Yesterday- a mix of good and bad, as usual. Woke up with the wife on the mind, fearing the results of this huge decision I have to make. Without going into too much detail, I, ahem, despaired for awhile, listened gratifyingly to Counting Crows for probably the first time in my life, and then went off for the day's work.
I visited every elementary school in town (4) to ask the directors to choose one top student to send to a camp some of us volunteers will be doing in Ouahigouya in July. I got some good ideas for sessions and guest speakers and field trips and am excited to plan and do this camp. It's my only real planned project for this summer, though I have a lot of ideas and leads that are pushing against my mind with potential like water on a dam. One director read me some of his interesting, somewhat literal poetry (apparently if it rhymes, it's poetry). I could see a good session coming out of this. He's very energetic and would make a good guest. One director told me he wants to start a correspondence program between his class and an American class. An interesting idea. Because of the language barrier, perhaps it would be good to match his 6th year class with a 2nd or 3rd year French class, maybe 8th grade, I don't know. For them, it would be good French practice, and for all the students, an interesting cultural exchange.
That afternoon I was disturbed from my repose by some loud music coming from about a block away. Earlier, I had seen a huge crowd at the Catholic Church when I went to visit the Saint-Mary's Elementary and later saw the horn-blaring motorcade heading to my neighborhood, leading me to the conclusion that there was a Catholic wedding afoot. Here that means lots of drunken madness and dancing. I decided to crash it. It's okay to crash a wedding here as long as you greet everyone and dance. This I did.
Even before I reached the courtyard, I was stopped by an extremely drunk man who told me to come get a drink with him at the dolo bar across the street. I accepted the pregame offer (postgame for him), a mistake I realized as he commenced to tell me to take him to France with me (and pay for his dolo) despite my repeated attestations that I was American and didn't have enough money to go to France myself. Also, here if someone invites you for a drink, it's them who pays. After two calabashes, I was rescued from this man by some slightly less-drunk guys who pointed out these things to him and escorted me to the reception. There was no less craziness there; music, drinks, colorful matching family pagnes. I greeted the father of the groom, a groovy tall guy whom I had talked with before, but apparently the bride and groom had gone out to sign the wedding papers and as I found a beer in my hand, I decided to wait to greet them. This waiting took awhile and after about an hour I somehow found myself in a dance-off with about a million kids. One of my dolo bar rescuers was pulling kids one by one from a massive circle around us into the center so that I could try to imitate their dance moves. Pretty soon the whole wedding party got involved and I danced away in the eye of a Burkinabe hurricane with infants and grandmothers alike. Sweat poured and I hurriedly replaced it with Laafi bottle after Laafi bottle. This lasted until I could take no more. I broke free and sat down, declining more drinks, and though the true stars of the day hadn't yet arrived, I decided it was time to go. There's only so much thunder I can steal in one day.
That's just awesome!!!!!
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