Burkina Faso Team 2012

Its that time. The time we all dreaded and our families were all excited for.  After 3 weeks in the beautiful country of Burkina Faso, we are heading back to the United States.  It has been a blessed 3 weeks over here with many different projects accomplished and lives touched.  We are grateful for the opportunity and time we spent over here and are reluctant to go back to the states.  But, it had to happen and here it goes...

Depart Ouaga: Approx 9:20 PM (depending, its Africa time) (4:20 US time)
Arrive in Paris: 6:00 AM (minor stop in Niger) (Midnight US time)

Depart Paris: 10:50 AM (4:50  US time)
Arrive in Dulles: 1:39 PM (make sense? think time difference...)

Angela will have her cell phone on the way back from Dulles for students to inform their parents of our arrival on campus.  Our rough estimated time to be back on campus is 5:14 PM. 




Pray for the plane!
See you all in America :)

And after two weeks apart, we are ALL back together, safe and sound in the SIM guest house in Ouaga. The Yako group came back depressed from leaving the orphans.  The Mahadaga group came back dirty from 8 hours in a non air conditioned van.  But now we are all together for our final days, restarting our constant nights of card games.  Tomorrow we are off to church where we were invited to sing a song (good thing we're all education, computer and engineering majors).

From Ouaga, peace out.

As we, the computing group inherited more and more computers in Apartment 4 at the SIM guest house, it is apparent that our "stupid french outlets" comments are correct.  Nothing in Burkina is grounded, basically  promising a shock to your hand  as soon as you plug in a power cord for a computer. It doesn't hurt you, just startles you, and once you get startled enough, it gets annoying.  Tip of the day: wear shoes when you plug a power cord into an outlet in Burkina Faso.

In other news, we revisited our 6 French netbooks we set up for IMS in the beginning of our trip.  Scott ventured out with Pauline earlier in the morning (being gracious enough to let the students sleep in :) ) to finish the rest of the networking, along with caging the router.  Pauline drove back out to SIM to pick up the rest of us so we could meet the students studying at IMS, along with sitting in the class which our dear friend John was teaching. At the end of the class, Joel Gray an SIM missionary told the students how we had set up the netbooks for them in order to learn, along with us introducing ourselves in our french skills.  All of the students were endlessly grateful for our work at their school, most saying 'Thank you' in English cause they knew we didn't know french!

Diana then joined us for our afternoon, taking us to a local crafts street for some souveneir shopping.  It seemed though as soon as the white people entered the street, they all came swarming.  We are always told to barter for our items, most of the time leading to either a good deal or overwhelming purchase.  Though it was stressful, we enjoyed our shopping trip with Diana and her french speaking assistance. 

This evening we finally got to field test our Acer projector we fixed for someone here.  Slowly our viewing of movies has gotten more and more advanced, finally upgrading to a home theatre with a projector... :)

Over the past couple days, the computing groups finished two projects: setting up Diana's computer lab along with installing a network at CMA.

On Tuesday we returned to CJFL (the school that Diana works at) to continue with our installations and software updates in her lab.  After a long day, Diana a joined us for dinner at one of her favorite local places, coincidentally a Chinese place.  The food there was so good, everyone left with fully bellys along with leftovers.

Wednesday was our last day with Diana at CJFL.  Kara, Austin, Jeremy, and Matt went to CJFL, while Scott went back to SIM Tech to assist John with the remainder of his computers.  We had a few machines at CJFL to fix up along with networking them and rearranging her lab.  With a prediction of only 3 computers hoping to be fixed, we beat Diana's wish fixing 13 out of the 19 computers there, even leaving her with extra ones because we didn't have enough monitors for the computers.


Diana was forever grateful for our assistance in the lab for her middle school girls to use.  While the students were finishing up at CJFL, Scott when back to SIM Tech to gather all of the specs from the lab computers, along with updating any software that was needed for the students and teachers at the school.


Early on Thursday, we headed over to a school that a few of the CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance) Missionaries work with. This school was a fairly nice school for the area that it was in, finding out that it was also a part of the Compassion children program.


We got their only needing to assist with the Ethernet cord going from one building to another, so while Scott and Larry drilled holes and worked the cord through, Austin, Jeremy, and Matt were replacing all of the tiles Scott and Larry took down.  Let's just say they are all thankful to be Computer Science majors (and BIS) along with kara there for moral support taking pictures of their handy work.  When the work was almost done, the children were on their lunch right outside the lab we were in and like every child in Africa, they were fascinated by pictures.  The children were so awesome to play with for the little time that we got to, we feel like the education majors :) Tomorrow we are revisiting our work at IMS to meet some of the students, along with going shopping with our personal tour guide Diana.  A well needed break!

Love from Ouaga

Yesterday, Lauren had the opportunity to teach 4th graders on the area of rectangles. Lauren had a lot of fun with this, and the kids also seemed to enjoy the 'human rectangle', where Lauren drew two large rectangles on the sand with a stick, and had the kids stand in the rectangles to determine the area. Angela also taught in a sixth grade class, on European colonization of Africa.

In the afternoon, one of our new friends from Germany, Anne, took us on a tour of Yako. We stopped at a supermarket, and stocked up on some food, such as crackers and candy. On the way back to the orphanage, we stopped to buy what we thought were peanuts, but they turned out to be a small fruit that is not very good. We ended our night by playing 'Pictionary Down the Lane' with Ruth, our two German friends, and Riddering family, which brought on many laughs. Dani, Katie and Lauren stayed up with Anne and Judith pretty late, being silly and telling jokes.

Today, Angela taught another lesson on measurement with the help of Doug. Doug enjoyed being a human weight, as the children tried to decide how they could balance him on a seesaw. While the adults taught, Dani, Katie and Lauren went on a fieldtrip to a nearby town with Ruth to see the mobile clinic. Unfortunately, by the time they got there, the clinic had already left. On a happier note, Dani was proposed to by one of the guards, but due to circumstances, Dani had to turn him down.

When they got back, the girls led some crafts with the kids with modeling clay. The kids enjoyed taking lots of pictures on their cameras and making 'fleurs' and 'serpants' (flowers and snakes) with the clay. Later this afternoon, the girls and Doug will be going with Ruth to 'la barrage', which is a man made resovoir. Hope all is well in Mahadaga and Ouaga!!!!

Hola from Yako!

We have arrived safely much thanks to Anne, a German student staying with Ruth in Yako, who bought our bus tickets/helped us with our French--basically delivering us in one piece. We were greeted warmly by Ruth, and another family who just moved to Yako with means to help at Sheltering Wings, the nonprofit organization Ruth helps to run in Burkina Faso, consisting of an orphanage and primary school. We arrived just in time to help distribute toys to the orphanage from Toys For Tots, a US Marine sponsored gift program. The children were excited to receive these gifts and it was a meaningful experience for us all.

Today we woke up bright and early (easy now Mahadaga, we were up at the crack of dawn with you--6:30) to prepare for Dani and Katie's lessons. They taught simultaneously in different classrooms; Katie taught multiplication by 3's to second graders and Dani taught the World of Dogs to both 3rd and 4th grade (let's just say there was a miscommunication...). Both lessons went well, however the language barrier was a definite obstacle. All-in-all, it provided a great experience for them to teach in another culture. Angela and Lauren are preparing to give their lessons tomorrow; however this is Africa and we are on Africa time so things may very well change. Prayers would be appreciated for their lessons, whenever they end up teaching them.

Another highlight of the day was visiting two other orphanages in Yako. Yako isn't very big, so having three orphanages is uncommon. All three of the orphanages were full. The other two orphanages were run by Burkinabe so it was interesting to see the difference between them and Ruth's orphanage (an American run program). Most of the kids were very welcoming to us and allowed us to hold, cuddle, and play with them.

Tonight we experienced a prayer/worship session under the stars led by kids from the orphanage. Although mostly in French with some English translation, it was moving to see the love for Christ these kids have. Many of the children were chilly and did not have jackets to wear. If anyone would want to donate small windbreakers (ages newborn to late teens) to the orphanage, please deliver them to any members of our team or send them to Angela directly (Box 3041). These jackets can be new or used. Even though Burkina is much warmer than it is in the US, it is currently winter and it becomes colder when the sun goes down. These donations would be much appreciated! Angela will be sending the donations to the orphanage on February 15th.

Our internet connection is extremely slow and unreliable so we may not be able to post again until we are back in Ouaga on Saturday. But no worries, we are all fine and healthy!

Goodnight from Yako!
And until we see you all again, we will be playing with the precious 19 babies in the orphanage :)
Love, Katie and Dani

Over the past two days, a lot has changed for the Education and Computing groups.  On Sunday, we attended church with the Watts', two SIM missionaries along with their daughters.  Not only was the service in french, translated into moore (more-ay), but it was also 2 and a half hours long.  For the first hour of the service, it was primarily singing (in french), along with an introduction of the visitors aka us.  Luckily, Malcolm Watts was there to introduce us in french.  After the pastor's sermon, we took communion then were asked to come up to the front of the congregation in order for the church to great us.  Everyone in the church was so welcoming to us we were grateful to be allowed to worship with them on Sunday.  They even asked us to prepare a song for next Sunday......I hope they like Jesus loves me!

The remainder of Sunday was definitely a day of much needed rest.  We cooked, cleaned, read, did laundry and laid around until our pick up game of ultimate Frisbee at four!   The group consisted of people staying at the SIM guesthouse, SIM missionaries, CMA missionaries, and some of the ISO students.  This game was a lot more intense than some of us had expected.....leaving a few a bit sore the next day.


This morning we had an early rise, with Computing heading out to the Peace Corps at 8, and the Education waking up to say goodbye....then go back to sleep. Around 8, Diana came for us (computing) to head over to the school she works and lives at.  Diana is a member of the Peace Corps placed at an IT teaching position 20 minutes outside of Ouaga at a school for middle school girls.  As a boarding school, the girls pay a tuition along with living inside the campus grounds.  Once we got there we begun to assess.....and delegate.  Many of the computers were stacked high in piles in order for us to test.  Already beating Diana's hopes of two, we currently have 4 of the computers running with new software on them, hoping to fix more so they can have better computers for their students to use. 

The Education group left for Yako this morning to teach many different subjects at a local orphanage.  With everyone gone from the SIM guest house except for the computing group, we hope everyone is having fun at their destinations and can't wait to see everyone on Saturday!

from Ouaga, over and out.

For the past two days, the Education and Computing groups have been busy at work, leaving little to no time to blog because we are all exhausted.  Yesterday (Friday), we all had an early rise to go see the Mossi King, the leader of a large ethnic group throughout all Burkina Faso.  Every Friday of the week, the king is presented in front of his court, judging if there is a threat against the Mossi people, signifying it in either red or white clothing. 

After the Mossi King, the Computing group headed back to work with John, finishing up our lessons with the teachers and updating more software on their computers. The Education group observed kindergarten through 5th grade at the ISO. They use an American curriculum so it wasn't too different from a classroom in the states, however the classes were very diverse and although it was an English speaking school, not many of the students were native English speakers. We were able to observe how the teachers handled the mixture of students with different backgrounds.

On Friday evening, John welcomed us into his home for dinner with his family, along with his friend Daniel, his wife and child.  When in Africa, some things don't always work out, like driving to Johns house realizing the entire town of Ouaga was out of power (we just hadn't realized because SIM has a back up generator).  As we sat in the dark for a while, John ran around the house trying to get a generator working, also trying to fix the "stupid French outlets" in his house.  Eventually, John, Daniel, and Scott got the generator running so we could eat our dinner in the light. 

On Saturday morning, the entire team headed out to visit the Garibou boys, a local ministry lead by Kate Royal. Sons of families are given to the Mosque to learn the Koran, along with going out and begging for money.  If they don't come back with money, they are punished by the leaders of the Mosque. The Garibou is a safe haven for the boys where they play games, make crafts, eat, along with learning different stories of the Bible.  It was a great visit for the team to see how God was working through Kate to evangelize to the boys who have been dealt a rough life.


While the rest of the team was busy with odd jobs, Katie, Dani and Austin had quite the adventure. They originally prepared to go to a soccer match but when the plans fell through, they ended up being led by Michel (an employee at SIM) to the far outskirts of Ouaga in a taxi that was held together by thin string (there wasn't even a key in the ignition, yet it was running?). In these suburbs, families can buy a plot of land (for the equivalent of 60 USD) to make their home. They are in agreement, however, with the government that every few years the government will come to survey the land to determine where roads should be built. Sometimes, people's houses are destroyed because they are in the way of the roads determined by the government. Michel's area was surveyed recently and while he did not lose his home, his parents lost a significant portion of their yard. In the middle of these suburbs there is a large open-air market where Michel led Katie, Dani and Austin. They were also able to observe the collection and method of making clay bricks to build homes. Donkeys are used to transport the bricks, which are left to dry for three days before they are ready for use. A definate highlight of the trip was the amount of children who flocked towards us wherever we went. As mentioned in earlier posts, children LOVE to see their pictures. They were fascinated by seeing white people and would follow us around, even chasing after us while we drove away in the taxi! After what seemed like a 5 mile walk on dusty dirt paths, we visited at Michel's home before returning back to SIM.



KWHR Meter team wiring up meter #1



Making an illegal border crossing at "Triple Point"

Face to face with a warthog... just kidding, it was empty.

 

With the week coming to an end, the computing group was back at SIM with John teaching their teachers more advanced uses of word, along with an intro to excel.  We found that as soon as they picked up basics of word, they can use the computer in general with more ease and were able to discover more things with word and excel.  After we taught the teachers for the school in the morning, we went back in the afternoon to install Windows along with Microsoft office on some of the machines, updating a few from Windows 98 to Windows XP.  We have one more day with John, hoping to update and install the software on the rest of the computers we have that are outdate.

Katie, Dani, Lauren and Angela were able to go see Angela's Compassion child, Abby, at Abby's Compassion center. We were greeted warmly and offered the porridge the children would eat for breakfast (made of ground millet with some sugar). Let's say this would not be a preferred breakfast food among our group. Unlike Katie's Compassion visit last Thursday, the Education group did not observe classrooms. Instead, they played recess like games with the kids. Hand clapping games, such as Miss Mary Mack and others, were an exciting event with the kids. There is no better feeling than watching children smile, and they sure did at our hand games along with seeing themselves in our pictures we took. Once back at the SIM guest house, preparations were made for a lunch including Abby, one of her friends and her case worker along with Gal-yam (Katie's child), one of his friends and his case worker. Traditional American hamburgers, french fries and cupcakes were the food of choice and the kids enjoyed the meal. Decorating the cupcakes, playing with balloons, coloring, playing in the sand box (more like dirt/dust box), playing bowling and swinging were other highlights of the visit. This was a great opportunity for both Katie and Angela to interact with their own sponsor child. Gal-yam, Abby, and their friends enjoyed a goodbye gift of a balloon with a piece of dental floss (in place of string). Oh, the joys of simple things.

As we wrap up a productive week, we ask for prayers for Doug and Angela who will be starting their journey to Mahadaga early tomorrow morning where they will be until Monday visiting the Engineering group (and Kate).

Love you all and goodnight from Ouaga!

Bonjour/bonsoir from Mahadaga! These past two days have been the typical breakfast by 6:30 mornings for Charlie, Kate. and I (Jean) to be ready to head over the center to get working by 7:15. The KWHR guys have been sleeping in a little later claiming to have everyone up by 7:20ish or so we've been told. So far, Dave, Kevin, and Dr. Fish have made significant progress in debugging some of their software issues and have been able to start testing and prepping for installations on a couple different homes in this SIM compound. Because some of the equipment required to do some testing only worked on 120V outlets (the house the guys are staying in use 220V), the KWHR team asked around and found out that the Walsh's home had 120V. As the Walsh family is currently in the U.S., the KWHR team borrowed keys and decided to haul their equipment over there temporarily to get some testing with the meter done. More exciting news to come about the preliminary results. As for the tricycles, a lot of progress has been made in continuing to implement the new axle design for the existing electric tricycles. Yesterday, after much clamping, cutting with hacksaws, hammering, tightening, wheel building, welding, etc., Charlie and Jean were able to successfully mount and install the new axles on Yembapou's trike. Compared to the old axle set, this new design has axles almost double the diameter of the previous design (going from 12mm to 20mm) in addition to incorporating higher quality hubs. Though this solution is not necessarily meant to be a long-term solution, as the hubs used are fairly expensive mountain bike hubs, we are hoping this should extend the life of the axles significantly, at least until we find a more sustainable fix for our problem. In addition to axle work, we were able to finish installing the battery pack for Etienne’s green trike which is now set and ready to go. Next week, we are looking at finishing up making a couple tweaks on Yempabou’s axles and then working on installing new axles on Djebade’s electric tricycle (built by the site team in the summer of 2010).

Etienne and Jean

The Computing team once again was working with John at SIM, but this time instead of doing what they're best at, fixing computers, they were teaching the teachers at SIM the basics of how to use computers.  We split up the sessions into two with Scott speaking in the first session on files, folders and organization, with the second session being intro to Microsoft Word, lead by Kara and Austin.  The teachers at the school had different skill levels on the computer, ranging from no experience at all to moderate use.  They all enjoyed learning about certain things they could do on the computer, especially when using a word processor.

The Education group went to visit Joseph who runs a school in the outskirts of Ouaga. He is a Burkinabae man who moved to Oklahoma, but after being called by God to come back to Burkina to spread the gospel he fully trusted the Lord and let Him lead the path of the next steps of Joseph's journey. He then started a school with 12 kids on his porch, which grew into a school made up of 240 students. His testimony was such an inspirational story of faith in God and how he spreads the Word in a dominantly Muslim area. Even after being threated with machetes from a group of Muslim elders, he is able to still be a Christian leader in his community. We were all so inspired by his story and want to donate money/supplies to him and his growing dream (the school). After a tour of the school from Joseph, the team was delighted to find two camels approaching them on the road. Katie and Lauren tried to ask the men riding the camels if they could take a picture of the camels, however, because they only speak French, and the girls know up peu French, there was a major language barrier. Finally, with the help of Joseph, the girls learned that they could in fact take pictures, and that they could sit on the camels if they wanted. Dani got on the camel with the help of Joseph, but before Katie and Lauren could, we were told that we needed to pay. We were able to get some great photos of Dani on the camel before we had to leave.

Today, the Education group was delighted to help administer English oral exams to the Burkinabe people. Trained by Allison and Ben (two of the SIM missionaries), Dani, Lauren, Katie and Doug learned how to proctor these tests. The oral exam consisted of twenty questions ranging from asking what the local's name was to what they would do if they were giving a million CFA. The purpose of these tests was to assess the English level of the people so they would be placed in the proper class. SIM teaches 12-week long courses to the locals for about 25 US dollars. It was interesting giving these tests because many of those in our group did not know French. Therefore, explaining that complete sentences were necessary became quite the difficult task. It was fun being able to interact with the local people of Burkina and learn a little about their lives. When asked where they see themselves in ten years, many had great aspirations to "become a teacher" or "become a big business man" or "become a good grownup." It's inspiring knowing these people, who are from such a different place than we, have similar goals for themselves as we do. It was also great to learn that they were so adamant and motivated to learn English.

The Computing group began their assessment (this word is used quite often in the CS world) for John, a local pastor who works as a teacher and administrator at the Ouaga Ministry Center. The computers that were being assessed are used in the English  and computing classes that are offered to the locals who are enrolled in the 12-week program. Like everything else in Burkina, the computers had a large amount of dust embedded in them, along with being outdated; some running Windows 98. As the computers were assessed, they needed to be identified to label the specifications of each computer, getting creative with names like Bob, Willis, Sally and Louise. For the rest of the week, they will continue to work closely with John repairing, cleaning and updating software and computers.

Below are pictures from our trip to Banfora:

Dale explaining the the group the territory covered by the Handicap Center

Etienne and Charlie