We arrived safely Friday evening (about noon in the Eastern time zone of the US) in Burkina Faso. Our flights went mostly as planned; the first two flights were delayed, but we had a long enough layover at each of our destinations that it did not affect us significantly. The biggest blessing of all in some respects was the fact that all of our luggage arrived with us.

We've spent the past two days reconnecting with friends, and now we're preparing to leave the capital city (Ouagadougou) in a few hours. Our destination is the village of Obiré (OH-bee-ray), a bit west of the city of Gaoua (GAH-wuh), where the Rapid Word Collection workshop in Kaansa is slated to begin day after tomorrow (Wednesday). Stuart & Cathie Showalter, SIL linguists who've been working among the Kaan people for many years, will be taking us in their SUV. I'm looking forward to spending most of the next four weeks in Obiré with them and their many Kaan friends.