This week is Siao, which is a big arts and crafts festival in ouaga. All the artists in west africa come to ouaga to sell their crap. I'll be alone so i know i'm going to be hasseled BIG time with people wanting to rip me off from the taxi ride on but i can't not go, theres going to be so much cool stuff there! Good/bad thing is, the banks are closed today because of some obscure holiday so I'm only going to siao with 10,000 CFA, about 20 dollars, so i can't go crazy on the buying stuff. Though I may be coming back to ouaga on thursday to pick up grant money, if so i can go to the bank and then i can go crazy with the buying stuff!!



So what else is going on. Some of my friends and I are planning on camel treking through the desert for thanksgiving, then doing a safari about a week before christmas and then spending christmas on the beaches in togo. Then I'll come back and spend new years with francois in ouaga. With a week in togo i should have about one week of vacation left to go hiking in mali, and maybe swing by and see the garaffes in niger some time before my peace corps adventure runs out. I also really want to see the elephants and the waterfalls in banfora sometime!! I feel like I still haven't done a whole lot to take advantage of my time here, but I'm planning things and some of them, like the camel treking and safari and togo vacations are starting to materialize. Also the vacation I'm REALLY looking forward to will be when peace corps is over around the end of july francois and I are planning to spend all of august and september lying on the beaches and eating pineapples in the ivory coast. That will be SO nice!!



okay well i'm going to head to siao now have fun in america land!