Parisian Interlude

Since all the flights to Ouagadougou seem to go through Paris, staying at my Paris place for a couple of weeks on the way over was a no brainer. I got to spend two weeks in Paris adjusting to the time change and preparing for the next stage of my adventure in relative calm...

More challenges were to come, however. Flying British Airways, I managed to miss my connection when the airport security decided to go through every single item in my carry-on bag at Heathrow.  Why was I so blessed?!  And, of course, when I finally arrived in Paris, my luggage was nowhere to be found.  This turned out to be a good thing, though, as I didn’t have to lug it around, and it was delivered by someone to my apartment later that afternoon!

 

Then I received an email from Stuart asking if I could squeeze a few car parts in my luggage if he ordered them.  He offered to pay overweight charges if my luggage was over the allowed amount.  I assumed they wouldn’t be too bulky but couldn’t believe the size of the enormous box that arrived at my apartment a couple of days later.  After going through the contents and discarding the inner box which was still too large for my suitcase, I pondered what to do. The whole thing weighed over 18+ lbs and there was no way I could haul a 70 lb bag to the airport, even it did have wheels. And, if the weight were over 70.5 lbs., the overweight charges would be $300. Scarry thought.

 

Much to my delight, however, I discovered that the rules regarding baggage for the Air France flights were different than British Airways for certain African destinations.  Two suitcases were allowed !! I would have liked to put the problem item in my carry-on and check that, but this steel triangle de suspension (?) was just too big. Stuart suggested that I just put all the car parts in the smaller box that the heavy metal thing had come in and check it as my second bag.  I did that but cut up the larger box and used it as a protective cover. It looked pretty shabby but it worked!

And today I just received an email for a book, Pouvoirs ressources et développement dans le delta central du Niger by Boubacar Ba for one of the SIL staff.  I just hope it weighs less than the 6 lb copy of Calvin’s Institutes in modern French that I got for the library!  I just added the latter tome to the package I created for the Nissan parts…

The SIL Director also sent some pictures of the Harmattan (seasonal Saharan wind storm) which he likened to Burkina's equivalent of a snow storm.  They looked pretty bad, but he assured me that, by the time I arrived, the worst would be over.  I sure hope so!