Saturday, December 23, 2006

Lowdown on Lockdown

I guess most of you know by now that I missed my flight home and will no longer be coming home for the holidays. It is sad but I have a new flight scheduled and plan to be home from Jan 22 to Feb 5. I hope to see and talk to as many of you as I can.

I am not sure how much I am supposed to explain and I do not want to appear critical of the Burkina Faso government or Burkina itself. If I sound negitive it is purely out of my own disappointment.

The night before I was supposed to leave I got a text from a fellow volunteer telling me that our office put us all on alert because there were problems in Ouagadougou. I called early the next morning and was told we were not officially supposed to leave our sites as a precautionary measure. The office knew I had to fly out and told me to head to Koudougou and wait for the final decision. They were talking to their sources to try to get the lowdown.

As far as I know what happened was a skirmish between two different police forces, the city police and the gerndermes. There were gun shots and I think some buildings were burned the night of the 20th. I believe some people were killed but I am not sure. The next morning things were pretty quiet and since then everything has been quite calm but the office wanted to be extra sure that things were settled down. Let me be clear: it was not a coup, revolt by the people or any real serious ethnic conflict. I will be surprised if my villagers even know about it. I have yet to hear what the disagreement was about initially but I think it is over now. We have been advised to staying in our villages until the end of december. If we leave, the head office must know about it. I may have to go into Ouaga the 27th and I was told I should be okay. I am gonna try to not go in until the 31st but I need to change my ticket at Royal Air Maroc.

Please don't worry. I am a lot safer than it sounds and if things had gotten worse there are plans in place to get us consolidated or even evacuated but again that is a whole other level which we are not even close to. If you have questions call Peace Corps Washington. Our office is sending reports there.

Love ya'll and have a good Christmas and New Year's.