Day 18: Did You TAKaledougou?

Bonsoir!

I am about to split into two, I'm so full...and I haven't even eaten dinner yet.  Today has been a smorgasbord of food.  As a group, we have consumed our weight in attieke, benga, fried fish, beesap, dried mango, granola bars, bread, riz gras, papaya, McDonald's food, Coke, dolo, and beer.  We are in Amanda Cassiday's site, and she and her village are pulling out all the stops.  Amanda is an amazing hostess, as always, and her village pretty much rocks.

We left Ben's village this morning and biked a "mere" 40 km to Amanda's site (it really did feel like just a jaunt, after yesterday's hilly 80 km), on beautiful dirt roads, surrounded green foliage.  God bless the cool, green south.  We arrived in her neighboring village, Berega, by 8 AM.  After hanging out for about an hour so that Amanda could mobilize her village, we biked the remaining 5 km.

 

We've experienced a funny phenomenon all around Burkina as we've biked; most people think that we're doing something like the Tour de Faso, which is a bike race.  They always cheer and yell things like "Go! Yay! you're in front!"  Amanda's village thinks the same thing, so Rob came up with a brilliant plan:  stage a race.  After we left Berega, we all grouped up to bike in together.  We chose Emma to be our winner, and then all of us except her downshifted into the lowest gear possible. We peddaled as hard as we could, making all sorts of terrible grunts and yells for the crowd's benefit.  It was hilarious, and the village loved it (for the record, I beat Marita.  Don't listen if she says differently).  HILarious.

Amanda's village gave us a hero's welcome by the road, with signs, a balafon group, dancing, and lots of people. 

After dancing by the side of the road, we paraded to her house, complete with the band.  They set up some chairs and treated us to more music, traditional music, and dolo. 

 

 The girls hung around the house, showering and lounging, while the guys took the car into Banfora to run errands (they tried to go to the Cascades, but the roads are blocked by the rains).  They ate at McDonalds (so, it's NOT actually A McDonalds, just a kick-butt african restaurant by that name) and now we're all reconvening at Amanda's, eating...again.

                                           Neal eating at McDonald's

Banfora's the home to Susoco, a sugar cane factory.  It's one of the more successful enterprises in the country, and brings in quite a bit of money into the area.  These fields have the only mechanical irrigation system in the country...

Time for the fete!