Les Vacances à Banfora

So I am back from my awesome July 4th celebration down south and have a lot to share. Sorry first off for the lack of photos. I have been waiting awhile for a new memory card to arrive from America, so until then I have been having to snatch photos from other PCVs. It should be arriving anyday though and then there will be a plethora of pictures to feast your eyes upon. Until then, my words are the only thing that can soothe you.

A fellow PCV neighbor Ilana and I headed down from Ouahigouya to Ouagadougou last week a two-hour trip I take at least once a month (we took the 5:30am bus). Once there we immediately bought tickets for Bobo, the capital of the southern region. While waiting for the bus to leave we ran into two other PVCs from our group who were on their way down as well. Somehow they convinced us to change our plans slightly. When we arrived in Bobo (maybe 6 hours later), we immediately boarded another bus for the town of Orodara (about 1.5 hours), where two other PCVs from our group live. We arrived in the evening and all (including two other southern volunteers who came in as well, making 8 total) met up for a few drinks and dinner. I learned that our national fruit juice Dafani is only the second best in the country (it will never please me like it used to) and that it is easy to order to with oseille sauce and rice with peanut sauce but actually quite different to order rice with oseille sauce.

The next morning we awoke early, ate an omelette breakfast and then hit the road for a 60km (about 37 miles for you yanks) bike ride from Orodara to our destination of Banfora. The road we took was really quite pleasant, only a few big hills to tackle and beautiful villages and lush greenery all along the way. Towards the end, we biked past the famous sugarcane fields that stretch to the horizon. I couldn't believe we were still in the same country. It felt more like Ghana to me, since the only Burkina I know is the quasi-desert where I live. We left at around 8am and arrived in Banfora at almost exactly noon. Banfora seemed like an interesting town, somewhat different from what I expected being the tourism capital of Burkina, but there were many nice hotels and restaurants to cater to these guests. We stayed at L'Hotel Canne a Sucre, a nice hotel with ¨ties¨ with Peace Corps. In all, there were about 20 of us there to celebrate. For the 4th, we woke up and headed to a popular restaurant called McDonald. Where else would one eat on America's birthday? I had a really great omelet and French toast (I...uh...I mean, freedom toast) and washed it down with fresh passionfruit juice (really tasty). Most of the day we spent in and around the pool. For lunch we ordered some of the best brochettes (like kabobs) I have ever eaten here and for dinner we munched on hamburgers and french fries (uh...freedom fries). All in all, it was a fun fourth of July. I found out later that I had accidentally swam with my cell phone in my pocket, which caused me to have to buy another one, but my new one is better, so no big deal.

The next day, Christy, Ilana, Christie-Anne and I made the trek out to see some of the natural sites this region is known for. As we were biking we passed by a pizza place that is said to have some of the best pizza in the country, so we placed a lunch order and continued on our way. We visited two sites. The first, known as the domes, are a series of megaliths formed 1.8 billion years ago. We knew we made it when we someone has spray-painted ¨domes¨ on the side of one of them. Subtle. They were pretty cool and fun to climb, but some in our group were less than impressed. While standing on top of one of them, Christy-Anne asked, ¨So where are the domes?¨ From there we walked a little ways to the next site ¨les cascades,¨ the waterfalls. While hiking around them, I found a really cool batcave full of the noisy creatures. I wanted to harness my inner Bruce Wayne, but we were already running out of time. We found a pretty spot, changed into our swimwear and chilled out under the falls for half an hour or so. Schistosomiasis, schmistosomiasis.

It was a really fun mini-vacation, but I was happy to get back to village. Of course nothing is ever so easy and we waited about 5 hours for our bus to Ouaga to leave, which caused us to arrive after midnight and made some of us search for other lodging since the transit house had filled up during that time. Nevertheless, during our five hour ¨layover¨ I managed to buy my new phone and also found some white chocolate from France at a gas station nearby. This past week, the electrician came to my house to install power. Finally, I can officially say that I have electricity in my house. It is amazing but really strange. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think I am the only health volunteer in Burkina with electricity. I need to go shopping for a decent fan now. Also strange, my major's wife just had a baby girl a few days ago, and I didn't even know she was pregnant!