Everything I own is turning reddish orange

Not the most eventful month of all time but I suppose that’s not all bad. Burkina did make the international news however. We have a visitor from Guinea, Captain Camara; he was shot in the head back a few months ago. He was flown here from Morocco to finish “healing”/we’re keeping him out of Guinea so nothing else crazy happens there. Apparently he had no idea and when he got off the plane he thought he was back in Guinea.

Also this was the month of “village iron chef” aka people who teach and live in Ouaga go out to village and cook food mostly to entertain peace corps friends. It was fun and it was tasty. This trip’s highlight was not the cooking however but the 43 mile bike ride through the Sahel or the edge of the Sahara Desert. I prefer saying the edge of the desert cause it makes it sound more bad-ass. I met up with a friend in her village about 80K south of our final destination. We left from Bogandé about 7:30am and reached the main road in Tatarko about 1:00pm,ish.



Our whole route was a dirt road with little cover (desert) but with villages maybe every 15 miles. We stopped twice once in Mani where we got some of the best yogurt I’ve ever had. Apparently the “polls”, (spelled for ease of pronunciation) the ethnic group that lives in the north of Burkina as well as some other countries make some dang good yogurt. I’ll save you from having to wonder, a sachet of yogurt and half an orange Fanta was not the best choice for a mid 40 mile bike ride snack in the desert. No real problems though until we were roughly 12 miles out from Tatarko when the harmattan winds decided to pick up. So for about the last 10 miles or so we were ridding straight into a head wind happily the dust was not bad at all so there was no problems with seeing or breathing.



In Tatarko we stopped and had lunch which was pretty much the saltiest rice I’ve ever had in my life. The resto was just beside a video club spot. Explanation time; when someone has a TV or something of that sort at a bar or what have you, they place one large speaker outside of their establishment and turn it up as loud as humanly possible. People here LOVE kung-fu movies. SO, the end of our biking day was met with really salty rice and really loud kung-fu sounds. I was dirty, sweaty, salty form being sweaty, dehydrated, my butt hurt I couldn’t think and on top of that even if I would have been able to think I wouldn’t have been able to hear myself over the clashing of swords and kung-fu sounds of hands moving rapidly. All in all it was a good trip; it always feels good to do something physical especially when most of my days are spent in classrooms.



If you take a trip through the desert I’ve found it is best to just wear your flip-flops and a little bit of sun screen. Being prepared just seems like too much work. I’ll get pictures to you soon, I think my camera is broken so I’ll have to steal them.



Peace.

Long December (in a good way)

Yes I know, it’s been a solid half month since I wrote last, everyone just calm down it just means I’ve got loads to tell you. Let’s start with happy New Year, hope Christmas and/or other coinciding December holidays went well.

On December 20th, for some reason, Sean Paul (a famous singer for those who need a reference) came to Ouagadougou to put on a concert. His style can be described as a popish reggae. The concert was at the national football stadium “Stade du 4 Août”. This is a very large venue and I expected the place to be packed. Then we got to the concert and remembered that we’re in Burkina and no one has any money. The lowest priced tickets were 5000cfa ($10), great deal for a Sean Paul concert but still way too expensive for the population here.



One advantage to there being no people was that we could walk right up to the stage, and back stage and no one really said anything. Sean Paul was however 3 ½ hours late so the 6 o’clock concert didn’t start until 9:30pm. Here’s the fun part, there was loads of space on the field in front of the stage, yet most of the people had the 5000cfa seats in the bowl of the stadium. The people got restless and began jumping down on to the field. One, then two, then forty it was loads of fun to watch. In the madness someone found a later to help their friends down, it was as though they just pulled it out of their pants or a scene out of a Mel Brooks movie where things escalate faster than reason would assume.

The police, God love them, armed mostly with night sticks and a few AKs stopped most of this mad rush. It was amazing to watch because they basically told the people to sit down and they did. My friend, with whom I was sitting, and I observed that were it a group of Americans there’s no way we would have sat down without being beaten, we would have headed for the crowd and blended in as fast as possible. Now this was all with the stadium lights still on, so just imagine what happened when the lights went out. We watched as flood of human silhouettes leaped down onto the field as soon as the lights were off. Nothing the police could do about that one, it was beautiful.

The concert itself was ok, not spectacular, there were no warm-up bands it was pretty much just the main event. Sean Paul does not speak French, and Burkina Faso does not speak English. This little situation made it quite comical when Sean Paul would yell for the crowd to “put your hands up” and “jump” and asked questions like “do you love Sean Paul?” All questions and commands were promptly responded to with a resounding “quoi?” (What?). Stop talking in English and sing, you’re three hours late.

On to brighter subject, like scaring my students to within an inch of their lives. It was not on purpose I was checking individually how their listening comprehension and oral skills were progressing. So I called each student up and asked them simple questions; “write your name, name a factor of education, what is a job for a woman (this month’s topic is gender issues, I only got one response that said “there isn’t one, she can do anything”), and what do you want to do after school?”

Anyway my students were so petrified that I could see them visibly shaking while I was asking them questions. They were not even being graded on this exercise I think maybe they thought I would yell at them or something for not being perfect. One girl was so worried she crossed herself when we finished.

For Christmas I took a trip down to Ghana with some friends. Allow me to run you through the whole adventure. The day I bought our tickets I travelled across town on my bike at 6:30am and arrived at the bus station (gare) at about 7. There were very few people there and I went into the office. The man told me I would have to wait until 10 to buy the tickets because he was very busy. Did I mention that at the time I was the only person there? Any way I waited and met two university students from California who were doing an exchange at the University of Ghana in Accra. They were a well spring of information briefing me on everything from what they white people are called in Ghana to double counting you money as people like to count out the correct amount then slip some out and hand you the wrong amount, to where to get the best beans and rice in Busua (our final destination).

Our bus left a few days later on the 23rd at 9am (pay attention). We arrived in Accra at about 10am the 24th. Then we switched busses to get us to Takoradi we arrived in Takoradi at about 1pm or so in the afternoon. Then we got a taxi to take us to Busua so we pretty much got to our room at about 2pm on the 24th. That’s about 28 hours of transit from Ouagadougou to Busua, roughly a 500 mile journey. Compare that to doing a nearly 900 mile route on a gray hound bus from Greensboro to Quebec City, Canada in about 21 hours (by car only 17). Point is unpaved roads SUCK.
The difference between Ghana and Burkina Faso, where development is concerned is staggering.

I feel the stark contrast between the two nations is captured perfectly at the border crossing. There is similar land on either side of the border, similar size villages on either side of the border, and one major difference, different countries. In the Burkina immigration office there is one officer seated at a desk armed with a BiC pen and a large notebook so they can handwrite all the names and passport numbers of people leaving and entering the country. On the Ghana side (even at 4 in the morning) there are at least 6 immigration officers armed with (I saw) 4 computers with a passport scanner for processing people entering and leaving Ghana.



I know that may not sound like much but believe me it makes all the difference in the world after being in BF for 6 months. Ghana is at least 30 years ahead of Burkina and that could be due to many things, one of the largest factors in my opinion is access to an ocean. A small bag (half a liter) of water in Burkina cost 50CFA roughly 10 cents, and in Ghana a small bag of water cost 10 Ghana pesos which is about 30CFA and about 6 cents. Burkina, while one of the poorest nations in the world, is pretty much the most expensive nation in West Africa.

Well now, it was completely confusing to have to speak English with local people. At this point every African I see I just go ahead and speak in French, because that’s how we roll in BF. Adjusting that habit took a couple of slip ups in Ghana. Things like bags of water, which I was really first exposed to here in BF are hard to order when you don’t know what to call it in English. Sachet de l’eau in BF becomes sachet (with the T pronounced) of water in Ghana, but we didn’t know that so we just went around saying “what do you call a bag of water in English?” Life is hard sometimes.
We stayed 4 nights in Busua Beach, don’t bother trying to find it on a map it’s not there, the closest large town is Cape Coast and Takoradi.

It was beautiful, coconut palms all over the place, hills sloping gently into sandy beaches with clear sea green water. A small island with a couple of palm trees and tiki torches at night just off the coast provides a break from the larger ocean swells and makes the bay and beach picturesque and great for swimming. On the far side of that island waves looked like they were breaking with an extra 6 feet, just beyond the west end point of the bay the waves were breaking with what looked like about an extra 4 feet. The waves grew all three days that I went out surfing so that on our last day the waves were about 6 foot with anywhere from 9-10 foot waves in the big sets. It was wonderful; I got up every morning at 7am to rent my board and normally had the first three hours of the day to myself with 4-5 foot waves, glassy, no wind and no swimmers.



The surf shop is a chain called “Black Star Surf Shop” they’re located up and down the Ghana coast. The one in Busua has a restaurant with it and they serve frick’n good burritos. They also have something called “Rastafari beans and rice” which is black beans in a cream sauce with mango, avocado, and white rice, amazing. There a place called “Dan the Pancake man”, we had breakfast there once and Daniel informed us that if we wanted a lobster dinner to let him know in the morning and he’d have it for us that night, also amazing.Our room was right on the beach front, two double beds and a mat on the floor slept the 5 of us very comfortably for 15 Ghana Cidi a night (about 10 dollars for a beach front room).

We met a few people while we were down in Ghana. Among them was Brett Davies (worked for Rip Curl UK) and has set himself up a sweet little beach front restaurant bar. He also helped organize the first surfing competitions in Ghana at Busua. We got to watch what I believe was the second annual competition while we were there. Also met a guy named Riley from San Francisco/American University in DC, he’s working down there in the restaurant with Brett and teaching surf lessons (life can be hard sometimes). The whole atmosphere of the beach was beautiful, there nations from all over the world represented there people relaxing most of the NGO workers on holiday like us. If you get the chance to go to Busua I highly recommend it.

I managed to get hit in the chest with my board coming off of one wave so I “bruised” my rib. Happily we’re in Africa and nothing requires a doctor’s visit unless you’re really about to die. So for less than a dollar I was able to purchase some very strong Ibuprofen. I would need it for our insane trip back to Ouaga and BF.
This journey started at 3:30am the morning of the 28th. The plan was to take a bus back to Accra (4 hours) then take a “tro-tro” (bush taxi) to Akosombo at the south end of Volta Lake (largest manmade lake in the world). From there we were going to take a ferry up the lake to break up the ridiculously long trip home. The ferry would be 24hrs and cut out almost all of return back minus about 9 hours, we would have a cabin with AC and a bed split between four people costing about 5 Ghana Cidi ($3) each. It was going to be frick’n amazing.

Sadly the boats took a Christmas season break so they were not running. So we stayed one night in Akosombo, beautiful middle class Africa town looks like what you can find anywhere in the United States. Ranch style houses with big lawns and cars in the driveways situated in a valley with large rising green hills all around and more coconut and banana tress than you’d ever need (in Burkina it’s tiny mud-brick houses with broken bicycles in an all sand yard the same size as the house with sand on top of more sand with sand on the side, sand is too kind let’s just say rocky dirt).



After our one night in Akosombo, we once again rose at 3:30am to catch a tro-tro to Kumasi. This tro-tro ride was long. Tro-tro’s are the size of a 16 passenger van that forgot to eat its vegetables. My chin and knees have never been closer than they were after this ride. Luckily the scenery was beautiful as we passed the mountains and valleys all covered with lush green vegetation. One town called Nkawkaw had a mountain in its background called Apaku, I think, with very large open rock faces, looked a lot like Stone Mountain in Georgia but without the carvings and much larger. When we got to Kumasi we went straight away to our bus station.

Wouldn’t you know it, no busses to Ouaga until the following day. We searched out a new bus station that did have a bus but it didn’t leave until 7pm, when we bought the tickets it was about 11am. Mostly we just sat around and slept in front of the bus station. There was chicken shit, chickens, the Pepsi depot, and some lady who threw dirty water on us from one floor above.

We got on the bus 7pm and left Kumasi. We arrived at the BF Ghana border at 4am. Turns out the border closes at night so we sat at the border until 8am. Then the bus driver managed to make what is normally a two hour trip from Pô to Ouaga into a four hour trip. I was ready to burn the bus down. When I was exiting the bus I was greeted by a chorus of Burkinabe yelling “nassalla” (mooreé for white) so I just threw my hands up and using the same hand gesture you use when shewing goats and sheep and half yelled “Get Away From ME, AAHHA!!” That didn’t work they still attacked trying to charge us nearly three times the correct price for a taxi to take us back to our house. It’s good to be home.



New Year’s was uneventful spent it at a house party then out to a Burkinabe club for some dancing. I recommend to anyone to travel to Ghana and plan to stay about two years if you’re being a tourist. I didn’t take my camera to Ghana (that was stupid, I left it in my friend’s car in Ouaga) I’ll steel some pictures from my friends and put them soon so check back.
Peace

Y'all look cooollldd in the states

December is nearly half finished which means protest season is in full swing. That also means I have only been to work once in the last week and that trend does not appear to be changing any time soon. Here’s a rundown of the events.

Last Monday I awoke unaware of what my schedule would be for the day. Normally I have class from 9 am until noon. I woke up very early that morning to have some coffee and breakfast. While sitting in the kitchen I could hear not so distant cheers arising from a nearby school, my school (just over a 10th of a mile away). This happened to be the day that my “proviseur” (head master or principal) had told me he would text me to say if it were safe or not to come to work. At that time I had received no indication via text to say what the situation was at the school. I walked on to work not knowing what I was about to find when I turned the corner or entered the gate at the school.

The cheering had stopped so that was at least comforting. All the schools here have uniforms for their students, and not like the SNL skit catholic school girl style uniforms. These uniforms are generally just a collard t-shirt with pants or LONG skirts for the girls, most schools are easily identifiable by their uniforms. There were loads of my school’s uniforms walking around the street (with students in them) when I was approaching. Now it was time for my imagination to take off.

“Have the students deposed of the proviseur, security guard, and other teachers? Will the school be in a blaze when I round corner? Will there be random small children with AK’s and frozen bisap (comparable to Kool-Aid) waiting for me? Are these kids walking the street going to realize that ‘Hey that’s that white guy that teaches at our school once a week, GET HIM!’? Could I have more absurd and ungrounded thoughts than this?”

When I did arrive at the school I found the gate slightly open and the guard waiting. I gave my morning greetings and moved on to the copy room. In the courtyard of the school it was of those, “oh crap it’s too quiet” situations. Upon arriving at the copy room one of the administrators (the guy who runs the copy room) came out. He informed me that that morning we gave the students the week off. Great news but it would have been nice to know beforehand.

My Tuesday school did meet on their normal schedule. My Thursday school did not meet but luckily I was feeling sick that morning and rather than riding my bike out to the school to find out, I just texted a colleague to say I wasn’t coming. He just told me not to worry about it because no one else was either, bonus.
Last Friday was Independence Day (part two). I say part two because it used to be August 4th but the current President, Brother Blaise, changed it to December 11th, he’s a big fan of change kindoflikehowhechangedtheconstitutionsohecouldrunforofficeagainnextNovember,Imeanwhat?

Anyway, there was a concert last Friday night that I accidently stumbled upon with my friend Siddo and some of his buddies. There, along with an acrobatic team from Ghana who liked to stick flaming torches down each other’s pants, I saw a fellow teacher who informed me that “no school, students are on strike”. So that’s fun because that was the only school I had left that was still working. So today there was no school and I’m pretty sure the strike is spreading because I received a message from a friend who works in a village saying “a group of high school kids just walked by my house blowing whistles” and just being generally annoying. Good stuff, their reaction was the same as mine which was, get off the soccer field and go to the mayor’s house or something.

In any case I will continue to wait out the “strike/protest” so I can begin work again. While it is still ranging from 91-90F for the highs during the day I am aware that Christmas is next week, at least that’s what the calendar says. So next week I’ll be taking my temporarily unemployed-self to the beach in Ghana, I’ll be sure to have lots of pictures for you.
Peace

Thanksgiving and Protest season

Thanksgiving was a complete bust this year. When I was living in London for study abroad the American students (and one Frenchman) got together to have a decent dinner with a frozen turkey roll thing. It was a lovely time and later we went to the pub and convinced them to put on the NFL games.

In Ouagadougou last week, I had to work. The Embassy, due to a low turn-out last year, decided to not hold a Thanksgiving celebration at the American Recreation Center. So, Thanksgiving this year consisted of me proctoring a final exam in mathematics at one of my schools in the morning and teaching my normal class at the house that night. Yay!?

The following day however, was an Islamic holiday here in Burkina called Tabaski (no way that’s spelled correctly). Anyway, that celebration goes down like this; if you’re rich you buy a bull, if you’re in the middle you buy a goat, below that a sheep, and below that you just get a chicken. No matter what your socioeconomic class the animal you by gets chopped up and eaten. It does not normally fall this close to thanksgiving but it was pretty darn close this year.

I didn’t get to celebrate with anyone as I was taking a road trip down to Bobo-Dioulasso (meaning home of the bobo). Good times making the trip by car rather than bus although the road has more pot holes than the surface of the moon. Bobo is the second largest city in Burkina and when we arrived it was clear that it was a holiday. Our first day consisted just searching out places to eat and stay for the night. One major personal goal of mine was to find some local home-made beer.



The beer is called dolo (dough-low) and it’s made in some pretty sketchy places from millet. It smells like barf and taste roughly the same. In an attempt to find a dolo bar I was volunteered by my travel mates to do all the talking to the random people on the street, always a good time. The first gentleman I spoke with was roughly 6’7” I’d say about 220 maybe a little less. I asked him where we could find a bar. Nothing is easy in Burkina so he said he would take us to his cousin’s place. I said we’d pass, he didn’t look happy. I conferred with the car; they also said we’d pass. I spoke with him once again to see if he would just tell me where the bar was he said three blocks straight ahead on the right.

I got back in the car and while the car mates were looking backwards I was telling the driver to “RUN!!” They thought I was referring to the large gentleman behind us but in fact I was talking about the very drunk man ahead of us making a b-line for the car. “Run” I said again, “from the scary man in the blue tank-top! The one yelling “HEY WHITE, WHITE!”” Just as Greg got his wits about him and realized who I was talking about he hit the gas and the man hit the car. Don’t worry we didn’t run him over but he did punch the side of the car as we speed away.

Using our great judgment we decided that it was a better idea to not stop merely three blocks away and continued to another section of town. When we got to a good looking street we stopped and I began my street integrations again. “Where’s there a dolo bar?” I would ask. I would receive answers like, “they don’t serve it at bars” and “women make it, you have to find the women”. Great eventually I asked one person and again they said we were three blocks away, I was sensing a pattern. We eventually made it to the dolo bar. It smelled like burning vomit so I knew we were in the right place. The proprietor of the establishment filled up a litter and a half bottle with dolo for us for 250cfa (roughly 50 cents).



Contrary to what you may be thinking it did not taste great. Please pardon the vomit references but they most accurately describe dolo. You know the sour feeling you have in your mouth just before you throw-up? Yeah, that’s what it tasted like. At the bar you drink out of bowls that are gourds cut in half from what I could tell. At the hotel I drank mine from a glass…bowl, I didn’t want to break tradition. We only drank half the bottle between the four of us. The rest of the trip was good, not a ton to do in Bobo, just visit the mosque and the market but it was wonderful to get out of Ouaga and relax for a bit in a large city with small town noise.



December marks many things in the year; the start of winter, the end of the year, the epicenter of commercial holidays. In Burkina it marks protest season. My collogues at my three schools have been warning me for a few weeks now that normally in December we go on strike and there are many protests. Last week the information changed slightly to them warning me that it may not be safe for me to come to work next week.

The past two weeks my students have all been taking their exams. You would think that after exams we would have a winter break. That is not the case here, we continue on through December and take about a week for vacation right before Christmas and New Year’s starting on the 22nd. Now back to what this has to do with the protest. On December 3, 1998 there was a journalist (I should say supposedly) murdered by the government and of course no investigation and all that good stuff.

According to my students the journalist (Norbit Zongo, first name may be spelled incorrectly wrong) was killed then burned in his car. He is said to have had information about the government that was most likely incriminating so the government took him out, that is according to my students. So every year since 1998 there has been protests in December looking for answers. Some of my co-workers feel that the protest have become disconnected from the original purpose and after 10 years of protest without answers I would agree. The feeling now is that the students continue the protests not to find answers (although that is the reason for some) but rather to get out of classes.

It is more common now for the students to just go home and not bother with the protests. While I was asking my class about these things yesterday I tried to figure out why the students have been protesting at the schools. The people they are upset with are down town at the national assembly my question to them was “why aren’t you downtown?” Their response was that the administration would not let them leave. Clearly we need to work on our protesting skills here. My students are scared to protest downtown because it is dangerous and they may get arrested for three hours. I tried to convince them that that is the point and there is no reason for them to protest at the schools. I told them that people only see the protests as a joke now and an excuse to get out of classes.

I’m pretty sure my supervisor at the school didn’t want me encouraging my students to protest. His words to me yesterday morning were, “be careful, watch your students they like to try and protest during this time”. Then he assigned one of my students to escort me to my own class room. I think I will continue to encourage them to stand up for justice and human rights despite their (at times) misguided efforts.

I ran out of time in class yesterday but I walked out with one of my students who was explaining to me that they “can’t” protest downtown because it is dangerous or they may get in trouble and are not able to leave the school. I told him that if it is something they truly believe in, and if they really want answers in this 10 year old murder case then seeking out those answers, taking the fight to the government down town is well worth the dangers. If they truly want to make a difference they must be willing to take on the struggles and dangers that come with fight for justice.

I enjoy my life

A few days ago AJ and I were have light lunch at a local hotel. I received a phone call and the person on the other end asked what I was doing. At that exact moment the entire Malawi national soccer team walked through the door. So I answered oh you know grabbing some food hanging out with the Malawi national football team, the normal. It gets better.

Last night we went to the world cup qualifying Burkina Faso vs. Malawi football (soccer) match. Loads of fun and tickets were only 300CFA, less than one dollar (I thought National’s tickets were cheep). We were at door 18, no assigned seats just the assigned door so we sat in the front row.

Burkina won the match 1-0, should have been 2-0 but the Malawi keeper stopped an incredibly weak penalty kick from BF. No real excitement at the game just your standard football match, no deaths or fights or anything fun like that.

After the match it was time to chill out and grab some dinner. Siddo, Greg, Brad and I went down to Ouaga2000 to pick up another friend. Once we got him we were leaving to meet up with the others down town. We were side tracked because we passed a hotel and Siddo informed us that it is the hotel the national team uses. So we popped in for a drink.

Of course once we get in we realize we have a contact who works at the hotel. So we talk with him for a moment then he asks if we want to meet the team. At the time they were eating dinner in the next room. So we said sure, why not. So we were escorted in and got to meet the whole Burkina Faso national football team, just standard stuff. We went back to the bar area and our friend asked if we wanted to get some pictures with the team, sure, why not. So we got some pictures with some of the players. Then he asked if we wanted to go meet the goal scorer, sure, why not. So we went up to his room, got to meet him and take a picture, you know the normal stuff.

In any case it was all very exciting and fun. Just nice to be in the right place at the right time.

I wanted that sandwich

I’m getting into the swing of things with my three schools. However there are some bumps on the road to knowing what I’m doing. At my most organized school we actually have tests for the students from time to time. Sadly I was not aware of the system for these tests. The first test my students took with me was given by a fellow teacher. I thought the central office made the test and then I simply administered it. WRONG!

So this past week my students were scheduled to have a test. The test dates are set by the school not by me. So I arrived at school with a short warm up exercise that would last roughly an hour leaving two hours for test time. I thought it would be the same as the first test and a fellow teacher would come in with the test at the second hour. Of course that would be too easy so when I got to the teacher’s lounge my advisor came to me and asked if I had a test ready. No I didn’t thinking the central office had the test for me. Apparently I’m supposed to write the test for the students, no one had told me this. So I had to quickly throw something together and have it typed up by the secretary.

They then informed me that normally I should bring my test to the secretary three days before the test. This was all information that would have been useful before the day of the test. Also at this school there was an issue with a student wanting to marry me. She gave me a nice middle school style letter and everything with a greeting line that said “dear (your name)”. I thought that was sweet, NOT!

Sadly this type of thing is not uncommon here. There are many instances of teachers dating students so students are not really shy about being upfront. I’m in no position to pass judgment on some of the cultural peculiarities, but this is not the standard in the States or the way I choose to conduct myself. If something like this happens in the states you would normally go to your advisor to have it sorted it. Not really the best option here because my advisors don’t necessarily take these matters seriously.

I addressed the situation myself telling the student (who transferred into my class, brought to me by a fellow teacher) that if she wanted to stay in my class then there are to be no more letters or anything of the sort. At the time I was trying to tell her this she was trying to give me a sandwich she had bought for me. I really wanted that sandwich too but I declined a continued being “stern” with the student.

The following week I was approached by my advisor and he asked if I was having a problem with the student being in my class. Without trying to spread the students business I informed him there was a problem but I discussed it with the student. Apparently the student went to my advisor and told him that she felt like I didn’t want her in the class and that I was being very short with her. I told him that there are most likely other reasons she thinks I’m being short with her.

My advisor said simply, laughing the entire time and standing with two other English teachers, “we are all men, we know HAHA”. Again, this is not really the level of concern that these types of issues would warrant in the States. On top of that, the same English teacher who brought that student to my class also brought two senior girls to and told me that they wanted some help with their English. I thought no problem we can work one hour after my normal class.

This English teacher informed me that those two girls were not happy with the introduction that he gave them. Apparently they told him they “wanted more than just that”. So my fellow English teacher is acting as my pimp and sending me girls. Of course they don’t mind either that these girls are trying to throw themselves at teachers. This is just another unfortunate reality in life here. It is however nice to once again be confronted with a real situation and have to take a stance, a stance that is not forced by law or passed on from parents or churches.

Often times we say we think something is wrong because we were taught that it was wrong but we have never been confronted by the real situation where a discussion has to be made. Now confronted with the real situation I agree wholeheartedly with the laws and teachings that we have on the particular issue. I think it is better to learn the facts so that when you are confronted with the situation you can make a sound choice. It’s one thing to say you think or believe a certain thing about an issue when you’ve never been confronted by it; it’s another to think or believe something and practice it and believe it because you’ve had to make the choice.

Me and the Police

This week was the second time I have had to set foot in a Burkina police department. The first time was because we were driving the wrong way down a one-way street. That wasn’t our fault there were no indications of any sort saying it was a one-way road. The officer took our moto then sent us inside. Happily the person in charge was an old friend of Siddo’s from back in Fada, so they let us go.

This time was a bit different. At least this time I was not at fault in any way. Sadly the reason for this visit was the stolen purse of one of my housemates. So…I was awakened early (not realy it was about 9 but I didn’t get to bed until 5am on account of a freshly returned friend from the states) and summoned outside to speak with two police officers.

I don’t have to tell you that my French is not perfect. My French is even less so after only 4 hours of sleep. So in what I understood (which wasn’t much) they police had apprehended the gentleman who had swiped the purse. That’s good news, the bad news is now we would have to go to the PD to give a story.

So about an hour later we left for the PD. I along with my housemate met with the directive or whatever his title is and gave him an account. All this was done through my broken translation of what the detective and my housemate were saying. Long story short they Police now had the purse and we could pick it up but not until later in the afternoon. This whole process took maybe two or three hours while the detective hand-wrote a three page report on the event.

Later that afternoon we went back to the PD to retrieve the purse and items. On the way into the office I heard rumblings to the effect of “you get to meet the guy”. My perception of how this happens in the United States involves a two way mirror and no way for the frick’n guy to see me/us. Not in Burkina though.

We walk in to the office and there on the floor in his underwear is one hand-cuffed prisoner. Great, that’s just what I wanted and expected. The officer takes this prisoner out (good news) but then brings in another. This one is the one apprehended with the purse. So he sits there on the floor and gives some account, denies were made about the amount of money in the purse blah, blah, blah, standard attempt at sounding slightly less guilty or at least less malicious.

Pastor Zongo was with us and of course he got a little preachy toward the guy (I should say kid he was only 16) and told him something that I mostly tuned out from being tired. However, I did catch that this kid is the son of a government representative. I don’t know on what level, be it local or national but whatever, the point is the kid didn’t need the money my guess is he just though it was fun something stupid like that.

Any way we got the stuff back and I’m sure some sort of deal will be struck and the kid will walk, but for now I believe he’s spending time in a cell at the PD. My understanding of the process is that they strip you, take whatever you’ve got on you, and the only way you get fed is if your family brings you food.
Other than this thing are good, Monday was a holiday so no work. It’s November and that constitutes a yay!

Peace
Ben