Noel, hannukah, et les commercants mechants

Dear friends and fambly-

Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah ( I have been “lighting” a menorah each night . . . . that is, coloring in the flames on a picture of a menorah a couple of us vounteers drew)
And, to cover all the bases, Happy New Year!

I am including lots of pictures and a video in this installment!! yay!!
Sadly I don’t yet have the picture to which I alluded in the last e-mail – my friend still needs to upload / send it. We shall forgive her for the time being, yes?
I can’t preview the pics in gmail, so the following descriptions may not line up with the order you see them on your screen.
In sum we have:

– One of my host mothers, Mariam, standing next to 1/2 a goat carcass hung just outside my room. The goat was slaughtered (being me, I captured the slaughtering on video for posterity…. not included here) for the Muslim holiday of Tabaski, which celebrates the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. I participated in a giiiiiant communal prayer outside (really short compared to, say, Yom Kippur), then went back to the house and helped cook some liver, handed out candy to the kids, and was generally sociable. Visited with some of my neighboring Peace Corps volunteers and their families, and had some really strong really sweet tea with a few random villagers. The tea is completely delicious, and I’m sure the massive quantities of sugar that make it so tasty are a perfect detriment to my teeth.

- My host sister Bibata (who is AWESOME) in our courtyard, cooking liver on Tabaski (charcoal stove thinger just off camera). I took control over the cooking for once, and made sure the food was a) not massively overcooked, and b) did not involve the use of an entire block of MSG/boullion called ‘Maggie’, a culinary addition that is eminantly popular here. I am happy to report the liver turned out freakin delicious. My host mothers of course gave me like half the whole pot… so convinced Bibata she COULD in fact share some with me, and then gesticulate in Moré to my mothers why they should eat the rest – especially my mom who was pregnant. I think I managed to convey that ‘meat is good for babies’. Good enough.

- Segue the previous line into a pic of me holding a baby – my host mom Agarah had her baby (boy) last week! I was invited to the baptism yesterday, which basically involved lots of socializing, rice, and a sweet drink made from millet and tamarind called Zoomkoom’. I actually sorta have a recipe for it in a notebook, although when I was making it alongside my sister, she added some sort of secret ingredient that I dunno what it was. I think tamarind juice, but I dunno. Anyway, ask me about it when I get back, and we can try to hunt down some millet and pretent we’re Burkinabé. OH! notice the awesome pants I am wearing in that picture.

-  Segue pants reference into a group shot of Americans (all the guys from my group of 32 volunteers) in our ceremonial best! That shot was taken shortly before being sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers – that’s right folks, I am no longer a trainee, but instead a full fledged and independent volunteer. This means there is much less immediate support when, say, a stove salesman from the market hunts us down at our hotel / training center to yell about gas tubing costing more than we originally paid for. It’s a somewhat long story, but the point is, a couple of us are praying this guy just goes away and doesn’t go overboard with claiming we owe him more money. If the gendarme gets involved, that would be extremely annoying.
Back to the ceremony – I gave a thank-you speech in french. It went over quite well. I’m getting almost good at this speech thing, and with enough advance notice, I can pull it off in a second language. I also got interviewed by one of the national tv stations here in Burkina, and apparently I spoke clearly enough off-the-cuff that they actually put the freaking thing in the news. Several of my fellow PCVs saw it, as did the Burkinabé lady I buy tamarind juice from. Sadly, I myself missed it. Someone Google ‘RTB burkina faso’ for me and see if they randomly have archives (unlikely). The ceremoney was on the 19th… corps de la paix americain.

- There may or may not be a picture of me in my short bubu and pants standing in front of a Burkina Faso flag. I can’t remember what I attached to this e-mail…. ugh.  They’re all pretty, anyway. The clothes I had made especially for the ceremony – the cloth for the bubu (shirt) is stuff I bought myself, and the material for the pants were a gift from my host family. I hope to have them come home with me (the clothes, that is…. bringing my host family of 11 people home with me, might present some logistical issues).

- There is a picture of a soccer field and a bunch of people lined up alongside it. The soccer field may not look like a soccer field, what with the lack of grass and painted lines and such. But I assure you, it is a soccer field. The village of Somyaga challenged us PCVs to a soccer game. Probably 1/2 the town came out to watch the spectacle, which was especially great because we had planned a nutrition theater sketch (strange, but it works!) at halftime. For more on the sketch, see the attached video, where some guys discuss their families health in relation to whether or no they’re eating enought vitamins and protein. Hopefully you can follow along in the Moré language, just as I did. Not.
In related news, we won the soccer game. I think they were taking it easy on us. I played goalie. Several of the women on our team took to screaming as a valid (and rather effective) tactic to temorarily confuse out opponents. No major injuries.

If there are other pictures not here-in described, well, bonus for you.

((OH! one has me with my host dad Yassia and my host mom Limata. Told you I had 3 host moms;….) Just make up a story to go along with it, and send your submissions to {email removed for privacy – admin}.  Also be sure to send updates about life back home in the states, as (pardon the capitals, but the emphasis is necessary) I REALLY LOVE GETTING E-MAILS!!!
A new round of letters is going state-side, so please do keep up the postage fun as well. There are going to be lots of stories to come my friends – Friday I officially move into my site at Sabcé, and attempt to set up shop, get some tables and chairs made, figure out my work schedule, figure out how to keep little kids from crowding around my house all day, and buy a gas container to hook my stove up to. I’m off to go buy some bleach now, and insect spray. Both eminantly useful here – I have to bleach ALL my vegetables (and rinse thereafter in filtered water, don’t worry), and the insect stuff keeps the cockroaches sufficiently dead.

Oh, we also taught a song about washing your hands with soap to a bunch of primary school kids. They are completely adorable, and ripe for the teaching, to be honest.

Send news, send news, and send more news. I love your emails!

Best
Aaron