Of COS Parties

This blog was written 16 August.

So, I am writing this with a body that is broken down into a series of pain zones. My head is swirling right now actually after getting 4 hours of sleep. Clay and I got back to the transit house around 3:30 last night, then we gorged ourselves on the wonderful guacamole Patrice made. Then, I passed out.

Needless to say, I am hung over. On Flag, that is. I like it more than Brakina, or SO. B. Bra, the typical three beers they serve in Burkina. Ooh, the monitor is fluttering, eek. I planned the COS party (Close of Service) with Babette. We typically have these parties to send the COSing group out of country. It is a celebration of their service. I am going to miss Leslie, Aaron, Jeremy, Ben, Josh, and all the others. I have really bonded well with the group that came in-country about 9 months ahead of us, they are really cool.

We started the party at the transit house then after 3 hours moved it to a club close to centreville Ouagadougou called Le Pandora. It's a cool spot. Thanks to the Peace Corps, who gave us a vehicle and one of the coolest drivers Idrissa, getting to the club was cool. A big shout goes out to administration for being so cooperative with the COS party planning. They showed a lot of support and offered some good critique.

Overall, the party was good. Some people got way too drunk way too quickly, as is usually the case. I won't name names. The house party went well, then we got to the club, and about 3 people left right there. Two were sick, one from being too drunk, and the third was just too drunk to really function. Caleb, we love you, you are hilarious! Everybody was having a good time. There were some Americans there, as well as French. It was disappointing to see some people were taking from our 60 L of beer we had bought. One cat, a Brit as it turns out, was taking beer as he pleased. I didn't like the looks of him, but Clay and him struck it up and it turns out I probably would have gotten along with the guy real well. Clay started talking to him about Oregon. The guy said he lived in Corvallis and went to OSU for 9 months. He hated Corvallis. Yeah, it's not the greatest place, but it isn't that bad. He asked Clay if I hadn't given up my pocket knife yet. They were talking about the kind of professional class in Oregon that loves to get out into the wild, run trails, check the river, hike the mountain. He thought it was ridiculous. Funny to see some Brit in flat Burkina talking about a place I lived as he drinks beer provided him by the US Government and some of it's best workers. That's a blatant shout out to all volunteers.

Outside of somebody peeing underneath an A/C unit near an electrical hub, the night at the club went well. The DJ was a fuck, not letting me speak on the microphone to announce the King and Queen of the COS stage for our Homecoming themed party. Clay and I also had a near altercation with a Ghanaian taxi driver, but we cut on him and took Omar's cab. But, the dancing was fun and the food wasn't bad. I did have some fun, maybe too much at times, as I was one of the people in charge of making sure nothing bad went wrong. But hey, we did it up and didn't break or ruin anything, so I would say we did quite well.

OK, happy trails. More to come soon. Headed back up to Ouahigouya for week 10 of stage. The new kids are coming around. Funny I was like that once! Much love!