Peace Corps was invited to join the parade, so a dozen volunteers from the surrounding area, myself included, accepted the call to march. Of course, this isn't your typical American parade that includes large balloons of cartoon characters and ends with Santa, so of course the marching is not taken lightly. I would not go as far as calling it goose-stepping, but it is definitely highly militaristic, which means everyone has to practice. The soldiers had been practicing for several weeks, but for us civilians, we all came into town on Monday to rehearse. Like all things in this country, practice consisted of waiting for several hours in the heat, followed by twenty minutes of actual marching. I biked back to village afterwards, as I had baby weighing and other activities to deal with in Aorema. I returned to town Thursday the 10th, as we were required to be in our places to march at 6am on Friday. Thursday turned out to be interesting as well with more than a dozen parachuters falling from the sky, a sight that caused all men, women and children to take off running towards their landing spot.
So we roll over to our position Friday morning a little after six in our awesomely amazing (and not at all frumpy) lime green uniforms. And then we wait. And wait. And wait a little more. It isn't until about 9:30am when the President, a man named Blaise Compaore, shows up. He does a quick drive-by, waving to all the different groups who are going to march. When he saw all of us, the only whities in the parade, he gave us a big smile, which was kind of cool. Then we waited about another hour for the parade to actually begin. All in all, it was pretty tiring but a really cool experience to march in front of the President, the thousands of people watching in person, and the hundreds of thousands watching on TV (as standard television in Burkina has only one channel). I hope we made Peace Corps and America proud. Afterwards, a few PC staff members, including our Country Director, took us all out for lunch, which was really nice on their part. As I wrap this up, I should remind you that this is the last blog post I will write until I get to America. My flight leaves tomorrow (Wednesday) night and if all goes well, I will be on US soil Thursday afternoon. See you next year, Burkina!
Until then, enjoy the following photos, courtesy of fellow volunteer Rob Hartwig, who came to support his fellow PCVs:
Our group photo, during the three-hour waiting period before the parade began
Finally, the arrival of M. le President
A troop of 50 horses takes to the street, one of which came from my village
Eventually, it is our turn. Don't we look sharp? 
What is a parade without baton-twirling, pompom-waving cheerleaders? N.B. this was the first time I had even seen cheerleaders in this country. 
Burkinabe veterans marching
Bringing out the heavy artillary
Even heavier
An impressive sight: 6 men on one motorcycle 
