Day 23!!! A Slippery Slope to the End

Greetings from...the Transit House in Ouaga!

The "Sur Nos Velos, Pour Le Faso" bike tour is officially over.  It's been 23 days and over 1,300 kilometers of incredible fun, comraderie, and--most importantly--raising money for a good cause. 

To date, we have raised close to $4,400 for Gender and Development work in Burkina Faso!  Huzzah!  A HUGE "Thank You" to everyone who has donated so far. 

If you still would like to donate, it's not too late!  We'll  be taking donations until October 1st. 

Here are some pictures from last night's festivities in Julie Lishansky's village, Boura...

We had a lovely time wandering around the marche in the dark to find food (I swear Burkinabe have eyes like cats), dancing with the local dance/balafon troupe, and chatting with local officials. 

Julie's courtyard is not huge.  It would, however, have been plenty large enough for all of us to pitch our tents.  I say "would have" because it turned out to be impossible to use her courtyard to sleep in.  It decided to storm last night--ALL night.  SO, all 12 of us squeezed into Julie's three room, mud brick hut.  At one point I was doing my crossword puzzle in her douche (closet-small room where you can take a bucket bath).  She also does not have electricity (or running water), so we did everything by headlamp.  It stormed so hard on the tin roof that it was difficult to hear even what your neighbor was saying to you.

The crew was:  Josh Gwinn, Marita Whalen, Rachel Whetstone, Julie Lishansky, Emma Prasher, Rob Hartwig, Neal Lepsetz, Ilana Cliffer, Sara Laurino, Kat Nolte, Emily Forsyth Queen, and Gwen Armstrong. 

Kat's been with us since Bobo; Sara picked up with us in Takaledougou; Ilana jumped on in Gaoua; Gwen came with us after she hosted us in Dedougou; and Emily joined up in Boura. 

So, like I said, it POURED.  All night long.  Our alarms were set for 4:30 AM so we could get an extra early start on our last day & not be late for our reception in Leo.  But with the rain, we were forced to start late.  We got on the road at 6:45 AM.  The road was dirt, and WET.  We basically slogged through wet sand and gravel for 50 kilometers.

Josh Gwinn, who is normally our speedy pacer, was the sweeper (last person) for the day.  He carried a whip to make sure he could properly motivate any slackers (I'm pretty sure a cow in the road enjoyed some encouragement from Josh). 

We stopped 1 km outside of Leo to clean up and change into our clean bike tour T-shirts.  We all grouped up and rode into Leo together, breaking through the toilet paper finish line (fists pumping, of course).    

 

Shannon Meehan, Congo Harouna, PCV's Ashley, Katie, Hugo, and Rhoda, as well as local officials met us at a pavilion for a welcome reception/speeches/cold beesap. We then went to the local library to causer a bit and then headed off for lunch.  The library--at which Casey Kean worked before he COS'ed and Hugo currently works--looks wonderful.  It basically operates as a library and cyber; in the short time that Hugo has been at site, he's already gotten internet access for every computer!  Go, Hugo!     

Shannon took us all out to lunch--THANKS, SHANNON!--and we had a good time recapping our favorite moments of the tour (ask us sometime; we have some good ones).

Ahhhhh....

Well, this can't really be the last post (travesty!), so I'll do some more recapping and photo-posting soon, as well as giving you all a final number on the donations.