Our crazy trip to Bobo.

We packed up the kids and drove with two other families and the wonderful Mr. Berry, our adopted African uncle, down to the southwest part of the country to the second largest city here called, Bobo Diolasso (but really just called Bobo).

The guys had some work meetings they had to attend on Monday but we all went down together from Sunday to Tuesday to get out of Ouaga and see a little more of this country we now call home.

What a three days it was. 

The drive alone is an adventure in itself. Driving the highways here, is, bumpy. It's one thing to drive through the dirt city streets covered in pot holes at 20 mph.

It's another thing to drive on a "highway" outside of the city. Isaak is very grateful for the defensive driving course he went to in DC. It's come in handy when you're swerving all over the road at 60mph trying to avoid not only potholes, but the oncoming vehicles that are also trying to avoid potholes on the other side of the street.

I knew this would spell disaster for Marvelly's car sickness tendency so I gave her some Dramamine and she had no problems at all! She slept almost the whole way there, which was about a 4.5 hour drive.

Despite the inevitable brain damage from the roads, we had a very nice drive. This was my first time driving through Burkina Faso, outside the city, and even though I brought my book to read, I found I couldn't pry my eyes off the window. It was just too beautiful. There was just to much to see and take in. Why would I want to miss that for a book I could read when I got home?

So I sat and watched the African world zoom by. 

We passed village after village. Men working in the fields. Women carrying baskets to and fro. People converging together under the shade of a nearby tree.

They are lands untouched by progress.

It was beautiful.

The hotel, on the other hand, left much to be desired. :~) When we arrived in Bobo we checked into our hotel to get unpacked. I'm not sure what we were thinking. I'm not sure what we all were expecting. I think the expectations were this though.....if we're staying at a 6 Star hotel, the most expensive hotel in the city, it's going to be nice. Not great perhaps, but certainly nice.

See, that's the trouble with expectations. You just shouldn't have them....ever. :~) 

*Note to self....stop having expectations.

This 6 Star hotel, the most expensive hotel in Bobo....is the equivalent to an hourly motel in the states. At first I was thinking maybe it was equivalent to a Motel-6....but no. Motel 6's are nicer. This would for sure be an hourly motel in the states. The kind that pimps and crackheads frequent. The kind that American's (including me not that long ago) would tip their noses up at and not be caught dead sleeping in.....because these are the motels in the news that you find dead people in!! Ha ha! Granted, the hourly motels aren't nice, but at least they have water.

Ours had no running water the whole time we were there. :~) Touché Burkina, touché.

Our room was actually one of the nicest out of the bunch too. Ours did not have roaches or a used condom on the night stand like our friends....so I was feeling pretty good!

The pool area wasn't half bad either. So long as you sat in a non rotted piece of lounge chair, and steered clear of the holes on the pool floor with sharp broken tiles....it was great. It even had a kid area where Marvelly could comfortably swim.

However, the no running water for three days was rough. Well, I take that back. At some point the water briefly came on at the exact time Isaak needed to take a shower. So fortuntely Isaak was able to bath one time while we were there. The rest of us had no such luck.

No shower.
No sink.
No toilets.

To say that it was stinky would be a drastic understatement.

When it's been 100 degrees outside and you have been walking and sweating profusely in a most unlady-like fashion for the majority of the day, you've gone and roamed the maze that is the Grand Market and been stepping in fish bones and eggs and all kinds of animal poo, had no soap to wash your hands because there is neither soap NOR water here, plus the fact that you haven't been able to flush your toilet in a while......yeah, that don't smell so good after three days.

Isaak had to open the windows while we slept because the smell of urine was making him nauseous. And that says a lot because he doesn't smell anything! (the hotel staff graciously placed a large water pail outside our door, but really, dumping water down the toilet really only pushes it down far enough that you can't see it anymore, you can still smell it though.)

I had to spit clean the girl's faces before bed, cringing every time I put my tongue to my hand wondering what exactly I was ingesting from my own unwashed skin.

Oh Burkina, though you are making me smell the rankest kind of rank....I love you yet.

It wasn't just our hotel that had no running water. It was city wide. Which I discovered when we went to eat at a nice restaurant Monday night and Marvelly had to go poo.

So I take her to the toilettes where I discovered that this restaurant also doesn't have running water so they too left a large pail of water outside the stall door for our use. The problem was this....I couldn't remember just how to flush the toilet using the pail of water.

Luckily Jean was close outside the door so I popped my head out and said, "Jean, get in here! Marvelly pooped and the toilet won't flush!" So she came in and told me that Sophie pooped in the other stall and she just left it because she couldn't flush it either! So now both stalls, the only ones in nice restaurant, contained our daughter's poo. Something needed to be done. 

A week ago when we had no running water at our house I remembered Isaak bringing in some water from the pool and saying it needed to be poured in the tank to flush it.

Okay. So Jean hauls in the large pail and we try to take off the lid to the tank. Except the dang thing is like glued on! Who the heck glues on a toilet tank lid! We could only shimmy it off about one inch and we looked at each other in that moment and said ...."maybe we can just pick up the pail and pour the water in the one inch space really slowly and really carefully."

This is one of those moments where I should have looked at my past history and said, "disaster is imminent, put down the pail and leave the poo as is. "

But I didn't.

So as Jean squeezed into the corner between the toilet and the wall holding up the large bucket of water, I stood neck to the toilet and wall on the other side holding back the toilet lid.

Okay, here's the thing.....when you are holding a large bucket containing several gallons of water and you have a one inch space to pour it in, chances are it's not gonna come out slowly.

Which it didn't.

It came out fast.

And it spilled all over the toilet, the floor, our shoes, and floor length dresses.

None of it made it into the tank to flush the poo away.

So now the bathroom not only still contained rank smellin' poo it was flooded with water. Nice. 

After we saw what we did, we looked at each other, laughed, and said, "let's get out of here!!"

And we bolted outta that bathroom before anyone could see that we were the culprits behind the flood. Though the fact that our shoes were sloshing and leaving behind wet foot prints may have given us away. 

Oh Burkina.....the things I go through for you.

Despite the...difficulties.....we had a good time. We all, kids included, got to spend the weekend with some dear friends. The kids found some fun ways to entertain themselves.......

we explored the city on foot, visiting the Grand Market and a Catholic Church.

We were all suppose to speak to a number of Burkinabé students about American culture, but none of them turned out to speak English (we were told they were all English speakers) so only Jean and Mike spoke, seen as they speak French pretty well. I had planned to talk to them about Motown music since I was born in Michigan and Motown came out of Detroit, but since I wasn't speaking, I got to hang out outside for a bit and race a bunch of Burkinabé kids who were hanging around doing races with Sydaleigh, Marvelly, Luke and Ben. We had the best time!

We went mask shopping. I'm not really into masks so I picked up a necklace and a tablecloth, and we found a shop run by these women who recycle black plastic bags and make everything from dolls, to purses and coaster, you name it. The girls each bought a little doll.

On the way out of town we stopped at a nice ice cream shop. Oh my gosh it had four ice cream flavors! We were so happy!! Most places have one or two, but they had four, FOUR....vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and banana. Happy day!

On the way home me and Isaak were talking about how in the states we'd be so upset if an ice cream shop only had four measly flavors. Most places you go there is at least ten. Baskin Robbins has 30. Even the self serve yogurt stores popping up on every corner have tons of flavors and toppings to pick from. Stepping back from my culture has taught me much about gratitude. Many times having "options" only leads to furthered dissatisfaction. I feel like Jesus is using this land of Burkina to slap the dissatisfaction right out of me. Teaching me to be content with two ice cream flavors. Shoot....to be happy when we can find a place that even serves ice cream! What a sweet treat. That ice cream was good down to the past drop...as Sophie and Marvelly demonstrated!

So that was our first trip through the frontier of Burkina to Bobo. That's what they call the outlying land here. I had been calling it "the bush", but in Burkina it is known as "the frontier".

I liked Bobo. It was smaller and less busy. You didn't have to worry about mowing down fifty people when you backed up in the car. People left you alone when you shopped (for the most part). In Ouaga they crowd and push and live in the chaos that comes with city life. Bobo was a little slower. A nice place to escape to when life in Ouaga gets to be too much.

However, next time I will know not to come expecting the hotels here to be the American equivalent. There is no American equivalent here. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world for a reason. Never in my life would I have looked at water in a hotel as a luxury!! Oh Burkina....I salute you for your continued ability to teach me how to live your way!

Gosh this place makes me smile. :~) No running water and all.