Big market, to Ouaga via Fada N'Gourma

Day: 34
Location: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Weather: overcast, but no rain
Kilometers: 600
Hours: 7
Health: Adam is all messed up, Guillaume has never been better
Accomodation: Hotel Zaaka
Price, room: 6.2K CFA
Price, petrol: 599 - 608 CFA / lt
Shower: yes
Morale: 3
Total spend: 94K CFA
Song of the day: "Dashboard", Modest Mouse

AW: We woke up at 4 am this morning to drive out to the dunes at Oursi, 40 km north of Gorom to see the sunrise over the dunes. In fact, the drive was fun, the dunes were OK, and the colorless sunrise was bad. I felt fully ill this morning, so I took Malarone, multivitamin, and Advil, deciding to wait and see if it would get better or worse.

We went back to Gorom for a breakfast of more beignets (what was I thinking?) and coffee, before stationing ourselves adjacent to the market, cleaning up the car, and waiting for the full swing market at 11AM. The market was definitely colorful, but they didn't have anything useful for us to buy. If you're in the market for a gigantic sack of millet, a goat, or some plastic sandals, you would be pretty happy here.

The women were the most unique looking that we have seen, with tattooed faces (the blackening below the lower lip, so it looks like you slobbered some blackcurrant juice, was the most popular), piercings, some of the brightest clothing (fluorescent), and lots of facial scarring in intricate patterns. The elderly of the species get the title for most cantankerous - don't bother asking first, just pretend that you haven't yet snapped the shot and make a little gesture and you're good.

We decided to fund the dreams of local footballer kids running around in the bazaar with a 1.5K CFA plastic ball. We told them to share of course, but one kid had already sprinted off with the prize and the others were in hot pursuit.

My health was now wretched so I laid in the back seat of the truck while Modibo and Guillaume jolted me to Fada N'Gourma. When we got there, Guillaume and Modibo got some brochettes (meat skewers) and of course a Fanta and Coca, respectively.

The locals were among the calmest and nicest we had met, even if they were a little peeved when Guillaume started feeding the meat to a stray dog with post traumatic stress syndrome. While he expected to have the living crap beat out of him at every sound and human movement, by the time he finished eating all the meat he was allowing himself to be petted. Guillaume used the Purell hand sanitizer afterwards.

GB: The Dunes of Oursi were definitely anti-climactic. But overall the morning was fun and we got some good pics. However the car still carried heavy scarring from the previous day's quasi-drowning. Indeed, the inside would now fill with an almost unbearable stench every time we left the windows closed for even a small amount of time. So we decided to clean it up at least on the inside. Unfortunately we couldn't find a bucket so the effort was limited, and our idea to test the A/C pushed back until further notice.

After strolling desperately around Gorom Gorom in search of the items that we wanted to bring back, but this initiative resulted in failure as well. We instead decided to fund the development of the local football club by buying the kids a ball. However no balls were available that conformed to FIFA specs, so we bought a smaller one. I hope this doesn't limit their learning experience. More seriously though, while the delivery was anti-climactic, it felt great to find a way to give, while not supporting any begging scam, and through an acquisition that will by its very nature encourage sharing (anyone ever had more fun with a football alone?)

We then set off for Fada Ngourma, where my father had spent a few months working some 35 years ago. The drive was uneventful, except I thought Adam had Malaria, and thus almost canceled our pit stop in Fada in order to get Adam a doctor in Ouaga ASAP. But he violently opposed the idea, for which I am indeed thankful. Arriving in Fada, we entered a very bland town. But the idea of treading in my father's footsteps after all these years was worth it.

We took a few pics, drove around, saw the hospital, and left again. We finally arrived in Ouaga around 10PM, and got burgers. We then found a cheaper hotel that provided a better situation for Modibo, and went to sleep.

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