Ouaga Do Good

So I'm in the capital Ouagadougou (that's pronounced WA-GA-DOO-GOO for those out of the know) for the weekend. We arrived yesterday and met with the U.S. Ambassador and her staff, then we took a tour of the PC offices and got a flu vaccine. I also ate an amazingly good pizza that cost me about 6 times more than my average meals. So worth it! Today we woke up and headed over to SIAO, an international artisan festival. It was pretty cool. I bought a t-shirt and a cool necklace that I bargained from 2000 CFA down to 500 CFA ($1). I also had my first taste of FanChaco, a frozen chocolate milk treat. So great! We are staying at the PC transit house which is awesome because we have electricity, running water, and refridgerators. So yesterday I put a coke in the freezer and a few hours later, I had an amazing Slurpee-like drink.

Sadly, we ship out tomorrow back for Ouahigouya. It was a great excursion nevertheless and a real treat for all us health volunteers. We find out about our site announcements on Wednesday, so this helped take everyone's mind off things. It's amazing how many people yell "Barack Obama" when they see us. People here love him so much, so it's an exciting time for everyone here. But it's really weird because I have never felt more disconnected with American politics. I have no idea how America is reacting, but here it's nothing but excitement from the Burkinabe and the other PCVs. It will definitely be weird coming home in two years to a whole new administration. But hopefully, this will be a much needed change. Until next time.