Villages & Side Excursions

We spent last Friday through Monday in two other villages in southern Burkina Faso. These visits were also really good, although by the end we were pretty worn out! Our bodies got somewhat accustomed to sleeping on the floor and taking bucket baths, but we admit it's nice to be back in Ouagadougou, the land of hot showers and ceiling fans!

We go home to Abidjan tomorrow. It's been great to be in Burkina but we are looking forward to being home and having a little down time!

Here are some pics from the village tour (and some side excursions):

We had to drive down dirt roads after a heavy rainfall -- experiencing what our new friends from South Carolina call "muddin'."

Sunrise in the Turka village (yes, we woke up at sunrise every day).

Ladies drawing water from the well. (We also had to get our own water from wells, using foot or hand pumps.)

The Peaks, a beautiful rock formation that is a sacred place for the Senoufo people. For over a hundred years they've been coming here for sacrifices and other ritualistic practices.

We visited the lake of the sacred crocodiles, and actually got to sit on (hover over?) one much larger than this, but he slithered off before anyone could snap a picture. Crocodile tail scratching across your leg -- that's not something you experience every day.

Deron played in a couple of soccer matches in which a gospel presentation was given either before the game or during half-time.

In the markets and souvenir shops, we did lots of translating and bargaining for the volunteers.

After the volunteers from SC left, we took Michael to a game park. We saw lots of antelopes, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, birds and several elephants. We got pretty up-close-and-personal with the elephants -- one of them even broke a tree branch and started charging us! It was great! Here's a little video of one of them: