Bonne arrivée!

My First Plane (Toronto - Brussels with Jet Airways)
They had a great Indian dish for dinner!

It is currently 23h29 on Sunday January 8th as I write this post. The temperature is 25 degrees Celsius, 80 degrees Fahrenheit - perfect. It seems crazy that just over 48 hours ago I was breathing in cold Canadian air, and now, here I sit feeling the warm breeze blow in the window in Yako, Burkina Faso.

The flights to get here were not as bad as imagined. I only thought about dying a handful of times, and the turbulence wasn't bad until we started landing in Ouagadogou (From now on, I will refer to the capital as Ouaga). I landed and waited for just over an hour to get through customs and get my baggage, where I then met up with Eric.

The view from my second flight (Brussels - Ouagadougou
with Brussels Airlines)
Emergency exit seat with lots of leg room!

We stayed at a nice hotel in Ouaga: "Pavillon en vert", I think it was called, that costs $17 CAD a night. We ate brunch, with two lizard friends scampering around, which consisted of guava juice (amazing stuff) and an omelet that had tomatoes, pieces of potato and french fries in it. Looked strange - tasted great.

We took a bus up to Yako - a coach bus that had TVs in it. We lucked out. It got a bit cramped as we picked up more and more people along the way, but nothing to much crazier than a plane seat. We arrived at around 15h30 and made our way to my new home. We went out for dinner tonight (we were the only folks there) and surrounded by 3 cats, ready to eat out meat discards, we had spaghetti and chicken. It was a good meal by my standards, but my roommates tell me it gets better - Yako is known for their chicken.

The hotel in Ouaga.

I now have a cell phone, courtesy of Eric's friend and our landlord. I will pick up some credit soon and be up and running. In Africa though, Eric tells me, you can always receive texts and calls, even if you don't have any credit on the phone. Beat that Canadian phone companies that start with a 'R' and a 'B'.

It has been a great start to this new life. Warm climate, great roommates and soon to be a good job (hopefully).

For now, that's all I have. I will talk a little bit later about the poverty that I have encountered thus far and the small things to get used to in regards to being a white man in Burkina Faso.

À la prochaine!