Letter to Joy and Mark - 1/11/06

Dear Joy and Mark,
After a few weeks break from writing, I'm now finally back at it.

During the holiday season I traveled quite a bit and was remiss in writing or sending any letters. My taste for them diminished as my time became more constrained. But for the past week I've been thinking in ways I should put down on paper and share with you all and so I'm determined to stay at it. To catch up everyone on my holiday endeavors and I'll start with this letter.

The friends that I became closest to while in training are all two days worth of traveling away. But since all my neighboring Peace Corps volunteers are as such I decided to make the most of the traveling and holidays. All my travels must go through the capital where I can change transports to the next village. There are backroads to neighboring volunteers, but I'm told it would take longer using the most direct route due to the nature of the roads. Going through the capital is also convenient because I can stop in at the bureau, work some on my regional survey that's due after my 3rd month in the village, and shop a little for the holidays.

Getting to Ouaga varies greatly in time and depends heavily on the driver's discretion. Some drivers are out for as much money as they can and stop every village and bush to pick up potential passengers, no matter how many are already aboard. These drivers usually take about 7 to 10 hours to go about 105 miles. Not Fun, especially when they pack about 30 people with all their bags, bikes, chickens, goats, sacks of grain, and babies in or on the bush taxi. Think 60s hippie minivan and then imagine the packing job one needs to travel like this. After 7 hours my claustrophobia usually gets the better of me.

Pause: Had to stop and cook some lamb meat that a neighbor brought over as a gift fro Tabaski (Muslim holiday). It was a pretty generous cut, so I couldn't let it go to waste. Yum!

Anyhoo. I usually try to go to Ouaga on Thursdays because the driver, Paul, is a maniac and will stop for noone. I love it. So he gets there in about 3 hours with all the major towns and roadblocks included.

So I spent a couple days in Ouaga working and I saw my supervisor, Dr. Claud. She's in charge of all the health volunteers. I told her I was planning on celebrating Christmas in Zabre, a village of one friend, and then New Year's in Djibo, village of another. In between I wanted to stay in Ouaga and do research on some NGOs that could maybe help on some projects in my village. My request was abnormal because the first 3 months in village we're supposed to stay in village all the time except for a 2-day trip to regional capital every month. Being away from village like I planned is a big no-no, but I was open about it and my intent, and she let me do it. She's pretty laid back about stuff like that anyway.

I won't make this a marathon letter as I need to write some other folks. Thanks so much for your last letter. It really heartened me to read it (a few times already).