The Pannier Question: June 2006

Evening June 15th

The sun is setting.
We have left 100 km of Burkina Faso behind us today. Just outside of the village of Rakaye we spy a well kept compound. Not surprisingly our request to camp is met with warm friendliness and we are quickly accepted into the house. A place is swept for the tent inside the courtyard and we are given small wooden stools on which to sit and relax while taking in the evening rountine.
Our host explains that he is a chauffeur and also has a house in Ouaga. This farm is one of the four he owns and the curious shy children chasing each other about are a few of his fourteen.
The sun is setting.
The senior wife is cooking over an open fire, the boys are hearding the three cows into their pen and the older boy is sent with the donkey cart to fetch water from the river. The younger children continue to skip around us teasing each other with fruits held high over the smallest ones head.
The sun is setting.
These are the beautiful moments of rural life we had experienced in Ghana and now here in Burkina Faso. The wonder of these moments cannot be explainined by overwhelming generousity alone: our host driving his motto to the borehole to fetch us the trés bon water to bathe, the large meal of T.Z. and spinach stew or storing our bikes safely away in the hut. It is an openness with life, a complete sharing of home. To watch the small baby being bathed by latern light in the doorway of the hut and comfortably sleep surrounded by strangers in a courtyard under the stars.
The sun has set.

Farewell Tumu, Bonjour Ouaguadougou

Au revoir

The staff at Kansec held a goodbye
sitting for us the day before our
departure. The Headmaster had
these matching outfits made
especially for the occasion. It had
been a hectic week of packing and
farewell sittings, so we were somehow
tired before we even started.

The Starting Line

To our surprise and joy, just past customs our Tumu friends were waiting with a starting line for our official beginning. Three kilometres down, five thousand more to go!

Crossing into Burkina Faso

For us this meant the end of cedis and the beginning of cfa, the end of Ghenglish and the beginning of waf (west african french), farewell to our friends in Tumu and the beginning of a grande adventure.

Waiting out the noon day heat

It would be difficult to find a flatter road in the Canadian prairies than the road from Leo to Ouagadougou and the pavement made for fast cycling. On our second day we travelled 100 km with smiles and greetings the whole way.

The Route

The green line is our tentative route. We will leave Ghana, travel north through Burkina Faso, and spend some time exploring the Dogon in Mali. We'll then head west towards Bamako and out through Senegal to St. Louis on the Atlantic coast. Mauritania will bring us into the true desert, where we will hop a couple of camels through the Western Sahara. (I knew there was a reason my mom made me sit through the unabridged version of 'Lawrence of Arabia') Then we will likely stick close to the coast up through Morocco en route to Spain.