Soccer and the Southlands

I love the south. Burkina-2.0.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, a bunch of us PCVs (about 20) decided to spend july 4th in Banfora. Erik and I spent the night in Ouahigouya the day before our trip so that we could make the early bus to Ouaga, which is advertised to leave at 6 AM, but in reality it leaves whenever it's full, so it usually pulls out of the station at around 5:30 AM. You must plan for this. Our plan was to go to Bobo, spend the night there, and then catch a bus to Banfora the next day, but when we got to the bus station to take the bus to Bobo, we encountered 2 other PCVs (Aaron and Josh) who were going to Orodara and then biking the 60k from there to Banfora. This sounded cool and bad-ass, so I convinced Erik that we should join in with the bike trip. He obliged, so instead of spending the night in Bobo, we continued on to Orodara, where we met up with some more PCV friends who live there/around there (Maggie, Dave, Colin, and Christie-Anne). After our slumber party in Orodara at Maggie and Dave's house, we set off to bike to Banfora to meet up with everyone there. (Group picture from the trip on the left). The bike ride was absolutely beautiful. So beautiful that I found myself getting jealous of the people who's sites are down south. Don't get me wrong, I love my barren, dry and dusty landscape up north; all I'm saying is that it was nice to see the rolling plains of luscious grass and the thick forests of trees and sugar cane that covered the relatively un-traveled and quite route from Orodara to Banfora. You can tell, too, that people down south have more money than those in the north. The animals are fatter, the people are fatter, people speak more french, etc, etc.

Banfora also has some awesome restaurants, and the only McDonalds in Burkina. Ok, well it's not actually a "McDonalds" but it's called McDonalds, and it has a picture of Donald Duck on the sign so that kind of counts. It's as close as we're going to get. It looks just like any other restaurant in Burkina, but the food is of high quality, and the fact that it's called McDonalds makes it appealing based solely on the fact that it reminds us of something we know. And they even have hamburgers! I'll try to get my hands on some pictures soon. Not of McDonalds, but of the south in general. And of my trip to the cascades and domes. What the Banfora area is really known for is the Cascades and the Domes. They're about a 15k bike ride through the sugar cane from Banfora, in a village called Karfiguela. One of my PCV friends lives there actually. Yeah, it's no big deal, she just lives at the site with the waterfalls and giant billions of years old dome rock formations; some of the only tourist attractions worth seeing in Burkina.

Enough about the southlands for the moment. When I steal pictures of it from people, I'll post them.

I got back from Banfora/Bobo/Paradise and was in village for a bit over a week and then I had to come to Ouaga to do a training session called "Coaching for Hope". I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but it's an 8 day workshop run by a British NGO and Burkinabe soccer coaches, that combines HIV/AIDS education and workshops with soccer training. It was great; probably the best training I've done here so far. There were a total of 9 of us PCVs doing the formation, and each person got to bring 2 counterparts from village to train. There were also non-peace corps related soccer players and coaches from Ouaga doing the training, including some really awesome girl soccer players who said that if there were a national girls soccer team, they'd be on it. One of the coaches running the formation was an ex-member of the Burkina national soccer team as well. I don't have a real soccer team yet in my village (just people that play everyday) so I got the coach of the girls team from Ouahigouya to come, and then took the only member of my Bissighin "team" that speaks French with me as well. We spent every morning playing soccer, doing drills, learning how to be good coaches, etc. Then every afternoon was spent doing a different HIV/AIDS workshop, followed by an integrated session on the field where we combined the info from the workshop with soccer drills and games that could help the kids visualize and conceptualize the information. Man, it was so so cool. The energy level was so high all week, with clapping and singing and cheers after every goal or good pass or whatever. Plus all of our counterparts got nice new soccer uniforms (pictured) that they all wore for every single day of the 8 day formation. And we got to play on the nice grass field at the International School in Ouaga, so it was pretty fancy. Everyone was just in such good spirits all week, and you could see how excited they all were, not only about the soccer, but about the possibility of teaching the kids about HIV/AIDS as well. So now I've got trained people to work with in village. Our plan is to create a youth girls team, a youth boys team, and a seniors team, and do the workshop with all of them. I think it has the potential to be a life changing, educational, and self-confidence boosting experience for all involved. YEAH. I'm excited to get started on the project after the rainy season.