About a week after Thanksgiving there was the national Idependance Day celebration in Fada, my regional capital, on the 11th of December. The Burkina government invited all of the countries that have volunteers in Burkina Faso to attend and represent their country at a cultural fair and then on the actual day of independance in a parade for the President Blaise Compaore. Pretty exciting stuff, and since I am one of the volunteers near Fada I was one of the 8 chosen to represent America. I basically walked in not knowing what to expect and was amazed in the end. The cultural fair consisted mainly of surrounding countries, Japan, and America. We were then given tables and the fair was on. Every other booth seemed to have brought merchandise, painted calebashes, leather works, food, and we brought a life size cutout of Barack Obama on loan from the embassy, handouts in French of Barack's speech, and cheetos. We also made chilli and grilled cheese, not as American as apple pie and baseball, but we worked with the resources available. The one flaw in our booth is that everything was free. Thus it goes without saying that our booth was the most popular booth at the fair. The mornings would go by like a tidal wave and the afternoons would leave us with nothing but the tables remaining. Barack was also quite popular amongst the visitors with camera phones (from a distance he actually looked quite real). After two days of cultural exchange we were tired, but the fun was just begining. The parade was the next day and we had parade practice. Parades in Burkina are nothing like Parades in America. We were taught to march like soldiers swinging our arms and not smiling. The prospect of throwing candy to eager little children was out of the question. We had uniforms made out of the fabric for the holiday and looked good enough to be seen by the president from about a six foot distance with him standing in the back of a truck surrounded by security driving by. Luckily this is exactly what happened. The president drove by before the parade started to inspect us and we made eye contact. We are now basically best friends, but I will tell that story another time. Long story short, the Americans were the hit of the parade with everyone yelling, "Barack Obama!" as we marched by. Barack Obama indeed.
A few days after that was Christmas and since last year I celebrated my first Christmas in Ghana and threw my camera in the ocean I decided that this year I would spend it in village with my camera securely attached to my wrist. It was a fun time had by all that involved a morning of church singing that I didnt understand, then lots of food, then dancing. It was good but then when I went to bed at about midnight there were drums that went on until about 5am. Not so much good times.
Losing interest in typing this blog so long story short, after that I went on a bike trip through the animal parks near my village with two other volunteers. I did not get eaten by a lion. School started again, got visited by my Peace Corps boss and he brought me some packages out of which I ate two boxes of oreos in two days. Felt sick, but man was it worth it. I am now in Ouaga for a meeting and coming back in three weeks for a softball tournament. Hooray!
NOW PICTURES!!!
