Home sweet, home :-)

My flight to Burkina Faso was a blur because I slept most of the time.  When I got on the plane it was equivalent to like 5 something in the morning and I had not slept much coming into Brussels so this was my shot at it.  I didn’t hear much talking and occasionally when the flight attendant would come with food or give out water, I would wake up to accept it and when my body allowed me a 15 minute window to wake up, I would get up and eat, then go right back to sleep.  After about 5 hours of this routine, I woke up about 30-45 minutes before landing and started to get pretty excited about being almost in West Africa again. 

As the plane started to descend and I looked at the landscape, I thought to myself, “it’s so green!  For Burkina, that is…thank God for the rainy season!”  At this point I am especially excited to be here and start to look around our nearly empty plane.  My sleep was facilitated by the fact that only about 60% of the seats were full so most people were able to have 2 seats all to themselves.  Most of the people on the plane were probably West African and then there were foreigners sprinkled in here and there.  I overheard the woman in front of my look at a neighbor sitting an isle over say to another passenger that she did not appear to know or interact with before beginning our descent, “it does not matter where you have been outside of here; if you travelled and owned houses, but when you arrive you know that this is home.”  How cliché, I know, but she really said it and it sums up what I was trying to express to you all before in my previous blog about the sense of pride Burkinabe have in their home.  It is quite clear that this woman travels often and must be wealthy based on her clothes and the fact that she was on her way home from Belgium, but this small country that most people say, “bu-what?” when you mention it means so much to her and to the man who agreed with her.  I can’t say I feel the same way she does when I arrive here, well because I have a natural affinity to the location where I was raised and where I find the people I call family, but I feel similar.  (Inhale)…it just feels, I don’t know, like I am meant to be here (exhale).  (This is the part where the heavens seem to open and beautiful melodious music plays)

(Record scratches…and we are back to reality!)  I am definitely hopeful and anxious about the work I am going to be doing.  Tomorrow starts official training and look forward to the things I will learn about my assignment and will obviously share them with you all.  Despite my joking, I must be honest, this feels like a good thing and this feels like where I should be in the world, right now and it is so.

This is a picture of an area in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou

These opinions are my own and do not reflect that of the Peace Corps, UNICEF, or any other organization to which I am affiliated.