I climbed a "mountain" near my village

I thought I was puffing out my chest. I look silly

    I went hiking with another volunteer nearby to see if I could finally get to the top of this mountain.  I've tried twice already and always got stopped by water (rainy season).  There is only about a month window where the daytime temperature makes hiking pleasant.  In december at night it gets pretty chilly.  By 9am its hot again, but it's not hot hot (please excuse the technical jargon).  It's also dry and windy nowadays, making the hour trek comfortable. 

I saw monkeys, and hopefully can get the picture to upload in the near future.  They tell me (Burkinabe, not the monkeys) that these monkeys are sacred and not to be harmed.  I couldn't get close, but I saw them from about 50 yards as we were climbing up the hill.  I know other monkeys that come near the cornfields are hated by the farmers. 



A Year Late

I went to the post office to pick up a package from mom and was surprised when the guy told me I had 2 packages.  I was baffled because I didn't expect another and was even more surprised to learn that it had arrived December 2012, not 2013.  It was a tupperware full of grandma's chex mix similar to the one I posted about over the summer.  The postal worker had the nerve to blame me and ask for more money because of the inconvenience that I caused by leaving it there for me.  These workers are terrible about remembering to put the package receipt slips in the mailbox.  Volunteers often are forced to wait an extra month for the lazy postal workers.  It usually requires a bribe to get them to check for a package without showing a receipt paper.

Being a PC Volunteer, I ate it all and I regret nothing.  Only the pretzels had lost any amount of crispness.

Sugar Cane

Sometimes I can get fresh sugar cane in village.  You strip or cut away the outside half centimeter or so and then you are free to gnaw on whats left, or cut it into chunks if you want, then spit it out when you are done.  It's like chewing gum I guess, because you don't want to swallow it and the sugar doesn't last too long.

Thanksgiving

We ate a turkey and a duck for thanksgiving.  The guys we got to cook just couldnt wrap their head around the idea of a turducken, so we just ate them normally.

   Banana Bread

Apple Pie

We have a dutch oven so we can make pies.  Matt is the master chef but I thought of the lattice crust on top.