Veggies

one of the markets I frequent - it's just behind the NL embassy

(I got my ear bent for taking the photo) - I explained that I go weekly to get my veg and that it was an impression and not zooming in on anyone, and it was to show my friends and family where I get my veg from

veg score!

I tend to go to one lady for my veg - I stray occasionally if I've spotted fresher produce - since otherwise its a bit of a hassle, with everyone trying to offer you each kind of veggie - I will never want to buy turnips or radishes even if they are a bargain!

Fruit usually comes from a variety of sources as she only has lemons, and requires eagle eyes at the side of the road

Cat-ch up

Below are some sneaky (read blurry) pics of Sophavet Clinic on Av Charles de Gaulle - where we took Nev

 

 looks really clean and hygienic doesn't it

Oh wait no it doesn't.  Look away now if you don't like ick

 this was about 10 days after he was injured - about when he started eating again.  The sticky icky open-ness above and below got cat litter stuck in it when he went to the loo and we had to try and pick it out

20 or so days after injury
Yes this last photo does look like a scary voodoo monkey foot or something - this is due to the fact that its a bald cat foot.  Close inspection of both Nevs other foot and Mustis lead us to believe that cat "thumbs" are shorter than the fingers, with the claw at an angle - we were worried that he'd lost the tip of his paw - but mostly cats paws have lots of fur.  He lost his in a big icky flap that we had to warn Habibou about as we weren't sure where he'd left it ..urgh.

He's speedy gonzalez on three legs now, and even escaped captivity last night and did ok outside (tonight the double lock goes on the catflap).  Still a bit worried that he's not putting weight on the bad foot, but he does use it, and puts it down when sitting. Paws crossed that he heals up completely now.

Sugar apples

well its vreemde fruit time again (strange fruit - it alliterates nicely in dutch though - kind of)




its known locally as pomme canelle - cinnamon apple - sounds good doesn't it? English translation is sugar apple its a relative of the coeur de bouef we tried in Rwanda

meh- more childrens fruit - which is code for fiddly without much actual fruit, its sweet, not too juicy, a bit like a pear - no hint of cinnamon though, or even caramel like the large Rwandan cousin. You eat the white bits round the pips.

Socially responsable food

Last night we had a lovely meal in a socially responsible restaurant.

It was a bit bumpy and dark to get there, but we found it easily. They were out of chicken, so Hazel had the brochette and chips and I had spaghetti bolognaise with an order of aloco (fried bananas) on the side. Not that I needed the aloco, but I just love them.















The restaurant is set up by a german lady who runs several projects at the same time. She also runs a farm to educate mainly boys, we visited that and posted about some months ago. As a small extra source of income you can also buy some souvenirs there. These are the items made by the kids as part of their training scheme.

I found a postcard with cutest picture on it. Babies are carried on the back of their mother (or older sister) so this little girl is practising.



















On the website you can see the projects and some more pictures.

http://en.sahel.org/

For those in Ouaga










GPS: N12 21 35.1 W1 29 19.5

Maison du peuple

Saturday we went to the bazaar organized in honor of the 50th anniversary of the peace corps in Burkina.

Some stands were the predictable tacky souvenirs. Others were several local organisations who try to make some money by selling stuff. This varies from homemade soap to handbags and paintings.















All in all not very exciting, but a good reason to get out of the house. And what is more up to now, we hadn't seen the 'maison du peuple' (house of the people) yet.
































Apparently the elephant in front of the building is a good place to have your picture taken.

In the evening there was a big concert of Floby, a well known Burkinabé rap artist, or so we were told. Because he is so popular we did not go, over 1000 people packed together in the 30 degree weather, not our thing.



















Waitresses in the background with their plastic baskets.

We had a nice beer afterwards. If you have a beer here they take it you like to do some shopping, several sellers past our table; telephones, shoes, clothes, pens... we could have had it all!

Because the weather was good and it was not too late we decided to face the tourist crap sellers. All our friends with very original and authentic art for very low prices, I don't know how to bring across irony in writing.

As we were driving away a angry disappointed young man blamed us for having a car and not buying his small bicycles. The fact that we explained before that we already have several and that we can not buy something from everyone does not seem to change the rule that if you have a car you should buy his bicycles. Strange that we didn't know this rule.













Proof.

Pizza surprise

Today we had a lunch with all the staff as kind of teambuilding. My colleague put a nice flyer together as invite. On this invite she decided to put down a makebelieve word: Musring. So naturally we all started guessing what it could be. The winner was someone who said it is the local word for bat. So he expected some pizza with bat meat topping. During the meal it became apparent the no bat was involved with making the pizza. However as big surprise our local secretary came out with a pot. At first I didn't believe it, but when I looked in the pot it was undeniable: a bat in some sort of soup. I was intrigued but when I actually smelled it I lost any kind of appetite for trying it. It might have been mostly because of the sauce, but it smelled like the bat died a while ago; cheese put in an old sock and carried in an old ladies armpit.
My only dutch collegue who was brave enough to try it assured me that it tasted like it smelled, he is not in advertising.





























Starting lunch
































No not an alien taking a bath. It is a bat in sauce.



















The face says it all.

The bat didn't go to waste, and it wasn't a special order, but is available widely at this time of year when hunting bats is legal.

Update Neville Trapclaw

We took Neville back Sunday for a second anti-biotic shot and Monday to take the bandage off.

The Monday came with an unpleasant surprise as the bandage came off. Some maggots came crawling out the poor cats paw. As became apparent the trap made a hole on the bottom of his foot which was not cleaned at the first inspection. The vet took some maggots out and sprayed the foot with a lot of blue desinfectant. We took a big spray home for follow up cleaning. That day Hazel took several more maggots out of a complaining Neville.

Over the last week Neville did not do much apart from hiding from us and sleeping. We had to do several check a day, spraying his foot with anti-sceptic and pushing out some pus. Only this weekend he started eating almost like normal. To our joy he is acting also more catlike, he washed himself, asked for food in the kitchen and most importantly tried to escape. For the time being he is sleeping in the spare bedroom with his own ensuite toilet. He enjoys the priviliges of being ill: getting food at odd times, even get some brought to you, getting more attention and he even got to sit in Hazels spot. His wound is still open, so he will be housebound for at least another week.

Poor Neville

This morning when I got up Hazel, who was up earlier, came to me "quick come, Neville needs help". Neville was hiding behind the big charcoal bag, looking very dirty and at closer inspection had a trap on his paw. So I picked him up, the guard took the trap off, Haze got the travel box and off we went to the vet. His paw looked very flat.

Neville is a lucky bloke, I still don't know how, but his paw is not broken. The lady shaved his paw, one hole in his skin, she put antiseptic stuff on it and gave him antibiotics. Still not sure why it took four people though.

Neville is grounded for about a week, I hope he learned a lesson.














The guard says it is a rat-trap, personally I think it is a bear-trap, that's why there are so few bears here.















Nev still under narcosis.














Musti having a sniff at the funny situation. Why does Nev smell different? What is his basket doing in the living room? Why is Nev not walking properly?















First attempt to get out the basket, followed by many wiggles and falls all through the living room (leaving some drops of urine like an old man). He finally found a quiet dark corner to sleep a bit more.

We'll be returning to the vet twice more at least for antibiotic shots and to get his dressing removed.

At the end of the day he's an outdoor cat, we can't expect him to stay indoors, but we never expected this...

Best hotel

First of all sorry for the delay, caused by slow internet and my illness. As the Beastie Boys would say, it was time to get ill.

We decided to take a small tour towards the north. Keep it simple: Via the museum Manega to Kongousi, stay the night and via Kaya back to Ouaga. Good plan.

So we left on Monday (22nd), the weather was not great, rain, fortunately not very hard rain but it had been non.

The museum is not far, just over an hours drive, there are some great pieces and there is a lot of potential in the place. However, we could not help to get the feeling it was somebodys hobby and a bit eclectic. The worst for me was to see a leeking roof right above very old funeral artifacts, they will be gone within years, such a shame.

http://www.musee-manega.bf

We continued through the rainy country side, the sight of mountains made a nice difference.

We came in Kongousi around lunchtime so dicided to find the hotel. This was not difficult in this small town. Hotel du lac looked all right from the outside. What seemed to us as a completely normal question did surprise the staff; 'can we eat here?' This is not a hotel. ?!?

Luckily we were spotted by what seemed to be the boss, an english speaking man. He explained that his company, ATS, took over the hotel just to house the goldmining staff. He offered us to serve us lunch. After lunch we asked for the road to Kaya; another surprise, the road has become a bit too rough after the rains, but there should be another road halfway back to Ouaga. We took their word for it, not liking to get stuck somewhere in the rain.

Unfortunately we did never saw the road and ended up back in Ouaga, at least we know the hotel there had a very good bed, swimming pool and even two cats.

Determined not to get put down by this trip we went out the next day to Kaya. It took us some time to find the place just outside Kaya discribed by the travel guide as artisanat (artist place). It turned out that it was the house next to the rusty sign. A teenager showed us the few item from the cupboard, no artist inside. We went to the local museum. Not big, the 'guide' was proud of the photos of five generations of chefs, hard to pretend to stay interested. The art of the local artist wasn't great either and "WHY DOES EVERYHING NEEDS TO BE WITH A MESSAGE?" Painting one: women against aids, painting two: disabled schoolboys against drought. etc. As if buying a painting changes anything, furthermore I have not met anybody so far who is pro-aids are want to kill all people with malaria. Sorry for this, needed to let it out.

So, I ordered a quick chicken and chips at the restaurant attached to the museum. It was rather populair and far more important to the local community. The chips and chicken were rather good, however next time I will order either an hour earlier, or I'll order rice and sauce. You guessed it, it took over an hour. Tip for anyone going there, make sure that you made a pee-stop alongside the road before you go there. The hole in the ground was full of flies and the smell was 'not nice'.

Off to the market, especially the local leather part, which Kaya is famous for. We were rather succesful, but you might laugh when you heard which treasures we found. We are as proud on finding two leather bags as of the two plastic watering cans and a tin of grease for the bike/car.

The weather this day (my birthday) was much better and I got this nice picture.

We went out for a lovely meal at night back in Ouaga, a nice closure of two daytrips in stead of a two-day-trip.