A day in the life of a Nasara

Burkina Faso has welcomed me with open arms... or more appropriatly big open eyes. It's amazing but here i am more interesting than TV, welcome to the life of a Nasara. (Nasara: whitey, probably the word i hear the most here) So here is a quick look in a day in the life of a Nasara.
Wake up (outside, if there wasn't a rain or wind storm) between 5 and 530. Put my bed away with the help of two of my sisters. It's hard to do anything in this country without being helped by someone. Head to my latrine, yes that's a whole in the ground. And the to my shower... another hole, but we like this one. Take a bucket shower... one of the best parts of my day. And then it's time for breakfast of bread and nescafe. After breakfast, depending on time I walk around my families compound and see how many of my 150 plus family members i can say hi to before heading off to lessons. And this is not just HI... this is HI in moore which is a lot longer. If I am having class in village I don't have to been there until 8, but half of my days are classes in Ouahigouya, the bigger town where our training center is. Going to Ouahigouya, means biking about 8-10k each way... in the heat. So even if we didn't have to leave so early, leaving much later than 7am is just pure craziness. During the days (8-515) I have 4 classes sessions which comprise of a mix of things, from lots of language, to cross culture class, to tech training and medical sessions. Lunch depends on where we are. In town we can eat at the training center or out, in village we are taking our group of four and rotating between host families. around lunchtime we can be hitting about 105 degrees. After classes are done, back to biking I go. After a long, hot, stinky ride. It bqck to my host family, another shower and the dinner as the sun goes down. Then we set up my bed and after journaling and trying to do a bit of PC reading/homework it's off to sleep i go.
Not so bad right. Life is pretty good. We get watch all the time and I had a spidar crawl out of my skin the other day but other than that... not to bad.

Hopefully i will be able to right more soon, and get pictuers up soon.

Thank You Santa Cruz

Tonight ended my last night in Santa Cruz. First thing tomorrow morning I am on a plane to Washington DC for the first stage in my Africa experience. I have spent the last week in SC feeling the love of my family and friends here. From a great going away party, to seeing people I hadn't seen in years, meeting new friends, going to Jordan's t-ball game, eating great food (thanks Mom) and just enjoying the amazing weather; I had a great time this week. It's very late and I am off tomorrow so I am going to keep this short and wrap things up. Thank you Santa Cruz and all of your amazing people, and thanks to all my city and east bay friends too. I will miss you all (well, at least most of you) while I am in Africa. Please keep in touch and I will try to do the same. Good night and best wishes. Off I go (finally), Krista