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.
