Playing Tourist

  

Today I went to the Village Artisanal de Ouagadougou with an American couple visiting Ouaga for the first time.  Some 500 artists and artisans have their ateliers in the Village, and we spent almost 4 hours there, taking in a western-influenced African wedding reception on the grounds as an added bonus.

Various ateliers can be seen along the corridor

One of my favorites were the bronze sculptures

  

Here you can see some pottery

Inside a musical instrument atelier we are introduced to some unfamiliar instruments

 One of the reasons we spent so much time shopping is that, in addition to looking at everything, haggling over the prices is an art form and can take quite a while.  I'm not too great at it but Fina, the woman I lived with last spring, is a champ. 

The wedding vehicle arrives

And guests arrive bearing gifts

After an exhausting morning of shopping, a group of us retreated to a nearby local restaurant.  Soccer is big right now in Burkina, so there was a match playing on the large flat screen tv in the background.

Don and Janet Guizetti, Fina, Pam and Rebecca

 Last week in downtown Ouaga I was with another group at the Cafe Cappuccino, also sitting at table against a wall, and it seemed all eyes were on us [with the large screen behind our heads] as most of the Africans were watching the game...I might add that this is the season of the Africa Cup which is a major obsession here. The SIL administrative offices closed down early on a Thursday afternoon so staff could watch the game, which was followed by a national holiday that Friday (Mohammed's birthday)... No wonder it is a challenge getting any work done here!

Inside Cafe Cappuccino in Ouaga

This restaurant is one of the rare places for really good French pastries in Ouaga

Dates and times of the upcoming soccer matches posted on the window of the local bakery

P.S. Well the town is electric!  The Burkina Faso Etalons just made it into the Africa Cup Finals! There is loud cheering in the street, horns are blaring and firecrakers are going off... It's going to be a LOUD, noisy night...