Cotton harvest

January means the cotton is being harvested in my village.  This is a load that will sit for a day or two until it is ready to be shipped out.  I've seen 2 or 3 big dumptruck loads taken away now.  What the farmers do is sell it in bulk and then divide the profits based on each perentage contribution to the overall total weight.

They grow cotton as a cash crop seemingly because that's how it's been done for years.  Some younger farmers have said that it isn't the most profitable.  Sesame can be grown cheaper, using fewer chemicals (fertilizer?) and gives more money in the end.  But tradition is king here and if that's how it's always been done, then by golly that's what we're gonna do.

I got invited to a fellow teacher's wedding (wedding description a little NSFW)

I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to show what a wedding is like in a Burkinabe village because the pictures would likely be inappropriate by American standards.  Luckily, I got invited to a more 'city' wedding and everyone was fully covered.  Be warned, I'm going to get a little serious about the nature of weddings here, and it can be pretty bad for women.

My friend and coworker Drissa (center) had his wedding ceremony for his side of the family in a small city named Toussiana, about an hour from Siniena (my village).  Government workers (i.e. teachers) often work very far from their hometown or village and Drissa is lucky enough to teach in the same region where he grew up.  I guess the government likes to mix up languages and cultures to encourage cultural unity countrywide.  Left is my village buddy Jacques and right is some family members that I was introduced to, but the music and celebration makes it impossible to remember or hear names.  They had a different ceremony for her (pictured in red) side of the family in her family's village a few days before. 

It was a lot of fun and fairly similar to American weddings.  This was the more official of the two ceremonies and took place at the government building where they signed the Burkina equivalent of the license.  There was food and singing and dancing and everyone gets shirts made from matching fabric chosen by the husband (I think).  There was the reading of vows and at the end everyone shouted kisskisskiss!

There is always nonstop food at Burkinabe weddings.  The usual rice and tô (i need to make a post about tô) and there are often sacrificial chickens, beef and sheep.  Cokes and Fantas and beers for everyone.  I usually go for Fanta or beer even though I prefer Coke.  I can still only drink Coke ice cold.  

People gave speaches, the bride and groom had their dance, followed by the traditional convey through town where everyone gets on their motorcycles and constantly honks their horns.  Now here is where it gets more interesting.

Like I said. I can post pictures of the city weddings because they are somewhat wattered down compared to village weddings.  You might doubt the wildness, but the picture above is considered a formal reception photo for guests to take.  For the vows though, she was wearing a white dress. 

I've been to two other weddings in my village and they can be a little intimidating and depressing.  Intimidating because they go nonstop for 36 hours at least (no joke) and depressing because the girl can easily be as young as 15, though the two that I saw were 19 and 22.  There is also a point where the wife to be and her mom take a collection basket around and everyone pops in a 10cfa piece or two.  For the really village weddings, the wife to be dances up to all the guests and because she is a little sweaty you can stick the coins to her shoulders or forehead, and her mom follows with the basket and picks them up.

From my experience, it's hard for me to imagine Burkinabe villagers marrying for love.  Drissa really seems to love his wife, but they are both functionaries, well educated, and in a small minority.  I went to a wedding where a girl from my village was marrying an Ivoirian (from Ivory Coast) businessman who came into town seemingly to pick a nice docile village girl.  Like you would pick an apple out at the store.  I've had converations with villagers where it's taken a disturbing amount of time to explain that in America you can't just buy a wife and then take her home with you.  I get the smooth condescending smiles that say "you just don't understand life in Africa".  I can't count the number of times that some woman in the market has informed me (jokingly) that she is going to come be my wife.  Take care of my house for me.  It's kind of a funny turnaround, like now I'm the commodity.  A ticket out of the village.  Marriage tends to be a social transaction everywhere, but I can only distantly compare a small town American wedding to an African village one.  Everyone seems to win; the man gets a house manager and the woman gets to leave her family compound, possibly even gets to live in a city, but I haven't witnessed love yet.  I don't doubt that romance exists in Burkina Faso, it just exists on a level that is undetectable to my eyes, and covered by a layer of ambition and hunger.     
 

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.

Kittens

I feel weird naming them, since they will all be living with other volunteers, so for the sake of this post they are, left to right, Scar, Jeremy and Greybeard.

63 takes later, Greybeard is tired and Scar no longer cares

One day my neighbors told me that my cat was pregnant.  She didn't look any bigger.  Shortly thereafter, she went off into the wild to have them and, 4-5 days later, she brought them back.  At first she took them up on top of the house to keep them safe.  When there eyes were open, she brought them down and I let them inside.  

 

 I'm in love with her Jeremy, I just don't know how to say it

 Ferris Bueller museum pose

 They are at that age where they are contantly running around and tackling each other.  It's a constant 3-way battle.  Two fight, and the other wiggles their butt while waiting to pounce. 

They can smell the fish I hide in my backpack

50 cents worth of fish is plenty to keep them all happy.  They've been constantly cracking me up for 3 weeks now.  I'll be sad in early January when they go to their new homes.