This weekend was the 90th anniversary celebration of my denomination here in Burkina Faso. It was a big deal, including a church service Sunday morning at a stadium with over 3000 people in attendance! But Saturday was more fun, so let me tell you about that . . . On Saturday morning people from many […]

(This was written on Sunday, 3/17/13) “Culture shock,” or “culture stress,” can be described as “the anxiety that results from losing all the familiar signs and symbols that help us understand a situation” (definition from CLA Methodology, MTC). And that’s a bit of what I’ve been feeling this week. It’s when you’ve been trying to […]

A few weeks ago, on the way home from church I met a lady named Sally and talked to her for a bit. She said that I should come back the next day and we could chat. So after doing my laundry I headed out. On the way I talked to several people. The first […]

I’m learning French. Many of you may wonder why I still need to learn French when I’m almost fluent (well, the more time I spend here, the less I think I know). One answer is that the French here is different than the French that I know. Let me give you a few examples: Soir: […]

Same: Lots of people drive here. Different: Most drive mopeds. There is no “driver’s ed” and no age limit for driving a moped. On the other hand, if you want to drive a car you have to go through driver’s ed (I’ve heard it lasts a whole year!) and have to be a certain age […]

Last Wednesday in my Jula language class we worked on learning numbers. Now I could count up to the 1000s if I thought about it really hard and had a really long time. You would think that if you knew the numbers you’d be able to count money easily. But no, it doesn’t seem to […]

On Sunday the high was supposed to be 40 here. But that was Celsius, and in Fahrenheit that means 104. It was hot. So what would you do on such a hot afternoon? I made chocolate chip cookies. Sunday night was the determined night for me to make an American meal for my family here. […]