Mostly weather, water, and work

Well, it is Thursday evening and I am sitting waiting again.  Simon has taken me to a roadside stall on the way back from the office to have a bowl of do du – which is yoghurt with sugar and fermented millet – lovely to eat, cooling, with ice in it.  It seemed wimpish to say ‘I still don’t really drink the water here’ so I shall see if I regret my wimpishness later.  I was alright with the tô we ate – savoury sago blancmange with a spicy sauce – but I am still filtering and boiling, filtering and boiling, for my drinking water, cooking water and tooth cleaning so am being a wimp most of the time.  Simon at 28 is well-hard having done 2 years in Senegal, 1 year in Mali and 6 months in Burkina Faso.  He is very patient with his new dependent.

I am also waiting for the mains water to come on.  Apparently, according to the women at the office, it mostly comes on during the night – sometimes at 12.30, sometimes at 1.30 – which explains why I caught it at 4.30 am on Tuesday.  I have to fill up my two tanks otherwise no showers, no flushing of the loos, no washing.  I haven’t thought about water so much since I don’t know when.

It is really, really hot.  Unseasonably hot everyone says.  But there was a little rain last night and there are clouds again this evening, so maybe, maybe, there will be rain to cool us all down.

Today I was given my first task.  I am to work with Kadi from the office and put together a vox pop among older residents of Diébougou asking them about their views on development – how far BF has come, where they think it will go, if the direction is correct, what they think the future holds for the next generation.  I have to canvass villagers, shop-keepers, civil servants, professionals . . .  they will apparently talk to me more readily than to a fellow BF national.  This is being done in all the regions by NGOs who are preparing a sort of state of the nation paper for central government.  Good!  Something to do!  I am putting aside the terrors of writing it up in French for the moment.

Morning's update - water came on, I was not sick, and the rain is still expected!