Transportation is cool

Getting around the country is fairly easy in Burkina, one simply needs decent french and small change, as in most other situations here.  Long trips can be accomplished on large buses, old tour buses usually, I took one from Ouagadougou to Banfora, my regional capital, and it was a pleasant experience, besides getting slightly felt up by a woman on the last "leg" of the trip, I crack myself up.  Its easy for me as a dude, but can be dangerous or at least uncomfortable for a lady, because of the lack of a bubble of personal space and handsy Burkinabe guys.  So thats the big buses.  It is forbidden for me to ride in a car or a motorcycle (moto) because of the dangerous traffic, so for routes that lack a big bus, it is necessary to take a bush taxi.  A bush taxi is a singular experience and involves much haggling and stinkiness at first, with the amount of haggling diminishing with practice.  A bush taxi is a van the size of a VW van and can usually fit 18 passenger, thats right, 18, with several boys in the employ of the driver who tie your bag and bike to the top of the van.  To get to my site from Ouagadougou, it is necessary to take a 6 hour big bus to Banfora and a 15 to 30 minute bush taxi to Siniena, so I have it very easy compared to some volunteers who only have bush taxis near their sites.  Bush taxis run near my site often, and it is a simple as flagging it down on the side of the road.  I can also bike the 12km to Siniena if I want.

Let me tell you a little something about hygiene...

Turns out its fairly easy to be clean here in Burkina.  My shower areas, both with my host family and at my future house in Siniena, are made of concrete and about the size 6'X6', with a hole at the bottom of one wall and a slight slant to the floor, one takes a bucket of water, a cup for pouring the water over ones self, and any desired cleaning products, soap and shampoo are cheap and easy to find, the price of everything can be haggled here.  For a shower, one simply pours water to wet oneself, applies soap and shampoo, and then rinses, I typically do this before breakfast and before dinner.  My shower is outside with my host family, taking a shower under the stars is pretty sweet, my shower is indoors at my future house in Siniena.  Im going to go ahead and say I prefer the bathroom method here to the toilets of the USA.  The squeemish of stomach might want to skip ahead past the next paragraph,


There is a plastic teakettle called a bouilloir I believe, filled with water, that one takes into the latrine, a concrete enclosure similar to the shower, but with a hole in the middle of the floor, I also opt to take my soap.  One simply squats over the hole, a naturally comfortable position, at least for my legs, and does one's business over the hole.  Ones toilet paper is ones hand :) when the business is complete, one simply rinses the hand and the other areas with water from the bouilloir and then, after the clothes are resituated, one can wash the hand with the soap.  When the technique is mastered, its actually cleaner to rinse with water than to spread all of the gunk around with toilet paper.  There, I said it.  Its also much easier on the muscles that control the bowels and is more effective at clearing your body out, we'll get through this together guys, and can actually reduce the risk of colon cancer.  Here it is a cultural norm, more predominate with muslims, to do everyting public with your right hand, shake hands, give money and objects, because the left hand is typically for wiping,


so the next time you are in a developing country, be sure to do everything with your right hand.

My Site!

Ne y windaga everyone.  Thats good afternoon in Moore.  I am
currently visiting my site and am absolutely in love with the place.
I am replacing a departing volunteer, the amazing Celinia, in a
village called Siniena, 12km south of Banfora.  I am in the region
called Cascades, named for the waterfalls.  My house has 2 bedrooms,
an indoor shower room and electricity!  Not running water naturally.
This is as rainforest as it gets in Burkina, so I am excited, and will
continue using runon sentences because the period is inconviniently
placed here.  My french is progressing, there are 9 levels of
progression, novice, intermediate and advanced, each with
low/mid/high, I started at novice mid and am now at inter low, needing
to make interhigh by the end of training.  I will begin learning
Dioula sometime in the near future as well.  I will return to Banfora
tomorrow, so I will post more info and maybe pics :)