The Travelogue

The short of the story is that 17 348km later I have finally arrived in Ouagadougou! 

The long of the story is there were lots of fun travel moments, but I wanted to share with you my absolute favourite. 

It starts back in 2009 when I first came to Burkina: while flying in I was shocked when the plane started its descent into near perfect darkness. Though we were landing in Ouagadougou, the typical indicators for a city landing of street lights and bright skyscrapers was absent from the city-scape. Ever since that first flight I have dreamt about landing in Ouagadougou in daylight so I could see what the city ‘really’ looked like. It was one of those 'silly' dreams that doesn't actually factor in to any significant life change, but that I thought would be a cool moment. 

This year I booked my flights with Air Ethiopia, and confirmed all aisle seats for the extra comfort factor. As soon as tickets were finalized I realized the 1pm arrival was my perfect chance to get a seat to see Ouagadougou in the daylight, but that I’d missed it by requesting all isle seats. I considered trying to change it, but never got around to it in the midst of all the busyness of preparing to go.

Today I thought about this again as I was walking towards the gate to board. “How cool would it be,” I thought, “if something happened and I got that window seat.” I quickly forgot about it, boarded the plane and found my seat. Only there was someone else sitting in it. We compared boarding passes and we were both assigned to 16C on the aisle.

I tracked down a flight attendant and she nervously disappeared to sort out the issue. She came back, profusely apologizing, and asking if I would be willing to sit in the emergency exit row instead. Of course I was – I wanted the extra leg room. “It’s a window seat though.” She said.

Of course it was.

How cool is that? Just a little moment, that felt like a note of encouragement, and had me smiling the whole flight.

I watched the transition from the rolling green hills of Ethiopia to the flat burnt red of West Africa. Each of these landscapes, and the ones in between, dotted with shimmering tin roofs that could just barely distinguish a village from the land that surrounded it.

It was simply, a totally loveable flight.

So I am here in Ouagadougou now, eagerly anticipating an early morning wake-up so I can get myself out the door, onto the bus, and to church in Yako tomorrow morning.

I’ll update you from there!