What I did on my holidays

Former VSO colleague and chum Emefa offered me a visit to Togo – what a lovely time we had.  We stayed by the sea in Lomé with her family – aunts, uncles, cousins, sister, nephew and niece - and spent four completely packed days.  She had prepared a whopping itinerary to cover as much ground as possible.  From the moment I left the airport I was in full viewing mode, seeing from the Ghanaian border, right in the middle of the capital city, to the Benin border – just a little further along the coast.  Togo is narrow and stretches north all the way back to Burkina Faso.  It is lush and green and beautiful;  it has mountains which look like SE Asia, and waterfalls, and coffee and avocados and bananas in wild abundance;  the food includes fresh seafood – joy! – and dozens of the most delicious dishes….. I felt I was eating gorgeous food all the time I was there. 

Chateau Viale, a former presidential retreat

Out clubbing in chic Lome

The heavenly twins, Lorris and Lorianna

No chance of drowning here!

An Olympic pool - Diebougou, this is what you need

Beach bar

We needed a breather

The history of the country is a typical West African mixture of various colonial powers, under-investment, misappropriated investment and now a curious arrangement whereby the late President left the ‘throne’ to his son.  What, a hereditary head of state in this day and age? 

There is such a lot going on.  Lomé is a major container port, and very international with lots of expats, expensive hotels, restaurants and nightclubs;  great for shopping, and so I have invested in a dress in chic Woodin fabric, run up by Emefa’s tailor’s atelier in 24 hours…..

We spent a night in Kpalimé where we zig-zagged up a mountain to see for tens of kilometres, trekked to a waterfall where I swam accompanied by not one but two minders – Emefa’s family friend and driver, Atitso, and our guide – and then drank palm wine straight from the palm tree.  This is usually then distilled into some killer spirit called sodabé – rather in the absinthe/blindness way, I got the impression - so was pleased only to taste the raw material!  We also visited an artists’ village, a decaying Presidential chateau on a mountaintop, a meteorological station, some more relatives, a lovely French restaurant, an organic coffee farm and hotel in the hills, and innumerable beaches and swimming pools.  We took a canoe trip across Lac Togo to see the original capital which is on an island – Togostadt to the German colonists, Togoville to the French colonists; and we visited a clandestine slave house used for up to 25 years after abolition…..

Tourism outside Lomé is under-developed, but there was clearly a period in the 1960s-70s when hopes were high after independence, and there are a large number of quite large, sad buildings waiting for tourists to arrive and save them….. and I can promise you that the welcome is extraordinary.  I made a huge social gaffe by joking about going to the fetish market, as I said, to find a husband – a silly joke, but it bothered people who were not sure if they were expected to research and find me a husband as an act of hospitality…. And also, of course, it never does to joke about voodoo.

Amazing place, amazing people, and lovely to find a chance to have a few days with Emefa before we go our separate ways, and to meet her family;  she now has Canadian nationality – so we can return the great favour – OK, all you Kellys?  

It's getting hot again

And I have been here over a year.  And I do not feel ready to come home.  Simon, my Canadian former colleague, is coming back to West Africa just before I leave – he has a posting in Cotonu, Benin, with Oxfam Quebec. …  and I am searching websites, looking for anything I might manage.  Wish me luck!

Whilst searching, I have also managed to do the rounds of my life here:  a day out with Yeri and the girls in Navielgane market before she left the house and went home to Gaoua because the project is over – we bought lots of beurre de karité for her to give to friends – this is the eating sort.  Like lard, only vegetal.  A nightmare to make, and usually done by hand - the wild windfall nuts are shelled, roasted, crushed, soaked to get the oil out, then the oil is beaten into these balls of fatty goodness.

We bumped into one of my favourite village leaders – particularly favourite because he always gets dates wrong, like me, and appears to suffer from diary dyslexia without having even gone to the bother of learning to read.  He is nicknamed Le Gros because he is so small.  Another of Fate's cruel tricks in which we share.  His real name is Toubar.  And in my head, he and I are at least six feet tall.

I had a week-end in Bobo Dioulasso with Kadi to catch the end of the National Culture Week – a full week of competitions in drumming, singing, traditional dance, art, sculpture, books – oh, you know, culture.  The final night gala was attended by the President and his wife – they are in the middle wearing matching pagnes.  Fashion mistake!

I loved performances we saw – really thrilling, and with enormous regional variation.  Some fabulous, witty polyphonic singing from a women’s organisation and some of the dancing defied my understanding of how the human body is put together – how do they do it?  Can you wiggle your arse and keep your shoulders and knees still?  No?  They can!

As West African bats are in the news, I attach a picture of the one which apparently liked watching me sunbathe.  I am now wondering just how close I was to the Ebola virus, given the creature’s poor choice of daytime shelter. If the virus is like STIs and you can catch it from looking, then I could be in trouble!

And continuing the wildlife theme, there was a camel outside my house.  The children took some persuading to get close enough for the photograph;  camels are a rarity this far south.  Adouma was in the middle of having his head shaved for the heat – he can be seen apparently saluting – but he came to share the drama of the moment.  I do vaguely remember there was some classic legal precedent around whether camels are wild or not as they apparently need assistance to mate;  they seem pretty wild to me.

I am fascinated by just how different the heat feels this time around.  I am surprised by how hot it is, but not nearly so bothered.  I am not felled by exhaustion.  I can manage.  I shall be leaving a month before the rains start, and would dearly like to see the greening of Burkina Faso again ….. It's not that I don't want to see everybody in the UK and eat cheese until I am sick,....but 'Gi’us a job'!

International Women’s Day 2014

This year’s IWD pagne has been something of a damp squib.  A rather nasty brown one, really.  I was going to go for bust and have something made – but brown just makes me think of my fashion disasters from the 70s for they were too many, and far too shaming – especially the perms!

But my neighbours look splendid in their shiny new clothes and were very pleased with themselves and the bank holiday. 

I spent the day with chums in nearby Dano, making and selling kebabs;  we had a stall in the Women’s Museum to be right in the thick of it;  we made about 1,000 kebabs from meat which Arlette had marinaded and tomatoes and onions, and I managed not to eat them all – they were so very tasty!  Arlette does a mean kebab – her sister has a permanent stall in Diébougou.  We also made chips, but I think there I have something to add to her skillset there – after all, I have an ethnic affinity with the potato, and generations of deep-frying expertise on the Scottish side, even if that is all Mars Bars and black pudding.

 

Last year's pagne in the background - much nicer!

There were processions, and speeches, and free dolo and in the evening the President’s wife made a speech on TV.  I begin to wonder why we don’t make more of IWD in the UK?  Feminist chums post on Facebook, or send links to international events ….  Here, men do the cooking for the day! I do hope it is not because everyone in the UK thinks the battles are all fought and won!!

Two days before IWD I was invited to attend a wedding at the Town Hall; lots of bureaucratic hoo-hah and swapping of witnesses, and one of the two couples programmed for the session could not go ahead with their ceremony because of some paperwork …. But finally the words were pronounced and then the Deputy Mayor got onto his favourite bit – the lecture on the importance of communication and tolerance in any marriage, and then 20 minutes on the importance of family planning.  Excellent!  A little wide of the mark as these were people in their late forties/early fifties sorting out property and things, but none the worse for that.  The official line is no more than one baby every three years.  Smiles all round.

Farewell, Simon Godin-Bilodeau

Simon and I arrived in Diebougou together, and today he has left to return home to Canada for some well-earned R&R.  He has left his heart and his soul here;  he will be back.  West Africa has him in thrall.

Seen here drinking a final callebasse of dolo at the station - we tipped out a small quantity for the ancestors, as you are supposed to do, and they will make sure he gets another post here soon, to continue working in international development.  Bon voyage, bon retour, M. Bilodeau.  Thank you for patiently explaining everything to me.

English things ....

The screen on my old Blackberry has finally died so I cannot read your texts, your telephone numbers, or even see who is calling.......  but I can receive your calls. All will be sorted when I return.  In the meantime, you can text to 00 226 61 61 47 31.  Pip pip!

The updates are coming monthly now, just get over it!

So; what do I have to report?  The project has one more week to run and we have managed to complete the mandate which was originally a 2-year undertaking in only 9 months.  Something of a coup, I would say.  There were some things we did not have time for, but over 200 young people received vocational training, and over 100 parents got start-up funding for small businesses like raising chickens, sheep or goats, or making and selling dolo.  We have a workshop next week to give and get feedback from our village contacts, there is a final report to write, photographs and certificates to print as thank-you presents, and then the project will be over.  How will I get on for another two months without my regular intake of dolo and village visits?
 

Marie Madeleine teaches Kounworoma to sew

 

The trainees from Balignar with their certificates

 

In amongst all this frenzied activity I recklessly threw good sense and a week-end’s rest to the winds and travelled to Fada in east Burkina Faso to visit Isabelle, fellow VSO.  We went to the most enormous livestock market imaginable, peopled with Peuhls (Touregs to we Brits) with huge wodges of cash trading massive cows, goats and sheep, and then we climbed up Fada’s sacred hill which is slightly more sacred than the Diébougou version, having real local significance and housing as it does the central fetish of the Gormantché people;  we were accompanied by Noel who took a great deal of time to explain animist beliefs to me in terms I could understand – he is a great communicator.

 

 Fada's cattle market

 

 My favourite

 On top of the sacred hill

 

On the way back from Fada I stopped in Ouagadougou and collected Dominic and she went on to Gaoua, our regional capital here in the south west, where I joined her to visit Loropéni – a UNESCO World Heritage site – and a fétisheur, a sculptor of fetish objects and a basket-weaving village group. Loropéni is one of those places which demand you use your imagination.  It is some walls from the 11^th century.  Quite big walls, enclosing quite a large area.  

Dominic, spoilt for choice!  

 

 The fetisheur's household shrine

 

Me, doing the correct thing at the fetisheur's house

And then, after saying goodbye and promising to visit Canada, I left Dominic on the bus back to Ouagadougou – she is now in London where she and Jessie are staying with darling Nell Corbett and catching up with Thenain – those VSO ties do bind!

Loropeni, very atmospheric walls.  No, really.

 

And this week-end?  I shall be quietly writing a report, sorting pictures and preparing to say goodbye to Simon who leaves for Canada on Thursday afternoon.  I have promised myself a gin and tonic, my last tin of baked beans and fried guinea fowl eggs.  Bet you are all envious!!

 

Birthday in Burkina

I had Dominic staying with me all the way from Ouagadougou, so my day was organised around a village visit in the morning, Dominic’s trip to the local maternity and community health centre, and a huge neighbourhood event she organised out of nowhere, putting a banner on my door and getting all the kids involved in signing their names, drawing round their hands and waving balloons.  Quite some event!  She also gave detailed training sessions in cat’s cradle and similar childhood arts …. Thank you Dominic!

 

We are coming towards the official end of our project, and it is now a huge rush to get all the training for the young folks and the kit-purchasing for the adult folks sorted for the end of February.  Week-ends as well as week-days are filling up with visits; we are still trying to fit in meetings in villages to spread the message – frankly, anyone who has not heard the news about the dangers and causes of child labour, exploitation and trafficking just hasn’t been listening!

 

Dominic in Tampé watching children drawing

I am staying on for two more months to tidy up some marketing work for VARENA-ASSO and to be around to cover any project hang-over.  I am also contemplating a bit of West African travelling.  Two countries is the tip of the iceberg….

Happy New Year!

I am back at my desk:  Ghana is already so far away!  We Corbett/Kellys had a great time there, mostly lounging around and contemplating the next cocktail, occasionally getting energised to visit something a little more demanding than the bar ….  For me, two weeks without the need to engage in French was quite weird – smiling and saying ‘Bonjour’ to everyone who I meet has become something of a habit.  London’s African population will be in for a surprise until I unlearn my francophonie….  But enough of my nervous tics. As for what follows, apologies if you received this by email.

 

Southern Ghana.  What is it like? It was really interesting to go to Ghana after 10 months of hearing about it from envious Burkinabés who reckon life would have been better in Burkina Faso if only their colonial masters had been English.  Ghana is a much richer country, because of things like ports, gold and other mineral resources, rainfall, and infrastructure.  It is not afflicted with desertification.

 1.     Ghana cities smell far, far worse than Burkina ones – really, really sewer-smelly.  Because, of course, there are sewers, rather than latrines and pigs. Too much information??
2.     More cars, far fewer mopeds, scooters and bikes – Western style traffic jams!  Better roads by far;  more tarmac, less red dust.
4.     Better houses by far – more electrification, more standpipes, no ground wells.  Lots of thatched roofs rather than corrugated tin, which is a good thing as tin roofs are too hot.
5.     Ghanaian men have no inhibitions about touching women they do not know, both to gain your attention to sell you stuff (including themselves) or to grope you.  After 10 months of respectful and polite Burkinabé men, this was not a welcome change.
6.     Evangelical Christianity is HUGE in Ghana – there are hundreds of different sects, many of them constructing large churches and bible education complexes.  Billboards along the motorways promoting pastors.  Several God-focussed TV channels. The Ghanaian equivalent of X Factor is for gospel choirs and is called Celebrations. The audience gets to vote off a choir a week.  I watched the semi-finals in the airport.
7.     Muslims are fewer in the south but there are mosques in most villages I saw, and probably a lot more Muslims live up north, closer to Burkina Faso.  The Turkish – gotta love ‘em – are financing and building a massive, landmark ‘national’ mosque in the centre of the posh central district of Accra.  Larger than you could imagine - €80 million and can accommodate 10,000 people.  Apparently it is already hugely over budget, and they haven’t got to the pricey final-fit bits.
8.     Food – better, more varied.  The meat is of a better quality. Liberal supply of chips – such a treat after Diébougou where potatoes are the most expensive item in the market and generally of low quality.  Potatoes need less tropical climes.
9.     Education – a massive part of everyone’s lives.  Schools everywhere, business courses, adult education, certificates in everything and anything.

10. Women's lives appear about 100% better in Ghana than in Burkina Faso. No kidding. 

 Would I go again?  Yes.  Would I recommend it to tropical travellers?  I don’t have a lot of reference points, but yes, if you are in West Africa, you should definitely give Ghana a go.

And the chance to spend 2 weeks on beaches with my daughters was lovely.  Priceless, as Nell said in advance. Not something I suspect we shall manage again soon, as they both missed their London Christmas and their chaps too much!  The both have loads of photographs on their Facebook pages;  shop signs, and cocktails and other exotica.  Are you envious?

Catch-up

Well, Burkina Faso’s worst blogger is off for Christmas.  Tomorrow I begin the three-day journey to reunite with my girls in Accra, Ghana, and from there another day brings us to the beach – we are going to the beach for Christmas!  Whooo!

The Chaps at Home

In the run-up I have said goodbye to Thenain who has returned to her family in
Birmingham where they were pretty pleased to see her:  I don't know when she, Emefa and I will be together again:

Me, Thenain and Emefa

I have thrown a birthday party for Yéri where five women invaded my kitchen and told me how to cook properly:

 

There was dancing:

 

 Johanne came to visit from Ouaga to check in on the project;  here she is with Yéri on my terrace:

 

My landlord is currently staying in the maid’s house and took me to meet the Peuhls who look after the cattle herd he is building here while he lives in a small village in the Black Forest;

 

 My chum Natacha has had her baby – he’s gorgeous and she’s shell-shocked and in pain!

 

And here is one of the ten teams of beneficiaries of the project – this is Team Bamako;  the youngsters will get training, the adults seed-money for starting their own small businesses raising chickens, making soap etc.

It has been a busy month!
Happy Christmas, everyone, and best wishes for 2014

Road trip

Last week-end was Thelma and Louise meet Bonnie and Clyde without all that untidy human emotion and the violence – Simon and I joined up with Thenain from Ouaga and Isabelle from Fada for a whistle-stop tour of southern Burkina on mopeds.  Starting off in Bobo Dioulasso, we stayed with nuns in their glorious tranquil guest quarters, and ate braised chicken: we managed to fit in visits to the Museum of Traditional Music, the spectacular Old Mosque and a thorough tour of the Old Quarter – split into Djoula, Animist, metalsmith and griot sectors - in our brief time there.  In the Old Quarter we taken into an animist courtroom – a space for sacrificing chickens in one corner, canes for punishing offenders in another, and large fetishes outside for routine worship.  

Bobo Dioulasso Old Mosque

The Sacred Fish of Bobo

Then off to Banfora, a truly beautiful city in the heart of a vast plain fed by rivers which keep it permanently green green green, surrounded by sugar cane and millet plantations.  I hijacked Simon’s camera and we rode around through the plantations on red dust roads - sugar cane grows to about 20f high, people, and has tall feathery seed heads which from a distance make the plantations look like large lakes.

 

Our hotel in Banfora

Lakes – we went to Lake Tengrela and took a canoe trip through the lilies:

 

We saw two adult hippotami – well, at least their noses and ears:

The next day after a very early trip to a market famous for its handcrafts – Isabelle and Thenain went mad on baskets - we rode off to the Cascades de Karfiguela where we massaged ourselves under the pounding chutes of water (in my case very briefly due to a weedy shoulder), and Isabelle and I braved the strong currents of the swimming pool at the top end of the falls.

 

And for our final leg in our expedition, we visited the Dômes de Fabedougou which are wind-eroded stacks – huge and impressive, and offering a spectacular view over the Banfora region.

 

Outside Banfora on the road to Sindou there is an immense road project underway – quite the largest infrastructure project I have seen in Burkina Faso, funded by the people of the United States of America.  It will make the main highway between Ouagadougou, the capital, and Bobo Dioulasso, the economic capital, look like a farm track…..  The construction is being done by massive new diggers, earthmovers and lorries which were thundering around kicking up a dense fog of red dust – altogether a slightly surreal almost sci-fi experience given the tranquillity of the surrounding forests and plantations.

A really, really long blog offering with almost no content at all

Difficult to imagine, I know. 

It has been really busy, and I am delighted to say that we have achieved huge amounts in the project, particularly given that it has been in the face of illness and absence, and we have clocked 20 village visits for educational discussions, 10 for theatrical performances, and about 15 trips to complete on site and/or gather all the completed applicants’ forms for the training we are offering to keep people in their villages and out of the hands of traffickers.  I have clocked up a massive mileage – I can boast that I am now riding the big powerful bike (in my helmet) to the manor manner!! (Ed. Not the TV series, Shona!) born, and although I do prefer my own blue moped the big bike is a lot better at doing 40k-stretches on red dust tracks with potholes.  Today we had a final session with local social services and other interested parties to approve our selection of 300 needy bodies for training; our methodology, diligence, transparency and general worthiness merited a round of applause. All hail, us!

Keeping one step ahead of malaria has been quite a challenge as it is a busy time of year for it – mosquitoes abound and know no limits – and so I am back on Lariam for a while until the cold weather which I am promised – repeatedly – comes and kills off the nasty little blighters.  My contribution to our team’s sick-note culture has been tonsillitis and I have croaked my way around the place moaning loudly; eventually I bought myself some penicillin over the counter, took loads over 5 days and am better.  I cannot compete with the malaria and typhoid and even a diagnosis of diabetes with which my colleagues have impressed me.  Maybe the cold weather will kill off some of these ailments, but I am sure diabetes cannot so easily be shrugged off.

The green shoulder-high vegetation became the golden grasses hissing and waving as if in a Kurosawa film and is finally the dry grass being cut down and burned by swathes of machete-wielding women.  Roadsides, fields, scrubland – all being cleared and rendered savannah-red again. It is miraculous to see the form of the spaces around me re-revealed; I had forgotten what things were like when I arrived in February.  The contrast with the rainy season in August is extraordinary.  I was so in love with the green landscape – I am not sure I can forgive the red dust for returning, or for being gritty underfoot in the house as it blows about…..

I threw a Hallowe’en party last week – photo of the ingenious pumpkin substitute below – but one thing amazed my non-Hallowe’en-celebrating guests – there are no traditional songs or dances associated with Hallowe’en (unless you are from England’s North-East and count ‘Soul-Cake’ – more of a chant, really).  Everything in Burkina comes with a song and dance routine attached.  I explained about ghost stories, but had to rein back – this is not a country to start on ghost stories when ancestors are all about and have to be propitiated at every turn.  Also, they still kill and hang the odd witch on the QT with apparent police connivance, so it is not really advisable to be adding to my witch quotient (lives alone, without a man, is white, and buys biscuits for children) by going too full-tilt into northern European pagan festivals. I shall be away for Christmas so will not be tempted to start bringing green things into the house …..

Eclipse, 3rd November, Diebougou

 

You may not be able to see this very clearly, but it is the best shot I got of today's eclipse - very exciting!  The sun was about 7/8ths covered at the maximum point and although it was not exactly dark, it was certainly not as bright as it is usually at midday.  It was about UK-bright, rather than Africa-bright.  Apparently, for the best eclipse experience this time around, Gabon was recommended - good to know it is recommended for something! 

 

And here is the eclipse -watching gang, sharing two pairs of CE-approved eclipse specs.  I spent a lot of time holding the specs over the lens of my camera trying to get a good shot, nearly blinding myself in the process.  The Department of Health here had advised that children should be locked indoors for the 4 hours of the eclipse - some hope!  The Diebougou market was very quiet though, and I was reliably informed that if I so much as glanced upwards, my eyes would melt .....