Lizards
e-mail on 7/11/2002 Return to List
The skin is getting along. So far I've been
pretty careful to either stay in the shade, wear a hat, or put on a mass
quantity of sun-screen. They DO provide us with sun-screen so that's one less
thing to worry about. The only thing is it's this really thick stuff that gives
your skin a purplish hue. Overall I'm working on one hell of a farmer's tan.
So far
there haven't been too many animals. I've been largely in the major cities so
my exposure has been limited. They do have these really cool lizards that range
from one to six inches or so. They run around everywhere, clinging to walls,
then they'll stop and do what look like push-ups. Up and down with the arms,
it's hilarious. Everything here is at least a little different, like the cows
have a hump behind their shoulders, kinda like a camel. And, produce is weird,
most stuff is like a size smaller. So oranges look like limes, and limes well look
like tiny limes I guess.
Saturday I leave for my site visit. I'm so
excited. It's a very small village in the southwest, which means green fields,
cooler temps (though added humidity), and more rain. If you look on a map, it's
just 15k east of the region capital of Banfora. The name of it is Labola. I
will have a two-room house with a brick courtyard. There's an indoor shower, no
showerhead, but a drain in the floor. Then I have a new latrine just outside of
my compound. I think it's probably the perfect place for me. All the green down
there will really help keep my spirits high. Then I'm not on a major road so I
won't have just a ton of volunteers always coming by, yet I'm just a short hop
to Banfora if I do want to hook up with people. Plus Banfora is connected to a
paved road that stretches all the way to Bobo (where I am now) to Ouaga the
capital. And, paved roads are a great thing as the unpaved ones can double or
even triple travel time. So I'm only about 1 or 2 hours from Bobo, a great city
(cities here are not what you think of as a city) or 6 to 7 hours from Ouaga
where the Peace Corps headquarters is, the medical unit, and most importantly
the Rec center in the Embassy where they have American movies, TV, and food.
Plus Ouaga is dead center in the country so it's a great jumping off point for
visiting other volunteers. I couldn't be happier.
It's going to be tough though to break apart
our group in six weeks. There are some really cool people that I'll miss seeing
everyday. But I plan to do a lot of traveling. And the girl from Seattle, Lisa,
lives in the south too, which is great. We're only a couple of hours away from
each other, (not far apart, except the road is a dirt one). The two of us, plus
another girl that will be relatively south, are planning to start a writing
group. Hopefully, we'll get together once a month and read each others works
and do critiques.
Well I think that's it. I'll write you guys
when I get back from my site visit and let you know how it went.
Shaffer
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