*Any opinions and analyses herein are Garrett's, not the Peace Corps'*

Hey group. Time have been good in Burkina. For two weeks, I've been in my site. I've done a few things. One project idea I had was to sensitize people about moringa seeds at the market (that tree I mentioned that has leaves packed with necessary vitamins). But, my friend in village recommended against it and advised giving the seeds to the primary schools instead. He says the kids would be able to water them and the primary school principals would be smart enough to make something out of them. We had one day where we biked maybe 30km in a big circle through the satellite villages of my village in order to give some seeds and a sheet of info about the tree for each one. I had bought a big packet of seeds for a good amount of money to do more moringa projects. The current plan is to do something similar to what my neighbor, Mary Kay did. That is to sensitize a bunch of people about the tree, then plant numerous trees into little bags. After, in a few months, I'd give a couple to each family in the village to transplant in the homes. I'm not supposed to fund so much of the project myself because it couldn't assure sustainability, but I hope that a number of people will take the gifts seriously and work to get more nutrients in them and their children.

Also in my site, I've started to use a recorder that my sister sent me. I've gotten "Mary had a Little Lamb" down and am working hard on "Aura Lee" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," but those aren't working so well. There's a kid who loves to play around with the recorder, I'm hoping to inspire a musician.

Just this past week, I've had a mid-service conference to get more ideas on teaching and secondary projects. I've shared about my moringa experiences and sensitizing people on health-related issues, like nutrition and preventing malaria. We've been encouraged to do work to aid female students' opportunities to be serious students. It's said that there a lot of lodging issues where girls have to sleep in the houses of other families in attending school, thus will get stuck doing too many of their chores and oftentimes, having to sleep with host fathers/brothers in order to stay there. I'm hoping to do some stuff regarding that, but a lot of it is beyond my role here. Otherwise, I'm thinking about getting a friend from village to go to my provincial capitol with me to get a short section on the radio talking about the importance of girls' education.

The only other key activity is the COS (Closing of Service) party for a group of Health and Small Enterprise Development volunteers who'll leave in the next three months. We had a little party at the Transit House, then went to dance at a night club. The dancing was good, I succeeded in dancing with two girls. My objective for the night was to dance with one, so I beat that. The great rumor about for the night was that while I was sitting on the couch with my 67 year old neighbor, Mary Kay, my friend Julia claims she saw the two of us making out. I cracked up hearing it. And no, it's not true by the way. Well, peace out you all. Enjoy the party photos of my friend that I just put up.