Le Tour de Burkina 2011

August kicked off the 2nd annual “Tour de Burkina”, where volunteers bike 1,700 kilometers in 23 days. The point of the tour is to raise money to support Gender and Development projects, such as girls’ camps to promote self esteem, or helping a women’s group raise money. You can follow a day to day update of their progress at burkinabiketour.blogspot.com.

Biking 1,700 kilometers is not something that would interest me, but I hosted the bike tour on August 31st. My town was their first official stop. This included housing and feeding 10 volunteers and organizing an awareness campaign for them to attend. They arrived at my house after 2 hours and 50 kilometers with no problems (except a little mud) and no injuries. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky. I was biking 3 minutes down the road to meet them when I had a small bike accident. I was fine, except for a few cuts. I must admit that my ego was bruised when I arrived covered in blood, dirt and sweat to meet this group of volunteers.

My nearest volunteer neighbor came in for the day to help me host, and organize all of this. We decided to do a theater presentation. There were two different skits, which were based around the themes of girls staying in school, nutrition, and family planning. We had about 12 young girls who were the actresses, and were diligently practicing daily for their big performance. We had been advertising the presentation for a few weeks on the radio and telling as many people as we could. The presentation started at 2:00 pm, but because this is West Africa, that really means about 3:00. Although I know this, I was nervous when there was not a single person in the room at 3:00, but luckily, by 3:30, the room was packed with about 70 people, plus the bike tour volunteers, which I consider a success.