Wednesday, December 28, 2011

jumping sacred crocodiles and other pics



the architecture is a little different



a portrait of the artist as a young man



burkina



these are ubiquitous. and usually share the roads with massive lorries going 110kph . . .



sacred crocodile says "hi!"



another sacred crocodile munches on a less-sacred chicken



I felt like a meal. Seriously



a jumping sacred crocodile!

happy christmas

Happy Christmas from Togo

I found out on the 23rd that one of my best friends had to leave Togo for medical reasons. If you read this Sangbo, take care. We miss you.

I spent Christmas munching on Cipro and being curled up on a cot in between running to the toilet. Luckily I was in Bassar, at Jacqui’s house. She has a flush toilet. I was feeling a little better by the time they made Christmas dinner, so I ate a little. And then barfed all over the bathroom. Ho ho ho.

Early this morning the wind started gusting. Doors and shutters were banging for a couple hours. The wind died down by daybreak—such as daybreak was anyway. I woke up this morning and visibility was about 5 kilometers.

The weather was interesting coming back from Burkina a couple weeks ago. Visibility was about 2k, if that. It was like a thick white fog covering everything. Except that the air was hot and dusty. The wind picks up sand from the deserts north of here and blankets the landscape in a cloud of dust mingled with ash from the thousands of bush fires that are constantly burning this time of year.

Bush fires are interesting. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been sitting somewhere and seen random bits of ash floating down out a clear sky. I see pillars of brown smoke smudging the sky on any given day. At night, distant fires light up sections of the sky with a brooding orange glow like the crevasse of some deep inferno. The one of the mountains around Bassar was burning on the night of Christmas Eve. Rings of fire circled around a couple of the peaks for about 6 hours; it looked like a volcano gazing out of the darkness.

Cat Update for Karen: Nighan is good. She jumps up on the counter, although not as much since one night when she jumped up and straddled my lit candle . . . She and Nigarmi growl at each other on sight. Mullet is terrified of her. Nighan bats at him when he looks at her so he hides under the bed. The kittens, Stubbs and McFats, bounce around oblivious to all the cat drama around them.

My garden was spewing out all manner of green things 2 months ago. I couldn’t even walk in it without tripping over vines. Now it looks like a desert wasteland. Seriously. Dust devils starve in it. Goats, however, apparently do not.

The bad thing about internet is that you can look and see that 2 of your favorite bands have released new albums that you cannot listen to . . . .

Ouga from our hotel



D at the cafe



Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Ouga

Ouga is the first city I've been in since I arrived in Africa that actually feels like a city. There are digital billboards flashing the virtues of 150 years of Coca-Cola. There are on-ramps and overpasses. Granted, most of these run onto roads that dwindle to 2 lanes outside of the city, but still.

Lome is a city of 2.5 million or so. It has big buildings and nice stuff, but its still fairly poor. Ouga on the other hand has an actual downtown and a lot more money. I walked around a new Jaguar S-type this morning on the way to this cafe. There is a lot more wealth in Ouga, but that makes the poverty that much more obvious.

There are billboards here that advertise desktop and Toshiba laptop computers. One can buy all kinds of ornamental paving stones along the roads. At night, there are lines of sidewalk vendors grilling piles of chicken over charcoal. There are stop lights that people obey-- big ones for cars and small ones for motos. The bigger roads even have separate moto lanes for the hordes of scooters in the city.

This morning I was standing on the balcony of our budget hotel that's in the city center. I watched a gang of 5-6 homeless boys huff glue out of empty water sachets. When not high to the point of oblivion, these boys beg with empty tomato tins. Yesterday D and I watched a 3-way fight between a cord wielding corner vendor and 2 gangs kids from our balcony. The kids were arguing over something and the vendor was whipping the lot of them to run them off the corner. Its a sight we hadn't seen in Togo.

Being white here brings a different type of notoriety than in Togo. There, I am more of an oddity first and a source of money second. Here, I am someone who might buy whatever it is you are selling if you push it in my face and follow me long enough. And there are a Lot more people here selling stuff.

This only happens in the city center though. Out in the "suburbs" where Kadar's family lives the streets are dirt and rocks and people are more interested in staring at white people rather than hassling them.

Monday, December 5, 2011

the view from a cafe in Ougadougou

ok, so its an expat cafe but i like it cause it has free, and fast, wifi and because street vendors aren't allowed to come up on the veranda and shove stuff in my face.

Danielle just successfully ordered a Bloody Mary. I love it here.

I hate visas and borders. Crossing a border is one of the most stressful things I can think of. When I was in Lome a couple weeks ago, I went to the passport place to buy Burkina visas. In Lome they are 35 mille as opposed to 90 mille on the border-- so I heard. Anyway, I get to the place, and the guy is like "c'est fini." He told me to come back in a week. I said I couldn't do it, and he was like, "buy a visa at the border. 25 mille." Right.

I left Kouka on thursday with Kader. We met up with D in Kabou, spent the night in Kara, and then left early friday for Burkina. We got to Cinkasse, on the border, at about 1300. Kadar is friends with the one of the customs officials there who was going to get us across. then we found out that visas at the border cost 94 mille a person. After much deliberation we decided to head back which sucked cause one of the reasons we were going up to Burkina, besides for a vacation, was because Kadar was going to visit family. We were walking back to the station when we found a little bank. D was able to withdraw enough cash on her card to cover our visas. So about 1800 we got into Burkina.

We spent the night in Cinkasse, then took a bush taxi to Ouga. The taxi had a functioning speedometer. The driver kept it pegged at 100-110kph. That's the fastest I've gone in Africa. That says something about the condition of burkinabe bush taxis and roads . . .

Ouga is pretty cool. Its more developed then lome and it seems like everyone has a scooter. There are a lot more foreigners here too. D and I walked around a supermarket yesterday just to remember what it was like. I saw a yellow Lamborghini and got soft serve ice cream.

I am more tired of traveling now than I am when I last posted. 7 hours from Kara to Cinkasse, then another 5 up to Ouga the next day. Stuffed in a van with 20 other people. The car up to Ouga had a moto on top of it. This is not unusual. However, the genius owner didn't shut off the fuel line before he had his moto mounted, so gas ran all over the roof of the car. I've scrubbed my backpack 3 times and still cant get the smell out. Oh well. that's what cologne is for.

Otherwise, i love vacation.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Quick hits

I've spent the better part of the past 3 days on the back of a moto. We visited 16 pumps in the Dankpen prefecture in order to get estimates for the cost of replacing them. I estimate that was about 200 miles or so. I think we were on maybe 3 actual roads the whole time. My body hurts.

I've reached another point in my Peace Corps service. I've taken to buying "biscuits" for meals. These are like little graham crackers that most little stores sell. Nigarmi likes them too. I am teaching him to beg for them.

Speaking of Nigarmi, my house is like the Kitty Cold War right now. I am taking care of Karen's cat, Ninga, and her two kittens. Ninga and company live in my bedroom, and Nigarmi lives in the other room. Nigarmi hisses at the kittens whenever they come out to play with him, then goes and hides.

Next time you find yourself moaning about the condition of life in the US, go wash a week's worth of your laundry by hand.

It's been deliciously cold in the mornings. Especially at Bryanna's house cause she lives down in a little valley. I found myself shivering even. it was a strange sensation.

hi Karen, how's Thailand?

My travel clothes were so dirty after this last pump tour that it took N'Tido a half hour to get my shirt close to its original color. I was scrubbing on it for about 15 minutes while my Petit sat and laughed at me. Then N'tido came over and was like "can you do that?" I said "of course" and she was like "uh huh ok" then she came back over and was like "il faut donne moi ca." Laundry fail.

This is the time of year when farmers burn their fields. And everything else. Huge swathes of countryside burn. I passed 2 brush fires on the way to Kabou yesterday. Little pieces of burned grass floating down out of a clear sky all the time. Bits of charcoal leaves make their way into my house. I find mysterious black streaks on my hands, then realize that its just ash from something.

So I got a bag of beef jerky in the mail the other day (I give up, send it to me!). I shared some with my host family. It got a great "what the hell is this?" reaction. but it got me thinking. In Togolese cuisine, most meals come with a bit of meat, if one is lucky, or has the money. There is like a bite of chicken, or goat, or whatever, on top of whatever you get- like rice, or pate, or fufu. This usually represents one's protein intake for the day. Anyway, I was standing there holding this bag of jerky in my hand, and I realized that the pieces I'd passed out were about as much meat as my host family got at a meal. Then I realized that I was snacking on more meat than most togolese eat over the course of like a week. Think about it.