a bila te?

or how's the fam in gulmanchema, my new local language of choice.

so, training is over and i am officially a peace corps volunteer. not that that means i've done any work yet. our first three months at site we're just supposed to integrate into the community and meet people. very tough.

i've left the north and now live in a little village near the eastern city of fada n'gourma. i'm pretty close to benin, togo, and niger and the game parks so i should be able to do some pretty great traveling and hopefully fulfill my goal of feeding a baby lion from a bottle.

its a little weird that my first house of my own is a two room mud and cement house in burkina faso and i've come to realize that living on your own is lonlier than i would have expected it to be. school hasn't started in burkina yet and it is still the cultivating season so there aren't that many people around and all of the neighbors in my courtyard are funstionaires and haven't come back to village yet.

i took my first bush taxi today, which was an experience to say the least. i enjoyed it, although that was probably because it was a short trip. i don't know that i would have liked spending hours in a VW van with about twenty other people, especially since it was raining and none of the doors actually shut.

so, some random new things about me that have changed since being in burkina:

• i eat meat (whenever i can and a lot of it)
• i can change bike tires
• i am (or at least i was) a princess in my host village in the north
• i pump my own water
• i go to bed by 9 and get up at 5
• i am very tan
• my hair is turning blonde and is falling out at an alarming rate

well, that's it for now. i'll try to post pictures the next time i make it into ouaga.