hello hello. it's been awhile and there is so much to report. i knew that i would regret having let over a whole month pass with out updating my blog.

the last time i updated, i was about to leave for my site visit. in the end, i wasn't able to actually visit my specific village site due to transportation issues, but i did get to visit the regional/provincial capital which will be a constant stop-in point for me. the fact that i didn't get to visit my village is a good lesson to learn early about the trials of transportantion in Burkina.

i will be living in the Sahel region and my capital is Dori, which you can find on most maps of Burkina. the Sahel is mostly populated by the Peuhl people, which is why i have been studying Fulfulde. the Sahel is very different from the area where i was living with my host family, the Mossi plateau. ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed the desert. there was sand in the streets! apparently, because it is the rainy season, this was nothing compared to the amount that is usually there. Dori had a nice vibe - big enough to have stores stocked with luxury items, like cornflakes, but small enough to be manageable and have a community that i was able to tap into within a few days. i am also excited because there were quite a few foreign business owners, from senegal, nigeria and mali, so i was able to speak some arabic and english with those people.

after site visit, we returned to our villages, with the clock ticking down. site visit was the halfway point of our training, so we were soaking up all the language and technical training that we could, as well as spending time with our families. i was so amazed at how sad i was feeling about leaving my host family. i had gotten really attached to these people who, just weeks before, were strangers i could barely communicate with. the day before we left, i was riding my bike to class, fretting at how mad i was that i had just said good-bye to my own family just weeks ago and now, here i am, again, having to leave a group of people who have come to be so familiar to me. then, i realized how lucky i am - to be experiencing all of this, to be able to be upset about the fact that i have connected so well and so closely to this community, whom, months ago, didn't even exist for me. just a few months ago, Burkina Faso didn't even exist to me and now here i am so emotional to be leaving the family that I have made here.

now, we are in Ouaga (the capital) for our closing ceremony tomorrow. we have been here a week preparing to become volunteers and i can't believe that the ceremony is tomorrow. speeches are given in all the languages that our training group has studied (which are: Fulfulde, Gulmanchelma, Jula, Moore and French, in case you were wondering) and i will be giving the Fulfulde speech. i am excited! i also had a Burkinabe outfit made, so I will be sure to post some photos of that when i get the chance! then, a few days after that, we will be dispatched to our assignment sites. we have a three month lock-down, during which we are not allowed to leave our region because we are expected to immerse ourselves in our new communities. well, i'll finish here so i can try and post some photos, too. wish me luck and send me your love!