T plus 2 mois, 23 jours

last monday was independence day here in burkina, this year was 46 years from when france gave them their independence back so long ago, most everything was shut down for that day and a things were slower for a couple days after, my two school age siblings didn't start school again until today, whereas felix started yesterday again at the lycée, christmas isn't near as big around here (since a majority of the population is muslim) and so this break combined with some around new year's and another muslim fête just before give a similar mid school year vacation

the parade on monday lasted about three hours, a huge combination of countless civilian groups marching followed by some 10 or 12 military divisions (or whatever the specific name is), the civilians all marched behind a leader with a sign stating their group's name, anything from the schools, public and muslim, to a female organization for raising pork, half of the parade time was spent in giving governmental promotions, a presentation by the provincial governor (13 in burkina) that usually takes place in the provincial capital, for the haut-bassin (our region) that would be bobo, but every once in a while goes to another town for i-don't-know what reason, so in other words, after walking around for an hour before it started, i got to sit and hang out at my house with felix's friends and wait comfortably for the interesting activities to start; the single largest group was that of the hunters, who were 3 or 4 times as big as anybody else and had music and shot off their guns the whole time they walked down the road, which, since there were so many people, was half of the time not even close to the official person's tents down in front of the orodara government offices, the military groups started off marching up the road, away from the tents (toward our house which is right on the main road through town but to the east of downtown) and then stood on the side while all the civilian groups marched through, then lined up and marched after followed by a vehicle brigade of guys on dirt bikes with rocket launchers, chop top toyota pickups with big guns mounted in back, and toyota transport pickups, military bashées; all in all, a very good start to independence day in burkina

the afternoon was spent lounging at the house, a nice rest for an exciting evening of balafons; starting fairly soon after dark, a big crowd gathered at the municipal stadium not far from our house to listen to various groups of balafons, drums, etc. with singing and dancing, monday night i went with both suzanne and esdras for about a half an hour just to check it out and take some pictures, esdras wanted to go back again, so he and i returned and watched for another half hour or so, at the end of which he was fairly far gone (with dreams of sugar plum fairies dancing in his head), the music ran the same on tuesday night and so after the party at our house, felix and i went to watch the festivities

on tuesday night we had a party at the house, mostly put through by felix as an official initiation of me as a newfound burkinabe jeune homme, labeled a "tea party" because of the main attraction, the local favorite gunpowder tea and peanuts, it was a gathering of a few of the church jeunesse (youth group) with cool music, popcorn, drinks, etc., we hung out and talked about various things, i showed them newton in my pocket atlas (thanks ann adrian) and got asked about a lot of things north america, i did discover that they know of frisbee and that getting a game going is a possibility, we'll see who i can round up for something tomorrow

missionary retreat starts in two days and i leave for doumbala with the dakuo's (their home village) in the middle of the week studio work goes excellently well, i'm almost finished pulling in the cassette half of the source material, and i haven't heard any christmas music to make me sick of santa claus, i'd say life goes wonderfully well

God may teach you life and love
while men may teach you safety and security
but which really happens
when you get to choose

for living is learning
you laugh when you fall
you pick yourself up
and God laughs along