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The following is another excerpt from the story of our travels to Burkina Faso. Read along as we brave the Metro in Paris, become red with African Dust, and climb rickety ladders to reach rooftops. Our intent? To learn more about Earth Roofs in the Sahel and to see for ourselves the life-changing effect of this program. If you’re reading for the first time, you can see the other entries here.

While we wait, I touch my arms and legs to make sure they are still there. We’ve been awake for over twenty-four hours, now, and maybe I am missing fingers? But no, they are all still hanging from the ends of my hands. We watch the street. A man drives by on a moped, carrying a bouquet of long baguettes. It is a theme that I notice again and again. In Paris, everywhere, everywhere, there is bread. An old woman carries nothing but her purse and a baguette. On the Metro, a couple feed each other little bites of bread. And there are bakeries on every street.

A man approaches, gestures to the three of us, and some form of unspoken communication passes between us all. This is Thomas. We tell him about the closed restaurant. “Oh la la,” he says, and we walk off to find somewhere else to eat. Thomas is short, stocky, and energetic. I feel that right away I recognize him. He’s one of those visionary types, the ones that never stop moving and are always pulling you into some sort of adventure. These are the kind of people who keep you on your toes.

“Where is Antoine?” we ask.

“He’s on the train,” Thomas replies. “There was a problem on the tracks, and it was delayed.” He will call Antoine to let him know where we end up eating. We find a restaurant and enter. It is smoky and we wander to the very back of the room to sit at a table. Now. The menu.

I recognize many of the words. One thing we did cover in school was food names. I would love to have retained more conversational French, but at least I can help with the menu. We decide on the lunch specials, and then have to order an entrée, a plat, and a dessert. It takes us a very long time to order. Thomas suggests the Fois Gras. I shake my head. “Oh, la la, the suffering animals, Rachelle?” I nod. Thomas shakes his head and turns back to his menu.

Soon, Antoine arrives, and he orders, also. Then we sit back and take stock of one another. What Jessie and Cindy and I all note right away, is that Thomas and Antoine feel like old friends. It doesn’t feel like we have just met. We recognize them, maybe in the recognition of people with hearts almost too large for their chests, people who spend most of their time trying to help out in an unbalanced global society, trying to do some good now.

Cindy’s “salad” arrives and it is covered with piles of all sorts of very interesting looking meat. Definitely some liver. Maybe some other organs? Which animal does it all come from? Maybe we’ll never know. Cindy eats very little meat, and ordered a salad because it seemed safe. But other than a slight widening of the eyes, she doesn’t really let it be known that she is concerned at all, about the meat-mountain in front of her. It’s a good indication of the kind of traveler she’ll be. Always ready for whatever is thrown to us.

Trying to let Antoine know that he didn’t need to worry about our comfort too much, as we go to Burkina Faso, and not sure of the cultural differences around women, Jessie had said to Antoine, “We’re girls, but we’re not girly girls.” And indeed, Thomas, while we talk about the car rental details, looking at us dryly, says, “I was expecting three elderly ladies carrying little dogs. If I had known that you would look like this,” -he looks at me, “and that one of you would have dreadlocks, I wouldn’t have rented a car for you.” Then he laughs. “But I am only joking. You will need a car, even if you are very strong.”

We will find out, eventually, how very, very right he is about needing a car. But at the moment, we just laugh at the thought of showing up in Africa with three little dogs.