My kitten is fantastic, and nuts. Found a 4th mango variety. Other errata.

I apologize in advance – You can already tell by the title of this email that the opportunity cost of me having a cat, is that the following few emails will necessarily include lots of info and musings on said cat, while invariably leaving out other arguably more Burkinabe subjects. Such are the difficulties we all face in these dark days of 2009.

Gem!

So the cat. She is completely amazing, out of her mind, and has a leash. She plays with pretty much anything that moves, or that doesn’t move. Her name is currently ‘Gem’, which was given mostly on a trial basis, and I don’t yet know whether I can officially call it her ‘real’ name. I received some fun suggestions from you all, and of which I am most intrigued by ‘Bastet’. The idea of having an Egyptian Goddess as my co-habitor is very inviting, but she displays not very much of the Protector-type spirit attributed to Bastet. She more of a ‘Loki’ or ‘Puck’ if anything, althouth that’s true of many kittens and their adorably irrascible behavior. Were the kitty a male kitty, I would opt for another excellent suggestion, ‘Felix’, in keeping with the fact that she is all black and white. However, mine is not a male kitty, so without doing something odd like caller her ‘Felixe’ or ‘Felixette’, I dunno if going that route is appropriate.

So for now ‘Gem’ stands, in keeping with the idea that she is something very precious. She can be seen in all her kitten-like glory in a picture attached below. I should mention that she is developping in an entirely unforseen and cute manner; upon arrival, she was either border-line feral or simply scared out of her freaking cat mind. She escaped from her kitty box, streaked over to a corner of the house, and proceeded to claw her way up 1 1/2 feet of concrete wall. I was duly impressed, and did the only reasonable thing I could- call in a friend to help catch her, fashion a small leash from some left over drape material, tie her to a table leg, and feed her tuna fish that came from a care package sent by a friend from high school (props, Heather!). Ergo, kitty eats better than I do.

A week later, she waits by the door for me to come home. Going outside seems not terribly interesting for her, and in fact is downright scary (weird…). My attempts to get her used to perching on my shoulder are working – she now climbs up near my head of her own accord. She is getting semi used to being carried around in my messenger bag without trying to escape, and has come out to have a beer with me twice, and also to buy bread. She goes completely gonzo over tuna, although I generally give her rice and sardines. I would ultimately like to find some dry un-fishy alternative to both. She is already litter-box trained… there like wasn’t even an issue. I filled a box with sand and put it in the house. She uses it. Settled.

Gah, see? I knew I would end up talking just about the kitty. Ok, let me attempt to move on…..

The video I’ve attached inovlves something I mentioned in my previous email – namely the women beating a new courtyard into existence. They each have these little wooden beating sticks, flattened on one side so as to allow hitting the ground repetively and smashing a mixture of mud and water into a pretty stable surface. They actually went through at the end of the process and dusted the entire surface with concrete, which will make the whole project last a bit longer than otherwise. All in all my friend’s courtyard looks quite smashing now, as he also recently constructed not one but two new houses. Interesting gender note – building a house is man’s work, while whacking a new courtyard is something for the women. I will be going back there soon for some more ‘To’ with sesame sauce. And in case i haven’t already mentioned To – which would be a downright tragedy and truly bring in to question my capabilities as a cultural liason – tis what many many many Burkinabe families eat constantly. A kind of ‘Cream of Wheat’ foodstuff, except made with millet or sorghum. Involves a lot of pounding and pounding and mixing and sitting very close to a very very hot cauldron mixing constantly. Always served with an exciting sauce accompaniement, such as sesame (rare), gumbo (common), baobab leaf (common), or oseille leaf (semi common). Frequently the sauces made from leaves call into being an exciting frech word, ‘gluante’. The nearest English translation is ‘slimy’. Enough said.

The third attachment (second picture) was taken during a wedding ceremony I went to in the capital, and shows one of many exciting varieties of ‘old-man-hat’ available here in Burkina. Often the best hats belong to the Muslims, but there are some other traditional hats that any guy can wear, and which are cone-shaped and quite colorful. I have one hanging in my house… a birthday gift, in fact. Ladies tend to opt for head scarfs / bandana-like coverings, many of which are pretty fantastic. There is one really awesome pattern I see a lot in the Center-North region, and which is worn only by the Mossi people (the largest ethnic group in Burkina). It is red and black, with lots of pretty white doves. The material also makes for lovely tank-tops, as sported by a few of the volunteers over here.
Hmmm…. sadly I cannot attach anymore pictures – some sort of goblin is interferering with the computer recognizing my camera.

I will leave off with some work updates and things that are on aaron’s plate in general-

- Have to send out some emails about the school liasons. Things are looking good on that end, just very amorphous.

- Recently helped out on a big menegities vaccination campaign, which had me moto-ing (ie on back of a not-quite-motorcycle) to villages in the bush and making hatch marks through lots of little circles. Gotta keep tabs on the number of people vaccinated! School children were remarkably well behaved.

- Tomorrow I start some sort of English class / club at the local middle school. Technically it’s open to the whole village, but I haven’t spread much word about it yet. Want to see where things start, then expand if it makes sense.

- Continuing conversations with a develepment org here in Sabce that does a lot of ag work. We are talking about using a new rice-cultivation method for a rice project happeneing not to far from here. Said method was developped by a nifty French guy, and somehow a professor at Cornell got on board and has done a ton of work to spread its glories. He in turn gave a lecture I attended in Boston, and perhaps now Burkina will benefit from its goodness.

- Working with the local forester to get a little tree-farm going. Wednesday we are going to the water factory (odd, right?) that the mayor owns to look for some suitable space for planting. Likewise I am attending a meeting next week of a nursery association covering 17 villages around Sabce. Should be spiffy.

- Soon (ie next week) begin a program of health activities / games / etc in the primary schools. Start with Sabce, then add some other schools in the vicinity (5k or less).

- Baby weighings!

GOtta jet. My best to all. Thank you for cat name suggestions, and for updates on life and times in general.

Aaron Buchsbaum

(Harouna Sawadogo)