Departure for Ouaga

The day I left for the airport the weather finally warmed up to that of the normal Parisian winter, and I managed to get away with a raincoat and normal shoes. I certainly didn’t need the extra weight of a heavy coat and boots when I would be arriving in 95+ degree weather! It would still be considered the tail end of the “cool” season in Ouaga, but that depends on your perspective!

I planned to take a door-to-door airport shuttle as I would be taking extra baggage (the Nissan parts if you recall!) The shuttle was scheduled for pickup sometime between 12:10 pm and 12:25 pm, but the night before the driver called to confirm it as 12:45 pm. As I stood outside waiting, the bus #31 that regularly passes by the Gare du Nord metro station went by. If I didn’t have all the extra baggage, I could have taken it and transferred to the RER (suburban metro) to Charles de Gaulle Airport… I continued to wait, however, wishing the telephone number of the Paris SuperShuttle was on my cell-phone instead of on my laptop. At 1:10 pm I began to panic, decided to take matters into my own hands and walked over to a taxi stand, conveniently situated diagonally across the street. As we turned the corner to pick up my luggage left inside the door of my building, the errant shuttle showed up! It was a black van, not the traditional blue, and had SuperShuttle written in large black letters on a placard propped against the windshield. Reluctantly, I forked some 6+ Euros over to the taxi driver for his time, and took my pre-paid van as planned.

The flight was uneventful, but the seat next to mine, which I had noted in checking in online yesterday as “empty”, now had a passenger. Too bad! Steerage class these days is soooo cramped. But this was Air France, and I would have my choice of movies in French, so I was content.

The Air France flight was the final one of the evening at the Ouagadougou International Airport. Getting in and out of seemed to take forever, however. I hoped that Fina Linan, who was picking me up, had anticipated the wait…My seat had been in the rear of the plane, which was bad enough, but the airport busses available to transport us to the airport were slow to arrive, and the checkpoints for yellow fever vaccinations, passports, and finally, security, were long and slow moving, as was the interminable wait for my luggage. A young man working at the airport attached himself to me and helped me with my bags, consequently I got through customs with no hassle (think Nissan parts!). And customs didn’t even bother to check inside! I then paid my helper what I considered the going Ouaga rate, around $1 per bag, but noticed he managed to get the same amount from Fina again a minute later after loading them into her car! Hmmm…

Arriving in the dark, I couldn’t see much, but today is another bright and sunny 95+ degree day. (Actually it reached 101 degrees F by the end of the day which is HOT for February!) It looks just like I left it four months ago except for an occasional strong gusty wind—the Harmattan—the seasonal Saharan wind which blows the red dust everywhere. I understand it is much better than it was a couple of weeks ago when it was so thick it looked like a blizzard, but I wear sunglasses to protect my contact lenses. I notice that some of the locals sometimes cover portions of their faces with something that strongly resembles a surgical mask, or the blue Air France sun-blocking eye masks worn upside down…

The SIL Center sometimes rents out their housing facilities to Christian, and other non-profit groups like the Peace Corps, for conferences, retreats and other short-term stays. Today there was a group staying overnight from an Oklahoma-based organization called the  Hope in Action 1040 Initiative (www.1040i.org), which was on a 2-week medical mission. This was the first time they included a gynecological team, which, apparently, was very much appreciated. I don’t know how the locals hear about such missions, but those that do will often walk for many miles for such medical help, because nothing like it is available in their own villages, or region.

Sunday I attended services at an expat church and ran into Stuart and Cathie, recently arrived in Ouaga. The services were held in the ANTBA facility, which is the local Bible translation society, Association nationale pour la traduction de la Bible et l’alphabetisation. There was prayer for the increasing number of Touaregs fleeing the conflict in Mali into western Burkina Faso, now living provisionally in makeshift housing with limited food, water, and increasingly poor sanitary conditions.

Drums to hold water

I’ve since visited several small grocery stores and two large ones. There is a curious selection of goods in each one, including gallon-sized tubs of peanut butter and enormous bags of dried mangoes, to a rather large selection of wines (including California!) in the largest one. One store would feature many locally made products like soap, and also have imports from many countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Syria or, of course, China. More affordable than those from France or the US, I suppose, even though France is probably the best represented, at least in stores where the expats and tourists are likely to shop. Since Burkina Faso has to import so much, things can get expensive. A 20-lb bag of off-brand dry dog food, for example, was over $30. Think about bringing home a bag of that for your dog when you realize that the person you hired to watch your house in the evenings doesn’t even make nearly that much. Now I know why Fina feeds her dog table scraps…

I did wonder why I saw so many old Mercedes around, though. Fina explained that these were used Mercedes, which lasted a long time, and that spare parts for them were easily available, unlike, say old Nissan parts which could be quite expensive…

Mercedes in front of an Ecole Maternelle

Motorbikes and mopeds are the favorite form of transportation

But cell phones are everywhere. And smart phones at that—not like the dinosaur I carry around. Apparently they come from China and are designed especially with the third world in mind, so they are relatively inexpensive and intended for simple pre-paid wireless usage. Enterprising young men try to sell SIM recharge cards at every stoplight on major roads. It’s amazing how such a country has gone from practically nothing to fancy cell phones, practically skipping landlines altogether! On the other hand, although I have a local SIM card and a wireless modem, I have been unable to get my laptop to connect properly to the Internet, and have had to rely on using the network at SIL when I’m there. I’m planning on taking it tomorrow and having one of their network specialists look at it…

Gas station for mopeds also selling phone cards

This week there will be a week long SIL Burkina-wide conference/retreat in which the agency will will be looking at reinventing and restructuring itself.  Sounds familiar... After the conference I hope to finally visit Cathie and Stuart in their village...