I’m back for four months.  I think this will be a good trip.  Saw Peter Hochet on the plane; he was returning from Guinea.  He and colleagues in Labo Citoyennetes are doing a big project on land tenure regimes in Guinea.  Airport was smooth, and my thirft store suitcases all made it, even the 1950s one, though the entire side fell off and everything was held in the bag by the liner only.  I did a count and we now have 14 large suitcases in the house in Ouaga.  A problem of always coming with two and leaving with one!  Have to sell some at the ISO garage sale.

Speaking of the International School of Ouagadougou, Sukie and I walked around about noon.  Nobody out.  Of course, it was 104 F.  Right now it is night time, and about 95 inside the house.  Funny though it is such a dry heat neither Sukie nor I are really feeling it.  It helped that after the ISO tour, we drove over to the Club Sonabel, by the barrage, and watched my colleague Alain Sissao and his daughters take their first swimming lesson.  Alain was pretty brave… imagine being fifty and dunking your head underwater for the first time…. scary.  The girls of course quickly blew past him, practically diving by the end of the hour.  Then we went and had ice cream at the Festival de Glace, the relatively new ice cream place.  Very air conditioned.  Quite nice.

Sukie and I drove home, and ate leftover couscous.  She says it is her favorite meal.  Salimata (the FAVL cook and in charge of the guesthouse) makes a mean vegetarian couscous.  Then she (and me a little) watched a Nancy Drew mystery (interestingly, they play her as slightly Asperger’s… or just old fashioned?  She can’t lie, and she can’t hear irony, and has a hard time with emotions.

Anyway, a good first day in Ouaga,