And on to the next thing...

Since the course is over, and nearly all the participants and staff have left already, I thought I would celebrate with some of my other friends here. I taught an American, Swiss and Cameroonian how to play up and down the river! Tons of laughs and a meal of delicious peanut sauce and rice. Swiss chocolate for desert was perfect!

This morning, I wrapped up the last of my staff responsibilities and have spent the rest of the day getting ready to go. The first part of my trip will be by bus. I am headed to Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) to get a visa for Cameroon, where I hope to end up later on. Unfortunately, Abidjan (a 20-hour bus-ride) is the only city near here with a Cameroonian embassy!

I have a bus-ticket for tomorrow night at 11:00. It goes all night, then I change buses at 6am and head into Cote d'Ivoire. I should arrive in Bouaké in the early afternoon and hopefully get to Abidjan before dark. Bus trips are long, hot, dusty, cramped, bone-jarring, and smelly (no one showers for 20 hours of continuous sweating, not to mention the chickens and goats that might be in the bus with us). It is the perfect chance to do some prime-time people watching.

You can learn a lot by observing people on the bus. Several layers of society can all be on the bus, intermingled together and it is intriguing to see how they interact. The entertainment comes part way into day 2 when everyone is tired but too uncomfortable to sleep and the one and only cassette tape (invariably reggae) is worn out. Almost without fail, one or two people will nominate themselves to be entertainment. They will pick a "fight" with another person or make some rediculous comment in a loud voice. The ensuing dialogue becomes something that the entire bus can participate in; people yelling their thoughts from many rows away. There is usually no "winner" person with the most wit in his arguement is considered the hero for engaging the others and brining laughter which eases everyone's discomfort. I used to think that tempers were flaring, but with time have come to learn that it is a deliberate strategy to pass time. I can't always follow the exact dialogue - it depends on what language they are using, but I always enjoy the antics.

It will probably take me 2 or 3 days to get my visa in Abidjan so I considered heading up to Abengourou to visit all my dear friends there. But I was there for a week last year and came nowhere close to seeing everyone that I should have seen. With only a couple of days, I don't know how I could do any justice, and I hate writing letters to explain that "I came to Abengourou but didn't have time to visit you, sorry."

When I have my visa, I will head back to Burkina, but stopping in the town of Banfora (close to the Ivorian border). There, I will spend a couple of days with friends before mounting my bicyle and heading off on the first leg of my journey: back to Ouagadougou.

Well, that is my plan for the next week or so. I should be able to update regularly during this period.

ps- this is the water-bottle holder that I designed with some friends that I made at the local welding shop. They are a group of handicapped (polio mostly) people who got funding to get tools and training to open a workshop. They did a fantastic job making this for me!