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.