Farewell tour for les jumelles Sauve

Claire and I have decided to identify as twins here, since everyone we see asks "vous etes les jumelles?" - here in West Africa its good luck to give twins "donations" so we were thinking of setting up shop outside of one of the grocery stores with the other sets of twins.

This week has flown by and while I worked lots, we still found time to visit the old town and the vieux mosquee. The old town has been inhabited since about the 1400s. The quartier is a warren of mud brick buildings, with sheep, chickens, kids everywhere and fetishes (sites for animist sacrifices), not to mention the sacred catfish pond - so murky that the only sight of the catfish is their mouths and whiskers as they surface for food.

People live as they have for generations, including brewing millet beer from red sprouted millet seeds in hand-made pots, boiled over a mud brick oven for 3 days before setting down to ferment.

After the vieux quartier, we visited the mosque - a mud brick mosque dating to the 18th century. The posts sticking out are steps for cleaning / painting the facade.


After the week flew by, we had another great weekend. Friday night we flew back to Ouagadougou to have a little big city action before leaving. We dined in great restaurants, shopped up a storm and said goodbye to friends...

Saturday we had dinner with Alice Zoungrana, the HIV pediatrician in Ouagadougou - we've worked in many national meetings together. She is a determined, strong person (you may remember my blog about her mother who started the association for widows and orphans back in the 70s).

Since October, we have been using the same drivers in Ouaga for each trip - so I've spent a lot of time in the cars of Augustin (second from right) and his son, Hippolyte (far left). They took my dad and I exploring around Ouaga, have waited through numerous meetings and have even done things like rescuing my errant suitcase from Air France.

As always in Ouaga, they were hired for the weekend. Saturday evening, they took us for a beer at the maquis across the street from the airport, the last stand for a lot of travelers before they hop on the plane . It was really fun to sit and chat while fending off vendors of necklaces, carvings, batiques, sports coats and irons (?!).

Sunday we tried to leave early in the day but realized that our plane tickets were actually for Saturday's flight (yikes!). So we went exploring in a local park where all sorts of youth hang out relaxing - eating, playing drums or stereos (complete with amps & speakers), singing, and dancing. Students use the park as a study hall, escaping the busyness of homes with many kids and little space.

Fortunately, the Air Burkina folks were totally laid back about the plane ticket problem, and we made it back home again on the 5pm flight.

Its hard to believe how quickly the days are speeding by now. Our departure is this coming Friday!