Festival du Cheval : The Journey

**Disclaimer:  This adventure is quite lengthy and will be posted in two parts, “The Journey” and “The Pretty Horses”.  I’m not sure why I wrote so much… it just happened.  Possibly it’s because this adventure was one of the most epic and crazy things I’ve done yet in Burkina…

Throughout the end of February and into the first week of March, all my Sourou friends were in the process of planning a trip to Barani, home of an annual festival du cheval (horse festival).   Barani is located about 80km west of my village, but there is no road to get there (unless you go south 100km all the way to Dedougou and then northwest to Barani another 100km).  Instead there is a river to cross, followed by the unknown, and that’s the route my friends were planning to take.

Their adventure sounded fun, but it also sounded very VERY  unsafe (as most things are in Burkina – heck, even eating at a restaurant could be, and is, considered unsafe since you’ll probably get violent diarrhea from unclean food!).  As a result, I was glad I had school and couldn’t go with them, even if I wanted to.  They all joked how they would “set out on this epic adventure with only me left behind in the Sourou Valley, they’d probably get lost or abducted by terrorists and die, and no one would ever know what happened to [them].”  And so, according to my friends, I would be really sad that they disappeared, finish my PC service without my friends, and a few years from now I’d write a book about it all and get famous at their unfortunate expense.

The more my friends talked about their travel plans, the more I wanted to join them.  I haven’t done a lot of “fun” stuff in Burkina, like traveling around or going on animal safaris, and with my service coming to an end, I’ve been feeling discontent about my lack of “sightseeing.”  For having spent 2 years in Burkina, I sure haven’t seen much of it!  And so, at the very last minute – literally, at le moment final, I decided to change my mind, pack, and inform my school and neighbors, all only hours before the troop was scheduled to roll out to Barani.  And that is how I came to take an impromptu adventure.

Getting ready was actually quite difficult, as the plan was to bike en brousse (through brush) to Barani.  Yes, bike.  Not take a bus or vehicle, but rather bike, as in with bicycles.  A journey that was planned to cover about 80km and take 2 days, since we didn’t want to be biking past 11am or so due to the heat.  We’d sleep outside under the stars, and eat what we brought or could prepare, if we were lucky enough to get a fire going during the evening.  The biggest concern, however, was water.  We had no know idea what sort of water situation we’d find, as we didn’t even know how many villages we’d pass through.  Our hand-drawn map from the 1980s that Jason so excellently traced onto a piece of notebook papers said that we’d pass by 4 villages before Barani, but who knew if they still existed and had semi-drinkable water?!?  So we had to bring a lot of water.

As I scrounged around late Wednesday evening, this is what I stuffed into a duffel bag to help me survive my journey:  2 changes of clothes, swimming suit, bug hut (tent), pagne  (thin fabric we use as a towel) for showering, soap/toothbrush/deodorant/etc., sunscreen, two 1.5 liter bottles of water, Craisens, almonds, packages of tuna, peanuts, salt, small medical first-aid kit, knife, matches, book to read, money, camera, ipod, cellphone, sunglasses.  The duffel bag ended up being heavier than I thought (water is heavy), but it was fine and fit nicely on the back of my bike, provided I could master the skill of bien attacher (to attach well/firmly) my bag to the bike rack with a long strip of calshou élastique (basically old tires/rubber tubes that they cut into cords 1 inch wide and 2-4 feet long).  Most my friends had bought 5 liter bedoins (jugs) that they filled with water, so they had plus de l’eau que moi.  But, they also had to deal with the consequences of the bedoins leaking and smelling/tasting of rancid oil.  Besides, I figured if I ran out of water before the next village, someone would share with me, right?  I mean, there were ten of us total, and I think we were all banking on everyone being willing to share anything and everything, from food and water, to first aid supplies and sunscreen.

Thursday morning, bright and early, we met at Sierra’s house, all wearing “biking” gear and slathered in sunscreen.  Sierra's little brother was sad that he didn't get to go with. But we gave him a box of candy sweethearts (like Valentine's Day candy") and then he was happy....

Sierra's homologue, Siaka,  led us to the river crossing a few kilometers away, and helped us get into the boats.  Correction, boat.  They made all of us, plus our stuff and our bikes, and 2 random strangers, get into the same pirogue (small flat-bottomed boat similar to a canoe).  I thought we would surely capsize, and by the look on Siaka’s face, he thought so, too.  He looked like a worried father who just realized that he was sending his 10 children to their deaths but couldn’t stop them.  I couldn’t help but think how scared he must have been, knowing that if something did happen to us, he (and all of our villages and probably even Peace Corps) would hold himself responsible for allowing us to cross the river.    

Michael:  ALL of us are getting into THIS??  Yeahhh, I don't think so...

Clearly we didn’t die… BUT, we could have. Especially since the boat leaked and started filling with water.   Tarek and Jason yelled from the back, the end of the boat most submerged in water, “Don’t worry, it’s fine.  The water is only up to our ankles.”  A few minutes later, “Now it’s past my mid-calf.”   And still later, “Okay, this could be a problem: water has now passed my knees and my butt is wet.”  Molly took the plastic chaussure (shoe) of one of the strangers and started doling out water over the side.  We would’ve used our own shoes, but tapettes (flip flops) obviously wouldn’t be able to act as a bucket.  Molly just might have saved our lives with that swift course of action!  But our lives probably didn’t need saving in the first place…I think the boat guys did, in fact, know what they were doing and knew we wouldn’t sink.  Plus, the river was only 3-4 feet deep in most spots, and we Americans all know how to swim. (As for our friends, the random strangers, I doubt they ever received swimming lessons… so they probably had reason d’avoir peur (to be scared).

The water was really pretty and relaxing once we got over our fear of capsizing.  There were flowering lily pads and tall grasses, towering trees rising out of the water, birds, fish and more.

Also, it was just simply refreshing to be on the water.  Our region of Burkina can definitely feel (and look) like a desert, especially during hot season, and thus crossing the river was a nice change of pace.  After about 40 minutes, we approached a village.  An island village!

as we approached the island...

I believe this was Oure, the original island village that is now being relocated onto the mainland and has created “New Oure” with the shack école that Zephrin teaches at (see previous blog post).  Kids came running from all ends of the small island as our pirogue approached land.

wading through mud; we all carried our shoes

We had to get out and wade through the mud and marsh for about 50 feet, since the boat could only get so close to land, and we then proceeded to walk to the other side of the island, where our pirogue would meet us in order to continue crossing the river.  Why we couldn’t just stay in the boat and go around the island, I’m not exactly sure.  It probably had something to do with the water being quite shallow in this area, and the more weight in the boat, the harder it is to move through the 2-feet deep mud/water.  But we didn’t mind the short break to stretch our legs and say hi to the villagers.  They were really excited to see us: it’s not every day that 10 tubabus (foreigners) come floating along in a pirogue… in fact, it’s probably never happened before….and never will again.

village children surrounding us as we wait for the pirogue

While we waited for our boat to go around the island, we watched women do their daily chores in the river water: fishing and laundry.  They each had waded about 5 or 6 feet out, so the water was almost waist-high, and they were working hard, using the dirty-ish water to make their clothes clean-ish, and one old tiny woman was setting a fish trap in the water in hopes of catching some poisson for lunch.

Our boat finally came around to the other side of the island where we were waiting.

But before we reloaded, our guides took the initiative of emptying the inside of the boat of most the water we had accumulated during the first leg of the journey.  That was relieving for us all; especially considering the second part of the journey was now to cross the actual river.  There was a visible rushing current, and it was obvious that the water was significantly deeper on this side of the island.  As a crowd of women and children waved goodbye, we floated away.

Every now and then, we’d pass another pirogue, or a small child manning his own boat as he checked his fish traps.

Eventually we neared land again, but first we had to get over a few hundred meters of swamp.  One point even was so shallow, that there were cows surrounding us, grazing on the swamp grasses.  By the looks of the photo, you’d swear we were just sitting in a boat on land, not floating in water!

Finally, it was time to get out and push the boat through the last 50 meters of sludge.  Everyone got out to use their muscles and push… well, except for me and Careth.  Somehow we were the lucky ones who got to enjoy the ride and not get covered in mud.















After reaching “land” (or as close to dry land as we could get), we formed an assembly line to get the bags and bikes in the boat to an actual patch of dry land.    We then reattached our belongings to our bikes, slathered on more sunscreen, and paid a whole two dollars (1.000 CFA) each to our guides for taking us across the river. 

teamwork!

reattaching our lives/survival kids to the back of our bikes.  it's amazing what that little elastic band can hold!

At last, the real journey was about to begin!  We formed into a line of 10 bikers, with Bilin leading the way because he’s tall (is that even a reason?), and Tarek at the end cuz that’s how he rolls (and also because he’s such a good guy, willing to bring up the rear and make sure no one falls behind or has bike problems…), and the rest of us (me, Sami, Molly, Careth, Michael, Jason, Sierra, and Marisol) somewhere in-between.

We got on our bikes, ready to pedal away, only to discover that THAT was exactly what would NOT be happening.  The land we were on was made up entirely of sun-dried mud, rocks, large holes, and tracks from cows, and there wasn’t really much of a path.  As volontaires du Corps de la Paix Americaine who live au village, we’re experts at biking over rough surfaces….but this surface was beyond rough.  It was impossible.  You’d pedal one or two, maybe four revolutions if you were lucky, only to get your wheel stuck in a rut or a large cow track, and then tomber (fall over), bike, baggage, and all.  Not fun.  So we had to resort to walking our velos (bikes) until we found la route.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find the “path” for over an hour.  Yes, we spent over an hour walking under the blazing soleil, pushing our bikes over cracks and crevices, thinking we’d finally found what looked like a bike-able pathway, only to fall off our velos a few feet later and again resort to walking along, still stumbling over the awkward terrain.

I know this looks like a flat surface....but it's not.  We had to walk our bikes over all the bumps and holes.

Finally.  Finally, we reached the outskirts of the first village after the river, and a real path appeared.  It still wasn’t the greatest, but we could at least bike on this dirt, and biking is a heck of a lot faster that walking while pushing a bike lauded down by baggage and a surplus of l’eau.  We felt great, finally biking along, the breeze in our face, on a path.  And then we realized there was a bigger and better path just over yonder.  On the other side of the field.   And the path we were on was quickly disappearing into…. the middle of an empty patch of dirt.  Perfect.  I didn’t wanna bike for more than 5 minutes at a time anyways…  We again got off our bikes and pushed our velos across the field, which was rough and plowed up from the recent season’s corn crop.  Bilin even resorted to just picking up his entire bike and carrying it over his head.  (He can do that cuz he’s tall.)  The nearby villagers watched us with amusement as we trekked across the field and made our way towards the “real” path.  And NOW we could pedal away, at last.  But, just to make sure we were indeed on thee path, and that we weren’t going to end up in the middle of a champ (field) again, we asked some villagers if this path would take us to Koube. They said it would.  Naturally, we trusted them.

The next 40 minutes were the most enjoyable part of the entire bike trip.  We were going at a nice pace on a decent semi-curvy path with beautiful surroundings.  We were in what can only be described as a forest (by Burkinabe standards) and so it was shady and a comfortable temperature, even though we were quickly approaching midi (noon).  I had my ipod on and was rocking out to Justin Bieber’s “If I Was Your Boyfriend” ….possibly also singing along – aloud – quite loudly… it’s a good thing for my friends that I can do an excellent Bieber, so I can only assume that they loved my singing and were thoroughly entertained.

And then it all came to a halt.  The path led us right to an open clearing with a small settlement of 3 or 4 Peuhl houses.  ***Peuhls are also referred to as the Fulani (they have lots of names, see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_people) and they are traditionally a nomadic people, herding cattle, goats, and sheep across the vast dry hinterlands of their domain, keeping somewhat separate from the local agricultural populations and villages.   I’ve written about them in previous posts; their women sell fresh milk at my local marché. ***

There were two Peuhl women outside, small children and babies nearby, and a 10-year-old boy on a bike who looked as if he was just about to venture out on the path we were now blocking.  Unfortunately, as soon as the boy saw us, he jumped off his bike and ran for his life, letting his bike crash to the ground.  He ran away into the woods, with the women following suit.  They grabbed their children by the hand, clutched their babies, and ran as if they had just seen a ghost.  Well, to be honest, they kinda had.  I think it’s very reasonable for them to think that we were genies or spirits of some sorts, especially since we are strange looking and pasty white, and we just “appeared” out of the woods, and because they had probably never EVER seen a white person before.  So, we scared the locals and felt bad about it.  But then we realized that we hadn’t seen any men.  Where were les hommes?  Possibly out herding their animals, but usually they assign the 8-15 year-olds to do that work.   We sent Jason to go talk to the women who were staring at us from their safety of the woods, but they just retreated further back into the trees.  Fair enough.  I’d be scared of Jason too.  Or any Peace Corps guy, for that matter. (They’re notorious for looking gross and not taking care of their facial hair and just being weird looking, in general.  That’s why I’m not dating any of them.)

So then we sent Careth.  Someone who was jolie (pretty), très féminine, and clearly not carrying anything that could be used as a weapon…  It worked.  The women were still scared and confused, but they did eventually come closer to Careth as she tried to ask them where the other side of the path continued, using bits and pieces of all the different languages she knew, along with lots of hand gestures.  They pointed ahead, and so we all started moving that direction, keeping our eyes open for an opening in the woods that resembled the continuation of a path.   But we didn’t see anything too promising.  We kept looking back at the women, but they just kept motioning.  Then two men appeared.  They stepped out of the woods near where this path was supposed to be and slowly approached us.  So that’s where the men were!  They were hiding, not in a location where they’d be able to protect their families, and had been watching us the whole time. 

Peuhl man leading us to the path

Anyways, now that they had seen that we weren’t going to steal their women and that we were attempting to speak their language (or at least a local language they might know a few words in), they deemed us safe and led us to the pathway.  We probably would have never found it on our own.  It was quite hidden and undistinguishable from the rest of the woods and tiny little trail paths that the Peuhls had formed when herding animals and gathering leaves to eat from trees in the woods.

So, we were back on the road and again cruised along for another 30 minutes until we came across yet another Peuhl settlement.  This one was un peu plus grand (slightly bigger), with a few more houses/tents present.  Again, everyone took off running for their lives.  But this time, we knew what to do.  We immediately stopped under a tree, leaving quite a bit of distance between us and the Peuhls.  We opted to send two people to approach the locals.  I’m not sure if we picked Sierra and Bilin, or if they volunteered, but either way, that’s who went.  Sierra left her bike with us and walked towards the group of women hiding behind their house.  Bilin decided to ride his bike, and despite us yelling, “Bilin! What are you doing?!?! Get off your bike!” he continued to bike towards the Peuhls.  Having a super tall awkward man with crazy hair and gangly limbs come at them on a bike only scared the Peuhls even more, so they starting running into the fields.  And Bilin just biked on further, basically chasing them further back into the fields with his bike.  I was so embarrassed.  But it was also funny, and gave us a chance to all make fun of Bilin for lack of tact in approaching a people who’ve never before seen a blanche (white person)…  Sierra was walking/running after Bilin, saying “Stop, you’re scaring them!” and “You idiot!  Wait for me; your biking is just making it further for me to walk!”  I wish we would’ve videotaped this experience.  Being the first white people a population has ever seen and scaring them to death?  Priceless.    Eventually Bilin stopped, and only Sierra approached a man who hadn’t completely retreated into the far woods.  He motioned where to find the path, and then we all continued on our way, waving goodbye and saying “thank you” in 5 or 6 different languages to everyone who had started to come out of hiding.

As we were leaving, a herd of cattle came stampeding out of the woods from 3-4 different openings, followed by 30 men and boys running after them with sticks.  So many cattle!  At least 150, I bet!  Also, so many people!  I wondered where they all lived, since we had only seen a handful of houses.  The rushing animals were slightly terrifying until we realized they had it all under control and were moving the animals (on purpose) in an organized manner.  We continued on, looking for the continuation of the path, but instead just saw tons of could-be paths.  Maybe they all led to the same place.  Maybe they didn’t.  Who knew.  We tried to pick what looked like the biggest and most promising path, but soon found ourselves crossing through prairie grass up to our hips and cow track laden ground, resulting in us once again pushing our bikes instead of riding them, and every now and then actually picking our bikes up and lifting them over huge dips in the ground.   We stopped to reevaluate our situation (keep going straight?  Turn around and ask the scared Peuhls again?  Go all the way back to before the first Peuhl settlement to where the path had seemed to split and take the right side as opposed to the left that we had chosen?), and while we discussed our options and drank some water, I saw in the distance a moto coming towards us, and assumed that if there was someone riding a motorcycle out here, he must be on a “real” path.  We started to make our way towards the moto, and then realized that there was also a large crowd of people under the distant trees, with what looked like a make-shift fence to hold cattle.  This was a good sign: a moto and a crowd of people.  Someone there would be able to direct us.  As we trekked across the uneven ground towards what we hoped was the path, Sierra’s toe started gushing blood.  Great, just great.    The prairie grass or something we walked across had actually managed to cut her toe open.  Good thing Jason had his fully-stocked med kit.  A few minutes later, Sierra was bandaged up, and we found ourselves in front of the huge ensemble of males and trapped cattle.  There was one African man (not a Peuhl) who spoke really good French, and upon talking about it later, we decided he was probably a vet vaccinating the cattle or someone doing research about Peuhls and their herding.  We were able to be reassured that this was indeed the path and we’d soon end up in the village of Koube: according to them it wasn’t far. 

We biked some more, feeling more confident about where we were going, especially as the path grew and seemed to get wider and more distinctive from the other footpaths nearby.  We passed quite a few Peuhl houses along the way, and lots of Peuhl women and children.  They all waved and no longer ran away for fear that their lives were in danger.

Shortly before 1pm, we found ourselves approaching a real village – our first one, besides the one we had encountered immediately after crossing the river.  The villagers instantly greeted us and brought us water.  They also brought out some benches for us to sit on while we stretched, reapplied sunscreen, ate some snacks (i.e. peanuts, peanut butter on bread, biscuit (cookies), etc.) and drank several liters of water, each.  We argued whether we should stop there and repose until later in the afternoon when the sun wasn’t so fort (strong), or if we should just press on, in order to ensure that we arrived in the next village before dark and had a chance to set up camp for the night while there was still some daylight… 

While we thought about our options, le chef du village informed us that to get to the next village, we should turn around and go back to the big Peuhl settlement and take a route from there.  The path between Koube and our desired village was, apparently, “pas bon” (not good).  We shrugged that comment off since: for one, there was NO WAY we were turning around and biking back to where we had just came from; secondly, our hand-drawn map had no mention of this other path and we were going to stick to this map from 30 years ago; and three, all paths are bad in Burkina – that’s to be expected.  I have no doubt that the path we were about to take was awful, but it couldn’t be any more awful than any other route, especially considering we had just spent more time walking our bikes that biking that morning, in order to get to Koube.

As much as we detested the hot sun, we eventually came to a general consensus to continue on and not repose.  It also swayed our minds that the village chief offered to send someone with us, a man to guide us and show us the way, all the 15km to the next village.  Plus, we figured that if we stopped for a couple hours, we’d just get tired and sore and lazy and not want to start again.  Better to just get it all over with, even if it was hot out and the sun burned.  Isn’t that why we packed an excessive amount of sunscreen and reminded each other to put more on each time we stopped for a water break?  I don’t think my skin could possibly have absorbed any more sunscreen…  Additionally, as nice as the villagers of Koube were, we still didn’t appreciate them staring at us while we tried to eat and rehydrate and re-slather ourselves in sunscreen.  Furthermore, it’s a Burkinabe rule that strangers need to be stared at for hours at a time, even if all they’re doing is being boring and napping.  And I don’t know ‘bout you, but being stared at by dirty children while you’re trying to sleep is just creepy.  So after filling up every bottle and jug with water, we left. 

fixing a flat

Moussa, or whatever his name was -- it was probably Moussa; everyone is named Moussa here – had a jankedy bike of his own, and he led the way.  It was kinda a fun path, lots of dips and curves, but it didn’t seem too bad.  Unfortunately, we had to stop every 15 minutes or so due to bike problems.  (Fortunately, bike problems causing us to stop also gave us an excuse/reminder to drink water every 15 minutes, very important for when you’re in the hot soleil during the heat of the day.)  First someone’s tire went flat, then Michael got a bad hole and had to put a new chambre d’aire in the tire, then someone’s bag fell off and had to be reattached.

more bike troubles....

Just minor nuisances like that, every 15-20 minutes.  Until…..Jason’s tire, like, literally, exploded open.  That was a dire moment.  We had plenty of patches and new inner tubes, but no actual spare tires with us.  Who woulda thunk?  Jason and Tarek’s first reaction to this awful development was to sit down in the shade and eat a granola bar.  American food fixes everything, right?  Then, they had a brilliant idea: stitch up the tire with floss from the medical kit!   They did their best to piece the rubber tire back together, attaching duct tape along the way, and then used floss to hold it all together.  And before we knew it (well, okay, it had been at least 30 minutes), we were off again!  And we all prayed that Jason’s tire would hold up…because if it didn’t…we were screwed. 

Eventually, after about 2 hours from the time we originally left Koube, our guide stopped, pointed to some big Baobab trees and said that the village was just ahead, a few minutes away.  We said thank you and gave him a whole mille (1.000 CFA aka $2 USD) for having biked with us for almost the way…and because we knew that we never would have made it on our own – there were definitely a few odd crooks in the road and places where the path disappeared, and we most certainly would have gotten lost. Lost, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception.  That would have been us.   Moussa was going to turn around and go straight back to his own village on his old rusty bike, a trip that was sure to take at least another 2 hours…and he didn’t have any water of his own.  Oh yeah, and this whole time, he was wearing pants and a wool coat over his t-shirt.  Ridiculous.

Since we presumed the village was just a few minutes away, we decided to take a small break.  Eat some snacks, rehydrate ourselves with our boiling hot water (a couple friends in our company weren’t doing so well with the heat), and wash our faces off so we didn’t look quite to terrible when we rolled into the village.  Also, we had more bike problems to take care of and were starting to run low on water – not low enough to be worried, just low enough that we needed to not guzzle all our water during our break, in case we didn’t make it to the village soon.   We sent Bilin on ahead to scout out the situation for us; to determine if the village was actually just 5-10 minutes ahead, or further than that.  We were going to send both Michael and Bilin, but Michael’s bike was being complicated again, so Bilin left on his own.  Since our cell phones were useless, the deal was that Bilin would bike for 10 minutes only.  If he found the village within the 10 minutes he could stay there and we would know by his not returning within 20-30 minutes that the village was close and we should stop resting and get ourselves to the village.  And obviously, if he came back, there was probably no village nearby, and so our plan would have to be re-evaluated, especially since our water situation was on the verge of being problem.  Also considering we had our bike troubles, if the village was close, we thought that maybe some of us could go ahead, get water, and send a villager to come out on his moto and get the broken bike and repair it in the village…provided the village was in fact just ahead.

Well…we relaxed and waited.  And waited.  And relaxed.  And ate some food and drank a lot of water.  We passed the 30 minute mark since Bilin had left, and took that as a good sign: the village must be close and he’s there waiting for us.  Unfortunately some of the bike problems were not yet resolved, and so we couldn’t leave.  After another 30 minutes, we thought it was strange that Bilin hadn’t come back to see what was holding us up…or sent any villagers out our way to help us with our bikes.  So that meant one of three things: 1) Bilin was lost/hurt/distracted somewhere and never reached the village; or 2) there was NO village after 10 minutes of biking and he had continued on looking for it, also possibly getting lost, despite our specific instructions to turn around if there was no village; or 3) Bilin was a jerk and probably hanging out in this village, drinking a beer and eating a chicken that the villagers offered to him as a welcome cadeau (gift), without even the slightest thought as to the status of his friends crossing his mind.  Either way, we all agreed that it was a stupid idea to let Bilin scout out the situation by himself.  Bad, bad, bad.  We should have known better, especially with Bilin….  Especially after he chased down scared Peuhls by riding his bike after them…

With bike issues still persisting and one of our company suffering from heat exhaustion, and possibly one of own *cough*BILIN*cough* lost or abducted or injured (or just being a lazy jerk) somewhere out there, I volunteered to bike ahead 10 minutes and come back, no matter what I found.  Just to be sure the village wasn’t, in fact, right in front of us or that Bilin wasn’t hurt.  Well, I biked and biked, and actually went about 12 minutes out, before I turned around.  I didn’t see a village and I didn’t see a Bilin.  Not good.  I biked back and delivered the bad news to everyone:

Everyone: Did you find the village?

Me: No, no village nearby….  **looks of exasperation cross everyone’s faces**

E: Did you see Bilin?

Me: Nope…didn’t see that idiot anywhere, or notice any bike tracks in the sand… I dunno what happened to him.

E: OMG!!?!?!  Bilin?!?!?

Before overreacting too much, we tried to remain calm and decided that the best option was to sit down and actually eat some lunch (we’d only been snacking throughout the day), wait another 45 minutes for the sun to go down a bit (it was about 3pm and 4pm would be significantly cooler than 3pm), and hope Bilin showed up, ideally with news of where this village was.  Remember, our guide had said it was just a few minutes ahead.  Righhhhhhhhhtttt.  Clearly he had just left us in the middle of nowhere.

Molly and Careth start setting up a picnic, pulling out bags of trail mix, and I found my bag of carrots and cucumbers that I had buried within my duffle bag.  Meanwhile, Jason is looking at the map, trying to figure out what might have happened to Bilin.  Right as someone cracks a mean joke about Bilin leaving us stranded, who would appear?  But of course, the least valuable member of our party, Bilin. 

Bilin: Hey guys. ‘Sup?

Everyone: ‘Sup?!?!? Uhhh, so did you find the village?

Bilin: Uh, no.

Me: You didn’t?!? How far did you go?

Bilin:  Well, I guess about 45 minutes or so out, then I turned around and came back

Molly: You went 45 MINUTES and didn’t see the village?  Oh crap… that’s not good.

Bilin:  Yeahhh….

Jason: The guide said the village was right here!!!! That bastard. He took our money and ran.  He knew there was no village nearby….

We all immediately start panicking, now that we know Bilin is safe but that he also did not spot a village anywhere in the near vicinity.  Also, most of us were practically out of water.  And if we still had another 45 minutes (or more) of biking, we were definitely not going to have enough water.  So this was it.  We were gonna be trapped there for the night, no water, die of dehydration, no village in sight…  Jason and I consulted the map, trying to figure out what went wrong and why there was no village, and my only thought was that somehow we had gotten on the path north that leads into Mali, in which case, we’d have another good 50km of biking before reaching a village.  Jason was convinced we should just turn around and go the 2+ hours back to the village we had come from….but then we realized that was also just as dumb without water, especially if we couldn’t find the correct paths and get back to the village.  Marisol caught a portion of our distress on video, of everyone freaking out and Jason and I arguing over the map…and Bilin just hanging out under the shade tree. 

The only thing to do was to eat our picnic lunch and relax for a few minutes before deciding which direction to take.  We didn’t talk much while eating....  which allowed us to better hear the arrival of our visitors, the bees.   So there I was, taking a drink of out of Molly’s yellow 5 liter bedoin filled with lemonade/oil water (the jug originally held oil, and despite washing it numerous times, the rancid oil taste remained…), and all of a sudden I had bees surrounding my face.  And then they were on my arms.  And a bee was stinging me and I couldn’t move cuz I was covered in the creatures, and all my friends are like, “Oh my goodness. Don’t move.”  Fortunately they helped me retreat away and get the bees off of me and the stingers out of my arm (yes, I was stung; it really hurt.)  We then realized the bees were starting to arrive in mass numbers – it appeared that they were attracted to our water.  Which makes sense, since it hasn’t rained in months in Burkina and bees get thirsty, too.

With the swarm of bees taking over, we packed up our picnic, grabbed our bikes, and pedaled away, hoping that there did indeed exist a village and it was closer than 45 minutes away.  My arm continued to throb, but there was no time to think of the pain.  The bees were coming…