JP in Ouagadougou: Week 5 Recap and lots of pictures (!)

Well, long time no see. I promise I didn't abandon el blog, but I was lacking internet access for much of last week. I did have my camera the whole time and thus took a ton of pictures.

I was with the head of my office for the installation of members of new water management committees in two different river basins. I went back to Dedougou and Banfora, where I visited the roads sites, and it was remarkable to see how much of a difference three weeks of the rainy season made on the terrain. Everything that had been dusty or semi green was starting to be in full bloom. It was interesting to learn about water management, and really fascinating to see the protocol at these formal events, though I was constantly nervous that I was sitting in the wrong place or inadvertently offending someone. I did, however, get a touch of the food poisoning as we were eating food from unknown, unrefrigerated sources at two of the luncheons. It was probably inevitable given my delicate flower of a stomach so, c'est la vie.

One amusing anecdote: at an official luncheon following one of these events, we were ushered into a meeting space that had a TV in it. Someone had decided to play the movie Alive during our lunch (about the rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes and whose surviving members eat strips of their dead teammates flesh to stay alive). Whoever put that film on should get pulled aside for a lesson on appropriate lunchtime viewing material. A Burkinabè colleague who didn't think I understood what was going on in the film mimicked cannibalism for me just to drive the point home.

In case anyone isn't already grossed out, I bring you my first picture, which depicts the state of the car's windshield after driving through a cloud of bugs who emerged after this week's heavy downpours (there was even hail!). I have had enough experiences with bug carcasses in 2013 to last a lifetime.