Site visit!

So last week was by FAR my favorite week since Ive arrived here. The first 3 days consisted of a counterpart workshop where I met with the person who I'll work closest with once at site and help me in the integration proccess.
My counterpart is a woman who teaches at the local primary school in the village and lives there with her children. I'm lucky because quite a few other volunteers werent thrilled with their counterparts or had a hard time connecting because of the language barrier. I totally clicked with mine. She's such a great woman with a lot of great ideas and opinions. We already talked about major problems in the village, things we could do, things I can help with, etc. For example sex is a very tabboo subject here. She says girls never learn about maturation/sex education/prevention methods from their parents or others. She had nine girls in her class this year drop out because they got pregnant. So just awareness and education for girls would be huge. Anyways in summary the workshop was great, we totally clicked and I cant wait to get to site and get started!
Thursday through Sunday I went to Pobe-Mengao to visit my site and future home! I stayed with Joel, who is the volunteer that I will be replacing. The weekend was amazing. Pobe is much larger than I expected, a town of about 5-6,000 people. Transportation to and from Pobe is great, it's right off the main road so I have easy access to big cities like Djibo and Ouahigouya. Only problems are the roads are dirt so during the rainy season they get flooded and transportation is either extrememey delayed or comes to a halt.
Pobe has a primary school and a brand new CEG school (kinda like high school) which will open up once I get there. Theres also a health and maternity clinic, a small marchee every 3 days that sells seasonal foods and some very small boutiques to buy things like soap, etc. Ill still have to bike or bus to Djibo weekly to get foods like canned goods, oatmeal, fresh fruits and vegies, etc.
As far as my house goes, I am sooo excited to start living there. Compared to the mud, thatched-roof hut I am currently living in....I am MOVIN ON UP! My future home is concrete, rectangular shaped, with a tin roof. Its got 2 rooms, the main room and a small bedroom. What is great about replacing another volunteer is that Joel is leaving me nearly everything including a small table, stove, cot to sleep outside, and a cool kitchen furniture piece with counter and shelves. Hes got plenty of cooking spices too which is so key here!! Another big plus is he's leaving me some books! Everyone says volunteers have a lot of extra time and spend a LOT of time reading, so having these books is definitely amazing. There are some things I still need to buy but I am so excited about decorating my home! Like I plan on painting the inside walls and buying a couple other furniture pieces like a bookshelf. There are 4 other homes in the compound but I have my own little courtyard complete with hangar (like a patio area) to sleep under during the hot nights. Despite my total lack of a green thumb I am sooo planning on starting a small garden, so in the future Ill be adding seeds to my care package wish list!
During the weekend I got to ask Joel the hundreds of questions that have been on my mind, learned what he has done in the village, met some key/important people, toured around (cool fact: in the village there are a couple of small lakes made from the rain and there are Caimans, which are crocodiles living in them!). Just taking a break from training to relax and see my future home was wonderful. Overall great weekend.

What happened just a few hours after my arrival on Thursday, however, was by far the most unique part of my visit:
Upon arrival Joel tells me the village chief has died, the funeral is that day, would I be interested in going...of course I am! SO we go. Need I remind you I am in an African village in Burkina Faso...this is no ordinary funeral.
So we go to the chief's courtyard where the funeral takes place. Here I learn that the chief was like 105 and died a few days ago. After he died they sat ( and tied) his body to make him sit up, and barricaded the body in his home for 3 days. Then on the 4th day, the day I arrived there to witness this, they tore down the wall and removed his (very smelly) body and wraped it up in layers and layers of cloth. Then several villagers picked up the body and carried it three times around the courtyard and then proceed to carry the body 10K away to the burial site.
Some interesting characters at the funeral: the old women wailing "ayiii ayiiii", some old guy who could barely carry his own weight carrying this HUGE rifle and shooting it every now and then, 5 feet away from us. Oh and this other old guy carrying this bloody hatchet which I swaear looked like it had strips of meaty flesh hanging from it leading the people carrying the dead chief.
So I got to witness everything (except the 10K walk) which was so INSANE considering I had just arrived a couple hours earlier. If things could get any more crazy, there were a lot of people from other villages and cities who came to pay their respects. Now I know cell phones are HUGE in Burkina and even villagers and the poorest of the poor somehow have a cell phone (there is a cell phone tower directly behind my future home). But I just found this whole funeral ceremony thing so ironic. Why? During this very traditional, African ceremony that is happening to honor an old village chief, complete with bloody hatchets and wierd traditions/superstitions with the body, there are literally five men chasing after the people carrying the body, snapping photos of the ceremony with their camera phones.
And that was my welcome to Pobe-Mengao.