T-minus 2 months...

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.

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.