Some Pics

These kids alternated between helping their parents harvest corn and blowing snot all over me.

Burkina Faso is secretly a Scandinavian country where it never gets dark. And where the women are gracefully able to ride bicycles and mopeds in full-length traditional dresses.

This is a village.

These are all the most important elements of Burkinabe society.

I made it Part II

In case you're wondering, I got my passport back, but it came with invitation of marriage and a request to be taken to the United States. A fair transaction, I think.

Description of trip and photos to come.

I made it

After a wonderful flight from Dakar to Bamako (capital of Mali) to Ouagadougou, I had an equally wonderful surprise waiting for me: my passport was promptly confiscated by customs. At first, it was confiscated because I didn't have enough money to pay the visa (I was told it was $20. It was $188). Fair enough. But when I returned ten minutes later with lots o' cash, I was told that they had run out of receipts. Meaning that I still could not have my passport, even though I had just forked over enough money for approximately one million bananas. I seriously, seriously hope that my passport does not get lost or stolen, as they placed it in a pile of several dozen other passports in an unlocked cabinet.

So, I may not be able to leave this country come Sunday, but at least I can drive safely while I am here--because Ouagadougou has traffic lights! Real ones! With reds and greens (and maybe yellows I didn't see)! Dakar does not have traffic lights. Dakar does not have yield signs. Dakar's traffic does not run on gasoline. It runs on testosterone.

I also had a lovely dinner companion tonight. I didn't expect him to join, and in fact I was quite frightened to see him there at first, but he was quiet and polite and let me read my book.

It was actually very nice that he was there to protect me, as I may have accidentally agreed to marry my waiter.

Time's Cafe, we meet again

Tonight's menu includes cheese fries made with gouda. (Surprisingly a little bland.) Tomorrow's menu includes a trip to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, to film some farmers with their maize. Ouagadougou Wednesdays! Let's get Ouaga Wild! Oua-hy are the only other people in this restaurant sitting at the table next to me!

(The girl (let's call her Patty) is on the phone, and the guy (let's call him Carl) just pulled out his laptop and is singing to himself. It's turning out to be a great date. Looks like I won't be able to watch True Blood without headphones as I had planned. Carl, re the menu, in English: "I'm just looking for something special for me, and I can't find it.")

Moving on:

(Can't move on, because Patty just ordered a hot iced tea. The owner is confused. She is insistent.)

Last Friday was Korite, Senegalese version of Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. I made the bold decision to travel to the beach town of Popenguine on the night before Korite. Those of you who have studied a map of Senegal know that Dakar is on a peninsula, so that all traffic in and out of the city is quite literally becomes trapped in a bottleneck (in fact, after driving out of Dakar, I can now tell you the secrets of ships in bottles). Moreover, all traffic going either north or south along the coast has to take the same route for several dozen kilometers. On a normal day, this means that there is no such thing as rush hour, only rush all the time.

(Patty and Carl are now watching Beyonce Live in Vegas. Carl is singing along. They appear to be completely unaware that this is a public space.)

Anyway, on the night before Korite, when everyone is leaving the city to visit family, the normal traffic becomes what could conservatively be called a nightmare. I shared a taxi with someone who paid one third of what I did to go farther, and the driver decided that it would probably be faster to leave Dakar via backroads than via the highway. Thus, getting out of Dakar, a journey that usually takes twenty minutes, took two hours. For those full two hours, I had literally no idea where we were, as the only landmarks were people's backyards, several cows, and the washed out roads from the previous night's rain. Not convinced that it was faster than the highway. However, I did get to break the fast with my driver and fellow passenger, which was actually quite nice. Our ceremonial pre-Korite dinner consisted of bananas, bread, and cafe Touba, which is a spicy coffee made with pepper, maybe. Two hours and several kilometers later, seeing that we probably weren't going to move for at least 20 minutes, my driver got out of the car to smoke a cigarette. I guess he wasn't satisfied with all the diesel fumes from the many many minibuses and trucks that threatened to crush our little taxi at any minute.

(Patty and Carl have now moved on to the Black Eyed Peas. Screw it, I'm watching True Blood without headphones. Carl just gave Patty a foot massage. Still a public space.)

In the end, it took 5 hours instead of the usual 2.5 to get to Popenguine, which is at most 35 miles from Dakar, but it was pretty much worth it because that far out of the city the sky is clear enough to see the Milky Way. Coming back to Dakar on Sunday, from the Sine-Saloum delta further south near the border with the Gambia, took 6 hours. Events of the trip back include a lunch of canned peas and approximately 20 mosquito bites. Upon arrival in Dakar, the car broke down. Despite my fear of flying, and my greater fear of flying on Air Burkina, I'm quite looking forward to non-car travel tomorrow.

Signing off now, as Time apparently does not believe in anything other than mood lighting, and my headache is not being helped by the Senegalese rap videos that Patty and Carl are currently showing me. Next time (maybe) from halfway across West Africa, i.e. the distance from Philadelphia to Chicago. Africa is big!

Oh, language!

Currently sitting in Time's Cafe to surf the web, as episode seven of Celebrity Deathmatch: Rainy Season v. Leaky Roof is called "I Woke Up on Friday and My Modem was Sitting in a Puddle." At first I thought the possessive in the name of this cafe was another "Oh, you!" malapropism, but judging by the well-intentioned attempt at retro Americana decor (John Lennon poster next to Rosie the Riveter poster next to Rolling Stones poster, all above vaguely dinerish furniture), it may actually be that the owner really wanted to give time a restaurant of it's very own. Next up: Space's Cafe, featuring fifty years' worth of broken satellites hanging from the ceiling and lots of Dippin' Dots served by furtive looking cosmonauts.

The pizza here, made with real mozzarella cheese, was much superior to the pizza I had last weekend, which was made with emmental cheese, i.e. Swiss, i.e. gross. Both pizzas were served with the option of mustard, ketchup, and hot sauce. Only the ketchup actually tasted as it should (America!), but then I realized I was eating pizza with ketchup, so that was the end of that.

(Currently on the sound system: Rock Around the Clock remixed with various Elvis tunes, followed by Fleetwood Mac. Time, you're confusing me.)

Now that this weekend's pizza has surpassed last weekend's pizza, I hope that the prostitutes I saw last weekend, who mostly just seduced themselves by dancing in Electric Slide formation in front of a mirror at an Atlantic City-esque bar called Calypso, will similarly be outshone by whatever tonight has to offer. I expect the Cha Cha Slide in Vegas.