A Day Like No Other

This is going to be a long blog. And it’s not going to tell you a whole lot about how I'm doing, but Saturday was the most ridiculous day I have ever had. In my entire life. I will remember it forever, and I'm so glad that Nichole was there to experience it with me.

Saturday was the proposal of our (the orphanage’s) seamstress. Her name is Dina. In Burkina, you have a big party when you are getting engaged. The engagement becomes official at the party (not like at home where we might have a party a few weeks after the engagement.) Here, you are not engaged until you have this party. Nichole and I decided that we wanted to support Dina and to see what it was like.

I'm going to preface the story of this day with a few things. #1 Nichole and I had wanted more "African" experiences. We don't live a very village life and have wanted to experience that more. #2 We had a way to get to the party but we didn't know how, exactly, we were going to get back. We had a room reserved in Ouaga at one of the missionary guesthouses...so as long we could get back to Ouaga we would be fine.

Dina's father is Pastor Job. If anyone has heard me talk about Zolo, then you have heard me mention Pastor Job. He's an amazing man. He offered to lead the way to the village where this party would be taking place. He wanted to leave on the six o’clock AM bus on Saturday. We were going to swing by his pastor friend's house around 5:50 AM to pick him up and go to the bus station together (Ruth was going to drive us.) So Nichole and I roll out of bed. Still groggy and don’t have anytime to eat anything. We get in the truck at 5:52, and the truck won't start. The clutch is out. So Ruth says "Start walking. I'll call Pastor Job. He has farther to go than you do." The bus station is about a fifteen-twenty minute walk from our house (orphanage.) So we start booking it as fast we can that early in the morning with sleep still in our eyes. We make it to the station at 6:15. There are no waiting buses and no Pastor Job. We reassure ourselves that he had farther to go than us and that he would not leave us without letting us know...we found a seat and waited for about half an hour. He finally showed up, saying that he had looked everywhere for us...which is funny because we were the ONLY white people at the bus station (it's a very spread out place). We ask about prices and discover that we are going to take a not-as-nice bus because it is about a dollar cheaper (and a dollar is a lot to these people) we get on the bus at 7:30 and start to head for Ouaga where we will change buses. We almost leave Denise, Dina's sister in Yako because she almost didn't make it to the bus in time. I ate a granola bar as soon as we got on the bus (THANKS, JENN!!!) because I was starting to get hungry. Around 9 the bus stops to pick up some more people and we buy some bread and we continue on to Ouaga.

We get to Ouaga and we need to find a taxi to take us to the next bus station. Pastor Job gets in an argument with a taxi driver about the price. He wants to charge us about four times more than he should because Nichole and I are American (we started feeling bad about this)...so we walk a few blocks and find another taxi that isn't quite so unreasonable. Pastor Job brought his moto so he follows the taxi. We get to the bus station and are assaulted by people asking where we are going. We wade through the people, find some shade, ignore the people, and wait for Pastor Job. He shows up about ten minutes later (I forgot to mention the day is starting to get VERY hot as it has been lately.) The boys who were swarming us are now swarming him telling him that there are no more buses going where we want to go (I still don't know the name of the village.) Finally a young boy takes Pastor by the hand and leads him to a very shady looking van. The boys admit that this van will take us where we want to go. They shove Nichole and I in the front where we are sweating to death because it’s so hot and the seats are leather and we are sitting very close together. We sit for about twenty minutes with what seems like nothing happening. They collect money from us (once again more expensive than it should be because of Nichole and I) which was a little worrisome...one should never pay before the ride has been given. Ten minutes later and nothing has happened. They tell us they need to repair the van (???? you didn't know this before???) and so we have to take a different bus. They give us our money back and flag down another van.

We are literally squished in this van. I was sitting on a fold out chair in the middle of the aisle with Nichole in between some old women. This van stopped frequently to pick up more people. Someone was sitting on the dashboard. There were bikes, motos, chickens, and people sitting on the ROOF of the van. OUTSIDE. We see it all the time here but I've never been in a van that had people on the roof. Finally we get to the village. Pastor calls Dina to come get us but he doesn't have reception (everyone has cell phones here) so we take the moto of another pastor friend. I'm on the moto with Pastor Job and Nichole is on Pastor's moto with Denise. Denise almost kills herself and Nichole and then kills the moto twice. It takes about ten minutes before we are actually on the road. It's probably about 11:30. There is a van full of people who are following behind us. Pastor Job and I get to the courtyard where Dina is and look behind us. Nichole and Denise are no where in sight. I greet Dina and her family as is culturally appropriate...and then we see two guys on the moto and the van stops and drops off Nichole and Denise. Apparently she really didn't know how to drive it and so the people in the van decided to take pity on Nichole!

Dina took us to her "room" it was a little tiny mud hut with a door about three feet tall. We had to hunch done to get inside (the party was at the courtyard of her grandfather...so this was like a guest room.) She told us to stay put, so we stayed inside the hut until we were bored. She told us we could go sit out under this huge tree. So we did. The tree was next to the road and we saw the huge van full of people. Dina then informed us that the van was full of Gideon (her now fiancé) and his family. Slowly, and I mean slowly, they started making their way up to the tree. Dina told us we were their reception. So we stayed and greeted them. There were about thirty of them. Dina came out and greeted them along with her father and some other family members (her mom and her FIVE other sisters were not in attendance.) Dina did not look at Gideon because apparently on the day of engagement they are not allowed to be seen by the other, talk to each other, be in the same room... which is very weird; and we didn’t' really understand why they do it this way. She served them a drink called zookume that’s really not very good, but the Burkinabe love it. Then she left.

Nichole and I stayed and chatted with the family for a little while until they started getting up and leaving. Gideon told us they were leaving and we were so confused. We thought it was over....and nothing even happened!!! It's getting into the hottest part of the day now and we are thirsty and still have not eaten anything since 9. Dina came out a few minutes later and we asked her where everyone went. She told us they went to greet another pastor and asked if we wanted to go...we said "we want to do what we are supposed to do...we don't know." She took us to the pastors...about a five minute walk (this is the most bush-setting I had ever been in. It wasn't a village. It was courtyards set five to ten minute walks apart from each other. We were in the middle of nowhere nowhere.) We greeted some people and sat down with the family while Dina talked to some people (not anywhere near Gideon of course.)

She called us when she was done and we walked back. We asked what was going to happen now. She said the family had to greet some other people; we would eat; and then we would be done and we could go home. We thought this was fantastic news...we had wanted to get back to Ouaga in time for dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant (yes, Oauga has some good food!!) We told Dina that we wanted to go back the same day and she laughed. We told her dad and he asked us about three times if we were sure...apparently everyone thought that we were going to spend the night in the village which we would have been happy to do if we had been prepared for it.

Walking back and forth from the pastors’ produced a lot of sticky things that stuck to my skirt so when we got back to Dina’s family's courtyard we spent a lot of time trying to get them off. Then Dina went back to cooking and Nichole and I sat and chatted with her dad and another pastor (there were a lot of pastors around.) It was really pleasant. They are incredibly gentle men who really love Jesus. we talked until about four thirty when we realized that the family had not yet come back and it was still hot and we didn't have any water (and we can't drink water out in the village; its not safe) and we still had not eaten. But we had to go to the bathroom. Dina led us back to the other pastor’s house (where I once again had to get the sticky things off) because she thought it was too crowded for us to use the WC at her courtyard. When we were done (here they pee in the same place they shower...they save the holes in the ground for poop...so we peed in the mud. It was pretty disgusting.)

Dina informed us that we were going to be eating in this courtyard and we could either go back with her and come back again when they brought the food over or we could stay there. We chose to stay. We sat with the family again and chatted some more and took some more pictures. We got nervous because we were sooo hungry and feeling dehydrated and there wasn't anyway for us to leave if we wanted to. It started to cool off and it looked like rain. Around six o’clock, people started checking their watches. Finally the food was brought over and we thought we would eat any time. Then I noticed that several of the man were wearing the traditional Muslim little hat things. It's Ramadan right now...the month of fasting from sun-up to sun-down. I had a horrible thought, "what if we are waiting for the sun to go down before we eat?" I dismissed it thinking that surely Dina would have told us this. Around six thirty or so Dina called us to come inside the courtyard (we had been sitting right outside it) to sit with her and her family. It was at this point that Pastor Job told us that we were in fact waiting until sundown to eat...and then he asked us again if we wanted to leave that night. We said "yes!" We still thought we could make it to our restaurant, Le Verdoyant, in time to at least get ice cream...a rare treat in Burkina and maybe some real food. Finally at 7:15, we started eating. It was village spaghetti...which isn't bad...its ok...it tasted a lot better after not having eaten all day, but we tried not to eat too much so that we would be hungry enough for Le Verdoyant. Luckily, Africans don't talk while they eat and they eat quickly. We were done pretty fast.

Pastor Job told us he talked with the family's drivers and he agreed to take us back to Ouaga with them. (they all live in Ouaga.) We were relieved to finally know how we were getting back. We walked back to the van (at the other courtyard...more sticky things.) The family forgot a bench and so a couple people had to walk all the way back to get the bench. Then we were shoved into this van. I have never ever experienced anything like this and words are going to fail the experience but I'm going to try.

There were about thirty of us in a van that is a little smaller than a fifteen passenger van at home - no seats...just five benches. We were crowded. I'm not sure there was a part of my body that was not touching another person. It was hot, and the three women kept talking badly about Nichole and me. We knew this because we know the word for white man in Moore and because they spoke with disdain in their voices...it was constant. We just wanted to get to Ouaga, get some good food, drink some water, and go to bed. It was 815. Things were going well for the first 30 min. until we came upon some members of our group who had driven motos and had broken down on the side of the road. We crammed two or three more people into the van and followed this moto through a couple of little towns, stopping to look for help along the way. Finally we stopped on the side of the road and everyone piled out of the van to wait while they fixed the moto themselves (where is AAA when you need them?!!) We were outside for about thirty minutes...people fell asleep. Nichole and I tried to remember all the good things: we got to support Dina, we were having an African experience, it had cooled down, the bugs weren't bad that night, the stars were beautiful. It was still a trying 30 min. though because we could see the haze of the lights in Ouaga in the distance....it was also trying because no one would tell us what was going on. Everyone spoke in Moore and no one bothered to translate anything into French, even Gideon which surprised us a little bit. Finally we were on the road again, but we followed the moto all the way into Ouaga meaning we could only go as fast as the moto could go...not very fast. When we finally got to Ouaga, the driver started taking some roads that Nichole and I didn't recognize, and we were heading away from the lights of the city. They were the worst roads we had ever ever been on. In some places it didn't even look like a road. Everyone in the van was laughing about something that Nichole and I didn't get (because no one told us) but we figured it out when finally we stopped and heard the driver ask where the paved road was. WE WERE LOST. Pretty soon after that, the laughter turned to frustration and things got really tense in the van. At this point, Nichole and I knew we weren't going to Le Verdoyant that night. After stopping three times to ask for directions, we finally made it to the paved road about ten minutes from where we wanted to be dropped off. We were dropped off and made the 7ish minute walk to the guest house and finally arrived at 11:35 that night! We were so thirsty and so hungry and so dirty and so tired. We drank a bunch, made a pizza and ate almost the whole thing, took showers and went to bed at close to one (don't worry, we were able to eat lunch at Le Verdoyant on Sunday, and it was amazing.)

It was the most ridiculous day. It was so draining. It was such an experience. We/I am so glad that we were able to go. Miraculously, even though we wanted things to be going differently the whole day, there was never a time where either of us lost our temper due to impatience. We kind of just took it all in.

The whole day there was never any mention of it being an engagement. No one ever said anything about it which I think is so weird. We discovered that Gideon really does love Dina, a rare find in Burkina. And at the end of the night, they went off by themselves to the edge of the group where we could just see their silhouettes. They were talking quietly and that was really sweet to see...even though they weren't culturally allowed to talk all day on Saturday, they do like to talk to just each other.

I know these words are not doing justice to the day...because all the elements played into it: the heat, the thirst, the hunger, the being completely dependent on others all day, being tired...It makes me tired again just thinking about it!