My Burkina Journal: Back in Burkina Faso

It was cooler than I expected the evening I arrived. Fina picked me up an we stopped for snacks at the newly renovated Cappuccino, the restaurant which had been the site of devastating terrorist activity in January 2016. It had been restored to its old self at a hefty price, and was just re-opened this past June. It was eerie being there again...

I now have another library assistant trainee... He is currently the pastor of the chapel of the nearby theological college (Assemblies of God) who apparently has free time on his hands and has been spending time in the library anyway. Pastor Ézéchiel Lopemba volunteered to help out because, as I understand it, he eventually wants to start his own school (with library) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he is from originally. I don't know how long he will be around, but, for the time being, it is a joy to have Pastor Lopemba helping out. Especially since he seems computer savvy and catches on pretty quickly... I have been showing him how to catalog books and journals, and he understands the importance of library concepts like book editions and the rationale behind the bibliographic record, searching for items by subject vs. natural language, boolean searching, etc. He may encounter problems because many of SIL's materials are in the English language, as his English is somewhat limited, but there certainly are enough people here who can assist when necessary.

Pastor Lopemba

It is a reasonably bustling time at the Center, despite the fact that there are no workshops or conferences in session at the moment. Thursday night a group of us ventured out to see the new Star Wars film, The Last Jedi, in the new CanalOlympiaYennenga theater located in the chichi Ouaga 2000 area of Ouagadougou (quite a distance from SIL as it look 20 minutes to drive there at night without much traffic). Very swank for Ouaga and it appeared brand spanking new, having opened less than a year ago and apparently not frequented very much. As the film was in English, we were almost by ourselves in the theater, and the first to arrive, so we took photos of the place. In front of the theater was a huge parking lot with dozens of lamps like the one barely visible in front of the photo, which gave it the appearance of a drive-in theater. The small separate building to the left was the concession building, which sold snacks like popcorn, candy and bottled water--but no soft drinks.

interior of the theater

exterior of the theater which allows it to be used as a stage

And yesterday I also visited the library associated with the theological college where Pastor Lopemba works. The school has the comical acronym of FATHEAD, which always brings a smile, but makes it very easy to remember in this country full of acronyms. It stands for Faculté de Théologie des Assemblées de Dieu du Burkina Faso. The library claims to have some 37,000 volumes, including many duplicates used for coursework. Women play a major role in the churches of the Assemblies of God, and their women's association has their headquarters on the campus at FATHEAD.

Here I am pointing to the sign on the building which serves as the headquarters for the Women's Association of the Assemblies of God in Burkina Faso.

And Saturday I visited Fina for her Saturday Kid's Club and gave them some of the books I had brought with me. They were a little disappointed that they couldn't check them out right away, but they will need to be processed by Fina first.

Fina's house

The above photos shows some of the early birds.

And eventually the formal presentation for the children begins...

Saturday evening I had dinner with translators Stuart and Cathie Showalter and Colin and Dottie Suggett, linguist Thomas Blecker, and some of the Suggett's friends from Toronto at Le Nomade, a nice restaurant with outdoor dining not too far away. It featured small dispensers of mosquito repellent on each table.