Out With Burkinabe Friends

Last week, my friend, Aristide, called me up and said that we needed to go out together some- where. This sounded good to me because when I’m at work, I think and talk about work. When I’m at home, I think and talk about work. When Kathy and I go out somewhere together, we think and talk about work. Well, it’s true that I love my work, but hey, once in a while it’s nice to have a change of pace, to think and talk about something different! For this reason, I’m glad that I have a few friends that are not connected to my work in any way whatsoever.

So on Saturday night, Kathy and I got in the truck and headed over to the other end of the city to Aristide’s place. He said that he already had a place picked out where we could go to eat. It was getting dark and rain clouds were gathering as we left our humble hovel, and lightning was flashing in the distance. By the time we got to Aristide’s neighbourhood, it was completely dark and the rain had begun pouring down. We could hardly see where we were going! In fact, it was a miracle that we found his place at all. I’d only been there a couple of times, and this time, due to construction and detours, had to approach it from an entirely different direction completely.

We stayed put at his place for the duration of the downpour. When the rain finally subsided sufficiently to think about heading out, it was already after 9 o’clock but we headed off anyway.

The road near Aristide’s place was completely flooded at this point. I stayed near the middle as much as possible to avoid the ditches on either side, but was no longer able to see the potholes. We hit some deep ones, but managed to make our way out easily enough. One car wasn’t so lucky. The driver had misjudged the location of the roadside ditch and one front wheel was clearly down in it, leaving the back end sticking up into the air. A small crowd of men was trying valiantly to extract the vehicle. They must have succeeded eventually because when we came back that way later on, the car was gone.

The place we went to was an African-style restaurant with metal tables and chairs set up outside. This particular one was renowned for the style of chicken it served. They boiled it in a yeasty broth instead of grilling it. Aristide and I decided that three chickens would do for the four of us (these are Burkinabè chicken, remember, and not the kind they serve in Swiss Chalet, where a quarter chicken has as much meat on it as an entire local chicken here!) and sat down with our wives to talk and wait. Unfortunately, the humidity at this time of the year brought out the mosquitoes, so Kathy and Mariam, being in dresses, spent much of their time trying to keep the little beasties away from their bare legs.

After half an hour or so, the chicken finally came. To be honest, I prefer chicken grilled to that boiled in a yeasty broth. But it was worth it for the opportunity to spend some time with friends, and think and talk about something completely different from our regular lives.

That Explains It!

Last week, we were doing a Crisis Management Training seminar on our Centre here in Ouaga. At one point, it was mentioned that we should do our best to make friends with local Burkinabè who may be of help to us in an emergency or crisis. I shot up my hand and told how I’d made friends with many of the curbside vendors between our side of the city and the downtown core. These are young men and boys that sell recharge cards for cell phones, paper tissues, gum, and other handy commodities to the people waiting for the light to change at the various intersections along the road. Not exactly an influential section of society, but they’re nice guys and seem to appreciate having someone greet them and exchange a few words. And who knows, they may end up being very helpful if Kathy or I ever find ourselves stuck on the side of the road due to a break-down or an accident.

As soon as I said this, one of our co-workers looked at me and exclaimed, “So that explains it!”

“That explains what?” I asked.

“One day when I was driving your truck,” she said, “I couldn’t understand why all these young guys were waving at me and running towards me at almost all the intersections on the way to town! I thought there was something wrong with the vehicle! I had no idea what was going on at the time, but that certainly explains it!”

We all had a good laugh :)

Sorry for the Silence!

I must apologize for the paucity of blog postings over the past month. In fact, I was amazed to realize that I never managed to write even one post for the month of May! I got swamped with administrative responsibilities, a personal situation that took a lot of my time and energy, and an intensive leadership development workshop in BC. Something had to give and it ended up being the blog :/

So the rainy season has finally started in earnest here in Ouaga. Consequently, we’re enjoying some cooler temperatures, but getting less sleep (rain pounding on a tin roof has a tendency to keep me awake) and having to deal with increasingly messy roads. This morning as we were driving to work, trying to decide whether or not to go through some of those big puddles or around them (you can’t really tell how deep they are until it’s too late), I pointed out to Kathy that back in Canada, things feel clean after a rain. Not so here. Too much garbage everywhere. The environmental movement has not reached Burkina yet. They’ve got bigger things to worry about, like trying to make ends meet.

This week, we received a note from our guards asking for money for food. It’s that time of the year between the end of food stocks from last year’s harvest and the new crops that are being planted when prices go up. The night guard had asked me to begin taking a certain amount of money off his paycheque each month (starting this past month) to go towards the purchase of a moto. So I just turned around and gave him his savings back. I don’t think he was too happy about it. I think he thought I’d just give him money out of my pocket as a gift to buy food and he could continue to keep saving for a moto too. We’ve evidently got some cross-cultural differences at work here.

Last weekend was graduation time for the students of the International School of Ouagadougou. Several of our colleagues had kids graduating, so we went to the grad ceremony to share in the occasion. Believe it or not, Kathy & I ended up briefly meeting the wife of the president of Burkina Faso. Mme Chantal Compaoré came walking down the aisle on her way out of the building and stopped to shake our hands. No, she didn’t know us. We just happened to be in her way. Her bodyguards were pushing people back, but we had nowhere to go. Sometimes there are silver linings to having your back up against a wall :)

Well, I’ve still got a bunch of admin stuff waiting for me to do, so I’d better get back at it. Until next time!

Organized Chaos

Last Saturday afternoon, I was invited to a wedding in Ouaga. No, I didn’t know either of the couples getting married. But I did know the person taking the pictures and video footage. My friend, Aristide, was a cousin of one of the brides, and being the official photographer was his gift to the couple.

Kathy was invited along with me, but she wouldn’t have survived the heat, so she stayed home and I went alone. Well, not quite. I picked up Aristide’s family before going to the church, his wife, Mariam, their twin girls (about 4 or 5 years old), and their infant son. A family babysitter came along too. It’s a good thing she did because the ceremony was rather long and the kids got restless. Half way through, they began asking me for some water to drink, but I didn’t have any. The babysitter took them out to find some. When they came back, they were still restless. They played with my watch, my camera, and my hair. Cute kids, though :)

The wedding was held in a relatively new Catholic church. I was actually pretty impressed by the building itself. It was one of the more beautiful churches I’ve seen in Burkina. Lots of light and colour. A small choir sang a variety of songs, some of them pretty contemporary judging by their beat. Some of the singers had awesome voices. And the sound system was just perfect, not set too high and deafening like in many churches!

One interesting feature of weddings here is that there are freelance photographers all over the place. As you arrive, they take your picture or a picture of you & your family. Then, when you exit the church after the ceremony, they have the pictures already developed in a 5x8 format and laid out on the ground for you to buy. And if you don’t come to them looking for your photo, they’ll come looking for you!

After the ceremony, we drove some distance to where the reception was being held in Ouaga 2000, the ritzy part of Ouagadougou. Chez Valentin was the name of the restaurant. They had set up tons of tables and chairs outside for everyone, but it was organized chaos at its best! Apparently, no one except the bridal parties (who had strictly reserved places) sat where they were supposed to. Some people got upset and left. Others, like us, made do and found places to sit somewhere. Aristide and a friend scrounged us a table and chairs from somewhere, though we each had to sit with a child in our laps.

First we managed to get something cold to drink, for which I was thankful, not having had anything at all to drink all afternoon. Then we managed to snag a passing plate of salad (with some nice olives in it!) and eventually even some roast chicken! Like I said, it was organized chaos. Aristide’s wife said that big weddings are always like this. Well, it was quite the cultural adventure!

Finally, we took our leave and went back to Aristide’s place, where his wife put the kids to bed. After that, despite the late hour, we drove to a nearby outdoor resto where we ordered cold drinks and more roast chicken. It took a while to prepare the chicken, so we had lots of time to talk.

It was nearly midnight before I arrived back home. Wow, what a day!

An Evening at the Paradisio

This past Friday was a long, full day for both Kathy & I, and she didn’t feel much like cooking something when it was already well past supper time, so we decided to eat out. We went to a place only a few kilometres from our house called the Paradisio. It’s basically an outdoor eatery beside one of the main roads in the Zone de Bois, not far from the International School of Ouagadougou where Kathy teaches a health course to Grade 9 students. Normally, we wouldn’t eat at an outdoor eatery at this time of year because it’s the hot season and even night-time temperatures are too hot for a pleasant evening outside. But it must have rained somewhere the night before because compared to the rest of the week, Friday was pleasantly cooler.

For parking, you have to find a spot somewhere along the side of the road, paying attention to pedestrians, bicycles and motos when you go to pull off, and again before you open your door to get out of the vehicle. There is a parking attendant who comes to welcome you, assure you that he’ll keep an eye on the vehicle, and help you across the busy street, but you know he can’t effectively watch everything, so we make sure the truck is well-locked up before we leave it.

The Paradisio consists basically of a kitchen area and an outdoor eating area. The eating area is filled with metal tables and chairs with thin padding. Some are under hangar with fans, while others are out in the open air. The ground consists of crushed stone, which makes for an interesting process of settling in your chair. It takes a bit of shifting and wiggling around before you find the perfect position :)

Apart from the ambient light from the street and from the little shop selling local “objets d’art” that forms part of the restaurant’s assembly of buildings, there isn’t much light to see by. So when the waiter brings the menus, I end up pulling out my cell phone and turning on the little LED flashlight it comes equipped with. He goes to get us some cold drinks while we decide what to order in the way of food.

When it comes to food, Kathy & I like to order several different dishes and share them rather than each having our own plate. We often like to start off with a salad. This is not something we’d advise the average newcomer to do because it can be a quick way to get sick if the ingredients haven’t been cleaned properly or done so with filtered water. But our systems seem to have gotten used to it to some degree. At least we’ve not gotten sick in a long while from salads. Our favourite at the Paradisio is a salad made of sliced tomatoes with slices of mozzarella cheese on them, all bathed in olive oil.

For the main course, we get a pizza (very thin crust, Lebanese style) and a couple of beef shish kabobs, along with a plate of green beans and onions, to share.

While we’re waiting for our food, we talk and watch the world go by. Just outside the restaurant’s perimeter are ambulant vendors selling a variety of things, each trying to catch the attention of the clients inside. Several are selling phone cards (all cell phones work with prepaid cards here). One is selling pirated DVDs. Another is selling spears with wooden shafts and long, flat metal heads. Across the street, some young girls are playing a skipping game with a rope made of clear plastic bags all tied together. More people arrive to eat, while from time to time a few get up and leave, having finished their meals, their drinks, or their conversations.

At one point, a man walks by from the kitchen area with a small stack of pizza boxes. He makes his way to the street where a moto is parked with a metal box attached to the rear carrier. He opens the box, puts the pizzas inside, and then closes it again. Climbing on the bike, he kicks it to life, pulls a U-turn in the street and motors off down the road. The Paradisio is one of the few restos in Ouaga that has a delivery service, though I always wonder how they can find addresses here. Many streets have no signs and homes don’t have house numbers like we do back in North America. I can’t imagine being able to give someone directions on how to get to our place without them getting lost, especially at night, and during a power cut when all is pitch dark! By the time he found us, the pizzas would be cold! (Figuratively speaking that is :)

There have been a few times when we’ve wanted to just eat a pizza at home, and I’ve gone out and gotten it, having to wait while they made it, of course (I often make use of that time to write text messages to my friends). But generally speaking, it’s more fun to go out to a place like the Paradisio or the Verdoyant to eat, provided it isn’t too hot outside. Otherwise we’d have to look for a place with air conditioning, and they tend to be more expensive. One place we know even charges different prices for the meals, depending on whether you sit outside to eat, or inside with the A/C!

Finally, our plates empty and our glasses dry, we signal the waiter for the bill (if we didn’t, they’d just let us sit there and talk until closing time). After paying, we leave a tip for the waiter and cross the street to our truck. The parking attendant is nowhere in sight, so we pull away without paying him his small fee. Like I said, I didn’t think he could watch everything effectively.  I was able to steal my own truck!  :)

Another pleasant evening at the Paradisio.

How to Negotiate a Traffic Settlement

Yesterday, Kathy and some friends were on their way to a meeting in a friend's pickup truck when they were hit by someone on a moto. The lady driving had just started to turn her wheels for a left-hand turn on a back street when a young man came ripping up beside her. She had her turn signal on, but maybe he wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe he did see it but thought he could make it by if he just accelerated. Whatever the reason, he didn’t make it. Instead, he ploughed into the front left tire, snapping off the moto’s right leg guard and the brake pedal, and mashing his foot against the truck wheel.

I got the phone call just as I was on my way back to the office after siesta. Stopping by the SIL Centre, I grabbed Adama, a Burkinabè colleague, and headed off to the scene.

We arrived to find the vehicles parked, the ladies standing, and the young man from the moto sitting down with a visibly swollen foot. Fortunately the skin had not been broken, so there was no bleeding. A couple of other men on a moto had stopped to help in the situation, but were doing more to aggravate the situation than calm things down.

After assuring ourselves that the young man was in no immediate danger (something that Kathy had already assessed), we began to talk about damages. The truck was fine, but the moto wasn’t, and according to the rules of the road here, the moto had the right of way, no matter what speed he was going. So we discussed the cost of repairing the moto and of getting the young man’s foot looked after.

Unless the accident is a serious one, most people prefer to settle things amiably on the spot. Involving the police can take a huge amount of time both now and in the days to come, involving numerous trips to the police station to determine and assign blame, as well as negotiating a settlement. Meanwhile, the damaged vehicles would remain in custody (which in this case would be the young man’s moto, which turned out not to be his after all, but someone else’s). The owner(s) would meanwhile be deprived of their means of transport.

In addition, getting the insurance company involved will mean even longer delays. It could be six months or more before the owner of a damaged vehicle succeeded in getting reimbursed for repairs (after paying for them first), again necessitating innumerable trips to the company offices. The young man was understandably not eager to embark upon this route, which certainly facilitated our efforts to negotiate a settlement.

In the end, we made a rough estimate of the repair costs, the costs of an X-ray of the young man’s foot and subsequent medication, and added a bit more, just in case. It crossed our minds that perhaps he’d found a creative way to make some money, that he’d find a cheaper way to repair the bike and wouldn’t bother with the X-ray or medication. But that was his choice. Hopefully he’d think twice before trying that particular trick again! One way or another, he’d probably end up paying for his misjudgement in wrath from the bike’s owner and one heck of a sore foot for some time to come.

When Bigger Is Better

This past week, we bit the financial bullet and got a bigger air conditioner for our living room. We first got one for our living room about a year ago, a 1.5 horsepower model, after several years of attempting to survive the hot season without it. But spending all your time at home in the bedroom (where we first installed an air conditioner so that we could at least get a good night’s sleep!) loses its appeal real fast. We felt like prisoners in our own home! So last year, we had a split A/C unit installed in the living room.

It was great... at first. We could now sit comfortably in our living room whenever we were home, eating our meals, entertaining guests, watching TV, or reading books. But when we came back from Josh & Melissa’s wedding, we noticed that it no longer cooled things down like it used to. So we got the installer over to check it out. He said it was low on Freon and charged it up. However, since it obviously had a leak somewhere, he had the entire system checked... and couldn’t find a thing.

But it never worked properly since. And with the advent of the hot season here, we were beginning to run into days that required a retreat to the bedroom again. So rather than throwing good money after bad in retrying to find the leak in the old machine, we had it taken out and a more powerful 2 horsepower model put in. Wow, what a difference!

Yes, it uses more electricity per se, but because it’s more powerful, we don’t need to have it running at top capacity all the time. Which means the compressor (the major power consumer of the unit) only kicks in as needed. So in the long run, we’ll probably pay about the same in electricity costs. But at least we’ll be able to do so in relative comfort :)  Excuse me while I go and find a blanket.