Land of the Upright People

Burkina Faso by Numbers:

1 country
13 Regions
45 Province
350 Departments
8,000 villages

Moto: Fatherland and Death, we'll overcome

In Sad News:
My Chef du Village(The Chief of my village) passed away the first of May.i'm not for sure how old he was, but I thought he was young. I was at the CSPS the day he came in to see the head nurse. he was immediately taken away to Ouaga (the Capital) by an ambulance. a few days later I over heard in passing that in the middle of the night he had a heart attack.

The night before the funeral and and every guy that is available dig the grace and when they are done with that, the funeral will start. Since the body had to come from the capital that body did not arrive until night time so the funeral was held the following day. Mass was held in his honor that day and the church was packed. Everyone from the village was there, Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, and Animist. when mass was ended the men carried the casket to the burial site and the women in the choir sang. The priest blessed the burial site and then the chief was lowered into the ground and the extended family take turns placing dirt on the casket. he is buried next to his father and grandfather, who was the first Chief of Nakaba.

The wife and immediately family don't partake in the funeral activities. All the negative energy could be harmful to the survivors, or so they believe. The wife will stay with different families in the village until all the extented family has left.

After the burial we headed to the Chiefs house and all the men drink local beer and the women cook. People donate money to the family and they will keep that money because in one year after his death they will throw a celebration of his life. The week of his death and funeral are times for mourning. Because he was the chief, it may last a little longer, but usually when an elderly passes away there is not a lot of mourning because they lead a long life, with little kids on the other hand mourning can last for a while. A villager told me not to be sad because death is apart of life and it happens to everyone........


In Happy News
I am going to be seeing my family in a month!!!
7 months in Burkina and still going strong.


Mail Recieved:
Aaron Kidwell
Tammy Bryant
Jen Huston
Tab Gentry

a fews pics were added... :)