A Day in the Life...

I know some if not all of you who read this blog or know me may have at some point asked, "Ben what do you do on a daily basis?" This is a good question and so I'll just tell you what I did today, not to show how everyday goes, but how some days can go. But I must back up first, before I talk about what I did today, I have to back it up and set the scene for today with yesterday.
Yesterday was overall a pretty good day. I was able to finish my lesson for youth group that night. I finished a four part series on The Prodigal Son, and took some pictures of the youth group (I'll post those in the coming days). The plot thickens however when our hero (that's me) hops on his moto to go home after youth group. I left the house we have it at around 10 or 10:30 PM I think and as I took a left to take the main street that leads to the area I live I was met with resistance from the empire! Actually, as happens every so often, the national police do a dragnet of sorts and pretty much just pull people over at will looking for things that are wrong just to write people up. Well, my back light was apparently out, so they sucked me in like a tractor beam. I was caught although at first I had no idea what was going on because to my knowledge I was doing everything by the book. So after he explained it to me and I tried to argue it, but apparently my jedi mind tricks don't translate into other languages. Dang! Unlike on my home planet of America, when the police here pull you over on a bicycle or moto, they don't give you a ticket, they impound your vehicle! So I ask for a paper saying what infraction I'd made, how much it was and where to go to straighten this whole thing out. Nothing, I got nothing, which is even strange by Burkina police standards. Which made the situation all the more suspect and shaddy to say the least. So my Thursday night ended with my moto being taken by the galactic empire, and the lonely hero walking home.
Our Friday morning thus begins where Thursday night left off. Instead of getting a bunch of errands done and preparing for a youth group meeting I had Saturday morning, I had to get up extra early, get a ride from my roommate over to SIM and begin the journey of reclaiming what is rightfully mine. So I got to SIM and waited for a Burkinabe gentleman who works for SIM and helps missionaries out with things of this nature or paper work and what not. Well, he was somewhat swamped so after about an hour and a half of waiting at SIM, he and I jumped into a car and were off. We went downtown to the police station there, but found out we had gone to the wrong one, and because I didn't have any papers about the infraction this made our wild goose chase all the easier. Well we finally figure out which station the hero's moto is being help captive so we go there and find out that guess what I get to stand in line! So my companion for the journey at this point had to depart to take care of other business at hand. I got there shortly before 10 AM and waited and waited and waited in line until... 12 PM! Mind you Burkina is getting hot again so I stood there in the 90+ degrees for two hours. Awesome. So once I made it to the front of the line, and by line I mean nebulous blob (from what I have seen Africans don't hold straight lines as a virture to be pursed). So as I finally push my way to the front of the "line" I talk with the officer only to find out that he would be giving me a piece of paper which basically restated my official ownership papers. At this point the hero was instructed to take that piece of paper to the otherside of the galaxy (Ouagadougou) to another empiral station to pay the fine! It's a great system they have set up here in case that was unclear to you, let me just clear that up right now. And once I paid my fine at that station, I was to come back to the station I was currently at to prove that I'd paid the fine and my moto would be relinquished back into my possession. Like I said, great system.
Well, at this point it's noon, which means that everything is shutting down for the next 3 hours, however, I don't have a space shuttle back to my house, so after getting my paper I walked the next 3 miles or so (over an hour time wise) back to my house in the 90+ heat. I got home, had lunch with my roommate and being as tired as I was laid down for a nap. I had to be woken up by my roommate though because I had set my alarm for 2:55 AM not PM, so I was a little late waking up, but now had other fish to fry. My roommate gave me a ride down to the Niger embassy because I had to apply for a visa for Niger, because I'd be leaving soon for an intergaltica softball tournament there. So I get down there, take care of business, get back to the house just before 4 at which point I was to be at the school for Friday dodgeball. However, I got a call from the embassy saying I'd miss read some of the form and incorrectly filled it out. Sweet. So now I still have to do dodgeball but now I have to go back down to the embassy on Monday morning. I did dodgeball, ran home, showered, changed and went to a youth leaders house to work out details for our Saturday meeting, then walked home from that meeting, at which point you are now caught up in the hero's struggle against the galactic empire.
It looks like at this point I don't have transportation for the weekend and now my Monday will mostly be taken up with paying a fine, getting my moto back, and going back to the embassy. All things that were supposed to accomplished today. So, that may answer some of your questions as to how does Ben Steel fill up 24 hours in Burkina Faso. I hope you enjoyed reading about my day far more than I did actually living it.
Until next time...