I know I’m about a month late, but here’s my first of two updates of my current life.
For Christmas, I travelled down to the South of Burkina (about an eight hour bus ride) to meet up with some other volunteers in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Bobo is Burkina’s second largest city and is often preferred over Ouaga by PCVs. There may be more faux-types (guides/annoying Burkinabe waiting to prey on hapless tourists), but it has a slower pace of life and is much greener than Ouaga.
The 10 other volunteers and I rented two apartments and ensconced ourselves in American-ness for two full days. Several PCVs had received Christmas decorations from home, so we decorated the apartments to the nines. The decorations made it seem almost Christmasy and were completed with the two-foot high fake tree sent to Julie. Christmas Eve we had a candle-light ceremony complete with hymns accompanied by Colette on the flute. The next morning we awoke to cinnamon buns and exchanged secret Santa stockings. We spent the day cooking an inordinate amount of food and then stuffed ourselves silly. Overall I have to say it was a good Christmas, if one has to spend the holiday away from home.
After Bobo I travelled with Sabrina to Ghana (!!!) for New Years. I was under the impression that all of West Africa is the same, just like Burkina. Boy was I wrong. Now I know why volunteers call Ghana “Americaland.” Even small villages have paved roads, sidewalks, and believe it or not, streetlights! Hard-boiled eggs with sweet Ghana bread, along with fried rice with chicken, can be found on every street corner. It was a dream come true.
Sabrina and I travelled the 24+ hours from Ouaga to make it to the beach to spend four days in utter relaxation. Those days consisted of swim, eat, sleep, swim, eat, sleep. I was not complaining. On New Year’s Eve, a local dance troupe came to perform and we roasted a pig. I stuffed myself silly, again, but again, not complaining. After the calming days at the beach, Sabrina and I went to Cape Coast to visit the slave castle and then onto Kakum Monkey Preserve to do the canopy walk. After that we moved up to Koumasi, Ghana’s second biggest city. The big tourist attraction in Koumasi is the market, so of course Sabrina and I made our way there. I thought I knew markets, but I have never seen Africans move so fast. Everybody was go go go, with something to do! Although Sabrina and I were a little perplexed at first by all of the moment, we prevailed and found beautiful Ghana fabric to bring back home to Burkina.
Sabrina and I were scheduled to take the 5pm bus back to Ouagadougou and were informed at 530pm that the bus would be 7 hours late. Usually, this would not be a problem, as we’ve become habituated to things being late and not running on time, but this time this was a slight problem. My mom was flying into Ouagadougou the next afternoon and I wanted to meet her at the airport! I went up and asked what time the bus (16 hour ride) would be getting into Ouaga and was told it would arrive at 12noon the next day. This did not make any sense to me. And of course, we did not get in until 5pm the following day, with the bus having broken down twice on the way, after the seven-hour delay. Boy was I glad to finally get off the bus and thankfully, some friends of mine went and picked up my mother at the airport. So everything worked out, as it always does!
I want to apologize for the lack of pictures; the internet connection is to slow to upload anything at the moment. Please look on facebook for photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment