Friday, November 26, 2010

November 9

So I’m sitting in my house waiting for my cell phone battery to charge at the tailor’s and I thought, what better way to pass the time than writing a blog to post when I’m near a computer. I just got back from a weekend in Ouaga and am suffering what some of my friends and I call the Ouaga funk. After a great weekend, it’s always kind of hard to get back into the swing of village life all over again.

For the past two weeks there has been an arts festival happening in Ouaga called SIAO. It happens here every two years and is basically a giant air for arts and crafts from all over Africa. I kind of felt like I was at a really classy state fair, without the livestock/side shows/rides, but with pretty African crafts instead. My friends and I spent pretty much all day there on Friday and I managed to blow a chunk of CFA considering my current financial status (poor). I picked up some cool art from Ghana and Togo (that I will hopefully one day able to hang on a wall not made of solid concrete), and among other things a few too many pairs of earrings.

This trip was especially interesting for Kristin, Austin and I because we weren’t able to make reservations t the transit house. Instead, Gwen secured a couple of rooms at a nearby hotel. Well, apparently in Burkina you have to respect imaginary check in times, and by the time we arrived (about 6PM) our rooms had been given away. Luckily (or unluckily) there were some rooms available in the adjoining Catholic mission behind it. We stayed there the first and after not the best night’s sleep, decided we would check out some other places nearby. Friday we decided on a place that turned out a little more expensive than we were hoping for. Luckily we saved our selves a little money the next night...by not sleeping at all and just napping the next day. Sunday, I was planning on returning to my site but my friend Keith accidently left his bag in a cab on our way to lunch (where I randomly met some missionaries from Franklin, NC) so I decided to stay behind with him and wait to see if the cabbie would return his things. Luckily he had dropped us at the old American embassy where there were security guards. They took Keith’s number and luckily they managed to get a hold of him a couple of hours later when the driver noticed the bag in his trunk. Of course by then tons of other people had gotten the idea to extend their weekends in Ouaga and the transit house was full again. Round three of looking for a place to say. This time we settled on the Red Cross because it was on the way to the bus stop where we needed to be in the morning. Long story short, four nights, four different beds – quite a whirlwind weekend. Needless to say I was asleep within minutes of my head hitting the lit pico once I was back in village. All in all, great weekend – I was able to see friends I hadn’t seen since training, hear about everyone’s villages, and of course, check out just about every hotel in the Zone du Bois of Ouagadougou.

2 comments:

  1. You so busy leadin' the Angelina life. Happy late Thanksgiving! MUAH!
    -E

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are changing the world for the better! So so proud.
    -mam

    ReplyDelete