Where is Ouagadougou?

Published August 17, 2009 at 11:21 am |

Yesterday morning I received an interesting phone call from my mom. She said, “Your cousin is stranded at the airport in Ouagadougou. Do you know anyone that can help him?” I guess I know that I travel a lot when I get questions like that!

First of all, I didn’t event know how to pronounce Ouagadougou (and hearing mom say it over the fun was quite amusing). Secondly, I had no clue where it was located or anyone there who could help. Apparently several trips to South Africa mean that I happen to know everyone on the continent. Mom is sweet like that.

As it turns out, the pilots for the airline he was flying, Royal Air Maroc have gone on strike and he is stuck in Ouagadougou, which by the way, is the capital of Burkina Faso (the Northwestern part of Africa). The airline provided him a hotel to sleep in, but I’d rather be on the plane home than worrying about how I’m going to get home. My cousin should be well on his way home by the time this posts. As of Sunday morning he was en-route to Casablanca. I wish him luck and can’t wait to hear about his adventure in Burkina Faso.

It must be frustrating trying to read this post and not pronounce Ouagadougou. I’ll call it “O” from now on. But to settle your curiousity, it is pronounced wa-ga-du-gu. Since I had never heard of O I thought I would do some research and learn more about what there is to do in the city. It turns out that I couldn’t find much. Here is what learned about O thanks to Lonely Planet:

It is one of the poorest countries in Africa (and third in the world) – but one of the most stable.
There are lots of cinemas and clubs. It has one of the largest film festivals in Africa
That’s about it

So who’s in for visiting O? Anyone? Anyone? At the very least, next time you want to impress your friends with how worldly you are, you can strike up a conversation about O. It is fun to say. Speaking of which, have you mastered pronouncing it yet? Comment below.

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