Ever Hear of Burkina Faso?

Yeah, me neither, until today.

I was at the Kotel this morning, and as I was leaving, I noticed that police officers had entered the women's section -- male police officers. So instead of simply leaving, I hung around for a bit, just to try and figure out what was going on.

After a few minutes, I gave up. Nothing exciting seemed to be happening, so I started to make my way out of the Kotel Plaza.

But on the way, I saw a limousine and some cars that definitely came from a caravan/procession/whatever, so I looped around to take another look.

I saw placards in the front windows with the Israeli flag and a flag that I didn't recognize. The top half was red, the bottom half green, and there was a small yellow five-pointed star in the middle. I had half-wondered if Dubya was going to make a surprise visit to the Kotel, though I knew that realistically it couldn't happen... and that if that had been the case, the security would have been way, way tighter.

After finding a seat so I could check out the sitch, I got to play a game I hadn't played in a long time: Observe Israeli Security Procedures.

See, I love watching the way Israelis handle security. The process definitely has its visible presence -- the Israeli version of the Secret Service security detail that protects the President and such -- but it also has its invisible presence, and its presence that's somewhere in between.

That is, there are people we see, and we know they're security, but they don't make a big deal of it... we don't see their weapons, and they don't look vicious. They do, however, look determined.

At the same time, things come off appearing disorganized. The limo's moved into place and the door opened for whomever, but lots of people milling around so that when the Important Person gets into the limo, it still can't actually leave... etc.

Anyway, the whole thing only took maybe five or 10 minutes. I saw that there was an entourage consisting of Israeli security and what I assumed was security from some African country. There were a few people (not security, I assume) wearing what appeared to be a form of traditional dress from an African country, and since the guards were almost ebony-skinned, it was my deduction that they weren't from Norway or some such.

I saw some guy in a suit get into the limo on one side, and someone who looked vaguely familiar from Israeli politics on the other... and a couple of minutes later, the whole procession left the plaza.

It was sort of cool, though. I tried taking a picture with my phone, but since I rarely use the camera, I couldn't remember how to actually click the picture... so I have a picture of what might be the top of the President of Burkina Faso's head.

I came home and looked up the flag, and that's how I found out it was from Burkina Faso.

After doing some Googling, I found that the president (whose picture looked a bit familiar when I found it) was indeed in Israel as of yesterday for some Presidents Conference.

So, like, I was 15 feet or so from the President of a country... cool, huh? Just wish I'd have known it ahead of time, so the picture would have been neater :)