Site Announcement

Yesterday was a big day for the stagiares in Burkina...we got your sites where we will be living for the next two years! They made it into a big deal and had a huge map on the wall with all the villages. I forgot my camera but hopefully I can get a picture from someone else. It was very cool! One person read off a site description and we tried to guess who it was. They called the name and whoevers site it was put a picture of themselves on the map in their town. They then read off the next description and so on until everyone had a new home. I was toward the end and very nervous because so many of the sites sounded great and I would love to go there. We were able to have some input about our desires last week when we interviewed with our APCD--Associate PC Director for Health. We werent promised anything but it felt like they wanted to match us as best as possible so that we will be happy there. Its hard to know what you really want though since we have been here such a short time. I said I probably wanted a larger village where I would have multiple organizations to work with, access to a market and larger town with grocery store so that I can cook lots, would like to be the first volunteer in the community, and wanted to live on my own with a private courtyard. I got almost all my wishes except for the housing situation and dont really know much about that yet. It sounds like I will be in a family compound but have my own house.

I dont think I am suppose to name my specific village for security reasons since this is a public forum. If you are interested in knowing, send me an email and I can tell you. Here is my village description excluding actual name:

Congratulations! You are going to the village of §§§§. Welcome to the region of Tenkodogo and the health district of Garango. You will be living in the home village of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Minister of Health--this is the same person. Expectatio nfor the volunteer is high, but we believe that you will meet this expectation and your public health background will help. You will be among the first health volunteers in this region along zith a PST mate in a nearby village! You also have a secondary educatio nPCV nearby. The city of Tenkodogo is easy accessible from your village where you will find such luxuries and a supermarche. The local language is Bissa but Moore is also well spoken.

I also found out that there about 6000 people and I am about 30km from Tenkodogo and probably about 6 km from the next volunteer who is training with me currently. Very excited about this! I have tons of questions of course but will just have to wait until I move there on Dec 26 to find out more! You should be able to find Tenkodogo on a map and probably even Garango. Tenkodogo is on the main road to Togo so many people will pass through when traveling between the two countries.