Ouaga’s so hot right now!

So in the matter of spending 7 weeks here so far we have found some great hot spots in and around Ouagadougou! In our spare time usually on the weekends, when we’re not working and don’t have much else to do at home, we have discovered a few places to go on a night out, for a birthday meal, to have the pleasures of amazing desserts, find tourist attractions and enjoy festival music!

So here are a number of places we came across:

1.  So after going on safari, many of our volunteers were on the mission to find another tourist attraction quite similar that we could find in the tourist guide! Whilst some volunteers decided to go to Bobo for the weekend, the rest of us thought we’d take a trip to this mysterious location of where there are many sacred crocodiles near by a village out of Ouagadougou but more in the rural areas. At first I was really unsure about the place as we were told that you feed them live chickens and goats, bearing in mind that they’re sacred too, but you could also sit on them for a photo??? Very strange.
Anyway, we all went and some of us volunteers braved it out and knelt down over the crocodile for a photo haha and we saw at least 1 crocodiles all at once run for one chicken! Was pretty crazy, the first chicken even ran straight at them but still got away free, we thought that pretty much deserved his life. I went off for a bit and made a friend with a little monkey who was unfortunately chained up around a tree. I fed him an orange, and peeled away pieces for him as he leaped up with joy and reached out with his hands like a little old man. Was unbelievably cute!

2.  Musee of Ouagadougou was very interesting as it showed the beauty of their traditional masks from the history of Burkina Faso. We saw such a huge range of traditional masks, outfits and costumes for occasions like funerals, marriages and festivals. We also saw some modern art, which had some strong messages. I found nearly all the art pieces interesting and asked about their concept. There was one which was a sculpture of a factory building called “The machine”, with an entrance saying welcome and many black people walking in, but all fighting and falling over each other. The factory had chimneys with black twisted smoke coming out, and the exit had many white people coming out, in rows and all in line in an orderly fashion. The piece really spoke and was supposed to shock people so I think, and altogether I found quite interesting.

3.        A great place to go for AMAZING cool down and delicious treat is N’ice Cream. When you first walk in there and out of the 40 degree heat, it feels like a freezer with how high the air con is turned up. It felt like I was back in Italy, with the huge range of different flavoured ice cream. I was spoilt for choice but had to go with my heart and choose Chocolat and Nutella of course!

4.       For Joe and Ian’s birthday, we went to a Chinese restaurant near Calypso, which was also an amazing treat. I stayed well away from buying any rice as we get that 24/7 anyway but ordered sweet and sour chicken with noodles! We pretty much took over the whole place and put together almost every table in the restaurant together. The bill I can’t even explain how much of a pain it was but we had a good night and couldn’t complain about the awesome food!

5.       Barka restaurant and bar was pretty laid back, nice to have some burgers and fries with maybe a cheeky cocktail. Kind of reminded me of Relish back home, the burgers were as great, and the mojitos also!! We went for Tom’s birthday and had a cool night, although the music was a little strange. They were good musicians but not really my style as it was quite dark, hip hop, with loads of rapping and maybe one solid beat. Plenty of Europeans though, and rasta guys all in dreads haha. Our journey home that night was pretty funny also as you can squeeze many people in a taxi on a night here, which is normal, we fitted 7 people in with a tight squeeze and Isla was hilarious and cuddled up to us all!

 6.       Le P’tit Bazar has to be my favourite though. This bar plays amazing bands, we’ve been twice so far and they have not disappointed! First time we just visited by chance and happened to arrive just in time for a reggae gig! Was amazing, people were dancing, singing a long and the place was packed! I didn’t manage to take my phone that night but I had an awesome time. Second time we brought more volunteers a long and it happened to be a jazz band playing, a woman on the saxophone and a guy on trumpet with an AMAZING electric guitarist also!! Plus a little boy got up on stage to sing, his voice was unbelievable!

7.       Lastly, a small place but still worth mentioning!! The best Pain Anglais in Ouaga, just in the center near Calypso the night club. Oh my god, I bought a compose size, which included a lot of meat, egg, salad and was all toasted and in a pretty big baguette. Only for 700 F which is like 70p!!

Sorry no photo as i couldn't help but dig in before taking a photo!! :| 

TN teaching in schools!

We’ve been to quite a lot of different schools now, all being secondary schools around Ouaga teaching awareness raising to teens and young adults from the age of 13 up to 20. We introduced and discussed issues people with disabilities come across in their life, educating them what they can achieve still, what they are capable of and then meeting some of our very own artisans with physical disabilities from TN!

I usually take on the role of setting up our little stall outside the classroom ready for the students to view after their class. Cyrille introduces us working for International Service and representing Tigoung Nonma as volunteers for their organisation. Farida, Emilie and Issa take turns asking the class questions on what they already know about people with disabilities, what rights they have and jobs they consider to be good for them. Afterwards, to keep all students excited and up on their feet, we all take them outside for an activities involving taking part as a team and using props to show different disabilities and how they can cope with for example, no eye sight, no use of their hands, or legs.

One school we went to, I really enjoyed as I had chance to play with some of the little ones. Although, these children were off the street, I invited them to come sit with me and me and Caitlin made them feel involved by playing and taking part in the activities which was really lovely to see! I loved seeing the smiles of their faces, one lil boy who was only 2 was just the cutest but didn’t want to play or run around, he just stayed close to my feet haha. When we had to leave they grabbed onto our legs and arms and shouted le blanc!

Here some photos from our visits: