'Tis the Season

Last week I met a scientist that was visiting the research center in Bobo for a couple of meetings with the ethics committee, seeking their approval to proceed with a study. He’s Burkinabe and has studied in Europe and the US and has returned to Burkina Faso to work. I asked about his project and he explained some of the delays; we decided it’s part of these kinds of projects. We spoke about the funding agency for the study he is working on in a rural area north of the capital city, and he said to me, “You Americans, who have so many resources, must share them.” He said it so straightforward, matter-of-factly, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. We who are given much have a responsibility to share. Simply by virtue of where I was born and raised, I have had the opportunity to go to school and pursue work that I find interesting and meaningful. I’m lucky.

Ride Safe (Let Us Entertain You)

Last night my housemate and I were preparing to leave work just as it was getting dark, so we took our bike lights out of our bags as we slung the bags over our shoulders and put on our bike helmets, before saying goodnight to our collaborators. We didn’t get out the door quickly – the two Burkinabe guys who were sitting in the conference room with us were staring at our ensemble of helmets and lights and started bantering with us about our attention to safety. Injury prevention seems to be the slowest public health trend to reach Burkina; although motorbikes are the pride and joy of many folks here, riders rarely wear helmets, and it often seems a luxury if seatbelts can be found in a car.

Once we escaped further good-natured heckling from our collaborators and left work, we rode our bikes through downtown, past the early signs of Christmas (shops exploding with tinsel, 3-foot plastic trees, an occasional strand of holiday lights) mixed in with the usual ever-changing lively soundtrack of music blaring from one shop or bar to another. Just as we were about halfway up the long hill that climbs ever so slightly, but constantly, to our neighborhood, I noticed a teenage boy following me on his bicycle. I slowed down, he slowed down. I picked up the pace, he peddled faster. Although young children (and grown men alike) yell, “Les Blanches!” or “Toubabou!” and wave as I ride up the hill each evening, I thought it bizarre to be followed so closely since most people don’t pay much attention to foreigners (other than a quick shout-out).

Eventually, I saw the boy riding in front of my housemate, looking back every few seconds to make sure we were still there. We were nearing the turn-off to our house when I noticed that young boy of about 10 years was also following us, riding a tired BMX bike and keeping my pace. We continued past our house and rode a little further, to a bar where every stool was taken. We stopped in front of the bar and waited to see what the boys would do. We’d not been standing there for 2 minutes when a man, who looked about 30 and was wearing a tracksuit, walked over to us and asked if all was well. I said that we had been followed on our bikes.

He asked, “By whom?”

I turned around and motioned towards the corner, where the younger boy had paused. The older boy had kept riding and was out of sight. “By the young boy there, and another one, a bit older.”

His eyes followed the direction of my hand and he asked, “That one, there?”

I nodded and said, “Oui, oui,” as is frequently said here, as if saying yes once isn’t clear.

The man yelled, “Hey! Le petit! Come here!” Somehow everyone, everything little here is best described as, or called directly, “le petit”. One can refer to “le petit” in choosing a watermelon or in describing a younger sibling or a child.

The young boy rode over on his bike and stopped a few feet away. The man started talking to the boy in Dioula and then asked a question. The boy looked at the ground, then up at the man, then back to the dirt. He said a few words, glancing at us a couple of times.

The man started laughing as the boy finished speaking and turned towards us. He relayed that the young boy, in response to him asking why he had followed us up the hill, explained that he’s not used to seeing white people on bikes, nor with hats and lights. He was simply curious about the fanfare cycling up the hill in the dark. Apparently we were a bit of a circus on our two bikes with our red, flashing tail lights and reflective helmets.

My housemate and I started giggling and reached out our hands to the little boy to shake on it and declare “no problem.” He smiled shyly and then rode off into the neighborhood. We thanked the man for helping us to understand and shared another laugh over it.

This morning we couldn’t wait to tell our collaborators the story. As anticipated, they found it highly amusing and were hardly surprised – they practically finished the punch line before we could tell it.

Boromo

Burkina has a few wildlife parks, one of which is located halfway between Bobo and Ouagadougou. Intrigued by the idea of seeing elephants and ready to have a change of scenery, Leslie and I decided to take the bus to Boromo last weekend to visit the park there, the Deux Bale Forest.

We arrived in Boromo and asked about a taxi that would take us to a lodge situated inside the park, overlooking a river where the elephants go to find water. The first guy we asked simply laughed, “There aren’t any taxis in town!” We walked across the street from the bus station to a gas station where the attendant was sitting outside. I asked him if he knew the lodge and he said he did, but that it was closed for construction. I said that we were looking for a guide to take us into the park. He pointed west and said, “Walk down the street a few hundred meters, go to the bar called ‘La Solution’ and ask for Woulouwoulou.”

We walked down the main road in the direction he pointed and had nearly reached the edge of town when we saw the sign for La Solution. When I asked the bartender (who looked about 17) if he knew Woulouwoulou, he giggled – almost as if blushing – and said he’d call him. He disappeared for a few minutes and, in the meantime, three little girls rushed up to us holding sesame cookies packaged in small, unlabeled, clear plastic bags, reciting, “Biscuits! With vitamins! Vitamins A, B, C, D, E all the way to Zed! Cent francs! Cent francs!”

I asked, “Really, all those vitamins?”

The oldest girl, who looked to be about 8 years old, nodded and repeated, “Vitamins A, B, C, D, E all the way to Zed!”

I couldn’t help myself; I tried to turn it into a teachable moment on actual sources of vitamin A and zinc and the like; we ended up just listing foods like carrots, mangoes, and eggs. They didn’t seem all that convinced and resumed singing all the letters of the alphabet. One thing was certain – they were adorable, and persuasive sellers. We bought a package from each of them, vitamins or none. (At least vitamin E in the sesame.)

The bartender returned and, still unable to stop smiling, said that Woulouwoulou was out in the field but would come by “soon” to meet us and talk about going to the park the following day. Leslie and I sat down and split a beer while waiting for word from this mysterious guide.

The daylight was beginning to fade, so we paid the bill and told the bartender that we were going to go check into a room at the hotel we’d spotted across the street. He nodded and said that he’d tell Woulouwoulou that he could find us there.

The hub of Boromo, at least at first glance, is the bus station. The main drag has bars, small restaurants, a few hotels, signs for the park, a national police guard station, and a mix of kitschy tourist shops selling souvenirs. We saw huge trucks traveling through, carrying grains and other goods heading for a market, or loaded with rows of motorcycles. Some carried animals, and a few others carried people sitting on top of watermelons. The main attractions seem to be an annual mask festival in March, and the park, but it was the off-season for spotting wildlife.

So when the hotel receptionist said that there were no available rooms, Leslie asked - about three times – if he was sure that there were no vacancies. He suggested another hotel located just outside of town and gave me the number to call. The guy on the other end of the line said that they had rooms available and agreed to come pick us up. He showed up about 20 minutes later but on a moped. Leslie and I ro-sham-bo’d for who would go first on the moped while the other guys laughed at our decision-making process. I went first and sat on the pannier rack of the P-50 (pronounced “pay-cinquante”, short for the Peugeout 50, an older model motor scooter with a single seat, rather than a seat large enough for two). We drove a few kilometers out of town to a small compound of bungalows. By then it was dark and a few halogen lights lit up the compound while a generator whirred.

The guy was just about to return to town to pick up Leslie when the headlights of another moped appeared; the other hotel receptionist drove up with Leslie hanging on behind. We checked into one of the bungalows and discovered that, not only were we the only guests, but the kitchen was closed because the chef was on vacation, and there were no other places to eat nearby. However, the guy was willing to drive back into town to get some food for us, so we gave him money for rice and sauce.

We sat down at a table that he had set up outside for us and had a beer while we waited for dinner and started to wonder if we should call Woulouwoulou. As if on cue, a motorcycle appeared and a guy walked over and introduced himself as Mamadou and said that he was a guide. We asked if he knew Woulouwoulou; turned out that he went by any one of four names, and that he was indeed Woulouwoulou.

We arranged for Woulouwoulou/Mamadou to drive us into the park and lead a walking tour of one area of the park the following morning. He regaled us with stories of elephant sightings near the road in Boromo but said that we had a 50% chance of seeing elephants. Leslie and I had decided, before leaving Bobo, to set our expectations very low, and thought 50% seemed high, but we were willing to go have a look anyways.

The next morning all went as planned – surprisingly enough; we were picked up promptly at 7 am, stopped for an omelet and coffee, then drove into the park and stopped at the lodge under construction. We didn’t see another soul – not another person, no wildlife. We walked through the bush and it was reminiscent of walking house-to-house for the census at work, only there were no houses. Woulouwoulou pointed out a few elephant tracks, but that was as close as we got. We finally returned to the lodge construction area and Leslie and I sat down in a hammock strung across the deck. We were just agreeing that it was time to go back to catch a bus to Bobo when we suddenly found ourselves falling to the deck with a loud thud. The hammock broke, sending us down on our derrieres! We broke up laughing and decided it was the icing on the cake for our weekend jaunt.

Jack O’ Melon

I tried to explain Halloween to a Burkinabe co-worker and I think he was just being polite when he said that he understood what I had described, from carving pumpkins to trick-or-treating in costumes. Although there are various types of squash found here, I hadn’t see any pumpkins recently and by late yesterday afternoon, I felt a little crushed by the thought of letting Halloween slip by unnoticed. I announced to my housemates that I was going to pick up some veggies for dinner and to find the closest substitute vehicle for a jack o’ lantern: a watermelon. Two of them laughed and said they’d come with me, so we walked down the street to the market stand together, just as the wind was picking up. We stood before the pile of watermelons in search of one that was round enough, the right size, and would stand up on its own. We selected one and bought a few other veggies just as drops of rain began to fall. By the time we were halfway home, the rain turned to a downpour and we arrived home soaking wet.

We changed into dry clothes and started making a veggie and bean soup while the rain poured outside. While the soup simmered, Katie and I cut the top of the watermelon and started scooping the insides out. We made ‘cocktails’ with the leftover watermelon juice, lime and carbonated water (only missing a dash of vodka). We carved a design in the watermelon but discovered that we didn’t have any candles, so Leslie turned on her cell phone flashlight and put it in the watermelon.

You Can’t Outride a Thunderstorm

I’ve been taking French classes two evenings each week and find the courses both helpful and amusing. There’s just one class for students of all levels, which isn’t exactly ideal, but the class is a nice mix of conversation, grammar, reading and writing, with exercises in pronunciation and vocabulary (and, often, Pictionary and charades). The previous week, the topic was “emotional reactions” and we learned how to express irritation, frustration, or outrage. For an hour, we took turns exclaiming phrases such as, “I’m at the end of my rope!” or “That noise will make me crazy!” or “What a scandal!” My favorite was the phrase in which all of our vocab words were combined in one: “Je suis indigné, outré, scandalisé, offusqué, ulcéré, révolté.” I was laughing by the time I finished reading that one aloud, trying to picture just when it would be necessary to put that to use.

This past Thursday, our vocabulary lesson revolved around going to the cinema. It’s ironic that we learned how to ask, “How many screens are in the theater?” when there is one movie theater – with one movie screen – in town, which routinely plays action movies. Although the French Cultural Center frequently screens films, they’re always “en version francaise (v.f.)”.

One of the other students read the phrase, “I dislike musical comedies but I like westerns.” He looked up from the page and asked, “What’s a western?” The teacher is a sprite French woman with hipster glasses who sports a short spiky haircut, and is usually clad in flowy outfits. She asked me, the lone American in the class, to explain the meaning of a ‘western movie’. I mustered up a working description, referring to a horse, a lasso, a gun, and a man wearing a cowboy hat. The latter finally elicited a reaction from the student, who brightened and nodded, “Oh! A co-boy film?”

I repeated, “A co-boy?” and looked to our teacher to translate.

She laughed and said, “Ah oui, we say ‘co-boy’ instead of ‘cowboy’ film,” putting forth her best American accent, rendering it “cowwwboy”. I giggled, and soon the class was laughing with (at?) me. Although several words are spelled the same between the languages, the changes in pronunciation are often subtle enough to leave me perplexed as to what the word is until I see it written. Others are words that originate from the U.S. and are therefore said in English with a twist. Rarely are they so funny, though.

After the class finished, I walked out to the street and, as I gave the parking attendant 50 CFA and attached my bike light to my handlebars, the wind was picking up and the air felt cooler than before class. I sensed a storm was on the way, but I was confident that I’d make it up the hill before the sky opened and released a downpour.
Wrong! Not 5 minutes later, the drizzle became driving rain. Shopkeepers hardly had time to close umbrellas and break down tables and bring their goods inside where they’d be safe from the storm. I tried to keep going, as I thought to myself, “I’m from Seattle! I’m not afraid of rain! I’ll be home in 10 minutes!” However, the rain was so heavy, and the wind so strong, that I was forced to pull over and seek shelter under the awning of a row of shops, where other people had stopped as well.

It’s an amazing force of nature, the rainstorms that unleash a week’s worth of rain in 20 minutes. I was soaked head to toe and could feel puddles of water squishing in my shoes, but was pleased to discover that my Timbuk2 bag is indeed waterproof. The cool rain felt refreshing on my skin after the stifling heat during the day and it was kind of mesmerizing to watch the downpour and hear nothing but rain pounding into the ground.

After 15 minutes of waiting, the rain grew less intense and I heard a drum circle start nearby. I turned my lights on again and climbed onto my bike, braving the lingering rain. Slowly, people began to spill back into the road and ride up the hill. By the time I reached the top of the hill, where the women sell vegetables on the corner, a few vendors had set up shop again, and there were even a few stars visible in the sky.

I arrived home to find that one of my housemates had prepared dinner. By the time I changed into dry clothes, 3 bowls of lentil soup were on the table, with crusty bread and cucumber salad. I was grateful to dig in.

Hard to Miss

There are times when I miss being able to drive, in the comfort of my own car, to a familiar store, where the prices are known and you wouldn’t dream of bargaining, and go shopping for new household items. It seems that they’re the hottest days, without any breeze. Days when walking down the street in the blazing sun seems crazy. I’ve been less-than-eager to search for household items – even simple ones like a bookcase – because the heat has drained my energy.

Other times it’s fun to shop for the mundane things because, in a place where people thrive on shopping in chaos, it’s kind of a thrill. Some discussions take the same amont of time – whether the discussion is over fruit or a mattress or a piece of art or a pagne of fabric – and if I’m in the right frame of mind, it’s a kick. And once I’m having fun, it’s easier to ignore the sweat dripping down my face and neck. It’s akin to thinking that it’s not so difficult to motivate when you’re already out there. I think of it like running, biking, or hiking in the rain: if you’re already out there, you know you’re going to get wet anyways, so you just keep going and it’s not so bad; but good luck leaving the comforts of home if it starts pouring before you take that first step.

Leslie and I walked home from downtown one Saturday and stopped at a workshop along the main road that goes to our house (which we call the fireman’s road because the fire station is on that road) and asked about having a bookshelf made. The quoted price seemed awfully steep for the simple design and neither of us was feeling up to a proper negotiating session, so we kept walking.

Leslie reminded me of the lumberyard – right across the street for work – and we stopped by the following week to see if we could pick up the materials to make a bookcase. We met Giles, the man-in-charge, who greeted us nicely and I liked him right away.

I asked him if he would sell us 3 boards, each 1 meter in length, and perhaps a third of a meter deep, along with a couple small blocks of chevrons, which we’d use for bookshelf feet. He said that he could sell us that, but seemed perplexed – and somewhat skeptical – that I didn’t want it assembled. I said that I was looking for something temporary, which could be easily disassembled for when I move to Orodara, and thought it would be easy to find cement blocks or use big cans of tomato concentrate to hold up each shelf. I explained that I could use build the shelf as I wanted, rambling on that my dad is a wood worker and I had paid attention when he taught me and a friend of mine how to build a deck. He looked incredulous, “You built it?” I told Giles I’d bring him a photo of the deck as proof.

I asked him when I could stop by again to pick up the wood and he said a few days. I pointed to the building across the street and offered, “I work across the street” and he simply replied, “Yeah, I know.” Guess it’s hard to miss two Toubabous.

The following week, I picked up the planks of wood and asked Giles to make two wooden chairs. We discussed the wood, the color and quality, and he insisted that it would be “tres joli” so I asked him to have a couple made and varnished. When I stopped by to see if they were ready last Saturday, he asked, “Can I send you and the chairs home with sandpaper and varnish? I mean, you like to do projects yourself, right?” And gave me a wicked grin that made me laugh. I told him to either drop the price or to varnish them himself and that I’d be back in a couple of hours. He laughed and agreed to finish the chairs.

Fiesta

Another student, Lisa, arrived from California this past week to work on one of the other nutrition studies underway here for a few weeks. In addition to her personal belongings, she kindly hauled with her a couple of bags full of study supplies for us. Unfortunately, one of her personal bags – the one with all of her clothes – was lost in transit and didn’t arrive in Ouagadougou. So she arrived with two bags full of tubes, needles, a centrifuge, measuring tapes … and her extra suitcase full of goodies for other people here, including corn tortillas!

We promptly declared Mexican fiesta night at our house, and bought the fixings available here to make roasted veggie enchiladas (carrots, zucchini, onions, and garlic) with guac (avocados, limes, hot sauce, and more garlic), and salad (cucumbers, watermelon, mango, and papaya mixed with salt, lime, and cilantro – picked from our garden!). We set our expectations low when we set out to make enchilada sauce, knowing that it would be hard to match real California-Mexican enchilada sauce with what we could find in Bobo. However, the combination of tomatoes, garlic, onion, and a hodgepodge of spices to Leslie’s taste ended up quite delicious. (Our main goal was to not make pasta sauce, at which we’ve gotten quite good but which would be disaster on enchiladas.) We even found chips and salsa in the fancy grocery store downtown, but the chips tasted like soap and the salsa was basically a jar sugar and a tomato or two. (Not even boxed red wine, which we mixed with bissap (hibiscus juice) and lime could mask the taste, so we gave up on apps and waited for dinner.) While the enchiladas baked and the beans cooked, my housemates and I pulled clothes from our closets to outfit Lisa and made a plan to ask a stylish co-worker to take her shopping (or to the tailor) downtown. (The story has a happy ending: the airline found her bag two days later and sent it courier-service to Bobo on the bus, arriving intact.)

We had a few others joining for dinner, so it was perfect timing for a fiesta night. Two students from Boston who are conducting a nutrition study in Mali came to visit from Bamako to check out the study sites here (we all work for the same professor). I met one of the students briefly in Dakar and had exchanged emails with the other (who’s also a dietitian, and one who previously worked in the NICU, too), so it was nice to host them in Bobo. A surprise treat for me was seeing one of the drivers who I knew from Mali last fall (think back to the road-kill story). He drove them from Bamako to Bobo and it was such fun to visit. He even wore an Ichiro (Seattle Mariners’) t-shirt that I had given to him before I left Mali to fiesta dinner (when he tasted Mexican food for the first time, and approved of our Bobo-version of enchiladas).

We had spent the day traveling to Dande, which is about 60 km north of Bobo, to tag along with a survey team on their final day of field work. A geographer and his team of 5 census workers were mapping the area with handheld GPS devices, noting key landmarks and assigning addresses to each house (and concession, which is a compound of households) using GPS coordinates for their records, then painting a study ID number on the house. The census workers interviewed the heads of each household to determine the number of people living in each household, in particular the number of pregnant women and the number of children under 6 months of age. As the same census/geography team will be repeating the process in Orodara next month for my study, I was keen to see the census in Dande and have the chance to ask questions about the process.

Including the driver, 11 of us piled into the Land Cruiser and left the main road, off which the main health center sits. We set out on a bumpy, potholed, unpaved road for 45 minutes – bumpy enough to require several stops for fresh air for those of us in the back of the car (including one round of motion sickness … fortunately outside of the car!). After a round of musical chairs, switching the front seat passengers with those in back, we were on our way and outside traipsing through waist-high fields to reach some of the most remote houses. We passed crops of corn, sorghum, millet, cotton, and sesame, and saw ears of corn drying on the roofs of some houses, or in the middle of the courtyards. Mango trees dotted the landscape and we passed rice fields on the way back to Bobo, and we stopped at the weekly market in Bama to buy watermelons and bananas, to fend off hunger until we returned to Bobo for a pre-fiesta nibble.

Velo

I bought a sweet new bike last week. There's a striking resemblance to the green clunker I had in Cambridge in that it's a step-through cruiser painted mint green. There's a basket on front and a rack for panniers on back, and even a bell on the handlebars. It’s adorable and although it only has one speed, it’s the perfect speed for Bobo … cruising.

I tried to look for a bike a week earlier, but foolishly went to the market by myself and attempted to haggle the price on my own. I was nearly ready to take home one bike until I took it for a test drive down the street and discovered that the handlebars were wobbly beyond repair. As I turned into the market stall, a security guard on foot demanded that I pay him 5000 CFA because I rode my bike the wrong way on a one-way street (never mind that I followed a motor scooter going the same way for the length of the street). I turned to look for a sign designating “one-way street” and saw none, and when I turned back, the guard was laughing with the shop keeper, but still demanding money from me. I asked him where the sign was and he pointed me in the other direction, so I left the bike, began walking in that direction and didn’t go back.

After my unsuccessful attempts to find a bike at three different market stalls left me feeling discouraged, I asked for help from a co-worker of mine, who was all too pleased to help me find one. He arranged for us to go with a friend of his to a shop, where I immediately spied the bike that I wanted to buy. Fortunately, after taking it for a spin, it was easy to decide that it was indeed a keeper. After a few words were exchanged in Dioula by the guys, the shop owner said a price that seemed reasonable to me and we struck a deal.

Fall Comfort

Leslie and I made a mutually favorite comfort food last night: tuna noodle casserole (with canned green peas, onions, dehydrated cream of mushroom soup, and cheese). Leslie said was suffering from what she dubbed as "Africa Sickness" - i.e., gastrointestinal uproar – so we decided that comfort food was needed, stat. Even though a liter of water mixed with ORS and the BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet would probably be better for a digestive system that was on strike than tuna noodle casserole, the TNC seemed to fit the bill.

Maybe it’s the missing fall at home that made me crave comfort food. I miss making pumpkin soup and apple cobbler, sitting cozy by a fireplace, bundling up in an extra fleece, seeing who will make it to the World Series, watching the leaves change color and gradually drop from the trees, piling up on the streets. It's still hovering around 90F daily here, and it feels hotter than the first week after I arrived. Someone said it’s like the mini hot season before it starts to get cooler, but I don’t know if it’s true.

It was slightly cooler for one brief evening last week, so that I finally felt somewhat comfortable, but clearly it had signaled to locals that the cold is coming. Leslie and I came home from dinner, wearing t-shirts, to find our guard sitting in an ankle-length wool coat.

Marionettes

I collapsed into bed last night and slept until 11:15 this morning. I awoke to my housemates (two students from the university at home who are also working on research projects here) exclaiming, “You’re alive!” I think the toll of traveling, moving here, beginning a new project, adapting to a new environment, speaking French, and the heat here have exhausted me, so I’ve been sleeping a lot and taking it easy.

Today was the celebration of the end of Ramadan and much of the city was celebrating with a day-long feast of sheep or goat, rice and sauce. The French Cultural Center (the CCF) in Bobo sponsored a “spectacle” this afternoon, which was a show of marionettes – some 20 feet tall – and drumming and music, and then a parade through Bobo. There was one character in a monkey mask who frightened all the kids along the way, and as the parade passed through neighborhoods downtown, families would come outside of their homes to watch, and many to join. We walked along the red dirt roads and under the leafy green trees, past mud-brick square homes to a large open field next to a school, where the marionette players constructed a makeshift stage and produced a show with live music and lots of dancing.

Afterwards, my housemates Katie and Leslie, and I walked back towards the CCF and stopped in the garden café there for a cold beer on tap, which was heavenly since it was frosty. It was really comfortable to sit there, under a canopy, enjoying a slightly cooler afternoon than yesterday’s unforgiving heat, chatting about the high points of a great brunch, since we want to host a pancake breakfast for our Burkinabe co-workers. Although we don’t have maple syrup here, we decided that we could make pancakes and it would be okay to serve them with powdered sugar and jam, or stacked with sliced bananas. We were in the middle of pondering what we would put in a frittata when it looked like the sky would open up any minute with a downpour, so Katie suggested we head home. Then we walked over to buy a watermelon and took a taxi home, arriving just as it started raining.

Bon Arrivee

I wish I could somehow bottle the feeling I have right now and store it for the bumps in the road during the coming year and a half. I’ve felt genuinely happy to arrive in Bobo and am excited to begin to settle into my new home and to dig into this project. It’s a really nice place to start, having everyone exchanging ideas and bringing their own thoughts to the table. We’ve established ground rules of speaking whichever language you feel most comfortable (French or English) and asking when you don’t understand. So far, the system seems to be working well and no one seems too shy or proud to call time-out and ask for clarification. I have a feeling that people still find my grammar rather amusing since sometimes a smile will creep across the face of the person I’m talking with and I am suddenly aware of some error in how I phrased something, although not always sure what unless the other person corrects me.

It’s been really nice to reconnect with several people from the research center who remembered me from my visit here in July. In addition, I’ve met new people with whom I’ll be working over the next several months. All of the Burkinabe greet me warmly, first with a handshake, saying, “Bon arrivee!” and then four air kisses on my cheeks, alternating left, right, left, right. Without fail, each person asks about my travels into town, my family and friends at home in the US and the folks working in Dakar.

I arrived in Ouagadougou, the capital, late on Monday night, but right on time – 11:00 pm. That was a pleasant surprise since the last time I had flown on the same route, the flight arrived at 3 am. I had left Dakar convinced that it would be delayed again. (I shouldn’t be so pessimistic.) I flew with a co-worker from Dakar to Bamako and enjoyed having company for the first stretch of the trip. From Bamako, the flight to Ouagadougou is just over an hour, and from the air, as the plane approaches Ouaga, the ground is spotted with bright blue-hued lights (perhaps halogen?) stretching outside the city center, then yellow lights in the middle of town.

I was surprised to find the road from the airport to the hotel, dry with no evidence of the recent flooding that devastated other parts of the city. From the very little I saw of Ouaga and the outskirts of town (on the west-bound road to Bobo) the following day, you wouldn’t know that the capital had been flooded just two weeks earlier, so I have to assume that it was a different part of town that was the most affected. On September 1, nearly 12 inches of rain fell and destroyed the homes over 100,000 people in the capital, most of whom are the city’s poorest. They have been displaced to temporary shelters and have lost nearly everything.

I had a ticket and was scheduled to leave Ouaga at 8 am on a flight to Bobo, but arrived at the airport to be informed by an agent there that the flight had been cancelled. The driver of the hotel shuttle took me to the bus station for the local company, TCV, and waited while I purchased a ticket for the next bus, leaving at 9 am. I lucked out since the 9 o’clock was a VIP bus, meaning that there are only 4 seats in each aisle, as opposed to 5 seats on the non-VIP bus (but squashed into the same width bus).

The bus left promptly at 9:05 and I had a window seat. The girl sitting next to me was about my age and was grooving to the music playing on the bus. When we stopped in Barolo, I asked her where the toilets were and she said to follow her. We stepped off the bus into a crowd of women and children selling nuts, bananas, sesame biscuits, chewing gum, cold sodas, and individual packets of tissues. She waited for me as I jumped over the puddles of water and tried to avoid slipping in the mud, and led me to the toilets: 3 stalls behind a corrugated tin door with ‘Femmes’ written in white paint across the door. The stalls were simple pit latrines, without a roof and with 3 sides each, i.e., no door where you did your business. My seatmate handed me a tissue, the last of her packet, and disappeared to the other side of the wall.

When I walked out, I was surprised to find her waiting for me, and more surprised when she said that she had paid the 25 CFA each for me and for her. She paused at a cart where men were grilling meat outside and I asked if she was going to eat. She nodded so I motioned “two” to the guy behind the grill and exchanged a few coins for a black plastic bag filled with grilled beef and onions and a couple of toothpicks wrapped in brown paper. She asked if I wanted bread, and I nodded when I turned and saw the “village bread” (as we’ve come to call it) – fresh soft white mini baguettes – for sale from a woman standing behind me.

We boarded the bus and took our seats, and spread out our lunch to share. I nibbled on the meat, much of it was really tough or really fatty and I tried my best to covertly sneak some pieces into the tissue in my hand while I saw only one bone sitting on a tissue in her lap. After I had finished and we tossed the remnants and the bag into a plastic trash bin circulating the bus, she offered me a piece of chewing gum, the brand which is named ‘Hollywood’. Her name was Alice, and she was traveling from Ouaga to Bobo to see a brother, then on to Bamako a few days later to visit another. We watched a few African sitcoms playing on a DVD on the bus, and I understood only a few of the jokes, but those that I got were pretty funny. I was pretty amazed by how effortlessly she responded to my questions and her willingness to make the trip for me a more pleasant one.

I went for a run this morning before heading to the research center and it was already hot at 7:30, almost unbearable. I passed groups of men sitting drinking tea in a roadside stand, women sitting on tiny stools fanning a fire over which to fry doughnut balls by the side of the road, phone card stalls and hair salons opening up. I passed one man fixing a motorcycle and he looked up as I passed and shouted, “Courage!” and smiled. Young kids yelled, “Toubabou! Toubabou!” It’s really cute how the kids here do a little dance and outstretch their arms like a scarecrow and shake their hips when they shout “Toubabou!” which is the same as “Toubab” (foreigner) in Dakar, but the extra “ou” on the end is somehow more endearing.

Changing Gears

It’s been nice to see familiar faces and places in Dakar. After work on Friday, I went for a run on the beach up to the fish market, dodging flying soccer balls, fish heads scattered on the sand, and running by horse-drawn carriages and past little kids yelling, “Toubab! Toubab!” I was surprised to see so many soccer games underway so late in the day since it’s Ramadan and most of Dakar’s population is fasting daily until sundown.

I had dinner with a few friends later that night at a Thai restaurant that was really quite good. They served a decent pad thai, spring rolls, and satay with an excellent peanut sauce. There were bits of tofu in the pad thai, too, which was a treat since it’s hard to find here.

After dinner we went to Just 4 U, a well-known club in Dakar that had been closed for the last few months that I was here previously. There are live bands every night of the week on the outdoor stage and although we stayed only for the warm-up band (who played until 1 am), the music was fantastic and it was a beautiful night to sit outside. I thought the lead singer could be bound for Broadway, the way he sang and the way he carried himself.

I’ve been hit harder by jet lag this round than another other trip I can recall, and have been exhausted this weekend because I’ve been up for hours at a time during the middle of the night all week. On nights when the power was out, I’d go to bed at 9:30 and sleep a few hours, only to find myself wide awake at 1:30 am and unable to fall back asleep until 4 am. Finally, after giving into sleeping as much as my body decided it needed to this weekend, I’m feeling better, although still lethargic. I went to bed around 2 am on Friday night and dragged myself out of bed at 1 pm on Saturday afternoon!

I went to an orphanage yesterday afternoon with a couple of girls who work in the Dakar office and who live next door to the apartment where I’m staying here. The orphanage, run by Catholic nuns, is in town and cares for 86 children who are orphans. I spent two hours playing with 1- to 2-year-old children in a large, bright, open room filled with about 20 children and another 7 or 8 volunteers (most of whom were young Senegalese women, as part of their internship to become health workers).

The head sister greeted us upon arrival and thanked us for coming and suggested that we divide ourselves between the newborns, who needed to be held and rocked, and the young children. The minute I stepped into the playroom, 3 children crawled over to me and one climbed into my lap. All of them smiled back when I exchanged toys with them or tickled their bellies, even just looked at them with a big grin. There were dozens of toys available for the children, and some of the toys looked new. A few children seemed nearly ready to start walking, so I walked around the room with them, supporting them as they stumbled along, learning to alternate one leg and then the other, slowly gaining strength to continue. Others seemed desperate for attention – one boy barely detached himself from my leg as I walked around with another child, and he’d climb right into my lap if I sat down.

I was exhausted and dehydrated by 5pm, when the children returned to their cribs and had diapers changed and it was time for them to be fed, but so impressed by the facility’s cleanliness and organization. It’s heart-wrenching to see such bright, loving children without permanent homes, though encouraging to see that they are living in a place where the staff seem very kind, caring, and devoted to the children’s well-being.

West Africa has elements of what people thing of as classically exotic Africa, or what usually makes headlines outside of this poor region, but there are other parts that stand out for me. Nutrition research here is different and I constantly question my assumptions of what we define as feasible. Nutrition and health services are vastly different from those that I am familiar with in the United States. After working in a neonatal ICU with state-of-the-art technology and highly specialized care, I feel dumbstruck by the differences in clinical services available in some of the places I’ve visited because the need for basic health care is so great and I’m constantly amazed by the resourcefulness of some communities in working tirelessly to make such services available.

Dakar, the capital of West Africa, is a big city and I’ve found that it’s easy to feel lost in a large place. However, in a city of 3 million people, there are always new parts of the city to discover, and new people to meet. Sometimes it was hard to live in such a transient city. I made several acquaintances whose company I often really enjoyed; but they were transferred to a different work posting in another town or another country before long, or perhaps were already occupied with family obligations and/or their own lives locally. In general, I don’t like being skeptical of people, but I often felt cautious of people I met randomly in shops or on the beach, reluctant to end up a naïve American who was taken advantage of after hearing stories of bad experiences. But overall, the challenges posed here are interesting and I’m grateful for the experiences here and for the friendships I’ve formed. My French teacher called today, unexpectedly; she was in the neighborhood and so she popped by for a brief visit. It was really fun to reconnect.

I started this blog because coming to Africa was a dream come true and, to me, life here is fascinating. I enjoy writing; the process of reflecting upon a story, refining it, and sharing with others, learning more about my experiences in the process (although it’s taken me a while to upload all the retrospective blog entries that were sitting on my hard drive as Microsoft Word documents for the past few months). I wanted to chronicle for my family and friends my encounters with people here, the things that sparked my curiosity, and those that were different from – or surprisingly similar to - life at home.

I leave for Burkina tomorrow and look forward to the next phase of living in Africa. It’s hard to believe that almost exactly a year ago I landed here for the first time. Although Dakar is a more familiar place now, there’s still so much to be discovered here and in other parts of the continent. I’ve visited places that I’d only imagined seeing, and have met people who surprised me with the most generous hospitality, and still feel like I've just scratched the surface. The lure of Africa – and my curiosity about it – remains.

A Week In Dakar

I arrived in Dakar yesterday morning and am staying at my old apartment for the week. It felt strangely familiar, and entirely different from when I landed in Africa for the first time last September and hadn't a clue what to expect. This time, I anticipated the sticky humidity - already unbearable at 5:45 am - the minute I stepped off the plane, the circus at the airport where forming a line to pass through immigration is simply a mass of people pushing towards the counter, and where you're bombarded by random, persistent men wanting to help with your bags in exchange for a few coins. I was relieved to see the driver (my running buddy in Dakar) who met me at the airport and helped me with all of my luggage, including 2 bags of study supplies. Fortunately, the bags arrived intact and passed through customs with minimal curiosity on behalf of the inspecting officer. (He opened one bag, full of needles for collecting blood samples and Ziploc bags for storing the tubes, and seemed more perplexed by the Ziploc bags than the needles. That was an interesting round of charades with my rusty French.)

I slept all day yesterday and then went to dinner at a friend's house with a couple of other friends/coworkers. After walking over to her house, we jumped in the pool to cool off! She recently adopted a street puppy and was trying to convince me to take the remaining puppy to Burkina Faso. Somehow, I don't think there's any shortage of street dogs looking for a good home there, but the puppy is really cute...

I'm in Dakar until the 14th, when I'm scheduled to continue on to Bobo-Dioulasso. The capital city of Burkina, Ouagadougou, is flooded right now - more rain fell in a 12-hour period last week than any month this year - and thousands of people have been displaced from their homes, most have sought shelter in schools, mosques, churches, and government buildings. Apparently the team in Bobo is fine, but I fear the capital is not faring well.

I'm back at the office today, temporarily occupying someone else's desk, and have been welcomed warmly. My Senegalese coworkers ask about my visit home, my family, and my health. Then they ask all those questions again. And again. It's so classic, the rounds of salutations here. I tell them that it was wonderful to be home and that there's nothing nicer than returning home and finding that I feel like I've always been there.

Vacances

It’s been 7 months in Dakar (and Bobo) and I’m ready for vacation! Amazingly enough, another friend from home is here for work and we get to visit just in time for a farewell dinner before I hop on the middle-of-the-night flight leaving Dakar! Before I change gears to run another study in Bobo starting in September, I’m so excited to come home for a visit with family and friends. Sailing around Bainbridge. Reading a newspaper or magazine on the couch. Walking through Discovery Park. Trader Joe’s. REI. Anthropologie. San Juan Islands. Kayaking. Carmel Beach. Katy’s Place breakfast. Riding my bike. Point Lobos. Big Sur. Fish tacos and tunaritas. Caffe Fiore. Ballard Market. Bartell’s and Longs. 74th Street. Golden Gardens. Santa Cruz. The Aquarium. Olympic National Park. Uwajimaya. Places and things I’ve missed and look forward to (even if some indeed seem silly, simple conveniences), but none more than everyone I look forward to seeing!

A bientot, everyone, and a la prochaine, Dakar.

Ouagadougou

Three weeks passed awfully quickly. Last night I had the same feeling I often had after returning home from summer camp – a bit nostalgic for camaraderie in a place that seemed a different reality to me. I left Bobo yesterday and arrived in Ouagadougou for an overnight, waiting for the return flight to Dakar. The Hotel Splendid fared better in the daylight – I checked into a clean, air-conditioned room overlooking the pool and was pleased to find that the wireless internet worked. I felt a bit too enthusiastic for air-con.

I took a taxi to a restaurant off the main rond-pointe which had been recommended by a friend who was a Peace Corps volunteer a few years ago. I was disappointed to find that the restaurant was closed, but that ended up working in my favor because it was closed only for lunch and so I had dinner there later in the evening. Instead, I went next door to an artisan market with a café and, as I half-expected, was followed by shopkeepers all too eager to show me their merchandise. When one lady followed me to the table where I sat down and I asked her for a menu, she split right away. Lunch was mediocre at best and the service lagged, but I was desperate for some energy and it served that purpose (so that I could shop in the market for the couple of hours I had before dark!).

I returned to the hotel in time to swim before the sun set, and then walked back to the restaurant which had been closed earlier and discovered it was a lovely setting – much like the Forge in the Forest in Carmel, leafy and cozy since each table was full. The house specialty is brick-oven pizza and was indeed on par with pizza at home; it was a slice of heaven, particularly after so much rice and sauce.

I’m heading back to Dakar this afternoon and am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces there before leaving for Seattle on Tuesday night. Although it’s taken me a while to warm up to Dakar, I’m finding myself happy to go back, and visit with people and finish some work there. Simultaneously I feel a bit sad to leave Burkina. Where Dakar has the ocean, Bobo is extraordinarily green; vendors and taxi drivers seem more aggressive in Dakar, more personable and quicker to laugh in Bobo; my work in Dakar is very much jack-of-all-trades, in Bobo I feel more focused as I am in charge of a specific project.

Random Kindness

After taking a day trip to Orodara, about an hour west of Bobo, to check out the area where I’ll be living for the next study, I was pretty tired after the return bus ride. I had chosen a window seat, grateful for the chance to watch the scenery on the way back to Bobo, and happy to have some fresh air, since the window was open. Actually, the window was missing, which I realized about halfway through the trip when a rain cloud burst above us! A few people shifted in their seats so that I could sit across the aisle with them, and we laughed as I wiped the water from my shoulder and hair. Not 5 minutes later, the roof above me started dripping water! Again, my neighbors maneuvered so that I could sit where the leak wouldn’t land on me.

I got into a taxi in Bobo and was a little weary when the driver said he had one stop to make, then would take me home, but I was happier to sit and know that I was en route home rather than continuing to walk the semi-deserted (Sunday afternoon) streets looking for a cab home. I watched the driver pull something from the floor of the car and realized it was the key, which he inserted into the ignition to turn off the car when we arrived at the market where he was making his stop. Later, when he started the car again, he put the key in the ignition to turn the engine, then as we started moving forward, he took the key out and placed it on the floor.

While we stopped, he took a glass of tea with his brothers, who loaded huge sacks of grains into the back of the station wagon, and piled big round pots on the roof. I walked across the street to the market to buy some vegetables and decided to get some eggplant. I asked the rotund woman sitting on an inverted pail how much for 4 and I thought she replied, “500 CFA” so I handed her a 500 CFA piece and walked away. I was about a block away, across the street, and buying onions from another woman when a young girl about 8 years old ran up to me, breathless, and handed me 200 CFA. I looked at her, the coins in my hand, and then at then woman selling onions, who said, “You didn’t take your change over there.” I shook my head in disbelief – this young girl was sent by her mother, who sold me the eggplant, to give me the change since I had misunderstood the price. I was incredulous – this kind of honesty is so rare, it seems. The woman selling the onions smiled and said, “C’est normal” as if it were indeed like this everywhere.

Chillin’ in Bobo

My two housemates and I poked around the market this morning and were pleasantly surprised by the experience, sans the usual excessive shouting from vendors, “Hello nice lady! You come to my shop!” Most shopkeepers said hello, offered once for us to come into the shop, but let it go at that, as opposed to following us down the street or running out of the shop with 15 necklaces dangling from their arms, ensuring us a good bargain. We bought a few items after much deliberation and negotiating, my favorite of which was a huge 70-cm diameter circular Bobo mask, “Le Soleil”. I got home to discover that I had grossly overestimated the size of my suitcase, as there was not a chance that the mask would fit in it for the trip home to Seattle. So, I decided to be happy to have a nice piece of art to hang on the wall of my new abode when I return to Burkina in September.

After exhausting our desire to shop (which didn’t take long in the 39C heat of the day), one of my housemates and I sought respite from the heat at a hotel with a pool. We had lunch and swam, which made for a very relaxing afternoon after working practically nonstop on our studies during the week. We felt a bit outrageous splurging on a meal that cost 12 times what we had been spending for lunch out with local coworkers (about $12 versus a dollar and a quarter), but let it go and decided it was well worth taking a break and recharging our batteries. Just as we were finishing swimming some laps in the water and thinking it would have been perfect to have an inner tube or something to float on, a family with kids showed up with a huge inflatable crocodile. I said to my housemate, “Now that’s what we need!” I can foresee many afternoons in the future spent lounging in that pool on an inflatable raft of some sort … if only we can find it in Bobo.

The Joy of Two Wheels

Yesterday morning there were already 4 passengers in the taxi that pulled over for me, so one of the guys in back jumped into the front seat (so they were sitting two in the front passenger seat) and gave me his spot in the backseat. What a gentleman! While Dakar has it’s fair share of newer taxis and most of Bobo’s taxis have seen better days, the shared taxi protocol is much more entertaining.

We are starting our training for field workers/data collectors tomorrow and I feel that there are so many preparations that need to be completed before we can start, but I’m trying to be flexible while also trying to set a high standard of the quality of our research methods … finding that balance in a foreign setting is tricky. Katie left for Banfora for the week with her team to work in a lab there, and she left me her bike and bike helmet to use while she is away - it was really fun to ride around on it today, and to commute by bike again. Although the rice and sauce I’ve grown accustomed to eating is fine, I can’t eat it every day. I know, I’m too American, but I just can’t. So, I rode to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch today that had stage 17 of the Tour de France on the tube. It was a really nice break to clear my head and veg out while watching Lance Armstrong climb the Col de Romme as I ate hummus and pita.

Our Local Starbucks

As one might imagine, coming from the US, what a town called Bobo lacks in some aspects of urbanization, in makes up for in charm. I turned into somewhat of a coffee snob in Seattle (actually, that’s not true, I think I’ve always been keen on strong coffee) and have splurged on good coffee in Dakar rather than Nescafe instant coffee. However, Nescafe with sweetened condensed milk is a whole other discussion. There are two women who sell coffee across the street from the research institute and they have successfully changed my opinion of instant Nescafe. The first day, they poured two heaping spoonfuls of sweetened consdensed milk in a glass, added a tiny half a spoonful of Nescafe, and then filled the glass with hot water. It was, well, sweet, but for 100 CFA I wasn’t about to complain.

The next day, I went with my housemate who has turned this into her local Starbucks. She asked for a coffee but then, Sally Albright style, ordered it with half the amount of milk and twice the amount of coffee. The lady behind the counter looked a bit perplexed but humored us and prepared the coffees as requested. Delish, this round… and she even let us take them “to go” – I just made sure to return the glasses before they close shop for the day.

Bobo

I can’t get over how green and leafy Bobo is, and how friendly the folks are at the research center. Bo seems like a really nice guy, with an easy laugh and eager to learn about nutrition and get the study moving forward. We work mostly in French but he knows enough English that I think we understood each other, and when push comes to shove, I can usually say a phrase in English and he’ll get the essence of it. People at the center actually work during the day, the lab benches and equipment are clean and appear to be maintained relatively well (and in use frequently), and the students and supervisory-types seem very engaged in learning and exchanging ideas. I hope I’m not too naïve, but so far, I’m quite impressed.

Katie and I went to lunch with two of the other fellows on the zinc studies and lunch for the 4 of us cost 2000 CFA - $5. Huge bowls of rice arrived on the table for each of us, accompanied by smaller – but still deep – bowls of of sauce arachide (peanut sauce – a combination of peanut butter, tomato sauce, oil, spices, sometimes a bit of salty fish floating in the sauce). I finished half of it and was ready for a nap afterwards; it was so heavy. We went back to the lab and continued working on study plans, making lists of materials to purchase, reviewing our questionnaire forms, talking through job roles for study staff to be hired.

Bobo has shared taxis and the flat rate is 300 CFA. I got into one this morning and said where I wanted to go, then a while later, we pulled over and someone else got in the back seat. I got dropped off first, since we reached my destination first, but I suppose other times it's more like a school bus route. It was kind of fun - the people were nice and it's kind of funny to chat with them. Amazingly enough, people obey stop signs (mostly – I’ve seen a few “California stops”) and traffic lights (they HAVE traffic lights!), and the drivers don’t seem as angry as many do in Dakar.

Some things would make a great photo, but the chances of getting such photos are slim. I walked by a sign today that read, "No urinating allowed here" and beneath the sign were two men doing just that; then saw a man riding a motorbike while carrying a sheep … on the bike with him. I later walked into the lab and saw 4 men chiseling off the door to the radioactive storage room. Apparently since no one could find the key to open the door, so the solution was to replace the door.

There’s an old Land Cruiser that has recently been “rehabilitated” with study funds (with rehabilitated in quotes because it has the tendency to break down frequently) that everyone seems to have a soft spot for. Apparently all Land Cruisers of this model in Burkina Faso are called Norbert Zongo after the former editor of a local newspaper, who was assassinated in such a car after investigating a high-profile murder. As the driver told me, “Norbert Zongo, il n’est pas presse, mais il faut arrive.” He’s not hurried, but he’ll get there eventually.

Burkina Faso

I think it’s fair to say that the names of towns and cities in Burkina Faso are the most fun to say. Ouagadougou. Bobo-Dioulasso. Banakeledaga. Orodara. Souroukoudougou.

All places I’ll be visiting and working here. Seriously, how awesome?

Bobo is so green! That's what stands out first. Trees everywhere, and leafy, lining the streets and provided much-needed shade. There was a downpour for about two hours after my flight landed this morning, then it cleared up this afternoon. It's cooled off somewhat but the heat hasn’t let up much. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve seen many people riding bicycles that I think this, but the air seems a bit clearer here than in Dakar ... unless you’re riding a bike or walking along the road when a moped passes, trailing exhaust, and then it’s just like any other urban center with lots of traffic.

Our flight from Dakar to Ouagadougou was delayed 4 hours so another co-worker (who was traveling with me, and brought about 20kg of study supplies for us in her checked luggage) and I arrived at "Le Splendid Hotel" at 3:30 am ... and proceeded to take a 2-hour nap before the car picked us up at 6:30 am. The hotel was far from splendid, but fine for a hot shower and a bed.

My flight this morning was uneventful, fortunately, and just a quick 40 minute flight from Ouaga to Bobo. When I landed, Bo, the student with whom I'm working these next 2-3 weeks, and a driver from the research center picked me up, and I’ve been warmly welcomed. I’m here to help facilitate and supervise a nutrition study where we’ll assess the acceptability of a peanut butter-like supplementary food, which is added to children’s foods to provide extra energy and essential nutrients. It’s very similar in methodology to the study that I first worked on in Dakar, and again we’ll be recruiting mother/infant pairs to taste the product and tell us what they think of the product and how they feed it to their child (easier said than done in an environment where women, especially in rural areas, aren’t frequently asked for their opinion).

The house that we’re renting for the visiting study staff is funky - very open and spacious, with wrought-iron fencing and swirl-design iron window coverings painted bright green. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dining/living room area, a kitchen with a fridge and gas oven/stove, and another room that we’ll convert to an office or spare bedroom. Eventually, there will be 5 study coordinators from the university working and living in Bobo, and we expect to have visiting scientists and students staying there from time to time. The garden is the finest part - outside there is a big palm tree, bougainvillea crawling up the side of the walls, tiny yellow flowers bursting from tall green stalks, a mango tree and a citrus tree.

I took a nap on the couch this afternoon and did a little bit of work on the laptop, but mostly took time to get my stuff sorted out and to recover from the long air travel. I hung up the mosquito net in my room that my housemate Katie, another research coordinator from the US, had bought for me, and unpacked my bags.

Independence Day

The 4th of July was a memorable celebration in Dakar. I was invited to a poolside BBQ by the fellow who Jessica and I met on the boat to Goree (the one wearing the Red Sox hat, who gave me his business card) and celebrated the holiday with about a dozen Americans and a few non-Americans who were game to partake in a little Americana. I loved watching one Senegalese man listen intently to the recipe for constructing the perfect “hamburger Americain” and then trying his first burger, fresh off the grill. Most of the folks at the BBQ work together and the gathering also served as an office-warming party … which sounds weird until you see that the office could have been transported straight from Santa Barbara. It’s one level, a sprawling house-converted-to-office space (like many offices in Dakar) overlooking the ocean, with palm, mango and citrus trees, a pool, and an outdoor firepit that would look at home in a Sunset magazine shoot.

I brought a couple of salads and bread, the daughter of the fellow who hosted the party made a fruit salad and a pasta salad, and the guys grilled hamburgers, chicken, and ribs. After dinner, sitting around the table outside on the patio under a near-full moon, enjoying the warm but no longer hot evening and refreshing occasional breeze, someone popped open a laptop and found the Declaration of Independence online, so we all took turns reading aloud a section.

I would have been perfectly content to leave the party while it was good and mark that down as a terrific 4th of July, and go home. However, I had been invited by the gardener at the house where I’m dog-sitting to his neighborhood’s wrestling championship matches. I couldn’t pass up the chance to watch traditional Senegalese wrestling. We were instructed to arrive around 8 pm but arrived at 20 ‘til midnight, and yet our timing couldn’t have been better – the first match (of 7) was just underway.

We were led to a row of chairs and seated us in the third row, right in perfect view of the “lutteurs” (wrestlers) and the dancing that is part of each pre-match warm-up, and where the winners are presented with flags and envelopes of money. Although each match only takes 20 seconds, the pre-match psych-up goes on for 20 minutes with drumming, singing, and each wrestler and his team dancing together in a choreographed routine, with a few individuals doing free form or improv. The first rows of seats were couches and big, overstuffed armchairs, sitting in the sand. They were empty when we arrived but slowly began to fill up with people who looked very important, like parents, women wearing impeccable makeup and sparkly fabrics, men wearing boubous, and when the professional wrestling champions arrived, and the crowd went nuts.

RIP, MJ (PYT)

“ ‘Where were you when Michael Jackson died?’ is going to become THE question,” declared the woman sitting across from me at dinner. I was at a little tapas place overlooking the ocean, with a group of women who work in Dakar, where the only requirement for being on the list-serv is to “know a little bit of English”. I figured I’d give it a try – I hadn’t been to one since I had flown through Dakar for 2 days last September and I was keen to meet some new people.

I will, in fact, remember MJ’s death well. It was nearly 11 pm here, and I was getting ready to close up my laptop for the night after watching “Weeds” – which has replaced “The Closer” which I’ve (sadly) finished season 3 and will have to wait to get a new hook-up for the subsequent seasons – when a series of emails from close friends in Seattle appeared in my inbox. The first email was simply a link to the LA Times with “MJ hospitalized!” and then, sent 15 minutes later, “OMG! CNN said he died!” which was countered with, “So says AP!” I had to tear myself away from reading the news, but awoke to find his image everywhere online, and even heard the local radio stations broadcasting the news in French and Wolof.

Turns out that 5 of the 8 of us at dinner all know a friend of mine in the States, so it was yet another “small world” incident that I have been finding frequently lately. One mentioned that they were en route to a MJ Tribute Dance Party at a club downtown after dinner, then asked if I wanted to come (ahem, hello, rhetorical question!). It was a stitch: these little kids who didn’t look old enough to be in a club were moonwalking and doing full routines to Thriller and Bad. The DJ was turning MJ tunes all night and the place was packed; it was amazing.

The Neighborhood Watch

One of the women in our office rescued a stray kitten outside her apartment building and a few of us “cat-sat” in the office while she was at a conference. It was a rather welcome diversion from working at the computer when we had to feed the kitten and give it time to run around the office outside of its crate.

Chantal and Alex are two stray dogs that, I’m told, were left behind by their former owners. Chantal had a littler of six puppies in an empty lot across the street from a house where I was house- and dog-sitting, so part of my daily routine also included feeding Chantal and checking the status of the puppies every day. Unfortunately, their introduction to the world was a pile of garbage in the remaining frame of a house on the empty lot. Despite the fact that I can’t say what breed they are, the puppies are pretty adorable.

Nearby where the puppies are living, a pair guards hold court every day. They remind me so much of the Muppet characters, Statler and Waldorf (the two grumpy old men who heckled everyone from the balcony). However, the two guards are anything but disagreeable. Each sits in his own wooden chair and watches the action in the neighborhood. One wears a wool ski cap and holds a radio with a long antenna in his hand every day; the other sits with one leg bent so his foot rests on the seat of his chair and curls his bare foot over the edge while the other foot rests on the unpaved ground. When I drive by in the car, they both look at the car, stop their chatter, put down the radio, and smile ear-to-ear as they stretch out their arms to wave or to clasp their hands together with their arms raised. It cracks me up and I marvel at the constancy of that same enthusiastic greeting. Another guard nearby sits and reads an English dictionary while on duty; I see him holding the massive book every time I see him.

Bloom Where You’re Planted

I had a fun reunion with Jessica (with whom I went to Tanzania) in Dakar when she conveniently arrived for my birthday (and a conference). I was so happy to see a good friend after feeling, quite frankly, a bit homesick. One of her colleagues joined us for lunch on the water near their hotel and we feasted on fish kebabs. We made our way downtown to a café and, fueled by strong coffee and a chocolate sweet, we took on the downtown market scene in search of fabric. One of the street ticks decided to follow us, relentlessly hoping we’d want to follow him for a tour of Dakar, and I asked him several times to please leave us alone. After the twelfth time he was insisted that he would show us the market, we stopped in front of a group of street vendors – all older men, too – and I said loudly and firmly, “Please leave us alone.” All eyes were suddenly focused on the annoying guy and the older men started shouting stuff at him in Wolof and he left us alone.

Or so we thought. About 8 blocks and 10 minutes later - seemingly out of nowhere - someone approached us and pointed a finger in my face, scolding, “You are bad!” I turned my head to see that it is the same street man who previously followed us. We walked away and went through the same routine of asking him to leave us alone when we were standing in front of a group of men huddled around a small shop who all yelled at the man for bothering us, again. I burst out laughing when the three of us had rounded a corner away from the crazy persistent guy and Jessica said, “You are bad!”

We ended up going to another market and buying two fabrics – enough material for both Jess and I to have two jupes (skirts) and a dress each made – and made it to the tailor before closing, with the promise to finish Jess’s clothes before her week in Dakar ended. That evening we discovered a great Moroccan restaurant where we shared a chicken and abricot tagine, a chicken pastilla, and deliciously spiced couscous.

The next day, we visited Ile de Goree for the annual garden and art walk. On the ferry ride from downtown Dakar to the island, I overheard an American man pointing out all the Dakar landmarks to a few other Americans, so I started eavesdropping. As we were arriving on the island, we started chatting – or, I should say, Jessica said, “This is my friend Shelby, she lives here and needs some friends”. She obviously had picked up on my pangs of homesickness. In turn, a man wearing a Red Sox hat gave me his business card and said to get in touch some time.

It was a great weekend to be on Goree – the weather was perfect and some of the people who own homes there had opened their gardens to local artists to display their work. We wandered in and out of leafy patios, past brightly painted Mediterranean-style homes, and small shops, bought some necklaces after much haggling over the prices, and had lunch on the island. Goree’s history isn't as pretty as the island is today; it is most notable for it’s role as a port for the slave trade. While there, we toured the Maisons des Esclaves, with the “Door of No Return” and listened to a tour guide recount the stories of people who passed through Goree.

I took the next day off from work so Jess and I went to Toubab Dialaw, just an hour south of Dakar, right on the ocean. We found ourselves at a Peace Corps hangout - a hotel decorated with shells called the Sobobade and wandered around half expecting to see gnomes. Lounging in the sun for a couple of hours while overlooking the ocean wasn’t half bad, though. We later had some pool time at Jessica’s hotel back in Dakar, and went for a killer run (in the heat!) along the water. So good to have her here!

Dinner Club, Dakar-Style

I had another visitor from Seattle last week and am enjoying this trend (2 visitors in 4 months, with another arriving in June!). Jonathan, a friend from school and a fellow dinner/cooking club pal, was here to set up a research project which will bring him back to Senegal later this summer. When he arrived, it was a little like Christmas as he unloaded two bags full of goodies from REI and Trader Joe’s that my parents had kindly sent with him, as well as a gift from dinner club friends in Seattle. Not that I am roughing it here, but it was really fun to receive items from home that just don’t exist here. It reminds me of the thrill of receiving mail at summer camp (only I’m not in a cabin in the woods, nor singing campfire songs, though I can smell a heap of trash burning as I write … okay, still not quite the same).

Jon and his parents, who live here, picked me up for dinner and met the (very sweet) dog that I’ve been taking care of while the dog’s owners are traveling. We noticed three worms that had burrowed under the dog’s skin, which is apparently very common here when the temperature rises in warmer weather. There are more flies that appear when the mango trees bloom this time of year, and the flies lay eggs that can burrow under skin of animals and humans (clothes and sheets have to be ironed here after drying outside to kill any eggs that might be on the fabric). My skin crawls just thinking about these worms. However, none of the others were fussed at all and Jon's dad, a surgeon, took the worms right out while I squirmed more than the dog. This is after they treated me to dinner – I think the next dinner will have to be on me.

I joined Jon and his co-workers/fellow students for dinner later in the week, at a restaurant serving fish kebabs and tajines, fried plantains, and mighty strong mojitos. The server brought us a menu in English, although we were all equally perplexed by some of the translations (bananas Nordic?). We sat outside on the patio, seemingly the only customers for the evening. It wasn’t until we were just leaving, close to 10:30 in the evening, that other tables starting filling up (and this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this here). They regaled me with their travel stories and updates from Seattle and I was a bit nostalgic when we said farewell.

Gym Class

I went for a run yesterday evening with a co-worker and his brother and it was the first time I’ve gone running without being heckled. The beach is usually crowded with people, but I don’t see many women exercising, only a few runners and small groups of foreigners sometimes playing Frisbee on weekends; by and large, the beach is ruled by soccer players and their nightly matches before sunset.

Usually I can’t go for a run without at least one person hissing at me (the equivalent of whistling at someone in the US, trying to catch someone’s attention in a not-very-welcome way), following me for a few paces repeating, “Bonjour Madame! Ou, mademoiselle? Je t’aime!” or kicking a soccer ball into my path (or at me). But running yesterday, beside two tall Senegalese men, there was none of that. It was a dream.

We stopped at one part of the beach with a small hill and did a series of training exercises and stretches, led by my co-worker. I was standing like a triangle, stretching my right arm to my left ankle, when I heard a bunch of giggling not far behind me. I released the stretch and stood up, turning my head to see 6 little kids mimicking the stretch and laughing uncontrollably. They stopped for a second when they caught me looking at them, but I waved them over and said, “Come here!” in Wolof. They scurried over, started following our stretches and kept giggling wildly.

There were 5 girls, all dressed in multi-color and multi-pattern pagnes, probably between 4 and 8 years old, and one little boy, who looked about 2 but it’s hard to tell. He was wearing a red t-shirt with “50 Cent” written on it and a picture of a gun. The little boy stood there while his sisters jumped around, howled with laughter, and joined us doing sit-ups and push-ups. When the girls ran off to dip their toes in the ocean, and I was sitting on the beach with my arms wrapped around my knees and felt a little tug on my shirtsleeve. The little boy held my shoulder absentmindedly while watching his sisters splashing in the water. He didn’t say a word the whole time.

We decided to leave once the girls came out of the water and we said goodbye. They were still giggling and one of them took the little boy by the hand and they skipped off in the opposite direction. When my co-worker and his brother and I parted ways, I thanked them for such a fun run and we agreed to do it again soon.

Mango Season

There’s an enormous mango tree at the university, its branches nearly in arms’ reach from the window of the nutrition lab. I’ve been waiting, impatiently, for the fruit to turn from green to yellow and to drop. Finally, the first mangos of the season appeared in the markets last week. Although mangoes signal the sticky hot weather to come all too soon, they’re abundant and sweet, and so delicious that it’s hard to resist eating one daily. They might, just might, be a trade-off to the unbearably hot days ahead.

I recently finished reading The Shadow of the Sun, an engaging portrait of Africa written by Ryszard Kapuscinski. In the book, he describes Dakar: “A beautiful coastal city, pastel-colored, picturesque, laid out on a promontory amid beaches and terraces, slightly resembling Naples, the residential areas of Marseilles, the posh suburbs of Barcelona. Palm trees, gardens, cypresses, bougainvillea. Stepped streets, hedges, lawns, fountains. French boutiques, Italian hotels, Greek restaurants.”

Recalling a train ride leaving Dakar, Kapuscinski continues, “The lush, flowering gardens have disappeared, swallowed beneath the ground, and a desert has commenced, but a populated desert, full of shacks and lean-tos, sand upon which sprawls a neighborhood of squalor, a chaotic and swarming district of slums, one of the depressing bidonvilles that surround most African cities.”

Indeed it is beautiful, with sweeping views of the Atlantic, which is dotted with fishing boats (pirogues) off the coast. Dakar is Mediterranean-like and there are several upscale venues catering to European tourists. Last week I attended a work-related cocktail reception at a hotel (which happens to sit on the most western point of Africa) with at least two swimming pools overlooking the ocean, a golf course, polished tile floors, and immaculately manicured lawns and shrubs. After some nibbles around the pool patio, my daily routine seemed oddly distant since this hotel was so extraordinary.

While commuting through largely expat neighborhoods with a variety of restaurants and shops en route to downtown each day, we pass other neighborhoods constructed of recycled materials – corrugated metal roofs, scrap wood, and cardboard. The markets are overflowing with people looking to sell and trade goods in overwhelming numbers. People selling sunglasses by the dozens try to coax a sale, “Madame, you like these! They’re not expensive! They’re very pretty!” Groups of people are seen sitting. Sitting along sidewalks, or under a tree, presumably without work. A taxi driver told me one day, “People here are tired. Tired of no jobs.” Living standards are comfortable, if not luxurious, for some who live here, and seeing this contrasted with the urban poverty is consistently jarring in highlighting the disparity in living conditions.