Grumpy in Burkina.

in 100 degree heat?

It is getting harder to write about Burkina, because I realize that it is all just too familiar now.  I really don’t see very much of any interest any more.  My eyes and mind are so accustomed to the way of life here and nothing suprises me.  That’s not to say it won’t be interesting or suprising to who ever is reading this, Its just I don’t notice it any more.

Things that used to make me raise an eyebrow and marvel, now generally just feel like an outright annoyance.  Burkina is getting on my nerves.

So excuse this grumpy post.

Yesterday we were driving behind a taxi with an open trunk absolutely stuffed to capacity with junk and a man sitting in the passenger seat holding 3 enormous pipes out of the window.  Each pipe was around 2 meters long and several inches in diameter.  They were not tied onto the roof, or even tied onto his arm, he was just holding them rather precariously out of the window.

We immediately pulled right back, aware that if he lost his holding, one of those pipes would have likely come ricocheting through our windscreen and done serious damage to our family.

We have driven behind trucks with tires that are so flat you can hear them flapping.

My favorite, was driving behind a truck and seeing a passenger jump out to put an enormous brick in front of the wheels at a red light.  He had no brakes.

Yesterday alone, on one 20 minute journey, we passed 3 road accidents, with people lying on the floor next to their mangled moto’s, with no helmets on.

It bothers me that if I hit someone on a moto, in my car, they will likely suffer terrible head injuries because they are not wearing a helmet.  I drive as carefully as I can, but at least twice a week I will have a near miss, because it seems that where moto’s are concerned there are no rules. This makes me angry. 

At what point does a persons perspective with regards to ‘risk’ change?   How is it, that what I consider a blatant, unfathomable risk, people here consider a perfectly rational choice.

If a tank full of diesel over turned on the roadside, would you run towards it or away from it?  Would you ever send your child with a bottle to catch some of the escaping fuel?  No of course you wouldn’t.  You would run as fast as you possibly could in the opposite direction and scream at everyone you knew to do the same thing.  But twice in the past three years in Nairobi, exactly that happened, and people ran as fast as they could towards the overturned fuel tank.  They ran straight to their death.

Mothers sent their children into a blazing inferno.  All for a bottle of free petrol.

What could possibly cause a person to not weigh up the risk involved in that particular scenario?

Extreme Poverty I guess.

 I still don’t get it.

It is true, that the people here tend to have a ‘live for today’ attitude.  It was the same in Zambia.  I remember us asking someone once “If we said we would give you $5.00 today or you could come back tomorrow and collect $20.00, which would you take?”  It was a no brainer to him.  $5.00 today of course.

When we first arrived here, I made the decision that we would pay our housekeeper  25% more than the top going rate.  I wanted him to know that we valued him and I wanted him to know that because he was on a substantially higher salary than others in his position, I expected him to be wise with his money and look after his family with it.  My expectation was for him to budget for his kids school fees and medical care etc.  Yet when it comes around to annual school fees, he has no money to pay them.  When his mother gets taken into hospital, he has no money to pay the bills.  He comes to us and we pay the bill.  We have the conversation again, about why I give him over and above what anybody else gets, he nods, smiles a lot, agrees with me, says he understands completely.  Yet I know without a shadow of a doubt that he won’t do it.  Within the context of his culture and history he is not able to plan for tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not judging him or any one else.  I am merely asking the questions because I am so very frustrated with what I see here every day.  I honestly don’t understand.  My context is so different.  I will never be able to fully empathize.

Another thing.

Everything is so maddeningly inconvenient.  I can fairly guarantee that I will need to go to at least two, usually three banks before I find one with an ATM that is working.  And finding the second or third bank, is not a walk down the block. It involves getting back in my car, driving across to the other side of the city, in 100 degree heat, avoiding killing the 40 helmetless moto drivers, with small children on their backs, who are overtaking me on all sides, (especially on my inside just as I am about to make a left turn,) battling through vendors trying to sell me mobile phones and new windscreen washers, and prayer mats, saying “No Merci” 95 times with a smile, standing in line with the other 15 people who are trying to draw out money, and then sometimes finding that when I get to the machine it has suddenly just run out of money.  And all this whist feeling guiltier and guiltier because of the 20 malnourished, often handicapped people I have just driven past and ignored, who were begging at the traffic lights.

Really.

And its not like I can just say “Sod it, I’ll stick the shopping on a card”

Its cash. Just good old-fashioned cash.

So I get tired you see. 

Yesterday it was 104 degree’s.  We will be at 100 or higher now until June.

Sometimes it is hard to remain sane.

Power cuts have started again, and we anticipate the water cuts will be much worse this year due to last year’s lack of rain.

But these are just my petty grievances.  There are way bigger problems going on here right now.

There are major food shortages in the region.  Thousands of refugee’s are coming over the borders in the North, looking for food and trying to escape the unrest in Mali.   I have friends who are with various Humanitarian agencies who are travelling to the North to assess the situation, and they say its bad.  The government of Burkina have only, this week, admitted that there is a food crisis, so the aid agencies, up until this week, have not been free to announce a famine and act accordingly.  

None of it makes sense.

My attitude doesn’t make sense.

 I am ranting off about the inconveniences and frustrations Burkina Faso pours out upon my head on a daily basis, when in this very same country, today, people are literally starving to death. 

It is good to rant. Its Necessary in fact, for some of us. But it is good to shift things back into perspective too.  I guess that is one of the blessings of Africa.  You can never feel sorry for yourself for long.

Road Trip

Three happy children.

Releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean.

My beach boy

Over Christmas and New Year we took a road trip to the beach in Benin.   Approximately 15 hours by car…the journey was not without its drama’s, mishaps, humor, burst tyres, swear words and threats of divorce.  However it was very much worth it.

Benin is south East of Burkina and is quite a different land.  There is a stretch of around 10 km between borders which is disputed land, probably due to the fact that it is part of a wildlife nature reserve, so is of value to both nations, however it does seem as if the Beninoise made a decision to just give everything dry and unfertile to Burkina, and keep all land with the potential to grow anything at all, for themselves.  You cross the border into Benin and you are transported into the land of milk and honey…Rolling hills and valleys, pastures and fields, waterfalls.  As you head south the landscape bursts into tropical vegetation, palm tree’s heavy with coconuts, Banana and papaya plantations abundant with ripe fruit. 

Approximately 500 km into the 1150 km journey we stopped to picnic at Natitingou in the North of Benin.   We spent a wonderful and much needed couple of hours playing in the waterfalls and allowing our souls to be fed by the natural beauty of the place.  We then continued on a further almost 300 km, as we had been told that the second half of the journey would be hard.  We are very very glad we did.   The road became treacherous.

   Having been through four border controls and spent much futile time showing our paperwork, shaking hands and fake smiling at lots of mean looking officials, showing our paperwork again, counting our children, getting stamps in our passports, more fake smiling etc, etc, we were fairly confident that our paperwork was in order.  However December is a month where we in the expat community like to remind each other, “Tis the season to. …Keep your handbag closely guarded” and as Christmas approaches one knows that there are some folk around who are looking for a means to pay for their Christmas dinner.  

We slowed down at a road block, wound down our window, smiled our practiced smiles, shook hands, answered the usual questions…you know…. where have you come from, where are you going, how long for, and then…Blatantly, unashamedly, he says “So what have you got?” Our practiced smiles change to practiced confusion. “Excuse me? What do you mean?”  Tense seconds tick by, silence, awkwardness, at which point I pick up the Tupperware box at my feet and opening the lid, stretch out my hand and say “A candy perhaps?”

  I think I pissed him off.

 He demanded to see our paper work and after several minutes of him telling us we didn’t have the correct papers, and Richard arguing that we did, and him saying we didn’t, and that we needed to reach an agreement,  ‘a collaboration’ I think he called it, and me watching that expression come across my husbands face which says ‘I am a United Nations representative and I do not pay bribes’, and all the while we are thinking that the guys at the border have done this on purpose and we have basically been stung.

The outcome was that our friends who were in the car in front, decided that for the sake of 10 USD, they would pay for his Christmas dinner and be on our way.  The policeman seemed to accept two for the price of one and let our car off the hook. 

Its just one of those dilemmas we come up against in Africa.  

  I have to admit that despite the fact that I absolutely stand firm in our decision as a family not to “collaborate”, I was secretly rather glad that our friends take a slightly more relaxed stand, because we could have ended up by the side of the road, with our fake smiles stuck to our gums, disputing the ethical morality of paying a 10 dollar bribe, with lots of big African men with big guns, for a very long time.

At the next town we stopped and asked about the paperwork we were apparently missing, and if we could acquire it somehow, to avoid the same thing happening twice.  The official opened our passports, pointed to an official stamp and said, “ You already have it”.

 Excellent.

We continued on our journey, over potholes that were quite simply more hole than road, dodging donkeys and pigs, and sometimes driving in dust and fumes so thick that we were completely and utterly blind.   I found myself clutching the seat with white knuckles, holding my breath with my eyes tight shut for a majority of the journey, and got a sharp telling off at one point for actually grabbing the gear stick in sheer uncontrollable terror.

The next stop was a peage (toll) where they gave us our ticket and 12 condoms.  We had no idea what they were at first. The kids were very excited thinking they were Christmas candy.  On our return trip at the same peage, the guy tried to give us 12 more, and Rich said to him “actually we still have the last ones you gave us” to which he replied “You didn’t use them yet?”  We were like, “ Give us break, it was only a week ago….”

As we headed south we noticed that along the roadside there were stalls everywhere selling enormous bottles of oil.   Lovely, big, old fashioned, vintage, glass canisters which would look wonderful on the kitchen dresser with mixed olives and sundried tomatoes floating around inside.  I commented to Richard that we should definitely buy a couple on the way back, and imagined myself doing something stunningly creative and ‘rustic country kitchen’ with them.   I am very glad we made enquiries before buying, as it turned out they were jars of illegal black market petrol, and it would have been awful if I’d drizzled that on my salad.

We stopped for a bathroom stop at a maki (bar) and had a sprite then asked to use the bathroom and were pointed in the direction of a flimsy screen made of sticks with a pile of stones behind it.  There can be little more undignified for a British girl than pulling her knickers down in the knowledge that everyone can actually see her bottom, and then peeing all over her feet.  It was dreadful, and I got back into the car making a silent solemn promise to myself, that I will never ever again complain about the triviality of there being no toilet paper in Starbucks.

We stayed overnight in an Auberge, where I had to send back my beer because it had several dead ants floating in the froth, and an open topped water barrel in our bathroom had around 50 mosquito’s breeding beautifully in its stagnant water.

I started to be a tad concerned about what was ahead.

However I didn’t need to be.  One flat tire and three grumpy children later we reached the beach, and it was wonderful.

On Christmas day we saw dolphin’s dancing across the waves right in front of our beach, not even 30 meters away from the waters edge.  The kids got to release baby sea turtles into the ocean as part of a conservation project, and we had hour upon hour of delight wrestling with the waves and eating coconuts which the beach guard knocked off the tree’s and macheted open for us.

Benin is a land of incredible national resources. Every day we would watch the fishermen and women pulling in their nets bursting with capitaine, Tilapia and other enormous fish, the beaches full of people buying, selling, exchanging, sometimes brawling over the fish. 

It is still incredibly poor, but I cannot help but think that the people still have a quality of life, which is much richer than that of the Burkinabe.  You cannot grow anything in a dessert.

  This year a famine is anticipated in Burkina, Niger and across the Sahel.  It is predicted that between 100 – 150,000 children will die of starvation.  Not enough for it to make major headline news in the West, but its happening. 

Children. Children like Peter, Sammy and Esther.

I digress.  As the thoughts come, I write them down.

So, Benin.  The people are not as warm as the Burkinabe.  People told me that the Capital, Cotonou, is hostile and the people can be quite aggressive.  When I asked about this, one Cotonou resident told me she believed it might possibly be due to the great presence of voodoo in Benin.   People are suspicious, guarded, defensive, afraid of one another, and this has an impact on the nation as a whole.  If there is no trust between individuals, or groups, people cannot work together to build communities and develop as a nation.  People are afraid to progress, to be deemed as successful, as they might be cursed by a jealous neighbor.  Suspicion and mistrust is tightly woven into the very seams of the culture. A nation dictated by fear.

The Voodoo temples are everywhere.  We visited one.   Sometimes I forget to take off my Western head with its western expectations, and when someone say’s “There’s a place near here where you can see pythons and hold them and stuff” I think “cool. Pythons. The kids will like that.”  Then we arrive and I’m like “Ah. Yes. Of course.  Silly me, thinking we were visiting a zoo”

It was educational, but we were glad to leave.  60 writhing pythons with dead ancestral spirits living inside them?

 Not really my thing.

October 2011

The heat is killing me.   The rains are gone having barely filled the Dams, and leaving behind a vast number of mosquito’s and a lot of Malaria.  We are in what they call “The mini hot season”. Mini, yeh right.  We are back at 100 degree’s, so what’s mini about that?

They have filled the potholes left by the rain, with rubble – It always makes me laugh when they fill another hole, because they fill it full of sharp obtrusive looking rocks which everyone then drives around, not wanting to be the first to drive over them and risk harpooning their tyres.  It is really not that helpful.

There was a couple of fun days in the rain when I found myself driving along roads gushing with orange water, more resembling a river than a road, the water flowing furiously fast.  Eventually the ground swallows up the water but it takes hours due to the lack of drainage on the dirt roads.

I have been sick a lot.  Apparently I have 3 parasites in my body.  This is not uncommon here. At home, we wash all our salad and fruit in bleach to kill the bacteria, but of course every time you eat out you are taking a gamble.  A good strong course of antibiotics and I will be back on my feet.  Oh the joys of Africa.

I know people who are going down with Typhoid at the moment as well.  All these health issues make me so grateful for the sanitation and western medicine that we all take for granted in the West.  The streets here stink.  There are so many animals roaming free in the streets and many open drains which are used as sewers down many streets, and the smell can make you retch.  Really, its no wonder we get sick.  Last year I had a tiny cut on my foot. It was really small, not even worth putting a band aid on, but 10 days later I couldn’t walk.  My foot was red and swollen and I had this seeping wound where the cut had been.  I learned that you cannot ever leave a cut uncovered, no matter how small.  Thank goodness for antibiotics.

Our dear friend, Hannah, who is living with us right now is continuing to work with the orphans and is learning something of some of the kid’s stories.  One child is to be returned to her Father.  She has lived at the orphanage since she was born having lost her mother in childbirth.  For three years the carers of the orphanage are the only “parents” she has known.  The father was contacted and told that he must give permission for her to be adopted or come and get her.  He is coming to get her.  In three years he did not visit his daughter once. 

Hannah is also teaching English and last week we read some stories written by her students.  She had asked them to write in the past tense.  It was fascinating reading about these men and women’s life experiences.  One man told of the 1996 famine in his village, where people were starving and eating anything they could find.  First they ate their pets, then many people died from eating poisonous plants and flowers. 

People’s stories are so tragic.  Even our own guard here at the house has his own terrible story of living and working in Cote d’Ivoire, and during the harvest finding bodies in the fields.  He fled and came to Burkina where he now sits outside my house all night, and opens the gate for me in the morning.  He is such a nice man.

I find talking to people here fascinating.  It is impossible for me to understand their complex reasoning.  My French is still a frustrating barrier, but it’s more than just the language that leaves me confused and sometimes dumb founded.

 I remember when we were living in the Zambian Bush and a local old man died, his family came to us asking for permission to bury him vertically with his head sticking out of the ground, because they said “he was once raised from the dead before and we believe he will be again” They wanted his head left exposed so that when he was raised from the dead, he could shout for help to be dug out.   Naturally we said no.  apart from the fact we knew he would not be raised from the dead, we also were fairly sure that out in the African Bush there would be no head by the following morning, and goodness only knows what his family would make of that.

A couple of weeks ago, a young girl, here in Burkina, was struck by lightening.  She died and her family believe she was struck down for some terrible sin she had committed against another.  They believe she was cursed and in order to break the curse they had to first go and purchase some goats and other animals and take them to a specific person in a village (I presume in order to atone for her sin) and then they searched the land where she was struck by lightening and dug until they found a black pointed stone.  Having found the stone they are released from the curse and no further tragedy will befall their family.

It does not seem to make any difference what peoples religious beliefs are.  Somewhere I read  “Burkina is 50% Muslim 50% Christian and 100% Animist”  Their superstitions and Animist beliefs govern all their reasoning and run like blood through the veins of their culture. 

I offered to help an expectant mother with items for the arrival of her baby. Clothes, a cot, etc, but she looked at me with horror, telling me that if she had these things before the baby arrived, the baby would likely die in childbirth.  I found myself apologizing profusely for upsetting her and being so culturally insensitive, however I did then gently mention that all three of my babies had survived childbirth despite their mother already having a cot, clothing and other such essentials.  She looked at me like I was off another planet and pointed out the fact that, that is because I am white.

September 2011

So here we are back for episode 2 of our Burkina experience.

I apologise for the lack of posts in the second half of last year.  The civil and military unrest here was a little all consuming, and what with the 110 degree heat and 12 hour daily power cuts, I rather lost my sense of humor, and my will to write, with it.
Peace in Burkina is currently resumed and I now stand convinced, that the heat was actually driving people here crazy.

So year 2.   It should be a breeze.  I mean,  after all, now we have sussed the culture, got the whole thing nailed, right? Not exactly, but we do understand more of our cultural context, we can speak some of the language and we are less frustrated (on good days) by the inefficiency and amount of time it takes to achieve the simplest tasks. The electrician has been three times this week to fix, re-fix and re-fix again, various simple electrical faults in the house, and each time I smile and welcome him like an old friend, as I will when the plumber arrives next week to fix my toilet for the 179th time since we arrived here.
I also no longer get angry about the "white man's tax" that is applied to much of the produce I buy. I am no longer suprised when the fish man comes to my house and charges me $60  for two small pieces of fish ( I wasn't there, so my housekeeper kindly paid him from housekeeping money). Neither am I overwhelmed by the fruit sellers who refuse to accept my polite no thank you and thrust, throw, shove and force their fruit into my face, through my car window. I simply wind up the window, and drive away, hoping sincerely that I do not have any of their fingers unintentionally trapped in the window. They are, after all, just trying to make an living.
As I write, the household staff next door have started their weekly ritual of pounding the grain. A constant, dull, incessant thud, that can last for hours and causes you  to feel like its your head that is being pounded, rather than the millet. I breathe deeply and settle into the rhythm of it.......  
Such aspects of daily life  feel normal now, and I am learning not to "headbang" my way through each day. Life is slow. So - very - slow. No one is in a hurry, and they are not going to be pressurised into moving any quicker, no matter how loudly you blow your horn, and trust me, I have blown mine very loud.
Burkina is rich in lessons.  Lets face it, we all know how crazy our lives in the west are, with our schedule keeping, and achievement driven society. Despite my slightly sarcastic summery above, I am grateful for the opportunity here to "take my time".  It is a gift.

The rains are here again, and its a relief to see the landscape greener.  Driving along the other day I passed an area of land that back in May was a parched, cracked, desolate looking wasteland.  Now it was covered in green. I commented to my Burkinabe friend "Look grass!"  She laughed at me and said "No Emily, weeds"  I never thought my soul would be fed by looking upon a field of weeds, but after the 6 month drought of last year, I drank it in.

I visited an orphanage last week for the first time.  Our new au-pair, Hannah, will be volunteering there one day a week.   It is a refuge for babies who have lost their mothers in childbirth and are awaiting  the often long, dragged out, bureaucratic process of international adoption.  The babies were so tiny.  some of them only three or four weeks old, and still the size of a pre-mature newborn.  And there were so many of them.  Its was disturbing to see them all lined up side by side like some kind of production line. All  these tiny, motherless, lonely little people.  The smell was bad, and the conditions unacceptable to say the least.  There were some older babies too, one with big open sores on her legs - mosquito bites turned septic, I think.  One little boy is deaf and mute.  The doctors have said his hearing can be helped but it is costly and they must find a family who are prepared to take on the medical implications of his condition.  I came home feeling a little numb and overwhelmed. My own wealth and abundant good fortune screaming in my face.

I do find the poverty emotionally exhausting. The terrible truth is, that I don't like having to look at it every day. Its the constant niggling feeling of guilt that follows me around all the time.  And the feeling that its all too big.  That we only ever scratch the surface of it, no matter what we give.  That for every tiny baby who gets welcomed into a new family today, another will fill its place in the production line tomorrow.

Nazinga game park and Tiebele.

• 

A trip south to Nazinga Game Ranch gave us a welcome short break from the dust and daily bustle of Ouaga. The journey was long - we kept being directed off the tarmac onto pothole ridden dirt tracks, where we would race with donkey's and drive half blind in the dust kicked up by other vehicles. Through settlements sitting under the shadows of their ancient sacred Boabab tree's with pigs and goats roaming freely and children waving wildly and chasing our car. It was quite exhilerating to be beyond the confines of the city but after 4 hours of navigating potholes and avoiding blind collision with various wildstock, we were glad to arrive.

On the 35km road through the game park, to the camp, the kids kept their eyes peeled for movement in the bush. The grasses were still high making visability hard but suddenly Peter shouted "Elephants!", we reversed and sure enough there were two huge beasts right there 20 mtres from the road. The kids were excited and temporarily forgot their sore bums and cramped legs. We continued on our journey, spying toucans and a large snake. When we arrived at the water hole we were thrilled to see a whole family of elephants quenching their thirst at the waters edge. The accomodation was basic to say the least - this is Burkina after all, so no fancy safari tents for us, but once Richard had removed the several different species of large African arachnids who had set up home in our hut, it worked. We awoke before dawn and watched the elephants come for their early morning drink and wallow, then headed out with our guide to look for wildlife. The sun was just coming up and there was a distinct cold pinch in the air, and with the sound of the crickets singing their morning song, we grabbed our camera and water bottles and headed out into the bush. We spyed antelope and baboons through the haze of the morning light and climbed to the top of a hill where we could do a 360 turn and see the African savanna stretching to the horizon on all sides. More elephants, crocodiles, warthogs. In truth the wildlife was sparse in comparison with what we saw in southern Africa but it was exhilerating to be back in the wild.

Having taken in our fill of beasts, we decided to head south to the Ghanian border to a village called Tiebiele. Here we visited a traditional Kassena village. The Kassena people are one of Burkina's oldest traditional tribal people groups. Set in the heart of Gourounsi county, Tiebele is famous for its colourful windowless traditional houses. You can visit the cheifs compound which is a wonderful example of these. We picked up a guide on the street who proved to be very knowledgeable. He told us many things about the strange customs and traditions of these animist people. On entering the compound we were told that we must not take photographs of the sacred Boabab tree or the hill right by it as this was where the women of the village bury their placenta's, a ritual which offers protection over the newborn child. He told us that the hill which is known as the pourrou, was purely placenta's and was getting higher year by year - it was already as tall as your average two story house in the UK. That is an awful lot of placenta's. Sacrifices are made right in front of the sacred tree - different livestock for different purposes, a chicken does the job for protecting a newborn, but a goat or cow goes to the stone table if a village elder or chief needs favour from the spirits.

 The houses are circular, rectangular or figure-eight-shape depending on the status of its occupants. Grandparents live in the figure- eights, known as dinian, with the grandchildren, whilst the parents of the children live in the rectangular mangolo. It is their belief that the Grandparents have more wisdom and experience and should therefor raise the next generation, freeing the parents to produce more off spring which builds a strong future workforce. The circular houses, draa, are occupied by single people. The houses, which are constructed from a mixture of mud and dung, are beautifully decorated with geometric repeating patterns. The majority of the hut painting is done by the single women of the compound, taught by the grandmother's. First they sand down the surface with flat stones, then they apply a coating made of earth, cow dung and ash. The red glaze which they apply next is made from pounded laterite (Burkina's red topsoil) water and boiled seeds of the nere tree. Red paint comes from Kaolin, black from ash, and white from calcium. The result is truly a piece of art. Repeating patterns of coded symbols - the calabash is often represented (this is a kitchen object, a mainstay of Kassena culture, used for everything from a drinking goblet to a tomb stone) zigzags representing the footprints of chickens used extensively in sacrifices, Boa constrictors thought to be sacred and hold the spirits of grandmothers, lizards, thought to bring good fortune (The Kassena wait for 3 days after building a hut to see if a lizard enters its threshold. If it does not the hut is cursed and cannot be lived in) A quiver representing the hunters and warriors and pipes and sticks

representing the wisdom of old age.

 

The houses inside are low and dark. Inside the dinian, one must crouch down and crawl through a doorway, then climb over a low wall to enter through a doorway into the next chamber. This was so that if wild animals or an enemy invaded the house, the occupants would have the opportunity to grab a weapon and decapitate them as they came through.

It was absolutely fascinating, and well worth the extra hour inhaling dust and dodging goats, that it took us to get there.

Some of you have asked for a mailing address for us. We have set up a PO box (details to follow by email) It seems we have no street name although our house does have a number. Sam has nicknamed many of the streets - potato man street, donkey street, our street is the flip-flop street due to the amount of broken discarded flip-flops - I am actually wondering if there is some local unspoken custom where by people try to fill up the pot holes with their old broken footware......Our garbage is collected weekly by a donkey and cart which as a general rule seems to drop more garbage than transport it away. I have also noticed that piles of garbage seem to find its way onto the street outside my house during the night. I asked my burkinabe friend about this and she told me that this is from the people who cannot, or will not, pay for their garbage to be collected by the donkey, and naturally do not want to dump it outside their own houses, so they dump it outside the homes of rich white folks like me, knowing my standards are high so I will deal with it. HHhmmm.

But, we do have a very nice home. Our shipment arrived ( $7,000 and 4 months later) and I am delighted to be sleeping on real bed, and drinking tea out of my tea mugs is thrilling. Once again I must voice the deep respect I have for the hardship most Africans must suffer day to day, I would simply die if I had to live one day as most people here are living. I have slept only 6 weeks on a piece of foam shared with only one of my children, and then with the privilege of air conditioning (when the power is working), and I was pushed to my limits of endurance. The burkinabe have an expression here for people like me - Les enfant gate. A broken child. otherwise translated as weak or spoilt. I'm honestly OK with that.

Power cuts are regular, sometimes for hours at a time, but right now it is manageable, as it is cooling down as we approach the winter months - the temperature is going to drop as low as 80 degree's between now and Christmas, and then it will start to climb,and climb, and climb, and apparently thats when "Les enfant gate" will really suffer.

We had no gas in the city for 5 weeks. We had one bottle which we used sparingly, and when Gas arrived, Patrice, our house keeper went to find us a new bottle. I was mortified when he told me he had queued for 11 hours to buy a bottle. I was further mortified when he told me that if, he had paid $8 for it instead of $4, he could have jumped the queue to the front. $4 for 11 hours of time. I didn't tell him that we feel we must pay him considerably more than $4 in over time, to cover the hours he stood in line. God bless that man. He said some people queued for two days to get a bottle.

Food is another challenge. Expensive and often unavailable. I have not been able to find butter for 3 weeks now and have learned the hard way that much of the meat is inedible. Whole grains other than bread are almost non existent. Our diet is much less varied than anywhere we have lived before, but on a good note the kids are learning to eat what is put in front of them, and we have fresh locally picked fruit every day. There are actually some quite nice restaurants in town too, that we can escape to.

The rains have finished and the dust has already taken control. It seems that there are two types of people in Ouagadougou; Black people and orange people - those are the caucasians who used to be white. The dust is relentless, and when the harmattan starts, we will be inhaling it as well as wearing it.

We must still be diligent about the mosquitos despite the end of the rains. There are fewer for sure, but the mosquito's here carry the severest of the 4 Malaria parasites, plasmodium falciparum, and there is no messing with it. The mosquito's are tiny and virtually silent, it is a daily challenge to keep our home a mosquito free zone, but so far, so good. Of course every time someone so much as sneezes we go into panic mode......however we rest in the knowledge that as the elite privileged here we can access tests and medicine easily. For the Bailey family, At most, Malaria only needs to be a uncomfortable temporary inconvenience and not a killer. It is not so for most of Burkina Faso.

Two weeks ago the Locusts arrived. I kept telling myself that they are actually just grasshoppers which I have always found rather endearing in the past, however......These were absolute monsters of Old testament proportions. Esther and I stood in front of the bank one morning with several hundred of them between us and the door. The bushes all around us were literally shaking from root to tip, as they consummed every bit of vegetation in sight. I tried really hard to maintain a rational composure for my daughters sake, and with a "OOh look at all the grasshoppers Esi" we set off boldly up the stairs, at which point hundreds, no thousands, of the devil's took off in a swarm directly towards us. Oh my goodness, they were up my skirt, in my hair - I started jumping around like a woman possessed, arms flaying, letting out a wild demented roar, Esi was, well, a little freaked out to be frank. Bank security was amused to say the least. Thank the Heavens they seem to have left as fast as they arrived.

The french continues to be a huge day to day challenge. I managed to book myself tennis lessons by accident,( a conversation with so many misunderstandings it was just easier to nod and say "OK see you Tuesday at 5" than carry on...) and Richard tried to order a coke from a street vendor and was presented with 3 live cockerels to choose from. In all fairness to us, this is not normal French. It is spoken with a very strong African accent and often mixed with the local tribal language, Moori. The people are also unexpressive by nature and their mouths seem to work faster than their faces........ Communication with the folk working in my home has just become one huge, animated, over dramatisation on my part, as I try desperately to make myself understood.

We have done some venturing out into the countryside around Ouagadougou which has been interesting yet somehow not thrilling. As a land locked country bordering the dessert, with virtually no natural lakes, no mountains, and little in the way of natural beauty, this is no tourist destination. We must drive far to see Burkina's best natural attractions - abundant waterfalls in the West, 6 hours from Ouaga,(I sense an anticlimax ahead, after a year of frequenting the intense and awesome Vic falls in Zambia, still, perhaps after a few more months of this dry, thirsty land...) and Africa's biggest population of elephants at Nazinga park in the South. We are hoping to do some exploring around Christmas when the kids break from school for a few weeks. The Sahel will be an exciting trip also, although we might wait for next year for that one - I just can't imagine Esther being enthusiastic about riding on a camel yet....

The land is not beautiful, but as I wrote in my last post, the beauty is in the Burkinabe people. They are a peace loving, gentle people. There are many different tribes represented (one friend told me the number was as high as 60)The biggest being the Mossi tribe, and most people are still rooted in their animist traditions and superstitions over and above which ever religion they choose to be. But there is no hostility or animosity between tribes, and there is complete religious freedom.

We actually had the election this past weekend, but it came and went.........The current president has been in power for 23 years after his predecessor, a man called Thomas Sankara who is something of a political legend in West Africa, was killed in a coup. The word on the street is that the two men were best friends. There is very strong opinion about the current president, and less than 30% of citizens voted, with most people shrugging their shoulders and saying there was no point -" the outcome will always be the same, and now the constitution will be changed again, so that the outcome will always remain the same....." They are passive for now, but can even the most patient and peace loving of people stay resigned for ever? There are some who say a revolution is coming in 2015. African Politics - it is way over my head. The problems are so very complex here, and so very difficult to really "touch", when one is driving "around" the poverty with white skin and diplomatic number plates.....

Its amazing how quickly everything feels familiar and "unsuprising" in a new land. I no longer hear the sheep who lives over the back wall, or marvel at the skill of the half naked kids chasing tyres with sticks in the street, and seeing a 6 week old baby strapped to the back of its mother, riding on a moped, with no helmet (Obviously), no longer even raises an eyebrow. There is a very sad young man who walks around our neighbourhood completely naked every day. It all seems so normal. - Imagine that in Manhattan!

At last we have internet, so here's what I wrote.....

Burkina Faso. 6 weeks in. So much to share. Here goes.....

The airport must surely be one of the worst in the world. I was truly confused. I thought perhaps we had come in through the wrong entrance and had found ourselves in an adjacent cattle shed. I met Richard with a mixture of deep relief and complete bemusement. I think probably my expression said something like "Hi darling, missed you, now tell me this is not the real airport, and if it is, it is definately not a fair representation of the rest of the country....." However, within a half hour a little bit of my tired and defensive heart softened, as I watched sammy and Esther take off their shoes, get down on the floor and start drawing pictures in the sand. I took a deep breath and allowed myself to recall the hours of spent joy watching Peter and sammy do the same thing three years ago, in another land of strange people and customs. A land and people I grew to love and have carried in my heart ever since....

Our bags arrived but our car seats went to the Ivory Coast. Thats fine, better the car seats than the kids dvd's or my makeup bag.....

We have taken the house of one of Richard's colleagues who is departing for senegal shortly. It seemed the simplest thing to do. The prospect of house hunting with three children and no vehicle in a city whose streets are like a rabbit warren of dust and pot holes, with only enough french vocab to order cafe au lait, and in 90 degree heat was overwhelming. It really was as simple as "Its a house, we'll take it". We have just been in for 2 weeks as it was not vacant until September 4th. We had been staying in two rooms in a hotel in the centre of Ouagadougou for the first 4 weeks . The house is a convenient walk to the American International school where both the boys have started. Its big and has a small paved garden area with a small pool which I'm told will save our lives when the temperatures hit 45 degree's in April. There is not an "Expat" area as such. It seems like many of the foreigner's live in the same areas but the plots are interspersed with some of the better off Burkinabe family homes too. I like this. Its all mixed up. The road our house is on, is a long dirt road with some truly magnificent pot holes. Rich is planning on buying a moped to get around on like many of the local Burkinabe's do, I am really looking forward to watching him take on some of those potholes.

The city itself is raw. A hot, bustling, dust clogged, melting pot of African culture, rich in colour, full of life. It is unlike any other African Capital we have been to, far less developed, with most small businesses operating out of shacks or stalls road side. The sky is undisturbed by anything even resembling a high rise. There are a few tarmac roads running through the city and these are used by vehicles, donkeys, mopeds alike. There are simply no rules on the roads, no sidewalks and crossing the road generally feels like a game of Russian roulette. Terrifying. Everywhere people are selling anything - Bedding and towels draped over walls, shirts and mosquito nets hanging from tree's, pots and pans sitting in the orange dust. As you walk, you are approached from all directions by local folks wanting to sell you everything from phonecards to bathroom scales to prayer mats, but mostly they accept a polite no thank you and let you go on your way. It can be overwhelming, but at no point have I felt threatened or hassled. We buy our fruit from women on the street who look like their carrying more than their body weight in banana's and pineapples on their heads. At dusk, the sky is filled with hundreds upon hundreds of bats calling in the night sky with their batsong. I will always think these to be some of the strangest creatures on the planet.

The streets are full of beggers, many of them just children or the blind elderly, holding out their metal tins and seeing through you with their watery eyes. Some are so handicapped there really isn't anything to say. I was approached a couple of weeks back by a lady who's fingers looked like they had been ravaged and eaten by leprosy or some other terrible disease. Her hands were horribly deformed. I stood there looking into her face as she said "Please Madame" and I just couldn't find a response. It was not that I didn't feel compassion, neither that I felt disgust at her deformity. It was more a matter of, " what on earth should my response be?" Then I took out some change and went to put it in her hand, but she couldn't hold it so I put it in her pocket and walked away. No words. It felt like a frugal response.

I believe fundamentally in the core of my being that all men are equal. I am so grateful that God has given me a heart which knows compassion and can be moved to feel something of another's pain, and I know that these are questions that I will wrestle with until the day I die, but honestly, sometimes I feel it would be so much easier if I could find justification for the void between my world and the world of the lady with no fingers and the millions of others like her. It is much too easy to console myself with the fact that my husband is giving his life's work to fighting for equality and justice for the poor. To reassure myself that we have made a few sacrifices along the way to do what we do, so I'm doing "my bit". And I am faced with the shallow truth that it matters so much more, now that I have to stare at it every day. The lady with no fingers was here last year when I was living in Manhattan choosing to send my 4 yr old to posh nursary for 10,000 a year.

Excuse me for publicly wrestling with such questions. Its good to be wrestling though....

Burkina Faso means "The land of honourable men". I was told by a Senegalese friend in NYC that the Burkinabe are known to be some of the warmest and kindest people in West Africa. So far, I think she pretty much summed the Burkinabe up. I'll share a story.....Its a little gross though so bear with me.

We were so sick the first weeks whilst in the hotel. four weeks in, our systems were still adjusting, and it was not good, if you get my drift.....

I took the kids to a recommended restaurant one day for a "safe" pizza. We were just finishing up when I heard Esther cry out from behind me, I turned to find Esther in total panic as the contents of her poorly tummy was running out of her nappy , down her legs and all over the floor. And it wasn't stopping. I joined in her panic and started trying to mop up the mess with some baby wipes and tissues, all the while trying to get her clothes off, calm her and call to the troupes for help. Both boys started gagging - honestly, whatever you are picturing, now x it by 10 for a true picture of how bad it was. Stay with me, the story gets better. All of a sudden our waiter was standing next to me, I turned to him in complete mortification and apologising over and over, asked him, in my very bad french, to bring me a plastic bag. He just looked at me and said "Give it all to me" I was horrified, I mean, It was really really bad. "No I can't" I said "It is terrible, really, really terrible, Please just a bag Monsieur". Then this Burkinabe stranger stood before me, opened his arms wide to me and said "You are my sister. Please give it all to me". He then took the pile of stinking soiled wipes, tissues and nappy out of my hands and walked away.

He did not do this thing out of duty, or because he felt subservient to me. I saw it in his eyes. He meant it. He saw my dilema, my embarrassment, and felt no disdain or hostility towards me. And he then responded in the most profoundly natural way. In love and kindness. I was humbled. I am honestly not sure I could have done the same.

So all of a sudden I find myself back with the lady with no fingers. I guess according to the Burkinabe world view, she is my sister. Infact, according to my own world view she is my sister. So the question therefor must be, How do I love? Its definitely complicated, or is it?...

Questions, questions.

The heat is very manageable right now, and the rains come hard and often, so there is quite a lot of green, but I know the landscape will change dramatically in the next few months and life will be harder for everyone.

We are in the process of buying a big pothole defeating vehicle, and are looking forward to exploring the real Burkina Faso, beyond the Capital. This is a country so untouched by tourism, that I hope and expect there will be many chances to see genuine culture, ritual and daily life of the Burkinabe people. I'm excited.

Onto the kids. They are happy. I continue to be amazed and blessed by Peter's capacity for change. Sam is also doing great, after a shakey first couple of weeks at school, he is now seeming more settled in a 'loud and slightly volatile' Sammy kind of way. The 7am school start is a bit of an adjustment, probably more for me than anyone, but having Melissa here is a huge help as she is a 'spring out of bed' type, rather than a 'grunt until 2nd cup of tea' type, like me. Esther is fine, but asks daily to go home. I'm not sure if she means the UK, New york or the hotel in Ouagadougou! I said to her yesterday, "This is our new home Esi" to which she replied in great frustration, "No its not our home, Its got no chairs!"

Bad news about our shipment. The shipping company in NYC has gone bankrupt. Hows ya luck eh? We managed to trace the container to Ghana, and have managed to trace the paperwork stating that its contents belong to us, but we don't know if the bills have been paid or exactly how we will get it to Burkina. Reminding myself daily, that its just stuff and money.....

The French is hard. Really hard. I'm having a couple of lessons a week and generally making a fool of myself on a daily basis.....My mushy mummy brain is a little overwhelmed but I do find that giving 'English in a french accent' a go, often works. The kids are in french class daily and Sammy is in a class with almost all Francophone kids, which is tough for him, but I think it will help him learn faster. Even Esi got out of a taxi last week and said "Merci" with no prompting, and then held out her banana skin to me last night saying "where's the poubelle".

I don't want to say too much on behalf of Rich, but he has just landed himself a smacking job with the office here, despite not having the language totally nailed yet. The office is a tough environment and he has come in at a time of management change. But you know Rich, at his best under pressure and he loves a challenge.

So we are good. Friendships are hard,the language is hard, the heat and the environment are hard but I keep reminding myself that it takes time to adjust. I am also aware that we have just hit the 6 week mark, which is always when I go into crisis - the novelty has worn off, it hits me that we are not on vacation, and that the random donkey wandering around outside my house is going to be the first friendly face I see every morning for the next two years.....

Lifes a riot.