little women makes everything better

Early early early Thursday morning we left Niamey, Niger for Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The night there had been a HUGE rainstorm and lightning storm that lasted for at least an hour - it was amazing, so leaving Niger the air was a bit cooler than the usual stifling heat. We were able to find the bus station and get tickets without any problems, which we were really lucky with all week - all the books were telling us that this company or this bus was ALWAYS sold out so you had to go days before, but 90% of the time we arrived about an hour before all of our buses and always got tickets. The night before I had started feeling really sick - like very very sluggish and nauseous and just a whole bunch of bad things. So for the twelve hour bus ride to Ouagadougou, I took about four sleeping pills and passed out, only waking up when Holley and Maggie would shake me to hand my passport over or to get off the bus and get a soda. We ended up arriving in Ouaga in about ten hours, so we were there early afternoon, and I will say that it was the quickest bus ride of my life.

When we got to Ouaga (pronounced "Waga") we got into a the most broken down and janky cab I have ever seen - the front window was all cracked and you could not see a thing and the inside had absolutely nothing in it. I didn't care - it was time to go to a hotel. Any hotel. We ended up staying at the Hotel Delwende on - GET THIS - Rue PATRICE LUMUMBA. If I used blog speak I would say that I did a big ZOMG to that. It's amazing to finally hear and see the names that I've been studying. Anyways - we get to the hotel and I am ready to pass out. The only nice thing was that there was a man in our hotel that was in love and would call me 'beauty' and wave whenever he walked by the room because it was so hot we would always leave our door open.

The only thing that could stir me out of bed was the promise of french fries, so we went to Sindibal's, a Lebanese fast food place, to eat, and we had the cutest child waiter in the entire world. He told us he was twelve but he looked about eight and he was the best waiter I ever had even though it was a little disturbing to watch him fetch our drinks and food. After we ate we decided that to get us home somewhat on time we should attempt to find the bus station and get tickets beforehand, so because our driver had no clue where the station was we ended up driving around Ouagadougou for about an hour. Great for pictures, quite annoying to pay for. But we ended up getting to the station and having to decide whether we wanted to leave the next morning and have five hours in Burkina Faso, or stay until Sunday and not get back to Ghana until who-knows-when Monday. After the week we'd been through we really didn't want to go home saying that we had three awful days and two lovely ones, so we decided to stay in Ouaga for a few more days.

So for a few more days, I think I traveled at most about a quarter mile from the hotel. The next morning when we woke up I was so nauseous, achy, and all around disgusting feeling that for the rest of the day that I could not even go to breakfast at this AMAZING patisserie, and after breakfast I made Holley read Little Women aloud to me while I laid on the bed with a cold washcloth over my face. It was a lovely afternoon. We were able to take a little stroll to the Centre National d'Artisanat d'Art Galerie, which is like a big compound with lots of different traders selling bronze and jewelry and clothing. After we shopped there for a bit we made our way to a fabric store - it was at this point in the weekend that I learned the phrase "Je suis malade" (I am sick), so I decided to use it as a bargaining tool with the men working there. I did not care about politeness or social graces - I sat in a chair pointing to the fabric that I wanted and when they would tell me the price I would go "NO! JE SUIS MALADE!" so that they would lower it. The men there were actually really funny and nice - one of them was Holley's soulmate and just kept saying "Love me! Love me!" and asking us if we were married. Also - like HALF of the fabric in this store was from Ghana, and since they knew we were from Ghana they would not let us buy it. We'd pick something up and they'd cut us off and say "NO! That's from Ghana", take it out of our hands, and put it back. I was able to get some lovely fabric from Mali and Niger and after we hung out with these men for like an hour they bought us oranges and taught us the most AMAZING way to eat them - you cut off just the top so you can squeeze it and drink the juice. It was lovely and this style of citrus eating has been brought back to Accra.

Another amazing thing we discovered in Ouagadougou - nun-run restaurants. Seriously - for dinner two nights in a row we ate at these restaurants that were run by nuns, and it was the best food of the trip. Our second night we ate at Restaurant l'Eau Vive, which was outside and beautiful and we had the nicest and sweetest little Asian nun as our waitress and then in the middle of the dinner they brought out an acoustic guitar and sang 'Ave Maria'. The food was also AMAZING - I got potato soup and we all got these great ice cream desserts and it was so homey and comforting. I loved it. The next night we ate at another nun restaurant -this one was also a hotel so it was more like a dining hall than a restaurant. They even made us special vegetarian food - I got potato soup AGAIN and roasted potatoes (I do not understand the nuns obsession with potatoes but I have NO problem with it) and baguettes (great thing about being in Francophone countries - fantastic baguettes everywhere you go). No singing this time, but it was still lovely as anything.

Second to last piece of drama in Fall Break 09 - this time it was my turn again. For most...okay all of the time in Ouaga I was pretty much only able to leave the hotel for like an hour before I had to go back and rest and force Holley to read to me. I could walk for about ten minutes before needing to sit down - I was having chills at night, I was achy all day, had a constant headache, and I was incredibly nauseous and having terrible stomach pain. I was the most fun travel partner ever to exist. So by Saturday morning it had progressed into me having dizzy spells and not able to swallow anything because it had become painful, and Mama Maggie decided enough was enough. She had consulted her guidebook and decided that I could have malaria. Now, I do not take my malaria pills on a regular basis whatsoever. I'm supposed to take them everyday...and I have a terrible memory and probably remember every four days. So Maggie starts reading to me about malaria and how it is fatal if not treated and you shouldn't let it go too long...so we decide to get to a clinic. Second hospital visit of the trip. I walked in and said "JE SUIS MALADE!" and then I let Maggie talk and had her come in when I saw the doctor so she could translate for me - after we chatted he said that he was pretty sure it was malaria, but that we'd do a test to be sure. The test turned out to be the MOST PAINFUL finger prick of my entire life - he would not stop squeezing blood out of my finger and I was wailing and complaining to Maggie and the technician was laughing at me. The doctor must've heard me because he came in and asked the technician if he was "enjoying the Americans" - I'm sure he was. So I wait for the test and it comes back...negative! Yay! Which meant that...I had an intestinal infection. Disgusting. So the doctor asks me like twenty times if I'm pregnant and if I'm sure I'm not pregnant and if there's any chance I could be pregnant and then prescribes me four different medicines that I have to take three times a day - I have never felt more like a pill popper than those five days where I was ingesting six pills at at time three times a day.

Last piece of drama - it really is Holley's story but I will give a basic rundown because who knows when she will finish her recap of fall break. Sunday morning we're leaving the hotel and we're chatting about the week and how NOTHING more could happen - we're in the clear. We get in a cab, take it to the bus station, and it drops us off literally twenty feet from the bus. As we're driving up a bunch of people run up to the car to sell us this or that and we're walking to the bus and I look back and see Holley's face - and hear her say that her camera was gone. Twenty feet from the bus and one of us gets pickpocketed. It was terrible. It was just...not good. But to Holley's credit, she let it BE KNOWN that it was not good.

And then we got on the bus, which is going to be about 18 hours, and they tell us that we're going to make as few stops as possible because of the armed robbers that attack vehicles driving through the night.

And so concludes Fall Break 09 everyone. It's been fun!