Angela Arrives

I finally got to see Angela Bednarcyck! We had hoped to get together while we both were in West Africa and managed to pull it off!  Angela came to Ouaga to attend a conference put together by Compassion International and SEL-France, which, at the same time, gave her the opportunity to see a mainstreamed deaf school here, the Centre d' Éducation et Formation Intégrée des Sourds et des Entendents (CEFISE),  in which both hearing and deaf children are taught to sign. It also gave her an opportunity to see me and hear what I've been up to at SIL, and vice versa.

As many of you know, Angela has been an active member of my church, the National Presbyterian Church, and is spending the year teaching at a school for the deaf in Dakar, l' École Renaissance des Sourds, after spending years as a teacher and researcher at Gallaudet University's Clerc National Deaf Educational Center. Angela has also supported a deaf World Vision child from Senegal for several years, has had the chance to meet him and his family on several occasions, and would love to see him enroll in the school where she is teaching... Although you may have heard of the Christian humanitarianism organization, World Vision for their disaster relief, it is also dedicated to community development worldwide... and funds this largely through their program of child support.

As Stuart vaguely knows Angela, and was interested in what she is doing in Dakar, and because Stuart is in town, and has a car (!), the three of us had dinner together at a nice restaurant here. I might add that Le Verdoyant, with its French and Italian influences, has really good food! I highly recommend the capitaine au gratin—a tasty fish of the perch family, with spinach and a sharp cheese, baked in an individual sized casserole. Excellent! I can’t give it enough superlatives! I understand that the lasagne and wood-fired pizzas are pretty good, too. The name of the restaurant is probably a reference to the outdoor garden-like ambiance, which, certainly adds to its charm.

Pam, Angela and Stuart at Le Verdoyant

March 8 is International Women’s Day, which, apparently, is a big deal here for those that know about it. For government and many other workers, it is an observed public holiday, and for those savvy women, like my Burkinabé neighbor, Paule, it is an excuse to let others do the housework and to instead spend time pampering themselves. SIL observes the holiday, so I have the day off. In my case, this is not such a good thing as it means being home without Internet, entertaining Fina's rather rambunctious dog, Lolly. Fortunately I've got the TV working again, although running the TV and the A/C at the same time seems to tax the electricity at times, making choices difficult...

Lolly

 Stuart, on the other hand, is speaking at a 3-day linguistic colloquium organized by the CNRST (le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique) and the University of Ouagadougou, where he is presenting a paper on the SIL publication, Ethnologue, entitled “Combien de langues au Burkina Faso?”

By the way, thanks to many of you for the birthday wishes! (For those of you not atuned to the Facebook birthday reminder, my Birthday is March 11 :)