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.