My Last Hot Season in Ramsa

They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, so now i'll present you all with fourteen thousand words. Enjoy!

Did a great training with two counterparts, educating the female students at our middle school on the menstrual cycle and how to make menstrual pads out of locally available materials. 

Touching topics like these is very important in these small African villages. The series of trainings that I held was the first time many of our 13-17 year old students were hearing about topics such as "reproductive health" or "contraception". To put it in perspective, our middle school had two 17 year old students give birth (out of wedlock) and there are two more who are pregnant. 

On a positive note, the pharmacist in my village told me that many students went to the Health Clinic after our trainings to seek out some type of birth control. Success!

With the staff at our middle school after our end of the year meeting. They've all been with me since my first months in Ramsa and have given me deep insights into the education system in Burkina Faso. 

With my favorite neighbors. The father owns the two bar establishments in village, and together we've done some cool business related activities. The mother is my unofficial mother away from home - always cooking me food and taking care of anything I need. They only have 4 kids, but when the other neighborhood kids saw the camera they immediately jumped in. 

We took around 10 pictures, and sadly this is the best one haha.

Hot season also comes with dust storms. 

Everything turned orange for this 2 hour storm. I was stuck inside laughing my head off at how powerful and long-lasting it was. 

Finally was able to get UBER to open-up in Burkina Faso. All rides are on bikes - people pay with their smiles. We've yet to make any money.

Hermane and I went to my fellow PCV's neighboring village to give a Soy Transformation training.

Making those bomb brochettes. 

All the women enjoyed the experience and the tastes of the different soy products. Now, all we can do is hope that they'll continue on with this small business in the future. 

They're cute in pictures like these, but not when they're flying out of your latrine in the middle of the night.

Had a training at the beginning of the month in Leo, so of course my buds and I went back to our first bar in BF and had a few. 

Same bar, same people. First, ninth and fifteenth month in country. 

The wind has been extremely strong this hot season as you can see here. It blew off the roof of our newly constructed school, along with many other houses in the village.

And to end on a positive note, electricity has officially come to Ramsa! People will start installing in into their homes on a weekly basis. This is when development will really take off as businesses can evolve and offer a wider range of products. 

Hope you enjoyed this picture-filled post. I'm off in two days to see my family in Europe. It's been a long time coming. Can't wait!

Until next time,

MB