So This Random Internet Access

So this bat...

Ok so as promised my battle with the nefarious bat who resides within the family latrine. I'm just kicking it out in the latrine at around 4 in the morning having a ball. I'm answering an urgent call of nature which my charming mother always referred to as "the trots". To use plainer terms for all of you readers who are unfamiliar with the charming colloquial jargon of my mother I was dealing with a case of travelers diarrhea at an ungodly hour. The beauty of this is it's an outdoor latrine and instead of a door there is a bit of a zig zagging pathway into the open air latrine so that other people can't see in. Inside is simply a hole in the ground and a wooden cover with a handle on it that covers the hole in an attempt at combating the odors below.
Well I find myself squatting over this bad boy at 4 am supporting myself against the back wall with one hand because I haven't quite mastered this whole squatting thing and I suddenly hear a muted flapping noise. My brains first answer is that it is just my host brother's pet pigeon once again trying to fly despite his clipped wings. Hopefully. Well it wasn't, I look up and there is this bat flying at me, not from above, but at face level through the little winding pathway. Well I'm low on options, I can't leave my position above the latrine due to my current condition so fleeing is out of the question and I have one hand occupied holding myself up in this bizarre crab-like position so with my free hand I do what any sane human would do and proceed to slap a bat in the face, right out of the air. Well this works temporarily. I have knocked my adversary back through the pathway, but I hear the muted flapping that can only mean that he is coming for round two. I'm not confident that I can successfully slap this thing again so I quickly grab the wooden latrine cover and wield it like a shield as I again knock the bat back whence it came. Now please remember that throughout this whole ordeal I am stuck in a one handed crab-like squatting position and my "business" has not subsided because life doesn't work that way. Well now that I have refreshed you of my predicament I then preceded to engage in some weird game of Mario tennis with this bat as he repeatedly flew back through that pathway and I was forced to repeatedly beat him back with a damn latrine cover. After about six rounds he finally gave up and hopefully flew off to do that to someone else. I was finally able to finish up, clean up, and return to my room to try to get back to sleep while my body pumps adrenaline in preparation for an ensuing battle with a bat that was never to come. Well Burkina, you won that one, well played.

Next update should be a recap on my housing shopping spree in the capital. Thank you and good night!

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!

Hello everyone! So i know i said this was going to be predominantly a picture blog, but it will be a few weeks before i have the technology to upload pictures. In the meantime you will get my words and you will like it.  So we're just wrapping up our first full day in country and it has been a whirlwind of things.  We left Philly at 9 am and 26 hours and a million plane movies later and we arrived in country. It was a cool 95 upon arrival which was a nice way to ease into the sweltering heat and high humidity that is soon to come. Our first day has been mostly technical. Up by 545, solid meditation session, breakfast at 630, and then meetings starting at 730. I guess jet lag isn't a thing over here. The meetings consisted of medical, technical, language interview, bank account, bike fitting, cell phone, etc. We also got our first chance to haggle in the market and I managed to swoop a pretty good deal on a towel and a metre of fabric that I'm planning to have made into a shirt once I arrive at the training centre in Leo. I also did surprisingly well in my language interview which worries me because now i think that they think i am a lot better than i actually am. My internet time is wrapping up, but hopefully I will be able to update you again next week at training.