Monday, 1st Oct, London – Ouagadougou

Just like last year, I am once again woken at 3am for my trip to Heathrow at 4, and, hard to believe, even more luggage than before.  This time we have so many more bits and pieces of essential equipment, to hand over to the team in Burkina for a new phase of our work in the Sahel.  Danaë is at the airport ahead of me having lodged at the Terminal 4 hotel overnight.  A fairly smooth check-in and a relaxed saunter to the departure gate, and it transpires that we’re actually booked in on different flights!  Only a half our apart, we were to meet in Paris and get the same onward flight from there.  With both flights slightly delayed, it was a close call for my later flight to make the connection, but with the latter also delayed we both made it in good time.  6 hours later we get to Ouagadougou via a short stop in Niger’s capital city Niamey, only to find that 5 out of our 7 pieces of luggage are missing!  A little further delay to fill out lost luggage forms, and we spot Aly and Bara waiting to greet us the other side of the glass doors at arrivals.  Before long we’re heading off to the Foyer guest house where some of the team are staying, and there we meet up with Oumar, Idrissa and Hussein, the rest of the Oursi crew.  We also meet Pierre and Soumilah, from Sourou and Higa IBAs, here to learn for the first time about the ringing that takes place at Oursi.  This is truly the start of a Burkina Faso ringing programme, with Aly and Oumar the trainers, Idrissa and Hussein the trainees, and new recruits Pierre and Soumilah. It is great to see the team, especially one so keen to get on with some more training at the start of the new season.  Danaë and I then head on to the Naturama office where we find Oppong and Roger after their marathon road trip north from Accra.  For Roger, a well seasoned traveller and volunteer all over Africa, this is his first visit to Burkina Faso.  Oppong’s first visit too, and with neither of them speaking French they did very well to make it!  After catching up with all in the Naturama office, we head to the hotel to settle in, grab some dinner and a short rest before heading back to the airport to meet PhD scientist Carlo, due in at midnight. We eventually turn in at 01:30.  Quite a long first day!