July 9, Week two

Weather

Since we have been here the weather has been hot and dry although it is supposed to be the rainy season. One day there was a bit of rain and some days it has clouded up and felt like rain, but nothing happened. Yesterday we finally had a taste of a real tropical rain storm and some of the red dust has turned to red mud. It was so much cooler today than yesterday I was glad to have a long sleeved shirt over my blouse. They tell me it stays really nice for several months before it gets really hot.

Training

Thought you might like to know a bit about the training we are receiving here during the staging. The day is divided into four blocks: 8-10, a 30 minute break, then 10:30-12:30. We have an hour and a half for lunch. Next there is a session from 2-3:30, a 15 minute break, and a session from 3:45-5:15. There are some sessions for all of the trainees from all four groups. These are generally about medical and safety issues. Some sessions are for the various task groups, that is, my section, Girls Education and Empowerment (GEE) has technical sessions where we learn about the structure of the Burkina school system and the things we are supposed to do to encourage girls to stay in school. Probably half the sessions are language lessons. I placed into High Novice in French, which is 3 on a scale of 1-9. By the end of training we have to get to Intermediate, mid, which would be level 5 on this scale. Most classes have 2-3 students at the lower levels and I am in a class with just one other student. Mu teacher assures me that I will make it to Intermediate Mid, but I don’t feel like it at this point. I trust the Peace Corps to know what they are doing, however. For our lessons we meet outside and our teacher uses a magic marker with big sheets of brown writing paper as a blackboard. It works pretty well as long as the wind is not blowing too hard! Enough for one day, but much more to tell you all.