From Mom:

TC called yesterday – Monday- at about 8 a.m. It was 1 p.m. in BK. She is fine and dandy.
She apologizes for not updating the blog and realizes she has left us with half a prank story. She PROMISES to update the blog. Says the internet is frequently down, do when it does work it is not only expensive but in demand.
On the day she called she was in Goursi and would be for the next two days. On Wednesday they were to learn which village they were assigned to. The process of assigning which PCV goes where is made mostly after observations by the PC people. The PCV is interviewed and are given one wish. TC said she wished to be centrally located so she could visit everyone. Says it really does make a difference where you are assigned as, if you are way north, it can take all of a day to get to where there is another PCV.
Thur of this week they all go to “ Ouaga”—the nickname of the capital city “Ouagadougou” for two days. There they will meet their Burkinabe “counterparts” – this is the person who will be their buddy for the next two years in the village to which they are assigned. Sunday she goes off with her “counterpart” to that village...she says, that will be the first time the PCV group will be split up. She will stay there for a week and there also meet the PCV they are replacing, if there is one. Then they regroup back in Goursi (where the flush toilets are but often don’t). On April 27 she goes back to her host family in Yaka and back to the 10 days there, 4 days in Gousi schedule until, I think 2 months from now, they actually go to their village to do what they came to BF to do.
Some things: April is the hottest month (ergo cruel). I looked online for the weather in Ouaga ...said about 106/86 but Patrice said “Oh but that’s Ouaga, here in Goursi and Yako we are closer to the Sahara...and...” She said it rained for 20 minutes last night and now it is humid as well as hot.
The girls do not wear anything that shows thigh as showing thigh is a sure sign of a prostitute. So long skirts and pants are the order of the day. She rides a bike so, for her, it’s more often pants even tho skirts are cooler. Some male PCV wear shorts but the BF people think they look like little boys.
I asked her about a gift what we might send her host family. Well, she said, they really don’t have any decorations on walls or knick knacks. Everything they have is functional. She suggested picture books of Nebraska and maybe “Catholicy” things.
Her hut is the same as everyone’s: it is cement walls, tin roof, cement floor. She has a bedroom and what could be used for a living room but it’s too hot. She has electricity in the hut till midnight. She is unusually blessed with a shower room...as small, again, cement room with a hole in the floor where she takes her bucket showers. The waste water runs into the courtyard. The other PCV take their bucket showers in the latrine.
On a usual day in Yaka she is with her PCV friends most of the day...doing assignments like, find out what happens at a funeral , and about agriculture, and the proper dress for this ritual or that. At night, she and her host brother and sister (who are near her age) come together with others in the courtyard (dirt with a cross in the center) and, I guess, hang out. She says, “we laugh a lot.”
Patrice’s birthday is coming up May 29. She says even with Air Mail (essential) it can take 6-8 weeks...so I better get sending. If anyone would like to send her stuff, first check the list in one of her blog links, something like “ More information from another great site from a returned PCV”. I think she’d be very charmed by some great cards.
And that’s what I know.