Look in the east, Fada N'gouma will be my new home after Christmas. Im currently up north in Ouahigouya! Fada is a medium sized city and just a short ride to the Niger border in the east and to the national parks of Burkina just south of it towards the Benin border.

so, for the next couple of years I will be living in the eastern region of Burkina, in the city of Fada N'Gourma, commonly referred to as just Fada! I will begin learning the regional language of Gullmacema, which is spoken across the borders of Niger and Benin as well, next week and for the next month or so before i arrive to my job site in Fada just after Christmas. why the above pictures then, you ask? The answer is that I will be working with an association of farmers who cultivate the karité tree, which bears the fruit from which shea butter is derived. Hopefully i will soon be an expert.

Hello again everyone. Here I am with Konfè, my language teacher and general cultural/life guide right now. It is the harvest now, following the several month rainy season that has recently ended, and so we were visiting some farmers as they harvested millet, which is the staple of the west african diet-as wheat would be to ours! The other foods in harvest now, and hence the ONLY fresh fruits or veggies around for purchase are guavas, watermelon, bananas, oranges, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant, peanuts(lots of these guys), yams, and squash. This last week I also visited the hectic capital of ouagadougou and got quite ill off of some meat sandwich that i ate there, so i was down for a couple of days but now im back north and on my feet again!