Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Today is officially a holiday in Burkina Faso. It’s the celebration of Ramadan, the happy and welcome conclusion of a month of fasting for the followers of Islam. In a hot country like Burkina, a month of fasting is not an easy thing to do! Especially when it means not eating or drinking ANYTHING during the daylight hours! In addition, many Muslims continue to carry out their regular daily work responsibilities. Darkness is a welcome relief as they are then permitted to eat and drink something. The determination with which these folks stick to the strict requirements of their faith during this time of the year is indeed admirable!

As I’ve mentioned before, our night guard is a Muslim. In our experience since coming to Burkina, we’ve found Muslims to be excellent guards. They are usually more respectful and conscientious in their work than most.

For the first time since coming to Burkina just over 10 years ago, Kathy & I have now officially become employers. Prior to this, others employed the guards associated with our places of residence, and we reimbursed them for our part. Now this responsibility has fallen to us. I spent yesterday afternoon filling out the necessary employer and employee registration forms, and calculating both employees’ salary for the end of this month. Never having done it before, I found it somewhat complicated (calculating hours worked, overtime, holiday time, pension and unemployment deductions, as well as deducting amounts for cash advances already taken, and a fixed deduction for loan repayments). Fortunately, I had the help of our administrative director who is well skilled in this area!

One of the things he recommended was that we increase our guards’ salaries somewhat. The cost of living has gone up significantly in Burkina (as elsewhere), but salaries have not, making it difficult for ordinary people to make ends meet. On top of this, it’s the time of year where students go back to school and parents are required to shell out significant amounts to enroll their children and provide them with the necessary school supplies. As a result, most are forced to find sources of credit. Our guards have taken out loans with us for this purpose, which they will repay little by little over the next 10-12 months. Several employees on our Centre (with whom we have built a good relationship) have also approached us for the same reason, and we have helped out as we are able.

It wasn’t until we came to Burkina that we discovered what it’s like to be millionaires. Being rich (compared to our Burkinabè friends, employees, and colleagues at least) was not something we anticipated prior to coming here, and must admit that we do not find it very easy to play such a role! Suddenly, everyone sees you as a source of help and credit. And a person who does not share their wealth, at least to some degree, is regarded extremely unfavourably here! To strike the right balance between generosity and retaining enough to meet your own expenses is a constant & challenging juggling act :) Thank God we’re not millionaires at home in Canada too!

How To Be A Class Idiot

It’s a relatively cooler day so far today, thanks to an early morning rain. But it won’t last for too much longer. Even as I write, the sun is managing to make its presence felt through the still overcast sky, and things are starting to heat up. Which is normal, but rather unfortunate for us at the moment. Why? Because the A/C is no longer working properly in our truck, making it difficult to drive anywhere without major discomfort. And not just because of the heat. Driving with the windows open anywhere here in the city is a personal health hazard!

At all hours of the day, in addition to the dust and dirt kicked up by the traffic, even on the paved roads, the air is thick with exhaust fumes from thousands of oil-burning, blue-smoking, two-cycle moto and moped engines. Add to that the exhaust from hundreds of old and/or poorly maintained cars, trucks, and tractor-trailers, and you have a sure recipe for respiratory illness! There’s nothing quite like having a thick, blue cloud of exhaust blow in through your window at an intersection as you pass a big truck roaring through its lower gears in an effort to get moving through the light!

And why isn’t our A/C working right now? Well, I hate to admit it, but… it’s because I’m an idiot! The A/C was still functioning, but after several years, it was no longer at the top of its form, especially when it was really hot outside. However, rather than taking it to the dealer, I engaged a local yokel like we used to do during our last terms in the country.

I should have clued in when I saw him trying to attach a recharge fitting that wouldn’t connect properly. He was just fixing to hold it on manually while his apprentice began opening the freon tank when I called a halt and told him to go and get a proper fitting.

My second clue was when he came back with a working fitting, but attached it to my A/C system without first hooking it up to the hose from the freon tank! Liquid freon shot out and turned to billowing clouds of vapour while the guy, instead of removing the fitting, tried to now attach the hose in the face of a high pressure jet of liquid gas! I didn’t try to stop him because I was frantically trying to back up out of reach of the ever-expanding cloud of yellow gas that was now swirling around the truck. No way I’m breathing that stuff!

Finally, everything was connected and the recharging began. After 15-20 minutes of filling (at least that’s what I assume he was doing!), the air coming from my vents felt no cooler than before. Then it began to noticeably warm up! The refrigeration guy said that it was because the truck wasn’t moving. It would work properly once I started driving.

After he’d gone, Kathy & I drove over to our house to see how things were going there. Warm air blew from the vents. The A/C compressor sounded funny and began kicking in and out. I decided to shut the A/C off until I could make my way to a real Nissan dealer to get it looked at. I sure hope the compressor’s not shot! I always say that you have to pay for your education. For letting this guy work on our truck, I probably won't only be paying for my education. I should fail the class and be sent back to Grade 1!

Changing the Signs on Memory Lane

Last night we decided to go to the American Rec Club for supper. This is a place that was created primarily for employees of the American embassy nearby, but fortunately they’re not prejudiced and allow us Canadians to come in too :)

When we first came to Burkina back in the late 90s, access to the premises used to be as easy as driving up to the gate. But since the attacks on several American embassies in Africa several years ago, it’s not so simple any more. Barriers and security have been beefed up significantly, including a search under any vehicle wanting to enter the embassy premises (of which the Rec Club is a part).

The Rec Club has a restaurant, bar, small leisure book library, video library, swimming pool, tennis court, and exercise facility. As a family in former years, we used to pay for a yearly membership to enjoy a number of these privileges, particularly the swimming pool! During the hot season, this is THE place to come for a refreshing dip.

This time, however, we came for the food. Don’t need a membership for that, just enough money to pay the bill :) It’s a great place for those hungering for a little “back home” food. They serve hamburgers, Tex-Mex dishes (burritos, quesadillas, chimichangas, etc), chili, bacon & eggs, and the only lemonade in all of Burkina Faso! All in relatively comfortable, air-conditioned surroundings.

Francis, the server, is an old-timer. So is the cook. Although it’s been three years, both of them recognized us and asked how the kids were doing.

A lot of the places we’ve gone to over the past three weeks since coming back to Burkina have been trips down memory lane. This will probably be the case for a while yet as Kathy & I visit places anew that we last enjoyed as a family. But slowly and surely, new memories will be made to replace the older ones as we continue our life and work in Burkina as empty-nesters now.
I once saw a Toyota ad in a magazine that sums it up nicely: “What to do when the kids leave home? Do the same!” Yup, I’d say that’s exactly what we did!

Learning from the Mistakes of Others

Ah, we’re on the home stretch now! The tile work (final cleaning) will be done tomorrow, and the painting in the second bedroom will be done on Saturday. On Monday, I can start working on modifying our waterbed frame for our new mattress-in-a-box, and we can look forward to being in our own (albeit disorganized for the moment) place again!

Yesterday, Hamadou and Pastor Emmanuel came by. Hamadou had come from his post as school inspector over 200 kms away several days ago. Pastor Emmanuel arrived yesterday morning on public transport, a minibus crammed with people and loaded to almost twice its height with baggage, bikes, motos, supplies, and animals on top. I had to admire the man’s determination. Not only is the ride itself an endurance test (5 hours of traveling squished in like a sardine with dozens of other people in hot, humid weather, bouncing along a muddy potholed road for at least the first 75 kms), but he did it even though he had an upset stomach, and got soaked in the rain on the way to the loading area in Zabré early that morning!

We spent most of the day talking about the Kusassi Association. Actually, they did most of the talking. I listened and learned. One of the most interesting things I heard them talking about was what they had learned from seeing other organizations, associations, and committees working in the area: treasurers taking off with funds, the ineffectiveness of long-distance management by directors or presidents far from the area, mismanagement by local administrators, lack of foresight and plans for long-term sustainability, being satisfied with short-term results but neglecting to train local leadership for continuing benefits & effectiveness… the list goes on (isn't it true that we learn more from the mistakes of others than we learn from what they've done right?). You can bet that I urged them to put all this knowledge to use when setting up and running the new association!

Pastor Emmanuel told us that the Kusassi church leaders were overjoyed to learn that we had indeed arrived back in Burkina. They are in the process of organizing a celebration for early October. What a great day that’s gonna be!

The Art of the Deal - Burkina Style

Holy cow, we nearly had WWIII in our courtyard here this morning! If you’ve been reading my posts up to this point, you’ll know that it all started several days ago when our landlord engaged an inept tile layer to put tiles on our bedroom floor. I declared the resulting shoddy workmanship unacceptable and suggested that my friend, John, do the work instead. After a lengthy discussion, which involved the landlord agreeing to hire John, and Kathy & I paying the additional price difference, John and his crew started on the job. For some bizarre reason, I figured that the matter was all settled and everyone could get on with life. Boy, was I wrong!

This morning, the inept tile layer and his crew showed up again, ready for another try to make good the fiasco of the other day. The landlord was right behind them, eager to engage them again in order to recuperate the cost from them of the roughly $70 worth of tiles that went out the door in pieces yesterday. Of course, John was not in agreement with this course of action! Neither was I. The difference was that he was much more vocal about it! Soon he and the landlord were waving their arms in the air and yelling at each other virtually at the tops of their lungs!

Finally, I managed to get between them and calm things down. “I thought we had an agreement yesterday,” I said to the landlord. “Now you want to change it! How are we going to get anything done if each new day you keep changing your mind about how you want to do things?” “Well, that’s the way we do things here,” he replied, “we modify agreements as necessary.” “Fine,” I said, “Then John can finish doing our bedroom floors, because I don’t want your guy in there again, and your guy can do the bedroom floors in the apartment beside us. That way I get the nice floors I want, and you can get your money back from the other guy in labour.”

After a little more negotiating, this was the new course of action agreed upon by all parties concerned, and John and his crew went back to work.

Kathy & I couldn't help but wonder how long this would last. (Can you blame us?) Well, we soon had our answer! In mid-afternoon I received a call from John saying that the landlord had come back to apologize for his behaviour and to ask John to do all of the remaining work! John and his crew had already finished laying the tiles in both our bedrooms, and it was a great-looking job (though not quite done) compared to what the other guy had done! The landlord had seen it too and realized that he had been too hasty in wanting to dismiss John and re-engage the other guy. There is, however, one condition: he wants Kathy & I to pay for the $70 in wasted tiles!

Tomorrow promises to be an interesting day! I think I'll need to suggest a few modifications to this plan of action. After all, isn't that how they do things here? :)

The Home Improvement Blues II

Oh, no! This would not do at all! I had just walked into our bedroom to take a look at the tile work that had been done on the floor on Saturday. I had suspected at the time that it was a rather rough-and-ready job. What I saw before me now confirmed it. Okay, I realize that I needed to be prepared to lower my standards for home improvement workmanship here. But this was totally unacceptable! I was not prepared to lower my standards completely to the floor! (Pardon the pun :)

Several rows of tiles were longer than others. Some tiles were obviously crooked. And as for being level, a drunken sailor could have done a better job!

I'm not normally a confrontational kind of guy, but I was ready to not let the tile layer set foot in our place again! Fortunately, the landlord arrived first. I showed him the work. I’m not sure he saw anything wrong with it like I did. However, I insisted that it not only looked terrible, but that the raised edges of off-level tiles would result in stubbed toes and torn floorcloths. No, there was no alternative but to tear up the 90 or so tiles that had already been laid and start over. And I wanted my friend John to do it.

John did an estimate on the spot. But when the landlord saw the labour charge, he walked out. This was highly unusual because normally people try to negotiate if they feel a price is too high. It was sometime later that he returned with another tile layer in tow. Ha! Nice try, but forget it! I stuck to my guns: it had to be John. I already knew the quality of his work.

Well, the landlord was only willing to pay a certain amount for the labour. I said, fine, I’d pay the difference. In my opinion, it’s better to cry once to pay to have the job done right than pay less and get a lousy job that will require costly repairs or redoing later on. An hour later, the pickaxes were flying and the lousy tile job was on its way out the door. Tomorrow, they’ll start doing it properly… I hope!

Into the Ouaga Suburbs

The roadway between courtyard walls was becoming narrower and narrower and I was hoping we’d soon arrive at our destination before we ran out of room to maneuver! A few minutes ago, we had entered a residential section towards the eastern outskirts of Ouaga where Harouna, our Muslim night guard lived. It was Sunday afternoon and we were on our way to meet his family, bouncing over a couple of kilometers of potholed road before arriving at this point.

Now when I say “residential section”, you can’t think of a paved street with houses, trees, and lawns like we have in Canada or the USA. This is a section of Ouaga that has not yet been officially subdivided into lots. People have come here, many from their native villages out in the country, and squatted on an empty parcel of land, constructing a small dwelling or two out of mud bricks and building a wall, also of mud bricks, around the buildings and some empty space to provide a place they can call their own, at least for now. This squatter approach has resulted in a virtual rabbit warren of dwellings of varying quality and zigzag dirt roads or paths of varying width. Some are only passable by bicycle or on foot. My fear was of coming to such a point where I could go no further, and couldn’t turn around either!

Finally, we were there. Walking into his courtyard, we stood in the shade of a couple of small mango trees while Harouna hurried to a neighbour to borrow chairs for us to sit on. Glancing around, we took in the small, tin-doored, four-room dwelling for Harouna, his two wives, his six remaining children, and his elderly mother, as well as the blackened semi-outdoor kitchen area, a roofless bathroom/shower area whose mudbrick walls were so eroded that they threatened to fall at the next rain, a small storeroom, and a paddock for a few sheep and chickens.

Soon the chairs arrived and we sat down. Harouna’s oldest wife had gone to the village to see her family, but his other wife and all the children, from the oldest at 15 to the youngest at 2, came up to shake our hands and greet us. His elderly mother was too infirm to come to greet us, but she dragged herself into view through an open doorway and waved her greeting from there. Almost immediately, we were offered some clean-looking water. However, its purity was questionable, especially in this part of town, and could make us very ill. So, as we demonstrated in so many of our presentations back in Canada, we accepted it with thanks but declined to drink any.

With the whole family sitting on small stools in front of us in the middle of their small, dirt-floored courtyard, and Harouna sitting on a 5-gallon plastic container for carrying water, we asked various questions and listened to answers while the children eyed us curiously and giggled, and Harouna’s wife busily continued her work of embroidering a piece of clothing.

Then it was time to go. Harouna had to get ready for his afternoon prayers at the mosque. But before we went, he wanted me to take a picture of the family. His wife quickly changed from her colourful blouse and skirt into a traditional Muslim woman’s black robe and head covering. The children jostled for a good position, with a neighbour child managing to join the group too. There was much laughter as I began taking pictures. I had to take several because someone put a hand in front of their face, closed their eyes, or looked elsewhere at the wrong time. There was even more laughter when I showed everyone the resulting images, especially when I zoomed in on each of the children’s faces in turn. Most had probably never seen a picture of themselves before! I’ll have to get copies printed to give to them.

As we headed back to our own world of more organized suburbia with cement-walled houses, steel doors, glass windows, gas stoves, electric refrigerators, running water, and air-conditioning, I couldn't help but marvel at the contrast! But that's the way it is here in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.