Friday…continued (on our way to Lauren’s mudhut for a slumber party)
We were about to hit the road when Lauren called and asked us to pick up some juice or flavoring or something good to serve as a mixer for drinks with supper this evening – she had a bottle of gin. Molly and I went to the tiny boutique next to my house and asked for Jolly Jus (like kool-aid powder, but it only comes in the flavors of orange, pineapple, raspberry, ginger beer, and cola…and it tends to have a weird aftertaste, but oh well). I had never yet bought Jolly Jus from my boutique, but I figured there was a good chance my boutique guy, Omar, had it – he seems to have EVERYTHING in that little 6x6 foot closet of his: flour, oil, sponges, pens, lotion, insecticide, fake hair attachments, etc. This is what happened when we opened our mouth to ask for Jolly Jus:
Me: Avez-vous des jolly jus? ---Do you have jolly juice ?
Omar : Non. ---No.
Molly : Pas de jolly jus ? Ou le soursop ? --- No jolly juice ? Or soursop ? (Another kind of juice mix.)
Omar : Jolly jus ? Ca c’est quoi? ---Jolly juice? What is that ?
Molly/Me (working together as a team to use our awesome French skills to describe what we were looking for, while using dramatic hand gestures and awkward facial expressions) : On bois ca. C’est tres bon. C’est un poudre, comme l’ananas ou orange et il faut ajouter l’eau. Tu melange et puis on peut boire. ---We drink it. It’s very good. It’s a powder, like pineapple or orange (flavored), and you must add water. You mix, then you can drink.
Omar : Je ne comprehnd pas. ---I don’t understand.
Molly : C’est quelque chose de boire ! C’est dans un petit packet – ---It’s something to drink ! It’s in a little packet –
Omar : Ca ? ---This? (With a very, very confused look on his face – almost as if he feared for his life –he reaches behind him and grabs a pack of macaroni off the shelf.)
Me: Non, ca c’est macaroni. C’est pas de jolly jus. On cherche quelque chose de boire. --- No, that’s macaroni noodles. It’s not jolly juice. We’re looking for something to drink.
Omar : Oui, uh-huh! Tu voudrais ca ! ---Yes, uh huh! You would like this! (He holds a packet of soap in front of our faces.)
Molly: Non! On bois le jolly jus. C’est pas de savon ou le macaroni. Mais merci, c’est pas de problème. On va partir maintenant. --- No! We DRINK jolly juice. It’s not soap or macaroni. But thank you, it’s not a problem. We’re going to leave now. (Omar continues to hold random items up, in hopes that we’ll buy them.)
Right as we’re about to step away from the counter, kids run up to the counter, thrust their 25 and 50 CFA coins on the counter, and Omar hands them each a little pink packet…that, strangely, looks a lot like the Jolly Jus we were searching for…
Me: Ques’ce’que ca? ---What’s that?
Omar: C’est de soda. ---It’s “soda.”
Molly: Mais ca c’est le jolly jus! Nous avons demander ca…exactement ! --- But this is jolly juice ! We had asked for that…exactly !
Omar : Non, je ne sais pas le jolly jus. On appelle ce soda. --- No, I don’t know of jolly juice. We call this soda.
Me : Regardez ! Le nom ici, sur le packet, en grandes lettres, c’est “jolly jus”…. Nous avons dit jolly jus. ---Look ! The name here, on the package, in big letters, it’s jolly juice….We had said jolly juice.
Omar : Oh…mais… oui, tu a raison. Ca c’est vrai. C’est de jolly jus. Mais, nous n’utilions pas ce nom. On utilize soda. ---Oh…but…yes, you have reason (to say that). That’s true. This is jolly juice. But, we don’t use that name. We use “soda.”
Interesting, considering just 2 minutes away in Molly’s village (a hop, skip, and a jump from my village), we ask for jolly jus and they hand us jolly jus. They never call it soda…or even if they do, they still know it by the name that’s written in BIG letters on its package: jolly jus. (Nowhere on the package…anywhere…does it say “soda”….but whatever.) I know now that if I want jolly jus from my boutique, I’ll need to ask for “soda.” Learn something new everyday…
Molly and I finally are ready to go, and so we hit the road…. Well, we climb onto our bikes, anyways. Before we even can start pedaling away, some villagers come up to us and ask us what we’re doing and where we’re going. Clearly we’re going somewhere, with all the stuff strapped to our bikes. We didn’t want anyone to be overly confused as we used a combination of French/local language to try to explain that we were biking to a little village that most people had no idea existed, and then I’d be going to Tougan then Dedegou and Molly to Ouaga, so we kept it simple (plus I had only told my neighbors I was going to Dedegou…which I was, just not for a day or two yet): We’re going to Dedegou.
Villagers: Where?
Us: Dedegou?
Villagers: Guedegou? (Villagers point west. Note: Guedegou is the name of Molly’s village, which does sound similar to Dedegou, except for that fact that Dedegou starts with D as in dog and Guedegou is kinda like a J as in jail…or a G as in George or gin or giraffe. But apparently D and G/J don’t have distinct sounds here? At least when we Americans talk?)
Us: Nooo, DE-DE-GOU. (We use our hands to point south.)
Villagers: Oh, uh huh! Dedegou! That’s far! You’re biking? (It’s a good 88k or more from our villages…a hefty – but perhaps doable – bikeride….. if you’re a superstar athlete and can withstand the African heat.)
Us: Yup. (No, of course we weren’t biking there…it was a lie…but it was easier to nod our heads and agree with whatever they were saying that to try and explain…especially since they barely spoke French.)
Villagers: Now? Right now? There’s not enough time. (It was after 5pm, the sun would be setting soon, and if we were biking, it would take us a good 4-5 or more hours to get to Dedegou….they thought we were crazy for biking to Dedegou in dark…fair enough…attempting that at this hour would make us crazy….although, of course, that was most definitely not what we were doing…little did they know.)
Us: Yup, now! We can bike fast.
Villagers: Ha, ok. Bon voyage! (I’m not sure if they actually believed us, or if they could tell we were lying, or maybe they just thought we were stupid and that we didn’t have a clue what we were even talking about…but either way, they probably deemed us as being crazy…which, in all fairness, is not necessarily untrue. Most Peace Corps volunteers are rather crazy, in at least one way or another.
At last! No more distractions! My neighbor kids were holding down my dog so that she couldn’t follow me; Molly and I whipped on our sunglasses and checked that our baggage was secure one last time. Finally, we were on our way…. Just a few hundred meters past my house, is the intersection of gravel roads: if you go straight you’ll end up in Tougan; right (or south) will eventually take you to Dedegou; and left (or north) will go to Di, as well as Lauren’s village located in brousse, not too far from Di. Molly and I laughed hysterically as we entertained ourselves by imagining what our fellow villagers thought as they watched us turn north to pedal towards Di….and not south to Dedegou like where we said we were going. Villagers: Stupid Americans! And to think, these are the volunteers Barak Obama sent to save our village! Ha. They can’t even tell left from right, north from south. They want to bike to Dedegou? Whelp, they’re going the WRONGGGG way. That’s too bad. Maybe they’ll figure it out eventually.
We laughed…we huffed and puffed and wiped the salty, stinging sweat as it dripped into our eyes (it was hot!)…we dodged bumps and holes in the road…we sang random phrases of songs from America that we remembered…we stopped to guzzle the 95 degree water inside our canteens…we tried to convince ourselves that this was a fun bike ride despite the heat, 30 mph wind going against us, sheets of red dust whipping against our skins and covering our entire selves in a layer of red, dust twisters (like miniature tornadoes) appearing out of nowhere and crossing our paths, parched mouths, and chapped lips…and even if the bike ride wasn’t fun (to be honest, it was kinda fun: we always have a good time together), it was at the very least well-needed -- we were both long overdue for a good workout and both of us had been eating unnecessary things the past few days, case in point: Molly eating an entire box of Christmas chocolates sent from America…in ONE sitting…she claims she was angry…and thought chocolate would help…but it only proved to make her feel worse…guilt + stomach ache = not happy Molly. We even got to fear for our lives (not that that doesn’t happen on an almost daily basis, here in Burkina…) when huge camions/trucks roared by at speeds far too fast for the crappy roads and the size/weight of the trucks filled with hundreds of sacks of onions, driving on the wrong side of the road that was clearly wide enough for more than one truck, refusing to move over to the side it should have been on…thus coming directly at us, despite clearly seeing us (the horn would honk and the drivers would wave out the window and the 30+ young men riding on top and hanging off the sides and backs of the trucks would shout “bonsoir!” and “tubabu!” and “I speaking English!”)…and Molly and I would resort to being huddled on the side of the road, as far over as we could move without standing in the thorny bushes or prickly trees, hoping the trucks would move over at least a few inches, and maybe, if we’re really lucky, even slow down a bit so that we don’t suffocate in the cloud of dust that follows their truck. But of course, we’re not that lucky. And we do have to endure a few thorns pricking our skin, in order to be on the safe side, as well as inhale more dust than could possibly be good for our lungs. But, as our villagers always say, c’est comme ca ici. (It’s like that here.) And so, we continued to pedal on.
Eventually, when it was almost on the verge of being too dark to see the pathways, we neared Lauren’s village. We received a warm-welcome, and we had to shake everyone’s hand when we arrived, though all we could think about was how badly we didn’t want to greet everyone and wanted to retreat to the inside of Lauren’s mudhut sanctuary where we could devour gallons of water and wash our red-dust, salty-sweat skin and change our clothing. After saluering everyone (saluer = to greet, in French), we were able to refresh and rehydrate ourselves, and before long, Lauren, Molly, and moi had settled down under Lauren’s newly constructed hangar (straw roof/porch) in the comfort of her new hand-made wood patio furniture, with tea light candles burning around us, and a cup of wine in our hands. It was quite picturesque. Like your ideal tropical vacation getaway vacation house. Except in the middle of nowhere, Africa. So maybe not so picturesque. But it was still nice. Sometime after 9pm, we got around to making a fresh salad made with mango vinegar that Lauren had gotten while exploring southern Burkina Faso with her parents, and our supper of salad was followed by a dessert of baby-sized bananas (about 3 inches long, each) dipped in melted dark chocolate that her parents had brought to her from France (aka, REALLY expensive chocolate that was REALLY good). It was magical. We had some good girl chat…shared gossip and stories…discussed future project plans for our villages and the activities we were working on…I ranted about my school kids…then I raved about my school kids…then probably ranted some more. We passed around a large cup of raspberry jolly jus enhanced with a shot of gin…gossiped some more…and listened to Lauren read us our grant proposal for the summer camp we’re doing for elementary kids at the end of May. ***Note: apparently Peace Corps only included Lauren’s name on the emails/letters that went out to request donations, and it neglected to list the other 12 of us who are organizing these 3 days of fun. So if you’re wondering who the heck Lauren is and how she got your name and why she’s asking you for money, take comfort in the fact that Lauren is my friend, and it’s actually me who’s asking for money. Check out the website for more info…I believe as of recently, we only need a few more hundred dollars to reach our budget for “Camp HEERE!” [Heere, a Jula word that basically means “good” …which, as we so creatively and intelligently discovered, also doubles as an acronym in French for the main topics/objectives of our camp: Hygiene, Education, Environment, & Recreation Ensemble (ensemble = together). What a name, huh? We are good; we are geniuses. We created a camp name that was in itself bilingual. And by we, I of course mean Elijah – good job, Elijah! Peace Corps = heere.]
We eventually turned ourselves in for the night, Lauren on her cot and Molly and I sharing a plastic mat on the floor, with some of the clothes we had packed as pillows, and we all slept amazingly well. The morning came before we knew it, with Molly and I both finding our limbs a bit stiff/sore from our grand bike ride the night before, but it was Saturday – the big day, the day of the party. We were aroused out of bed by the sound of Lauren’s homologue knocking on the door. He had a calabash of dolo waiting for us (Alcohol before 7am? Why not? C’est comme ca ici.), as well as some announcements for Lauren about the progress of the party: the goat had been slaughtered, the juice was made, but they needed more rice to be on the safe side for feeding the entire village, and the dancers/drummers had arrived and were requesting either coffee or gin to “awaken their spirits to dance.” Lauren didn’t have coffee (there really isn’t much real coffee to be found in Burkina, in general), and there was no place within a 30 minute donkey cart ride to buy even fake instant coffee….so Lauren reluctantly handed over her bottle of gin. Those dancers better dance damn well, she muttered under breath as her homologue left to continue prepping for the fete. Molly and I made breakfast potatoes (with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and garlic) and toast for breakfast – yes, we had a feast for breakfast, despite knowing that we’d be feasting for lunch – and everyone went down real well, especially with that calabash of dolo on the side. We straightened up Lauren’s house and then got ready for the fete, putting on cute clothes, jewelry, and –gasp– some make-up, with hopes that it would not melt of our face with the intense African soleil, and we even thoroughly brushed our hair and did more with it than the typical “tie it back in a ponytail” look that we tend to sport here. We looked so good (compared to usual) that we tried to take some pictures…but every time we tried to get one with just “us girls,” Lauren’s homologue would join in, or random kids would jump in front, or one of Lauren’s village friends would mistake us handing over the camera (to take a picture of us girls) as an invite for him/her to be in the picture while one of us operated the camera instead… We never did get a photo of us three, sadly, but we got plenty with 2 of us at a time and a random Burkinabe or two…oh well.
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| Primary school students singing "Be Welcome" in French |
Lauren’s parents finally arrived in their hired vehicle, and a few other volunteers and their homologues started showing up as well. And the rest of the village, well, they were busy preparing rice for 200+ people and cooking a goat. Unfortunately, Lauren’s dad wasn’t feeling well, so immediately went from the vehicle to Lauren’s cot, and Lauren dug through her medical kit to find appropriate medication for his fever. By mid-morning, around 10am, we heard the sound of young voices, growing louder and louder. Soon, the entire village’s primary school (about 50 kids) was inside Lauren’s courtyard, clapping their hands to the beat while singing a short song with just a few words that they repeated over and over and over…essentially “Be welcome” in French…not “We welcome you” but even more formal, as in a command that we must be/feel welcome in their community.” They kept singing with no sign of ending, so eventually Lauren’s mom had to actually cut them off and say stop, otherwise I’m sure they would have kept going for hours. Then, with the help of Lauren’s mom (actually, it was all her mom’s idea – we take no credit for any embarrassment we may have caused America) we sang/acted “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in both French and English, danced the Macarena, and then taught them both to all the students. They got a kick out of, though they never did catch on much, to either the song or the dances… oh well. We tried.
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| The dancers |
Shortly after, the dancers began, and so we gathered around the dancing space (an open area of dirt with a few trees for shade nearby). It was all very interesting and fun to watch, as they did their traditional dances and the drums pounded their incessant, tribal rhythms. There was only one female in the group of male dancers and drummers – power to her! – and everyone had on a sort of uniform: matching t-shirt with spur/bell things tied around their knees and feet. I took some videos and pictures, so I hope to be able to post those, some time. They really are quite fascinating, and of course, a thousand times better in person. In my opinion, the woman dancer was the best of them all – she really seemed to have awoken her spirit that morning…maybe she had more gin to drink than the men? There were a few locals who joined in the dancing every now and then, and usually they did alright and seemed to know the footwork, though it wasn’t as polished as the actual group’s. In fact, there was one dirty, straggly looking man in particular (oh wait, that’s the description of almost every man, woman, and child in this country!), and his dance moves were satisfactory, but the thing that bothered us was that he was dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, earmuffs, and long pants. Are you kidding me? It’s at least 100 degrees out! And you’re dressed for a blizzard?!? How are you not passing out from heat-stroke right now? I’m sitting in the shade, drinking cold water, not moving a muscle, and I feel like the sun might kill me, and there you are, DANCING in winter gear! I don’t understand these people….
We Americans were, naturally, given a place of “honor” to watch the dancers – benches and chairs were placed under a tree to protect our fragile skin from the sun, and they brought us sachets of water to drink. It was fun to have a lot of us all together in setting that was, well, village, as opposed to a training center in Ouaga or a dance floor in Tougan. And the villagers got a kick out of it, too. So many Americans…and we all look SO different!?! How come she has blond hair, but she has curly dark hair kind of like an African? And he’s so tall, but that’s one kinda short and fat and his skin’s red! Why? Oh, and that girl, the métisse (hybrid/mixed one), she’s not from America, is she? Her parents must be blacks. Well villagers, you caught us: yup, we all look different. Sorry to try and trick you with our unique looks. You’d think it’d help you to actually be able to distinguish us from one another, but apparently the fact that she has short blond hair and she has long curly black hair and wears glasses is not a noticeable characteristic here and does not prevent you from yelling Molly when really it’s Sierra that you see, even though you’ve seen them each 100 times, and they look very, VERY different. And also, that one, she’s not a métisse. Her parents come from India. But yes, she’s still an American, believe it or not!
Unfortunately, Lauren’s dad didn’t get to enjoy the dancing, as his sickness persisted – he actually got worse and his fever increased throughout the hours that morning. Before long, Lauren, along with her Mom and Peace Corps, decided that the safest thing was for them to return to Ouaga toute de suite, so that her Dad could get appropriate medical attention, if it was required, since there are essentially no modern hospitals located anywhere near us in this part of the country. We hadn’t even feasted yet, but Lauren was packing up to go, while Lauren’s mom said thank you to the village and accepted their gifts of a traditional clothing and apologized for needing to leave and not being able to enjoy the fete with them. Before we knew it, they were gone, and the rest of us Americans were left to man the party in Lauren’s village…without Lauren…or her parents who had made the fete possible. It was quite a bittersweet feeling, but we made do. Lunch was fine (oily rice and meat/fat/bone chunks of goat), though most of us didn’t each much, as typical Burkinabe food is never all that appetizing and unless we’re starving, we don’t feel the need to eat much – just enough to show common courtesy for their efforts. Plus, between all of us, we had a few American goodies to share: chocolate covered marshmallow cookies, Werther’s Originals, and a pack of organic California raisins. We also had some containers of play-doh to experiment with, received in Elijah’s care package, which we were way more entertained by than we should have been. And while we probably should have, we didn’t even offer to let the local village kids try it out. It was all for us…every last speck of hot pink and forest green play-doh. By the time mid-afternoon rolled around, we were ready to leave, but first had to take care of Lauren’s house, washing dishes, locking up, and clearing out her courtyard (for some reason, though it happens all the time, we have yet to understand why bazillions of kids gather round us and just stare. For hours on end. We shoo them away. But they return immediately. I hate to say it, but we had to dispose of those kids…in order to leave ourselves).
But the time to leave presented us with a new dilemma: Molly and I had planned on riding to Tougan with Lauren’s parents that evening…but now Lauren’s parents were long gong and in Ouaga…no vehicle for us. Molly eventually decided to spend the night at Rachel’s house, not too far from Lauren’s village and also not too far from the main road where she could catch the bus to Ouaga in the morning. But me on the other hand, I could either return to my village (a 90+ minute bike ride – again – with way too much stuff strapped to the back of my bike), take the morning bus, and then wait in Tougan for the whole day and spend the night, in order to take a different bus to go to Dedegou for the Mask Festival….or I could just bike to Tougan that afternoon and spend the night in a hotel like originally planned, leaving early in the morning on a bus for Dedegou. The ride from Lauren’s village to Tougan wouldn’t be easy (about 2 hours), but hey, what’s an extra 30 minutes of biking, when you’ve already biked 90? I figured I might as well just head straight to Tougan, plus Eric and Sue would be heading that way too, since they lived in Tougan, as well as Bilin, who lived in a village along our route, so the four of us could bike together, which is always a safer option, should a situation arise. (Eric is a master biker – he had actually biked the 2 hours out to Tourou that morning with no problem; and Sue was in the same situation as me, in that she had also planned to ride in the vehicle with Lauren’s parents. So much for that.) So, slightly to my dismay, I put my biking clothes back on (still dirty and dusty from the day before), and reattached everything back to my bike. And then off we were…and then we weren’t. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred feet, when I realized Sue wasn’t with us. I turned around and discovered she was stuck in place, with her back tire completely flat. Funny how you never notice things like that until you’re on the move. I went back to Lauren’s house with Sue, and immediately some guys took over on patching up her tire and making it good as new. Much to our amusement, Bilin and Eric actually didn’t notice we weren’t with them for a good 5 minutes…but eventually they came back for us. After 30 minutes of repair work, we were off for real. And we biked together with the breeze blowing through our hair for about…6 minutes. And then we girls were too slow and those boys were too fast. But we were always within viewing distance of each other, and here and there, the guys would stop and wait for me and Sue to catch up, and as soon as we came within 10 feet of them, they were back on their bikes, pedaling at rocket speed, disappearing into the distance. So much for catching our breath or grabbing a drink of water…. Sue and I tried hard, but we just couldn’t keep up for the lives of us; me especially, as I was tired from biking less than 24 hours earlier and had 50 pounds of stuff attached to my bike – that really weighed me down, and the weight was even more pronounced when going up the numerous hills against the wind. Even though I was heading in pretty much the opposite direction as the day before, the wind was still coming right at me, just as it had the day before. Of course the wind would do that. Of course. Let’s make things as difficult as possible for Beth, because this is Africa, and nothing can ever be simple or easy here – it must be difficult, always.
Despite the wind, hills, heat, and my luggage, I did alright. That is, up until about the last 8k. That’s when I started to die. Well, maybe not die, but I was definitely experiencing the effects of dehydration. You see, I’d been biking for over 2 hours already (wind + hills + luggage had slowed me down, and so the goal of biking to Tougan within 2 hours wasn’t feasible), and I had stupidly guzzled my water long ago. I figured the 15-16k to Tougan wouldn’t be a problem without water…but with each kilometer I biked, I got slower and slower, and by the time I had 8k left, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. My muscles were cramping, I was short of breath though I wasn’t working very hard (in terms of how fast I was biking), and my speed had gone from about 1k per 3 minutes to 1k per 10 minutes. Huge difference. I actually could have probably walked faster than biked. Except for the fact that I was stiff and dizzy and it was hard to control the balance of bike unless I was riding it…so I continued to ride…though I was painstakingly slow and could no longer see anyone, not even Sue, in front of me. But hey, 8k, that’s nothing. I should be able to bike that in less than half an hour. But I couldn’t. Every 1k (or sometimes just half a k) I had to stop and walk a minute and stretch my limbs. Additionally, my limbs – hands and feet – were starting to go numb and lose their sense of feeling. What should have been 30 more minutes of biking turned into almost an hour. Ridiculous. By now, it was pushing 3 hours total, and was getting dark. With just a few k left to go, I knew I’d be fine (plus, I’d gone this far: there was no way I wasn’t going to finish by all myself…nope, I wouldn’t accept help or a ride or the carrying of my luggage from anyone…I had do to it myself), but I called Sue and Eric anyways, hoping one of them wouldn’t mind biking back out to meet me on the outskirts of Tougan with some water, and maybe let me recharge in their house with a few more gallons of water and a chance to change my clothes, so the I looked presentable when I checked into the hotel for the night. But much to my discouragement, no one answered! Fair enough, Sue had probably just gotten in and was in the shower and/or passed out on her floor, and Eric had probably arrived long, long ago and was more than likely doing some kind of hour-long cool down bike ride craziness. I tried several times throughout the next 20 minutes, but couldn’t get ahold of anyone. OMG, what if I die? What if I don’t make it? Will they even know? Do they even realize that I am still out here, not yet in the safety of Tougan? I just want water. All I ask is for them to bring me water! It was now dark, but finally I was in Tougan. No one had called me back, so I went straight to a boutique and drank a sachet of water that I gulped down within seconds. It was so cold compared to the normal 90 degree water that I drink that I got brain freeze. Then I grabbed 2 more sachets and went to the counter to pay. I must have looked absolutely awful, cuz the shop owner had a scary look on his face, and then asked me where I had biked from. When I told him, “Tourou.” He was in disbelief (possibly impressed?) and set a chair outside for me so I could sit. I really didn’t want to sit after over 3 hours of biking, but it was a nice gesture, and I was tired, so I sat and guzzled my water. Then I told him I’d be back to buy some food after I took my things to the hotel.
When I arrived at the hotel, they too, immediately noticed that I was in rough shape, and without me saying a word, grabbed my bike, detached all my luggage, carried it all to a room, gave me not one but two towels and an extra bar of soap!, put fresh sheets on the bed and turned on the fan. They didn’t even confirm with me whether or not I was spending the night (though, obviously, I was) or for how many nights I’d be there. I was able to splash my face with water, which helped my appearance immensely, and then one of the hotel staff came to my room with a bag full of ice-cold water sachets to drink and with the demand of what I would like to eat. I said I wasn’t hungry, and just wanted to drink water, and was going to go to bed immediately, but he wouldn’t accept that. He offered to order French fries from the hotel restaurant, or an omelet sandwich, but the thought of those made me want to throw up. He then said yogurt, to which I replied, “Ok, I think I can eat a yogurt.” I took a really good and thorough shower – and watched the water turn red within seconds as the dust was washed from my skin and hair. Even though the water was warm, I was shivering, probably due to dehydration coupled by the fact that I drank way too much ice cold water way too quickly. I also took advantage of having running water to wash my clothes in the sink, as they were beyond filthy. By the time I was dressed in comfy clothes and my hair was combed and my computer playing music, a knock came to my door. It was a bag of ice-cold yogurt for me! Not one, but two sachets! And they were so good! I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to eat them – the thought of food really did make me want to throw up – but they slid right down my throat and I felt better after eating them and drinking some more water. I finally went out to tell the hotel that I’d be going to Dedegou on the bus in the morning, and asked them what time the bus left, to which they responded with 6am. Ok, perfect. I’m clean, in Tougan so I can catch the bus, and get to sleep in a comfy bed tonight. I’m going to sleep now. And sleep I did. I passed out within minutes, and when my alarm went off in the morning at 5am, I said, “Nope, this bed is too comfy and my muscles hurt too much. I’ll go to Dedegou tomorrow.” And I continued on with my dreams. An hour later, someone was pounding on my hotel door, and even though I was half asleep, I answered. “Madam, the bus is going to leave soon! Are you ready?” Nope, not ready. Not going. I’ll go tomorrow. Right now I’m going to sleep. Thank you. Good bye. And back to sleep I went.
Which leads me to the events as of today…Sunday. Since I didn’t take the 6am bus to Dedegou, I basically lounged around Tougan today. Although I did pass some time eating apples and drinking cold mango juice, sitting on the queen-sized bed in my hotel room with a fan blowing on me and music sounding from my computer, I also took care of a lot of “business.” I went to the bank and withdrew money without a problem (that’s a first!) and so my wallet is now replenished with 10 mille bills that I’ve sneakily been trying to break for smaller change in various boutiques all day. I also paid a visit to my carpenter…who after 3 months has still not finished the 2 pieces of furniture I commanded (bookshelf/cabinet and kitchen table/counter with shelves underneath). I take that back. After 3 months, it turns out that he has FINALLY finished (he finished a month ago, actually), but just hasn’t found transport to get them out to my village…which may be a legitimate excuse…except that it’s not, because every day (or at least every 5 days when it’s the Guron marché) there are big trucks of people and veggies and other miscellaneous products going from Tougan to Guron. I’ve told him countless times that he just needs to get my furniture to Guron. I’ll find a donkey cart or something to get the things from Guron to my house. But get the things to Guron, and I’ll get you your money. It’s not difficult to understand. But apparently he’d rather just have my furniture sit inside the storage area collecting dust than have it shipped out to me so that he can get paid…whatever. So I kinda politely chewed him out for still not having sent my furniture anytime within the past month, and threatened to not pay him at all if I didn’t get it soon. He immediately said he would have it in Lanfiera within a week. Whether that will happen or not, who knows; I guess we’ll find out. Other things I accomplished included taking a nap under the cool breeze of my hotel room’s fan, wandering throughout boutiques and stores, just to see what people were selling, and having lunch with a few Americans.
I happened to be walking down the street when I heard some guy yelling, “Tubabu! Tubabumoussa!” Like usual, I just ignored the man. But the voice continued and seemed to be getting louder, right behind me, when all of a sudden the words changed from “tubabu” to “Beth.” WHAT? Who the heck would call me by name….especially Beth…if anything, people who know me here call me “Elizabeth” or “Eee-lee-zah-bet.” I turn around, slightly afraid of the stranger who somehow knows my name, and discover it’s Bilin. He had come ventured into Tougan for the day to collect water sachets for planting trees. **Note: Purified, “safe” drinking water is generally packaged into plastic bags, though you can find ½ liter and liter bottles, too. Streets in Burkina Faso are lined with these empty plastic sachets (garbage cans are almost unheard of), and so not only are they bad for the environment and the animals that try to eat them, but they also are an unpleasant sight. However, one positive is that they do work well for planting trees – cut of the tops, add some soil, plop in a seed or two, slit a few water holes towards the bottom, place in a safe location where curious kids and hungry animals can’t get to them, add water once or twice a day, and after a few months, you should have a tree big enough to transplant into a permanent location. So why buy fancy tree-holders or anything of that nature when there are HUNDREDS just blowing around any typical Burkinabe city, and they’re FREE. So, Bilin, as a DABA volunteer (agriculture/environment), has to plant over 5000 trees this year, and thus needs a lot of water sachets, which explains why he was in Tougan. Turns out he wasn’t collecting the sachets, but rather tons of kids. He gathered up a bunch of kids when he arrived that morning (which isn’t hard to do since kids naturally flock around us and stare incessantly anyways), and bribed them to find him sachets. In return, he would give them 1 CFA for every 2 sachets they collected.
It was mid-afternoon, so Bilin was waiting for the kids to show up with their prized sachets, and so we sat down at Yogurt Place, ordered a few cold water sachets, and had some lunch/snack. While we ate our mutton brochettes dipped in mustard and BBQ flavored “Mister Potato Crisps,” we chatted about the English Club he was hoping to start for the high school near his village, and I gave him some ideas about content and lesson planning, as well as easy games/activities to help learn English words. All of a sudden Bilin stops and becomes silent. A man walks up to us, greets us, gets some yogurt at the counter, and leaves a few minutes later.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“Um…I don’t really know. I met that guy this morning when I was here eating breakfast. He seemed nice and we talked a little bit. And then he mentioned he was a terrorist.”
“What do you mean he said he was a TERRORIST?”
“I don’t know…it was confusing… I didn’t know if he was joking or serious… I didn’t know how to react. I just nodded my head and smiled….and did NOT mention that I was from America or a Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s probably a good thing I’m half Indian and don’t have blond hair and pasty skin…but just by the looks of him, with his clothing and head wrap like that…and his nice vehicle…I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually is associated with a terrorist group in some way. But despite that, he did seem like a nice guy.”
“Wait. He actually said TERRORIST?”
“YES!! I don’t know why he would say that…I feel like that’s something you should keep a secret…but who knows…”
So, we may or may not have shaken hands with a terrorist at Yogurt Place. Small world. A little while later, when Sue and Eric joined us for cold cokes, Bilin told his story again, getting the same reaction from them: “No way! He must have been screwing with your head!” But then Sue told us about an experience she had just a few days ago, when she was visiting Vida in the village of Di. They were riding their bikes down the gravel road, when three large, identical, blue SUV’s roared by, one after the other. Remember now, we are in a region of Burkina Faso that is mainly all village and no big or even biggish cities…there are rarely, if ever real vehicles on these roads, and if there are, they either aren’t nice or it’s like a big white van filled with missionaries from France. Three new-looking SUV’s? That’s weird. Sue recalled that the first SUV was filled with Arab looking men dressed in all white with their fancy head wraps, the second SUV was half “rich men” and half more like servants/assistants (or bodyguards?) dressed similarly but in black instead of white, and the third SUV was full of men dressed in all black. Sue said they waved to her and Vida as they drove past, and they didn’t really think much of it, until they realized 5 or 10 minutes later that THREE SUV’s with…interesting (perhaps suspicious?)… looking men passed, headed north towards the country of Mali (just a 10-15 minute drive by vehicle past Vida’s village), which, if you’ve been keeping up with headlines or world news, Mali is not the safest place to be right now, and it is believed/known that there are terrorist networks in Mali…so…take that as you will…but there may or may not be terrorists within the general region. But like Bilin had said: they seemed nice.
Don’t worry, however. We all feel very safe in our villages, and can’t imagine why anyone, particularly terrorists, would even consider bothering our villages. It’d just be a wasted of their time. What do we possess in our community of mudhuts that’d be of any interest to them? A bag or rice? An old donkey? Hundreds of dirty, hungry kids? Nope, pretty sure the only people interested in being in this area (and in the entire country of Burkina Faso, for that matter), are those who either were born here, or who come from America/Europe and are trying to help development (i.e. Peace Corps Volunteers, missionaries, engineers overseeing irrigation products, etc.). So, no need to fear for us. Everything is fine and dandy. And more than likely these few odd occurrences were just Arab…tourists?...looking to discover the joys of Burkina Faso.
Terrorism aside, the day continued with kids coming from right and left to bring Bilin hundreds of water sachets. Even some middle-aged men got involved, hoping to get a few extra coins in their pocket. At first Bilin actually opted to have the kids count their sachets in front of him – un, duex, trois, quatre… 210, 211, 212… -- and then he’d pay them the 50 or 100 CFA that they had earned for their hard work; i.e., essentially between 12 and 25 American cents. Yup, those kids made bank that day! They only needed 400 CFA more (aka 800 more sachets) and they would be able to buy a cold Coke or a meal of rice and sauce at a restaurant! I got annoyed watching Bilin and the kids count sachets one by one, so finally I walked over to Bilin and told him to put all the sachets in the big rice sack he had, and just give each kid 150 CFA (whether they had collected 300 sachets or not) and be done with it. He realized that I’m a genius (duh), recognized the brilliance of my idea, and also that he was not looking forward to listening to kids count in broken French for the next 3 hours, and so he did as I told him.
Bilin and I then went our separate ways, and I returned to my hotel room to wait for Sara’s bus to arrive. Sara, a friend who was also going to the Mask Festival, lives in Leba, a village near the city of Ouiguyah in the northern part of Burkina Faso (consequently, it’s REALLY hot there, all the time). When she heard that I was currently still in Tougan rather than in Dedegou like I had originally planned, she decided to take the bus to Tougan and meet me instead of going through a different city and spending the night there by herself. We’ll be able to hang out for the evening and then tomorrow morning we’ll take the bus to Dedegou together. It’s always better to travel with a friend… Sara should be arriving anytime now, though then again, with the bus system (or lack of a system?) here, especially in the Tougan region, it could very well be hours before she arrives. Oh well. I’ll wait. I got my fan blowing on my face and my cold mango juice…and I think my computer is telling me it’s time to watch a movie…or perhaps an episode of Glee.
