Adieu, adieu to you and you and you

I watched the Sound of Music this weekend, which remains one of my favorite movies (behind a certain trilogy featured heavily in earlier posts here.) We had really loud thunderstorms that shook the windows on Wednesday night, and all I could think about was the "Favorite things" scene and how atrocious it is that I have not made it to Salzburg. Anyway I am bidding adieu to Burkina in 24 hours and I am excited/sad/excited/disorganized. 

On to more important things: according to Gallup, Burkina Faso is the most optimistic country in the world.  As Julia's father validly pointed out on Facebook, it could be because they have recently started mining gold here. But I think it helps explain why everyone is friendly. A number of other African countries crowd near the top of the list, while Europe contributes heavily to the list of pessimistic countries. 

Burkina Faso is about 50% Muslim, and this has been most noticeable during Ramadan. Julia and I decided to join in Ramadan fasting yesterday. I went to a colleague's house for dinner with her family after having fasted for the day (no food, no water from sun up to sundown). Fasting was very challenging, though I found the lack of water much more difficult to handle than the lack of food. After one day of research, it was not difficult to conclude that 30 days of fasting would be immensely physically trying for me, though apparently the first few days are the worst. 

I am wrapping up the workload, packing, buying souvenirs, and this evening, enjoying a final dinner out. The engineer I worked with at MCA is taking me to dinner at Bistro Lyonnais, which is a throwback to my days studying abroad in Lyon, and yes, I recognize that it's probably a cop out that I am not dining on Burkinabé food, but I would argue that it's hard to surpass my chicken adventures with a final African meal. 

I have been enjoying my last taste of this Burkina speciality: Dafani. Mango juice/nectar of the gods/liquid gold. How I shall miss thee. 

The Final Countdown Redux

Today marks the start of my final week in Ouagadougou. I have been here since mid-May, and I am definitely looking forward to coming home. My to-do list consists of a few things to wrap up at work, souvenir shopping and packing. Souvenir shopping may be thwarted by protests this weekend that are likely to shut down major roads, this time against the "vie chère" - cost of living increases. Le sigh.

My mom asked me what food I wanted at home, and I haven't really been craving anything, nor have I been suffering with my practically unlimited access to baguette, roasted chicken, and Diet Coke. However, I do have some things in the states that I am looking forward to, and some things from Ouaga that I will miss. 

Looking forward to: 

1.) Ice cream. It's hard to find good ice cream here, difficult to transport and generally less creamy than say... a pint of Haagen Dazs, the Powers family brand of choice. 

2.) Shorts. I don't know if I've made it clear, but it's rather hot here in West Africa, and while I appreciate Burkina's liberalness with respect to women's dress compared with many of its neighbors, I will still rock me some jorts when I get home to what I understand is a rather humid and swampy Philadelphia. 

3.) Fast internet speed. I have read a lot while I am here, which is a good thing (and yet, still haven't finished The Power Broker.) I have not had the ability to download anything too often or spend hours on the internet as it's quite slow, and I am still really looking forward to watching Arrested 2 months after it was a big deal. 

All of these "wants" are what one of my friends here (who is returning to the states on Tuesday after 5 years in Burkina - dayum) calls "third world first world problems" so take with a grain of salt. 

Things I will miss: 

1.) The mangoes. THE MANGOES. Sigh. I should make my last week's diet consist exclusively of them. 

2.) The pace of life. See above about relative lack of connectivity - it means I have had time to read and run a lot, and I worked closer to 40 hours than 60, and I think that has been good for me. I have had time to think about some stuff for next year at business school, and also to not think if I don't feel like it. 

3.) The friendliness. People constantly shaking your hand and asking about how you a) slept b) ate c) digested and d) your family is something I could get used to, and I am not even particularly friendly. I was warned that men would cat call me often and that I should be constantly wary of my safety, and while I try not to do anything stupid or put myself in risky situations, I have not found myself constantly harassed or cat called and have found most Burkinabé to be incredibly friendly. 

These lists are not exhaustive but they're what I am thinking about as the packing dread slowly mounts. 

I am also looking forward to vacation in the Pacific Northwest, where my sister Jess just started working and where I will be drinking all the coffee and all the wine. Though I saw an episode of Bones last night on military TV, and right at the beginning of the episode, there were people at a wine tasting. I exclaimed "Oh, that will be me in two weeks!".... and then one of the wine tasters found a decomposing finger in their glass, which was the whole set up to the crime Bones was going to solve. That turned me off wine tasting a bit. 

 

Here are some more pictures, some of which were stolen from one of the guys who was in the village with me last weekend who has a DSLR.  

A bit of CA in BF

Market stalls

Me and Mocha (a very pregnant and very emotionally needy dog)

Peppers

Typical village home; the round structure is a granary

JP Out.

Jawane: a weekend en village

I will do everyone a favor and get the Star Wars reference out of the way; if this isn't your bag a) you should reconsider your life choices and b) you can skip down to after the first picture. 

 I was fortunate to have the chance to accompany one of my colleagues (Chris) on a quick weekend trip to visit the village where he spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer this weekend. We also went with his girlfriend, Ali, and another couple who works at the Embassy. 

Chris was in Tenado, a village outside of Koudougou, Burkina Faso's 3rd largest city. The ethnic group there is called Gurunsi, and they speak Lele. This is all important for my Star Wars point. The typical greeting in Lele involves the phrase "Jawané" which means, "I have the force." Your "Hey, how are you" conversation proceeds as follows:

"Hey, Do you have the force?" 

"Yeah! I have the force."  

And if you haven't seen each other in a while you touch foreheads four times (which exists as a greeting among other ethnic groups as well). And to send someone on their way you essentially say... wait for it... "May the force be with you." I will also note that a fairly common last name in Burkina Faso is Yoda. If someone's moto gets stuck in a body of water in this region, I imagine Yoda can use the force to retrieve it.*

I am not better than this

I was so, so excited about this that I pretty much could not stop saying Jawane to any villager who would listen. Fortunately, the Gurunsi are a very welcoming and friendly group. 

Anyway, I will now provide actual details of my weekend in a village. We headed out on Saturday morning and stopped at a juice bar in Koudougou, which was delicious and used purified water. I probably ate a fair amount of food which put my digestive balance at risk this weekend, but it's good to know that the juice will not be the cause of any yet to develop issues. 

We first stopped by Doudou, a nearby village, to see one of Chris's former colleagues as a volunteer, who, along with his wife, treated us to an amazing meal and a not insignificant amount of rum under a mango tree by his house. We had soy brochettes (kebabs), tô (millet cake type thing that doesn't have a ton of flavor but that provides the base for lots of meals), roasted pork (most of the villagers were Christian or animist; many others in Burkina are Muslim and are thus in the midst of Ramadan), a fish sauce for the to, tons of locally made piment (spicy condiment) and a morenga leaf sauce (for a bit more info, I give you Wikipedia). I had made chocolate chip cookies for our dessert which were a huge hit with Moises's wife, and it was nice to be able to give her something back after she had so generously fed so many of us. Also, the joys of chocolate chip cookies transcend all language and cultural barriers. 

A water pump in the village;
 the wheel is  a bike wheel

A new dam in Doudou

We went to Moises's farm, where he showed us his crops and irrigation systems. Then we went to a maquis, where more drinking ensued. One of Moises's friends who also knew Chris when he was in the Peace Corps was named Bruno, and jokingly proposed that I become his second wife. Obviously shenanigans ensued, and I think I performed quite well in French under the pressure of making witty jokes about marriage. 

Children love cameras

Staring into the abyss

We stayed at a camp site outside of Doudou, whose profits benefit projects in the village related to women's health, education and irrigation. It was pretty basic, but it had mosquito nets and we could sleep outside under the stars (under the stars, under a net admittedly). I was greeted in the morning by a goat who was DEFINITELY thinking about coming up to our house and eating some shoes, but I won that stare off. I also managed my bucket shower with aplomb. I will say that the disadvantages of female anatomy are so apparent when one has to relieve oneself in a village. I have come so far in terms of roughing it this summer. 

Sunday morning involved lounging around and then meeting Chris's host father, Joe and his family. Joe's family had a dog named Mocha who was okay to pet, so I was enthralled/spent most of my time petting her. Joe's wife also served soy brochettes (so much protein) and gave us a chicken (always with the chickens). We ended up giving the chicken to Moises, but then Bruno brought us another chicken later in the day, which also went to Moises, so his family must have had a delicious meal on Sunday night. I am really accumulating so much chicken guilt during this internship. 

We went to a big market in nearby Koukoldi (the villages were in a triangle so we were kind of bouncing around the same area in our car), which was delightful. There, I tried Dôlo, local millet beer. We had it warm and it was... interesting and kind of cider-y. I feel like I would have grown to like it had I been a peace corps volunteer.  At the Dôlo stand, I received a village name that I am struggling to even think about how to spell. 

Going there.... DOLO

We rounded out the day with... more rum (good God) and egg sandwiches (the universal hangover food, really). 

The happy gang with Moises, as a rain storm set in

  We left Doudou just as an epic storm approached and made it back to Ouaga in time for dinner. The rain made the weather here downright palatable today, and I understand that things on the east coast might actually be more humid and gross than what we are experiencing. I will probably welcome Philly humidity for about 24 hours when I get home and then join my fellow Philadelphians in righteous anger over the injustice of the weather gods. 

*I am aware that a portion of my audience just cringed, but that my dad is probably proud of that joke. 

Touristing

Okay, well get ready for a doozy of a post as I did pretty much allll the touristy things one can do in the passable regions of Burkina Faso this weekend. I have many pictures and stories and no fewer than four chickens were sacrificed in my name this weekend so there's that. 

We went to Banfora for work stuff and tacked on two days for travel because Banfora and the Comoé region are arguably the prettiest parts of Burkina Faso. The work stuff involved doing interviews with people impacted by MCC projects, and that in and of itself was cool because it enabled me to go into villages and see what typical village life looked like. 

Thursday,  we visited some farms. This is an onion field in a village outside of Banfora. 

I actually really hate raw onions, but the plants are kind of cute!

Friday, I hung out on the roads, and it was rainy so I didn't get too many picture taking opportunities, and I wasn't wearing my hard hat so it was clearly not worth documenting. HOWEVER, on Friday night, Julia received a live chicken as a thank you gift. 

His back legs were tied to our Land Cruiser

Hospitality is huge in Burkinabé culture, and it was incredibly generous of the gifters to part with a chicken for us. However, we obviously had no idea what to do with it.  Thankfully, Salif, our driver, was just like "Ladies, you kill and eat the chicken, it's bad form to do otherwise." While Julia took more meetings, I discussed the killing and eating of the chicken with several Banfora dining establishments, most of whom were not all about killing and de-feathering a chicken of unknown origins for us before the Friday dinner rush. Fortunately, Salif knew a woman in Banfora who would prep the chicken for us, and he returned after about an hour with a respectable looking chicken, which our hotel restaurant agreed to cook. However, the cook who agreed to do it would only agree to cook the chicken when his boss was not in the kitchen, so the chicken sat in a bucket hanging from a tree for a solid 30 mins before they took it inside and prepared it. Probably a miracle we didn't get salmonella, but we survived and the chicken looked great. 

Et voilà: 

There were more chicken encounters to come... after the jump! 

Coming soon...

I know I have been the worst, but I will soon post a longer summary of my recent tourism and work activities and, internet willing, many a picture from my tourist adventures. For now, more of my sacred, domesticated 92-year-old crocodile ami: 

Awwww, look at that face

This was maybe one of the dumber things I have ever done, but all I can say is YOLO. 

Things that would never fly in the US:

The safety standards at this go-karting facility that I went to on Saturday afternoon: 

My Saturday consisted of team building at this lovely go-karting facility in the parking lot of the big stadium in Ouaga (Stade de 4 Août). I am waiting for more pictures from fellow-intern-Julia, but I will swallow my pride and share that we had an MCC team wide competition for completing the most laps in 20 minutes and the only people I beat were my boss's children. Cautious driving, FTW. After my elimination from the contest, I took over timing duties, which were much better suited to my skill set. 

Saturday night I went to dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in Ouaga; I had a delicious rabbit dish. However, my enjoyment soured rather quickly when I returned home.  I am taking care of the rabbits that live at the house I am staying in while its residents are on vacation in the States, and when I walked past the cage, I was assaulted by their beady, judging eyes. 

I am traveling more this week and looking forward to doing touristy things in Banfora this weekend.

 I also was speaking to a consultant in French today, who remarked "Oh your French doesn't sound too American." Native French speakers have mastered the backhanded compliment. 

My foray into the world of Ouaga bars

Good news: I have more pictures, and exciting new experiences to share! Namely going out to a real Ouaga dance club/bar. 

Bad news: I only have four weeks left in Ouaga.  It has gone by so fast, and I have projects I need to finish at work and still stuff I want to see in Burkina so I need to step up my game. 

I was thinking of going shopping for pagne fabric this morning to try to get some tasteful clothing made. (Though I am probably far too white to pull most cuts and patterns off with any panache, I will still try. I think I can pull off a small pattern, but likely need to steer clear of the more aggressive patterns, i.e. the ones that have huge disembodied hands clapping or 6 inch designs depicting the Virgin Mary). 

However, my pagne plan was thwarted as there was a political demonstration put on by the opposition parties here that shut down much of ouaga from 8-12. Even the protesters know enough to not be out in the heat of the day. The Burkina proclivity to strike and manifester is an unfortunate legacy of the French colonial influence here. 

Today there is an MCC go karting event. So hopefully the karts don't spontaneously combust. 

Last night I went to a maquis, a traditional outdoor bar here to meet up with some USAID and State Dept colleagues. We then went to Madiba Maathai, a themed bar which featured murals of Nelson Mandela and Wangari Maathai. 

Update: picture of the bar/stage/Mandela and Wangari handing out on the wall. 

The bar also had a lively reggae scene and was in general great for people watching. 

Here are a couple more photos from my runs: 

Mosque being constructed in Ouaga 2000

!!!

The high is dropping below 90 this week. THIS IS HUGE. 

Week 5 Recap and lots of pictures (!)

Well, long time no see. I promise I didn't abandon el blog, but I was lacking internet access for much of last week. I did have my camera the whole time and thus took a ton of pictures. 

I was with the head of my office for the installation of members of new water management committees in two different river basins. I went back to Dedougou and Banfora, where I visited the roads sites, and it was remarkable to see how much of a difference three weeks of the rainy season made on the terrain. Everything that had been dusty or semi green was starting to be in full bloom. It was interesting to learn about water management, and really fascinating to see the protocol at these formal events, though I was constantly nervous that I was sitting in the wrong place or inadvertently offending someone. I did, however, get a touch of the food poisoning as we were eating food from unknown, unrefrigerated sources at two of the luncheons. It was probably inevitable given my delicate flower of a stomach so, c'est la vie. 

One amusing anecdote: at an official luncheon following one of these events, we were ushered into a meeting space that had a TV in it. Someone had decided to play the movie Alive during our lunch (about the rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes and whose surviving members eat strips of their dead teammates flesh to stay alive). Whoever put that film on should get pulled aside for a lesson on appropriate lunchtime viewing material. A Burkinabè colleague who didn't think I understood what was going on in the film mimicked cannibalism for me just to drive the point home. 

In case anyone isn't already grossed out, I bring you my first picture, which depicts the state of the car's windshield after driving through a cloud of bugs who emerged after this week's heavy downpours (there was even hail!). I have had enough experiences with bug carcasses in 2013 to last a lifetime. 

And here are a bunch more photos (the credit for most of these goes to fellow intern Julia who borrowed my camera). 

The Mouhoun River

The sun setting over the newly paved road near Nouna

Traditional dance at a water committee installation 

A bit of presidential propaganda at a new dam being built outside of Banfora. 

Moto traffic in Bobo

The Bobo Train Station - example of French Colonial architecture

Example of the absurd cargo one finds on extremely small vehicles 

Important update

The rain gutters in Ouaga 2000 are large (2 feet wide by 3 feet deepish) generally uncovered and often full of trash, random weeds, chickens, lizards, you name it. Because it rained hard on Friday night, they were also full of muddy water on Saturday morning. When I was running around Ouaga, I saw something rather large move in the water of one of the gutters and immediately thought of this: 

So there are probably galactic trash monsters in Ouagadougou. That is all. 

Long awaited delivery

I bring you the pictures of me in action on the construction site. In case anyone forgot that I was the only woman on the construction site, all they had to do was look at my shoes to be reminded that one of these things was not like the others. 

I'll note that my colleague (to the right of me in the picture) did the whole three day tour in full business gear, only making the concession of a short sleeved dress shirt. He also had the patience to explain the names of the many pieces of large equipment to me in French. And also exactly how roads get made. 

This is us standing right next to a portion of road that was in the middle of being paved. You can see the wet tar. Building things! 

I get to go back into the field next week and am pretty jazzed for more photo ops/learning opportunities/photo ops mostly. 

Other things that happened this week: today on my ride home, we had to pull to the side as sirens blared, signaling that the motorcade of the Malian negotiators was headed towards their hotel. Burkina is hosting the discussions between the Malian government and Tuareg rebels in advance of the planned July 28 elections. It's been really fascinating to get a better understanding of the regional politics in West Africa and understand Burkina's role a bit better. BF benefits from being one of the more stable political regimes among some volatile neighbors, but still, no one is happy that there is current unrest in both Mali and Niger. 

And to end on an uplifting note: woo, Friday! 

Ouaga Oui-kend* and Office Protocol

I started my fourth week in Burkina today after an eventful weekend. My fellow intern (Julia) arrived last Monday night, so I finally had a partner in crime for exploration of the city, and one who has lived in West Africa before to boot. We went to a coffee shop (so exotic, I know) on Saturday and then ventured to the Grand Marché, which is a new building in the middle of the city; it was built after a fire burnt the market to the ground about 5 years ago. I of course forgot my camera, but I assure you that the market was cool and the textiles in particular were beautiful and I will go back and take pictures. I was told that I would be constantly approached to buy things or by people who wanted to act as tour guides of the market for tips, but I found the market more manageable than I expected and plan to go back. 

On Sunday we again ventured into town to meet up with two friends of Julia's friends from college, one of whom is from Burkina and was really awesome about showing us around. We went to the Village Artisanale, which is a large market where artisans from outside of Ouaga sell their wares - not only textiles, but sculptures, painting, jewelry and leather goods. It was a really impressive display, and I will probably get some loud jewelry there at some point in the coming weeks. The best part of working abroad for a summer is obviously not any sort of concrete skill but rather being able to give a smug answer of "Burkina Faso" when someone asks where your accessories are from. 

On to my workday today... After three weeks of work where I have bounced between a Burkina office and the US Embassy, I have gotten the hang of Burkinabè office protocol, and there are some interesting and amusing differences from US offices. People are much friendlier here and greeting everyone in a room is standard when you go into a meeting. This means that the meeting almost never kicks off on time because everyone is going around Bonjour-ing and shaking everyone's hand. When you leave the building for lunch, everyone will say "Bon appétit," which I have found to be a surprisingly nice gesture that I may randomly adopt. 

This intense niceness extends to email. No email goes unacknowledged - when emailing a colleague, you get an almost immediate "Merci" email or "Bien reçu" to let you know that they have gotten the email. While this is nice for emails where you worry that the person may not see it, for run of the mill emails, it can be a little inbox-clogging. For example, a colleague got back from a weekend trip and had thank you emails responding to his Out of Office. I had someone not only respond to an email saying he had seen it, but also sending a text  with the same message as follow up. 

The decorum stops at cell phone protocol however. I have noticed that it is totally acceptable in almost any meeting for someone not only to have their ring tone on full volume (and always on some sort of pop music or reggaeton melody), but to actually pick up a call they receive in the middle of the meeting and CARRY ON A CONVERSATION without getting up from their seat.  I have witnessed this in some rather important meetings (or as important of a meeting as they let an intern into).  When I was in a meeting on a construction site, one man answered both his cell phones at the same time, with one on each ear, in the midst of a serious discussion of budget figures. I am used to obsessive Blackberry and text message checking from the States, but this is a new level of cell disruption that I can only hope is a passing phase. 

Finally, and perhaps most special to my heart, is the existence of the short sleeved men's suit. Convenient in the heat, easy on the eyes. A picture here is worth a thousand words: 

This can't come to the Fortune 500 fast enough, my friends. 

*I'm sorry I am the worst. 

Running in Ouaga

Thursday! I am wrapping up my third week in Ouaga. My fellow intern arrived this week (conveniently named Julia and a grad student in Boston, which as caused no confusion whatsoever, none at all). We started our bonding with a run on Wednesday in Ouaga 2000. She brought her iPhone and is conveniently a better photographer than I am so I have stolen some of her photos for this post. 

She's a better photographer, but the jaw clench
 is immune to good photography skills. 

One of the things I was worried about when coming to Ouaga for the summer was whether I would be able to work out and run, and I was assured that it was safe and feasible to run outdoors. It is indeed fairly safe in the daylight, and I have found that if I go before 7 AM (ugh) or after 5 PM, the heat is not totally oppressive. It is still quite a bit hotter than my preferred temperatures for physical activity, but hopefully I will get used to it after a few more weeks.  I have run at least a couple of times a week since getting here, exclusively in Ouaga 2000. I have sadly not gotten too creative with my runs, because I have no sense of direction and there are not too many street signs to help me. I pretty much navigate by the space ship central monument thing and the handful of billboards near my house. 

I have had several amusing interactions while running. Every kid in the neighborhood wants to wave and say "Bonjour" when someone runs by, and I am happy to indulge them. One day, when I had gotten too ambitious on distance and was taking a walking break, a group of small kids who were probably 4 or 5 years old came running up next to me and encouraged me to run, saying "Allez!" They started running with me when I started back up, and it was pretty adorable. 

The only running experience that could potentially surpass that moment occurred on my first week here. I was running and said "Good morning" to a vendor in the neighborhood. He said "Faire le sport... c'est la vie" which cracked me up. I was expecting to get cat called while out running, and instead I got introspection. 

Here are two more pictures (from Julia) from our run. 

It's like a mango colored car! 

This is one of the borders of Ouaga 2000.
Which direction? I will never be able to tell. 

The Ouaga Marathon

Saturday was the 5th running of the Ouaga Marathon, and I drove to the finish line with some friends to see the end of the race.  Two American colleagues participated and confirmed that they are, in fact, crazy, but we were proud and happy for them nonetheless. 

The marathon kicked off at 6 AM, meaning that the runners had about two hours max of reasonable temperatures before the heat and humidity of the day set in. I have had difficulty running more than 4 miles in the heat here, so I really couldn't imagine doing 26.2 in the Ouaga heat. I was a sweaty mess as a spectator. 

The scene at the finish line. American flag! 

Some race observations: 

• The race had about 300 registrants, and an estimated 200 people who actually showed up, and 100 finishers. They also closed the race after 5 hours, which is a really short amount of time when you consider the heat. There were fewer than 10 women in the race. 

• The race wasn't actually 26.2 miles. According to one of the runners with a satellite watch it was well over 27 from start to finish, which is way harsh (Tai) for the runners.

• The race was a point to point course from downtown Ouaga to a small village called Laye. There were apparently no instructions for runners on how they should get back to Ouaga, and everyone was on their own when they got to Laye. 

Here are some children in the village. God I am so bad with pictures. 

• The water stations were actually more abundant than anyone thought they would be, and the runners were concerned about hydration. But apparently the race organizers just sort of dropped water sachets out of the backs of trucks on a continuous loop of the course, which works (probably with less waste from cups). 

Bonus: Turtles and a delightful commencement speech from Ben Bernanke. 

For the love of mangoes

My business trip took me to the most productive agriculture region in the country, an area particularly know for it's mangoes. My colleague bought dozens to bring back to the office, and I brought one back to taste this fabled fruit. I realized this morning that I didn't actually know how to cut a mango however. After a quick google search, I got the goods and damn if the mango wasn't among the best things I've ever tasted. (I took a picture of the second half of the mango became my first attempt at the grid looked...sloppy)

There is also this awesome mango juice referred to by the name of the brand that makes it: "Dafani."  It is essentially the nectar of the gods. 

I promise I won't take many more pictures of food unless its really interesting. There's a reason I don't have Instagram. 

Ouaga in the News + Blogroll

I was browsing my favorite women's blog (I know, I know), and I did a double take when I saw Ouagadougou in the headline. Here's the article, which isn't about Ouaga at all, but is fairly cute: The Hairpin. 

Ouaga also got a shout out in the Washington Post's travel section: WaPo. 

I also have been following a few other HKSers blogs from their summers in various parts of the world: My friend Sophie just touched down in Burma and has become an expert on the monsoon season and amassed a collection of really great photos. And Jiyoung is in Nepal for the summer, also taking awesome photos and having run-ins with wildlife. 

Both of them make me feel semi-ashamed of my lack of photos, so I have committed to stepping up my camera game. 

Construction Sites: Quick Recap and photos

I got back to the house about an hour ago after spending the past three days at construction sites for major roads. I plan on writing more later, but I do have some pictures and a few mini stories to write down before I PTFO after a long day of travel. 

I went to three construction sites in different parts of the country The first was near Ouaga and not large on the map. The second passed through both Dedougou and Nouna in the center-west. And the third part was in Banfora, quite near the border with Cote D'Ivoire. 

This was a shot I snapped while driving outside of Ouaga - very dry and dusty terrain in this pic, but it was very cool to see the landscape change completely as we drove south and west towards Banfora, which is much more tropical. I put an artsy filter on it to try to mitigate the fact that it was taken while driving 100 km/h on a bumpy road. 

I am going to experiment with jumps here, so... after the jump, there are more photos and exciting details about today's lunch. 

Some photos for Monday

I got a request today for more photos and can actually oblige! 

Today, we had a huge rainstorm, which was pretty exciting (for me. and probably many farmers). Though it's rained somewhat lightly twice already, tonight's storm featured drenching rains, lightning and thunder and high winds.  Apparently, as the rainy season intensifies, I can expect to see a storm like this every few days. 

I took some pictures of my 'hood as the storm approached. This was after the first cracks of thunder: 

This picture is also indicative of the peculiarity of Ouaga 2000. This is the view as you step out of the front gate of the house where I am staying. On the other side of that lot is another large house. But in between it's a totally deserted patch of dirt where the donkey is allowed to go to town.  

The next picture was five minutes later: it felt practically like nightfall at 4:30 in the afternoon. I was really taken aback at how quickly the clouds moved in and at how violently the rain came down. 

This next photo is maybe my personal favorite (well, it's a photo of a newspaper ad I saw while waiting in a hotel lobby). The 5th annual Ouaga marathon is this weekend, and this is the ad for the race. Note that the leader is wearing jorts. The winner gets, surprise!, a moto. 

That's all I have for now. I will probably be silent for the next few days - I am heading on a trip to construction sites in southwest Burkina till Thursday afternoon. I am really looking forward to it, and I hope that the trip will result in some good pictures of different parts of the country, and of me using a jackhammer or something. I am hoping to partake in the Ouaga marathon cheering squad as well, as one of my coworkers is running it. 

Le Weekend

This weekend marked the first weekend that I had time to myself to enjoy Ouaga, which was a good thing, but in a new city, it can be daunting to fill up 48 hours with things to do when you know very few people and very little about how to get around. Fortunately, my colleagues invited me to a few social events so I did not feel totally overwhelmed by the stretch of time. I started the weekend out by taking it easy and reading and watching a movie. 

I am reading The Power Broker, which is one of those books I have been meaning to read for a while. I think I sputtered out at page 50 on my first attempt, and I feel really accomplished to be at p. 150 and going strong. Caro's writing is great, and the research he must have done is amazing, but it is a lot of book. After reading for a while, I turned on the TV and The Interpreter was on, which is a political thriller involving an assassination attempt on the corrupt leader of a fictional African country. The movie had a few dramatic twists and turns,  but it was also amusing because you could see the lengths they had to go to to find camera angles that hid the significant height difference between Nicole Kidman, who played a UN interpreter with a shady past, and Sean Penn, the Secret Service agent tasked with protecting the leader.  

Having been exposed to the military TV network for a week, I find it oddly fascinating. There are a handful of channels that have general themes - family, news, sports - but play programming from all networks with only a semi-fixed schedule. The news channel rotates between Fox, CNN and one of the main three networks so as to broadly cover the political spectrum. So we are all just takers for whatever AFN decides to play. They do reliably play the Daily Show and Colbert, and wrestling. Obviously, I am glued to the TV for the latter. There is an angry, red-headed wrestler named Sheamus (deliberately misspelled), who is simultaneously fascinating and horrifying.  He wrestles in kelly green shorts and his hair is a ludicrous shade of red.  The second best part about the network is the ads - all military PSAs. While some of them carry important messages, they will at times be amusingly juxtaposed. There's an ad on what to do if you want to send mail immediately followed by an ad warning about the dangers of drug use. 

Saturday, I did house stuff (I was hoping for laundry, but alas, Saturday there was a water outage) and made it to my first Ouaga grocery store. It had a lot of French brands, but it was noticeable that there were significant gaps in the inventory (basically out of cheese, and there has been no skim milk for weeks apparently. The cheese is the real travesty).  Other than that, it was a pretty standard grocery store. I have yet to go to the grand marché in Ouaga, but I'm pretty sure I am still too green to go into the grand marché and not totally be a) pickpocketed or b) totally ripped off. 

Saturday night was poker night, hosted at the house where I am staying and featuring a lot of American ex pats. I have not played much poker before, but it was a 5,000 ceffa buy in (~$10) so I googled the instructions and tried to figure it out. I lost 1,500 ceffa, but was not the first person out and considered it a success. One of the guests brought a bottle of "BBQ" brand red wine to the party, which was an interesting taste experience. Apparently, it's a French wine where they introduce barbecue spices during the wine making process, and it came in a bottle that looked like a large Kikkoman bottle with a plastic cap.  It tasted like red wine with the aftertaste of Lay's barbecue potato chips. Needless to say, I switched to local beer but kept my wits about me to as to better attempt to win my colleagues' money. 

Sunday, I went for a run at 8 AM, and discovered promptly that 8 AM is way too late to run in Ouaga and I should stick to runs starting much closer to dawn. It was already excruciatingly hot. I hydrated and recovered and went to a barbecue at the house in Ouaga 2000 where two other colleagues are cat, chicken and turtle sitting. The guests were all young ex pats in Ouaga, and it was great to meet new people and connect with one of the girls that a friend from HKS had put me in touch with. It was also super, duper hot. I had this week been feeling kind of smug that the weather wasn't that bad, but that was probably because I spend no more than 20 minutes at a time without air conditioning. Lesson learned.