I went to Mali last weekend to meet with a friend/colleague from Vancouver who is working on a nutrition project in rural Mali. I was thrilled when she suggested we meet in Segou – I was ready to see a familiar, friendly, and female face!
Segou was lovely. It’s a small, sleepy town along the Niger River, with a few good restaurants and some beautiful crafts for sale. Nicole and I took advantage of all the shops in close proximity and bought pottery, baskets, and textiles. My bag was quite heavy on the return to Burkina! We visited a workshop where the artists make cotton cloth and paint it with a mixture of clay, mud, soap, or medicinal plants. The traditional designs are absolutely breathtaking. We watched the artists working and I bought one Bogolon cloth, and one Gala (made from the leaves of the indigo tree).
Nicole and I traded stories from the field and life in Mali/Burkina, enjoyed pizza and cold beer at a restaurant overlooking the river, and relished the hot shower, air conditioning, and comfortable bed in the hotel room. We also watched parts of the World Cup in real time. Nicole was in East Africa recently to teach a short course in nutrition and flew through Nairobi on the return. She beamed as she opened her bag and said that she had brought me a gift: Kenyan coffee! When I thanked her she laughed and said that she knew Pacific Northwesterner appreciation of good coffee.
The bus to and from Segou was a trip in and of itself: 12 hours on Friday, and 9 hours on the return. It was a classic African travel adventure: the bus broke down not 15 minutes outside of Bobo and we sat by the road for 1.5 hours and on the return, I bought a ticket only to discover the bus was full. I had to hurry via taxi to another bus company, which was also overbooked (with people sitting in the aisles) so I stood for the first few minutes until a man offered me his seat. I had to laugh; it was all too comical. Then, that bus hit another vehicle in Segou and, in the process, dislodged the front door, so we rode for 8 hours with the front door open. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident and we returned to Bobo, if not quickly, safely. I had the company of Nelson Mandela’s 600-page autobiography and a nice French woman sitting next to me. I liked my seatmate immediately when she got our tickets reimbursed by the first bus company and then offered to watch my bag on pit stops along the road; she really won me over when, about 6 hours into the trip, she told me that I spoke French well.
On Monday I took the early (6:15 am) bus back to Orodara and had a very long day at the office upon my return. The field entire team refused to work that day (for the third time), so we suspended the field activities while we “reorganize” the survey. We started contacting people on our wait list and have begun training a new team already. It’s not easy, and it’s discouraging, but it’s an opportunity to learn from the previous experience and try to make the second attempt run more efficiently (easier said than done).
On a brighter note, while morale among the last survey team was low, the coordinating team’s sense of humor has anything but decreased. Apparently I have developed the habit of saying that I have a few questions by saying, “J’ai quelque des questions,” which is not pretty French. During a three hour-long meeting shortly after the survey team threatened to strike (for the second time), in an effort to lighten the mood, my senior collaborator wrapped up the meeting by saying that if we have questions to ask; only he phrased it, “As Shelby would say, ‘quelque des questions’,” and grinned at me while the other eight people burst out laughing. I asked, “What?!” and the doctor sitting next to me suppressed his laugh long enough to explain that it’s ‘quelque questions, not quelque des questions’.
I laughed with them and, feigning anger, demanded, “In the 9 months that I have been here, why has no one corrected me?” – which only made all of us laugh more. Since then, it’s become a source of many jokes among the staff, to the point where practically none of us can say a phrase starting with “quelque” without suppressing a laugh or, for the sake of a good laugh, inserting the “des” and letting everyone giggle. I find it highly amusing and have to wonder if the French woman on the Segou bus was just being charitable.
With the hottest months of the year – March, April, May – comes mango season. During these three months sleeping at night is practically impossible, people’s tempers are shorter, and sitting still doesn’t stop one from sweating profusely. (The quantity of salt I consume regularly is half-amazing, half-sickening.) However, Orodara, located 80 km southwest of Bobo-Dioulasso, is the fruit basket of Burkina and is blessed with the sweetest oranges and mangoes selling for a dollar a bucket (20-some pieces of fruit a bucket) along the side of the road.
I’ve met one other foreigner in Orodara, an American Peace Corps volunteer who is finishing her second year of service. We’ve exchanged text messages since July and finally met in January, when I was in Orodara for meetings and she joined us for lunch. I liked her immediately. My collaborators seemed to enjoy learning, as much as we did, that we were from neighboring towns in California. She’s been kind and generous, sharing her knowledge of the area and customs, and validating that it’s okay to cry (especially when one’s colleagues are all Burkinabe males who respond to tears with, “You will not cry again!”) She introduced me to a friend of hers – a 50-year-old woman who made rice and peanut sauce lunch for us one day – and helped me furnish my house by taking me to the carpenter near her home.
Rainy season arrived in early May with a deluge of rain on a Friday night. On Saturday morning, the coordinating team left Orodara to travel to the village where the survey team was based. The road was washed out just 2 km from the village center, delaying our arrival for our weekly team meeting while we were on one side of the “river”, the team on the other. The rain stopped and we waited for the water to recede to a level safe enough to pass, about 30 minutes. Two hours later, there was not a trace of washout. Everything is becoming green again; the signs of life are refreshing. The sad, lone tree in front of my house has grown new leaves and is no longer so pathetic – it actually provides some shade for the guard so the garage isn’t the only respite from the sun.
Life here is pretty quiet (apart from my neighbors’ two small children, rooster, and puppy). I’m learning to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it’s not here. I don’t have the internet installed at home, and the connection at the office is sporadic; it’s alternately frustrating and liberating. Occasionally, I feel lonely and wish to be able to contact family or friends via email or Skype; the lack of connection is especially difficult to accept at those times. I spend evenings and weekends reading and writing, and enjoying the solo time for these activities. It’s still too hot to contemplate any form of exercise other than launching myself into one of the pools in Bobo. My activity for the moment is walking into town and back, often carrying a bag of oranges or mangoes. I can ride home from the office on my bike in 5 minutes, so I come home for lunch around 1 in the afternoon and sometimes even take a nap before returning to work later in the afternoon. I’ve adapted to the local schedule and am think it may difficult to eventually re-adapt to quick lunch hours in the U.S.
My 32nd birthday was a memorable one. The two medical officers for the project (one of whom is my neighbor) walked into the office that morning and wished me happy birthday and gave me the traditional Burkina festive greeting of four head bumps (akin to New Year’s). I baked Mexican chocolate cake (and even made frosting since I found powdered sugar in Bobo, and real butter in the best-stocked shop in Orodara) and brought it into the office to share with everyone, and invited the coordinating team to my house for spaghetti dinner that night.
One afternoon recently, the study physicians and I went to a party at the district health office, hosted in honor of the new physician in charge of the health district. It was a classic Burkina ceremony and party: speeches by important people recognizing all the important people in attendance (following protocol!), loud music, drinks, and grilled chicken. It was a nice time, and I recognized many people present. Even though solely work-related, I feel like I am finally getting to know more people here – in particular people like the nurses and physicians and administrative staff – and I appreciate their support of our project. I often see individuals zipping around town on their motos and they’ll always smile and wave when we see each other. They love to give me a bad time about riding my bike or walking around town – they call it “sport” and say, “Ah! You like to do sport!” even though I wouldn’t exactly consider it “sport” when I coast downhill on my bike en route to work or town.
The logistics coordinator/administrator walked into my office the other day and delivered an envelope addressed to “Mr. le Director, Projet ZINK, Orodara” which made me smile for the formality of the address and the assumption that “le director” was a man, as well as the all-caps zinc with a “k” and shortened version of our project name (which I quite like since, as far as I know, we’re the only zinc project in Orodara and I appreciate the conciseness of it). I turned the envelope over and saw that it was from the Kung Fu club of Orodara. (I didn’t know there was a Kung Fu club here, or that they knew of our existence.) Inside was a slip of paper with an invitation to their show and ceremony on Saturday. I asked the administrator to post the invitation in our common area and then I kept the envelope, simply because it makes me smile.
Since I’ve not had steady internet connection since moving to our field site, Orodara, in mid-March, the blog has taken a long siesta. It’s been hard to summon the energy to write during the past couple of months as it’s been extremely hot and the transition has been difficult. I’ve never really embraced transitions; as exciting as something new can be it’s hard to leave something familiar. After 6 months in Bobo-Dioulasso, I was beginning to feel comfortable there but recognize that if something’s too easy, it’s time to move on. I recently read a quote by Alain Bashung that has stayed with me: “If everything’s complicated, it’s not working; if everything’s simple, it’s not enough.”
My first impressions of my new home were pleasant surprise: a newly constructed home with tile floors, a ceiling fan in the living room area, 2 bedrooms, a bathroom with a toilet, shower, and a sink (albeit the size of an airplane sink). There’s even a kitchen, although no sink, no counters, and one plug outlet. It’s on the edge of town, literally at the border, with an empty field across the dirt road: a colleague visited and remarked, “The view reminds me of my village; it’s quiet, nothing in sight!” Yes, not much in sight, but my main collaborator lives next door to me and around the corner is a new acquaintance – the woman who works at the copy shop where we photocopied hundreds of test survey forms during our first two weeks in town.
Leslie stayed with me for the first week, helping us with the survey training before she returned to California. I was grateful for her company and her enthusiasm about the house, despite a lack of furniture other than two deck chairs, no running water during the day, a leaky shower head, and a broken toilet. We’d run outside to turn on the water at night for a shower and then run outside after to turn it off, lest the shower drip all night. And not just drip-drop, but a continuous stream of water that could collect 5 liters of water in just a few hours.
For breakfast, we ate packages of biscuits and drank Nescafe made with room temperature bottled water. Lunches and dinners for the first week were variations of rice and sauce, eaten with the team during the training sessions, and at the restaurant in the evenings. My ankles were swollen by the end of each day after eating so much MSG in the Maggi cubes added to all meals prepared here. I spent each evening laying on the floor of the living room, with my legs outstretched up against the wall in attempt to reduce the swelling. Leslie found this highly amusing and would occasionally join me.
Unfortuantely, my nice welcome to Orodara was interrupted. Not two days after Leslie left, I returned home from the last day of survey team training to discover my front window torn apart. A thief had broken the weak iron shutter and twisted the window covering to force entry. My belongings were scattered everywhere; it looked like a windstorm had blown everything around the living room. My neighbors (3 of my collaborators sharing the “bachelor pad” next door) came over right away; two of them went straight to the police to file a report and returned with two officers. I paced frantically, unsure of the extent of the damage and assuming the worst.
My senior collaborator arrived with the team driver and gave me hug. Already fragile and on the verge of tears, I was so surprised by this gesture, and from him, that I started crying.(Burkinabe greet family, close friends, colleagues, and strangers alike, with a handshake. One of my American colleagues once tried to hug a Burkinabe colleague upon her departure and it was so awkward that we all laughed about it.) When we went inside, I discovered that the thief took things that, although adding up to probably a couple of hundred dollars’ worth, were replaceable: my radio, voltage regulators, fabric, my backpack. Passport and other personal items were okay, and fortunately, I had not been home and was safe and in good health.
After the police wrote down the items missing and left, my colleagues sat with me on the porch and told story after story. Maybe it’s just the Burkinabe way, to tell a good story and get a laugh out of the audience for the love of a good story, or maybe just how they’ve learned to pass time when there’s not enough electricity to stay awake reading, no television, no internet. I half-listened; my French isn’t fluent enough to fully understand, and I didn’t have the energy to concentrate hard enough. But I was grateful for the distraction and the company. They brought food and beer, and though I had appetite for neither, I nibbled some bread and rice and sauce and took a few sips of beer and shared the rest with my neighbor. We sat outside until midnight then everyone retired. I was quite touched by their support. My main collaborator, and neighbor, slept at my house, on a spare mattress under the broken window that night, and the driver organized for the window to be replaced the following morning. My senior collaborator facilitated the placement of 24-hour guards at the house the following night; they’ve been here ever since.
It’s taken a while for me to feel comfortable at home again. Some nights I would lie awake, afraid that someone would try to break in again. On multiple occasions I considered moving to another house, closer to our office and closer to town, but discovered that housing is limited, especially with indoor plumbing. Other times I felt angry and wanted to simply toss in the towel and leave. But, running away was not the solution. I’d think about how someone had tried to steal my car in Seattle as a reminder that no place is immune to crime.
As expected, with time, it’s gotten better, and I’m feeling more at home. I’m grateful to live next door to my collaborator and close friend, and to have become more at ease with the team and my new surroundings. I’ve also figured out that the water is on from 8 pm until 6 am, and again from about 1 pm until 3 pm, so I can stock water and have a shower during those times. I also hired a woman to clean the house, wash clothes and dishes, and do some food shopping for me, which makes life exponentially easier. The guard calls me “Patron” even though he knows my name. He greets me, “Bonjour, Patron!” and occasionally asks if I would like him to wash my bicycle. I keep insisting he call me Shelby but I can only assume that Patron is easier.
The transition has been smoother as I’ve started to make it my house my home: I now have an armoir, bed, table and chairs, bookshelf, gas stove, and small refrigerator. The night that my bed was delivered by the carpenter, it felt almost ceremonious to take down my camping tent, hang my mosquito net, and declare to myself, “I live here.” It felt wonderful to sleep on a mattress that was off the floor and I almost felt giddy to take my clothes out of plastic bags on the floor and fold them on a shelf or hang them in the armoir.
Furthermore, after working on this project for a year, we have finally started to collect data (a major milestone in any research project). It’s exciting to see it in motion after months and months of writing protocols, calculating personnel needs and budgets, revising timelines, developing staff training programs and data collection tools.
Third time is indeed a charm, when it comes to office space. We initially planned to renovate a government-owned building that would have been rent-free and close to town. However, the list of repairs kept growing, faster than the marks left by termites who were in the process of taking down the building, which was more of a tear-down than a fixer-upper. Relieved to hear that our team was abandoning that option, the next possibility was a new villa not far from the two houses rented for my collaborator and me. Although I was wary of living next door to the office, the convenience factor was favorable and the building was available. There were just a “few finishing touches” to be completed before we moved in. However, the installations were anything but speedy and this was quickly abandoned when the amount of work left to be completed far outweighed the work that had been completed.
For a while, we created space to work wherever we could: under a tree, in my living room, or borrowing a meeting room at the district health office. Our search for office space stopped when we discovered two houses located just off the paved road and halfway between the town center and my house. The houses are nearly twins, and across the road from one another; while one has larger rooms, the other has an enormous mango tree with lots of shade. Space for staff won over the mango tree (although we asked–-only half-jokingly—if we could move the mango tree to the other house) and we moved in two weeks later. Our office is spacious, with rooms for the coordinating team, data entry team, survey managers, logistics and administrative staff, a kitchen that will be transformed into the laboratory, and a driveway to securely keep the two study vehicles and the dozen motorcycles.
Off we go to Orodara, our field site. It's been a move delayed several times but we are finally packed and going. Orodara is the fruit basket of Burkina; luckily we're arriving at the start of the mango season! I have a feeling that sitting under a mango tree will be my respite from the 95-100F temps lately. I am still perplexed by how much stuff I have managed to collect; fortunately most of it will stay here when the time comes for me to return home. The study staff and drivers are helping me move, for which I am grateful. Apparently there is no such thing as too much stuff piled on one car. The finesse of packing logistics.
There are two houses located around the corner from our study office -- one house is for me and one for my main collaborator, who will be my neighbor. I haven't seen the inside of the house yet but from the outside it looks nice and, well, blue. I only recall the paint is very blue. We start another training session on Wednesday, with 30 interviewers who will collect data for our phase one survey (collecting socio-demographic information and interviewing caregivers of young children about health practices). Soon we'll be out of the office and into the field -- visiting households in urban and rural areas of the health district -- finally!
I wasn’t feeling well for a while, and after some serious GI issues and a fever overnight, I went to the clinic in the morning and the doctor prescribed an antibiotic, a de-worming tablet, and Immodium (to cover the broad spectrum of issues). He also took a blood sample to check for an infection and malaria (paludisme, or “the palud” as my coworkers call it).
I started the antibiotic and drank a lot of fluids and lay in bed for a few hours. I visited the clinic again in the afternoon to get the results, which showed that I had malaria, too. Awesome. The doctor explained that when the body is run down (like with diarrhea), even while taking daily malaria prophylaxis (and taking other preventive measures like sleeping under a bednet and using bug spray) it is possible to get malaria. He said that if I weren't taking the doxycycline, it is likely I would have a severe malaria, but not the case now. He prescribed a 3-day course of treatment which my housemate went to the pharmacy to fill for me. The treatment was 4 pills in the morning and 4 pills in the evening for 3 days. My system was a bit of a wreck after all the meds at once and no food in it.
My housemates were extremely helpful, feeding me lots of fluids and rehydration salts until my system could handle something solid. During this time, the water was cut several times, making it nearly impossible to hang in there while the daytime temperatures rose to 104F, with little relief at night. I was out of work for a week and only left the house to go to the clinic twice.
Despite how miserable I felt, there were lots of people helping to take care of me, with coworkers calling to check in on me (or stopping by the house even), and the doctor said I could call any time (in fact, he's the director of the clinic and at first asked if I were a Peace Corps Volunteer since he treats most of them). My coworkers were impressed that I managed to get myself sick with both of our major study outcomes simultaneously (diarrhea and malaria). Somebody, (Jess, this is your cue) find a vaccine!!
Recently I received a message from the plumber who fixed our kitchen sink a few weeks ago. He wrote, "Bonjour, I would like to inform you that I gave your prenom, Shelby, to my daughter, born 21/01/10. I hope you will come to meet her." Although I had to read it a few times to make sure I understood, I immediately thought it was quite endearing.
My housemate, upon hearing this, exclaimed, “La petite Shelby!” She read the message and suggested that they may be looking for a "godmother" from the U.S. Unsure of how to proceed, I asked one of my Burkinabe collaborators for advice. He’s a father of teenage kids and a huge smile spread across his face when I read the text message. He confirmed that they wanted me to be the godmother; which meant that when I visit, I should bring a gift. He elaborated, “They like the name, and you must have left a nice impression. It’s very nice! OK, since it’s a girl, bring four pieces of soap as cadeau.”
I asked, “Why four?”
“Because girls get four, and boys get five. They’re supposed to get three, according to tradition, but three is too few and it must be different than what girls receive, so boys get five,” he explained. “Anyways, give soap and maybe a piece of clothing or something for the baby.”
I thanked him for his advice and checked with a female collaborator regarding exactly which type of soap one buys. She advised well because after I went to visit last week, the family sent a message saying, “A thousand thanks for coming to visit and for bringing us a gift. Infinite thanks. Stay in contact and have a good evening.”
I took a taxi to a landmark in Bobo (the “sweeping lady” statue – a bronze of a woman with a broom in her hand) and Petite Shelby’s dad picked me up on his moto. We drove down the main paved road, then turned off on an unpaved road and drove to the house through a busy neighborhood with lots of kids playing in the courtyards.
When we arrived, I was offered a chair and introduced to Petite Shelby’s grandmother, mother, two aunts, and a neighbor. All the women, except one aunt, spoke only Dioula, so it was the usual mix of French and charades and a few key greetings in Dioula. It was very sweet, mom nursed the baby then wrapped her in a cloth over her outfit and handed her to me. She’s a beautiful little baby and looks healthy. Her ears were pierced already and a few pieces of string through them, signifying that she’s a girl. She was nearly asleep by the time I gave her back to mom!
I presented the gift to Petite Shelby’s grandmother (as her dad said is protocol) and she thanked me but did not open it. I was hoping to watch them open it, not only because half the fun of giving gifts at home is watching the reactions of the recipients, but because I had tucked into the bag a small box with a silver keychain-become-pendant with “Shelby” engraved on it. My parents sent it from Seattle for me because my mom is seeing magnets and the like with my name written on it (a rare find when I was a child), but said that it would be a nice gift for Petite Shelby.
I stayed for about an hour, then as it turned dark, “asked for the road” (as is protocol here). As I left the house, I had a brief lesson in Dioula farewells and exchanged lots of laughs with all the women before Petite Shelby’s dad took me home on his moto. I hope to see them all again before long.
In Koudougou there was lots of head-bumping: left, right, left, right. It’s the traditional New Year’s greeting, accompanied by the phrase, “Santé, Prospérité, Moins de Problemes” (health, properity, few problems) and sometimes an additional “best wishes.” For the following week at work, we were still bumping heads and wishing everyone happy new year. It still makes me laugh every time I shake someone's hand and they bump my head four times. I can't imagine the same greeting in America, but it makes me smile and reminds me that I find Burkina is remarkable for the people. I’m most impressed with the sense of pride that people have in their country and their traditions, and their sense of humor, particularly in light of limited resources. Most people I have met here through work say they wouldn’t want to leave: this is home.
As Christmas approached I was feeling homesick and wishing I had booked a ticket home to be with my family and friends there, despite a few jovial souls keeping me company as my two housemates and I prepared for our first Christmas away from home. I decided that a change of scenery was necessary. My housemates were easily convinced into the idea of taking a trip to the beach in Ghana, until we realized that we could fly to Paris for the same price as a ticket from Ouagadougou to Accra, and the same route by bus would take 25 hours. Instead, we opted to travel within Burkina, avoiding the hassles of getting a visa and reducing our bus travel time by about 23 hours. We chose Banfora, located about 80 km southwest of Bobo, as our destination for Christmas as we’d heard that there are peaks to climb and hippos to see, and that it’s a beautiful, green area with waterfalls, sugar cane and rice fields.
Our friend Bo gave us the name and phone number of a good friend of his in Banfora and we contacted him when we arrived. In typical Burkinabe hospitable fashion, he asked when he could meet us to show us around, and we settled on meeting at our hotel at 5pm. We had a cold bissap and learned that he teaches English in Orodara, where our study will take place. He led us on foot around Banfora, bustling with traffic hauling goods along the main road (from Ouagadougou to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire), tourists, and the end of the market day. We stopped three times so he could greet people he knew.
We ate Christmas Eve dinner at a restaurant called McDonald’s – fortunately not the yellow arches (which I have yet to see in West Africa) but a charming family-run place serving grilled fish and frites (French fries). We returned to our hotel to find a concert in progress so we ordered a ½ bottle of wine and enjoyed the music… until we went to bed and suddenly the disco next door started blaring techno so loud that it caused the masks decorating our walls to thump and thud with the bass. I was afraid one would come crashing down on my face. Not exactly my idea of a Merry Christmas.
Christmas morning was sleepy, sunny, and hot. We lazed around, drinking coffee and going to the pool at the hotel. Feeling the urge to “do something” we made arrangements for a guide to take us to the domes of Fabedougou, volcanic rocks that apparently are a favorite spot for West African artists to film their music videos. We climbed to the top and enjoyed the 360-view by ourselves for a bit, then were joined by another group of people. We were perched atop one of the domes, admiring the view of the sugar cane fields and waiting for the sunset, nearly half-asleep enjoying the peace and quiet of the area, when our guide lit a cigarette and started playing music on his cell phone, piercing the silence. My heart sank and I couldn’t help but scowl and think, “Why would you spoil a such perfectly chill moment?” just as the other group of people looked up at us with what I interpreted to be the same thought. But then someone laughed and we all giggled and started to boogie.
My housemate Robin heard the other group speaking Spanish and liked their reaction to the music sparring between our domes, so she sauntered over to chat. As with every resident of countries outside the US, these folks spoke nearly flawless English and were a group of friends from Barcelona traveling around Burkina for two weeks.
The next morning we were up early and met Bo’s friend at 8 and set off in search of hippos. We drove on motorbikes to Lake Tengrela, about 10 km from Banfora on a red dirt road, and spent the morning floating on the lake. We didn’t see any hippos but it felt great to be out on the water, especially since someone else was paddling (and made us flower necklaces as cadeau!).
We set off on a second hippo hunt after lunch, this time with a brother of a friend of a second cousin of someone leading us along another red dirt road to an unnamed lake. We stopped for a minute on the motorbikes to wait for a couple of others to catch up after stopping to buy fuel, and 10 children came running out of the courtyard connecting of a set of banco (traditional construction materials, a mix of mud and straw and earth) homes together, yelling “La Blanche!” and shyly shook my hand and stared at me, giggling wildly.
We flew down the road on motorbikes, over a small bridge under which people were washing clothes in the river and past sugar cane fields. We left the main dirt road and continued along singletrack to a clearing where I could see a lake covering in lillypads, framed by the surrounding fields and hills. We arrived wind-blown and sun-kissed, and walked down a path to the water’s edge where we found two pirogues (wooden canoes) sitting on the dry land. One of the guys picked up a huge branch and jumped into one of the canoes and pushed off into the water to check for leaks in the boat. Once we established that water was not collecting in the boats, we took the boats out on the lake in search of hippos. After 2 hours of floating along, watching the fishermen cast their nets, birds flying overhead, and the irrigation system in action over the sugar cane fields, we turned back towards dry land. At that moment, we heard a noise that was a hippo, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
We rode back into Banfora as the sun was setting. I had the feeling that I often have at the end of a day skiing or hiking: content, exhausted, wind-blown, and purely spent… only I had spent the day sitting in a canoe while someone else did the hard work, or sitting on the back of a motorbike. I was filthy by the end of the day – both Robin and Nancy told me that I looked like a street urchin, covered in dust and dirt combined with sweat and sunblock – but happy. It felt like one of those days in Africa where anything seems possible.
We showered and met Amadou and his wife and son for dinner, to say thank you for the tour of Banfora. It was a really lovely dinner, and their 16-month-old son was both a comedian and a charmer. As we said goodbye outside the restaurant, a group of people arrived in a 4x4 and approached the front door. I was in the middle of tickling the 16-month-old when I looked up to see it was the party of traveling Spaniards. The restaurant was closing and we were on our way to another place to go dancing, so we decided to go together and ended up dancing the night away before returning to Bobo the next morning.
The following Monday, we received a text message with an invitation to join the Spaniards in Koudougou to celebrate the New Year. One of them was involved in the design of a new cultural center and there were special activities planned for the weekend. Robin and Nancy and I live together and work together, and the Christmas holiday was approaching borderline too much togetherness. As keen as we were to meet up with the others (new people!), not everyone had equal enthusiasm for traveling together.
Robin wrote a message to me at work on Skype saying, “I need a vacation from work and work people.”
I wrote back, “Including me?”
“Especially you,” she responded, then looked up at me across the table and started giggling. “Oh, Shelby.”
In the end, we decided to go and survived the 7-hour bus ride, with live chickens on board, no air conditioning, Robin sitting on top of my lap for most of it, and me sitting on Nancy while we shared my headphones. (7 hours thanks to someone forgetting to attach the wheel after the bus had been in the shop for 6 months of repairs!) It was well worth it; we had a blast touring the newly constructed cultural center, dinner at the mayor’s house, dance party ‘til 4 in the morning under the blue moon, and another party the following day, with traditional dancing and music from local and traveling troupes. The best part? An open invitation to visit Barcelona anytime.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I went to Mali last weekend to meet with a friend/colleague from Vancouver who is working on a nutrition project in rural Mali. I was thrilled when she suggested we meet in Segou – I was ready to see a familiar, friendly, and female face!
Segou was lovely. It’s a small, sleepy town along the Niger River, with a few good restaurants and some beautiful crafts for sale. Nicole and I took advantage of all the shops in close proximity and bought pottery, baskets, and textiles. My bag was quite heavy on the return to Burkina! We visited a workshop where the artists make cotton cloth and paint it with a mixture of clay, mud, soap, or medicinal plants. The traditional designs are absolutely breathtaking. We watched the artists working and I bought one Bogolon cloth, and one Gala (made from the leaves of the indigo tree).
Nicole and I traded stories from the field and life in Mali/Burkina, enjoyed pizza and cold beer at a restaurant overlooking the river, and relished the hot shower, air conditioning, and comfortable bed in the hotel room. We also watched parts of the World Cup in real time. Nicole was in East Africa recently to teach a short course in nutrition and flew through Nairobi on the return. She beamed as she opened her bag and said that she had brought me a gift: Kenyan coffee! When I thanked her she laughed and said that she knew Pacific Northwesterner appreciation of good coffee.
