See you soon!

Today is our last day in Burkina.  We're staying at home for most of the day today, with visits starting in half an hour.  Alima and Mimi will be bringing us beans and rice for lunch and then we'll take them to visit with Joel and Andi's family as they'll be returning to Mali on Sunday.  Then Brigitte is coming after that to make us toe for supper one last time, as her farewell gift to us.  And students from our church here will be coming throughout the day, as well as coming with us to the airport to say good-bye.  Three weeks has been just the right amount of time to stay here in Burkina - enough time to see everyone and yet not too long without routine that we start tiring out.  Thank-you to you all for taking interest in our trip and we'll look forward to seeing you soon!

Danika- Nov. 28

This morning we went to our old cartier (neighborhood) to buy fish doughnuts. We tried to get gallettes too but we came too late, she was already finished. We had neighbors that we had visited the other day but the kids were still at school so we said hi to them and as we were going to Mimi and Alima's house to pick them up, we passed a galette lady. We got e few and tried them but none of us liked them except Kenai who would have eaten them all if we hadn't given them to Mimi and her mom but they said he could have some and he took handfuls at a time. We drove to the forest and payed to get in and then walked as far as the lake. We passed a river which you had to jump onto rocks to get across and some statues of animals and finally got to the lake. We looked for the crocodiles and finally saw one as he was swimming across to the land on the other side but when he got there we didn't see him because he blended in with the dirt. We only got the camera out by that time but we took a picture anyways and it looked all blurry and it actually turned out pretty good on the computer.
 
 We saw two more crocodiles after that and then started walking back when we saw a bunch of ant-lion holes. Mimi stirred one up with a stick and she found an ant-lion. It was very small and ugly. Alima stirred one up and found a huge one but it was still very ugly. I started walking on, not that it was boring or anything but I wanted to carry on. As I was walking I saw a huge millipede!

When we got back in the car we dropped off Mimi and her mom and went to the Banazaro's for lunch. We had toe.
 
After lunch Esther, Grace and I started walking to Elizabeth's house while the others loaded onto two motorbikes drove by Rebecca and the other by Rhoda. When we got to Elizabeth's house, she served us bean cakes with tomato sauce. It was Elizabeth's birthday party.
 
We drank bissap which is a strong red African punch and then Rhoda and Esther left and we called a taxi. Shortly after the taxi called to let us know that he was almost there so me and Elizabeth hopped on a moto and went to the highway to bring him to her house. When we brought him there we headed home just when Brigitte and Simone came. Simone was going to braid my hair. I had pizza and mangoes for supper while she was braiding. Kathe came later but Simone said that she wouldn't have time to do hers so she went home. She finished at about 7:20 and she had started at 6:00.

Ebenezar also came to take her hot chocolate and she went home.

Dictated by Asher - Nov 28

We went to the forest in the morning.  We saw a lot of ant lions.  You see little holes like the holes that are beside the hand in the picture.  Then you put an ant in it and the ant lion's jaws start spinning around to pull the ant down into the hole.  After that, you quickly grab a handful of sand and if you see a lump that moves, you've caught the ant lion.  You can see an ant lion on the hand in the picture.

After going to the forest we went to the Bananzaro's house (the family of our church's pastor, with five kids and one grandchild).  Me, Isaac and one of his friends went hunting.  We killed two lizards and three birds.  It was great.  Then we got on motorbikes and went someone else from our church's house. 

 

We had "gorgo".  It's green with beans and bean leaves in it.  Here's a picture of Elizabeth cutting in up.

Danika- Nov. 27

This morning we had oatmeal and mangoes for breakfast and went into town to a place called Artisan House. In french it is Maison d'Artisan. We bought a bunch of souvenirs like key-chains, bracelets and horn carvings. We headed out to Mimi's house again to find 4 of her old school friends visiting her. She said there were at least 20 others but they had all gone home. They didn't have school today because the elections for mayor are going to happen in the next few days so the government gave the students a couple of days off.
 
Alima had made bouille for us. Bouille is a breakfast Africans often have, made with millet. Mimi's friends went home and we visited with her and her mom and then went to Alison and Alan Dixon's house for lunch. They live in a bigger apartment in SIM, too. We waited outside for the Van Dingenen's to come pick us up. The dad, Peter (a missionary doctor) picked us up in his ambulance and we hopped in the back with Erinn and Alicia Watts, Jiska, Phebe and Lisabet Van Dingenen and Kathe Warkentin. We went to their house and went to the Chinese restaurant for supper with the other Warkentins.

Tany - Nov 27

We have the last days here in Burkina carefully planned to see as many people as we can before we leave this Friday night.  The kids and I had thought ahead to this visit, thinking of who we wanted to see and what we wanted to do, and by Friday we'll have completed the last things that were were on our list!
One of the most important things for me was to be able to visit with people from the Mennonite churches in Ouaga, Bobo and Orodara.  I already wrote about our first Sunday in Ouaga and our second Sunday in Orodara.  Last Friday we spend an afternoon and night in Bobo, and the church there planned a special supper and evening service for us which was very moving.  There was again opportunity for others to share about what Jeff and rest of our family meant to them and also for me to share about the past year and a half.  A number of young men that spent time with us in the Ouaga church and residence building are now in Bobo, as well as Pastor Siaka's family, so it was very meaningful to hear them share memories of how Jeff had touched their lives.  And then this past Sunday, the Ouaga church organized a "Question/Answer" evening.  They had many questions and concerns about how our family has adjusted since Jeff's death and about how we are doing financially and morally - again a very honest and meaningful evening with many friends.  The Burkinabe are very good at organizing opportunities for this kind of deep sharing in general, but especially the young adults with which we worked most closely are very honest and sincere in their desire to hear and learn from others' experiences and share openly of their own difficulties.  I really appreciate this about our friends here.
On a more shallow note, I have eaten all of the favorite Burkinabe dishes that I was looking forward to, with Alima and Mimi bringing us a bean and rice dish on Thursday and Brigitte bringing us one more toe dish on Friday, to eat together.  I was thinking that we'd have to get out to a Burkinabe restaurant just down the road for some toe, but we'll have been invited to people's houses more than half a dozen times to eat toe with them, so I'm fully satisfied.
And I've always loved the busy places here in Ouaga, such as markets in the morning and driving through the chaotic yet amazingly-well-organized streets and I've gotten to this many times as well.  It's been really great that we've been able to borrow Joel and Andi's car on most days to get around and see a lot more people than we would have been able to otherwise.
And lastly, I just love the relational way that the Burkinabe people have of interacting, doing daily chores (preferring to work beside the street rather than in the privacy of their own courtyard) living.  It just feels right to me to place so much value on other people and relationships and less importance on material things, time and personal schedules, and oneself.  So I have fully enjoyed just "being" here, where we've learned so much in past years.
In writing about what the kids were looking forward to during this visit, someone asked me what I was looking forward to.  So these are some of the things that we've experienced here in the last weeks, that are what I was most looking forward to.

Kenai - Nov 27

Here are a few pictures of Kenai's highlights and experiences:

Kenai and I would often go visit Mimi and Alima while Danika and Asher were in school.  Each visit, Alima would make Kenai Bouille - a breakfast broth made from millet, with little millet balls in it.  Burkinabe drink bouille with a small ladle, slurping the broth from the side of the ladle.  Kenai remembers very clearly having bouille at their house and was looking forward to reliving this experience.  This morning when we went to visit, Alima had the bouille waiting for Kenai...

 

 And here is the ingeniously created helicopter that Mimi gave Kenai as a gift.  It is sewed together with pieces of woven plastic.

 

 Kenai climbing in a mango tree...  and Kenai holding the turtle (actually a tortoise) that we got shortly after it hatched.  That was 4 years ago, and the turtle was then no bigger than my fist...

Danika- Nov. 26

Today Uncle Joel, Aunt Andy, Kathe and Micah took the day off school. I had slept over at their house last night and we picked up my family at our guesthouse. We went to a bakery and got fancy croissant pastries that you can get with chocolate, pudding and raisins in it or an ordinary croissant. We went to the market and got more slingshots and some fruit. We went to the tailor to pick up my skirt and drop off another piece of material for some more clothes. We went to Mimi and her mom, Alima's, house. We had known them before we came back to Canada but while we were still in Burkina, later on in the year 2010, Alima had been very sick. We were in Orodara at the time and she had to wait four days until we finally arrived in Ouagadougou. We helped her afford to go to the hospital and she realized that she and Mimi should go back to their family in Mali. So when we came, Mimi got permission to take 5 days off school. They got on a 19 hour bus ride to get to Burkina and arrived at 7:00 am this morning.

We went to the creperie for lunch. You order a crepe (crape) with whatever you want in it. I got tomato, cheese, onion with vanilla ice cream for dessert. I went back to Kathe's house because our friend Jessica was coming. We played tag, red light green light, we drew and then my mom picked me up and we went to the Hayslip's for supper. We played hide and go seek tag. See you!    

Asher - Nov 21 & 22

 When we were in Tin, we went on a walk and drew pictures and had a picnic.  The family where we were staying really liked birds.  The next day I looked one of their bird books and thought it might be interesting to draw some birds so I drew 6 birds and she gave me a picture of a baobab tree.  But we don't know how to turn the picture around.
 
We went home to Orodara and we jumped on the trampoline a bit.  Then Eleazar wanted to play with marbles so we played with marbles a bit.  Then we went to shoot lizards.  We got 4 little ones at the end.  He did not shoot any with the slingshot.  He either threw the slingshot at them to knock them down or he just grabbed them.  Then we went to Ton-ton (Uncle) Nicodeme's house for supper.  I helped him cut up one of their chickens for supper. Here's me and Danika, with Ton-ton Nicodeme and his wife Tantie Grace and Paulin's sister, Eve.
 

Tany

Hi!  We're back after our trip back from Orodara, with a one-day visit in Bobo, the 2nd biggest city in Burkina and the city where we lived for our first 4 months in Burkina.  The internet here at the Ouaga guesthouse has been down since Saturday, when we got back.  And now, Asher's blog isn't posting properly so I'm trying this one to see whether it'll work without pictures attached.  More later, when the internet connections allows...

Danika- Nov. 22

It is freezing here in Tin in the mornings! This morning we had tea and homemade banana bread for breakfast. Whenever we have tea, we play the sugar cube game. You balance a sugar cube on the rim of the mug and the youngest one there to the oldest pounds the top of the table with their fist, their knee or both. If anyone's sugar cube falls into their tea, the person who pounds it gets a point. When everyone's sugar cube is in their tea, whoever has the most points wins. We spent at least 2 hours drawing out of Paul and Lois' drawing books. They gave me one about how to shade in your drawings in nature. On Thursdays Paul is in a meeting with the old men of their community. They have it right in their courtyard. We went out there for lunch. We sat apart from the men on little stools and ate the rice with peanut butter sauce with our hands. We came back to Orodara with them because they were going to Bobo so we dropped them off at the bus station. We came back to the guesthouse and there were Bala's kids ready to play with us. We took turns jumping on the trampoline and playing marbles while Asher, Kenai, and two boys, Natanael and Elizar kept coming back with live margouillats (lizards) that they had got with their slingshots. They didn't shoot stones, though. They threw the slingshots at the lizards.

 
We went to Grace and Nicodeme's house for supper and we had toe.