Ouaga to be able to post this Blog thing. This was taken at about 6:30am, 7km into a 30km ride, with a trunk attached to the back-rack. Ah, the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.

Sure not much like the commute used to be in Portland.

Otherwise, we're just enjoying being Peace Corps volunteers while the time lasts (can you believe we only have 10 months left in Africa?). When we're not working, we're usually relaxing and/or napping (think siesta). It's a popular thing to do mid-day when it's too hot to do much of anything else.

Ryan and his good (and sleepy) friends Delphine and Mocha, the puppy.

Cafe using our dirty laundry as his personal comforter

A couple interesting but otherwise random photos to share: the first is Mocha who is must the first blue-eyed dog in the world. Oh wait, these are those colored contacts that are all the rage now for trendy doggies.

"Blue-eyed Mocha baby"

And the other, is a food pic. This is one of Sonia's favorites; petit pois (chickpea looking things) and petit mil (finger millet) served with salt and oil. I like it too, but frankly, it gives me a lot of gas. Kind of the closest thing we have to Taco Bell around here (I actually have tried putting Taco Bell sauce packets on it that came in care packages. Quite tasty with a little mild sauce!.

Or as they call it in our village, "Sona nde Mwe"

In other news, Sonia took off for Dakar, Senegal this afternoon to get an MRI of that hip of hers. It's just a standard procedure check-up thing after the little bus accident last year. We're hoping all is good and there are no long-term effects. So say a little prayer for her. We'd like to have her back in Burkina Faso as soon as possible. Although I am sure she going to hate getting to see the ocean beaches in Dakar. Lucky. But seriously, who is going to cut the onions?

PS. Let us know if you are sick of all the puppy pictures yet. We're 30 years old and these are the first puppies/dogs we've had. So we're proud parents and stuff. And yes, if you're thinking we take a lot of pictures of puppies, just wait until we have kids!

2009. A new year. A new hair-do. A new baby (JUST KIDDING)

2009-01-02T14:51:00.008Z

Christmas morning in our fancy outfits

Well, another year has come and gone, and yes, we're still here in West Africa, preparing for the last year of our Peace Corps service. Yikes.

Christmas 2008 was kind of a blur. We invited our French friend Anne-Sophie over to our house for Christmas Eve. We ate a nice dinner together and then went to the midnight mass service at the Catholic Mission (like we did last year). It was fun to see everyone all dressed up and to hear the singing. We came back home around 11pm and proceeded to have a late-night feast in our courtyard. We stayed up talking and watching stars until 2am.

Our new friend Anne-Sophie

The next morning, we got up, had coffee and went over to the Catholic Mission for round two. The Christmas mass was a bit shorter this year (phew) lasting just over 3 hours. We went back to the house and had another mini-feast before heading out on bike to visit some of our neighbors (and of course eat some more).

Sonia and Les Guides (Catholic Girl Scouts) inside the church on Christmas morning

Around 3pm we biked with Anne-Sophie back to another village 25km away to celebrate Christmas night with two other Peace Corps volunteers and friends there. We ate well again (sensing the theme here?). Apparently it was a Christmas masquarade theme.

Who is this anyway?

New Years was, for the most part, a gastronomical sequel to Christmas. Except this time Sonia got a fancy new "Burkinabé" hair-do to start off the year. We stayed up late chatting on New Year's Eve so we could say "bonne année" at midnght. The next day we took it pretty easy, going to our open-air market and then coming home to prepare another meal at noon. We invited our neighbors over to eat with us. We had a range of plates and 30 liters of dolo!

It was a team effort taking 6 hours

Voila! The new-and-improved Sonia, 2009 edition

Making spaghetti for New Year's

New Year's brunch

Beans, rice, spaghetti, pork, salad and dolo

After eating we did another "tour en velo" to vist some of Sonia's co-workers. We stopped and saw Madame Nebié the vlillage midwife who herself gave birth to a little girl just a few weeks ago.

Sonia with Madame Nebie's baby girl

A tradition around Christmas time is that the children construct a little "creche" out of mud bricks in front of their homes. Think a nativity scene type thing. Here was our favorite.

A Burkinabé take on the nativity scene

And of course, our most favorite little friends, Miss Delphine and our new puppy "Café", celebrated with us...

Happy New Year. Lots of health, money, and all that stuff.

Our second Christmas in Africa / Notre 2e Noel en Afrique

2008-12-20T14:38:00.009Z

Mr. Cafe smiling at the camera
Voici notre petit chiot Cafe, qu'il est photogenique!

While most of you back in America/Canada are snuggling up around the fireplace and watching the snow come down, we're still here in hot ol' Africa. No snow for many thousands of kilometers. And when we are in village, we don't even have ice.

It's amazing to think that this is our SECOND Christmas here in Burkina Faso. Time is flying by. We are planning to do like last year and hang out in our village. We'll go to the Catholic Mission on Christmas Eve to see the big midnight mass, full of music and dancing. Then around 11pm we'll have a big feast and chat with the neighbors until late. This year we will have a visitor from France (Anne-Sophie)spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with us in village. So that will be fun.

On Christmas Day we're planning to hang out in the village in the morning and then bike to another larger village 25km away (with electricity) to celebrate with a few other volunteer friends and should we find an oven, bake something. But without all of the decorations, music, commercials and traffic, we could easily pass right over December 25th without even realizing it. Bizarre. We haven't gone Christmas shopping for ages. Or had a Eggnog Latte/Peppermint Mocha.

We're in the capitol this weekend wrapping up our duties for the Peace Corps training session for all the new volunteers that just got here. We worked off an on over the past nine-weeks. Their swear-in ceremony was a couple days ago so we're just passing through Ouagadougou on our way back to village.

We're hoping all of our friends and family are well wherever you might be. We're kind of all over the place this year. Nick in Tokyo. Caro in Toronto. Marie-Eve in Nunavut. And well, us, here, in West Africa. We wish we could be there over the holidays to hang out, share white elephant gifts, have some mulled wine and watch football (ok, maybe Ryan wants to watch football).

We still haven't had any visitors here in Burkina Faso yet, but we're keeping the door open. But you've only got 12 months left, so better start planning! Get your shots and buy lots of sunscreen. SPF 1000 works good here.

Oh, we are now the proud parents of a new little puppy that we call "Cafe" or if you're the little girl in our courtyard who can't say an "f" yet, he's called "Capp-eh". We thought it would be fun to have a little puppy running around and entertaining us. He's REALLY small, but we're hoping to fatten him up. He is already sleeping in a little make-shift home we made him and follows us around everwhere. We like him... and I think he likes us too. Adam (our other dog) is kind of pissed off, but he'll get over it.

Little Mr. Cafe at a month old
Le petit Cafe a un mois

Happy Holidays and best wishes in 2009. Wow, don't even get me started about it almost being 2009.

Our friend Ange selling local cakes and donuts at the market
Mon amie Ange au marche, qui vend des gateaux(gauche), galettes(dans plat bleu), "samsa"(droite:pate de haricot blanc qu'on fait frire, on mange ca avec une sauce piquante, delicieux!)

The fanciest restaurant we have ever seen in Africa. It's called the Gondwana.
Notre amie Laura aura 24 ans le 25 decembre. On a fete ca dans le resto le plus fancy qu'on a jamais vu au Burkina.

Maintenant: Version francaise amelioree... hihi!

Pendant que tout le monde est emmitoufle devant un foyer, regardant la neige tomber, nous on a toujours chaud... On ne peut pas trouver de neige a plusieurs centaines de kilometres.

C'est incroyable de penser que c'est notre 2e Noel ici au Burkina. Le temps passe trop vite! On va faire comme l'annee passee et aller a la messe de minuit, ou il y a environ 1000 personnes dans l'eglise. Il y a des chants, du tamtam et les enfants dansent. Apres, on va retourner dans notre famille pour manger et danser tout le monde ensemble. Cette annee on a une invitee de la France, qui va venir passer Noel avec nous pour vivre Noel dans un petit village africain. Ca devrait etre le fun. C'est une stagiaire en environnement qui reste dans un village a 25 km de chez-nous (Anne-Sophie).

La journee de Noel on va faire comme la tradition le veut: on visite les voisins pour leur souhaiter Joyeux Noel, on mange et boit avec eux. Ensuite, on va pedaler dans le village d'Anne-Sophie (qui a l'electricite!!) pour aller rejoindre 2 autres volontaires. Si on peut trouver un four on va se faire des biscuits ou gateau au chocolat. hmmm.. Si on n'avait pas de calendrier, ca serait facile de passer a travers Noel sans s'en rendre compte: pas de lumieres de Noel, d'arbres de Noel, de neige, de magasins ou aller acheter des cadeaux. Ici, Noel est visible grace aux creches en briques de "banco" que les gens construisent a l'entree de leur maison (on prendra des photos) et aussi dans l'esprit de partage et d'amitie des gens. Personne ne se donne de cadeau ici, on se retrouve simplement en famille et on jase, danse et mange ensemble, celebrant la sante et la presence de chacun. C'est une facon simple mais riche de celebrer Noel.

On est dans la capitale en fin de semaine pour ecrire nos rapports trimestriels et faire des petits achats pour les Fetes. On vient de passer une semaine a Ouahigouya ou on a aide a la fin de la formation des nouveaux stagiaires, qui sont tous devenus volontaires vendredi matin. On repart au village demain matin.

On espere que nos familles et amis se portent tout bien, ou que vous soyez. On est un peu eparpilles cette annee: Nick au Japon, Caro et Man en Ontario, Mawish au Nunavut et nous ici en Afrique de l'ouest. On aurait aime etre avec vous pendant les Fetes, boire du vin, manger de la tourtiere du Lac-St-Jean et du fudge, regarder des films, jouer dans la neige. Mais vous serez avec nous en pensees.

C'est une bonne occasion de vous rappeler aussi qu'on n'a pas encore eu de visiteurs... Notre porte est toujours ouverte aux visiteurs! Alors allez vous faire vacciner et achetez beaucoup de creme solaire (SPF 1000 marche bien!).

On vous souhaite tous un bon temps des Fetes et une Bonne Annee 2009! On pense a vous autres et on a hate de vous revoir!

Thanksgiving minus the turkey, the football, the pumpkin pie and well, pretty much everything else.

2008-12-02T18:14:00.006Z

Complete with the Thanksgiving Day pinneapple

Thanksgiving came and went pretty quickly this year. Sonia was just getting back to village and Ryan was in a village meeting about 15km away until 6pm. But Sonia brought some goodies back from the big city and we had a quasi-normal Thanksgiving meal together (candle lit of course, which unfortunately losses some of the ambiance when you eat that way EVERY night). Instead of a turkey we cooked up a rooster a group of traditional medicine men had given Sonia to say "welcome back". And we made mashed sweet potatoes which was good. But we could have used some stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. It was more of a "cock-a-doodle-doo" than a "gobble gobble". Maybe next year.

After our meal, we broke out a bag of marshmallows we imported back from South Africa and introduced the ritual of roasting marshmallows over an open-fire to our little family here. The kids loved it. Sonia even taught them how they could spell their names with the red hot stick in the air.

Mmmmmm. Reese's peanut butter cups. Melted but still delicious!

Otherwise, we are both super busy for the time being. Sonia is working hard on a vaccination campaign, planning Aids Day activities and working with her community health management group. Ryan is planting lots of Moringa trees and hoping a BIG grant comes through in the near future to revolutionize the local onion farming. November was kind of a blur. And December is looking like it's going to be more of the same.

my friend the camel, near Ouahigouya

We're looking forward to a break in activities around Christmas ans spending some quality time (eating) with all our village friends. We can't believe our second Christmas in Africa is right around the corner. Crazy.

Thanks for all of the warm thoughts on Turkey Day. We look forward to connecting with everyone around Christmas as well. The phone lines are open. Give us a call (but just remember the time difference). Until next time. Us :)

Oh yeah, one last thing. While biking back from another village I ran across this pack of cows. Kind of felt like the running of the bulls for a moment.

Moo!

Like nothing ever happened.

2008-11-12T10:18:00.010Z

August 14, 2008 seems like such a long time ago. The day oue bus hit that tree and all that stuff. Amazingly, it has already been three months now... And for the most part, life is finally back to "normal".

Since coming back to Burkina Faso, we've had a lot going on outside of our village, as we both helped out with Peace Corps training sessions for the new volunteers. Sonia, still using her crutches around town and needed to spend a couple extra weeks in the city before she was cleared to go back to village. But now, all is pretty much back to normal. We are both back in our village and trying our best to pick up where we left off.

It wasn't easy going back to the minimalist lifestyle that we had once been so accustomed to. After nearly six weeks in South Africa and even more time in the capital city, Ouagadougou, we got pretty soft. You start getting used to electricity and hot water and all. But now it's back to roughing it all over again. Really it's kind of nice. I think we both missed it. The simple life in village.

Sonia is walking around quite a bit, but has a slight little limp. We think it's just because her muscles are a bit weak and sore (so says Sonia Ms. Physical Therapist). So that should work itself out shortly. And she's back on her bike, peddaling around village in small doses.

Everyone was very welcoming back in village upon our return. Sonia jumped right back into things with a four-day health workshop that she participated in with the other villagers. Not to mention all her work with the community to try and find a solution to repair one of the two broken down ambulances. (yes, both are currently out of commission). And of course there are the weekly vaccinations and baby-weighings that she is happy to be back involved in.

Ryan has been busy trying to pull together some grants to put a little extra horsepower behind some of his activities. Most recently he received news that the Friends of Burkina Faso, an association of former Peace Corps volunteers, state-side Burkinabe and others who have lived/worked in Burkina, will finance a small Moringa Tree project. So that is going to definitely keep him busy working with the villagers to plan 10,000 trees, produce dried leaf powder as an income generating activity and of course lots of community outreach and education.

Upon our return we were excited to learn that our little host sister Armande (20 years old) gave birth to her second baby girl, and named her "Sonia". Ahhhhh. She is pretty cute. Here she is wearing a little outfit we bought while down in South Africa. And her first daughter, our little friend Delphine, is now talking up a storm. She likes to say things like "Have sweet dreams" and "Hola". It's pretty darn adorable. And we are still best buds (as you can see here with the original Sonia.)

It's now the start of the main harvest season. Everyone is busy harvesting all of the sorghum, millet and grains that they planted during the rainy season. This is the main staple food that will be stored and eaten for the rest of the year.

It's also now gardening season. Most everyone is busy working in their fields to prepare their garden beds. In our village, it's all onions all the time. But some folks also plant tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers and eggplants. And there are a few folks growing potatoes and sweet potatoes. We started our own little garden as well. We've already had tomatoes and green beans and are now hoping to add carrots and watermelons.

So that's that. Life goes on. We're loving the "cold season" which should last through December. This is when it's still 100F during the day, but drops down to a bone chilling 70F-80F at night. We're actually wearing fleeces if you can image that. And the Burkinabe are hilarious. They are REALLY cold and wear big ski parkas and ski hats. A pretty funny sight. Don't think they could conceptualize a Quebec winter (what's snow?).

Thanks all again for the good thoughts. And although we can not technical endorse any political figures while here in the Peace Corps, one might say that we are pleased with the outcomes of the recent US election. Thanks all for the text updates and the 5am Skype calls. We're looking forward to all the positive changes to come.

We're headed back to Burkina!

2008-09-25T08:43:00.006Z

After our 40-day hiatus here in Pretoria, South Africa, we are cleared to go back to work in Burkina Faso. Yippee! We are both as healed as can be and are looking forward to FINALLY getting back to being Peace Corps volunteers again.

Sonia's hip is doing well. She's gotten pretty used to her crutches by now. Here's the x-ray showing the three titanium screws placed in her leg, a nice little souvenir she'll have well, forever. We're planning to give them a test-run through the many metal detectors we'll pass through this weekend en route to Ouagadougou. Go-go Gadget hip!

Thank you EVERYONE for all of the warm wishes and good thoughts you've sent us over the last month. What an experience. We're both a bit nervous to be getting back and just hope we can get back into the swing of things quickly.

While this wasn't a vacation by any means, we did have a wonderfully relaxing time. We wish we could have seem more of South Africa, but now feel like we have a good reason to come back some day (not due to medical reasons of course). Pilanesberg was amazing and we'd love to get over to see Kruger Park, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, and the rest of the Western Cape (the Bordeaux of Africa).

We leave you with a couple of snapshots we took here in Pretoria at the National Botanical Garden. It wasn't quite as spectacularly botanical as we had hoped, but saw some nice cacti and a few flowers.

funny looking cactus people

some kind of cactus flower

a little waterfall pond thing

The road to recovery passes through Pilanesberg National Park

2008-09-08T09:15:00.005Z

The road to recovery has been pretty smooth thus far. We really have no idea what lies ahead until we meet with Sonia's surgeon next week. But it seems to be going well. Sonia is walking a ton and with just one crutch now. In a couple days she should be crutch free. So until our next appointment/x-ray, we're just healing, relaxing, watching A LOT of television and eating all of those Westernized foods we've been missing (ice cream, pizza, cheese, etc.)

We decided that instead of sitting around all day, we should try and get out to see a bit of South Africa while we're here (because who knows when we might have a chance to come back). So over the weekend we took a small safari day-trip to Pilanesberg National Park (about 1.5hrs from Pretoria) to have our own little Lion King experience. Holy cow it was awesome.

Again, the pictures tell a better story, but we were so excited to see all of the "zoo animals" outside of a zoo. In the "wild" as you might call it. We got to see loads of white rhinos, elephants, zebras, giraffes, hippos, baboons, gazelles...

African elephant

Giraffe

White rhinos

Zebras

Hippo

Baboon

We didn't get a chance to see the big kitties in the wild, but did get to go to a cool Lion park where they study lions. We got to hold lion cubs and see A LOT of big lions just a link-fence away. So cool. Apparently Mariah Carey had even visited this place once, so you know it must be good.

Lion kitties (meow!)

Thanks for all of the warm wishes and good thoughts. It's definitely working. With any luck we'll be back in Burkina by the end of next week.

Out-takes

Animal butt shots

Sonia's mandatory sunset shots

Tree 1, Bus 0

2008-08-18T18:44:00.010Z

At 10am we were at the marché waiting to see which would be the first bus to roll up. We Had corn on the cob and chatted with a few villagers. Normally we might have a calabash of dolo while waiting, but we were both recovering from giardia so decided against it. Just about 11am, the green EMAF bus arrived. It was pretty full, but we were eager to get on the way to Ouagadougou so we decided not to wait for one of the other three buses due to pass within the next hour or so. There was an open bench up front, but we were directed to two seats in the back. We climbed over the other passengers and found our place in the back. We sat down and we were off. The road was bumpy as the heavy rains this month have carved potholes everywhere. These drivers steer these buses back and forth, left and right dodging these craters in the (dirt) road. We reached Koukouldi village and didn't stop. The road seemed to be getting bumpier and Sonia even commented on how it felt like the bus had a flat tire or something. Shortly thereafter, the bus it a big bump, veered left running off the road and smacked square into a large tree. (see pictures, all taken the NEXT day). The tree didn't budge stopping the bus in it's tracks. In a split second we both remember asking ourselves the same question, "is this it for us?"

Upon impact we flew forward out of the flimsy bus seats. Everyone did. I think it took a second to realize we were still alive. There was a mad dash of people scrambling to get up and out of the bus. I remember asking Sonia immediately if she was okay. She said, "yeah, I think so". Phew! We caught our breath and started looking for our bags in the debris of benches, luggage and blood. All our bags were amazingly right there. Everyone was out sitting along the road, while we were still in the bus. Except the driver, who was yelling but not getting out from his seat (we think he broke his legs/feet). And his right-hand man was still lying horizontally where a dash board might be. He wasn't moving. We stayed in the bus and I called the Peace Corps office immediately. Help was on the way.

We caught our breath by staying in the bus. People kept climbing back in looking for a missing cell phone or hat. Sonia also called one of her coworkers to send the ambulance, as our village was only 10km away. About 10min went by when a bus traveling in the opposite direction stopped. It's was the same company. They maneuvered around as if to try and pull the disabled bus out of the ditch/tree. We started yelling "no, we're still inside". At this point we wanted to get out of the bus but Sonia couldn't put weight on her right leg, and I couldn't lift her out the window as my shoulder hurt. A couple guys helped lift us out the side window and we joined the rest of the passengers on the side of the road. There were a handful of people lying on the ground with very obvious fractures, and most the rest of everyone else had some sort of cut.

The antiquated ambulance from our village was the first to arrive, aside from a couple private cars. We knew the driver. We pointed out the worst injured and he got them in the ambulance. And then it started to rain really hard. Some nice lady gave Sonia an umbrella, but that wasn't doing much. A few locals convinced us to go seek shelter in one of the stopped buses. They carried Sonia into the bus and we waited. Eventually the gendarme (police) showed up. All the heavily injured had already been sent off to the hospital 20km away in Koudougou. They convinced us to give up our shelter and climb into the back of their pickup truck, along with about 10 other people, to take us to the same hospital in Koudougou. Sonia had two policemen tending to her leg. It was still raining, and every time the truck hit a pothole we cringed from the pain from our respective injuries. We arrived in Koudougou soaking wet, but were happy to see the white Peace Corps Landcruiser and a few familiar faces. We climbed into the back and were off for Ouaga.

(Sonia in the back of the Peace Corps' Landcruiser, nibbling on cookies just hours after the accident. See, she's fine)

We got x-rays and it was confirmed Sonia had a fractured leg/hip and I had a broken collar bone. The jokes started flying about Sonia being 30 and already breaking a hip. The irony was that on her 30th birthday just a month before, I had made the smart ass comment, "Happy 30th birthday Sonia, now don't go breaking a hip on me". Talk about a prophecy. We went on to the Peace Corps office and checked into their in-house infirmary. And that was when the real bad news came... we needed to leave Burkina Faso to seek proper medical attention. We were devastated. We talked it through and at some point accepted the reality. But where would we be going, and when?

The next day, while Sonia was stuck bed-ridden, I headed back to our village to get more clothes and speak with our community about the accident and that we'd be gone for a while. This also gave me a chance to snap a couple shots of the bus if it were still there. It was!

Peace Corps rolled out the proverbial red carpet for us sending a charter jet to shuttle us to South Africa (the standard commercial options would have taken too long to coordinate as there are not a lot of options leaving Ouaga). The Netcare Air Ambulance was fantastic and had Sonia's leg completely immobilized on a stretcher. The crew was great even letting us watch an in flight movie on the private flight. It was about an 8hr trip, touching down once in Angola to refuel. We all stepped outside the plane (well, except Sonia) to witness a lunar eclipse. We finally landed in Johannesburg, South Africa around 3am local time. An ambulance took us to a very nice, modern, developed world hospital in neighboring Pretoria (the capitol of South Africa). We weren't both admitted (for me I think they were just being nice by giving me a bed). Sonia was off for her little operation just a few hours later. They put three titanium screws in her leg to prevent further fracturing. A few hours later she was out and we were watching the Olympics on TV together. Amazingly enough, she is already up and walking around (slowly, and crutch-assisted of course)! She'll be running/dancing/skipping before we know it.

And that were the story currently stands. Sonia is wrapping up her stay at the hospital hoping to get out in a couple days and I'm already starting the recovery at a local Peace Corps B&B called The Rose Guest House in Pretoria, South Africa.

The Rose Guest House
32 Murray Street
BROOKLYN Pretoria,
South Africa

What now? We're not completely sure. We're hoping to just heal well and eventually head back to Burkina to finish all that we have started.

We're super thankful to have walked away from this one with some relatively minor injuries. "Dieu est grand!" We'll be in touch and now should have regular Internet access for the coming weeks (but for the moment our US and Burkina cell phones are not working). Thank you all for the warm wishes. Stay tuned... and always sit in the BACK of the bus!

Nos premières vacances!! (our first mini vacation)

2008-07-31T14:21:00.006Z

Depuis notre dernier message, beaucoup de choses se sont passées. En commençant par l'arrivée officielle de la saison des pluies torrentielles, en passant par mon trentième anniversaire et finalement nos premières vacances!!

Avec l'arrivée de la saison des pluies, cela veut dire qu'il pleut tous les 1-3 jours, pluies précédées par des vents très forts. Alors on se retrouve dans notre maison de briques de bouette , on regarde la tempête dehors et on joue aux cartes en mangeant du popcorn! Voilà un petit résumé de nos loisirs.

Les paysants eux sont très occupés dans leurs champs, du matin jusqu'au soir. Alors c'est un peu difficile pour nous de mener nos activités, mais on s'habitue! Aussi,quand il pleut, TOUT le monde rentre dans leur maison et si t'as une réunion à quelquepart, c'est forcément annulé. Ce qui est extraordinaire c'est de voir le foin et les epis de mil/ maïs pousser partout, tout est vert maintenant (il faut comprendre que ça fait 9 mois qu'on voit just de la terre rouge, alros voir du vert c'est excitant!). Notre famille a semé du mil, du maïs, des arachides, des pois de terre (ça ressemble à des bines rondes), et du riz. Ryan et moi avons semé des tomates et des piments verts dans un petit jardin qu'on a fait derrière la maison. Ce n'est plus la saison des tomates, alors on a hâte que les nôtres poussent!

Sur une autre note, je fais officiellement parti du club des 30! Pour l'occasion, on a voyagé dans le sud du pays avec une autre volontaire pour aller faire un peu de tourisme. Le plus beau cadeau de fête que j'ai eu c'était de regarder un film sur un ordinateur portable. WOW! Et quel film plus approprié que "Madagascar". Ca c'était du luxe! La journée après ma fête, on s'est rendus encore plus au sud pour aller voir des chutes absolument exceptionnelles et des domes de plus de 1.8 billion d'années! On pouvait même grimper dessus, pour avoir une superbe vue sur les champs de canne à sucre de la région. Il y a vraiment beaucoup plus de verdure dans le sud, des champs de riz et de canne à sucre, ce qui est très joli. On est aussi allés voir des hippopotames sur un lac tout près. On nous a amené sur un petit canoe pour se rendre au milieu du lac, où on peut voir les hippopotames tôt le matin ou le soir peu avant le coucher du soleil. On s'est donc approchés à environ 60-100 mètres des hippos. J'avoue que c'était un peu épeurant, mais ça a valu le coup!

Maintenant nous sommes de retour au village pour continuer nos activités. Je travaille beaucoup avec le comité de gestion de la clinique du village, j'aide pendant les journées de vaccination et les pesées de bébés,je fais aussi des sensibilisations sur la malaria une fois par semaine (c'est la saison la pire pour les cas de malaria, vue que les pluies attirent les moustiques). Ryan lui est occupé avec les groupements féminins, les demandes de fonds pour appuyer des projets de banque de céréales, de moulin, etc.

On vous salue tous et on espère avoir de vos nouvelles bientôt!

Okay, sorry everyone else who didn't understand all of that. Sonia got a little carried away with the French. So, in honor of Sonia's 30th birthday, we took our first little vacaton trip town to the south of Burkina. It's much cooler (temperature wise) and thus much more lush with vegitation. We spent three days in Bobo Dioulasso and three days in Banfora. We got to see a waterfall, climb some billion year old rock formations and sit in a paddle boat about 50ft from six wild hippos. (see pictures)

Also, we've talked about weather alot, well we're finally happy to say the heat has diminished and the rains are here. It rains almost everyday, and when it rains it RAINS. We're talking some serious hurricaine-like downpours. When it rains we hide in our little mud house with it's tin roof, close all the doors and windows (e.g., we batten down the hatches) and then we play cards until it passes. It's really amazing how quick the storms roll in, how dark grey the skies are and how violentt he winds can be.

Oh, and we welcomed a new member of our greater family into the world. A small baby goat named Dieudonné (God-given) was born in our courtyard just as we got back from our mini trip. He's a happy little kid (pun intended) and spends his days jumping all over the place.

I (Ryan) started a little urban garden in our courtyard and planted a few tomato plants and green peppers. Hopefully they'll grow.

Ok, I think that's it. I think the pictures are cooler than talking about them. Here is our little index:
pic 1 = storm is coming and about ready to hit our house
pic 2 = same storm, different shot
pic 3 = lake tengrela, where the hippos are
pic 4 = and here are the hippos
pic 5 = the domes of Fabedougou
pic 6 = a big dome
pic 7 = us atop the domes
pic 8 = Sonia and our friend Laura, can you find them?
pic 9 = the waterfall at Karfiguela
pic 10 = view from the top
pic 11 =looks like chocolate, but doesn't taste like chocolate
pic 12 = all cleaned up and lookin' good on Sonia's 30th birthday
pic 13 = Uncle Ryan with a sleeping little Delphine. This is the same little girl that used to cry and scream every time she saw us
pic 14 = Sonia cooking by candlelight (yes, I said Sonia cooking)
pic 15 = little Mr Dieudonné le goat
pic 16 = Ryan and DD
pic 17 = Sonia and DD