And The Rains Came!

The first rain of the season

The Pilot on the plane told us it was rainy and cool in Ouagadougou. They were wrong. We disembarked into hot! It was just hot. Dark and sticky and hot! We rode weird little old dilapidated buses from the plane to the airport. The airport looked like a military building out of the late 1950's with NO air conditioning. We stood in line a long time. They looked at our passports and immunization records.
Then we got into another line. There they looked at our papers we filled out and our passports and visas again. Because in our hurry to get to the airport we forgot the addresses and phone numbers I didn't have the stuff, it caused me a little problem there. One thing that was very noticeably different about Burkina from the US and Paris was the presence of Military police everywhere.
Anyway the woman Rakieta lives with was there and she came in and took care of the numbers so all was good. They did look at my bags and let me go without too much fuss.
Going out into the night was a bit of a trip. My welcome party was there and that was great. But there are street vendors everywhere and they are pretty aggressive. Luckily my party was able to whisk me out of there. That alone would have overwhelmed me if I hadn't had them to show me the ropes. There was a lady with 2 babies strapped to her who was begging. That was a little hard. The parking lot was very small and the cars were noticeably smaller and older than America is used to. However, I was reassured instantly that our family who is middle class was not helping out people who were upper class.
The ride to Grandma's was very overwhelming. It was dark, but it was just a lot on the senses since it is soooo different from rural Michigan.
We got there and went in the gate. It felt great to see everybody. We talked a bit and then went off to bed. The room they fixed for me was wonderful. I had a mosquito net which I had to learn to use and there was a room air conditioner. I set it at 27* c/81*f which was pretty comfortable for me and easy on the electric bill.
The next morning we woke to rain. Heavy rain. They were happy. It was the start of the rainy season.
The first picture is what happened to the road after several hours of steady rain. The second picture is of a rousing game of Uno with no power. I brought the cards and taught them. Uno is great when you have language problems because it gives you something in common. Rakieta always loved Uno. It was very popular this trip too.
I was told and witnessed that toys and games are very rare. A board game can cost well over $100.00 so Uno was a wonderful gift.