Burkina Trip, pt 9: The end...

I'm really dragging these posts out, huh?  Sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging, and I hope you're all still with me!

 

We left Dano after lunch on Thursday for the 5-ish hour drive back to Ouaga.  Again, it was a long drive full of sights, singing, and long talks.

When they do road construction in Burkina, you drive on the side, on a true dirt road.  As you can see, it's a narrow passage for 2 cars.

 It's hard to tell, but these are people in this lake, fishing for food.

 Troy has kind of an obsession with these trees.

 We were traveling light compared to these guys.

 Two ladies and 2 babies on this moto!  So different from America where every kid better be wearing a helmet!

 We let them stay up late on their last night together.  They enjoyed Despicable Me 2 on the huge screen of my iPad!

Friday felt like a strange day.  I'm so used to getting up and heading to the airport in the mornings if we are going on a trip.  An 11pm departure was weird for us!
Troy and Philip headed to Souly's new house in the morning.  We met Souly and his friend, Tall, earlier in the week and were invited to come see his new house.

The men knew they were going to see the house but had no idea that Souly waited to actually open the doors until they could see it!  What an honor!

Souly and his wife, Ami, in their new house for the first time.

Ami had prepared a full meal, to (pronounced "toe")-the white stuff and some fish sauce (dehydrated fish, peanuts, veggies).  The men ate while the women watched and served.  It was a very fancy meal by Burkina standards.

The neighborhood kids.

When the men returned from Souly's, we headed out to an orphanage.  This sweet girl walked right up to Troy, arms raised to be picked up.  Yeah, I could handle bringing her home with me, too!

Lunchtime!  Two babies share a bowl but each get their own spoon.  The boy was sick..and sharing a bowl with the little girl... Wonder why they're always sick??

These guys were going to town on lunch!

I enlisted Emily's help.  This girl LOVES babies!

After the orphanage, it was time for lunch at the Ver Dwayont (I have no idea how to spell it!).  Emily said this place has the best ice cream!

The infamous Fraise Melba!

Their faces crack me up!

After lunch it was rest time.  The afternoon was spent playing and enjoying our last hours together.  After dinner at The Rec, we headed to the airport.  Tall, Souly's friend, came to the airport to say goodbye to Troy.  We couldn't believe he made such an effort!  I wasn't prepared to say goodbye so soon at the airport.  I expected to be able to check our bags and get our tickets first, but in Burkina, only people with tickets can go through the doors to the ticket counters.

After one last group hug, we were off! 

Getting checked in was nerve-wracking since we didn't know the language, but it really went smoothly.  We got fingerprinted again, went through the x-ray machines, and had our bags searched at the gates too.  Finally, we boarded and were headed home!

In Brussels we encountered yet another reason to dislike United: somehow just my ticket was cancelled for just that flight!  Really?!?  They were able to get me back on the plane but unable to seat us together.  Thankfully another passenger realized it was in his best interest to switch seats to put me next to Jonas!

Customs in Newark was a breeze, but our layover was LOOONGG!  The kids were pretty fried:

Thankfully, they both slept on the final flight; Jonas for almost the entire thing!  It was so nice to get home, take a hot shower, and sleep in a house with A/C!  The next morning it was a sweet reunion with Lachlan and Poppy (who slept great while I was gone, in case you were wondering)! 

We are glad to be home but constantly remembering and talking about what we saw and did in Africa and what we are going to do with it.  My friend Kathryn told me, "Africa changes you"; she was so right!  How can we be the same after seeing such tragedy, heartbreak, and poverty?

Matheny's, thanks for having us and know that it definitely wasn't our last visit!!