Travels

We made it to the Netherlands.

Our flight was Sunday night around 22.00 arriving Monday morning around 8 in Amsterdam. WAS, that is.

Because of the recently imposed curfew our flight was cancelled. Luckily we were able to rebook for the Saturday. Air France decided to place their staff in Cotonu instead of Ouagadougou, cancel half the flights and the flights that are going are brought forward to 19.00. So instead of Sunday 19.00, we were there at Saturday at 15.00: a 4 hours check-in.

The queue for check-in was a nightmare, partly due to the fact that Brussels Airways and Air Burkina were checking in at the same time. My toy bicycle was deemed dangerous and they demanded me to pack it, which would cost as much as the bicycle, so I left it behind ;( (sorry Pa)

After nearly an hour queuing and having our passports checked for at least 4 times (in 30 meters) we went to sit down in the waiting area. This sounds better than it was, we do not need a special business lounge (even thought it would be nice) but even getting a seat was a fight. Finally we had a seat without leg space. Then we were asked to queue again to have our bags checked, still don't know what they were checking for, all this time we had water and sandwiches on us. Imagine the relief when we could go on the bus to go to the plane, 50 meters further. Because of the distance Hazel settled for a seat above the hot motor and I stood. We regretted this after the bus drove 20 meters and waited, and waited, this bus trip cost us 45 minutes. So after 4 hours we were less than a mile away from our house. But we had a comfortable seat.

Arriving in Cotonu they announced that we would wait there for 90 minutes, this is annoying, not that it matters if you fly or stand still, but because taking off later means a later dinner. We had our dinner past 22.00 and just after 23.00 we were still as far from Paris as we were 8 hours earlier as we were flying over Niamey.

The rest of our journey was uneventful, and changing in Paris was not too painful. Because we were a day earlier in The Netherlands than foreseen we stayed in a hotel in Utrecht and enjoyed looking around the changed city.

Now we are in Maastricht and have not very reliable internet, but still we have internet. The weather is lovely and no plans, just enjoying European life. CHEESE.

restless

There have been some demonstrations and problems lately

Partly students, following the suspicious death in police custody of a student

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2011/0316/Will-Burkina-Faso-s-protests-catch-fire-like-Egypt-Tunisia

then on Tuesday night the military went on a bit of a spree

http://www.africasia.com/services/news_africa/article.php?ID=CNG.b6604c40c57ff2dcf34390e9f84b9f96.561

I woke up in the night hearing banging noises, went for a pee, and then back to bed – didn’t realise it was shooting (why would it be?)

Yesterday the embassy was closed in the afternoon (as were all the others) and shops etc in the centre were closed as there were indicators/rumours of more demonstrations and a curfew.

There is a general air of dissatisfaction at the moment, which is grouped together under “la-vie-cher” life is expensive – basically what was last year a living wage, no longer is – as basics such as cooking oil, rice, and two-stroke petrol for motos have all increased in price. No-one thinks that things will take on a revolutionary turn as in Northern Africa, but who knows? However, looking back at the recent history of BF, protests turn heated every 3 years or so, but sparked off by different causes. Perhaps its just part of a cycle.

For the francophones there are reports here http://www.lefaso.net/ and more interesting are the comments.

Bookworms?

I promised Lon I would reduce my book collection before our next move, but this is not quite how I'd planned on weeding them!



This is a 4 parter I've been saving! Luckily out of the 9 or so badly damaged books, only one had got so badly eaten to be rendered un-readable by virtue of missing the last 2-3 lines per page! (and I've already read it) (and it wasn't THAT great)

The bad news is - that no these aren't bookworms, they are termites (one of the hot season specials, the mossies go down, but the termites arrive) - we will have to use chemical warfare - since most of our belongings are either wooden, books or IKEA chipboard. So far they are just in one of the very replaceable Billy bookcases....

Fruit and veg shopping

I try to buy most of my vegetables from the local market. The produce tends to be fresher, much much cheaper and I enjoy the interactions. The selection available isn't usually much different to what you can see here. Potatoes you usually get from dedicated potato stalls. Similarly bananas and plantains.

Here is a typical "local" veg lady

Veg are sold in piles of 100f 200f etc depending on size and quality.

The stalls near the supermarkets have a better seasonal selection of fruit and foreigners vegetables like coriander, plums, broccoli, new potatoes, cherry tomatoes - and the supermarkets themselves have the fancy import lemons, mushrooms, lambs lettuce, iceberg lettuce if you catch them right - but mostly they are elderly sad examples.

However, the veg ladies near the supermarkets tend to be expensive (trying to charge 500f for a 300g bag of green beans, 500f buys you 1.3kg at the market), and also pushy trying to upsell "et les mangues, les radis, le brocolli". Mostly I don't need a kilo of anything except potatoes, so prefer the little piles, and to buy fresh two or three times a week.



and a carrot vendors tray (not actual vendor) - carrot ladies stroll through town, and will peel you one for 50cfa as a snack, as well as selling bunches for 100 or 200.


this isn't actually our neighbourhood market, as somehow its more embarrassing to ask someone you regularly do business with than a complete stranger.

The meat stalls - second and third grade quality meat - I of course buy mine from the supermarket, but I'm not sure that they are much more hygienic!

Burkina wedding

My colleague is married to a Burkinabé, her brother was getting married and we were invited.















Waiting outside townhall





























The bride and groom and ???

Going from the townhall to the party venue we got a surprised. Some women started singing to us and followed us to the car, singing and (we think) wishing us good health. They were surprised that we didn't reward their stalking by paying them.















The entertainment hall with red carpet and balloon heart, like all good weddings.















The girls















All (couple of hundred) guests get a plate of food















The cake

Our roundabout

As mentioned in an earlier blog they took our elephant of the roundabout.

Good news: They put something back.



















A local artist has the honour to put his work at display. Not too bad, however a detail does make us a bit unconfortable. It is not the bird on the back of the cow that looks like a flat chicken. Well, I let the photo speak for itself.

Salif Keita

We had a lovely time at the concert. Good music, unstoppable background singers.
Even dancing public. The pictures tell it all I think.











The secretary reserved places for us, so we were right in the front. Where else in the world can you see a star like this with VIP treatment for 15 euro.












As a sidenote, Salif was rejected by his family as albinos are bad luck. He started in a government sponsored band. An example that good programmes do work. I think it paid itself back a hundredfold.

Culture

Ouagadougou is home to one of the, if not the, bigest film festivals in Africa.
http://www.fespaco-bf.net/

This means a few things:
- Films are shown in the main Fespaco building, the french centre and several cinemas in other quarters of the city.
- Parking fees around these buildings go up from 100 CFA to 500 CFA (0.90 Euro) but organised with tickets
- More white people rooming the streets (often looking artistic: read badly dressed and unwashed hair)
- Souvenir prices go up and it is assumed you are one of them
- A few streets are very busy, closed off or both

So we felt we had to go to a film. To me it looked like the were showing a film at the French Centre in a room called CBC. It turned out that it was actually an entirely different place. The same goes for all the cinemas in the other quarters of town, you are meant to know where they are, no addresses. So we ended up watching 3 short films in the french centre.

Film one 'Drogba est mort' (Drogba is dead). A streetboy dreams of being football star Drogba and gets killed in a roadaccident. The maker explained all sort of deep things behind it which we didn't get. Fact remains simple: streetboys are poor and have dreams that mostly stay dreams. Advantage of this film is that not a word was spoken.

Film two was about a boy who went fishing with his father. At the end of the day they had to hand over the fish to a man to pay of a debt. The boy called them 'photofish'; we see them but can not eat them. One day instead of giving the fish to the boss he sold the fish and paid the boss of with a bit left to buy medicins for his mother. Lesson; give the kids education and try to start a bussiness. Again not very deep. Short film in english, not too difficult even if it had been in an other language.

The last was a bit longer and more weird. A boys father is ill, so he goes to see the witch. The witch gives him 7 tasks; find the sun, help someone, pay a debt ... So everywhere he sees a sun (on a shirt, on a truck...) he follows it and the tasks become clear. He earns some money by saving someone, so he can pay the landlord and when he comes home his father is well. Not sure if there is a deeper meaning. The film was in Kikuyu with very fast french subtitles, luckily the storyline was not too difficult.

Thursday we did what most locals do: First you make sure that traffic is disrupted by crossing without looking and park you moped/car close to the festival grounds preferrably in the way of something. You come in your best dress and walk around the stalls. Depending on your wallet you look at nothing, the cheap jewellery, locally made clothes, imported goods. In that order.
Besides the selling stalls there are a few charity and official stalls. Some of these seem to be just about showing of. You have a leather couch possible a desk with a printer and as decoration some cloth or flags. It seems not neccesary to have visitors. This is a stand we went into, to the surprise of everyone. There was not even someone there to talk to us.



































This is about the fight against women circumcision. Still a lot of girls die this way.

After that you walk around the 'maquis' these are just cheap tables with cheap plastic chairs. There seem to be more of these then anything else. Generally you take your time and try to take as long as possible to drink your one drink. Some of the maquis sell the famous brochettes (meat on a stick). So we sat down, waited 10 minutes for the girl to take our order, took 5 minutes to explain we wanted to share a big beer, so only one, no we share, two glasses, no one beer, yes two glasses. We enjoyed our beer, got the bill, got some dirty looks and discussion because we did not have small money, we know this is a problem, but I really did not have any smalls.
To our own surprise we came home empty handed, not a t-shirt, not even a blow up Spongbob stick or a party nose-moustache combination whith a whistle if you blow through your nose.
It was fun.

So to try and overdose we are seeing Salif Keita tonight. Worldfamous albino singer from Mali.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salif_Keita