Still rolling solo in Burkina

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

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?)

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...

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)

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.