I should take this opportunity to state here publicly (particularly in case future employers stumble upon this journal,) that the dissatisfaction with my service, at this point, is purely professional ( Read more... )

Today my supervisor came to my site ( Read more... )

This is an email I wrote to my old French teachers class back home about agriculture and how it relates to deforestation and the environment:

( Read more... )

And so I have a meeting with my supervisor on Monday. It’s going to be a plea to find me a new project. If the bureau cannot help me, there is a good chance I will go home ( Read more... )

Ive been Thoreau these past days. Odd how much complacency under my skin right now. The future really feels uncertain.

Ebou, there are two Ebous. The one I dont get along with in my courtyard had a baby a few weeks ago. The baby only weighed one kilo when it was born, it looked so terribly tiny wrapped in the panyas. The mother was still having pains and the baby was premature, so they went to the hospital in Koudougou. The baby died ( Read more... )

My village is a world so removed from this computer screen. I think about it every time I sit down to type. About how my words are going to be weighed by the people who have never seen it ( Read more... )

Its been hard for me lately to articulate insight into the Burkinabe culture in writing. I still have these bursting moments when things become clear to me, but the words are never clear in front of the computer and so I do not write them ( Read more... )

Probably over a month ago now, Maimouna, Joseph's other wife, had a baby. Of course they ask the nassara for the name. However, I have learned now, the name has to be a French name that they have already heard of. I had wanted to name the baby Hope ( Read more... )

oh my goodness, it exists ( Read more... )