Safari and Sleeping Under the Stars!

First, apologies for the delay in blog posts- we’ve been on the road a lot this week! After our change in plans and not being able to go to Mahadaga, we spent the weekend at a hotel outside of Ouagadougou, near the town of Koubri. We stayed in huts and had the opportunity to see the surrounding area on quads/4-wheelers (which handled the roads much better than the 15 passenger vans)! On Monday we then returned to Ouagadougou for one night to drop off our bags at the SIM guesthouse.

 

After a short walk to the local market we ate dinner, which was a HUGE amount of spaghetti noodles with a traditional tomato and cabbage sauce. A local dance group was performing at the hotel that evening, so we had the opportunity to watch (and participate in!) some local singing and dancing. That night we stayed in traditional African stone huts and slept on the roofs! Although sleeping outside included listening to motorcycles, donkeys, and roosters, we managed to get some sleep before getting up early the next morning.

On Wednesday we left at 6:30am to drive several hours to Nazinga for our Safari! The road to the park was long and extremely bumpy in our less-than-comfy old van, but the ride was worth it! After climbing up on top of the van and having a guide join us, we were able to see elephants, antelope, crocodiles, and two types of baboons! It was absolutely amazing to be able to spend the afternoon seeing God’s creation. After concluding our Safari, we climbed back inside the van and began our drive back to Ouagadougou to finally join the rest of the team at the SIM guesthouse. 

Thursday was a more relaxed day as our entire team was back together in Ouagadougou. We were able to spend time debriefing, doing some shopping, and catching up on last minute work.  We were also able to treat the staff and missionaries at SIM to a dinner of pizza and ice cream in the evening!

Tonight (Friday), our plane is scheduled to leave 10pm, so from now until we leave this evening, we’ll be packing, packing, packing! We would still appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we prepare to head home!