Blogs from Burkina Faso, Africa - page 7

Update on the last few weeks.. It's been a while... and I've finally found the apostrophe on the French keyboard ;-) (Colin) In the last few weeks I've done quite a lot- though perhaps not with the work here! I've been cycling around Kpalime, seeing more waterfalls and trekking-a-plenty; spotting fab things, creatures and colours in the jungle, tasting some good and some really not-so-good palm wine... Last Friday (27th Feb) I left in the morning for Lome- the best time to get a bus anywhere is 6am here. I was squashed in between a large Togolese woman and her son for the duration; after many stops and waiting around for the bus to be full again we arrived in Lome 3 hours later; I wandered around for a bit, ate some fufu from one ... read more

Burkina Faso, the former Upper Volta, which was linked to Ivory Coast at one point, and still feels inextricably linked to. We arrived though Bobo-Dioulasso from Mali, on a long road journey, which felt like we sere covering the whole country, but was probably the fresh wind rather than the speed, as we only covered little more than 200km in some 8 hours or so, Trvelling took the whole day, and we arrived late at night. Bobo Dioulasso turned out to be a very relaxed town, and a good base to explore the surrounding region. we rented mopeds for a day to see "sacred fish", a big thing here (catfish), and nothing special to my eyes. We went to lovely rock formations the next day, a waterfall, which was one of those sublime relaxing places, where ... read more

Now that school is out, Radhika and I decided to take a trip to Oursi, a village in the Sahel region in northern Burkina Faso. This would be the place we tried to go last summer, when we caught a ride on top of a truck and then got stranded in the middle of the desert overnight because the road was flooded out. This time we brought bikes so we wouldn’t have to rely on slow, rickety trucks for transport. We took a bus from Ouaga to Dori in the morning then hid from the sun for a few hours, ready to bike the 57 km to Gorom-Gorom in the afternoon. We sipped cold water at a small restaurant with PCV Jeremy. The day was especially hot, with that stagnant humidity that usually means it’s going ... read more

I spent my last few days in the village wandering to my favorite places, saying goodbye, and handing out gifts. People loved the soaps, lotions, and flashlights from the US (thanks, mom!) as well as all of the little things from my house that won’t be making the trip home. The village fonctionnaires gave me lots of nice souvenir fabric and the villagers presented me with gifts, too: mountains of peanuts, mangoes, guinea fowl eggs, a really nice carved wooden stool. They showered me with benedictions and well wishes for my family, friends, and all of the American people. I took final trips to the school, the health center, local restaurants, friends’ houses, and the clandestine women’s dolo cabaret. I spent some time just hanging out with my neighbors in the courtyard. My colleagues from school ... read more

It's been pretty weird in my life lately, sort of balancing between different kinds of feelings and not really knowing what to do with all of it. I guess you reach a point in this experience where you don't know what you want anymore. I think I'm there now. I don't want to leave, but I can't wait to get to Toronto at the same time. Pretty weird. I don't feel like I'm actually realizing that I'm leaving. It will probably hit me in the last couple days and when I'll have a little good-bye party and take the plane. The African notion of time is still in me and I still feel like I have lots of time left, since here we take one day at a time. I pretty much finished work. I went ... read more