It’s a busy time in the office so in an attempt to help my colleagues out with all the work I’ve decided to skip the country!

Tomorrow lunchtime Eddie and I are flying off to Burkina Faso in West Africa for 10 days. We’re doing some research, trying to identify Bible translation projects which could be supported through the Biblefresh initiative in 2011.

On so many levels this is going to be a very interesting trip. I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting an African country before, so the experience is going to be very new.

I’m being very careful to tell people that I’m going to Burkina Faso, not to Africa. Why? Well, it’s stupid if you think about it. Africa is a huge continent. In the north there are countries like Morocco, Algeria, Tunisa and Egypt – in the south there’s South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia; all of which are completely different.

Also, I am almost completely ignorant about the country. Everything I know I learnt last night reading the country’s Wikipedia entry. So I can tell you that BF is about the same size as the UK (different shape but similar land area) but where the population of the UK is around 61 million, BF is around 15 million. While financially poor, even by African standards, the country is recognised to be one of the friendliest.

Hopefully there will be some time to blog while I’m away, but most updates will appear through Twitter where you can follow both Eddie and myself.