07 June 2010

A visit, a vacation, and vivacious vespertine vizards (part 3 of ?)

THAT was atypical. I just found out (though we'd already suspected
given the frequency of the word "nasara" in the preceding argument)
that they'd been talking about us. The kickee had been insulting us.
The kicker decided to defend our honor. More than any other time in my
service, I wish now that I'd focused more on Mooré so I could have
defused that situation. Anyway, as I said, that was unlike anything
I've ever seen here, and I hope it's not what Pat walks away
remembering.


A WEEK IN...WHOOPS!
On Wednesday we discover Pat is leaving as planned on Friday, but MY
ticket is for Thursday! Uh-oh! We spend the evening frantically
calling Air France, Delta, and Orbitz, and eventually find that to
change one of the flights will cost about $700. The cheaped solution:
find me a hotel room online and thank the lord I've got good friends
in Ouaga who can take care of my brother for the soon-to-pass weird
situation of 24 hours in which *I*'m in Europe and my brother is in
Africa.


LAST DAY IN OUAGA...FOR ME, ANYWAY
We run around being tourists, with a side trip to the embassy, which
was holding BOTH my passports. Can I describe how much stress I was
under knowing I was flying out that week and having no passport to do
it with? Not adequately. You see, I'd submitted my PC passport with my
application for a personal one. No big deal, except for a string of
events which prevented me from getting there to pick them up until the
day of my flight, several weeks after receiving a phone call telling
me my PERSONAL passport had arrived, but the photo wasn't quite right,
and in response to my query, oh yes, my PC passport "should" be there
too. Finally, the day I'm leaving, I get there and all is well - the
photo's contrast is not great, but it's passable, and my PC passport
is indeed there (though I spent an ugly couple of minutes before they
figured out that a friend of a friend had put it in the safe for me to
ensure it wasn't lost). With a much lighter heart, I accompany my
brother on a souvenir-hunting trip before leaving.

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