Eitan's Great Adventure

The top 3 questions asked when I first told people that I was headed to Burkina Faso for my Peace Corps service:

3. “Uh... where, exactly?”

2. “Are you kidding?”

and the Number 1 Question:

1. “No, seriously, Josh. Where are you going?”

But when I mentioned my assignment to Eitan, a college buddy of mine, he had a very different question for me:

“Alright, dude. When’s the best time for me to come and visit?”

Despite his best efforts to convince me that he was serious about his plans to make his way out to West Africa, I was skeptical. And yet, a couple of false starts and scrapped itineraries later, at the end of July Eitan actually got on a plane bound for Ouagadougou (or, as many of you called it when I first got assigned here, “Oogabooga”) and eventually touched down in Burkina Faso. Did he know what he was getting himself into? Not a chance. Was he happy he made the trip? What do you think?

This is Eitan being happy he made the trip...
Check out the denominations on those bills.

Eitan’s visit spanned three countries in as many weeks. After arriving in Ouaga and taking a day to “plan” the rest of the trip, we hopped on bus. 24 hours (and many stops to pee and/or yell at the bus driver) later, we were in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Unlike Ouagadougou, Accra is an actual, honest-to-goodness big city with tall buildings and many lanes of car traffic (as opposed to one lane of car traffic and 5 lanes for motorbikes...). Now, for you big-city folk back home, maybe this is no big deal for you, but, frankly, Accra was a bit overwhelming for me. We ended up spending most of the couple of days we had slated for Accra not actually in Accra but in its much calmer, more scenic outskirts. Highlights included a self-guided bike trip through the woods (we got lost), a pleasant stroll through a picturesque arboretum (that’s a place with a lot of trees), and a good-karma-building volunteer effort painting anthropomorphic healthy foods on the walls of a nutrition center in a Liberian refugee camp.

From there, we moved west, down the coast to the small tourist beach town of Busua. We stayed at Elizabeth’s house- Elizabeth being the very kind, hospitable Ghanaian woman who makes great pancakes. Our time in Busua was spent mainly on two activities; the first of which was significantly more fun and exciting than the second. First, we decided it would be fun to rent kayaks and paddle out to a little tropical island a couple kilometers off the beach. It appeared that the only inhabitants of this island were two palm trees and (we hoped) any number of beautiful hula girls with grass skirts and coconut bras. After struggling mightily to fight past the surf on the sandy beach (and, on the other end, being tossed mightily by the surf onto the rocky shores of the island), we discovered that, yes, there were two palm trees on the island. However, instead of hula girls ready to greet us with luaus and pina coladas there were sea urchins ready to impale us with their needle-like spines. How did we end up with so many sea urchin spines broken off in our feet (I had over 25; Eitan easily had double that)? Well, when the ridiculously powerful surf tosses you and your big, fat, plastic kayak back on the nice, sandy beach, that’s one thing. When the same surf repeatedly tosses you and that sorry excuse for a kayak back on a bed of slick rocks surrounded by submerged urchins... Let’s just say I’m lucky that I only got stuck in my foot...

That’s Urchin Island in the background.

So what was the second activity that occupied our time in Busua (and every single stop on the trip after that)? Using needles and razor blades and palm oil (don’t ask) to dig those stupid spines out of our feet.

After Busua, it was onto Kakum National Park where we walked the 40m high rainforest canopy walk , ate lunch next to a family of crocodiles , and met some cool Mormons. We discovered that there's a nasty rumor out there that Mormons are forbidden from having the floors carpetted in their houses. I am not making this up (I mean I didn't make up the fact that we discovered the rumor existed. The rumor itself is quite obviously made up. But not by me; by somebody else, I would assume). But please do not spread this awful rumor, because according to our new Mormon friends, it is far from the truth. Apparently, some Mormons even carpet certain rooms in their house with extra-plush carpetting. Go figure. *Editor's note: Paragraphs like this lead me to believe that Josh has been in Africa just a little too long...*

At this point, our time in Ghana had come to an end. Well, that’s what we thought. Technically, it was about 2 days and 8 different broken-down, sorry-looking cars/buses/tro-tros later that our time in Ghana really came to an end and we actually made it across the Burkina border. Once back in Ouagadougou, we connected with some other volunteers to begin the trek out to Bomborokuy. This trip was a very special one for me as it was the first and probably would be the last time any of my fellow volunteers would make it out to my village. When I was first assigned to my village and I saw how far out it was, I knew that it would take a little more than just an invitation to get my buddies from Peace Corps to come out and see my place. So I started planning a small themed party to encourage everyone to make at least one visit. This was that one visit. When we arrived at my house in Bomborokuy, the tree was up, the “snow” was falling, and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care... Everything was set for...

The First Only Annual Bomborokuy Christmas in July Party

Due to a scheduling error, the party actually took place in August, but we seemed to enjoy ourselves all the same. The neighborhood kids were thrilled by their new white visitors (I think they’re getting bored with me) and had a blast playing soccer and foursquare and some other games that I’m not very good at. We exchanged gifts and enjoyed a delicious, home-made (just add water!) Christmas dinner. We donned Santa caps while we sang carols and decorated the house and the tree. We got many strange looks from the neighbors.

The final leg of our adventure took us westward to Mali and the beautiful Dogon Country. The Dogon people are known for their artwork, their sculpture and masks, but also for their architecture. Many Dogon villages are located along a giant sandstone escarpment, or cliff, where the Dogon have built granaries and dwellings right into the cliff itself. We hiked along the bottom edge of the cliff for a couple days, and then on Day 3, we made our move up the cliff to the top ledge. Unfortunately, Day 3 was also the day some bad water I drank back on Day 1 finally caught up with me. Yet even being terribly sick with little to no support from my supposed “friend” (Eitan made fun of me and took pictures of me in pain...); even that didn’t stop me from appreciating how awesome the scene was from the top of that cliff.

Best part of the trip, though? We made a new friend in Ghana. Despite the fact that they are 10+ games out of first and all but mathematically eliminated from the wild card, he stills wears it proud...