I dont know why you say goodbye, I say hello (part 1)
Maybe the only redeeming thing about Burkina in the hot season are the mangos.
I can buy mangos, just picked from the tree at a penny a piece in village, right outside my house and a great many other places. They have been literally everywhere these past few weeks. The pits litter the paths and the market and the road. They seem to hang from every tree I never paid attention to.
That said, we clocked 39 degrees Celcius a saturday. I know because I was biking through the nicest part of Ouaga and they had one of those digital signs that reads the temperature. I dont know what that translates into Fahrenheit. Someone will have to do the math for me.
Yesterday we lost and gained a volunteer here. One was getting medically separated. One was coming back after being medically separated for four months. I guess Kevin drove all the way to DC from Michigan to talk to headquarters about petitioning to get back to Burkina.
Everything about the Peace Corps here takes crazy amounts of almost sub human motivation and determination. I remember being in awe of the PCVs I met when I first came to this country. So many of them had this air of having walked through hell and come out alive and with a half smile on their face. A bunch of extremely tough women with their heads on insanely straight. The kind of women you wouldnt want to go up against in a court room. That sort.
We made Kevin an extremely awesome cake by calling on the newly cultivated extreme capacity to 'make do,' or I should say Amanda did. I put on the icing. ha.
Saying goodbye to Colleen at the airport and saying hello again to Kevin made me realize some things in a clear way that had been hazy before.
No. I dont want to go home.
Yes. Despite everything, I want to stay. Because I want to see what I can build here in two years time. There will never be a more than marginally harder experience in my lifetime than this one. I will never push my limits like this again, never in this way. And I really think now, that its better to know.
Also, seeing Kevin again gave me a reference for how much Ive changed since training. Ive lost and found myself, destroyed and rebuilt a great many thoughts dreams, myself. And in the interim of it, it has given me a great sense of hope, at least in this moment.
To be continued...
I can buy mangos, just picked from the tree at a penny a piece in village, right outside my house and a great many other places. They have been literally everywhere these past few weeks. The pits litter the paths and the market and the road. They seem to hang from every tree I never paid attention to.
That said, we clocked 39 degrees Celcius a saturday. I know because I was biking through the nicest part of Ouaga and they had one of those digital signs that reads the temperature. I dont know what that translates into Fahrenheit. Someone will have to do the math for me.
Yesterday we lost and gained a volunteer here. One was getting medically separated. One was coming back after being medically separated for four months. I guess Kevin drove all the way to DC from Michigan to talk to headquarters about petitioning to get back to Burkina.
Everything about the Peace Corps here takes crazy amounts of almost sub human motivation and determination. I remember being in awe of the PCVs I met when I first came to this country. So many of them had this air of having walked through hell and come out alive and with a half smile on their face. A bunch of extremely tough women with their heads on insanely straight. The kind of women you wouldnt want to go up against in a court room. That sort.
We made Kevin an extremely awesome cake by calling on the newly cultivated extreme capacity to 'make do,' or I should say Amanda did. I put on the icing. ha.
Saying goodbye to Colleen at the airport and saying hello again to Kevin made me realize some things in a clear way that had been hazy before.
No. I dont want to go home.
Yes. Despite everything, I want to stay. Because I want to see what I can build here in two years time. There will never be a more than marginally harder experience in my lifetime than this one. I will never push my limits like this again, never in this way. And I really think now, that its better to know.
Also, seeing Kevin again gave me a reference for how much Ive changed since training. Ive lost and found myself, destroyed and rebuilt a great many thoughts dreams, myself. And in the interim of it, it has given me a great sense of hope, at least in this moment.
To be continued...