Tourists to start

So, yesterday was interesting. We were definitely treated as tourists, and taken out to see the sight of Ouagadougou . This was in and of itself an odd experience. We went to visit the Canadian embassy, which more or less makes sense, as the idea was that we could then register with them, which we did. Then we went to visit the American embassy, or, more precisely, the Rec center of the American embassy. We were shown a pool and a gym and tennis courts and a library and a video collection…it was awkward, I'm not sure what we were supposed to get from that, except that there are some people living here with a lot of money. We then went to see an artisans village, again clearly for tourists, where they had beautiful leather, cloth, wood, and metal works. Looked around there for a good while; interesting but again awkward.

Then we were taken to see Ouaga2000, which is the part of town with giant houses, and where the president either lives or works (more likely both) in the hugest building ever. Enormous. Tatania, who was with us in the car, said that we should take pictures, but the driver responded immediately that we couldn't, as he didn't want to get shot today. So that says something. Ouaga2000 was not a large area, but there were clearly large amounts of money there, with giant houses behind walls. These houses would be enormous at home, but put in the context of the other houses in the city, are completely impossible.

Then we bought some water and phone cards (I've got a phone number now, which for reference sake I'll write here: country code 226, then 76393899), it should receive text messages, and I'll learn how to send them). (and a p.s. for home: I'll phone and hang up after 1 ring, and then if you're around you can call me back. so be slow at answering the phone.)

30 degrees feels almost the same as 40, as in, both are very hot. It was up to 41 yesterday afternoon at 3:30, which seemed insane, I can't imagine what it must have been earlier around noon! Fortunately, it seems that Tatiana and the driver both found it to be a little bit hot as well (probably relative to our 27 degrees).

I can't decide if it is actually humid here or not. It feels humid, hot and sticky, but outside is dry and dusty. We are told that it will likely rain sometime while we are here in Ouaga (as it is the wet season, not that I could tell otherwise), not clear if the rain is something that lasts for a few hours or a full day, but we will find out. We constantly feel as if we put on clothes right after swimming; we are always wet and appreciate even the slightest breezes enough to talk about them all as special events. My dad wrote a very helpful comment in an email; which I am pasting here: "When I have been uncomfortbly hot, I have coped by simply relaxing and accepting the heat-humidity. I say to myself, 'Yes its hot, but that is just my brain's interpretation of signals from my skin. It is really not hot enoough to bedisabling, since other people can accept these temperatures." All I can say to that is that maybe Dan will appreciate the biology side, and that I am hot regardless, maybe that is a self)control I lack. But it will be fine.

We've been rather isolated so far, sticking with Tatania. Not sure how appropriate it is for us to go wandering around here on our own, it seems like it would be fine safety wise but culturally we aren't sure. Also, we are hoping that we can convince the lady cooking for us that we want to learn to cook, which would be fun if it works out.

Ps to Ghana crew: welcome to heat! Hope you are managing it better than we are.

Ps to Vietnam: how hot is it there?

(can you tell that weather is on the brain?)

Ps to Bhutan, what on earth are you up to over there?

Ps to Ecuador, I'm sure our heat is nothing compared to yours, so hopefully you won't read this until we are better adjusted and can stop complaining J

Ps to Slovenia, have you explored a castle yet? Cause I think you should

Ps to Scotland, how's Amanda?

Ps to Italy, Bridget, how is farming?

Ps to Ottawa, Bryn, how is that working, and how long until we don't feel like we are roasting? (we are optimistic that it won't last forever, so if it will, don't tell us)

Later on the same day:

I have been reduced to two finger typing on this different keyboard, so apologies for spelling mistakes. We did get to help in the kitchen a bit with lunch today, which was good, and interesting. Conversations with Abbas were very limited between her limited knowledge of French, my limited knowlegde of cooking in French and in Arfrica, and trying to help Emily understand what I could. Weùve been trying to work through newspaper articles, which leads us to realize that we should have made definitive efforts to be more up to date on recent political events in France and Africa, as we are sometimes struggling to put things in context.

Talked again with Daniel; and are sorting out the details of our schedule for the comming weeks, which is a bit complicated right now because of transportation and Em and I wanting to stick together especially at the beginning. We will however work it out, I am sure.

Off to grab some water, take care!

Hello from Burkina!

Wow. So, right now, it is 31 degrees in our air conditioned room, and I have never in my life been so hot while doing nothing. Hoping I'll get used to it quickly.

Met Emily at the airport yesterday afternoon, she actually caught me just randomly, and held up her half of the agreement to "just meet randomly in a Paris airport and discover we are going to the same place"… perfectly calm, she says "Hey dude, what are you doing here?" I was caught completely off guard, and couldn't do the calm greeting thing, but I don't think that's too much of a problem.

The flight down went smoothly. Em and I were a few seats apart, so we couldn't do much talking, though we did a lot of catching up at the airport. We exchanged occasional panicked, excited, nervous, and unbelieving glances over the course of the 5 hour flight, and shivered in the air conditioning of the plane. Landing in the airport, at 7:30 local time, it was dark as mightnight and hot hot hot. The pilot announced it was 34 degrees, which didn't sound all that high (as in, compared to what I was worried about, like mid-40s), so walking off the plane I assumed the immediate blast of heat was coming from the plane engine. HA, no. 30 degrees is hot. This will be an interesting summer even just for that. After a slight hassle with passports (Emily got through fine, but they didn't like mine as much, oddly), we stepped out to be greeted by a man from BoH (Bridges of Hope) (the organization we are working with). He helped us get our bags, rushed us through customs (which consisted of a person looking at the outside of your bag and then deciding if he wanted to go through it or not, thankfully neither of us had to go through that), and led us through chaos to meet Tatania, another person from BoH. By chaos, I guess it really wasn't, it was just a lot of people wanting to 'help' us with our bags or be a taxi (for untold fees). We then loaded up into a SUV/Jeep thing, and drove through Ouagadougou to our present lodgings.

We aren't sure if we've seen downtown yet, but if we have, it is nothing like a city of several million at home. What we saw was more like continual suburbs; small one-room houses of earth and metal and wood, people everywheres, and bikes and motorcycles and cars. The roads, though we were told they are paved, are about equivalent to PEI dirt roads in the early summer, very bumpy and rough. Though it was clear that you are supposed to drive on the right side of the road, that is free to change if there is a bump ahead and you are bigger than the oncoming traffic. All buildings were about the same size, be they stores or houses (or the gas station, Shell), being the one room standard, if it was a store with whatever good piled up (shoes nailed to the wall, shirts tacked up, fruit piled high).

We have been teased continually since arrival by Tatania and Daniel's brother, which is quite welcome, about everything from the weather (we were promised snow soon enough), the heat (told that the difference between white and black people is that white people haven't been properly cooked yet, as in, were not put in the oven before being born, and told that we were going to cook in Africa), ghosts (we don't have to worry about them, so long as they don't say our name?), language, and the president (who will soon pop out of the TV to say hello and welcome us to Burkina Faso).

Yes, I did just say TV. We are living like royalty; we've got electricity running air conditioning, lights, running water, a lady is cooking wonderful food for us, we are eating the best fruit that exists anywheres, windows with screens (and bars), we have a fridge, our beds are some kind of crazy soft foam, our door has a lock, there is someone who guarded the house last night, we have access to internet next door… it is hard to take in and hard to accept. We stay here until around Monday, at which time we move to Leo for a few days before starting our projects from Boura. Phones are in the works, Emily is uploading a video tour of the house right now, and now I'm going out the door to visit the Embassy. (?)

Side note, I'm typing on Emily's computer, but keyboards here have the ! where the . usually is, which I think says something right there.

3pm, Thursday the 24^th of May.

Europe

I'm not writing details now; but as they come out, any Europe stories will be comments here: It was a lot of fun; and a very nice break before internship.