Sweet Home, Burkina Faso...

I'm singing, "Sweet home, Alabama...." as I write this. Last Sunday night I experienced the joy of watching my home, Burkina Faso, West Africa featured on "The Amazing Race." I don't know if any of you caught it, if not you could watch it online, I think. My parents served as missionaries there for 30 years, I lived there 18 years of my life, interspersed with a couple of furloughs and boarding school in Cote d'Ivoire. That's over half of my life. When I think about it, that's pretty significant in recognizing who I am as a result of living there. Watching it's effect on the contestants struck home the reality that it is a heart-grabbing place. It was interesting that the girl that "got it" was a Goth (I know that sounds so un-PC of me).

She and the other contestants had to go to a goat market, load up a bicycle with the goat, a chicken, several large jugs of water, some plants and other stuff. Then they had to ride the bicycle, past piles of garbage, through the open market (butchered meat hanging and raw fish laying out on tables, covered in flies--imagine!--no Harris Teeter experience here) and call out the name of the person they were to deliver the stuff to. Then they would get their next clue. She was really moved by the poverty, but yet the happiness or contentedness and generosity of the people. It literally brought her to tears.

Needless to say, it did me too. To see the familiar scene, I could even smell the raw, exposed meats, the piles of garbage, the local spices, the Arabic tea brewing and hear the chickens and goats in protest as they were being bought and loaded up. The memories are so vivid, but so unlike anything here. I could almost hear the children hollering, "Too-baa-boo," which means "white person," as they chased the contestants both out of excitement and curiosity. Oh, Burkina, I sure miss you and the joy mixed with sadness that you brought to my soul.