FESPACO

My dad arrived on Monday 26 January - its been really great to have him here. He spent the previous 3 weeks touring Mali & Burkina Faso with ElderTreks - an adventure travel group for older travelers. He really had a great time, saw lots of eye opening things. I think its been fascinating for him to visit Mali & Burkina, two of the poorest countries in the world but with amazing culture, traditions and history.

Every second year, Burkina Faso hosts the pan-African film festival, called FESPACO. Since it coincided with my dad's first week here, we went up to Ouaga for it. I've never seen Ouaga so lively (or filled with so many foreigners) - the restaurants were packed, the hotels all full.

We saw about 10 films, mostly in English. A couple notable ones were "Le presidant a-t-il le SIDA?", a Haitian film about AIDS, "500 years later", a british film about the effects of slaverly on Africa and the African diaspora and "Death of two sons", a film about a Guinean peace corps volunteer who was killed in a bush taxi crash, and his host family's son who was the unfortunate unarmed gentleman killed by a hail of 42 bullets by the NY police in 1991. The top photo is my dad in front of one of the festival venues.

It was fun to finally do some tourism in Burkina Faso, and I enjoyed visiting some of the various associations - picked up some handcrafts from a handicapped people's association, a women's association, and a young men's association (for former street kids / impoverished youth). We also visited a Mossi museum a little ways north of the city. The landscape is starkly flat and dry as you head north of Ouagadougou.

We stayed in a hotel I've stayed in several times before, and the staff were THRILLED to meet my dad. He was the honored guest of the hotel. When it came time to leave Ouaga, our driver even came out just to say goodbye to my dad. We also enjoyed several really lovely restaurants; the bottom photo is at Tiebele, one of the nicest restaurants in Ouagadougou.