Chillin’ in Bobo

My two housemates and I poked around the market this morning and were pleasantly surprised by the experience, sans the usual excessive shouting from vendors, “Hello nice lady! You come to my shop!” Most shopkeepers said hello, offered once for us to come into the shop, but let it go at that, as opposed to following us down the street or running out of the shop with 15 necklaces dangling from their arms, ensuring us a good bargain. We bought a few items after much deliberation and negotiating, my favorite of which was a huge 70-cm diameter circular Bobo mask, “Le Soleil”. I got home to discover that I had grossly overestimated the size of my suitcase, as there was not a chance that the mask would fit in it for the trip home to Seattle. So, I decided to be happy to have a nice piece of art to hang on the wall of my new abode when I return to Burkina in September.

After exhausting our desire to shop (which didn’t take long in the 39C heat of the day), one of my housemates and I sought respite from the heat at a hotel with a pool. We had lunch and swam, which made for a very relaxing afternoon after working practically nonstop on our studies during the week. We felt a bit outrageous splurging on a meal that cost 12 times what we had been spending for lunch out with local coworkers (about $12 versus a dollar and a quarter), but let it go and decided it was well worth taking a break and recharging our batteries. Just as we were finishing swimming some laps in the water and thinking it would have been perfect to have an inner tube or something to float on, a family with kids showed up with a huge inflatable crocodile. I said to my housemate, “Now that’s what we need!” I can foresee many afternoons in the future spent lounging in that pool on an inflatable raft of some sort … if only we can find it in Bobo.