Burkina Faso is a small, land-locked country in West Africa. It is in the top 3 of the poorest counties in the world and number 1 in illiteracy.
Our dear friends, the Matheny family, moved to Burkina in December; they plan to be there for several years aiding the orphan crisis. We miss them greatly and were so excited to get to visit them! You can follow their story over at frontrowburkina.blogspot.com.
After much planning and praying, our tickets were bought for March 13-21. After some debate, Troy and I decided Reef and Jonas would go with us. They both miss Emily and Titus, and we felt like they could be a great encouragement to friends who might be missing home. Lachlan and Poppy got to stay home with Oma and Opa; we felt they were just too little to handle that kind of travel well.
To prepare for our trip, all 4 of us needed a yellow fever shot (required to get in the country and hard to get in the States!), meningitis and flu shots, and malaria meds. Let me tell you, there were moments we weren't sure Jonas would make it to Burkina because he fought the shots! The malaria meds also don't come in a chewable, so we ended up crushing them and mixing them with Oreo filling.
Finally, the day to leave arrived! This is what our luggage looked like:
I packed some fun surprises in the boys' bags to keep them occupied through 3 layovers. First to make an appearance: the Rainbow Loom! Oh, they were so excited!
The biggest stress of this trip was the airline. United was unable to get our family of 4 seats together on either of the first 2 flights! Ummm, why is it not your policy to seat families together???? They also double-booked my seat on our middle flight and made me get off the plane!
Finally, it was all sorted, and we were settled into our flight from Chicago to Brussels. The boys were thrilled with the in-flight entertainment and had to be forced to sleep! Jonas watched Frozen both ways.
Our final leg of the trip was from Brussels to Ouagadougou. We were really impressed with Brussels Air's service and food. Plus the flight wasn't full, so we could let the boys lay down for a small sleep.
And they served ice cream! This picture is bad because we work them up to eat the ice cream.
Arriving in Burkina was unlike any other airport we've been to! Luckily Sara had given us a great idea of what to expect. You walk off the plane (it was hot!) and board a bus to the terminal. Then your yellow card gets checked, then you get fingerprinted (a gift to Burkina from the U.S.), and then you get your bags. Philip had already shown our bags with the Batman tape to a helper, and he was already gathering bags! The boys and I could see our friends just outside! After collecting all 8 bags, we zipped through customs, where they peeked inside just 1 bag (TSA had already searched 5 out of 8 in Chicago).
What a sweet reunion with our friends! In Africa! Sometimes it still seems unreal!
This is how you load the car:
One of our first real looks at life here:
I can barely ride a bike, let alone balance something on my head at the same time!
That afternoon was spend unpacking, showering, and visiting their favorite restaurant, The Rec, which has lots of American favorites. It was early to bed for us because it had been a looong 2 days of travelling!
Stay tuned for more stories from Burkina tomorrow!
1 comment:
This is so good. I'm glad you're skipping ahead to the Burkina story. Seeing it on your blog helps me know it was real and I didn't dream up the whole thing.
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