World through My Eyes

Ouagadougou, January 18, 2009 - Sunday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:16:00 GMT

I was packed and ready to go right after breakfast. I told the guys at the reception desk that I’d like to check out after Annette’s arrival and nobody made any problems about that.

When she arrived, she found me up on the rooftop terrace where I was sitting at one of the tables, reading a bit and taking pictures of the Sunday morning life along the Avenue Kwame N’Krumah. This usually busy street still seemed to be half asleep, as if just waking from a Sunday morning slumber. The banks that lined it would probably stay closed all day. The market that I could see from the top was only now, and very sluggishly at that, coming back to life. In slow-paced and easy-going Africa, this was a particularly lazy kick-off to the new day.

True to the nature of the country, we didn’t hurry downstairs right after Annette had showed up. As befitting, she first took her seat and then took her time. Only after a while and some lazy chat, we decided we should go about whatever needed to be done today.

Back at the reception, I settled my bill and asked people in the hotel if I could possibly have my luggage stowed away until some time late in the afternoon or early in the evening, when I would go to the airport. Good people of the hotel told me that not only I could leave my luggage there, but that I could also keep the room until the time of my departure and have a rest in the afternoon if needs be. And all that free of charge.

Now, that too was Africa. Not only those pestering „cadeau“ requests and incessant tugging at your sleeves. Where in Europe would they let you have this? I’d bet my ass off that the best you could get in Europe was exactly what I asked for. My luggage somewhere in the corner, safe until I returned to collect it.

Whenever I was going to return to Burkina Faso, this was the clincher. I would certainly stay in „Belle Vue“ hotel again.

We made a short shopping excursion to the nearby „Marina“ market where I bought a few basic provisions for my trip back home and then we were ready to go on with our plan for today.

Annette, just as usual, hadn’t had a breakfast, so it was going to be - just as planned – a somewhat early lunch for me and a rather late breakfast – or brunch, really – for her. In „Jardin de l’amitié“ again. Apart from one table, or rather two connected ones, where there was a large bunch of some ten or so French-speaking westerners, the restaurant was empty. The artisan shop inside the premises where they sold those handicraft items was open and while we were waiting for our meals, I used the opportunity to have a look. Poor guys who were selling stuff there must have had their hope sparked that I would buy something from them. However, as I was not a collector of basically useless souvenirs, I was not the right person to pin their hopes on. So, unfazed and empty-handed, I left some time later.

It again took us at least two hours, probably even more, to finish the lunch. So when we finally arrived at Annette’s place, it was already well past three o’clock. They received me in as friendly and hospitable a manner as the first time around and I spent most of my time in a nice and relaxed conversation with Mr Xavier, Annette’s father. Probably the thriller of the day arrived some time later in the shape of a girl whom I was seeing for the first time. She was allegedly a cousin and had come to have her hair done, African style. Which meant weaving new artificial hair into her natural one. That thing seemed to cost quite a bit in hairdresser’s salons, at least on the scale of income of a good deal of local population, so many a local lady sought to learn to do it herself, in order cut some expenses if possible. The cousin came for the same reason.

Annette claimed she’d learned it well and she regularly did the hair to her mother and her sisters. But now it was her sister Giselle’s turn to do some apprenticeship of her own. And who better to practice it on than on a cousin who sought to get away free of charge anyway? So the two girls spread a blanket on the ground in the yard, Giselle took a seat on a yellow plastic canister next to it, and the treatment began.

At first I watched with just half an interest. Annette would come around every now and then to give her sister occasional instructions and that was it. But suddenly, the things adopted a much more entertaining spin. At one point – and I have no idea if it was just a regular part of the procedure or not – Giselle started pulling fiercely at her cousin’s hair with such an elation that the poor girl winced every few seconds with a grimace as if pricked by a pin. And every time she winced, she jerked as well, making things more difficult for Giselle to keep under control. Giselle coped with it for a while, but eventually realised she couldn’t successfully accomplish the task assigned to her like that. So she opened her knees, placed the cousin’s head into her lap between them, and then closed them again, clasping the unfortunate girl tightly. Once the head was secured and immovable, Giselle blissfully resumed her pulling business.

It was suddenly a real entertainment for me. Watching the poor, helpless cousin now, without any chance to dodge her cruel destiny, I must have grinned the widest of my grins. And that in turn made everyone else laugh. Except the cousin. She obviously didn’t find it that amusing at all. And Giselle? She kind of smiled shyly, a bit embarrassed by the realisation that she was now the centre of attention, but tried to take it in stride.

By the time I left the Fofana place, the cousin was still on her torture blanket, at the mercy of Annette’s sister and nobody seemed to know when she’d finally be released.

I couldn’t afford to wait for the final outcome. I had an airplane to catch.

Ouagadougou, January 17, 2009 - Saturday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:15:00 GMT

I wouldn’t have been disappointed if I’d slept in, but that’s how it is. When you go to bed early, you wake up early as well. But here in Africa, being up on your feet early had its upsides, as well. The most obvious one was a wonderful, almost cool morning. If you miss those mornings, you have an impression that African days are one continuous, relentless oven. But if you get out while the hours are still in single digits, it may actually be truly pleasant to take a walk.

And so, after the breakfast, and before Annette would come to see me again, I thought it was an ideal opportunity to go check my e-mail. It’d been a few days since I’d done it last and it was both a good way to kill some time and a good excuse to go for a walk.

Practically on the Place de Nations Unies, next to the post office, and right across the „Jardin de l’amitié“ restaurant, there was an Internet café which I had noticed the day before, so I decided to go there. Probably less than a kilometre away from my hotel, it gave me a chance for a nice little stretch of legs. And when a few minutes later I arrived at the Place de Nations Unies, the digital display just above the globe on the roundabout there showed 21°C. And we were just shy of nine in the morning.

I crossed the road and as I was getting closer to the building housing the café, a guy approached me with a ubiquitous „bonjour“, matched his pace to mine and started walking by my side. I guess I had by now grown tired of all those bonjours and not so subtle attempts on the part of too many people to wheedle whatever they could out of me. Therefore this uninvited character pretty much failed to amuse me. So much so that I never even listened to his blabbering. I hardly bothered to understand what this particular chap had in mind. Instead, never sparing him a second glance, I merely kept waving him off without a word. I hoped it would do the trick and that he would realise he was plainly a nuisance.

He wouldn’t.

But unapologetically, I kept dismissing him without saying a word. And when he wouldn’t budge, I opened the door to the café, entered and simply slammed it shut right into his face.

Was I rude? You bet. If you possess even a trace of good manners in your veins, you don’t do it. But the worst of it all was that I didn’t feel guilty in the slightest. The guy was just too much to bear so early in the morning.

When two hours later I left the Internet café the temperature was already 27°C.

And the guy was still out there. I couldn’t believe that he’d had nothing better to do than to loiter outside and wait on me. Was I really his best chance today?

If I was, then unfortunately he was in for some rather bleak immediate future. He tried the same approach, but I did the same, as well. Again without a word, just dismissing him with a wave of my hand, I crossed the road and marched back on in the direction of the hotel. And he fell by the wayside.

Annette was going to join me for lunch again. When exactly, no one could predict with certainty. The target appointment time was roughly the same as the day before, and since she had shown that she could arrive relatively close to being on time, I decided I’d just wait for her in the hotel. Besides, the relentless pace of the past thirty one days had been taking its toll on me and I kind of really felt like just taking it easy. So I had all the reasons to stay put.

Back in the hotel, I just got my book and the diary out of the room, and at first sat in the hotel lobby to read. Now that I took a seat and wasn’t just whizzing through, I noticed a few pictures hanging on the wall as a decoration, depicting Jesus and Virgin Mary. It was clear where the owner’s religious affiliations lay. But Burkina Faso seemed to be a tolerant country when it came to religious views, so whichever way you went, it was not a big deal.

After a while, however, I decided I preferred sitting in front of the hotel, at a chair next to my friend, the hotel guard. He was a guy who seemed to always be there, apparently doing nothing apart from watching over the entrance gate to the hotel. He had a desk on a small platform outside, right by the entrance, where he would sometimes sit. Of course, he spoke no English. But his friendly handshake and mandatory „comment ça va?“ and my basic „très bien, merci“ were a sufficient basis for the two of us to get along fabulously.

So I was sitting outside on a plastic chair, reading a bit and watching people a bit, all along expecting Annette to come „any minute“. That any minute turned out to be about an hour and a half later. Well, this was Africa and there was no way around it. While you were there, you just had to adjust to their pace.

And when you do it at their pace, then it means it takes you another hour, or a bit more, to get to a restaurant which is less than a kilometre away. While going to Internet café earlier in the morning, practically next door to „Jardin de l’amitié“, I had noticed another restaurant, this one called „Le Verdoyant“, and now I suggested to Annette that we check that one out today. Just for the fun of it. And for the sake of change. She didn’t mind either way. However, she wouldn’t hear about walking there even if I tried to assure her that it had taken me just over ten minutes on foot to reach Internet café across the street. As far as she was concerned, „Le Verdoyant“ was not any closer than Bamako, and the only way she would go there was by taxi.

So taxi it was.

In terms of ambience, „Le Verdoyant“ and „Jardin de l’amitié“ were pretty much alike. Both spacious and leafy, both pleasant and sluggish, almost down to a slumber. You most certainly would not be advised to arrive there hungry, but rather still in anticipation of hunger. Otherwise, if you arrive already hungry, by the time they serve you what you have ordered, you may start believing that famine has besieged Burkina. Or alternately, you might want to have some extra sandwich, just in order to help you survive until your meal arrives.

Either way, if you’re in a hurry, very few of African restaurants seem to be the places to go. But then again, who is ever in a hurry here?

All in all, it took us several pleasant and easy-going hours to consider our lunch over. If I was the guy who ate dinners, and if I had wanted to order myself one, I would have probably had to place an order right away, back to back to lunch, if I had intended to have it reasonably on time.

As for Annette, she was not a night owl. As far as I knew, she never went out of an evening. I couldn’t quite get my head around as to why. All I could see was that her family was very tightly knit, very compact from the inside and pretty closed to the outside. Annette’s constant state of being wary of strangers and her lingering suspicion that most of the people she didn’t know had to have some „angle“, to quote Paul, may have had roots in that siege mentality. Or at least that’s how it appeared to me. Maybe I was reading it all wrong. After all, I hardly knew them and I knew her only somewhat better. But during all the time we’d spent together, she had never mentioned a single friend. At least not someone she called friend at present. It was all about family. Parents and six brothers and sisters.

In other words, since she was the only person I knew in Burkina Faso, she was the only one I could have asked to join me for some night life. And as she never went out in the evening, it left me in effect stranded in the hotel every night. It’s not that I was crazy to go clubbing. First, after a month on the road, I was tired enough even without it. And second, sheer drinking had long stopped making any sense for me. But I wouldn’t have minded to go out once or twice. Just for the feel of an atmosphere. Just to see how locals – probably those more affluent ones – spend their evenings out.

Of course, I could have always ordered myself a taxi, asked for the name of the most popular dive and go out on my own. After all, on a certain level, how different would it be from going to a foreign country all alone like a number of us independent travellers do?

But I didn’t do it. Once again, after Annette had left, I stayed in my hotel dig and had an early kip. She said she would come earlier next morning because she was inviting me to visit her family once again. We agreed that we would have lunch in town together and go to her place after that.

And that was it. The end of my last full day in Burkina Faso. Last full day this time around, at least.

Ouagadougou, January 16, 2009 - Friday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:14:00 GMT

The ride back to Ouaga was as uneventful as they come. Arno and I spent it chatting a bit, nodding off a bit every now and then, and then chatting again. He was a bit stiff, but basically quite a nice guy. His journey had just started. And I was ending mine.

When we arrived in Ouagadougou, Arno let me know that he was planning to stay in a cheaper place, not far from the hotel „Belle Vue“ where I was intending to return. I suggested he join me on the ride there as I was planning to phone the people in the hotel and take them up on their promise to send a car for me when I returned. He at first said there was no need, that he wouldn’t like to be a nuisance to anyone in any way. But I insisted:

„Why would you pay the taxi when you can go for free?“ I asked. „They are picking me up anyway.“

My argument won over so we waited for the car together. And sure enough, soon it was there – the same guy who had sought to overcharge me two days before.

When we arrived in front of the hotel „Belle Vue“, Arno claimed that his own hotel was just „around the corner“ so the driver dropped us both off. Arno and I shook hands, wished each other all the best in the future and that was it.

Back in Ouaga after my two-day excursion to Gorom-Gorom and back, I was effectively at the end of my first trip to Africa. The travelling was over and now I just had two and a half days left here in the Burkinabe capital before I would go home. That was as well. I could go on travelling like this for much longer, enjoying it all the way, but honestly, I was also tired of dirt and dust, and only one pair of jeans. In that respect, I didn’t mind going home. I love travels. Always have, always will. Nothing will ever change that. But after two great intercontinental trips back to back, my travelling bug had been put to sleep for now and I didn’t feel that itch and restlessness like I had before the trip to China and North Korea. Now with the thirst for roaming the world temporarily quenched, I could turn back once more to other aspects of my life.

I rang Annette up and she agreed to join me for lunch. With her track record, I could only hope she wouldn’t be too long. I wasn’t that hungry yet, but people tend to get hungry if they go on without food long enough. I wondered what would be the case with me this time.

But to her credit, she arrived surprisingly soon. In an hour or so, which was perfectly fine with me. I suggested we go to that „Jardin de l’Amitié“ restaurant again, where we had already dined recently. She didn’t mind and that was it. She insisted on going by her bike which I wasn’t way too happy to oblige, particularly after the accident early in the morning in Dori. But eventually I agreed, telling myself that this would be the last one.

It wasn’t, in fact. We had another ride together after lunch, on my way back to the hotel. But I lived to talk about it and at the end of the day it was all that mattered.

When some time later she left, I realised I was as good as ready for the good rest for the rest of the day.

Dori, January 16, 2009 - Friday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:13:00 GMT

I decided to leave Dori on the first bus to Ouaga. It’s not that I was seeking to get clear out of town as soon as possible. Not really. It was simply my travelling bug. I just knew I had that one last stretch left to complete and I wanted to get it over with. So the previous evening I had made arrangements with one of the guys at the reception to pick me up in the morning and get me to the S.T.M.B. terminal. He had promised to be there on time.

Just in case, I woke up early enough to make it on foot for the event that he didn’t show up. You could never know.

And as I suspected, the appointed time came and passed and the guy didn’t appear.

On the whole, I couldn’t complain about people I was supposed to meet on various occasions throughout Mali and Burkina Faso. They were on most occasions reliable. And even reasonably punctual. But there’d also been too many unexplained – and inexplicable – delays so I just couldn’t sit tight, trusting that everything would sort itself out. I knew that eventually it would, but I was much more at peace knowing that I had undertaken all necessary precautions. As they say, better be safe than sorry.

And the guy didn’t appear yet.

I seemed to be the only living soul in entire hotel up on two feet. There was no one I could even ask if the guy would materialise or not. So at on point I simply slung my stuff on my shoulder and started down the dusty street in the direction of the bus terminal.

The night was still heavy on Dori and not even a stray mutt could be seen around. At first I was just fine. But after a while I was with increasing sharpness becoming aware of the fact that my luggage contained everything an independent traveller needs inside a span of five weeks away from home. And so I had a growing impression that with every new pace my feet sunk ever deeper into the dust of the street surface.

I don’t know how long I’d been trudging like that. Probably shorter than it felt. In any event, at one point I saw a single light coming up towards me from the darkness, from the direction I was heading to. Then I heard the sound of a motor-cycle and finally I saw it. It was my guy. Rather late, but still earlier than it would’ve taken me to reach the gare routière on foot.

Recognising me, he made a sharp U-turn around me, raised a cloud of dust in his wake and pulled over by my side. As usual, with the language as more of a barrier for me than a bridge, we couldn’t talk much. He kind of motioned towards me that he would pick me up anyway. Well, my luggage already felt rather heavy and I didn’t waste my time thinking. So he grabbed it, placed it in front of him just as others had already done before him, I took a place behind and he started the engine again.

Probably aware that he was considerably late, he must have sought to make up for some lost time. So he stepped heavily on his bike, we got some unexpected acceleration, careened in the first slight curve and the wheels simply disappeared from underneath us, skidding aside. I found myself flat in the dust.

The guy was still holding tightly onto his bike and my luggage rolled a few paces away. At first, the whole thing didn’t look good. However, on the first check, I didn’t feel any pain. Not even on the second. Then I got up. Nothing seemed to be broken and a few light bruises, mostly on my knees, seemed a bargain compared to what this could’ve amounted to.

The poor guy looked considerably alarmed, but seeing that against his initial fears everything seemed fine, he regained composure, jerked his bike back upright and we continued our ride, this time much more carefully.

We got to the gare routière just fine. Eventually, everything was on time. Along the way we saw Arno trudging himself towards the terminal. And yes, not long after I had arrived, he showed up.

„I thought you wouldn’t get up so early,“ I told him.

„What should I do in bed?“ he said.

And so, aboard the half-empty seven-o’clock bus we said good-bye to Dori together.

Dori, January 15, 2009 - Thursday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:12:00 GMT

On these low latitudes, where the sun sets early and fast, by the time we retuned to Dori, there was not much daylight left. Also, in countries like Burkina Faso, where saying that streetlights are in short supply is almost an understatement, once the sun is down, there’s virtually nothing to do other than hole up in your room and either read a book or watch TV. Of course, every town has its share of night joints where you can go out and drink, and dance, but I’m talking about people like me who travel alone and usually know nobody local apart from those fast friends. And on top of it all, once the four of us got off our pick-up truck, the exhaustion of the long day had already taken its toll on us.

Before we would go to our respective rooms, which lay in the approximately same direction, we decided to check the bus schedule from Dori to Ouagadougou for the next day. All of us were going in the same direction, but as no one knew how long each one would sleep, we decided we’d best make no group arrangements. It was all along the lines of „let’s see the timetable and then everyone show up tomorrow at their own discretion.“ Without forcing anything on anyone.

However, aside from the timetable, the ticket office building treated us to an interesting printed notice. It was in the A4 format, in French, of course – so the exact meaning eluded us – but you didn’t need to speak French to recognise newly elected American President, Barack Obama, on four black-and-white pictures, flashing a glossy Colgate smile. In addition to that, his name was mentioned no less than five times, including the title of the event. „Soutenir Barack Obama“. Whatever that might’ve meant.

Well, in all likelihood, it didn’t mean that Mr Obama was going to set foot in Dori any time soon. But Paul and Lois were clearly delighted anyway. Arno and I were more like just amused. And all of us took pictures of the notice.

Of course, we inevitably commented on the enthusiasm with which Mr Obama’s election victory had been received here in Africa. Good people of this continent obviously had high expectations of the American President-elect. Unfortunately, and inevitably, they were in for an unpleasant sobering up somewhere down the road. Even Paul and Lois admitted that the only thing that might change with the election of Mr Obama was American image abroad. Nothing more substantial than that. And that was hardly what this poor part of the world – or everyone else for that matter – was hoping for. But it was most likely the only reality.

By the time we reached the hotel where Arno, Paul and Lois were staying, which was hardly ten minutes of leisurely walk later, it was almost dark. Lois and Arno stayed outside on the terrace to have a drink while Paul and I exchanged pictures with the help of his laptop.

When we were done, we joined Arno and Lois. I wasn’t going to stay long. I was tired. But a few parting minutes with my more than pleasant travelling companions were much more than just a courtesy. They’d really been a nice company.

Just to wrap up the day in style, some kids came around looking for a cadeau. Again.

„This cadeau thing seems to be the first thing they learn here,“ Lois said. We all agreed. But then again, much as it was irritating at times, we all also agreed that no one blamed them. They were poor. And they were just desperately trying to grab every straw that looked like giving them a bit more in their deprived existence. Would we be any better if we were in their shoes?

The sad thing was, too many of them possessed hardly any shoes at all.

Gorom-Gorom, January 15, 2009 - Thursday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:11:00 GMT

Squeeze is the best term for what it was like in the cabin of our pick-up truck. Of course, the mood was great, so we mostly made fun of our condition, alternately leaning forward in order to give the other three a bit of space to lean back for a while. But you certainly couldn’t accuse the travelling conditions of being too luxurious.

On the other hand, next to the way the poor locals had it, packed as tightly as potatoes in a sack, we were really privileged. Out there, cloaked in a huge cloud of dust that rose all over our vehicle, they must’ve envied us, the white foreigners. I would have if I had been among them. But there were such who were even lower on the travel class list. Two or three guys sat right up on the cabin roof, clutching tightly whatever there was up there to clutch, desperately seeking not to tumble down and onto the road. Their legs dangling over all the windows except the front shield, they were naturally a subject of our conversation for a while. We wondered how high the casualty rate was in these parts during such rides. And such rides were more of a rule than an exception.

Everything considered, our squeeze soon started looking just like a petty grievance.

Nevertheless, when we made one of those unaccountable stops in the middle of nowhere – apparently just for the driver to take a leak by the roadside – all of us except Lois jumped on the chance to push our noses outside. Fully aware that locals were hardly ever thrilled at being taken pictures of, I nevertheless couldn’t pass up this opportunity to take a few of this human bundle at the bed of our pick-up.

Back in the car, Paul asked me:

„Did you take a pictures of them?“

„Yes, I did,“ I answered.

„You were braver than me,“ he said. „I’d like to download them later.“

So we agreed that upon our return to Dori we would stop by at his place where he had a laptop and exchange all today’s photos.

From Dori to Gorom-Gorom it seems to take around an hour and a half. That’s how long it took us to get there, at least. We chatted away our time in a pleasant and cheery mood, usually swapping stories about our previous trips and the countries where we lived. Arno seemed to be the most travelled one of us all, with a clear knack for trips to less touted parts of the world. I could boast a visit to North Korea same as he could, but he saw the likes of Bhutan, Djibouti and Laos which you don’t necessarily consider the easiest places to visit. On this trip, he had started it out in Mali with an intention to go on to Senegal by way of Burkina Faso.

Paul and Lois mostly entertained us with the information – completely unknown to both Arno and me up until that point – that in the US anyone, meaning literally anyone, could obtain themselves a credit card. If there was an age restriction, it was still below the majority age. And there were absolutely no restrictions on employment conditions. Nobody ever checked if you were employed or not when you applied. Arno and I were coming from the part of the world where you had to have a reliable bank account to even apply, so we did exchange a few wondering looks.

But then again, that’s what travels are all about, as they say. Every day you learn something new.

Anyway, it was around eight thirty when we finally arrived in Gorom-Gorom. The action was not up to the full speed yet, and we obviously came while the things were still about to start swinging into high gear. The whole market show was only gradually picking up pace with people still unloading stuff and setting up what they ambitiously called their „shops“. But the place was already abuzz and you could tell that it wouldn’t be long before it would start bristling with activity.

Arno, Paul and Lois had not eaten yet and they decided to first look for breakfast. So we agreed that basically we would spread each in our own direction and start looking for each other some time in the afternoon. Like around two or three. And then we’d start asking for a ride back to Dori. Which should be the same vehicle that had brought us here.

So I set out on my own.

Gorom-Gorom didn’t appear to be too big. It most certainly wasn’t anything in the category of sprawling. But then again, it wasn’t just a two-street settlement, either. Some called it a town, some called it a village. As for me, I had been unsure as to how to categorise some other settlements and how to draw a line before. So Gororm-Gorom was no exception. In any event, whatever it was, it was most famous for its Thursday market and there I was, too.

I started roaming around just as I always do in similar circumstances, by simply following my nose. Now it lead me past a number of people who were well into preparations for market business and some had already got it under way. The streets were increasingly crowded and there was no mistake. This could really be a show full of colourful actors.

Some of them, a number of men in particular, could pass off as locals elsewhere in Burkina Faso. Particularly those dressed according to apparently prevalent local fashion – a football jersey. But there were such who wore dark turbans around their heads. You didn’t need to be an ethnologist to know you were dealing with the Tuaregs.

As for the other groups, it was difficult to tell. They were conspicuous by their women mostly. Dressed differently than elsewhere, or at least that’s how it came across to a foreigner like me, in colourful outfits with designs very African and yet incomparable to anything I’d seen that far, they had to have a name as an ethnic group. But which one exactly, I couldn’t know.

I roamed around quite a bit. I mostly kept around „shops“, but I also veered into side alleys which clearly led to houses. Or shacks, more to the point.

With every new moment, Gorom-Gorom was transforming into more of a perpetual show. Of course, being a white man so strikingly out of place, I was a target of many offers to buy something, regardless of whether I needed it or not. After all, how could they know if I needed something unless they asked.

However, after an hour or so, I came to a conclusion that Gorom-Gorom was not leaving the same impression on me as Djenné had. Maybe that was because there was no such spectacular mosque in the background as in Djenné. Even if Gorom-Gorom couldn’t complain of shortage of mosques, to be sure. Maybe I had simply expected more from Gorom-Gorom. But I was more inclined to ascribe my somewhat lukewarm response to the fact that Gorom-Gorom was simply unlucky to come as second in a row. Maybe it wasn’t Gorom-Gorom’s fault at all that it was coming across as a bit of an anticlimax for me. I assumed that I would have reacted the same way towards Djenné if I had seen Gorom-Gorom first.

Maybe I was just getting used to it all. After all, I’d been in West Africa for more than four weeks now. OK, I knew I would never see the continent through the same eyes as Africans did. Things they don’t even notice because they see them as utterly common and normal would always hold attraction to me. But I might have simply arrived at a point of saturation where I’d best go home and allow the impressions to settle in on me. Either way, I was not walking around as wide-eyed any more as I had when I had just arrived.

So, I somehow felt an urge to move away from the bustle and explore the calmer and more peaceful parts of the town. And true enough, once I was away from the market itself, the number of people drastically dropped and I could occasionally find places where there wasn’t almost anyone in sight. Of course, such moments didn’t last long as every once in a short while someone would pop up, be it on a donkey cart on the way to market or just walking around on whatever errand they might’ve had.

One of those people came up to me flashing a big, birthday picture smile.

„Bonjour!“

It was a young guy. I offered him my hand, but explained that I didn’t speak French. So he switched to basic, broken English and managed to inform me that he was a teacher in a local primary school. We chatted a bit and I told him I had arrived for the market, as it was a pretty famous affair, even among such tourists who chose Burkina Faso as their travelling destinations. He then offered me the information that there were some interesting villages around and also on the spot offered himself as a guide. I explained him that I didn’t have time for it today.

„Maybe some other time,“ I added, knowing very well that this „other time“ in all likelihood would never come. Also, I explained that I had friends here in Gorom-Gorom who I’d come with and I „couldn’t go without them“.

Could I meet him later? Well, why not? But now I had to go on checking the market. So we left it at that. I was convinced that my non-commitment was enough to shake him off in a nice way. I wouldn’t have to explain him any more that I couldn’t visit those villages and he wouldn’t feel refused roughly.

So I continued roaming around. There were kids playing in the dusty streets, there were women at public water pumps which at the same time obviously served as focal points of social life as they were invariably crowded almost as bus stops. There were more donkey carts, but also camels. There was an occasional pick–up truck and an odd lorry.

And there was the scorching sun.

So after another round of walking I decided it was time to take some rest. Again I retreated from the hub of activities and found myself a shaded place away from the market, on a terrace of what could have been a local school building. I found a spot on the stairs and decided to scribble an entry in my diary. This was a good spot. Granted, there were some children around, playing pretty noisily, with an obvious intention to attract my attention. But if I firmly ignored them, knowing they would soon get tired of putting up a show for me.

But it wasn’t going to be. The children were soon falling in line, just as I knew they would. However, Arno, too, was getting tired of the baking hot day. Looking for a place to retreat, he simply stumbled upon the same spot where I was. Seeing me there, he came up to me.

„Do you mind?“

„Of course not,“ I said. And so he joined me.

Children looked on with a renewed interest, but instinctively they knew that now when we were two, they would not be able to amuse us with any antics. So interestingly enough, Arno’s presence in fact calmed them down. Even if they didn’t understand a word we said, they stared at us with such an intense attention, so engrossed, as if the two of us were acting out a thriller for them.

And what did Arno and I talk about if not about travels? First it was about Gorom-Gorom and then about the rest of the world. And finally about a lifestyle of an independent traveller.

„Most of the people I know,“ I said „spend money on new cars and skiing in January. I spend mine on travels.“

„I don’t even have a car,“ he added. “When I need it, I ask my mother.“

And so we chatted away. He was giving me snippets from his travels, from places like Ethiopia and Cambodia, when suddenly the good teacher appeared again. This time in a company of another guy.

Seeing us, he went straight up to us, all beaming and happy as a birthday. The other guy was his colleague and friend. Another teacher, that is. We all got acquainted and took a few pictures together. Then Patrick – that was the teacher’s name – asked us if we could have a drink somewhere together. He was obviously eager to spend as much time with us as he could. The other guy, Edmond, was much quieter and more reserved.

However, neither Arno nor I were willing to spend time sitting around here in Gorom-Gorom. At least not just as yet. OK, we were sitting now, but that was a temporary respite and a time off away from the burning sun. It was not the end of our visit here. So again we sent Patrick away with another „later“.

If Patrick and Edmond had not showed up, maybe Arno and I would have stayed longer in that shade. But this way, after we had refused Patrick’s invitation, it would’ve been hypocritical to stay on. Truth to say, I think both Arno and I were thinking along the same lines. After those weeks here in West Africa, you simply grew tired of people constantly and relentlessly asking you for a „cadeau“, be it in a form of money or something else. So poor Patrick, whatever his reason for seeking our company, simply popped up too late, after the tolerance level for such things in both of us had already dropped sharply down.

Arno and I left and headed back to the thick of the market. But the market itself was only so big and soon we somehow pushed a bit beyond. Without any plan, of course. It was almost just for the sake of killing time. However, that brought us to a walled enclosure a bit away from the centre of the settlement where something rather busy seemed to be afoot. Or at least that was our impression because a fair number of people were descending on it and through a gate disappearing inside. The two of us joined them.

And we found ourselves on the animal market.

It was a large, open compound, unexpectedly crowded, with several hundred men standing or sitting – even lying - around and trading in domestic animals. Many of them were impossibly picturesque and each of them would be a street show in his own right on any European street. Of course, this was their natural element and they blended perfectly in, but for an unused eye, like Arno’s or mine, this was an incredible festival of colours, turbans and ethnic wear.

And animals, of course. Even if there was no clear sign of division or any fences, it was obvious that different parts of this spacious compound belonged to different animal species. There was a section where goats and sheep were on sale, and there was a section for cattle, mostly longhorn and humpback. Then there were donkeys and also a spot where dozens of motorbikes were tightly parked.

Probably the same way as any of those characters would stand out in our part of the world, Arno and I were out of place here. However, locals didn’t seem to pay much attention to us. They had their own fun and things to do. Which was fine with us. And also, in this very domestic crowd we were easily able to finally locate the only two tourists we’d seen the whole time since our arrival. Apart from ourselves, that is. So at least in that sense I could safely say that Gorom-Gorom was one up on Djenné.

The two foreigners were an elderly Canadian-Danish couple who had, not surprisingly, known Arno from somewhere back up the line. And the Canadian half of this couple, the lady, was positively the only woman here on the animal market. We chatted a bit, as tourists usually do when they meet like that, and then Arno and I moved on.

On the opposite side from the gate where we’d entered the animal market, there was another metal gate which obviously led away from the town. Arno and I decided to pass through it and see for ourselves what lay beyond the gate on the other side.

And on the other side was the end of Gorom-Gorom. There were a few low, ramshackle brick houses, one or two beat-up cars which I wasn’t sure whether they were in a driving condition any more, and a tidy number of goats, cattle and donkeys. Beyond the edge of the settlement there was a sizeable water pond around which they made those clay bricks. And that was it. Farther up, there was not much.

Except for some sparse trees maybe a kilometre away and a row of low houses among them. Now, that was a village. Whatever Gorom-Gorom was, that was a true village. The day was hot and apart form ubiquitous lazy domestic animals, hardly a living soul was in sight. But Arno and I decided to go there nevertheless. A thought occurred to me and I wondered if such a village had a name. Not that it mattered much. But out of sheer curiosity, I’d have liked to know if there was a name to this cluster of mud-brick houses.

Of course, we were not going unnoticed. Every now and then we could spot an odd kid briefly popping out and eying us with curiosity, only to disappear the next moment. Almost like an apparition. So we knew that whoever lived in that village was clearly informed about two approaching, loony foreigners. After all, who else in their right mind would go during the fiercest heat of the day across the arid, dusty flatland from Gorom-Gorom to as far as we were concerned an unnamed village with nothing to offer?

No one, of course.

But someone was coming in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, from among those brick houses, almost like a fairy, a tall, proud, young woman emerged and it soon was clear that she was coming our way. Her skin was dark, much darker than most of the people we’d seen around. She wore a multi-coloured long dress with an almost as long bright pink headscarf. Her hands were full of bracelets and fingers full of rings. A couple of braids wrapped up in white cloth were hanging from below the headscarf. My jaw dropped. She was stunningly beautiful.

As she drew closer, you could see that she felt a bit uncomfortable at the sight of two white foreigners and would have given us a wide berth if only she’d been able to. But she looked too good to pass up. We had to take a picture or two of her.

When she drew so near that she had to meet our eyes, we asked her if we could take a photo. She didn’t understand English, of course, but she clearly understood what we wanted. She simply shielded her face with one hand and waved her refusal with another. But Arno wouldn’t be budged. He already had his wallet out and was picking coins out of it. I followed suit. And like with a magic wand, the money changed the young lady’s attitude. The hand on her face dropped down right off and the other one, which initially sought to chase us away, reached for the money.

All the hurdles were now cleared.

And during those few short minutes, a few kids suddenly materialised almost like out of thin air, both following with keen interest the whole thing, and also probably themselves hoping we would cut them in. The lady, now fully satisfied with her modelling fee, gracefully posed for us and patiently waited for Arno and me to let her go. When we did, we thanked her, she smiled and that was it.

And as it often happens, after we had acquired ourselves this unexpected photo-souvenir, Arno and I didn’t feel like continuing towards the village any more. So we agreed to return to Gorom-Gorom instead. However, we decided to wait a bit, so we could keep a respectful distance from the young lady we had just photographed. We wouldn’t let it appear as if we were stalking her.

But in general, we were returning to the market.

We passed by the animal market again and found ourselves in the crowd of the regular market. And then, perhaps not surprisingly, we again bumped into Patrick and Edmond. Do we have time now?

„Are these guys following us?“ Arno asked. I couldn’t know. But it looked as if they had really been sitting tight on one spot and just waiting for us until we reappeared. We had hoped that „later“ we’d given them earlier today would be enough to get them off of our backs. But those two guys seemed to have a different agenda. However, I had to give them one thing. Even if a bit strangely too persistent, they were nice.

We tried to explain that we were not alone and that we had two more friends roaming around the market who we should meet, and only then we could know how much time we had. Even if, privately, after a few hours here, both Arno and I felt that we’d seen most of what the market had to offer. Therefore it was increasingly difficult for us to go on excusing ourselves just on the basis of having „something else to see“. Unless we would be rude. Which none of us wanted.

So I guess we were just not determined enough to shake them off. Patrick must have sensed that, as Edmond was - as usual – the quiet one. Therefore, as Arno and I kind of started looking for Paul and Lois, the two teachers just joined us as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Now, Gorom-Gorom may be famous. Probably even rightly so. But it’s not like it’s spilling over on all sides, and you don’t need to hire a detective to find someone there. In short, crossing paths with Paul and Lois was not a hard thing at all. It seemed that they too were ready for a break.

„How about a lunch?“ Paul asked and we all agreed. And then Patrick jumped in. He said he knew a good restaurant where we could eat. The four of us looked at each other. As none of us knew any place ourselves, we kind of collectively shrugged and agreed that why not? If he thought he knew a good place, it couldn’t do us much harm to check it out. In the worst case, we could always decide to look elsewhere if we didn’t like it.

However, Patrick’s open and pretty unusual insistence to keep us company didn’t fail to rouse mild suspicion in Paul. Certainly, all of us had been around the block a few times and had a few miles under our belts. So nobody was really alarmed. But western mind apparently works differently. Paul said:

„These guys obviously have an angle.“

And we all seemed to agree.

But we followed him. He led us out of the centre, past one of the most prominent mosques in town, and some distance away from the bustle of the market, he brought us to a restaurant called „le Kawar“. With a sand-covered, shady courtyard, the place looked very attractive. A big lady popped up out of somewhere. Patrick asked her on our behalf if they served lunches. She confirmed, rattled off a few dishes they could prepare for us and we decided there was no need to look any further.

In short order we made ourselves comfortable at one of the tables, six of us in all, while the big lady collected our orders more or less along the lines of „a little bit of everything“. That was supposed to cover even the eating habits of herbivores like me. After we had taken our seats, we all – or we westerners at least – realised how the heat of Gorom-Gorom had been exhausting on us. This restaurant thing couldn’t have had a better timing.

Naturally, we were all thirsty. Patrick heard out everyone’s drinking wishes and disappeared. No one paid the whole thing too much attention after he’d left.

We already knew that lunch was going to take some time to arrive, so at first we basically just relaxed and chatted. Edmond didn’t take much part in our conversation which was also understandable. He hardly spoke any English. And none of us spoke any French worth mentioning. But also, he seemed to simply be a reclusive guy by his natural disposition.

And so amid the talk and stories that travellers usually share, Patrick reappeared, carrying an armful of assorted bottles. The moment he deposited them on the table, we swooped on them like vultures.

Anyway, he was an amiable guy who, even if he had „an angle“, as Paul put it, didn’t bother to disclose it yet. Instead, he seemed to enjoy himself immensely by just putting to use his pretty limited English. He told us he liked taking pictures very much and proudly showed us his new digital camera that he had bought not long ago in Ouaga. We all inspected it and came to a conclusion that it was a no-name brand, garbage in truth, which no one would put any bets on how long it was going to function. Whatever he might have paid for it, he was clearly on the losing side and ripped off. Naturally, no one told him as much.

Needless to say, his camera failed to function as he was speaking, even if he was eager to take pictures of the whole company. Paul assumed the problem could be in batteries, so he lent him some of his. And then miraculously, it worked. Well, Patrick was happy to know that it was only batteries. He decided to buy a new pack at the market once we got back out. In the meantime, I promised to send him all the pictures he might wish to have from my own camera.

And so while we chatted, the lunch arrived. We invited both Patrick and Edmond to join us. They initially declined the invitation, but we insisted. So they gave in and we asked for plates for them, as well.

At one point Patrick turned to me and said:

„May I ask you a question?“

„Of course,“ I said, wondering what he was going to ask.“ „Go ahead.“

Was it now the time for the angle we’d all been kind of waiting for? It seemed that Paul, Lois and Arno sort of expected the same.

But Patrick had different thoughts in mind:

„Why do you have long hair?“

„Well, you know,“ I said. „It’s very simple. I’ve got no money for scissors.“

For some inexplicable reason, this inane – and not particularly funny - statement worked and everybody laughed. I guess there are moments like that when for no reason utter stupidities occasionally sound graceful. This had to be one.

„Then it probably means I have no money for razor to shave myself,“ added Paul who sported a trimmed, but thick beard.

All in all, everyone was in a good cheer. Edmond was the only one who didn’t say much. But Patrick was communicative enough for both of them even if his English was only slightly better than our French.

When we decided that it was time to go, we asked for the bill. The big lady came up with something very paltry like 1200 CFA francs per person.

„And drinks?“ Lois asked.

„No drinks,“ the lady explained.

Well, we were a bit confused. How come no drinks when everyone had drunk during lunch? And then it turned out that when Patrick had gone somewhere out, he had bought drinks from his own pocket. A silence fell over all of us for a moment. Not a word was said, but all four of us knew what the other ones thought. The good Patrick not only didn’t have an angle, but he had given his hard-earned money to treat four foreigners he would probably never see again. I would bet all of us were ashamed of our thoughts. I was.

OK, it is true that those thoughts had been just a reflex reaction to what we’d been experiencing all across West Africa. But still. Patrick had put us all to shame.

Our saving grace was at least in the fact that we had insisted that he and Edmond eat with us. At least something.

On our way back to the market and the spot where we would look for the transport back to Dori, Arno and I decided to split from the group, take a different route and meet them again where we had got off the pick-up truck in the morning. We just wanted to see a bit more of the town and possibly find a few more motives for pictures. The most memorable one we came upon was a muddy multi-purpose water hole around which they shaped and dried those clay bricks, domestic animals gathered to drink and where kids took their dip to find relief from the heat of the day. All in one.

As much as those kids were an attraction to us, Arno and I must have been an attraction to them. When they noticed us with our cameras, they started shouting, splashing the water like it was going out of style, jumping up and down like on a springboard and generally putting up a noisy show for both ourselves and themselves. They obviously had a very good time, particularly with the two of us in audience.

A short time later we rejoined the rest of the guys. Patrick had in the meantime bought himself new batteries for his camera and for a while it worked, to his utter excitement. The kids swarmed around us looking for „cadeaux.“ When we declined to give them anything, they often left with comments murmured into their own chins, clearly expressing unhappiness.

„They call us ‘les blancs’“, Paul remarked at one point. I had never noticed that before.

„I wonder if that’s got any hidden meanings,“ I said. But we came to a conclusion that it probably hadn’t. Same as they were „blacks“ for us, we were „les blancs“ for them. Of course, you could always add dark connotation to every expression you choose. If you choose to. But none of us was that type, at least when it came to races. So we assumed that the locals had the same good-natured attitude.

Patrick and Edmond kept us company until it was time to leave. Patrick gave me his e-mail address, so I could send him pictures once I returned home. While we were at it, Paul located the same guy who’d brought us to Gorom-Gorom this morning from Dori. We got the cabin seats again. And some time around four o’clock, or a bit later, or excursion to Gorom-Gorom came to an end.

Dori, January 15, 2009 - Thursday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:10:00 GMT

I woke up considerably earlier than strictly necessary to make it on time to S.T.M.B. gare routière. The sun still had a ways to go before seriously appearing up in the sky and so far only the lowest strips of the horizon had gradually started brightening up. But there was not much to do in my hotel room so early, so right after breakfast I left the hotel just the same. There was nobody at the reception desk yet, so I left my key for whoever would find it first and went out.

I took it relatively easy, attempting to take pictures in the dark to the extent possible. Not that there was much to take photos of anyway. Apart from one mosque along the way, I saw nothing really worth mentioning. But you need to kill time somehow.

And so, I walked slowly through the thick layer of fine sand covering every street of Dori, trudging in general direction where I assumed the gare routière should be, when suddenly a motor-bike came up from behind me and stopped right by my side.

It was a lady in her mid-thirties. She said something in French which I didn’t quite get, but in such cases you don’t need a real knowledge of a language to get what people mean. Plainly, she offered me a lift. She was so kind to a stranger in the early hours of the morning in her town.

„Gare routière?“ I said.

She motioned me to sit behind her and that was it. A few minutes later she dropped me off at the gate of the bus terminal, adding just another proof to my general conviction that a vast majority of people in every corner of the world, every race, every religion, every nationality are just good and honest human beings.

Naturally, it added some unexpected waiting to the time at the gare routière premises, but it was also probably more interesting like that, at least in terms of activities that I witnessed, than what would – or rather wouldn’t – have been going on in those streets outside the town centre.

Also, apart from the mornings in Sahara, this was the coolest morning in Africa so far, and the first one when I myself had put long sleeves on.

Dori was slowly waking up. The activities gradually picked up the pace, at least around the bus terminal. First trucks were being unloaded and first stands were being prepared for vendors to come. And people increasingly started trickling in.

Somehow I was unconcerned about Amadou. Occasionally I would poke my nose outside the terminal and check the street where you could see the „Banque nationale du Burkina“ building. I thought that if he showed up, he should come from there. I also knew very well by now that the concept of appointment, at least in terms of time, had a very loose definition in Africa. So even if he wouldn’t appear by seven, it still didn’t have to mean he wouldn’t appear at all.

And true enough, my hunch served me well.

By the time the sun finally appeared and started shining down on streets of Dori, Amadou turned up and exclaimed:

„There he is!“

He sounded as if he’d been looking for me all over for a while.

I grabbed my things and he motioned me to follow him:

„Hurry!“

„Is the taxi here?“ I asked.

„Yes, we are waiting for you.“

He led me round the corner and there, in one of the side streets, I saw a beat-up „Mitsubishi“ pick-up truck and a number of locals swarming around it.

And Paul and Lois.

„I knew he was talking about you!“ Paul exclaimed with a big smile. We were all of us all smiles, shaking hands with each other and wishing each other good morning.

„When he said he would bring another white foreigner with long hair who was staying in the „Oasis“ hotel because they have hot water there, I knew it would be you!“

Of course, I was not all that surprised myself.

However, there was another white guy with Paul and Lois. We shook hands and introduced ourselves.

„Arno,“ he said. He was from the Netherlands. As he was staying in the same hotel as Paul and Lois - and where else would a white tourist in Dori on Thursday morning go? – it was natural that all of them had come here together.

„Is this our car?“ I asked pointing at the „Mitsubishi“ whose bed was already full.

„Yes,“ Paul answered. „But I think they’ll put us in the cabin.“

And that’s exactly what was on my mind. After a ride to Essakane at the back of a pick-up truck, I was glad I didn’t have to repeat the same feat again. True, the four of us had to squeeze in where normally just two people should sit, and three only if you feel charitable and offer someone a ride. But even if we felt like a pack of toothpicks ready for sale, it still beat being back up there where the locals were going to be.

All in all, in quite a good cheer all of us, we started our ride to Gorom-Gorom.

Dori, January 14, 2009 - Wednesday

wayfarer — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:09:00 GMT

Last shreds of light were hanging off the sky when we arrived in Dori. Thereby I started the final leg of my West African tour, before the return to Ouaga and ultimately flight back home. I got out of the bus, collected my luggage and looked around for a taxi. Before I could make five steps, I didn’t as much as leave the gare routière grounds, when a small bunch of three guys surrounded me. They were very communicative, friendly enough, even if by now I knew exactly that they hadn’t singled me out from among all passengers for my natural beauty. I was there the only white guy and it translated into possible profit for them.

And they hardly sought to hide it.

„My name is Amadou,“ said the one who spoke English best.

We shook hands and he added:

„I am a guide here.“

Right. As they often are. So he naturally asked me what the reason was of my arrival in Dori. I told him that it was the Gorom-Gorom market on the next day.

„I can find you a taxi to Gorom-Gorom.“

„Can you? When?“

„Now.“

„But I go tomorrow.“

„Yes, but you can pay now so I find it for you.“

Of course, they all posed like guides and they all could do anything you wanted. You just name it. And you pay. So before I was ready to commit myself to anything, I said:

„Look, I first need to get me a taxi and find a hotel. And then we can talk about this.“

If Ouahigouya had no taxis and you made do with people who had motorcycles and basically risked both their and your lives by standing in for taxis, loading both you and your luggage on their two wheels, Dori was certainly one up on Ouahigouya. Amadou – this very possibly self-styled guide – said without bobbing an eyelid:

„Yes, donkey. No problem!“

And then he called a guy who owned a donkey and a two-wheel cart.

„This is taxi in Dori,“ he said.

Where would I go? To the „Oasis“ hotel. So I loaded my luggage on this donkey two-wheel cart and we, the five of us, had a nice stroll through dusty and dark Dori streets to the „Oasis“ hotel. Most certainly, I preferred this to a bike ride.

When we got there, the cabbie, well, the donkey-cart driver, entirely straight-faced, demanded three thousand CFA francs from me. Of course, I mimicked anger. Which confused him. All we were saying to each other was going through Amadou. So he could only see my expression and gestures. I explained elaborately how the 260-kilometre, five-hour bus ride from Ouagadougou to Dori had cost me five thousand, and this brief fifteen-minute stroll should cost me three?

The young guy just looked at me, as if he didn’t quite understand what I was driving at. Then I played the deadly trump by asking the driver if he was a Muslim. He nodded and said he was.

I lashed out by telling him to ask the God if he was doing the right thing.

„Do you think that the God you believe in teaches you to rip off the people like this?“

A sheepish smile on his face belied his discomfort, but all along I had a feeling this discomfort ensued merely from my apparent anger, and not because he understood my point. He understood anger, but it seemed to me that the concepts I was trying to play at were completely incomprehensible to him. He must have been taught to survive and in such poor countries like Burkina Faso, in places like Dori, survival didn’t recognise all the subtleties of moral standards. I’m sure violence and open theft were out of question, but overcharging a foreigner was bound to be perfectly fine for him.

Eventually, I dismissed him with one thousand. Which was way too much, as well, but on the other hand it was no money worth mentioning. So I left it at that.

But then again, I couldn’t help remembering the good Abdulaziz in Ouahigouya. It’s interesting to see how people like him melt your heart and you feel a tosser if you don’t give them some money. But scoundrels like this one wouldn’t make you feel guilty at all even if you slashed their price down to the very root.

Anyway, when he left, I checked in and it was down to Amadou and me. So in order to strengthen his credentials, he repeated:

„I am a guide here. Ask him,“ and pointed at the guy at the reception.

„Is he?“ I asked.

Receptionist nodded.

I decided I’d risk it. My departure to Gororm-Gorom would have to be early in the morning at any rate. I didn’t want to waste any time tomorrow in search of a transport if that could be avoided. So I agreed to his deal. He asked me to give him two thousand CFA francs up front and that was going to cover his services and taxi tomorrow morning. Or whatever transport he was going to find.

I gave him the money, we shook hands and that would have to do.

„Be there at seven,“ were his final words.

Yalgo, January 14, 2009 - Wednesday

wayfarer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:06:00 GMT

Next one in a series of small settlements on our way was Yalgo. A town, or a village – I never knew where they drew the line to tell one from the other – it was a place where we got off the paved road and followed a dirt one instead, all along some kind of water surface. Whether it was some unusually lazy and pretty wide river or a particularly elongated lake, I had no way of knowing. My knowledge of local geography didn’t extend that far. The thing is, we stopped for at least fifteen minutes at a busy spot right by the water and it may or may not have been the centre of Yalgo.

As usual, it seemed that whoever could walk descended on our bus and there was this ubiquitous crowd about the bus door where passengers were exposed to some of the most energetic peddling of food and drinks along the road.

I pushed through the crowd of food sellers, and made my way towards the water. Some idyllic scenes of cattle knee deep in it against the backdrop of the setting sun were some of the postcard motives for my pictures. While the motliest of crowds tightly surrounded the bus and held it for a while in its grip, I roamed the stretch along the water’s edge.

With sun quite low on the horizon and the end of the day not too far ahead, it wasn’t even that hot any more. Of all the stops we’d made along the way to Dori, this must have been both the most colourful and pleasant one.

I could be wrong thinking that from the spot where we stopped I could see more or less everything that Yalgo could show off, but that was my impression. So when fifteen minutes later I was back on my seat in the bus, when everyone else was aboard and when there was nothing more for local food vendors to sell, I felt – maybe mistakenly – that I could safely say I had seen Yalgo.

Taparko, January 14, 2009 - Wednesday

wayfarer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:03:00 GMT

Farther up the road, not too far from Tougouri, we arrived in a settlement called Taparko. I don’t know how long the buses to Dori had been stopping by here. But since 2007 a gold mine had been operating near the village and wherever there is gold, the importance of the locality skyrockets. So regardless of the fact that here in Taparko the most conspicuous landmark seemed to be a baobab tree with a couple of vultures perched high up in the tree top, you just couldn’t get around it any more.

Of course, gold equals money and wherever there is money, you have Americans, as well. They say the company operating the gold mine is American-owned. Or at least jointly. I’m not so sure, but either way, Uncle Sam is there.

Sadly, however, but equally common, whoever profits from this wealth, that don’t seem to be the locals. With their farmland plots appropriated by the state for what they inevitably saw as a disgracefully paltry compensation, with water sources rapidly dwindling, probably because of the water being diverted to the mine, and with working places more often than not going to people from elsewhere rather than to locals, in spite of early promises, Taparko wasn’t exactly the Garden of Eden.

There used to be small prospectors who had been for a long time scouring the surrounding area for grains of gold to help them make their living. That too was now taken away from them as big money couldn’t – and wouldn’t – afford to lose small money.

Certainly, none of that was rubbing off on us travellers. Same as in Tougouri just over a half an hour earlier, we stopped by only for a few minutes and then the bus continued on its journey.

Tougouri, January 14, 2009 - Wednesday

wayfarer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:00:00 GMT

Along the road on our way up north to Dori there were several roadside stops in some to me completely unknown small settlements where in those few minutes locals swooped down on our bus from all sides in an attempt to sell some food or beverages to passengers. I often wondered how often in a day buses were pulling in, but however many times it might have been, whatever income those people earned, it was a meagre living indeed. I guess, for all of us who ever complained about the way we lived back at home, coming down to Africa should be a must. Only here an average, grumbling western citizen could clearly see how privileged they are to have been born where they were born.

And along the way they would get a free lesson as to how to be happy in spite of all those hardships.

And then, almost four hours after we had left Ouagadougou, we came to a small town of Tougouri. But first, just outside of town we had another stop-over, this one pretty much inexplicable, though. Apparently in the middle of nowhere, without even food hawkers in sight, we pulled over. For as long as we were there, I was trying to guess the purpose of this break, but it eluded me.

However, one of the guys from the bus didn’t seem to be bothered much with such thoughts. Unfazed, he got off the bus carrying a small rug under his armpit. He slid off the road, onto the bare, dusty ground and unfurled his rug for an afternoon prayer. From my point of view, this had already become a normal thing. People seemed to do it regularly in these parts and I got used to it by now. But what caught my attention this time was the fact that the guy had taken off his shoes before the prayer. I mean, I know about that custom, too. But here, on this dusty soil, his feet were bound to get only dirtier.

Only rational explanation that I had was that it was not about being „dirty“ or „clean“ at all. OK, inside some founding principle it must have been. But to me it looked like it was now merely a manifestation of reverence and humility. So dirt or no dirt, shoes had to go off.

Less than five minutes from that inexplicable spot, we arrived in Tougouri itself where we could get off the bus and exercise leg muscles if we wanted to.

I did.

Tougouri came across as a one-road town with little to show. There allegedly was a catechist school in the town and a lycée. And a police station, too. But I couldn’t see much from where we stopped, so I could only believe it. During those ten minutes the traffic was almost non-existent so that goats freely and without slightest concern crisscrossed the road any way and any time they pleased. People were teaming around the bus, trying to peddle to passengers whatever they could. Even to me it gradually became a common sight.

And that was it. I walked around a bit, took a few pictures and then we were ready to move on.

Ouagadougou, January 14, 2009 - Wednesday

wayfarer — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:47:00 GMT

Annette showed up in front of the hotel in the morning. She rode in on her family motor-bike to see me off. I was just hauling my staff out when the guy who was a kind of hotel driver offered through Annette to take me to the S.T.M.B. station in his car.

„Why not?“ I said. Since he was already there. He already opened his car boot for me to stow my luggage in when I asked the natural question.

„How much would it be?“

Annette translated it for me and I got my answer:

„3000 CFA.“

Well, on my arrival here I had paid just 1000 CFA frnacs and then the receptionist had told me that I could have phoned them and got the transport – in this same car – for free. OK, I understood that they would pick you up and not get you wherever you needed to go on departure. At least not for free. That was even kind of common. But to charge me three times as much as a common cabbie would, that was out of question. If nothing else, then on principle.

I refused, to the driver’s obvious displeasure. So he asked and Annette translated:

„How much do you want?“

„Tell him that yesterday I paid 1000 francs on my way here and I’m not paying any more now.“

Not surprisingly, the guy said it was „too little“. When I wouldn’t budge, he tried to win me over by pointing out that his car was in a much better shape - cleaner, safer, with all windows rolling up and down, air-conditioned - than any of the taxis out in the streets. That was all true. But after all those buses and bush taxis and whatever else over the last few weeks in Mali, I couldn’t care less. And that’s exactly what I said:

„I don’t care. From here to the bus station, I can ride in any taxi.“

Seeing he could not mollify me, and that I was not bluffing, the driver offered to take me for 2000 CFA francs. But I refused. I was not in a haggling mood and I genuinely didn’t give a toss as to what kind of car I’d get to the station in. So I just picked up my luggage and started towards the corner of the Avenue N’Krumah which was teeming with taxis in both directions. One there would be more than happy to get me to S.T.M.B. gare routière for 1000 CFA. That much was for certain.

And driver knew that, too. Figuring eventually that it was better to have a finch in the hand than a pigeon on a branch, he finally gave in. Annette called after me:

„He says he’ll take you for 1000.“

And that was it.

Ten minutes or so later, we were at the S.T.M.B. gare routière. Annette rode alongside us on her motor-bike, having chosen to spend some more time in my company.

I paid the driver, picked up my luggage from the boot and while Annette was parking her bike, I took one or two pictures of her. And like on a cue, that provoked a righteous interference from several guys who were basically just bumming around and their best diversion was watching what others did. And then, obviously, pushing their noses in other people’s affaires. So they rushed onto the scene in the defence of Annette’s... what? Honour? Integrity? Either way, they angrily started pointing out at me, yelling and snitching:

„He took a picture of you!“

Or something like that. All I understood was „photo“, but that was enough.

„Je sais,“ was Annette’s indifferent answer. It stopped them in their tracks, and for a moment, like a collective deflated balloon they just stood there, completely clueless as to what to do next. And then they disappeared.

Around eleven, I left Ouaga again.

Ouagadougou, January 13, 2009 - Tuesday

wayfarer — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:40:00 GMT

Paul and Lois turned out to be nice, friendly and communicative, just as most Americans are, wherever you find them. You can always tell the Americans from the rest of the white bunch just by their chatty ways, even if you are deaf to their accent. So this couple was no exception. Soon we realised that we were all headed in the same direction, at least for the next two or three days. Same as me, they were well informed about the fact that up there, in the north-east of the country, there was this place called Gorom-Gorom where every Thursday the folks from all over the area gathered for a celebrated weekly market. Even if judging by the map of Burkina Faso you’d say that the shortest way to reach Gorom-Gorom from Ouahigouya would be to head straight east, conditions on the ground dictated otherwise. There were no roads to speak of between the two towns and that particular trip was only for the most adventurous.

The rest of us had to take the roundabout way through Ouagadougou.

However, Paul and Lois didn’t plan to stop by in Burkinabe capital any longer than necessary to buy themselves onward bus tickets. As for me, I wasn’t going to press on that hard. Instead, I was going to stay overnight in the city and follow them the next morning.

And then, in a place called Bousse, which couldn’t be found on any relevant tourist map of Burkina Faso, we witnessed something that to all three of us went down a rarity like we never expected to see here.

A ticket controller boarded a bus.

We started looking at each other in not-so-mild a surprise while the bus moved on and the controller gentleman started checking the tickets. I know it probably appeared patronising, but with all the experiences we’d had so far in this part of the world – and Paul and Lois seemed to have, same as me, a knack for taking a very local means of transport – seeing a traffic controller for us amounted to almost as much of a miracle as it would have been had we seen the starship „Enterprise“ with captain Picard at the helm land on the semi-desert Sahel plane along the road. I mean, when I remembered what kind of buses I had taken, particularly in Mali, a thought that you might at some point see a traffic controller in any of them would probably provoke just a burst of laughter.

But on second thought, we were fully aware that Burkinabe bus transport was much better organised and more orderly than that north of the border. In that regard, a concept of seeing a ticket controller didn’t seem so outlandish any more and those controller guys didn’t come across as an alien species that much.

Anyway, no irregularities found, he got off the bus in the town – or village – of Laye.

And then, only ten or fifteen minutes later, we reached Ouagadougou. It didn’t mean that we were ready to end our trip just as yet, though. Burkinabe sprawling capital stretched for kilometres on end – or at least it seemed to us so – through some slum-like suburbs and several times when we thought the S.T.M.B. gare routière was just around the corner, it wasn’t quite so. Thus the whole thing dragged on for nearly half an hour more. But then, just around noon, we reached our final destination and after more than three weeks, or precisely twenty three days, I finally completed a full circle.

Paul and Lois bought tickets for the next bus to Dori, and I bought mine for tomorrow at eleven. We wished each other best of luck, said bye to each other and, you could never know, maybe we would even bump into each other again.

I took a taxi and went to the „Belle Vue“ hotel.

When I arrived, the staff recognised me immediately. Which, honestly, didn’t exactly amount to a detective work. Recognising a white, long-haired foreigner in a place like Burkina Faso was something that, I’m sure, even the short-sighted would’ve pulled off pretty confidently. Anyway, several friendly handshakes later, I checked in again. The young guy at the reception, Charles, even told me that I could have phoned them from the bus station and they would have sent a car to pick me up. Free of charge. I said that I didn’t know that, but next time I’d be so free to take them up on the offer.

And then, when I was about to settle the bill, I pulled out my ace in the hole.

„Last time I stayed here for three nights,“ I said. They kind of nodded, neither sure whether it was true nor what I was aiming at. And I marched on:

„But you charged me only for two nights.“

They just looked at me. Now I was not entirely sure whether they didn’t quite understand me or they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. So I repeated:

„Last time you charged me one night less. I paid only for two nights and stayed three.“

They still stared at me. So I just decided that they did understand me after all. Only, they kind of regarded me the same way as I had that controller in the bus from Ouahigouya. And I struck it home with a clincher:

„So now I’d like to make up for that one night you forgot to charge me, as well.“

Now, this final sentence didn’t take any repeating or additional explanations. They understood it just fine and for once, if taken out of context, you’d be excused for thinking that they spoke English fluently. Extra money, which in their view I was recklessly splashing out, both dramatically enhanced their fluency and additionally strengthened their cordiality towards me. Already having met with a friendly reception there, I was now clearly their guest of honour.

And then I phoned Annette. I wanted to check if she had returned from Ghana. She had, in fact. And she was rather surprised to hear that I had arrived in Ouaga that early. But she informed me that she would not be able to meet me before evening. I wondered if she might be willing to join me on my excursion to Gorom-Gorom tomorrow, but she said she could not go.

An hour or two later, when I had unpacked and fully settled in my room, I felt it was time to have a lunch somewhere. „Lonely Planet“ was recommending a restaurant called „Jardin de l’Amitié“ which was not too far from the hotel. For my pace maybe just ten minutes away on foot. If at all. So „Jardin de l’Amitié“ it would be. In order to get there from the direction of my hotel, you had to first come out on arguably the most famous Ouaga square, Place de Nations Unies, with a roundabout and a globe in its middle, and a view of the white, gleaming Presidential palace in the distance. That was a place where Annette had met with horror my every idea of taking any pictures. Last time I’d been there, she and the cabbie of the taxi we’d been in had strongly warned me against taking any pictures there because it was „forbidden“.

Well, if it’d been that forbidden, I wouldn’t have seen the pictures of it on the Net prior to my visit, I guess.

Now that I was here all by myself, as I didn’t suffer from those fears, regardless of whatever anyone might have been thinking, could anyone really expect me not to take any pictures there? I guess not. So I took them as I pleased. And honestly, even if I noticed no officials around, I seriously doubted that any of them would have reacted anyway if they had seen me with my camera at work. From my point of view, I could see nothing to justify striking the square off the list of places where pictures could be taken.

But it was also true that until recently this country seemed to have been teeming with all sorts of mostly irrational and ridiculous photographing bans, so now, even if most of them had in fact been lifted, that mentality must have still been lodged deep in the awareness of the locals. Therefore it was still more than common to hear people demand, upon seeing your camera at work, if you had an „authorisation“. Which, quite honestly, had grown to be a true pain in the ass, and not those endless „cadeau“ requests. With every new „authorisation“ call, my hair grew a bit longer and my tolerance level dropped a notch deeper. In this otherwise very friendly part of the world, that was now the only thing that could truly piss me off.

Anyway, this time around nobody said a word.

And „Jardin de l’Amitié“ was just off the square, hardly fifty metres away.

It was a nice, leafy spot, with a lot of tables in shadow where someone like me could find a shelter from the scorching Burkinabe sun. It was obvious that quite a few white expats shared my impression and apart from the employed staff, we were clearly in the majority around here. Of course, it inevitably entailed a few characters who were lurking around and seeking to palm off a few handicraft items on you if possible. But aside from that, this was an extremely pleasant spot. This being Africa, nobody was in a hurry and you could take all your sweet time to read a book, write an entry in your diary and have your lunch, in that order or otherwise. Just the same.

Truth to say, I didn’t mind being on my own in Ouaga at all. Annette was not the world’s toughest walker and if she had been with me, I wouldn’t have been going much on foot around there. Not that Ouaga had to offer loads in terms of sightseeing. In terms of landmarks, it was said to lag pretty much behind other cities in the region. A novice in these parts, I couldn’t commit myself either way, but I could at least tell that charms of Ouaga didn’t lie in monuments and architecture. They had to be discovered elsewhere.

But I wouldn’t forgo this opportunity to explore the town on foot. After my lunch and early afternoon rest in the restaurant garden were over, I started walking. I was mostly covering the area around the banking centre of the city, along the Avenue Kwame N’Krumah. There were shops, there were banks, there was this big mosque, and that was where the wealthy and affluent Burkinabe showed off their glossy, new, expensive cars. There were, naturally, all sorts of street touts who swarmed around you at every step, trying to sell you on this and that. I found it the most efficient and amusing to pump everyone’s hand with a hearty handshake and an excuse:

„Later, I am very busy now.“

That invariably sent them off and everybody left in the best of moods because after such a handshake, who could seriously doubt that we were best of friends?

It was a pleasant and relaxing afternoon.

Annette arrived well after dark. She told me that she seemed to have found a house in Kumasi, over the border in Ghana, and that someday soon her and her family were going to move there. But for now she didn’t have to leave Burkina any more.

She didn’t stay long. Only for an hour or so. And her departure was in effect the end of my day.

Yako, January 13, 2009 - Tuesday

wayfarer — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:10:00 GMT

Roads in Burkina Faso are somewhat better than those in Mali. And buses are often a considerable improvement over Malian ones. Also, in addition to all that, in Burkina Faso you can occasionally experience an incredible treat of leaving on schedule. So for all those reasons, and after two weeks of erratic road conditions and traffic connections north of the border, the ride from Ouahigouya to Ouagadougou felt almost like a deluxe category. Add to it the fact that the bus was less than half full, and you had all the space on your seat you could ever need, this was an enjoyable morning on wheels.

And among the few fellow passengers there was a white couple.

Naturally, we immediately noticed each other and politely exchanged greetings. As only independent travellers travel like this, we also knew we were on the same mission here in West Africa – to add another, or a few more, less travelled countries to the ever increasing list of places we had visited.

They were Americans. Paul and Lois. They were travelling from Mali to Ghana and, same as me, had arrived in Ouahigouya the day before. They too had stayed in Ouahigouya overnight, albeit in one of somewhat cheaper options in town, They had decided that „L’amitié“ hotel where I had stayed was a luxury they didn’t have to go for at this point.

So we chatted on and off and in such a relaxed way reached a settlement of Gourcy after some forty five minutes. Some call Gourcy a town, but from what I could see from the bus, I was more inclined to call it a bunch of rickety, rundown shacks thrown around the road to Ouagadougou. On the face of it, the people of Gourcy, at least the ones whom those like me could see from our seats could roughly be divided in two categories. The first one were those who hoped to earn what little money they could from hungry or thirsty passengers. There were a few women who cooked meals right on the spot and sought to sell them if luck would have it. There were a few kids who peddled snacks and drinks.

And the other group were those who apparently did nothing.

We didn’t stay too long in Gourcy. Hardly anybody left the bus. One or two people joined us. At that was all. Then we moved on.

Half an hour later, we reached the town of Yako. This place, at least, looked like a town. By African standards, if nothing else. With the population of just over twenty thousand, it was hardly a place you’d visit on purpose. But it had a wonderful mosque clearly visible from the road and a large clearing which served as the STMB bus terminal. And in addition to that, it was the birth place of Thomas Sankara, the father of modern Burkina Faso. The father at least in the sense that he was the one who changed the name of the country from Upper Volta to Burkina Faso. If most of his other reforms hadn’t really stuck, this change was still in place.

We stopped in Yako for fifteen minutes. Paul and Lois didn’t leave the bus. I decided to get out, stretch my legs and take a few pictures. And why not? It was still a pleasant morning.

Ouahigouya, January 13, 2009 - Tuesday

wayfarer — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:05:00 GMT

I was out in front of the hotel considerably earlier than eight in the morning. That’s how it is in Africa. Unless you’re a local or dying to go partying every night, an average African settlement doesn’t necessarily beckon with night life. On the face of it, everything closes up quite early and a lone wolf like me usually has little choice other than to retreat into the hotel room. And being early in your hotel room usually translates into being up early next morning, too.

The Ouahigouya morning was cool, probably the best part of the day in terms of weather. The temperature couldn’t have risen to more than 20°C. So I left my stuff on the inside of the entrance gate, to keep them in sight, and soaked up the cool air outside on the Avenue de Mopti.

Quite honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure if Abdulaziz would show up. Taught by all my experiences during my stay here in Africa, from my point of view, this particular agreement I had with him could go either way. I saw the odds as equal. I knew I had no reason to worry because I had in advance left myself ample time should things at some point demand urgent intervention and change of arrangements. But I wouldn’t have bet my bottom dollar on the young lad.

And I would have made a mistake.

Because to his credit, ten minutes after the hour – which in African terms practically amounts to Swiss-like punctuality – Abdulaziz showed up on his motorbike. He kept his promise and was ready to take me to the gare routière.

And yet, in spite of the fact that in Ouahigouya there are no taxis in the textbook definition sense, and you need to enlist the likes of Abdulaziz for help in terms of local transport, the town ranks as the third biggest in the country. Right after Ouaga and Bobo, in fact. The sources as to its population vary and some put it above one hundred thousand, whereas others put it below. Not that it matters much. Certainly not if you are not a town mayor but just a foreign tourist passing by.

But it seemed that it carried certain fame around, as a kind of legendary city, a capital of the one Yatenga Kingdom which, of course, later disappeared from the face of the earth. It would seem that recent history has not added to this fame to any considerable extent and probably the most highlighted event of newer times was the notorious Christmas War, between Mali and Burkina Faso, over a strip of land which saw its culmination in a bombing attack of Malian forces on the main Ouahigouya market with a large number of civilian casualties.

Fortunately, twenty three years on, at the time of my passing, not only the Yatenga Kingdom, but also all visible traces of that armed conflict had long evaporated from the area.

Abdulaziz and I didn’t waste any time. Same as this guy Sonadair the day before, Abdulaziz wrestled with my bag until he got it under control in front of him and I straddled the bike from behind. And then, dangerously swinging and wobbling, we set out towards the gare routière.

Well, kind of. Much as it is third biggest Burkinabe town, Ouahigouya is no Osaka or even Osijek. I had covered a nice part of what was significant in town the day before on foot so now I couldn’t possibly fail to notice when Abdulaziz swung off the Avenue de Mopti into a wrong side street. I told him so.

„I want to show you my house,“ he answered simply.

Well, we still had plenty of time, so I didn’t complain. If it would be a pleasure for him to show me where he lived, why not?

Just off the Avenue de Mopti the setting turned rather dirty. Well, of course, I’d seen worse things in Mali, notably in Mopti. Pigs in the streets rummaging through piles of garbage was not something that came as a shock any more. They seemed to be, just like goats, a constituent part of urban landscape in this part of the world.

Abdulaziz invited me to his home. Politely, however, I declined his invitation. I told him that I had to make it to the bus and that I wouldn’t like to miss it, much as I appreciated his invitation.

„Next time,“ I said even if we both knew that next time would hardly ever come. But then again, you could never know.

However, Ouahigouya got one up on Mopti after all. Hardly fifty metres away from Abdulaziz’s house, along one of those roadside ditches that served the purpose of municipal sewers, which to a western eye were an obvious source of and explanation for so many diseases here, there was a small flock of ugly, bald-headed, humpy, black vultures, picking at leisure through another one of ubiquitous piles of garbage. Abdulaziz never popped an eyebrow. And even occasional passers-by seemed to treat those birds as nothing beyond the ordinary. I was clearly the only one who saw them as a wonder. I asked Abdulaziz to stop by for a few seconds. He politely waited until I took the pictures and then we finally went to the station.

And there, as we sat on a bench inside a roof-covered space that served as a waiting section, I realised that poor Abdulaziz was shivering. His teeth chattering, he was freezing in the morning air that was obviously too cold for him. Much as I was amused by this, he was amazed at how I could feel pleasant and comfortable with only a T-shirt on. Well, we did seem to have somewhat different metabolisms, after all.

He had obviously decided to keep me company until the very departure of my bus. So I asked him a logical question:

„Do you work?“

What I meant was whether he had a working place where he’d have to go to.

„Yes, when I can find work,“ he answered.

Now, I was a bit confused. I had understood the night before that he wasn’t a waiter in the restaurant where I had eaten, but somehow I took it for granted that he was there one of the regular maintenance staff or something. It turned out it wasn’t quite like that. He explained to me that he didn’t have anything like a steady job and was instead working wherever there was a demand for an electrician. Which were usually just odd assignments here or there. I asked him how often that was.

„Usually once a week.“

„And how much can you get for it?“

„Two, maybe three thousand francs,“ he said. And then added:

„If it’s a very good job, then five thousand.“

I couldn’t believe my ears. We were talking about three or four euro per job. Eight at most. And that was supposed to last him for an entire week. What kind of world are we living in? I knew this was Africa, but felt honestly sorry for this young guy. Now we both knew he was quite lucky that he’d made an acquaintance with me. Whatever paltry money I might have given him for the bike ride, it was going to make a huge contribution to his monthly budget. And I understood why that guy the day before had been so eager to leave me his phone number at the hotel reception.

„And your house? How much do you pay for it?“

„Seven and a half thousand francs a month.“

OK, in absolute terms this was a ridiculous amount. Ten euro. But for someone who on average makes four a week it was a huge item on the list of expenses. So I asked him another question that logically came to me:

„And do you have money for motorbike? For the fuel, I mean?“

„Sometimes,“ he smiled.

„And when you don’t?“

„Then I leave it at home.“

I asked him what he usually did at home. He said he liked watching TV. He loved football. He asked me if I loved football, too. Of course, majority of Europeans love football at least to an extent:

„ I love Barcelona,“ he said proudly. „And you?“

I tried to explain to him that we in Europe tied ourselves emotionally to clubs in a different way than people who followed European football on other continents. I tried to explain that many, if not most, of European clubs went back a long way and carried along a lot of history and tradition which vastly transcended flashy weekly performances of big stars in most expensive and consequently strongest European sides. They throw around huge sums of money, but they can’t buy off a supporter who was brought up on love for a certain club because his father was a supporter of that same club. And because supporting that club makes a statement in many ways, gives you a certain sense of belonging like none other, its results clearly affect your mood on a given day and so many things which unless you’re a true supporter you’ll never understand. So, being a Croat like me, and supporting, say, a „Barcelona“, that was unthinkable.

So I asked Abdulaziz if there was any local club he might like.

„Yes,“ he said. „U.S.Y.“

„Where are they from?“

They were from Ouahigouya.

And so, on we talked. He told me that he had a family, parents and a few siblings, who were all living in a village somewhere in the Ouahigouya region and that he occasionally went to see them. He said that his life was not easy, but in this village it would have been even more difficult so he was clinging on here. And he hoped things would look up. Maybe soon.

I wished they would, with all my heart. Good, simple people like Abdulaziz deserved every bit of it.

And then it was ten o’clock, and time for me to leave Ouahigouya.

Ouahigouya, January 12, 2009 - Monday

wayfarer — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:23:00 GMT

And then it was finally Ouahigouya. Whoever has never tried to undertake the trip from Mopti would undoubtedly find it hard to believe that it easily took me eight hours to cover the distance of… what? Some two hundred and twenty kilometres as the crow flies? Make it three hundred on the ground? If at all? Something that anywhere in Europe wouldn’t take more than three hours of a very conservative driving, border crossings included?

And those eight hours would’ve probably gone on if I had not twice played that „rich European“ trump in both bush taxis, buying off remaining empty seats to speed up the departure.

But this was Africa. Which besides all the good things you encountered every day on this continent also meant poor roads, inefficient traffic connections, slow customs officials. And graft. That was the reality on the ground. If you wanted to travel as locals do, then that was it.

When we arrived in Ouahigouya, somebody came up to our van after we had hardly pulled over and asked who wanted to continue to Ouagadougou. The young Burkinabe guy who was at hand whenever I needed help told me that there was a ride leaving very soon so I could just hop over and go on if I wanted. For a brief second I was event tempted to go along. But by the time I opened my mouth to answer, I had already decided I’d stay on in Ouahigouya for the night. I thanked him and wished him the safe journey and that was it.

I decided to stay in the „L’amitié“ hotel. „Lonely Planet“ clearly stated that it was the most expensive option in town and if I had really insisted, I could have found a cheaper kip around. But all my pores still full of sand from Sahara and with additional dose of dust picked up along the way through the Dogon country, I was in no mood for life on a shoestring right now. All I wanted was to pick up a taxi and check in the only place in town with a guaranteed and reliable hot-water flow.

Except there were no taxis in Ouahigouya. Ever. They just didn’t have them. So how does a dirty traveller, who is new in town, cover the distance with luggage in tow unless he wants to lug it on foot? First you ask around. Which leads you to this very information. That there are no taxis in Ouahigouya, that is. So what happens next? Well, the guy whom you ask where you can find a taxi offers you to take you to your destination himself. Which is very fine. The only hitch is that he isn’t offering to take you there by car. After all, proportionally, very few people in Burkina Faso possess their own rides on four wheels. What he’s offering is a ride on his bike, instead. And that particular bike is certainly not a „Harley“ or something. They don’t have any shiny hogs in these parts. If they do, then they had hidden them well from my sight and put them out of use for the time being. What he had was a thin, rickety contraption which seriously threatened to fall apart on the first road bump along the way.

At first I wasn’t sure whether to accept or not. I just wasn’t confident enough to sit on that bike and count the metres down, all in hope that we’d reach the „L’amitié“ hotel before we skidded and took a tumble by the roadside. The common sense told me that I wouldn’t be any worse off if I reached the hotel in one piece. But then again, all of a sudden, my bag didn’t feel like the lightest one in Burkina, and much as you try, when you’re away from home for planned five weeks, you just can’t possibly travel light. Certainly not light enough to hoof it all the way to the hotel.

So, even if without any excess enthusiasm, I finally agreed and let the guy take me for a ride. Thankfully, or horrifyingly – depending on how one views it - he grabbed my bag, held it in front of himself and kick-started his bike.

Well, to make it all short, I lived to talk about it.

Being back in Burkina, it really meant that effectively I had gotten the final leg of my trip to West Africa started. Mali was now behind me with its long and exhausting dirt roads. Basically they’d been the most difficult part of it all. Crammed, battered vehicles, as dirty as they can possibly get, and tons of dust, sticking to every single open spot of your skin and clothing every step of the way, are most certainly not for the weak, impatient and faint-hearted.

The cheapest rooms in the „L’amitié“ hotel had already been given away. The next best ones on offer were those that went for thirty thousand CFA francs a night. As dirty as I was, I couldn’t even imagine staying elsewhere. So without further ado I took a room and clambered up for shower.

My luggage was dirty as never before. Whatever I wore regularly got dusty so fast that I was seriously wondering if it made any sense changing it at all. So I did just three things when I entered the room. I locked it up from the inside. Then I went straight into the bathroom to let the hot water run. And then I undressed and left it all right there on the floor in one mess of a heap, my luggage and clothes.

And then I was back in the bathroom for a long, endless hot shower.

When one hour later I left my room, passing by the reception desk, I was given a paper with a message. The guy who had taken me to the hotel on his bike had obviously been quite happy with his foreign client. I was suspecting that one thousand CFA francs that I had given him for the ride were a handsome contribution to his budget. However, whenever you are new to a certain place, you can’t haggle much. You just don’t know the place and the relations. But the eagerness with which the guy had left me the note with the receptionist had confirmed my hunches.

I took the piece of paper. It simply contained the guy’s name - Sonadair Hamade Pela – and his phone number.

„The man says if you need him, you can call him,“ the receptionist told me more or less in so many words. Either way, I got the point. Well, you could never know. So I put the paper in my wallet and went out.

I didn’t have any extraordinary plans in Ouahigouya. Basically, I was stopping by for the afternoon and overnight and that was all. It meant I wanted to find a bank where I could exchange some money, then find the STMB bus terminal to buy myself an onward ticket to Ouaga and finally eat something along the way. If I could locate a place to check my e-mails to boot, that would make a very successful conclusion to the day.

The street the „L’amitié“ hotel was located on was called Avenue de Mopti. As far as I understood, that was the main road in town and central to just about everything. So I figured that if I started looking for a bank, I couldn’t go way too wrong if I stuck with the Avenue de Mopti. Sooner or later, there had to be one. Provided it was still open.

While I was walking down the Avenue de Mopti, essentially concentrated on not missing the potential bank, I suddenly realised I had a company. Keeping pace with me, matching me step for step, there was a young lad, around eighteen at most, blabbing something in French. When I finally turned my full attention to him, I realised he’d been on a prowl, looking for potential source of income, and by the looks of it, it seemed as if in his opinion I was a promising game.

I didn’t remember that anyone had ever asked me what my opinion was on that. So I scowled and for starters tried the most polite approach to shake him loose:

„Sorry, I don’t understand you,“ I said, hoping that English would be enough to discourage him. But he was undeterred. He kept blathering, interspersing this time his natter with „help“. In other words, he was offering me his „help“.

„No, thank you,“ I said and pointedly sought to ignore him, looking entirely the other way. I was hoping that if English had not slowed him down, my blatant ignoring would. But this youngster obviously knew no shame. He just pressed on.

And then I saw the „Ecobank“ building. It was open and I entered. The mean-looking guard at the gate politely let me through, but for the pestering youth it was off limits. Well, it turned out to be relatively easy, after all.

I exchanged some money, and for that I took at least fifteen minutes. A bit of a queue, then a lot of bureaucratic formalities which had long been phased out in European banks, and you just couldn’t make it faster. But I was in no particular hurry, so I didn’t mind.

Except, the youngster whom I had left outside didn’t seem to be in any hurry either. Exactly where I had left him off, he now picked it up. And went on offering his „help“.

„No,“ I said, this time omitting all the „thank yous“ and other non-essential niceties. Just as before, it didn’t help. So I had no choice. I had to resort to big guns. I stopped. The guy stopped. I faced him. He was still going on. I interrupted him and clearly said:

„Look, I don’t need your help. Go.“

He tried to argue, but this time I decided to play it rude. I just didn’t know any other way with him:

„I said go. I don’t need your help,“ and I stretched my arm, pointing with my index-finger in a direction away from me.

He tried again. A really persistent and stubborn youngster. With the meanest face I could make, I interrupted him again:

„I said go! Now!“

Finally, the gush from his mouth was stemmed. He just stood there for a moment. And I added once more:

„Go!“

And then he left.

Finally on my own again, I was now free to look for the STMB gare de routière. It wasn’t difficult to find. Just off the main road – and apparently the only paved one – there it was. I bought my ticket for tomorrow and that was it.

There was a bit more daylight left, so for a moment I was undecided whether to go for a few pictures or to find a place to eat. If I first went for pictures, I might have to skip the meal as I never ate after sundown. If I first looked for a place to eat, I might be left without any pictures from here. I decided to go for a compromise. I’d just walk around and take pictures. And as soon as I found a restaurant, I’d stop.

And indeed, not long after that I stumbled upon a roadside place where it looked as if I could get a bite. It was completely empty, so I was not sure if they were open. But an awful, way too loud music was booming from third-class speakers there, and while I seriously wondered what kind of ear could find it even remotely entertaining, I entered to check the working hours. They were open, indeed.

I ordered myself something from the menu and then picked up a table which was farthest from the loudspeakers. I hoped that some kind of zen attitude would help me ignore the rest of decibels. And then I waited.

Not long after that, a young lad appeared at my table and started talking. I excused myself for not speaking French. He switched to the most basic of basic English languages, but enough for me to tell him that I’d like to order another coke. He nodded and turned to get it for me.

„And, by the way,“ I called after him. He turned.

„Could you please ask them to get the volume down? This music is too loud.“

He nodded and in just a few seconds I both had another coke and the music was much quieter. The guy, who I believed was a waiter, asked me if I was going to stay at my table.

„What do you mean?“

Indeed, I was not so sure what he meant.

„I am waiting for my food to come. I’ll eat here.“

He nodded again and said:

„I will now go to pray. And then I would like to come back.“

No problem. I found it a bit amusing that a waiter would go to pray during his working hours, but apart from Bosnia, this was probably the first country with so many Muslims that I had visited. Mali was the second one. And Bosnia, mostly secularised as it is, is by no means a standard to go by when it comes down to Muslim countries. So what did I know? Maybe that’s what Muslims did here all along?

In the meantime my food arrived and while I was at it, the young guy returned. He was glad to still see me and sat at my table.

„I would just like to talk to you,“ he said. „I would like to see what tourists search here. I would like to learn what things they want to see.“

In other words, he wanted to meet an average tourist. Well, OK, why not? He was nice, he wasn’t imposing in any way, I didn’t have any particular plans I wanted to see through, so there was no reason why I couldn’t be the one who would initiate him in the world of foreign travels.

Little by little we talked and suddenly, to my embarrassment, I realised he was not a waiter at all. By all his behaviour when we’d first met, I’d been led to believe exactly opposite. I was certain he was working there. I told him so and I apologised. He dismissed it light-heartedly, making no bones out of it.

„I am an electrician,“ he said. And proudly added, showing the sound system:

„I made that.“

He probably meant he had installed it. Or wired it.

„So you do work here, after all?“

„No. Only when they need me.“

I felt awkward, having earlier sent the young guy to fetch me a coke, as if he was a servant. But it was obvious that I was the only one who felt bad about it. He didn’t even see it as an issue. So we kept talking. His name was Abdulaziz. He asked me about my plans. I said I didn’t have any particular plans any more. I’d just find an Internet café if possible and then I’d go to bed. By the time I finished my meal, it was already dark outside.

„I want to have your number,“ he said.

He meant my mobile.

„No problem,“ I told him. „But that’s going to be too expensive for you, I think. Intercontinental calls are awfully expensive. Do you have an e-mail?“

He didn’t have one.

„Why don’t you open an account?“ I asked him. „Then we can exchange addresses and stay in touch.“

But apparently he had no idea what I was talking about. OK, not entirely, but to a large extent. So I said:

„No problem. I’ll teach you what to do.“

So when we decided we talked enough, I paid and we left. On our departure I realised that the place I’d just eaten in was called „Maquis Kadiami Plus“. Or something. Just for the record.

Abdulaziz claimed he knew where I could find Internet. It was not going to be in any café or similar, but rather in a local high school. After a short walk up the Avenue de Mopti in the direction of my hotel, we reached lycée Yadega. There we entered through the gate, found ourselves in a wide yard surrounded on three sides by low, long buildings, similar to those in Tombouctou, and Abdulaziz took me towards one lit door. A row of tables with computers was there. Just as in any cyber café, as they call them here, there was a guy at an entrance desk selling time. Exactly what I needed. I took one hour. Enough to check my mails and teach Abdulaziz the basics of staying in touch through the Net.

One hour later, we were back out on the almost completely dark Avenue de Mopti. Apart from occasional weak lights from some small shop or other which was still open, there was almost no other lighting.

„I would like to see you tomorrow,“ Abdulaziz said.

„Well, it’d be great,“ I said. „But I am going to Ouagadougou tomorrow.“

„Then before you go.“

„I wake up early. I must also find someone to get me to gare de routière,“ I said.

„I can come with my bike,“ Abdulaziz said.

„You can?“

„Yes.“

Hmmm. Well, this bike or that one, it made no difference to me. So why not Abdulaziz? At least I knew him a bit, while I wouldn’t as much as recognise the guy who’d given me a ride to the hotel any more. According to local customs, I knew I had to be at the bus terminal at nine. Because my bus was scheduled to leave at ten. But also according to local customs, I knew that appointments and schedules are a very fluid concept here. Whereas it wouldn’t be much of a problem if the bus ran late – after all, it wouldn’t be the first one – but what if Abdulaziz showed up late? Now, that might be a problem. So, just in order to be on the safe side, I said:

„Can you come at eight?“

„Yes.“

„Are you sure? It’s not too early for you? Because if you don’t come on time, I’ll leave.“

But he assured me that eight o’clock was fine. So we left it at that. I felt that it was still OK if he wouldn’t show up for, say, half an hour. I could tolerate such delay. And in case he wouldn’t be in the hotel even then, I would still have enough time to look for someone else.

So that was the final deal.

I wished him a good night and retreated to the hotel.

Thiou, January 12, 2009 - Monday

wayfarer — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:56:00 GMT

When we left the last inhabited spot in Mali, I expected to see some kind of mark or something, which would officially announce that we had entered Burkina Faso. However, there was nothing of the sort along the way. The first thing I noticed was a roadside milestone which told us that Ouaga was 240 kilometres away. So that’s how I knew we had definitely left Mali. But nothing official.

Instead of that, we were treated to a different kind of spectacle. Our van was speeding down the dirt road as fast as its engine and road conditions permitted. On a motorway it probably wouldn’t have amounted to a breakneck speed, but here on this provincial unpaved road at the northern edge of Burkina Faso, it was enough to cause a casualty.

As on most West African roads, cattle and all kinds of other domestic animals ever so often crossed our way as if both they and their herdsmen were utterly unaware of the dangers that motor traffic represented for them. The drivers obviously knew that and they all had had a tolerant and patient attitude all across the area I had travelled. But it was just a matter of time before I was going to see the first animal killed. It happened on this stretch between two border posts.

A herd of goats was crossing the road. Our driver slowed down and they did just fine. And then, when it seemed they were all safely on the other side, we picked up the speed, and all of a sudden, literally out of nowhere, a goat kid jumped back on the road, just in time to get under the wheels. A loud and dull thump was heard underneath and everybody got silent. The driver slowed down to a halt and left the car. Behind us, some distance back, the dead animal was lying.

In such a poor country as Burkina Faso is, a loss of a kid goat is a huge loss to most of the people. Nobody would deny that. So it was not a matter to drop so easily. The driver and the herder talked for a while. I don’t know what their arrangement was. I have no idea if there was any compensation for the loss. In any case, it took them a while until they had resolved it. And only then we resumed our trip.

For a while again there was nothing more to see. Except another milestone which this time indicated that there were 220 kilometres left to go to Ouaga. At that point I started wandering if there was any border control at the Burkinabe side at all. Was maybe that one in Kiri, on the Malian side, serving both countries?

But it was not. Finally, after almost thirty kilometres between them, we arrived at the Burkinabe outpost of Thiou.

This one felt considerably more relaxed. And next to that one back up in Kiri, with one lone, windowless concrete shack amidst an otherwise flat and empty clearing, this one looked almost like a time leap into the future.

Also, it appeared a bit busier than its counterpart on the Malian side. Two four-by-fours in addition to our van almost made for a traffic jam. As opposed to the Malians, the Burkinabe side didn’t make too much fuss about documents of any type. Things went pretty smoothly and soon we were released and free to go.

Except, we could not really go. Unlike with the Malians, but very much like borders at Koloko and Herenakono two weeks before, we had to go through two check points here. And this time the van went ahead on its own, and we the passengers on foot. But on the whole it took us less than what it had on the previous side of the border. And it was a bit more dynamic

Around half past three we finally arrived in Thiou, a small town – or a big village – right in time to hear muezzin call everybody to an afternoon prayer from the roadside mosque.

Kiri, January 12, 2009 - Monday

wayfarer — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:34:00 GMT

Forty five minutes later we arrived at the border post on the Malian side. Nominally, it carried the name of the nearest settlement, the village of Kiri. But truth to say, we hadn’t seen a single hut, let alone a house along the way to possibly let us in on the fact that people lived around. But Kiri it was.

Just twenty kilometres to the southeast from Koro, or even a bit less than that, it wasn’t exactly at the other end of the world. But in these parts even twenty kilometres seemed to represent a respectable distance.

The check point itself didn’t offer much by way of points of interest. You could tell it suffered from a rather obvious neglect and even by African standards it was pretty much a backwater. There was a tall, half-rusty metal pole on which they hoisted the red-gold-and-green Malian flag, with those pan-African colours in reverse order, of course. There were a number of low, red-brick buildings were some locals lived and eventually it led me to a conclusion that this tiny cluster of huts was the settlement of Kiri. There were two rusty and battered metal barrels, which once upon a time had been coated with red-and-white paint in the same mould as those that I’d seen on my way into Mali. Except that these particular two had clearly been kicked aside and no one could be bothered to put them again to any use.

And there was a tent where the officer in charge was handling the border matters at a wooden table which served as the official desk. Just outside, a bit to the side, there was a low, makeshift table knocked literally out of few thick sticks and some kind of plate, with two deck chairs and a few plastic chairs around it.

As usual by now, since I was the only white person there, I was given a preferential treatment and my passport was processed first. The inside of the tent was dark, with no lighting whatsoever. But I guess the officer was used to the low level of light and acted as if things were just fine. He was polite and didn’t bother me much. All he cared to check, my passport, my visas and my vaccination certificate, were all right, so in short order I was free to leave.

Except it didn’t help me much. As ever when tied to the public transport, I had to wait for everybody else to go through the same procedure before moving on. And as ever here in Africa, roughly half of my fellow passengers didn’t have all it took to have a smooth border crossing. Most of those „had forgotten“ to take along the vaccination certificate. Even if I seriously doubted they had ever had one in the first place. But one or two did one better. They had forgotten passports. Or any other form of ID.

Now, this being Africa, the fact that you didn’t have your passport on you, or an ID, didn’t necessarily mean they would turn you down at the border and send you back. No, it only meant that what you now needed were right negotiating skills so that they let you through at a relatively low cost. Because, of course, it all came down to money.

As a consequence, roughly the half of us with orderly documents were soon waiting for the other half without them to haggle their way across the border. And that was the part that took time.

So what could a westerner like me, temporarily stranded at this out-of-the-way border outpost, do while waiting for the apparently endless discussions between the border police and those wishing to cross into Burkina Faso to come to an end? Not much, really. The most enticing pastime I could think of, i.e. talking pictures, was already a risky business in far less sensitive places in this part of the world than the one here. I had a first-hand experience on that score.

And yet, the devil wanted to have his way. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to shoot a few and so I did. Two policemen outside the tent eyed me with utmost suspicion. They sensed something was wrong and it was obvious from their face expressions that they trusted neither my camera nor me. But over the twenty-and-something days here in West Africa I had evidently perfected the art of shooting from the waist so well that the guys, much as they seemed intent on jumping me at the first sign of transgression, eventually noticed nothing concrete.

Yes, it was a risky business. No joke. So after just three pictures, I didn’t have the nerve to go on any more. But I did catch the tent and the officer inside, one of the policemen half sitting and half lying on a deck chair with his boots off and bare feet airing freely, and the other one watching me. And that Malian flag on the pole.

And then I stopped.

While my fellow passengers were still haggling with the officer inside the tent, two French bikers arrived on their bikes in a cloud of dust, going the same way as we were. Their papers were in order and in just a few minutes they were on their way.

Now, for all my quirky wishes to share travelling experience of the local population, for once I envied those French guys as they rode off into Burkina independently of the whims of local transport customs.

However, after a long and lazy wait, enough money was finally collected to please the police officer in the tent and we were at last given the green light to resume our ride. Again I got away scot-free with few pictures whose value this time lay more in the circumstances they’d been taken in than in anything else.

On the whole, everyone was relieved when our driver finally started the van.

And so I left Mali.

Koro, January 12, 2009 - Monday

wayfarer — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:27:00 GMT

My taxi ride from Mopti to Koro basically came down to being my only first-hand experience of the Dogon country. Of course, I was hardly ever going to set my own foot on the Dogon soil, but from my privileged seat in the car I had a good view of the stark and unforgiving landscape we were passing through. At least on the face of it, you couldn’t exactly claim the God had blessed the Dogon with the paradise on Earth to live in. But then again, home is always a home and maybe they would have vigorously disputed my claims and reservations about what I saw. However, I wasn’t among those who were going to envy them. Whichever way you looked there was an apparently arid land, or an outright rocky terrain where even weeds must have had a tough time to grow. Only once in a while you would spot a baobab tree and the best the country could offer in terms of vegetation were some sinewy, half-scorched bushes of the variety you could see in Sahara, too. Or at least that’s what they looked to a non-expert like me.

And yet, undeniably so, there was some haunting beauty and twisted serenity to those vast expanses that met my eye.

And then, the vegetation would thicken in places somewhat and you would start seeing people, mostly women with those trademark baskets on top of their heads, their children and domestic animals – mostly goats - cavorting by the roadside. Just where people are, there are their settlements, as well, and we passed through villages with such names like Djigouibombo and Kanikombole. Not even travel guides listed them into existence in the mind of a western traveller.

Then the landscape got barren again and once more it felt like we were snaking across the surface of Mars. With a lot of rocks and red dust, this place really more belonged on Mars than on Earth as I knew it. Except for the road, which was even paved a great deal, and an occasional lone bicycle rider, you would be excused to think that you were on another planet.

Because this was Sahel where temperatures could occasionally soar up to blistering 45°C. Luckily, it was right now „cold“ period so we had freezing 35°C or so. You didn’t have to be a geographer to know that water here must be what gold, or oil, is in other parts of the world.

And yet, in this arid land, only sparsely dotted with tiny oases, the Dogon had created one of the most intriguing cultures of Africa. Travel guides focus on local architecture, cliffs dotted with caves and similar things. But I had known about the Dogon much before my decision to swing by into this part of the world. And not for what travel guides tout, but for the fact that their astronomy obviously vastly surpassed in knowledge what arrogant and self-centred general opinion of modern-day western world usually deems possible in such far-flung and old civilisations. I still remember the book titled „The Secret of the Sirius B“ which had long disappeared from my shelves and was now probably gathering dust elsewhere. It told a story of a twin-star to the shiny Sirius which can’t possibly be seen by a naked eye from our planet. Even our modern astronomers learned about its existence relatively recently. For the Dogon, that star had ceased to be a secret centuries ago.

To the utter dismay of modern-day scholars who seem to be at their most comfortable when denying that there was any serious scientific knowledge before what we call „modern age“, and particularly if that knowledge includes something we’ve not even discovered yet, the Dogon mythology seems to speak of the four satellites of Jupiter, Saturn’s ring, the spherical shape of the Earth, the central position of the Sun in elliptical orbits of planets, the spiral structure of galaxies and the fact that we were in one of them... all the things for which advanced western civilisation at the same time happily lit bonfires with an occasional heretical scientist to spare on top.

So that was the country and the people I now had no time to visit. But I decided I owed it to myself to return here one day, whenever my inner voice would guide me back.

On the face of it, of course, just as entire country of Mali, the Dogon land was poor and often just having its first taste of what we in the west for decades had been taking for granted. There was this small town – or village - of Bankass that we passed through, which had not been electrified before 2006. And they proudly announced that fact on a roadside signboard.

And when some two and a half hours later we finally arrived in Koro, the local centre, a main town of the „cercle“, the name for some administrative regions in Mali, I found another signboard proudly announcing that Koro, too, had got its electricity grid only in 2006.

This was basically the last stop in this direction for all those who didn’t intend to cross into Burkina Faso. This way, this was as far as you could go while still staying in Mali. And for the rest of us who wanted to go on south, this was the place to pick an onward transport.

The main Koro square, and I somehow suspect there are very few in town which seriously compete for that title, was the place. Bush taxis arrived there and from there they departed. The Burkinabe guy who had been recommended by Guele back in Mopti to me as a possible help, nicely explained that as soon as the van was full - this time it was a van – we would start. I nodded, thanked him and roamed around the square taking pictures. I couldn’t think of a better way to kill the time.

In principle, Koro seemed to have little to offer to a tourist. Apart from an imposing Sahel-style mosque, that is, which somehow seemed more magnificent than you’d expect in a town like this. Complete with sharp sandstone towers and bristling with spikes every bit as proudly as the one in Djenné, it stood hardly a hundred metres away from the van station. In other words, it seemed entirely out of place. In a town where otherwise the most notable landmark is a pygmy pyramid on the main square, which apparently moonlights as some sort of monument, and is closely followed at the spot number two by a relatively large metal signboard, also there, ominously warning that „SIDA est partout“, or AIDS is everywhere, this wonderful mosque simply couldn’t belong there.

But there it was.

For all its meagre and pretty desolate looks, Koro is said to lie on one of the main trade routes between Mali and Burkina. This one in particular is called „the road of fish“ as the fish seems to be one of the main merchandises the Malians export to their southern neighbour.

Legally, that is. In a more underhand manner, close by and more or less parallel to this fish road, there seem to be some well established routes to smuggle contraband, particularly alcoholic drinks. Whether authorities turn a blind eye or those vast expanses are simply too difficult to patrol, I can’t say.

Well, in a town where the list of landmarks ends at number three, all of them just numbered, one pretty soon runs out of things to take pictures of. Even if locals are always nearly inexhaustible source of photographing motives. But if you at one point start taking pictures just because there’s nothing better to do, then even that stops being fun. So with an increasing frequency I started making ever smaller circles around the van, perhaps subconsciously hoping it would draw the missing passengers.

At one point the young Burkinabe guy came up to me and asked if I’d be willing to speed up things by again purchasing more than one seat.

„How many?“ I asked.

„We need two more people. You buy one, I’ll buy the other one.“

He evidently – and rather atypically for an African - seemed to be in a hurry, too. I had hardly ever seen anyone here on this continent to be in any hurry. But this one was.

I gladly jumped on the opportunity which not only greased the skids considerably, but also again bought me a privileged seat next to the driver. I knew that the fact that we had just purchased two empty seats wouldn’t prevent the driver from picking up some more passengers along the way as soon as the chance arose and thereby our relative comfort would evaporate, sooner or later. With bets going on sooner.

But what really mattered was the fact that after a one-hour wait we were ready to go. Considering how much I had waited in some other places during my trip, this was more than fine. I couldn’t complain.

Mopti, January 12, 2009 - Monday

wayfarer — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:17:00 GMT

With his track record over the last few days since I’d first met him, I couldn’t be entirely at peace as to whether Guele would stick with what he’d promised me the night before and arrive on time to show me where I’d be able to take a shared taxi to Koro. Of course, I woke up as if he would, then I packed fully and went into the garden to have breakfast. Barbara wasn’t there, just as I expected. Wherever she planned to go today, she was the one least in the hurry of all my fellow travellers, including myself. So no wonder that after the gruelling ride from Essakane she slept in.

But Ibrahima was there.

He made sure to be in my company throughout the breakfast and until the very moment when Guele would turn up. Whenever he would. If he would. Eventually Ibrahima and I exchanged addresses and phone numbers and that was yet another proof that language is a barrier only when people let it be between them as such. But friendship can reach beyond that.

And to his credit, Guele appeared almost on time. Again, considering that this was Africa, he was right on time. Translated into Swiss terms, this would probably qualify as „to the second“.

He took me to a place not far from water tower and his office, and told me that there I could get my bush taxi to Koro. Of course, as almost always in Mali, the taxi would go “as soon as it was full”. Which could take anywhere between five minutes and two or three hours, depending on the demand on this particular route. Guele assured me that the Koro route was a busy one and that I’d be able to leave „soon“. Even if only two people had already bought a seat and I was the third one. And we wouldn’t be going before the vehicle was packed full, like that to Djenné the other day.

What could I do? Nothing much. I just sat around and waited. Then I stood up and kind of roamed around to stretch my legs, which in translation meant that I was taking pictures in secret, But that wasn’t as much fun as it would have been if I had been able to safely count on leaving at a fixed time, whenever it would be. So after a few pictures I stopped.

People gathered only gradually. You could by no means claim that this was a rush on the Koro-bound taxi. Rather it was more like a trickle. A passenger every fifteen minutes or so. At that rate, I could easily still be stuck in Mopti for the next two or even three hours.

Guele noticed my unease. So he came up with a suggestion:

„If you want, you can pay for more seats and then you can go immediately.“

When he suggested that, we were still waiting for two more passengers. I readily jumped on his proposal and he clinched the deal for me. I paid another eight thousand CFA francs, in addition to the four I’d already given for myself, and we were finally ready to go.

Guele introduced me to one young guy and said:

„He’ll help you.“

Thereby he meant that in case I needed any help or explanation along the way, I could turn to this guy and he’d be there to assist me. It was a young Burkinabe man who was returning home and who even spoke some English. Well, it certainly was a relief to know there was someone like him in the bush taxi, as well.

One of the passengers was a young lady, wrapped up in warm clothes as if we were heading up to the north of Norway in the deep of Scandinavian winter, and not even more to the south in the already baking hot Africa. That lady had already taken the front passenger seat and waited for the start of the trip.

Without ever asking me anything, and probably having assumed that by paying three seats instead of one I was automatically entitled to the most comfortable place in the taxi, Guele simply ordered the lady out. When she protested, he started yelling in that pretty ubiquitous African way and nearly dragged her out by her hand. Without further complaints she meekly yielded and took one of the back seats. Reverting to his polite self, Guele told me that I could now sit where the lady had been sitting.

OK, in a way he had a point. I had paid three seats and thereby by some reckoning could have laid claims on certain rights. But it nevertheless made me feel awkward and ashamed. I hated to see the lady kicked out and relegated back just on account of me. Three seats or no seats.

But nobody waited for any more explanations and it seemed that politeness and gallantry were not on top of the agenda here. At last not in this particular taxi. Nobody popped an eyelid and it seemed I was the only one who was sensitive to something which was simply a non-issue. Everybody else started pragmatically pushing into the vehicle and taking their seats.

So I got in as well.

Yes, everything considered, my three seats did buy me a relative luxury. Particularly compared to how I’d travelled to Essakane and back. I shook hands with Guele, he asked me to remember him and recommend him to „any“ of my friends who might want to visit Mali one day, and my trip back to Burkina Faso finally got under way.