sure it was a special day.
Here in Burkina it was a quiet but nice day.
No Santa sightings that I'm aware of.
Last week I was able to go (with a couple of colleagues)
to a village a bit away from here named Tiebele.
The picture was taken as a woman was
adourning her house while the young man on the left
was describing and explaining.
As the story goes the village's existence began in
the 6th century. There are many ethnic groups in
Burkina and the people in that village are the
Kasana (don't know spelling - it sounds like that).
At the center of the village is the traditional houses
of the royal family.
It can best be described as and old village in the
middle and surrounded by progress. Albeit not
an aesthetic progress.
But it is.a unique village and a good place for a
small visit.
Here in my village it is the holiday season and the
kids are on vacation. Which means my work has
slowed. But on the 5th of January it's school time
again.
I've basically focused on the basic sex-ed against
teenage prgnancy project. We were able to talk
to 158 girls and boys from 6 to 19 December.
Doesn't sound like much but here it's not as easy
to organize.
To get 158 kids sensebilisized took 5 groups. It was
around a whole bunch of schedules but we done
did it. It's not quite as easy as calling kids to an
assembly hall and it makes every event an adventure.
And oh yeah, so far not one girl who participated
has fallen pregnant. That's from last April till now.
With a total of 283 kids hearing our spiel, there's always
a fingers crossed realization attached to it.
In one of the last blog posts I mentioned that we
have a flag at our health clinic. Come to find out
we are the only one in the region. I always feel
that people chasing our trends are better than us
chasing theirs. But the flag was really about waking
the place up. The bonus I've come to learn, is the
discussions that result are the seeds being planted.
Dry season is on us and so is the Harmattan winds.
Which just makes the flag waving in the breeze
non-stop work well. Almost like we timed it that way.
Next week is coming of the new year 2015. Also
means the official half-way point. I found that
being in a new environment such as a country
with different culture and languages sure helps
to make the time pass by. A lot of new input to handle.
So to not be late for the New Year's greeting as I was
for the Christmas one. Happy New Year.
