Bonjour from Africa!

Hey everyone!

Sorry this update has been so long in coming. A freak hail storm
(yes, it never gets below 100 degrees outside, but one night ice fell
from the sky- crazy stuff) knocked out the internet to the one place
in town with a modem. In any case, before I give you the goods on
what I've been up to the past month or so, I have a very important
request. Before I left everyone was asking what kind of things I
would want sent to me when I got here, and I had no idea. Now I know-
I would like you all to send pictures. Pictures of us hanging out or
a funny picture of you or your family or whatever- just pictures I can
put up on my wall to make it feel a bit more like home. If you could
just slip them in a normal envelope and jot down a quick note; it
would mean a great deal to me. For those of you who forgot:

Joshua Yardley, PCT
S/c Corps de la Paix
01 B.P. 6031
Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso, Africa

Alright, so I hope this email finds all of you doing well and, for
those of you in school, passing all of your classes. The African bush
continues to treat me well: while many of my fellow trainees have
fallen ill with one thing or another, I have managed to be one of the
lucky few who has yet to get sick... Keep up the good work with those
prayers.

A couple of weeks ago, Peace Corps announced our permanent site
assignments for our two years here. For the next two years, I will be
living it up in the fabulous village of... (drumroll, please)...

BOMBOROKUY!!!

Bomborokuy is a very small village near the Mali border at the very
west of Burkina Faso. Before I was told my site, I made a list of
things I wanted my village to have. Here's how that turned out:

-Electricity- Nope
-Running water- Nope
-Cold drinks- Not so much; I'd say more lukewarm.
-Public phone- Check! We have one!
-Cell phone reception- Not exactly, though you can bike to a hill
where you can get some reception. I'm excited to be the first
American ever to get his first cell phone in West Africa.
-Meat available- Check! And if you only eat the meat at night when
you can't see what you're eating, it actually tastes pretty good.
-Church- Check! There is a huge, beautiful church run by missionaries
about two football fields from my house.


-Near other volunteers- Uh, no. Of my training group, I am the most
isolated. My closest neighbor is about 100 km away. You know what
that means- Roadtrips!!
-Near Timbuktu- Check! Apparently, Timbuktu is a real city in Mali.
If any of you are up for it, I'm already planning Spring Break
Timbuktu 2006. Let me know if you're in.

For the sake of being thorough, here were my hopes for my physical
house at my site:

-Kitchen- Check!
-Guest room- Check! The guest room is this huge, completely furnished
room, fully carpetted with beautifully carved oak walls. It has its
own attatched bathroom and a modest patio where you can barbeque
or just relax. Of course, the room is air-conditioned and always smells
like freshly cut flowers. It's available to any of you who come to
visit.
-My own courtyard- Check!
-Indoor shower stall for bucket baths- Nope, outdoors.
-Latrine in my courtyard- Nope, it's a short walk for me every time my
bladder fills up.
-Made of mud- Check!
-Tin roof- Check!
-Furnished- Check! The volunteer I am replacing is leaving me everything.
-Satellite TV- Only in the crazy dreams I have on the nights I take my
weekly malaria medication.


So that's where I'll be for the next two years. It's not much, but it
is definitely what I signed up for. I visited the site a couple weeks
ago, and everyone I met seemed great. The director of my school is a
good guy, and the other teacher at the school (that's right, there are
only two teachers for 200 kids) also seems nice. It will be 4 or 5
weeks before I finish my training and report to my site, but I'm
already excited.

Before I sign off, I want to give all of you who got the last trivia
wrong a chance to redeem yourselves. Same format this time-
pick out which one of the choices is not something that I really
experienced. (Warning- the theme of this trivia is "Unsettling
things I've discovered in the past few weeks")

(a) I discovered what happens when you don't iron your clothes
after you wash them. The volunteer I'm replacing made that
mistake and ended up with the larva of a fly growing under the
skin of his back.

(b) I discovered that the people of the town about 20km from
my site practice cannibalism.

(c) I discovered why so many Burkinabe men have long
fingernails on the pinky of their left hand. It's so they can more
effectively pick their nose.

(d) I discovered what it feels like to cut the head off a chicken.
After decapitating it (and holding it while its headless, bloody
body flung itself around for about 30 seconds), I plucked it,
cleaned it, cooked it, and ate it.


(e) I discovered what it's like to be up to my ankles in poop.
Within five minutes of arriving at my site, I (wearing sandals)
stepped in a cow pie about 3 inches deep. Welcome to Bomborokuy!

Before I give you the answer, I want to let you all know that the
French is finally starting to come along. However, in my village,
only the very educated speak any French. So, I have to also learn a
local African language, Jula. The thing is, my Jula teacher doesn't
speak English. If there is anything harder than learning a foreign
language, it's learning a foreign language in a foreign language. The
following is an actual conversation that took place between me and my
Jula teacher:

Teacher (in Jula): Blah blah nonsense blah
Me (in French): I do not comprehend. What does that mean?
Teacher (in French): It means, "Blah blah nonsense blah."
Me (in English): Well, this is going to be interesting...

Remember, everyone, please send pictures! If you send them soon, I
should get them before I finish training. Like always, thanks for
continuing to keep me in your prayers.

Regards,
josh

P.S.: (e) is not true. Although Bomborokuy is a massive poop mine
field, I managed to sidestep all the mines on my first visit.