Arrived in Ouagadougou at 1:00 AM on Tuesday, Feb 5th. After nearly 24 hours of travel I was pretty exhausted, but getting a visa was relatively painless and my airport pickup got me to my guesthouse without any problems. Got to my room, threw down my belongings, went to the bathroom, locked the door and the key snaps off in my hand. Fantastic. My first instinct is to try to McGuyver my way out of this situation, but after about 10 minutes without any progress I decide I’m better off just to yell for help. But it’s 2:30 in the morning and it takes a while to get someone’s attention. Eventually I wake someone up and am rescued, and then immediately go to sleep, hardly worse for wear.

Spent a few days reading up on gasifiers and generally preparing for my grand adventure in off-grid bush. Today I bought a solar system, so that's pretty cool, and Monday morning I leave civilization behind to start my real work.

I'll try to update this thing if I can, but no guarantees I'll have internet access, so don't expect too much. And I promise to get some better pictures up soon, but to be honest nothing here looks all that cool, it's more of an experience.