The blog up-dates are getting far in-between because I’m just not shocked as often any more. It’s hard to think of what would be interesting to read about because way too many things are just becoming common place at this point. So here’s the run down for the last month. Last time I wrote to you I said it was hot. Good news, it’s hotter. I recently had vacation at the end of our second trimester of school. I started my vacation with “Man Camp”, a two day extravaganza in Dori in the northern part of the country. I’ll spare you the guessing, it was hot. It was in fact so manly that when I arrived I wanted to leave because it was smelly and dirty. Then I got over it. We were indeed manly drinking booze and eating slabs of meat while watching Rambo 4 (DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE IT IS BAD) (disclaimer: this is not a good definition of “manly” it is purely for entertainment purposes).
Vacation was two weeks long and Man camp was a highlight of the first week. For the second week I took a trip down to the southwest to a town called Banfora. Banfora is the only real tourist area in Burkina and is roughly the only money making area in the country. They have tons of crops and a large sugar industry. One region does not a rich country make. Our first night in town we were greeted by a loud chorus of street kids YELLING “TOUBAB!!” which is Jula or Djula for white or white thing. This is really getting old at this point. The local language here in Ouagadougou is Mooré and the word is “nassra”. I mostly hear it from small children; that is less annoying because you can rationalize that they don’t know any better. When adults do it is very frustrating. I think I’m having issues because I’m from the United States where it is rude if not flat out racist to call someone by the color of their skin. I don’t think that most people are trying to be intentionally rude with this but you can certainly tell when they are. The big market is the worst area for this so next week me and a friend are going to go to the market, buy nothing and just sit on a bench and say nothing, just to see how nuts it will drive all the vendors. Anyway, it was surprising to get called white over and over in Banfora because it is a tourist area, so the excuse of us being the first white people or things they’ve ever seen just doesn’t work. So hearing constantly, “le blanc, donne moi cadeau”, meaning “white, give me a gift” gets old fast. When I was riding my bike down to the cascades in Banfora one kid about 11 years old stepped out into the road with his arms stretched out saying we couldn’t pass unless we stopped and gave him a gift. I just rode straight at him and he got out of the way pretty quick, judge me if you want I don’t mind I’m tired of feeling like a zoo animal. Other than the more gutsy children, Banfora was wonderful. They have in the area three natural attractions; the cascades, the domes, and the hippo lake. We visited all three camping out one night near the lake. The cascades are basically and natural water park and there were loads of people visiting. The road out of town goes through large sugarcane fields for about 15 kilometers. Once you are near the area there are loads of mango trees. We played around in the cascades for a few hours before moving on down to the hippo lake. I may have shisto in a few months but I think it was worth it.
For whatever reason when you don’t know an area bike rides always feel longer. The ride from the cascades to the hippo lake, we were told, is only 3k. It took us an hour and we had to ride through loads of fields following an irrigation “canal” ditch is more accurate I think. The crop diversity was a bit impressive considering most of this country just grows onions. We passed banana trees, mango trees, papaya trees, rice, sugar cane, corn, millet, and I’m sure some others. The irrigation is very good in Banfora but mangoes are growing all over the country right now. I don’t really understand how because it has not rained since last October, very impressive tree. So our 3K bike ride took almost an hour and a half if not longer.
We reached the lake area and stayed one night at a camp site/hotel and we were the only guest roughly 200 meters from the lake. It was a nice site with beds set-up outside of the rooms with nets because it is just too hot to be sleeping in a mud brick hut which basically acts as an oven. Around 2:30 in the morning I woke up and heard so very loud mooing then I heard a really really big splash. Hippos are dangerous and I don’t think mud brick walls, much less a mosquito net could hold one back if needed.
They guy taking care of us at the hotel and the guides at the lake said the best time to see the hippos is first thing in the morning. So we headed out at about 5:30am to head down to the lake with the guy from the hotel. We took a small single paddle row boat out on the lake. Did I mention hippos are dangerous? The hotel guy took us over to this one spot of the lake were a certain group of hippos likes to hang out. I counted 5 in that group and we saw a few more on our way back in. After the lake we biked back up towards the cascades to the domes.
It’s an area of rocks that have been carved down by erosion. You’ll just have to look at the pictures. It was fun for about 20 minutes then I turned my ankle. I kept climbing stuff but I think I hate turning my ankle more than being called white.
For Easter I headed out to Bongandé. The church service was complete full and we had to sit outside under a tree with about 200 other people all trying to stay out of the sun. I wasn’t a great service. I couldn’t concentrate. It’s hard to pay attention when there are goats and pigs running around in front of you and small children playing “who can get closest to the white people” game. One lady seriously moved across the yard found a chair (of which there weren’t many) put it down three feet from me and sat down with her child, harmless so far. Then the staring started. The she took her infant child and sat him on the ground closer to me. The whole time she was whispering to the child, “look over there, look, do you see that.” Then she took the child’s hand, reached it out, and petted my knee with it. I had to say something; I was trying to avoid it, being as we were in the middle of Easter Mass. She stopped after that, moved away then came back and started the staring again. Needless to say we left church early. Later that evening we stopped by the Nun’s house and kicked it with them for a few hours. Way better than the Mass and far more refreshing.
Vacation was two weeks long and Man camp was a highlight of the first week. For the second week I took a trip down to the southwest to a town called Banfora. Banfora is the only real tourist area in Burkina and is roughly the only money making area in the country. They have tons of crops and a large sugar industry. One region does not a rich country make. Our first night in town we were greeted by a loud chorus of street kids YELLING “TOUBAB!!” which is Jula or Djula for white or white thing. This is really getting old at this point. The local language here in Ouagadougou is Mooré and the word is “nassra”. I mostly hear it from small children; that is less annoying because you can rationalize that they don’t know any better. When adults do it is very frustrating. I think I’m having issues because I’m from the United States where it is rude if not flat out racist to call someone by the color of their skin. I don’t think that most people are trying to be intentionally rude with this but you can certainly tell when they are. The big market is the worst area for this so next week me and a friend are going to go to the market, buy nothing and just sit on a bench and say nothing, just to see how nuts it will drive all the vendors. Anyway, it was surprising to get called white over and over in Banfora because it is a tourist area, so the excuse of us being the first white people or things they’ve ever seen just doesn’t work. So hearing constantly, “le blanc, donne moi cadeau”, meaning “white, give me a gift” gets old fast. When I was riding my bike down to the cascades in Banfora one kid about 11 years old stepped out into the road with his arms stretched out saying we couldn’t pass unless we stopped and gave him a gift. I just rode straight at him and he got out of the way pretty quick, judge me if you want I don’t mind I’m tired of feeling like a zoo animal. Other than the more gutsy children, Banfora was wonderful. They have in the area three natural attractions; the cascades, the domes, and the hippo lake. We visited all three camping out one night near the lake. The cascades are basically and natural water park and there were loads of people visiting. The road out of town goes through large sugarcane fields for about 15 kilometers. Once you are near the area there are loads of mango trees. We played around in the cascades for a few hours before moving on down to the hippo lake. I may have shisto in a few months but I think it was worth it. 
For whatever reason when you don’t know an area bike rides always feel longer. The ride from the cascades to the hippo lake, we were told, is only 3k. It took us an hour and we had to ride through loads of fields following an irrigation “canal” ditch is more accurate I think. The crop diversity was a bit impressive considering most of this country just grows onions. We passed banana trees, mango trees, papaya trees, rice, sugar cane, corn, millet, and I’m sure some others. The irrigation is very good in Banfora but mangoes are growing all over the country right now. I don’t really understand how because it has not rained since last October, very impressive tree. So our 3K bike ride took almost an hour and a half if not longer. 
We reached the lake area and stayed one night at a camp site/hotel and we were the only guest roughly 200 meters from the lake. It was a nice site with beds set-up outside of the rooms with nets because it is just too hot to be sleeping in a mud brick hut which basically acts as an oven. Around 2:30 in the morning I woke up and heard so very loud mooing then I heard a really really big splash. Hippos are dangerous and I don’t think mud brick walls, much less a mosquito net could hold one back if needed. 
They guy taking care of us at the hotel and the guides at the lake said the best time to see the hippos is first thing in the morning. So we headed out at about 5:30am to head down to the lake with the guy from the hotel. We took a small single paddle row boat out on the lake. Did I mention hippos are dangerous? The hotel guy took us over to this one spot of the lake were a certain group of hippos likes to hang out. I counted 5 in that group and we saw a few more on our way back in. After the lake we biked back up towards the cascades to the domes. 
It’s an area of rocks that have been carved down by erosion. You’ll just have to look at the pictures. It was fun for about 20 minutes then I turned my ankle. I kept climbing stuff but I think I hate turning my ankle more than being called white. 
For Easter I headed out to Bongandé. The church service was complete full and we had to sit outside under a tree with about 200 other people all trying to stay out of the sun. I wasn’t a great service. I couldn’t concentrate. It’s hard to pay attention when there are goats and pigs running around in front of you and small children playing “who can get closest to the white people” game. One lady seriously moved across the yard found a chair (of which there weren’t many) put it down three feet from me and sat down with her child, harmless so far. Then the staring started. The she took her infant child and sat him on the ground closer to me. The whole time she was whispering to the child, “look over there, look, do you see that.” Then she took the child’s hand, reached it out, and petted my knee with it. I had to say something; I was trying to avoid it, being as we were in the middle of Easter Mass. She stopped after that, moved away then came back and started the staring again. Needless to say we left church early. Later that evening we stopped by the Nun’s house and kicked it with them for a few hours. Way better than the Mass and far more refreshing.
