What a day! We arrived in Ouagadougou with all team members in tact, almost. Chris cut his knee and Courtney nearly tore off her toe nail (she will lose it soon).

We got up at daybreak to get ready to catch the bus to Bobo-Dioulasso. We packed up everything and said our goodbye's. David Pope drove to the hill to pick up our supplies and take them to his house where he stores them for us. We made our way down the hill to the bus stop with the rest of our things. The chief come to see us off. The first bus was a brand new Rakieta bus but it was full so it just kept going. The other nice bus, TCV, never came by so we had to catch a "goat bus." We call them goat busses because often they have goats tied on top of the bus while they are travelling down the highway. One missionary tells the story of being on a goat bus and rain started leaking through the roof. He looked outside and noticed it wasn't raining--you do the math! Actually they are known as bush taxis.

Anyway, our goat bus didn't have much of a clutch so the driver had to start the engine while the transmission was engaged. In doing so after picking us up, he broke a u-joint on the bus. GREAT! He told us not to get off he would repair it. Less than thirty minutes later we were on our way. Guess they know to carry a few extra u-joints since they have no clutch.

We arrived at the Bobo TCV bus station just in time to see our 9:00 bus pull away. That is the literal truth. It was pulling out of the station as we were pulling in. No problem though because there is a 10:00am bus. We went to buy tickets only to find that the 10:00 bus was full so we now had to wait until noon. We bought the tickets and headed out to experience a little African culture by visiting some of the local shops. We bought a few things and then found a place to drink a coke. We got back to the bus station around 11:30 and there was no bus there. It didn't arrive until 11:55. They hurriedly unloaded the passengers and the luggage but stopped as they began putting on our luggage. An announcement was made that this was in need of repair and would be delayed further. After a few minutes, they loaded all the luggage. Some time later they removed all the luggage and the bus left empty. Another bus soon arrived and luggage and people were loaded on it. Then noon bus left around 1:15.

We arrived in Ouaga at The Baptist Guesthouse around 6:15, got our keys and headed to our rooms tired from the events of the day. We got to our rooms only to find people already occupying them. Hmmm...what next? We got that straightened out and decided we were too tired to go out to eat so we decided to ask our interpreters to pick something up for us. We called the pizza place and they took our order and then said it would be at least TWO HOURS before the pizza was ready. Two hours in African time could be a very long time. We decided to go another route and order from the American Rec Center.

We are all settled in and looking forward to sleeping in a bed with an air conditioner roaring in the room.

I will post the entire series soon, so check back.