The Village

The two most important things I can tell you about going the village are:
1. You will meet everybody and visit them multiple times
2. These people will feed you and feed you multiple times
You should probably also know there is no electricity, running water, or washroom facilities but these items pale in comparison to 1&2.

I had the amazing privilege of spending a few days with one of our girls in her village.
The program had been to leave Yako at 7h (which meant I set my alarm for 5h30 so I could pack my bags). At 5h15 a beautiful, torrential downpour started, and didn’t finish until nearly 10:00. I consulted Edouard (his village is near Yolande’s and we’d arranged for him to show me the route) and he suggested we leave after 15h because if not “we’d suffer a little with the deep mud.”.
We arrived (a little muddy) and discovered everyone was in the fields. Yolande and I stopped, to drop our bags off and left to the fields. Yolande told me we were looking for her mother. Her mother though, was working in the Pastor’s fields- with the entire church congregation.

The protocol was: greet each member of the church, take their pictures, eat some tô, work a little in the field, eat more tô, then follow the Pastor home to officially greet him.
By the time we arrived home for dinner we’d greeted most of the families near to us, and I’d eaten 5, or so, meals. It was a true, expression of hospitality.
The next day, after breakfast (coffee and bread) we left to greet family again. Once we returned I was seated inside the house, and women from the courtyard brought me bowls of tô and benga (rice and beans). It was barely 10h, but I was instructed to eat, and eat some more. Then, we left for the fields. I worked just a little, and then retired to a spot under a tree. Yolande’s mother sent her over frequently to feed me. After not too long some children came and we spent the afternoon playing and singing under the tree. I think we all became friends somewhere between the fifth and twelfth round of the chicken dance and stella ella ola.
One of my little friends, Emily, followed me around for the rest of the weekend. We were in the same courtyard, and every time I sat down she would crawl in my lap. (She’s in my arms in the picture below; me with my 'Raolo family'. Yolande is wearing a green shirt, and her mom blue and yellow).

I had been asked to preach Sunday morning at church. Sunday on my way to church, as I scribbled some notes, I thought about how ironic it would be if I didn’t end up preaching. I had, after all, prepared a sermon about how man makes his plans but God directs his path (based on Psalm 33 and several passages in Isaiah). When I arrived in the Pastors courtyard I was greeted, warmly, by a visiting Pastor who had just arrived. He was to give the sermon, and he asked if I would give a small address to the congregation. It was, for the best, especially considering that the boys that were best suited to translate were not in the village that morning. I think, my small address, didn’t get across at all- as much as everyone tried.
Visiting Raolo was a wonderful opportunity to learn about life in the village; how most Burkinabe live.