Tuesday May 29, 2007

Its been a while since posting. We are now in Leo, having arrived from Ouagadougou (Ouaga) yesterday Monday.

So that is a story. Sunday, we went to church with Tatania. It was an Evangelical service, celebrating the Pentacost. Now, I am sorely lacking in my knowledge of all religions, so I explained what I could of the French to Emily, and she explained back to me what she could of the service. It ended up being a good trade, mostly. Overall though, much explaining couldn’t be done, as we couldn’t talk a whole lot. I had mixed feelings about the morning. The singing and spirit in the building was incredible and wonderful, though I had a difficult time with some of the more intensely religious aspects. Still, a very interesting experience, and we hope to continue attending religious (community) gatherings as we move around. We both agree that is important and valuable.

As the service ended, before we could even get up to move out, a lady began speaking to us. She introduced herself as Dorothy, a missionary from Saskatchewan, who had heard, through the embassy, that we were arriving, and was very excited to meet us. She had been in Ouaga for a few days, and was headed back to Leo the next day. Turns out, so were we. She offered to drive us down, and after some details being worked out with Tatania, that is exactly what we did.

(The rest of Sunday included a walk around where we were staying and taking pictures of children, Emily having a potentially ‘catastrophic’ episode because of the simple act of kneeling to play with some children, which we believe she escaped, with great poise, creativity, and just plain luck, and the end result of gaining some towels, but I’ll let here tell that story if she chooses J, and some good chats about everything).

On Monday, we drove down from Ouaga to Leo, on a beautifully paved road, in a car with air conditioning, in the company of Dorothy and Pascal. It was an uneventful trip, pleasant and relaxing, and gave us the opportunity to ask some ‘foreign people trying to be okay in Burkina’ questions, which was good, and had proved difficult on some other occasions where we attempted. Driving is a bit of an experience. With cars sharing the road with massive trucks (which sometimes break down), motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, and animals, the horn is involved frequently enough in driving that it is something I could actually envision wearing out in cars here. Seriously, its used more driving on a straight highway than one would have to use the turn signals and breaks together when driving in downtown Charlottetown. (For those unfamiliar, Charlottetown has a lot of stop signs, lights, and oddly placed intersections, as old parts of towns do). Honk at some goats, swerve across the road to avoid the donkey-pulled cart, squeeze between the oncoming truck and the ‘moto’ (motorcycle) on the shoulder, HONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNKK to warn the cyclists we are coming and that they have to stop swerving.

I should also mention, anything can be carried on a bike. Children strapped across the back, loads of wood and lumber, metal pipes balanced and sticking out perpendicular to the bike so it becomes a 3 meter wide load… incredible, and, as Emily keeps saying, “Beaucoup de talent!”

So that was driving. We then went to Dorothy’s house, which is a story all on its own, but which I won’t tell here. Three guesses why? (Correct answer is that I don’t know how to tell it).

Dorothy then took us up to where we are staying (a funeral altered plans somewhat), a little ways outside of Leo proper. We are at what we understand is usually a trades school, though they are currently on vacation. It is clearly a well-off area. Biggest difference between here and Ouaga is the greenery. Ouaga was very dry and dusty, with but a few green garden areas. Here, we have trees all over the place, gardens and flowers, and actual grass growing in some places. Its quite spectacular. We were outside playing with some children, ages maybe 4 to 6, for much of the afternoon here, tossing Frisbees, and digging. At one point, I convinced them that they needed to give us a tour, and Em and I wandered around the yard, pointed at trees and plants, and asked what they were. So, now (and Linden will be pleased to know), we have been introduced to a mango tree (with mangoes on it, they hang down from the trees on stems about 30 cm long, and look almost like they were added to the tree like Christmas decorations), and ‘calités’ (sp?), which are shea fruits (apparently, one can eat the fruit, and the nuts are used for oil, which is used to make shea butter) (apologies if shea isn’t the right spelling, someone will correct it). At first I was convinced they were baby mangoes, but no. A whole bunch of other stuff too, we had them point out ‘les poules’ (chickens) and ‘le coq’ (the rooster, which, importantly, crows regularly).

Ah, and a question. We keep seeing goats, except some of them are apparently sheep, so I guess I need to look closer; I should probably see the difference easily, but am not yet (when the fact that we were calling some of them the wrong thing was announced).

We were also impressed by ‘les ânes’ (donkeys), though that diminished significantly overnight as they made horrible screaming noises and woke us up.

That’s another story. Slept for the first time without air conditioning, and still survived. We have power here from 6 to 10pm, which is when it gets dark, and ends at a good time to go to bed. Still, may aim for bed at 9pm, giving us an hour when we can have the fan going while we fall asleep, which might help a bit. We aren’t convinced the temperatures are as high here as Ouaga, where it went up well past 40 Celsius one day (40 degrees was what it was at 4pm), but it is much more humid.

We are now with Pascaline (not to be confused with Pascal), who we believe will be with us for the rest of our stay. She is translating for us, which is only okay for the French, but will be excellent to have for when we need to communicate in Sissali (the main language in Boura). I’m really looking forward to going to Boura and starting work. Today was spent stopping in to visit with the different NGOs and schools we will come visit again properly in here later on in the summer, and is getting me thinking about what we’ll be doing. We are still hoping for some clarification or confirmation of what BoH is looking for from us, not entirely sure if we’ll get that though.

Gah, its hot.

Other news? We’ve seen still very few mosquitos, and have yet to sleep under nets or put on bug spray. We were saying yesterday it would be funny (and more than a little terrifying) if we didn’t see any while we were here, but so far we haven’t, which is curious. Its still hot, though we are aware that we are getting better at the heat, slowly. We will get to cook for ourselves in Boura, which should be interesting. Mangoes are the greatest thing ever. I carried a butter knife (with serated edges) in my hand luggage on the way here, though they nearly took away my carabeener from my camera case. (I know, that’s a while ago, life happens). If I’m helping Emily with French (which she is picking up increadibly fast; also, she is the only person I know who actually study a dictionary, and is also learning from reading it!), she is returning the favor by teaching me music from the collection on her computer. Tomorrow marks the one week mark, hard to imagine. Hard to imagine the 9 to come. Oranges here aren’t orange, but more lemon coloured, and very tasty.

That’s enough news for now.