When am I coming home and what am I gonna do?

Don't know and don't know.

Just kidding, but not by much. ::-)

Um, officially I'm allowed to Close my service by the Sept 18th of this year. However, since there's about 30 volunteers in my group, they can't outprocess us all at once, because of the ridiculous amount of paperwork that the government expects from each one of us. So the most I've seen leave at once has been 8 in one week. There are some PCV's who have very good reasons for leaving ASAP, and besides missing friends and family, I don't have one. So, I'm expecting to leave here around the first of October. Haven't completely ruled out stopping in Europe for some site seeing with my friends, if anyone is interested in meeting me there, let me know. That leads to the next question......

What am I doing once I get home?
Um, Depending on my mood, I could answer that several ways.
Immediately, I'm going to see my folks hopefully, but not too much later in between the major holidays I would like to visit folks around the midwest to just reconnect a bit(ahem, aka: mooch). Just kidding, I'm really looking forward to see you guys and seeing how you all are doing.
I'm planning on running some short distance races with my sisters within a couple months just to get back into shape. They'll be cold Halloween or Turkey trots, but fun and I don't know where I'll be doing them yet, just that I'll be running next to someone who'll look uncannily like me.
Throughout and after the holidays I'll probably be lookin at different schools I'd like to attend. The things is that, the school could be a technical-training school, like arch-welding, a massage therapy school, which I'm sure you all wouldn't want to benefit from that possibility, and/or a school for art classes. One or the other, or all of 'em. Before that however, i just need to warn you, there will be a Laura-palooza 2.
That's right, you heard it, and now you can lock your doors in advance. I know i said I'd visit people in the midwest, but this trip will include many of the states I visited before I left for Africa and it'll be with a car. A PCV friend of mine here, Jane, is planning to go along on the trip(she said no way in hell are we riding a motorcycle) and we'll be hitting both her and mine family and friends. And just before you guys get the wrong idea, Jane is straight. Nuf said.
It must sound like I'm a complete hippy traveling like the wind both before and after my PC experience in Africa, but...that's too bad.
I'm looking at schools in the midwest and am thinking about Iowa and Wisconsin right now, but we'll see how schools and opportunities arise. Not rushing back into things, as you see, but want to do things I haven't done yet.
That's enough for now. Hope this finds you all well and good.
Oh!
Before I forget, I just got a great package from David. It's really cool and some of the contents are crazy but with a nice switch. I'm going to try to make sushi with the octopus and the mussels you sent. I'll let you know how it goes. The cappucino is really cool too. Thank you guys soo much! fun stuff.

Take care and hopefully will write again soon.
L

"à&=è housing issues

Okay, before i get into the details of my housing issues, I gotta tell you the little welcome home i got from Burkina yesterday. I was riding on a bus minding my own business. The woman sitting next to me had a cute little 4 year old boy sitting on her lap. i was about to fall asleep when i feel something on my leg. I look down and the woman has her boy standing on the bus's floor pissing on the floor next to and onto my leg! Let's just say i wasn't happy. I pick my backpack off the floor to avoid the soaking. I cuss in English, obviously displeased and tell the woman, "Next time you child has to piss, don't let him piss on me!" Funny how i wasn't even mad he was on the bus at the time. Jayne, not one word from you about pissing dogs. Good times, Anyhoo, onward to housing stuff.

Okay, so my house, the one that fell down finally got fixed, but it took nearly an act of God to get it done. In the beginning of January, my asshole nurse got notice from the district that he would be moving. Well, the asshole and health committe used that as an excuse that the next incoming chief nurse would have to take care of my housing problem. In the meantime my "barely scrapping by" health committe somehow found enough money to begin construction on a building that would be the personal office of the chief nurse and cashier window. Built out of cement(very expensive). Well, January went by and February was almost done and this dirt poor committee had done nothing to fix my house, but they still were paying for the rent(9000 cfa/month) of the house i was in. So, mid-feb, my boss comes down and sees all the construction that not being done on my house, but for the clinic, that she puts the question to them,"How can you afford this nice new building, but can't afford to repair the volunteer's house?"(Which would be comparitively inexpensive) Needless to say they couldn't answer her. She gave them til the 1st of Mar to fix the house or they would lose the possibility of a replacement volunteer.
Well, March 1st came and went without repairs. They were still waitng for the new nurst to come to do the repairs. I then told them that, the nurse is NOT my boss, I don't work for him, I work for the village and it's the committee's responsibility, not the nurses for my housing. They were going to lose me as a volunteer by the end of the month if they didn't get their act together and they would be shamed by the village. The committee actually laughed at my outburst so I told my boss, that the only way they would listen was if their district doctor told them to.
So my boss call the district doctor and told him of the situation. He was pissed, apologized, and told my boss that they would fix the house immediately. The day after he called the village, the house was fixed. Ridiculous, I know, but this stupid health committee was willing to let my house fall apart and still pay rent totaling over a 100'000cfa and have nothing to show for it. Now at least they have a house repaired and ready for less than half that. Idiots.
I moved in right before I left for vacation, and it's been 3 weeks since I've been back. The rains have started and i'll be curious if the house is holding up okay or not. There was a hole in the tin roof that isn't probably fixed by now so probably most of my stuff is probably soaked and rotting. I can't wait to go back to village!
Yeah!
Actually, I do miss being in village a bit. I am looking forward to relaxing again and seeing folks again. Well, that's enough for now. Gotta go.Take care, more to post soon.

Everybody loves photos!

This is a group of good friends getting ready to have fun for a close of service(COS) party. This is in the courtyard of the transit house for volunteers.
Two hilarious chics on my lap, To the left is Becca and to the right is Kelly. Two great good time gals
Me in a dress, yeah, that's right, get over it. That's kelly next to me, she's a true Texan. Don't mess with her. ;-)

What the #$% is going on at the bureau?

Well, thankfully, not much. I mentioned a while back that the Volunteer Advisory Committee(VAC), which I'm a part of, was going to have a meeting with the bureau's senior staff. These meetings occur every quarter and are meant as a valve for the general Volunteer community to voice their concerns through their VAC rep. The meeting occured the 1st and 2nd of March. The 1st was just a day for VAC to get together, organize our thoughts and prepare for the real meeting with the senior staff the following day. On the 2nd, we met with the seniour staff. This particular meeting was abnormal because the previous meetings had just the Country Director,Marily, and the Adminstrative Officer, Jeff(VERY Cool dude). The previous meetings were honestly akward and tense. This meeting however had most of the senior staff actually present. It included most of the APCD's(Assistant PeaceCorp Directors)(which are in charge of respective sector's like health, education, etc.), and Marily, Jeff, and a few others who were present to address other organizational concerns. The lead up to this meeting was expectantly tense. Everyone knew what we were going to bring up as a general volunteer concern. The pics from the computers and what the hell they were about.

Well, the meeting in summation went suprisingly well. Everyone kept their cool and points were made and explained on both sides. The only thing that didn't fly was that, the bureau explained the photo's were found "accidentally". The photo of the volunteer on a moto, unfortunately, couldn't be dealt with, beyond the fact they found it, they had no choice but to follow through with the regulations. They expressed the difficulty of having to send Elizabeth home and honest regret of the situation, but the "accidental" find left them no choice.

Their explanation of how they handled the situation pertaining the method of notifying respective volunteers via cryptic text messages and phone calls was an honest, "Yeah, we shouldn't have done it that way". That's about as much as we could have asked for.

We then went on to explain, due to these incidents and a subsequent negative publication by the CD condemning volunteers' behavior in general with an article boldly titled "I'm Disappointed", that the general moral is the lowest it's been during our tenure in country. We further spoke that positive reinforcement from the bureau as a whole has been absent and needed to be amended for moral to improve. Thankfully Marily, the CD, listened to use with an open ear and since then has made and honest attempt to go out of her way to give positive reinforcement. Much to the happy surprise of many volunteers. Including myself.

So, since then, things have calmed down. We've recieved new computers and now, no volunteers keep any private information on them. Thus, my only back up is really my thumb-drive. Wish me luck with that.

Other news with the bureau, I've been working on preparing a cross sectoral conference for volunteers in other sectors who are interested in working on health related activities. That's to occur in June sometime and hopefully will get a good response.
Also, Still doing working with the AIDS Task Force(ATF) which I was tasked to set up with a fellow health volunteer, Jamie Butler-Dawson. Besides sounding like the A-Team(that being our nickname) we set up a quick start committee to get the word out to all sectors about AIDS awareness, activities and ideas. The real reason for the group is to collect data from volunteers who have done AIDS related activities and log their data for washington to follow. Doing this in order to keep track and begin to see what sort of impact we're having. The committee just started and our next meeting will be in June and will hopefully start compiling useful data then. Good Times.

The VAC meeting will also have some meeting, I believe in June/July but it's far enough away, I'm not sure of the dates either. I just need to get through the next couple months first. :-) Hope that clears up some unfinished letters I sent before. More to come soon. Next, What the hell is going on with your house. Lots-o-drama there. Stay tuned, no really, I'll post about it soon.

Helloooo? you still there?

Well, yes, I am, but I admit it's been a while since I wrote anyone, so I won't be too upset that you haven't been checking this site as often as you used to. Anyhoo, I don't have much of an excuse or reason why i haven't been writing/blogging, but the honest one is I've been somewhat distracted and blocked. However, the distraction has ended and I felt it was finally the time to get back on the writing wagon and let you guys know what I've been up too in Burkina for the past couple months and further explain my lax attitude towards writing.

After the New year holidays and the wonderful packages that were sent to me, I felt really humbled by all the generous gifts and somewhat stupified. Sounds weird, but let me explain. After all the time I had been here, and being in the midst of my second year, seemingly prepared to do the whole thing in repeat, I couldn't see how anyone would be interested in what was going on here. It seemed to me that all the daily goings-on were the same and my complaints were too. I didn't want to write about them and still seem negative, like I did so well when I first go here. So I literally had writers block and avoided writing. Even when I had time and put a notebook and pen in front of me, I had no idea where to start, soooooo, I didn't. To add briefly, I also was in the midst of a relationship that unfortunately ended. But now, I feel it necessary to answer a few questions that were posed to me by my family. Such as; what's going on in the bureau? What the hell happened with your house? When the hell are you coming home? What the hell are you gonna do when you get back and when are you coming to visit/? ;-)And many more that i haven't mentioned, please put something in the comments if there's something specific you'd like to more info on, or you can just tell me to shut up, which I'll respond "go back to your porn site" in a very tactful manner. :-)~