The Odyssey sans a Giant Ogre

So I’m writing this from 30,000 ft. in the air somewhere over north east America. My travels getting home are almost over, but it has been quite a journey thus far. I left Burkina at 3:30 AM on Tuesday morning local time and flew to Casablanca. Because of the time of the flight I didn’t get more than an hour or so of sleep that night. I came into Casablanca at about 7 AM if I remember correctly and my next flight wasn’t until 4 PM. So I sat around watched a movie, read, and got a 15 minute power nap in. It could have been a longer one but a pesky fly decided to keep landing on me and waking me up. So after waiting for several hours I got out to the plane in Casablanca, and.... had to wait some more. Our plane was about an hour leaving but we did eventually take off.
I came into New York City at about 8 PM local time, which is Midnight back in Burkina. At this point I had had minimal food throughout day and about 1 ½ hours of sleep for the day. Needless to say my body cloak was somewhat askew. The funny thing is I can kind of prepare my body for periods of time as such where I don’t eat much or sleep much and can just keep going. So by the time I got through customs and figured out how to get over to Manhattan I was a little out of it. I was quite excited to see my friend Rachael who lives in New York. So she gave me directions and I hopped on the New York subway for the first time ever with all my luggage and hoofed it uptown. My stop actually got me off in Harlem, which I was somewhat conscious of. Here I am, a white guy with a bunch of luggage at 10:30 at night walking through Harlem, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the best chameleon then. I got to Rachael’s though, and I dropped my stuff off and we went out to hit the town. We walked most of the night and she took me to a little Pizza joint that is pretty famous. I think it was on Regis and Kelly, not that I watch that show, I just saw an article inside the restaurant. I don’t want you getting the wrong impression of me about the Regis and Kelly thing though. After pizza and a Root beer! (My first one in 9 months, oh it tasted good) we walked around. Rachael pointed out a lot of things and famous areas of NYC in the Manhattan area, most of which I forgot because it was midnight and I was on basically no sleep for the past day and a half or so. Plus in the amount of 24 hours I went from the second least developed country in the world to Time Square! Most of the night as we walked I just gawked and had my jaw drop. I really blew it though and didn’t bring my camera along, so really I could be making this all up because I have no evidence. The whole experience was surreal to say the least, trying to soak it all in, being exhausted, and enjoying my time with Rachael. We got back to her apartment at about 4 AM local time, (my body had no clue what time it was other than I was exhausted). So, here’s the catch I had to catch my New York to Seattle connection at 8:20 AM, which meant I should be there by 7, and with an 1 or so on the subway, it wasn’t looking like I was getting much sleep. In fact I set my alarm for 5:30. So for the second night/day in a row saying I got insufficient sleep would be an understatement. I hop on the subway head back to the airport, miss my transfer and have to double back!! At this point I’m freaking out but I know there’s nothing I can do to speed the train up. So I get to the airport 40 minutes before my flight. I try to check in at the electronic desk... no dice! AHHH! The truth was I too tired to lose my cool, I just didn’t have the energy. So the 40 minutes come and go, and I realize, for the first time in my life I’m missing my flight. So I go up and ask a lady to help me, and she starts looking through her files, and comes up with nothing. And she was quick too, I think everyone has experienced the flight check in lady who is just pounding on that key board a mile a minute. What the heck is she looking at anyway? I’ve always been curious how many levels or codes they have to put in. Amazing, however I digress. So she says that Delta has my flight booked not for the morning of the 25th, the 26th, the next day. This is not good. So from about 7:50 AM till I think maybe 10:45 I’m scrambling around trying to work on other flights. Air Morac, who I came from Africa with was no help because they don’t show up to work until like 3 PM! Eventually the lady gets me on the afternoon flight, and I just about jumped over the desk to hug her, but I felt like that might be against some policy, so I held back. Also, I’ve been traveling for over 48 hours and haven’t showered so I didn’t know if she’d appreciate that either. Going through security I got several “you look kind of tired” comments from people working. So here I am, 30,000 ft in the air, I just drank my first glass of “real milk” in almost 9 months. Boy did it go down well. If you didn’t know I love milk, real milk that is. Always have, always will. So that’s my tale. At least I hope that’s my tale. There’s always a chance my luggage won’t come in or will have to make a stop over in Idaho or something, but for now, that’s my tale of getting home. And through all the hassle and lack of food/sleep I won’t complain, because I’m back home, and it feels really good.

More Pictures

Here are a few more food distribution pics. A group working hard (above) The whole group (Middle) and a few Africans waiting (below).

Finally Pictures from the Food Distribution and others

I know it's been a long time coming, but I finally got the pictures my friend Sara took at the food distribution. So here are some.

More Pictures

The above picture is one of the grad's, Rachel and I just after graduation. The below picture is the group of kids I took out for bowling afterwards. Good times were had.

June: Djibo, Grad's and Goodbyes

I've been meaning to write about several of these things for a while, but I waited so I could get all my thoughts straight and because I've been busy. So I appologize for the wait since my last update, but here we go.
First I want to let all you know, I was able to work out a new ticket with my travel agent. I never did find my ticket so I'm thinking it got mixed with something else and thrown away. But God did provide for me nonetheless, so I will be heading home for some vacation and weddings very soon!
Second on the list is my recent trip back to Djibo. This is the town up north that I went to when I first came here in October. I was excited to see how my reaction would differ from my initial reaction when I had just come. So Galen and I headed up there and to my surprise I hardly recognized the village Senno Bonni where we stayed. That was because most of the village when I was there last time was hard to see due to the amount of millet stalks that were standing. October was end the of the harvest so there were a lot of stalks standing everywhere. Now, nothing. It is the very beginning of the raining season and most people have just or will plant soon, so the ground is pretty bare. A lot of the cows seemed pretty skinny too. But I think I enjoyed my time there more than I thought I would partly because I wasn't in a state of semi-shock for the trip like I was the first go around. Galen and I slept outside to the tunes of donkeys and cows, sheep and chickens. Actually when I woke in the morning the first thing I saw was a donkey about 15 ft. from me chewing on some grain stalks. I have to say that's the first time I've woken up to see a donkey eating.
Third, grad's. We all know it's the time for graduation, and while I started thinking about my college grad a year ago I also got to celebrate the high school graduation of some wonderful kids that I've been able to get to know over the coarse of this year. In some ways it makes me feel kind of old to see kids going through this occasion and thinking how long ago it was for me. But I'm very proud of all of them. Afterwards I was the official party chauffeur. I took the truck loaded about 13 kids (the 5 grad girls and some other youth group friends) plus me in and took them to dinner and then to a bowling alley here in Ouaga. Yes, they do have bowling here and I have to say it was quite a fun time. And I got all the kids back safe and sound by 3 AM. Pfffew that was a late night, but I remember being able to have a grad all nighter after high school grad and thought I should help them have something similar. I do have a warning though. Each frame we bowled a different way. One was with the eyes closed which I got a little confident and launched a ball halfway down the lane next to me. Whoops. But that's o.k. I recovered o.k. after that little slip.
And finally the goodbyes part. This actually falls into both the previous categories. Galen left 2 days ago for home. He'll be home for 6 or 7 weeks and come back in late July. There is a team coming out in August that he'll be here for. Then he'll be around until late August or so to wrap things up and then he's gone. Actually that's not even true because he'll be back in Feb. for another team which will be his last trip. But after the August departure that is really going kind of the end of my time under Galen's watch. So that's a big deal for me, but I'm going to transition helping another missionary here who I like and respect. So I'm looking forward to the new work and transition. Galen's leaving was the reason we went up to Djibo it was to say good bye to that village that he's been visiting for almost his entire time of working here in Burkina. The other goodbye goes to the Grad's who are leaving and heading off to college in different parts of the America. I don't know if I'll see them again but they were really fun to work with, teach, and hang out with over this past year. I know the other kids will miss them because they were good role models.
So that has been my life recently. Here are some different pics from Djibo, and graduation. Enjoy.