A couple days ago, Sibidi asked me if I wanted to go to a wedding this weekend. I had no idea who the bride and groom were, but he said that it was OK because at Burkinabe weddings, anyone who's invited can invite anyone else. So this morning, I went to the church service for the wedding. I'd guess that there were probably about 250 people there. Dave and I didn't stay for the whole thing though. The electricity was out in the church, so the fans weren't working... and as you can imagine, with that many people in a room, it can get HOT. It was about 35 degrees outside, so I'm guessing it was about 40 C inside. And we had been waiting there for ~45 min for the service to start because the bride and groom were running a bit late. Later, I found out that the service went on for another ~2 hours after we left, so I'm kind of glad that we left when we did. If I had known the couple getting married, I would have stayed. I hope they don't get offended though.

Here's a picture I took of the SIM Guesthouse. On the left is the SIM Office, and on the right is the guesthouse.

I've been fortunate to meet other short-termers here who are around my age. For the past three or four weekends, Dave, an American who just graduated from college, has been staying over at my place. He works at a place called the Village of Hope, a project designed for orphans and children who are in difficult situations. It's basically a little village (it's not really a village, they just call it one) that has a school, dorms, a health clinic, etc., which was started by a pastor of a church 4-5 years ago. It's a really great place and there's a big need for it. Since Dave works alone, it's understandable why he'd want to come into the city every weekend... and we get along really well. Another girl we hung out with a lot is Hannah, a young teacher from Australia. But last week, she left Ouagadougou to begin home-schooling the Ottosson's children in Fada N'gourma. She's incredibly nice and loves to cook and bake... which has been great for Dave and I :P

This is a picture of Dave, Sibidi, and I at a restaurant. Sibidi is 33 and he works in SIM office with me. We usually eat out a lot together, since he lives by himself right now and doesn't like to cook.

Culture

Now that I've been here for about 3 weeks, I feel like I'm starting to settle in. I used to feel self-conscious when walking down the streets or going into the market because everyone used looked at me because I was a foreigner, but now it doesn't bother me as much. But there's a few things about the culture that are still a bit difficult for me.

For the past 2 weeks, a young man has been coming on the weekends to ask for work. He's 20 and from Mali. On the first Saturday that I moved into my house, he knocked on my door and we started to talk. He told me that he came to Burkina to try to find a job as a guard, but he didn't succeed. He was asking for any work he could do around the house, but I had to tell him that I didn't need anyone because I had just moved in and already had someone to work for me. But I did offer to give him some food instead, and he accepted. Then, he started to talk about how sick he was and how he couldn't afford medicine. I told him that I wouldn't give him money because I didn't know what he was going to do with it. Eventually, he told me that all he needed was 500 CFA (about $1 CAD) for a medicine prescription, because he could get medicine almost for free at a Christian clinic. So I said "OK, I'll give you 500 CFA, but you have to return and show me the prescription". A couple days later, I found the prescription in my door. So I thought to myself that he might actually be legit. The next Sunday, he came again and asked me if I had received the prescription, and then he proceeded to show me the medication that he received from the clinic. He then asked for work again, but I had to tell him that I still didn't have any work for him to do around the house. Then he started to tell me how he was trying to go back to Mali to go back to his family, but that he needed money for the bus back. Again, I told him that I wouldn't give him the money b/c I didn't know what he was going to do with it, but I did offer him some more food and he accepted. The next day, as I was leaving to go to work at 7am, he showed up at my door with another guy. He said that his friend was leaving to go towards Mali that day, and if I could give him 5,000 CFA, it would pay for his transportation costs. At this point, I was getting really skeptical about his whole situation. After about 20 mins of talking, I eventually told him that I would give him 1,000 CFA for gas, and that if the other guy was really his friend, he would take him along. After that, he kept talking and trying to convince me to give him more, but I was starting to get frustrated because I felt like he was just trying to get as much money from me as he could (even though in reality it's really not that much). So after that, I told him that that was the only time I would give him money, and I wished him a good trip and that was it. I guess I'm still half-expecting him to show up at my door this weekend, but we'll see what happens. It's tough because you want to help, but you don't want to get "had" either (b/c that happens a lot here).

Another thing that bothers me is how when people see me (or other foreigners), they immediately see dollar signs. So if I need to get my bike repaired, it'll cost me more money to repair it. Or if I go to the market to buy vegetables, I don't come out with as much as someone else would for the same amount of money. It's not a big difference, and in the end I know I'm helping them out a little bit more so I don't mind as much, but it's just the principle of it all. So it's a bit annoying, but I know it's just a part of life here in Africa that I will have to get used to.

Djibo

I returned from Djibo last night and there's two things I'll mention in this post:

1) Djibo was a great experience because I got to meet Ken and Jocelyn Elliott, two Australians who came to BF in 1972 to create a hospital. Before I got there, Galen (the missionary who gave me a ride up to Djibo) told me that Ken and Jocelyn would be two of the most gracious and humble people that I could ever meet - and he was right. Throughout the 3 days I was there, both Ken and Jocelyn just wanted to serve us...they provided a great place for us to stay, Jocelyn cooked fantastic meals, and Ken would always try to entertain us if we were sitting in the living room... and in everything they did, they did it with a heart of servitude.

Ken is a surgeon, and he's the only doctor in the hospital. The hospital they started is pretty incredible - it's 300m by 250m (so it's a huge complex), they have 4 wards, plenty of beds, and it's also well-equiped (check out the "solar-powered" autoclave!). It's always busy there, and it's pretty incredible to see how much God has blessed them.





























2) Galen also took us (there were 2 american girls who work at an orphanage in a small city named Yacko + one other missionary in the group) to the animal market, where they basically just sell off goats and cows. Here's a before and "day-after" picture:















I just thought it was neat.

Djibo

For the last week, I've been doing a bit of work in the office. I found out that I'm going to be helping to do the admin work for all of the projects they have in Burkina Faso, not just the ones related to health. So various people have been taking me around the city to visit and learn more about the projects that SIM has established here.


I'm going up to Djibo from Monday to Wednesday. It's a small little village to the north of the city that I'm in. There's a medical surgeon who set up a clinic there. It's a pretty neat story and he was in the SIM video of BF that we watched during orientation, but I don't know all the details of the story yet... once I get back, I'll post something about it.