Letter To Ashley

Burkina is getting better for me, but now I have to worry about gaining too much weight back after initially losing about 10lbs. Here it's a good thing to be fat and so both my host families push food on me pretty strongly. Lately, I've begun to refuse adamently and they are starting to back off. Our swearing in ceremony is on the 21st of October to signify our completion of training and our becoming actually voluteers. Since Halloween is the closest holiday to that date, we're all going to dress up for Halloween for the party following the ceremony. I haven't quite decided what to go as yet; Either french maid or a hippie. What do you think? (i think neither laura~Ash) The Last 2 days have been funny and filled with activities. Today's Sunday, but Friday I started in a goofy mood noticing the odd ocurrences happening around me. I started the day with a bucket bath, of course, but accompanying me int he stall was the family dog, Bobi. She just sat there chilling on one side of the stall as I proceeded through my shower. Next, I had to go pee and so I walked over to the toilet stall, which consists of a hole in the ground. There were a bunch of frogs in the stall. They are EVERYWHERE in Burkina. I've gotten quite annoyhed with them lately and so I've made a game of kicking them into the hole of the toilet stall and then using it. He He:) It gives me a little tickle even if it's slightly cruel. The day progressed pretty slowly after that but consisted of talking french poorly and eating peanuts just harvested from the ground. The next day Saturday was really exciting. That day we had a sensibilization on AIDS with the local theater group. We had met with them 2 weeks prior and had asked them to perform a skit teaching about the facts of AIDS/HIV and how you get it. Fortunately they knew a lot about AIDS already and came up with a skit pretty quickly. What we didn't know was that the community members also organized for the local traditional music group to play after the skit and ahve a little market to set up during the day. AFter the theater, they organized for a soccer game to be played.(I played a little:)) And then they organized for a mopvie to be screanned on a TV for everyone to watch and then have a dance that lasted the whole night until 0400. For such a small village, this is a ton of activity-so people from all the surrounding villages came for the theater and the dancing. It was a very cool day. They gave us credit for getting it all started, but they're really the one's who did everything. Incredible. There had to have been 3-400 people from other villages there and a lot of them watched the theater. A really cool way to get good information out to everyone. The other trainees and myself were kinda overwhelmed with the showing and the credit, but it really gives us motivation going into our next village to continue organizing activities such as this. We've been training in Mako for the past 2 months while moving back and forth to Gourcy to go to the classes. The moving between has been good overall. Living in Mako is a good experience to prepare us to live at our sites. While being in Gourcy we can relax with our fellow trainees and enjoy the company of others. English speakers. Soon, we're going to Ouaga to finish our training and get sworn in. I'm looking forward to living on my own and ontrollling my own schedule, but I'm definitely going to miss hanging out with other trainees. The following 3 months will be quite an adjustment, to be sure. Hopefully, I'll be able to write and to continue to send letters as often but it may be a bit more delayed. Also, I probably won't get letters or packages nearly as quickly as before. Partially, because I'll only be checking every couple weeks or once a month for mail at Ouaga. However, I hope that doesnt keep anyone froma mailing me. I treasure every letter and package sent and I'm grateful for everyone. Thank you for sending the letters and packages you've sent already. I promise to keep writing as long as you want me to. I'm really excited everyone has contributed to the blog and is helping post my letters. I think it's truly a great thing created by a bunch of really good ppl. These letters have taken the place in my journal recently, due to time and encouragement for the blog. So there will be times of frustrations ahead and you'll be sure to find out about them and hopefully therew will be mroe greaty times like yesterday that i can share with you as I continue to learn and grow in Burkina. I just got a surprise package from my brother's family, which I was pretty pumped about and I'm looking forward anxiously for yours. I hope you're going well and I hope to keep in touch with you and everyone the best I can. Take care.

Love, Laura

Laura, I must say after typing all that my hand has cramped up extremely. I'm sure you will smile to that~ Ash