John and Kitty like to hear "funny stories" from my past. They usually entail crazy embarrassing moments and lately the stories have been thin on unique and valid content. In one such moment John asked if I could think of anything funny that happened when I went to Africa to visit my friend Christine, who was in the Peace Corps. That got me thinking about Christine, Burkina Faso and my not so relaxing "vacation" to Africa. I went back to my journal and decided to record this entry for posterity- especially since the story I tell these days is about sleeping with pigs, and to be honest, I questioned the accuracy of my memory (were there actually
pigs?).
Here is the entry in its entirety... a little boring, not very funny, but brought back memories none-the-less.
Saturday June 17, 2000
Last night was wild. We took a bush taxi to Nakko to watch the theater group perform. We got a flat on the way- I guess it happens all the time. the taxi is pretty much an old beat-up Mazda pick-up. Christine and I were lucky, we got to sit in the front while everyone else sat on benches in the back. The guy drove close to 60 mph on sketchy dirt roads. When we got there the troupe had a DJ blasting music into the streets and everyone was dancing- it was a crazy scene. Finally, at 7:30 the group started their skits- the first was on AIDS, the second on industrialization, and the third on female genital mutilation. We had front row seats next to a high ranking official, his wife, and his two beautiful little girls. We shared the Chex Mix I had packed with them and eventually ended up giving it to them- he really liked it. (Christine was super irritated that they took it from us).
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| Sleeping under the stars with the pigs and chickens in Nakko |
We were supposed to go back last night- but since we had the flat the driver didn't want to risk the drive at night without a spare. So we were made to stay. They provided sleeping mats for us and I at least had a pillow. The house we stayed in was kind of like a bar or something. The walls had tons of spider webs and there were crickets all over the ground. I really didn't want to stay there but we had no choice. It was a full moon so we moved outside under the stars. Just when I was nearly asleep I felt a mosquito biting my fingers (despite the burning coils...) so I had to use the spray. Then the second time I was almost asleep I was startled by pigs rummaging through the nearby marche. Finally I was almost asleep when suddenly I realized it was getting pitch black really fast. We hurried inside with the crickets just as torrents of rain started to fall. It continued to rain throughout the night. I think I got a total of about 2 hrs of sleep. I'm in a bad mood as a result.
This morning we waited about an our for them to load everyone in the taxi and then we headed back. About half way we had another flat. Luckily it was in Tainkoura- a village where we could patch one of them. It took a few hours then we made it back, GUH.
