Burkina Faso is a Small Land-Locked Country in West Africa

Last year when discussing with Neverthirst the possibility of doing a project in Burkina Faso, I was met with blank stares. This surprised me because one of those staring was a TCK and another was a widely traveled Australian and the others have also traveled frequently and also watch a lot of news programs, which I was sure had featured Burkina Faso in recent months because American news programs occasionally go international for events involving terrorism. 

As for me, I don’t remember when I first found out about Burkina Faso. I don’t remember when I learned that Ouagadougou was its capital city, but I’ve always enjoyed the rhythm of the name. I probably first heard about it from my grandparents who went on a mission trip there back in the 1970’s when it was still called Upper Volta. My grandfather helped build some stuff, and my grandmother taught adult literacy, which she did for years in the U.S. as well. They had two little wooden elephants in their house, which they may have brought back from Burkina or their subsequent trip to visit their good friends in Uganda and Kenya. At any rate, I probably learned exactly where to find it on the map when I memorized all the countries in the world so that I could always win at our geography board game “Where in the World.” Winning is very important to me, but that tactic backfired, as no one ever agreed to play with me after that (winning is also important to the rest of my family).  At any rate, I wanted to go there because I knew it would make my grandmother so happy (it did) and because I’d never been there before. Humbly I admit to you, dear reader, aka Mom, that I often pitch new project ideas based on getting a chance to see a place I’ve never been to but want to visit. I know you thought it was always only For the Children.  Unfortunately, I’m not actually that Good.

The traveling matriarch surrounded by some of her family.
The other photos I have of her are sans makeup and she would write me
out of her will and/or curse me from the grave if I posted one of those.

 So we had the following conversation with Neverthirst:

Me: “We should look into doing some bore holes in Burkina Faso. I have a contact there, and it is in the Sahel Region, like Chad. There is a need for water there.” (Insert statistics I no longer have on a powerpoint in front of my face because I'm writing this from the airport while a little girl I've never met before in my life sits right next to me staring at my face.)

Someone from Neverthirst (paraphrased) “What’s Burkina Faso?”

Me: “What?”

Neverthirst man: “Is it a country?”

Me: “Are you serious right now?”

Another Neverthirst guy: “I’ve really never heard of it.”

Me: “Small, landlocked country in west Africa. Francophone. Capital is Ouagadougou. Used to be called Upper Volta. It’s been all over the news. They just had a coup. They just had a couple of terrorist attacks. There was an American missionary killed.”

Zero recognition from my esteemed colleagues, whom I love and respect (I really do). At this point, I’d mostly used up all my facts about Burkina Faso as well. Also, I didn’t want to harp on the recent violence because that is only a point in its favor for me, as I’m always more interested in a place if it’s likely that I could be in mortal danger at some point in my trip.

To make a long story short…wait, that is uncharacteristic, I usually make short stories long…anyway, embarrassed by their knowledge gap, they agreed to the project to make me stop talking about it. So—a win for me! And now, any time any of them hear mention of Burkina Faso, I get an email about where they heard about it (a game show, the news, the school age child of one of their friends) and whenever I mention it, I make sure to point out that it is a small, land-locked country in west Africa (hence the title of this post).

So I finally made it there. I got my visa at the Burkinabé (the adjective for describing people or things from Burkina Faso) Embassy in Chad. I knew where it was because it is on the way to one of my friend’s houses. I popped in there, shocking all the employees who were sitting around watching TV, as they don’t get many visa applications. They quickly gave me a visa, and so that was easy. Then I booked a flight for a country just one country over to the west that involved me flying through 2 non-contiguous countries (N’djamena to Abuja to Lomé) on the way there and overnighting in Addis (the opposite side of the continent) on the way back.

The photo I took for my grandmother.

The building I told my grandmother was the one that my grandfather built.
I mean, it could be...

A super cool old friend from 10+ years ago
who made the trip to see me because she's the Best.

Old old friends, conveniently with the same name,
so as our mental faculties start to go, we won't struggle to remember who we are.

She took me terrorism touristing so I could see where the attack was.

We ate at this restaurant where many people were killed, including family of the restaurant owner.
He's reopened, added lots of security measures, showing a pretty impressive resilience.
Yes, that's my thumb. I don't like taking photos in places like that, but I do it quickly anyway
so that I can show you and sometimes my thumb gets in the photo too.

Tim, one of the guys we did the project with in Burkina, standing by his fancy rig.

Mark, the other guy we worked with there, standing by the open well
where the people used to get their water before the new bore hole. 

Joanna, a partner of above two guys, who came with us on the trip to the field, as she works with the local church leaders.
When you live internationally, you find you have connections everywhere. Joanna and I have a mutual friend
who told me about Joanna's amazing chocolate cake. So I mentioned that I'd heard about it,
and the next day she brought us some. What can we learn from this experience?
Talk about cake a lot and sometimes people will make it for you.

Another old friend who came by to see me. It's nice to have friends
that want to hang out with me when I'm in their countries.

This is not relevant, but look what happened to my Ginger Pepsi Max
that I left in the car for an hour in the heat of the day--it exploded.
That's the power of the Chadian sun.

Any challengers? Think you can beat me at this game?
(Note to Neverthirst guys: you won't.)

Also note to Neverthirst guys: this picture