You still alive? Okay cool

For the past two days, the Education and Computing groups have been busy at work, leaving little to no time to blog because we are all exhausted.  Yesterday (Friday), we all had an early rise to go see the Mossi King, the leader of a large ethnic group throughout all Burkina Faso.  Every Friday of the week, the king is presented in front of his court, judging if there is a threat against the Mossi people, signifying it in either red or white clothing. 

After the Mossi King, the Computing group headed back to work with John, finishing up our lessons with the teachers and updating more software on their computers. The Education group observed kindergarten through 5th grade at the ISO. They use an American curriculum so it wasn't too different from a classroom in the states, however the classes were very diverse and although it was an English speaking school, not many of the students were native English speakers. We were able to observe how the teachers handled the mixture of students with different backgrounds.

On Friday evening, John welcomed us into his home for dinner with his family, along with his friend Daniel, his wife and child.  When in Africa, some things don't always work out, like driving to Johns house realizing the entire town of Ouaga was out of power (we just hadn't realized because SIM has a back up generator).  As we sat in the dark for a while, John ran around the house trying to get a generator working, also trying to fix the "stupid French outlets" in his house.  Eventually, John, Daniel, and Scott got the generator running so we could eat our dinner in the light. 

On Saturday morning, the entire team headed out to visit the Garibou boys, a local ministry lead by Kate Royal. Sons of families are given to the Mosque to learn the Koran, along with going out and begging for money.  If they don't come back with money, they are punished by the leaders of the Mosque. The Garibou is a safe haven for the boys where they play games, make crafts, eat, along with learning different stories of the Bible.  It was a great visit for the team to see how God was working through Kate to evangelize to the boys who have been dealt a rough life.


While the rest of the team was busy with odd jobs, Katie, Dani and Austin had quite the adventure. They originally prepared to go to a soccer match but when the plans fell through, they ended up being led by Michel (an employee at SIM) to the far outskirts of Ouaga in a taxi that was held together by thin string (there wasn't even a key in the ignition, yet it was running?). In these suburbs, families can buy a plot of land (for the equivalent of 60 USD) to make their home. They are in agreement, however, with the government that every few years the government will come to survey the land to determine where roads should be built. Sometimes, people's houses are destroyed because they are in the way of the roads determined by the government. Michel's area was surveyed recently and while he did not lose his home, his parents lost a significant portion of their yard. In the middle of these suburbs there is a large open-air market where Michel led Katie, Dani and Austin. They were also able to observe the collection and method of making clay bricks to build homes. Donkeys are used to transport the bricks, which are left to dry for three days before they are ready for use. A definate highlight of the trip was the amount of children who flocked towards us wherever we went. As mentioned in earlier posts, children LOVE to see their pictures. They were fascinated by seeing white people and would follow us around, even chasing after us while we drove away in the taxi! After what seemed like a 5 mile walk on dusty dirt paths, we visited at Michel's home before returning back to SIM.