To all my dedicated readers

So I found myself in the midst of a weird amount of free time at the training center and decided what better way to fill it than with by writing a blog poat to all of you wonderful people!
Technical updates: well I am about two weeks into model school and I just finished writing my first test for my students and it is kind of sinking that I just finished teaching an entire science unit in a language other than English. Before I congratulate myself too much however I will wait to see how well everyone does on this test.  Teaching has been a really fun experience and it has been nice to occasionally hear a "monsieur Kennedy!" Mixed in with the usual "nassara!" And "le blanc!"s that are usually hurled my direction on a daily basis as I ride through town. Other than that training has been progressing as usual, I finish in about 2.5 weeks which is a tiny bit startling, but also exciting because I am so jazzed to go on a two day shopping spree in the capital to buy things for my currently empty house. It's like a treat yo self day where you dont actually spend that much money because the peace corps doesn't really give you all that much monopoly money. Somewhere around 400 dollars to outfit an entire house? I'll let you know how I fair.

Tune in next time for the fun fun story of my midnight battle with the bat that lives in our latrine.

Site visit wrap up

Well everyone I just wrapped up my site visit and the visit to my regional capital. It was our first time really being out on our own which was slightly intimidating, but ended up being a blast.  Up until this point everything has been relatively controlled, we spend 8 hours a day at the training center with other Americans, and even when we're hanging out with our host family who sometimes can't understand us its chill because they just laugh and think our attempts at French are cute.  Now however we are about to board a bus with our professional counterparts (kinda like a school mentor person) who speak only French and other local Languages, and bus out hours to our sites where we will be paraded around to all of the important people in our village and English is no longer a valid option.  Upon arriving at my bustling village of 600 people I was promptly informed that pretty much everyone there who is not a functionaire (educated class) or high school student speaks only Moore, which means no French, which also means that if I plan to function in the village I will really have to ramp up my Moore abilities above what I can currently speak.  Asking someone how their family is and if they had a good day at work won't buy me anything at the Market.  On a positive note, it's kind of a fun language to speak and now I get to be tri-lingual for a little while when I get back to the States, go me.  Other then that it was a great site visit, everyone in the village that I met seemed really excited to meet me and to make sure that I had a good time in Kogho.  While hanging out with my counterpart a lot of the other teachers who I will be working with at the high school called my counterpart (his name is Paulin, guess I forgot to mention that) and made sure I was having a good time and then asked to talk to me on the phone, which is really hard to do.  It's exciting to see all the support, especially since I am the first volunteer to be sent to the village, so it is nice to know that people are excited to work with me rather than confused why there is a white dude living in the new house (I got that reaction too).  My fun update at site is how important everyone thinks I am, in Burkina a person's last name is very important because it tells you who they are connected to, how high they rank socially, and usually what they do.  When I told people that my name was Ryan Kennedy I often received a semi-awed look followed by a statement that there was a US president who was named Kennedy, to which I would respond "oui" and they would look even more impressed and remark that that was a very important family, to which I would respond "oui" and they would laugh and shake my hand again and say "welcome Mister President Kennedy" and laugh some more.  So for all intents and purposes I am part of the Kennedy family whilst in village, and I must say that I am quite excited to see what life as a part of the Royal American Family will be like for the next two years.  Probably awesome.  I'll let you know.

Also I am not going to proofread this prior to posting it because that doesn't sound fun and I don't want too.  You all will probably love it anyways, just a heads up though.

Site announcement

So site announcements came in on Wednesday so I now know where I will be residing for my next two years! My site is called Kogho and its located about an hour and a half from the capital. It's a bigger town and I will be the first volunteer stationed there so I'm sure that I will get to spend plenty of time explaining what on earth a volunteer even is. Per my request my house has been built next to the local health clinic so I will be able to partner with them in working with the community in regards to health awareness. I'll be visiting in a few days so I should have some fun updates about the community coming in soon!

Random Update

Ok so I have been over in Burkina for awhile and so far you have received only a few (one) posts.  There is a very good reason for this! The reason is internets.  I have it occasionally and I had about 3 blog posts drafted on my tablet and I biked over to the cafe on my day off two weeks ago and their wifi doesn't work on tablets.  So I went home and let another week pass by and again on my day off I loaded up my tablet and biked over to a wifi hotspot that I knew would work with my tablet.  I opened my backpack and I was ever so excited to share my exploits with all you people and alas, my tablet screen was broken.  I will be able to fix it in Ouaga next week, but in the meantime you will be getting none of my fun updates and amusing stories.  Also when I do get a chance to upload those posts they won't be in chronological order anymore, but I trust to the mental fortitude of my readers in assuming that you will be able to figure it out.  In the meantime here is a speed update on my time so far.

I have been at the training site for several weeks now and my language is progressing nicely, I can say a lot of things, but I can't understand as much as I can say which gets me into trouble sometimes.  For instance I have agreed to marry several women here, they all thought it to be quite hilarious.  All the other kids are nice to me so that makes the long days in class a lot more enjoyable.  My host family has been fantastic (more to come on this).  Polygamy is very common in Burkina so I get two Moms, which is just as awesome as you would think it is, I get double spoiled. I shall leave it hear for now because I am hoping that there shall be oodles of updates coming to you from Burkina starting next week, fingers crossed everyone.

Also I get my official site announcement tomorrow so I will know where I will be living for the next few years, I will try to post about that this week!