It's been awhile, but now that I'm living in my village it's not so easy for me to update, seeing as I have no electricity, running water, or internet cafes anywhere in my village. But, I'm currently in Bobo, which is my nearest city with amenities (42 kilometers), so I'm trying to do a blog update, post a bunch of pictures (www.photobucket.com my username is ashleyinburkina, you can search me and see all the pics), and make contact with the outside world while I'm here. I'm assuming everyone is dying to know what a day in the life of me is like, so maybe I'll start there:
6:00-6:30: Try to ignore the roosters and women pounding grain in my courtyard.
6:30-7:00: Give up trying and drag myself out of bed.
7:00-9:00: Bucket bath, breakfast (usually tea and maybe bread, or banana if I can get one, or twice when I could get eggs French Toast!), then go draw a couple of buckets of water out of the well for the day and drag them, one by one, back to my house, and get a container of pump water for drinking (I filter it anyway, but one day I saw a little red worm swimming in my filter from the well water, so I quit using that for drinking).
9:00-lunch: Talk to the family a little bit, throwing a couple of Jula phrases to impress them, then I sit around and read (I finished the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy already, after 3 weeks) or study French or Jula, maybe go bug hunting- I've killed 9 roaches, about 50 spiders of variable scariousness, and at least 1000 obnoxiously loud crickets, or just stare at the wall for a while, Then, I go out and buy some tomatoes and maybe bread, and make bruschetta, or maybe if I have tuna a tuna sandwich, or peanut butter and jelly, or whatever I can find.
After lunch: More staring at the wall, maybe go talk to the police a little, or the other teachers, or my family, or anyone who speaks French, try not to focus on how incredibly bored I am, get supplies for dinner, read some more.
Evening: Dinner of fried rice, or pasta, or maybe some delicious fish that a lady in my village makes. By about 6:30, it's too dark to read, so I go sit outside and drink tea or coffee with my family. Eventually, when I get bored, or tired, or just sick of the mosquitoes, I go in, read by my little light hooked up to a small battery I bought, maybe stare at the all some more, then to bed and sleep, just to start all over again the next day. I have never been so excited for school to start. I need something to do!
Lately I've been biking a lot to pass the time, and the other day I actually did something very exciting. I took a bike ride to my hippo lake, which I thought was 8ish km from my village. But, after 8 km (I have a small km counter on my bike), I ran into another village, and thought it must just be a few km more. After about 11 km, I was starting to wonder if I took a wrong turn, but I ran into 3 fishermen who were on their way to the lake, so I kept going with them. After about 14 or 15 km, I asked if we were getting close, and the fishermen said only a few more kilometers. So, since I had already gone 15, thought a couple of more wouldn't hurt. Finally, after 22 km, I reached the lake, where there were no hippos and I couldn't even see the lake because it was so swampy around it that I couldn't get close. So, I biked 22 km there, 22 km back (44km equals about 26 miles!) to not see hippos. But, it was a beautiful ride, and there was a beautiful forest. I have some pics going up on photobucket for anyone who wants to see. I look forward to going back in the dry season when the hippos are actually there, and I heard there are elephants that pass through the forest too, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled!
I'm kind of missing home, so all the letters and cards I recently got were much needed and appreciated, so thanks to all the ladies that my mom works with, I really am grateful. Don't know when I'll get back again, but school starts October 1st, so I'll try to update after that to say how the school year is going. I'll be teaching 6eme and 5eme (that's like 6th and 7th grade) math and biology, and the 6eme class has over 120 students in it! We'll see how that goes...

I have a new address!

Ashley Hess, PCV
S/C Corps de la Paix
B.P. 1065
Bobo-Dioulasso
Burkina Faso