A Day in the Life of Sana, Awa

I was looking over the few blog posts that I have put up and I realized that I have never given a description of what I do in my daily life.  I tend to forget that people do not know what I am doing over here and focus on the exciting new events that happen.  So, this post is going to dedicated to giving an overview of the people I interact with on a daily basis, what I do throughout the day, and the projects that I have going on in my village.

Daily Schedule

5ish am- Wake up to the call to prayer from the Mosque behind my house

5-6am- Try to ignore the call to prayer and the people passing by my house on their way to pray

6am- Out of bed and out for a run

7-8:15 am- bucket shower and a delicious breakfast of oatmeal, powdered milk, and peanut butter

8:15- 12:00- Pre-school!

12:00- 3:00- time to relax at my house or entertain the many visitors who come over

3:00-5:00- chit chat time with the neighbors

5:00-7:00- shower, clean my house, and play with Cooper

7:00-9:00- Dinner with the neighbors

9:30- Bed

This is typically what my day looks like on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  On Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday there is no preschool so my days are a little bit (or a lot) more free.  Every three days the marche comes to town and my life gets really exciting.  The marche is a time for me to treat myself to already prepared food, cold juice, and chit chat with tanties.  This little festival doesn't actually take place in my village but in 3kms away.  There is not a whole lot of produce at the marche, but luckily I figured out hot to get produce from the source.  Recently I have started visiting the gardens and this place is wonderful!  It is located near a small pond and its so green. It doesn't look like the Burkina Faso I am used to.  At he gardens I can buy tomatoes, onions, green beans, and green beans.  Whenever I go I come with more vegetables than I can consume. I'm not sure if this is because my friends throw some in for free or the vegetables are just that cheap at the gardens.  Either way it has been so nice having fresh vegetables and I am not looking forward to their disappearance in a few short weeks.

Over the past two/three months Burkina has been in cold season.  What this means is that it gets chilly at night and its not ridiculously hot at night.  For a few weeks I actually slept with a fleece blanket!  Now that wonderful time is over and the heat is moving in.  Currently, the heat manageable and I can still sleep inside my house but soon enough my house will an oven and my life is going to take place outside.  Hopefully growing up in Arizona has somewhat prepared me for what is going to come.

Other than thinking about the weather I have a few projects going on at site that keep me somewhat busy.  My primary assignment is preschool.  My role is to train the teachers there and give them new ideas for the classroom.  I work with three women who are absolutely amazing.  My one friend Rasmata has become my mother here.  She always makes sure that Cooper and I are taken care of and generously allows us to eat with her and her family every night. I still have not started cooking on my own.  The children at the preschool are adorable, but so hard to work with.  My local language has gotten so much better since starting preschool but its still hard to communicate with the kids at times.  Also, the way I interact with children is very different from the way Burkinabe interact with children.  I enjoy running around and playing with the kids.  As a result, sometimes it can be hard for me to get their respect.  This is something that I have been working on and slowly they are beginning to realize when they need to listen and when we can play.

Other than preschool I have started a girls soccer team and a women's health group.  For the soccer team we play on Saturdays and Sundays.  There are typically 20 girls who show up consistently.  It is so much fun.  Boys play soccer here all the time but girls are never given the chance, so its good to watch them running around and having fun.  The women's health group has been a bigger project.  For this project I am working with 48 women who have children under the age of five.  We are going to meet twice a month for training that will be led by a nurse from the local health center.  We are just now finishing up with the planning and training should start in the next month. It has been a lot of work so far but once the trainings are started it should be easier.

Hopefully this gives you a general idea of what I do when I am at village. That's my life and I have been enjoying it so far.

Dance Marathon

                The Dance Marathon on November 23rd was a huge success!  Thank you so much to those of who donated money and those who are trying to organize your own Dance Marathon in the states.  Overall, the Youth Development Committee was able to raise just under $5,000 to support volunteer projects in Burkina.  This money is going to go a long way in supporting volunteer projects in their communities.  This was the first dance marathon in Burkina and after seeing how successful this was there will be more to come.

Motivational Speaker

                The dance marathon was exhausting, informative, and so much fun.   With the help of volunteers and host country nationals from Sapouy, the location of the event, the children had a great time dancing and gaining information.  Seventy-nine students from five different schools came to the event.  Each school was assigned a color and the kids came decked out in their colors.

The event started at 2:00pm with team chants and songs in order to get the students excited for the rest of the day. My role during the dance marathon was team leader for the green team.  Throughout the night I organized the kids from one activity to another and keep the spirits up when as the kids got tired.  At the event we had two motivational speakers, three sensibilizations on critical thinking, nutrition, and HIV/AIDS, and time to dance.  Dancing was a great way for both the volunteers and children to exchange their culture.  The volunteers led dances such as the limbo and choreographed routines.  One of the choreographed routines was a dance competition between the teams.  The dance was taught and then each team had about five minutes to learn the dance.  Somehow my team won.  This was/is still a surprise to me because I also learned the dance at the same time, and for those of you who have seen my skills, you understand.  During the past seven months I have learned a lot about myself and I think hearing that I can dance from a bunch of kids (who dance really well) was the most surprising. At 8:30pm the marathon came to an end and the students went home exhausted and with new skills and information that will hopefully be helpful in their futures.