Sitting Here in Limbo (But I Know It Won't Be Long)

I left Benin on Friday morning, expecting to pass the night in Ouagadougou in a room at the Catholic Cathedral and leave Saturday for Bamako. All went as planned. Except it's Sunday, and I'm still in Ouaga.

So... Burkina Faso was not really on the itinerary. It turns out they are tearing up the runway in Mali, so they cancelled the flight. They promised it will be finished by the end of this week. Yesterday I spent five hours at the Ouaga airport trying to get them to give me another ticket and find me a hotel.

The up-side: I had company. The Ouagadougou airport is officially my new favorite place for meeting new and interesting people. My favorites included a playwright from Cape Town, South Africa, who was flying to Dakar for a film festival. He is working on a play about the life of Fela Kuti, the founder of the Afro-Beat phenomenon, and yes, hero of my Nigerian colleague Funsho who I worked with in Ghana. My new South African friend is running a performing arts festival in February, when I arrive in Cape Town. Things work in circles, I am discovering.

My other friend-in-waiting was a real godsend, an English guy (James) who has been living in Ouagadougou with his Portuguese wife (Anna) and two children (Sarah, 6, and Joanna [aka Joey], 4) for the past three years. When the airline wouldn't give me any help with a hotel, he said that I should come and stay with his family in Ouaga for the week until they finish the runway in Bamako. I can't make this stuff up. So I slept here last night and stayed up late talking to James about theology and volunteerism and the state of the world. We swam in their pool this morning. They have a driver and a maid and a guard. I took a hot shower. Praise the Lord. James works for an NGO in Ouaga, and Anna does something diplomatic here, I'm not quite sure what. In any case, I have officially been extraordinarily blessed and will enjoy the time to explore Ouaga, which is low-key and safe, especially compared to Cotonou. James left for Nairobi this morning, and asked me to stay just in case Anna needs help with something.

My last week in Benin was hectic and wonderful. It was hard to say goodbye to Rock and Didie. I realized that we went through a lot together and became really good friends. A farewell to Benin photo gallery:

Nathan, with alto trombone

Drummers at funeral in Porto Novo (visions of New Orleans)

Vodoun priest giving sacrifices to fetishes

Sign pointing the way to a Christianisme Celeste church

Fa devination ritual with kola nuts

The last king of Abomey is said to have turned himself into this tree to evade foreign intruders.

Statue of the last king of Abomey, who when the French arrived asking him to sign his territory over in a treaty, ordered his men to open fire. A symbol of Benin's resistance to European political and cultural control. In the photo are Rock, Jacques, and two local boys.

Closeup of inscription: "I will never accept to sign any treaty that could threaten independence in the land of my integrity." Cbehanzin King of Dahomey.