more pics

Rahilla's Mom (Moustapha's wife) is an amazing woman. I don't actually know her real name. I just call her Mom! She made banana and coconut sugar cookies for the Sunday school class that she teaches (of course, I was the official taster). And tonight she specially made crepes for me (extraordinarily good ones too)! Just a real joy to be around.





These piles of rocks are lots of fun to play on. I spent all Sunday afternoon jumping and scrambling and climbing - sometimes hauling my bike too!

Finally, some pics!

There are very few trees now. Just these thorn trees with NASTY spikes, up to 2.5 inches very sharp and very strong. I keep a sharp look-out for these, so they don't go through my tire. The branches make for a great "fence", though, keeping all the goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys and camels out of the millet fields!






New mosques are being built around this country every day. There is apparently lots of funding from states like Lybia, Saudia Arabia and others. They usually look really cool.


























Things are definitely dryer in these parts. Check out these rivers!




Writing the Arabic prayers on a tablet of wood, using an ink-dip stylus.


























Love the name of this village. I'm not sure whether they really think their village is a hole, or if Dennis Leary is the mayor!
























When I saw these birds up on the wall, the only thing I could think of was: "So what you want to do, Aye, Aye? I don't know... What you want to do? Oh Don't start that AGAIN!" -The Vultures (The Jungle Book by Disney)



These are some Fulani homes near Niamey. The Fulani are great herders (even the 4-year-olds!) and spread all across West Africa, but this is one of the areas that is considered a "homeland" for them.







The Tuareg are also nomadic herders, but they tend to have cattle and camels more than sheep and goats. In certain areas, like I have been riding through, the two co-exist quite peacefully.



























The Hausa's build there homes a little differently, but they look good, and I'm sure the mud keeps them relatively cool inside. The square/rectangle buildings are the ones they live in and the round ones are where they store their millet (grain).

OK – it’s HOT now

On my way to Zinder, I had been musing to myself about how humid it has been for the past week. I had always imagined Niger as being a giant desert, completely dry and arid. But this has not been the case. I have been surrounded by fields of millet, corn; sorghum and other things all along. Even with fewer trees and dry river beds, the humidity in the air has been significantly higher than one would find in Calgary or Perth.

Then, all of a sudden, I topped a hill, and there I was on top of a plateau with nothing but rocks and scrub brush for as far as I could see. I could almost feel the air drying out. I could definitely feel my clothes drying out. My sweat drenched shirt and shorts were bone dry in minutes. “Well, I guess this is what they call the Sahel!” I said out loud to myself. (Yes, I talk out loud to myself as I ride. Not sure if it is keeping me from going crazy or if it is proof that I already am).

The change was really quite sudden, but welcome. I enjoy the dryness. It doesn’t even feel like I am sweating anymore. This is a little dangerous because I need to keep drinking just as much if not more. I also need to use more sunscreen. I don’t know if there is any scientific basis to this, but I could feel the sun on my skin much stronger than in the previous days.

At noon, I was only 35km from Zinder and there didn’t seem to be any towns or villages that had omelet stands in them, so I decided that since I was going to have a few rest days, it couldn’t hurt to just keep rolling through nap time and get to Zinder in time to do a little internet! This turned out to be a mistake, and I won’t make it again. The hot sun gave me a licking and I went through my water reserves very very quickly.

It was just about this point when I got a flat tire again! This time it was one of those nasty thorns that grow on nearly all the bushes here. It is a wonder that I haven’t had more. Fortunately for me, (Once again, thanks God for providing!) the flat happened near a tree (the only one I had seen in a few km) that was casting enough shade for me to work under it. This patching session went much better than the last one and I was back rolling in only 15 minutes.

By the time I got to Zinder, I was really dehydrated and wiped out. When I took of my helmet, I felt some powder on my face. It was white. I noticed it on my hands and arms too. I was covered in a fine salt that had been left by my rapidly evaporating sweat. Crazy. Several cokes, bottles of water, and Oral Rehydration Solution packets later, I was feeling much better!

Invasion!

In the last 10 minutes of the Bible Study time, there was a sudden inundation of grasshoppers, through the open door of the porch. They swarmed in by the hundreds. I don’t know where they came from, but no one else seemed very surprised. After a few minutes, someone calmly got up and closed the door, but it must have seemed very normal to them ‘cause no one really took much notice. The grasshoppers were bouncing everywhere, committing suicide by jumping and flying into the lights, and half the time being killed or chopped in pieces by the giant overhead fans. Again, I think I was the only one who took much notice -the others just seemed to brush the bugs off and continue right on discussing, in very loud Hausa voices, whether or not miracles happen today. I think the conclusion was that Yes, they do happen and we need to have faith that God can work through us as we are his disciples. But as for the bugs, apparently this was not a plague.

After everything was done, I finally got a reaction. The kids (who had been sitting still listening for the full 45 minutes) suddenly jumped up and ran around screaming, collecting the grasshoppers and popping them in their mouths as a tasty snack. I had heard about people eating grasshoppers but had never done it. When I asked one of the adults about it, they said “Oh, these aren’t good eating grasshoppers, these are just for kids! The good grasshoppers only come right after it rains.”

Back in the family

Upon arrival here in Zinder, I called Rahilla, my student from Ouagadougou and let her know that I had finally arrived. She rushed out to meet me and I followed her moto-taxi back to her family’s house. They knew I was coming, but weren’t sure when. I was given a place to stay with her father and mother in their expansive, but simple home in the original neighborhood of Zinder, where Rahilla grew up.

Immediately, on entry, I recognized a huge photo of Souleman and Nanna, whom I stayed with,in Niamey, up on the wall, then a picture of Rahilla and others that I didn’t recognize. The father, Moustapha, is VERY proud of his 7 children! They have made me feel right at home, like I am part of the family.

After showering and eating (Rahilla’s mother made me a giant omelet!), I enjoyed getting to know Moustapha. He is 65 years old, and worked (very successfully) his whole life as a car mechanic, but always invested his earnings in farming. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to go out and visit his fields which he continues to work, even though he is retired from the garage that one of his sons now operates.

Later in the evening, I joined about 50 people on the screened-in porch for a mid-week bible study that Moustapha hosts. He has a microphones and everything set up for the weekly event. Everything was in Hausa, but I sat next to a man who translated for me. Afterwards, my translator introduces himself to me as Moustapha’s nephew, Rahilla’s cousin. In fact, the majority of those present seem to be family members of some sort or another. I am reminded of Pooh Bear’s friend Rabbit from who always talked about his many relations. It also reminds me of Acts 16, where it says of the jailer, that, “He and all his house believed”. When I talked with Moustapha about this later, it became apparent, that he is not only extremely active in sharing his faith with his family, but also with his neighbors. He continually shares with those who live around him and he has even mounted loudspeakers on the exterior walls of his courtyard. The singing, prayers and teaching get broadcast for any of the neighbors to listen without fear of being outcast from their families for going to into a Christian home. My first reaction to this was horror. How incredibly imposing – to blare out your prayer time on loudspeakers. Then Moustapha reminded me that this is very culturally appropriate - He says, if Muslims can broadcast their prayers from the mosques, then why not be proud of his faith too?

“Don’t you recognize me?"

He sounded hurt, like I really should know who he was. I was in a little omelette shop having some lunch and trying to seek refuge from the scorching mid-day sun. Another customer there, a 17(ish) year old boy was telling the other customers that we had met before, but I was unconvinced. He insisted it was true, so I asked him where and he said “2 days ago, on the road to Konni, we passed you in a white Toyota pick-up, and you waved at us!”

I started laughing from the bottom of my belly! How could I tell him that I get passed by about 20 white Toyota’s every hour? – Over a hundred a day! And I maybe wave at a third of them, if not to be friendly, then at least to loosen off my shoulders. They pass me going so fast, I can’t recognize anyone inside, but apparently I need to be taking better notice! When I explained, then he brightened up and we spent the next hour chatting until the call for prayer. He went across the street and I rolled out my mat to lay down and read for a while.

An omelet a day...

One of my friends has pointed out that bread with sardines and marmite doesn’t sound very appetizing and she is right, I only use them in real emergencies. However, as the month of fasting continues, food during the day is becoming fairly scarce, even in the bigger towns and cities. I have had to learn what to look for to find something to eat. Usually there is one thing that is available all day and in most towns that are big enough to have a bus-stop, to supply the needs of travelers: an omelet shop! It usually looks like a table with cans of milk and coffee on it, but if you go and ask, they usually have some bread and eggs hidden under the table. And so, omelet has become a staple food in my life – sometimes twice a day. Eggs deep-fried in oil has got to be the safest food around – and it’s pretty tasty too – well, better than sardines and marmite, anyways.

Ps- on Peace Corps

I spent two more days in Maradi, recuperating and resting at the Peace-Corps base there. It was thoroughly enjoyable for me, and very refreshing. I have to say that the team of volunteers in Maradi really impressed me a lot. They were much more diverse in their backgrounds and views than I had imagined, and as I got to know them and the projects that they are working on, I was encouraged by what they are accomplishing for the local populations. The new recruits were equally interesting and full of potential, eager to get to their posts and change the world. It reminds me of me when I first came to Africa! We ate together, played games and discussed books, listened to music, and slept in a giant camp of mosquito nets pitched on the front porch! When I finally left Maradi to come to Zinder, my legs and were fresh and my spirit reinvigorated. Makes riding so much more enjoyable when you are relaxed. Hats off to the Peace Corps for their renewing hospitality!

Ps - on drafting

I forgot to mention that I am not the only one on the roads making use of the drafting principle. It is not uncommon for local cyclists - on their way to or from their fields, or traveling to the next village- to suck in behind me, making use of my meager slip-stream. It is always fun to share the road for a while, and they think it is a hoot to ride with the crazy white guy. Often times their baggage is a bag of rice or something else like that, much heavier than what I am carrying, and their bicycles have fat, wobbly tires, but they have extraordinarily strong legs and reach amazing speeds for short periods of time. Often, just before turning off on their road, they will give a burst of energy and spurt out from behind me to show me up and then wave goodbye, laughing, as they drop off the pavement, onto a little pathway that winds off into the vast fields of millet.

If they stick with me for long enough for me to need another drink from my water bottle (every 3-5km), then I will slow down and pass the bottle over. They are usually grateful because they are doing more work to go that speed than I am. Very rarely, I wind up with someone going a long distance and able to keep up with me, but if so, I will also invite them to join me on my hourly break for a package of “Glucose Biscuits”. Glucose biscuits are what keep me going in between meals. A couple of these little packets have just enough sugar to keep me going for another hour, and at $0.10 each, I always keep my pockets full.

Sometimes, young kids (10-15 years old) will challenge me to a race. This is always lots of fun. They can usually beat me for a ways, but eventually, my skinny tires and the advantage of gears leave them behind. I always shout out encouragement as I catch them: “Allez-allez-allez! Tu vas le faire- poussez, poussez!” (Go, go, go! You can do it – push, push!) It is things like this that make me smile!

Peace Corps Camping...

People had been warning me about the terrible stretch of road from Doutchie to Konni since I got to this country, so I knew it was going to be bad. It is was a stretch of 150km that has a terrible reputation. It is being worked on, but according to the reports I got, the detours and work zones were just as bad if not worse than the way it was.

In order to deal with this menace, I got up at 5am and packed my bike up. I left while it was still dark and bought some breakfast on the side of the road (during Ramadan, muslims are permitted to eat while it is not daylight, so you can find street food before 6am, but not afterwards). I even used my headlamp in the semi-light until 6:30. The first 5km were really ugly - it was as if a giant had taken a big potato-peeler and stabbed the roadway hundreds of times, making it a mangled, mess of holes, puddles, trenches, loose rocks and chunks of pavement, etc.

But after that, it got pretty reasonable. There were lots of potholes, yes, but they were a reasonable distance apart and I was able to ride at a normal speed, going around the potholes as necessary. There were only a few times that I had to slow down to let a truck or a bus go by before I went around. I made good time in this section which was good, because when I finally got to where the road works were redoing the road, I had to slow down considerably. The pot-holes gave way to pot-ravines that stretched the entire width of the road and shoulder area, sometimes forcing me to dismount and walk the bike through. This treachery eventually gave way to a section that had the pavement stripped completely off. This was better, although it wasn't graded very evenly so riding was not very smooth. Then came the detours. These stretches lasted several kms and had varying degrees of ridability, depending on how frequent and sharp the stones were. For much of it, I was impressed to see that I could maintain a speed of around 10km/hr, half my normal speed.

I was praying about my tires (the skinny 10 speed tires, looked no match for the road), but they held up really well and I'm happy to say that the bike performed beautiful during that section. I had been prepared to load the bike on a bus or van if it got too bad, but I never had to even think about it. It was slow and more work than any normal 150km ride, but it ended up fine. The last 30km were on new pavement again, so that was a nice treat to end the day with. Thanks God, for getting me through that!

That night, on the reccomendation of a friend, I stayed in a Peace Corps centre in Konni. I have met lots of Peace Corps volunteers in various places around Africa, and have always been impressed with their dedication to bring change and to live very simply. The 3 volunteers who happened to be in Konni were no exception. I enjoyed hanging out and playing speed scrabble, eating some local street food delicacies that they introduced me to. Halfway throught the scrabble, we had to make a dash as the heavens let loose a mighty storm, and all my stuff was set up outside. The hostel there was very rustic and has a number of rattan bunks set up outside where you can drag a mattress and put up a mosquito net with no trouble. But when the rain surprised us, I had to run take down the net, get the mattress and all my gear (spread out over the next bunk) inside the hanger. After resetting my bed up under the tin roof, I went back to scrabble and won the game.

Thanks to Bec and Trace and other Aussie friends for teaching me TAKE 2 because it came in real handy. I shared some of my remaining cashews and mangos and had a great, evening under a cool African sky. Unfortunately, there is no internet available in Konni. I had been planning on taking a rest-day here. It turns out I had to go an extra 2 days to find internet here in Maradi.

The volunteers in Konni told me that they had another centre in Maradi and that is where I am now. Well, I'm actually in a cybercafé, but I am staying for a couple of nights at the Peace Corps centre here. More games, good fun and interesting people.

The accountant, the pastor and the mechanic

Just before leaving Niamey, a man that I met there gave me the contact details for someone in the next big town, Dosso. I told him that I probably wouldn't stop in Dosso, since I prefer smaller towns or villages, but would take the details just in case. Well, it turns out that I was very late leaving Niamey (9:30am instead of 6:30!) so Dosso wound up being a very good place to stop.

When I contacted this friend of a friend, he turned out to be a young (30), single man who works as an accountant for PLAN Int'l, a big NGO here. I introduced myself and he immediately invited me to stay the night with him. Incredible. He took me to his clean, but humble appartment and made me feel right at home. While I was having a shower, he ran out and bought a big carton of juice (real fruit juice imported from France) and a bottle of Olives to have as a snack before dinner. Zacharie was just really excited to have me, and tried his hardest to spoil me despite my protests that it was really unnceccessary. We had some great chats about development work in Africa and spent some time praying for one another. It was a real enjoyable evening, and the next morning, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend.

The next evening, when evening started to arrive, I was just coming up to a large town again. I didn't have contact details here, and it's also not like a village where you can just sit down and ask to talk to the important people about a place to stay. I decided to ask a young man who could speak French where I might find the local church. He said he didn't know, but pointed me in the direction of 2 men seated a stone's throw away, saying that I should ask them because they are Christians. I walked over and again asked where I could find a church in town. One of the men answered that he was a Pastor and the other said - "Hey! I know you. You were in our church in Niamey last Sunday!" The Pastor instantly invited me home and helped me by finding a professional repair man to work on my punctured tube.

His house is on the same property as the church and they had a Bible Study that night so I went to join them. It was short, but lively and all in the Hausa language. I didn't understand a thing, but enjoyed being a part of a group of Christians who were authentically seeking to know more about their God. I was now squarely in Hausa territory and will continue to be, all across the rest of Niger and Nigeria and into Cameroon. After returning from the church, I ate with the Pastor's family and then he asked me a question that I have not been asked before... "Do you prefer sleeping indoors or outdoors?" Definitely outdoors! "Great!" he said, then proceeded to set up a system whereby he could hang my mosquito net. Then he brought out a mattress for me and I slept up on the porch, in a nice cool breeze all night - Absolutely SUPERB!

When I arrived in Madawa, another large town (decided that they were my best bet now, in order to find French speakers), I thought I would try something different. I went to the office of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and asked if they might have a place to stay. The important people were in a meeting so I sat and chatted with the guards, and various other personel. We had some great laughs and a good time chating about bicycles and traveling while we waited about an hour and a half for the meeting to finish. One of the guys told me "Look- here's my number. If they can't give you a place to stay here, you are welcome to stay with me at my house on the other side of town." Sure enough, MSF didn't have a room for me, so I called up their employee who gave me directions to his house. It turns out that he is the mechanic for MSF and comes from one of the towns in Niger that I have already passed through.

Adamou is a muslim man, and very devout. He had been fasting all day so in the evening, as soon as it was dark, and the prayers were over, we had a real feast! There were at least " different kinds of drinks that we had, and I think there were ' types of dishes that we ate. The piece de resistance, however, was a giant bowl of freshly made cole-slaw. Made with local cabbage and real mayonaise. Incredible. Just outside Adamou's house was a prayer area, where they had set up their mats facing East. When the mosque speakers were calling out the prayers, all the men from the street walked over, took their shoes off and went in. It was really interesting to watch as they used various postures of prayer (standing, arms outstretched, bent over, kneeling upright, kneeling forhead to the ground, etc). The women came to pray as well, and laid their mats down on the ground behind the men's shelter.

I really admire their dedication and desire to please their God. It is serious business for them and I wonder how much of the Arabic calls they understand. I wonder what would happen if Christians took 15 minutes, 5 times a day to call on God and seek to understand and submit to his will? This has been challenging for me to think about. Too often my prayers do not occupy a place of importance in my life - they happen as I am driving, riding, or briefly before eating, etc. Although it is true that I have a God who is accessible at any time, I am starting to re-evaluate how much respect and honour I give him.

A really intersting site to check out is: 30days.net - it has lots of good information and a guide about how to pray for the people who are seeking Peace over the month of Ramadan.

Don't try this at home!

A few days ago, I got a flat tire (#3 of the trip) that cost me over 2 hours of trouble on the side of the road. It was the rear tire and I patched the tube reasonably quickly despite breaking one of my levers- the tire fits extrordinarily tightly on the rim, and requires a lot of effort to open up. After checking for glass, thorns and wires, I reinserted the tube, but it didn't pump up. I opened it up again and found a second hole. After looking much more carfully, I found a tiny sliver of glass embedded in the rubber. It only became visible when you bend the tire a certain way. I pulled it out, repatched the tube, then put it back. Still no good. I reopened the tire and found another hole. This time the cause was a pinch because the tire was so tight getting back on. It was in a spot that was really hard to fix so I opted for a fresh tube. This time, I tried to be careful with the tire but ended up stabbing the new tube with my tool. I gave up and put on a new tire and a new tube. This worked, but I ended up waisting 2 of the best riding hours of the day to get it accomplished. Now I appreciate the help from

Because of this, I ended up having only a short break for siesta and riding in the sun to make it to the next reasonably sized town. Fortunately for me, I soon came upon a section of road that was brand new and really great to ride on. Super smooth and not a pothole anywhere. Right about then, I got passed by a big truck overloaded with onions and on the next hill, I caught up to it. I tucked in behind and held on as he speeded up. What a rush! All of a sudden, I was flying along at Mach 0.036 (40km/hr).

In order to stay in the draft-zone, I had to put the hammer down and hit 10th gear, then pedal like crazy! It was a lot of fun, cruising along the new road without fear of hitting a pothole or anything. I held on like this for about half an hour and then had to drop off so that I didn't exhaust myself. It was an exhilerating feeling and is very motivating, but it also means that I have to concentrate on the back of the truck, listening for a change in gears or the start of the brakes, etc. I have to keep both hands on the brakes so that if some cows do jump on the road in front of the truck, that I am ready for a quick slowdown. This means that I can't wave to other traffic or to villagers (the activity that normally keeps my arms muscles loose) and I can't reach back and have a drink. I saved a lot of time riding so fast, but in the end I think I lost about half of it due to wearing myself out.

Of course, this was the exception to the rule. Normally the road, even when good, has the ocassional pothole which I am unwilling to ride into blind, going Mach 0.036. Normally, I am quite content to puddle along at my own speed and I expect that this will be the case for the rest of the trip. Also, it is rare to get a truck that is going just the right speed and donkey carts don't make good drafting vehicles!

I did draft some motorcycles once. There were 3 of them all travelling together. Young guys driving, each with an older very nicely, traditionally dressed Fulani man as a passenger. Apparently the old guys didn't want to mess their hair because they wouldn't go over 25km/hr. I pushed hard and caught up to them and rode in the middle of them for about 10 minutes. I felt like I had run away and joined the circus!

Currently Drinking, Currently Reading:

As I said earlier, I have been taking a siesta every day and not riding between the hours of 12 noon and 3pm. This has been very good for me and is working very well.

Usually, I pick a larger village to stop in if I can. The idea being that I can buy some cool water from a fridge and after my rest-time, I can have a coke. Actually, I recently discovered something better than coke. There is a local soft-drink bottler here in Niger called Oriba and they make a really refreshing lemon-ginger drink that I love. It's very invigorating and a great jump-start to the afternoon ride.

Villages with electricity are becoming more and more rare, the further out East I get, but when it works out to stop in one, I jump at the chance. Because this is Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer, finding food during the day has become harder and harder as well. I have been taking bread and sardines with me every day in case I don't find anything. Also, the little jar of Marmite that the Swiss family in Torodi gave me has come in very handy on more than one occasion.

Where ever it is that I do stop, it is never a problem to find a place to lay my mat. Due to the fasting, most people aren't working very much, and just kind of lay down most of the day under temporary shade hangers that they have put up using thatch. I join them under the mats and they are always inviting, even if they don't speak French (French speakers are also becoming more and more rare, the further East that I go). Sometimes I am able to nap, sometimes the flies bother me too much. Usually, I end up reading a few pages in the book that I brought with me from Ouagadougou.

"The Forgotten Ways" by Alan Hirsch is an interesting and provocative read. Basically, he is saying that the way we do church is outmoded and not useful for the growth or the authenticity of Christianity. He says that "This movement that Jesus initiated was an organic people movement; it was never meant to be an institution." Do I hear an Amen?

Hirsch brings up a lot of ideas that I have felt for a long time, but not been able to articulate. I am not halfway done with the book yet, but it has been challenging and I am curious to see what he is going to propose as solutions to the many problems that he raises. He advocates for seeing each subculture in our societies as a group to reach as part of a cross- cultural effort. What I think is missing from his idea is the necessity of having each group be intentional in reaching out to help others, rather than just receiving the efforts made towards them. I think this is essential to the breaking down of the consumeristic mindset of church. Reminds me of the Priest in France who was given the task of helping street-kids. He succeeded by teaching them to help impoverished slum-children in Brazil.

Anyways, that is what I have been reading and reflecting on during my afternoon siestas, waiting for the air to cool back down to a reasonable temperature and dreaming of my Oriba!

border crossing the easy way

When I was in Niamey, I ran out of time to write some of my experiences, so I will attempt to catch up. The connection speed is really slow right now so I will try and come back later to upload some photos.

As I was nearing the Niger border, I suddenly got very nervous. I have never crossed a border on a bike before, and had no ideas what documents they might ask me for. I had thought ahead a little and made up a bill of sale before I left Ouagadougou, but who knows what kind of trouble they could give me if "they" decide to be ornery. "They" is the police or the army on each side of the border. Four check-points and any one of them could be having a "bad day".

Of course, I shouldn't have worried, at all 4 stops, they asked to see my passport, asked me lots of questions not related to border crossing (like what do I eat when I ride?) and then laughingly send me on my way with huge smiles, waves, and shouts of "Good Luck" or "You're Crazy!".

What I should have worried about was the distance between the posts. The police check on the Burkina side was 41km from the police check on the Niger side! Wow. That is a lot of no-man's land. And it really was no-man's land. No villages, no people, nothing, just a straight, hot road. Fortunately I had filled up my water just before going across and made it through that long lonely stretch with no problems.

About half way in between, the road suddenly turned into gorgeously smooth Tarmac. The road in Burkina was very good, and I was very happy with it, but it was a chipped road-surface. The Niger road was a smooth Asphalt that felt really downright cushy! I excaimed loudly (to myself) "Sweet Mother of Tarmac!" I thought I was floating on the moon.

20km later I came across the Niger police post. I had almost forgotten that I needed to check in. We joked around for a few minutes and they gave me a Niger name "Seydou" (pronounced say-doo). Then, I was off again, speeding zipping along the blacktop towards the next town where I could replenish my water. Soooooo easy. What was I worried about. We'll see what happens at the next border that I will need to cross (Nigeria) when I get there in about 10 days!

G'day from Maradi!

Maradi is the 2nd biggest city in Niger and the first place to have working internet since I left the capital Niamey. I have now covered over 1500km, and am over half way to Cameroon! I arrived here Saturday evening and am staying at a Peace Corps centre with about 16 young Americans, mostly of the "granola" variety, from or having studied somewhere near Seattle.



It has been an enjoyable weekend listening to good music, listening to their stories and playing games. Unfortunately, yesterday the power was off, so after an enjoyable morning in a local church, my internet hopes were dashed!



I am actually a little (250km) further East than shows on the map, but it gives you the right idea. From here, I will have only 2 days' ride to reach Zinder, where my student Rahilla lives. I talked with here the other day by cell phone, and am looking forward to arriving there.seeing her and meeting her family.

Hopefully I will be on the road early tomorrow morning.

STeve

Sundays are for visiting

Yesterday morning, I went to church with Souleman and Nanna. The service was enjoyable – good music with a mix of French, English, Hausa and some other languages. The kids sang, the women sang (the best part ‘cause they used traditional drums), the youth gave a few songs and even the men got up to do a special song. The sermon was short and sweet. And the announcements were only about half the length of the sermon, so all in all, I considered it a highly praiseworthy service for a large African congregation.

After the service, I chatted with various people under the shade of trees in the courtyard. Very enjoyable, except that my stomach was rumbling away. Souleman was helping count the offering and Nanna was talking to all kinds of people, running around, shaking hands and giving hugs to the other women. She is really an extraordinary African woman. At one point she came up to me apologetically explaining why, an hour after church had ended, we were showing no signs of leaving. “Sunday is our day to visit. It’s the only chance we get to see each other”.

A while later, Souleman came, we hopped in the SUV and headed home, or so I thought. When we were obviously going a different direction, I thought, hopefully that maybe we might be going to a restaurant. Alas, we were going to visit Souleman’s uncle. Unfortunately they were not home, after a brief visit with the guard, we hopped back in the truck and headed out again. This time we ended up at a friend of Souleman’s. They discussed some design issues and then (praise the Lord), the friend’s wife brought out some food for us. Sooooo yummy. We actually didn’t stay too long, and then we were off again, but still not to home. The next stop was Nanna’s mother’s house. Souleman explained… “You see, Sunday is our day to visit people – the rest of the week is just too busy.” No problem, except that I had planned to do some visiting of my own, Sunday afternoon, by catching up with my favourite student "Halmassad".

Nanna's mom feeds us too and the jolly old lady has a hoot practicing English with me. She is surprisingly good and it turns out that she lived in Nigeria (one of the few English speaking countries in the region) and has been an English teacher here in Niger for many years.

When we left there, we started for home, and I got them to drop me at an internet cafe where I could catch up on emails and wait for Halmassad to come and meet me. It was great to see him again. My hope had been to go with him to his home area and visit the work he is doing with his people there. However, right now it is almost impossible for white people to visit the region. There has been a lot of tension between government and rebel groups there and recently 2 French journalists went into the area secretly to report on what was going on. Ever since, there has been a serious case of martial law, and white people aren't allowed in. The news from the region was not to bother even trying to come. This was very dissappointing for both Halmassad and for me, but we accepted the news and decided we would have to try again at a more opportune time.

This may be for the best as he is still waiting to hear from his Doctor about how they will be changing his treatments (Halmassad suffers from some rare blood disorder that I don't understand). That is something that I would appreciate prayer for, by the way. We are talking about an incredibly dynamic man making a huge impact on his people, but suffering from illness. Today I spent a long time praying with him and although he is a Muslim man, he was very grateful for the prayers offered in Jesus' name.

I went to the house where he stays when he is in Niamey here. Wow! Was that ever a huge contrast to where I have been staying with Souleman and Nanna. The slum area is only just metres away from the "Boulevard of Embassies", but there is no water system or garbage system. There are no streets, only pathways between buildings. Some buildings are actual brick buildings, others are mud, others are grass-woven huts. Alhassane stays in a tent in front of a small 1 Bedroom side to a duplex made of cement. It is his family and they let him stay for free, but it is not easy living with others in very close quarters. We ate together and spent a long time chatting with his brothers and cousins. I said, at one point: "I should go, leave you guys - its late". Guess what their response was.

Yep. "Its Sunday! Sundays were made for visiting!"

The Belligerent Bull, or “How to play Red Rover Red Rover with livestock”

Ok, so I’m barrelling down the empty highway at Mach 0.020 when all of a sudden a herd of cows walks out onto the road about 50 metres ahead. I put on the brakes and move to the far side of the road, hoping that they will pass by quickly. No such luck. They stop right in the middle, and the bull who is standing right where I had intended to pass, turns to face me and puts his head down. Now the brakes are really on hard - They make a loud squeak which makes the cattle skittish, but not enough to leave the roadway. I start yelling and waving one arm while keeping the brakes on with my left hand. The bull doesn’t budge, but the cow next to him turns away leaving me enough room to squeeze through – as long as the bull doesn’t choose to turn and gore me, or kick me as I roll by – I decide to risk it and in a moment I’m back to open road again.

This kind of thing is becoming more and more frequent, the further East I go. There are more and more nomadic herders here – both the Fulani and the Tuareg are in the region with their herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. Sometimes I see little shepherds of no more than 4 years old tending sheep!

One day a cow came running out of the scrub brush on the side of the road to my right. I decided to let him go in front of me and veered right. At the last second, I saw a blue rope go taught against the animal’s hind leg and a small teenage boy skidding along behind, trying to reign in his bovine charge. Again, the brakes came on loudly and I had to swerve way left to get around without running right into the side of ribs. I don’t like them quite that rare!

A different time, I came up on a slow moving truck and another one trying to pass it. I went around both of them only to discover that there were approximately 300-400 sheep on the roadway! A motorcycle coming the other way with a loud horn managed to clear a small path and I went for it, forcing other oncoming vehicles to wait a little while longer.

The biggest scare, though, came when I heard a rustling to my right and when I looked over my shoulder, there was a big old camel right there on the side of the road. I did a double take for an instant, thinking it was a giraffe and had to look again to make sure I wasn’t seeing things! Definitely nomad territory.

Places to lay my head

I have been so impressed with the hospitality of people here. I have had a variety of places to stay, but never once have I felt like I might not have somewhere to stay. I already wrote about my first night at the “Doctor”s house. Since then, I have stayed in a variety of places including at a policeman’s house, in the mayor’s office, with a Swiss family and with an architect.

The policeman was a giant of a man named Moussa, living in just in a little bachelor’s suite. His stuff was spread everywhere and his bed was a thin piece of foam layed on the floor with a sheet on it. Fortunately, he had a mosquito net up. I went to bed relatively early while Moussa was watching TV. Then, about midnight I got a tap on the shoulder and a deep rumbly voice said “Hey! Roll over! I’m coming to bed now”. Moussa climbed under the mosquito net with me. Fortunately, I was 90% asleep at the time and didn’t take much notice. Guess I can no longer say that I haven’t been bed with the police!

I can also say that I have slept with the town administration because the next night, my host took me to the newly finished (I think that day… the paint was still tacky) Municipal buildings. The mayor’s office had the biggest door and lock in town, so I guess he thought I needed to be secure. I layed my mat out on the floor and used my backpack as a pillow. For a while, I didn’t think that I would be able to sleep, but a tired body lets one sleep just about anywhere. The good thing about a new construction like that? The mice haven’t had time to move in yet!!!

The next night I ended up in a larger town (Torodi) on market day. It was crazy. Nothing could have prepared me for the insanity of entering Torodi on market day. The streets were so crowded there was hardly room for 2 bikes to ride side by side, yet big trucks were pushing and honking their way through and motos were zipping up and down at break-neck (literally, nearly mine) speeds. Someone said there were Americans living in town and when I asked to meet them, they led me to the house of Tonio and Katrin, a Swiss couple with 2 lovely daughters. They immediately invited me to stay for dinner, and then for the night. The homemade bread was to die for and the homemade Settler’s game was tons of fun! It turns out that they work with SIL here in Niger. The next day I planned to leave early, but spent most of the morning and early afternoon discussing literacy with Tonio. He showed me the 1-hectare farm where he was growing all kinds of things. I learned how to plant manioc and how to harvest it. He has learned his farming methods from reading books and applying the knowledge. His successful fields have piqued the interest of the Fulani people that he works with and they have begun asking questions! Awesome. Not only will his work help them improve farming methods, but it serves an example of how reading can change your life. Very powerful stuff.

Arriving here in Niamey, I called a number that had been given me by Rahilla, one of my students. I suggested to the stranger on the other end of the phone that I since it was already late, that we could fix a time to meet the next day. “Nonsense” said Souleman. Stay there. I’ll come get you. A little while later a luxury Toyota 4Runner showed up. Since it would have been awkward to get my bike into the vehicle, I suggested that I might follow him, so we zipped around the streets of Niamey with me pedalling my heart out trying to keep up, and praying that I wouldn’t hit any potholes in the process. It ended well and Souleman and his wife Nanna took wonderful care of me. He is a young, successful architect and his 18-month old house was beautifully done mixing traditional Niger brickwork with nouveau styles from the west. Really cool. I had a separate guestroom with a high-powered ceiling fan and an en-suite. I was invited to watch Satelite TV on the posh leather couch. It was like another world. They treated me like royalty and although it was a big switch, my body adjusted pretty well!

Tomorrow I am back on the road. Who knows where I’ll end up or who may become my host, but that is what makes it an adventure.

The music in my head

"There's a big, A big hard sun

Beating on the big people

In a big hard world"

~Eddie Vedder

Because I need to be listening for big trucks, careening buses, insane motorcylists and screaming cars, I can't really use earphones. For those who know me well, the lack of music on this trip really is killing me. I miss my computer, I miss my ipod. I miss my music.

So what can a guy do? I sing to myself. It started on the first day with songs from the jungle book (An Ape Like Me and The Bare Necessities). Thanks to Sam Hauser to whom I read the children's version just before my depart, these songs were fresh in my head. Since then, I have been known to pass other cyclists or donkey-carts singing at the top of my lungs: "Here comes the rain again" (Eurythmics), "Old MacDonald" (traditional), "Manic Monday" (Bangles), "By the Rivers of Babylon"(Bony M), Tricky (Beastie Boys) "Dirty Deeds"(ACDC) , "Another Saturday Night" (Cat Stevens), "Amazing" (Matt Redman), "The Longest Time" (Billy Joel), and my theme song "Big Hard Sun" by Eddie Vedder.

Slightly modified words often help pass the time too."The Wheels on the Bike go Round and Round" has proved very popular. I have lots of new verses like... "The kids who watch me bike yell give me candy, give me candy, give me candy, All Day Long!" or "The glutes on the seat say LET US REST... All Day Long!"

People look at me funny and sometimes I lower my voice if I'm right next to someone, but most of the time I just sing away. It makes the kms go quickly and keeps me happy!

Speeding through my own Narnia!

Many (like 58) years ago, CS Lewis wrote the Narnia books, describing a fantasy country in an alternate reality. Many (like 17) years ago I also wrote about a fantasy country. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of this country, but it earned me an A- in CALM class. CALM was a class that all grade 11 Albertans had to take in order to graduate and it was intended to help us develop life skills. Terribly boring. Extremely boring. So much so, that I dedicated that class period to seeing just how much mischief I could get away with.

I wasn't shooting spitballs, but I was making stuff up. A lot. In fact, I don't think I completed any assignment based on fact. Everything I wrote, all semester long was just invented. Recently a friend (I found on facebook -see there is at least one redeeming quality) from highschool reminded me about that class and about one assignment in particular. We were asked to research a part of the world where we might want to visit and write a report about that country. I spun the globe and put my finger down. It landed in West Africa. But which country? They are so small, my finger covered 3 different ones. I then decided that surely the teacher couldn't know much about that part of the world, so if I happened to write my report about a country that didn't really exist, she would never know.

So I redrew the map, making my own country by eliminating a tiny country and cutting some land out of a couple of other countries. Fantastic. But what would I say about it? I ended up actually doing quite a bit of research about the countries that were in the region and then proceeded to make up the number of square km, the population, major industry, tourism, the name of the capital city and of the provinces. It was all bunk, and I had a number of friends who contributed to helping create the country, running around the library, throwing out weird and wonderful names that I could publish as the name of the current President, and such.

Anyways... where was I going with all this? Oh yeah. Well, on my to Niamey, I rode through my own fantasy country, whatever it's name was. In reality, it was just Burkina Faso and Niger, but it provided some funny memories as I looked back on that class.

Weird how things work out. I did this as a hoax, knowing that I would never go to that part of the world, and yet only 3 years later I had my first visit to West Africa. I have been back and forth for the last 14 years!!!! As I reflected on the bizare irony, I realized that I was actually riding faster than I had been in previous days.

I started looking at the km markers on the side of the road, and at my watch, and to my suprise, I was actually traveling at Mach 0.020 - a significant increase of 5km/h faster than before. Wow. I don't know if it was the food I was eating, a slight change in direction of the wind, or just fresher legs, but I was definitely moving faster!

You would think that this would mean that I was covering bigger distances, but that has not been the case. I have made a point of taking a siesta break in the middle of the day and not riding between 12noon and 3pm. This has helped a lot as I seem to be able to arrive at my destinations less tired. The riding faster part might have something to do with this too.

So there you have it, on a beautiful Thursday afternoon, speeding (at Mach 0.020) across my own private Narnia. How can it get better than this? Of course, it did get better, when my tire went flat, but that, is another story.

The forest and the gift...

As I was sitting and chatting with some of the locals in a tiny village where I stayed my first night after leaving Ouagadougou, lots of people had questions, like: -Isn't it too hot to ride? What do you eat? How far do you go in a day? Doesn't the rain bother you? Is it really possible to ride ALL the way to Niger? - I had fun telling them about the trip and seeing their eyes get wider and wider.

A couple of times, I heard the question, "Aren't you afraid of crossing the forest?" I brushed it off, laughing: "No, there is nothing to be afraid of." There really is no forest to speak of here. The lush green forest with the huge variety of trees that I saw on my first day out of Banfora is long gone. The climate is so much dryer here, and the ground so much rockier and sandier that not nearly as much grows. Mostly scrub bush with a few giant Boababs towering above. There are little splashes of green, oasis-like scenery where a rainy-season stream passes or where a tiny lake has formed from rainwater trapped in a little basin where there is more clay than sand. But in general, I wouldn't consider anything I have seen to be a forest.

I didn't think anything of all this until the next day, when I was riding along and thinking to myself, "Gee - its been a long time since I saw a village. (More than 20km, which is unusual)". It was then, that I saw a big sign on the side of the road: "Government Forest". It certainly didn't look like a forest, just the same old scrub and Baobabs with the occasional Accacia tree where there is a bit of collected water. This must be what they mean when they say "crossing the forest". - I wonder why they would think this to be dangerous?" Immediately, I started imagining all kinds of bandits hiding in the scrub, but there were none. In fact this was the longest stretch that I had gone so far without seeing anyone. Eventually, I saw a few donkey carts trotting down the road carrying young guys with firewood, but they were very friendly.

Just as I was wondering how far it might be to the next village, "Pppfffffff....." Flat tire. It was about 11am and the sun had just come out from behind a cloud, blazing hot. Dang it. It was my rear tire (much harder to fix than a front tire). I thought I might be able to pump it up enough to limp the bike along to the next village (how ever far that may be), but it wouldn't hold enough air for me to sit on it. After pumping for 2 minutes, I was drenched in sweat (riding, I sweat, but the breeze that I create by going Mach 0.016 is enough to keep me dry). I sat down, discouraged. I was going to have to take the tire off and patch the tube. I really didn't want to do it because the rear tire is an extremely tight fit and it took a lot of doing to get it on in the first place.

Just then I heard voices. I looked up and over the tops of the cornstalks, I could see a little grass-roof poking up. I figured that it would just be women and children who would be home at this time of day, but when I listened again, I heard a mans voice. I "took courage" as we say in French ("pris le courage") and wheeled my bike down the little path that led through a field of corn. I found a little compound consisting of three small huts and fenced of weaved branches. When I called out a greeting, a man came out of one of the huts and smiled a huge grin.

I doubted that he spoke any French, but it turns out that he knew a fair number of words and we were able to communicate with only a few moments of resorting to gestures. I introduced myself and he immediately saw my problem. I asked if I could work in the shade in the compound, but he just said, "Come. We'll fix."

I don't know how old Kouadoma was, but he looked to be about 50. He pulled out his tool box which contained exactly 3 tools, but together with my tools, we were able to quickly patch the leak, and his extraordinarily strong farming hands rolled the tire back onto the rim with very little trouble at all! His second wife (there were 2) brought me a peice of roasted corn which I broke in two and shared with Kouadoma. He was just delighted to be able to help me. I didn't even try to offer him money (an insult), but I told him that God would bless him for his helping of a stranger and I prayed for him and his family.

As I rode away, I thanked God for sending me the gift of Kouadoma. I got my flat right in front of the only house for miles in any direction. He happened to be home, spoke a little french and was an expert tire-fixer! I sang to myself a little song "Jehovah Jireh" which talks about God being the one who provides. That song had just became very real for me.

Hooray!

Made it to Niamey! Had a great trip. No major problems. I arrived Saturday afternoon and have had a great couple of days relaxing in here in Niamey, the capital of Niger. I am now preparing to continue riding East. It will probably be 3 days ride before I can find internet connection again, but you never know.

So, the first thousand kilometres are done (almost). I will write more about the trip in succesive shorter stories instead of one giant blog.

Happy Holidays!

Ramadan started this week. Ramadan is a month-long spiritual journey for Muslim people around the world. They fast from dawn until sunset and focus on praying, reciting the Qur'an and being generous with the poor. During daylight hours, Muslims do not eat or drink and this practice is to help bring them closer to God as they purify themselves through self-restraint and good deeds.

The area I will be traveling through from here on is predominantly Muslim and most of the people that I am amongst will be fasting. "How can you ride your bike 150km without eating and drinking?", you might ask... Good question. Fortunately for me, there are some special clauses which allow pregnant women, children and travelers to put-off their fast until a later date. It will be harder to find food "on the street" during the day, so I will have to carry more with me from now on, but I will be allowed to eat and drink. Phew...! I sincerely respect the desire of these people to come closer to God and will be joining them in fasting on any days that I am not riding my bike.

Ramadan will end on September 30th with the feast of Eid ul-fitr - probably the biggest party of the year. I am hoping to celebrate this with my friends in Maroua, Cameroon.


In between here and there, I am planning on visiting 2 of my students in Niger. "Halmassad" lives in a village half-way between Niamey and Agadez (way up North) and I hope to spend some time seeing how his people live. May decide to trade my bike for a camel at this point! Rahilla lives in Zinder which will my last stop in Niger before dropping down into Nigeria.

Can't wait to get into this next part of the trip!

some more

Life on the Road.




































My shadow keeps me company most of the time. Much appreciated!



















Back to "civilization". I like picture #1 better.



















Ruth is the neice of Pastor Dauda whom I stayed with in Banfora. She is 10, going on 17 with more attitude than any child I have ever met in Africa. A real character- both entertaining and enjoyable.

Some photos...

Ok - I've been having major issues since my canadian AA Duracell batteries ran out near the end of the course.

I can't seem to get any replacements to last longer than 3 photos. You can buy Duracells in certain shops here: I layed out $10 for 4, but I only got 3 photos combined from the 4 batteries!! I tried Energizer brand with the same effect. I guess they are just too old by the time they get sold here, or the humidity sucks the energy out or something.

When I was in Abidjan, I thought I might be able to get newer stuff. No such luck. Now I have resorted to buying the local batteries for $0.25 because they give at least 2 shots.

Anyways, that is why I have fewer photos now. I can't go around shooting from the hip anymore. I have to load my batteries, get the shot I want and turn the camera off.

Enough complaining. The first photo is of Josias and I. Josias works for SIL in Abidjan. We have been friends for many years, ever since I hosted him in my house in Abengourou, back before I was married. On this trip to Abidjan, we ate most of our meals together, and did lots of errand-running together.

One evening, I went with him to Abobo (a poorer suburb of Abidjan) to visit his cousins and I was amazed that the growing rift between rich and poor. The poorer neighborhoods of Abidjan were really suffering from lack of upkeep of the infrastructure and you could tell that buisnesses were not doing well- signs blacked out and doors barred. There was no new construction anywhere, just attempts to keep the old buildings from falling down.

The next photo is of Henri and I. Henri and I worked together in Abengourou, and he is one of my favourite people in the world. He just happened to be come through Abidjan while I was there, flying back to Congo, where he is from. He invited me to come visit him there. It is a bit further from Cameroon, but you never know. I might just take him up on it!














The next 3 photos are from the bus on the way back to Burkina. They are a poor depiction of our plight, waiting for the striking rebels to open the gates at Bouaké.

I knew that if I got caught taking pictures, my camera would be confiscated, so they are not great pictures, but hopefully you can get the idea. In this first one, a guy on
a little moto was carrying more than double his weight in grass (presumably he had animals to feed?), and was trying to push through the crowds to the front of the line. Didn't help much, since he couldn't get through for hours to come!

just going downtown...

Since I am in limbo waiting for a visa again, I thought I might go cruise around downtown for a while this morning.

First, I went to my bike supply man. Cissé Salifou is THE name in bikes in Ouaga. Back in the day, he was one of Burkina's premier riders and coaches -the wall of his office is covered in newspaper clippings and photos of him. At the top is a certificate signed by the Minister of Sport, saying "Thank you for being a force for sport in this country." He showed me pictures from when he first opened the store and had an actual racing team with sponsorship from Peugeot. These memories are now faded, as are the yellowing pictures that he shows me, but Cissé still has a firm handshake, and runs a tight shop. Old man Cissé is impressed when I tell him about the tirip that I am in the middlee of, and gives me a super-good discount on a spare tire, some extra tubes and he even throws in a old nylon raincoat (I think it is left-over from when he first opened the store!!)

When I leave the shop, I notice the murals of bike racers on the front wall, so faint that I didn't even notice them when I stepped between the rows of new children's bikes to enter the store. I wonder if Mr. Salifou dreams of the faded glory? Will I, one day, sit with my back to a wall of old photos and dreams that have passed? I hope not, but then again, maybe I should hope so. He has done very well for himself, now he just oversees the money being made, and many of his family now earn a living out of his shop - maybe he is happy with life removed from those days. But I saw his light up when I showed him my bike. I know he still has passion and spark left in him... I rode to the end of the street as I was pondering this and was just deciding which way to go when a policeman came across the road and asked me to accompany him.

I thought that he wanted to chat, but it turns out that I had just ridden the wrong way down a one-way street!!! Oooops. It was only 2 weeks ago, in Abidjan, that I discussed with a Burkinabé taxi-driver how much more honourable the police were in Ouagadougou- "if you did something wrong, there was no bribing or excusing your way out of it!" The policeman explained that I would need to go with him to the station and pay the $15 fine. I said no problem, but when he asked for the receipt proving that I owned the bicycle, there we were at a problem. I have no idea where the receipt is. I normally don't carry receipts around with me for years on end. Now, without the receipt, it would be impossible to do the necessary paperwork, but I still needed to pay for my wrongdoing. He proposed that I could pay them there without a reciept (a kind of a bribe to let me off the hook). I said that I didn't normally do that kind of thing, and since it was obvious that I had made the error by accident, could he please let me go this time? The policeman was doubtful, but said that he would go ask his partner (who held rank). I breathed a prayer for wisdom and decided to patiently wait. When his partner came over, he asked me a few more questions, then decided to let me go. Thank you Jesus. Not for helping me get away with traffic offences, but for helping me avoid the ugly confrontation of conscience for subverting justice.

After thanking them both for their hard work, honesty and forgiveness, I rode away to look for some of the most decadent food in the world: the cashew. I found what I was looking for in an alleyway between 2 department stores - a woman who sold them, beautifully roasted and salted, by the kilo. Although the price had gone up a little since my last visit, I was able to buy a big bag of the treasured nut that would serve as an encouraging snack on my way to Niamey. At the same time, I also bought a bag of dried mango slices. Mangos may have gone out of season, but I can still enjoy them. Mmmm. I'm eager to get going, just so I can start the snacking!

Ouagadougou!

Jacques Anquetil, the famous French cyclist who won the Tour de France 5 times had this advice to give about elite cycling:

To prepare for a race there is nothing better than a good pheasant, some champagne and a woman.
-Jacques Anquetil

Having no pheasant and only wine-in-a-box here, I have decided to forgoe this advice in favour of the advice from the Italian cyclist, Velocio:

"Eat before you are hungry. Drink before you are thirsty. Rest before you are tired. Cover up before you are cold. Peel off before you are hot. Don't drink or smoke on tour. Never ride just to prove yourself."
-Paul de Vivie, aka Velocio

This, it turns out, is quite good advice. I have yet to test the "cover up before you are cold" part, but the rest of it is very practical.

There's nothing like coming home. Fortunately for me, "home" is a fairly broad term and the SIL centre here in Ouaga definitely qualifies as somewhere that I feel at home.

Saying goodbye to my host-friend, the 'doctor', I started towards "home" with a fair bit of vigor. My rear was still protesting, but with only 80km to go, I figured, I should be there by 11:00am. Things were going smoothly, but I was noticing some funny noises coming from my back wheel. I did my best to ignore them, telling myself that I would soon be in Ouaga and would get a complete "tune-up" at a good mechanic in only a few hours. Alas, it was not to be.

When I stopped for some bread, I found that the wheel was no longer true, but quite crooked indeed. On every revolution, it wobbled almost an inch. No wonder pedaling seemed harder today; the wheel had been rubbing against the brakes every single trip around. I rode on to the next bike mechanic I could find, which happened to be a good 10km - the longest stretch of no mechanics in all of Burkina, I think! There, I took off all the baggage and the reason for the noise and wheel trouble became apparent: 3 broken spokes! Dang it. The mechanic's spare spokes weren't the right size for my wheel. I asked him if he could rig me up to make the last 40km into Ouaga. He said, "sure, if you can live without brakes". I assured him that I didn't need brakes that badly since I still had front brakes. He losened off the brakes so my wheel wouldn't bang as it wobbled and said I should be OK to go the rest of the way.
Wasn't THIS bad, but it was ugly!

In the next 10km, 2 more spokes broke and the wheel wobbled so badly, I couldn't keep the bike straight. Just over an hour from the finish and I had to admit defeat. I put out my thumb and started hitch-hiking. Unfortunately, it is harder to get rides, the closer to the city you are because all the incoming cars are already full up.

Eventually, an older Toyota pick-up truck skidded to a stop and backed up. The cab only had bucket seats so I hopped in the back with my bike. It might have been an older model truck, but it was tuned up and the driver had it red-lined almost the whole-time. I wondered if I would die, not being hit by a car, but flying out of the back of one! Against all odds, we made it into the city alive and they dropped me off right in front of the big bike market where I knew there was a good mechanic. It wasn't until I was thanking them that the passenger introduced herself as the Mayor of the area where I had broken down in. The crazy driver was her professional chauffeur. In any case, I thanked them profusely, then wheeled my bike off to get fixed up.

I ordered 36 new spokes for my wheel as well as a few extras to take with me, then I left my bike and all my gear, jumped in a taxi and made it to the Nigerian embassy before noon. Since having obtained a Cameroonian visa, I now qualify for a "Transit visa" for Nigeria. The man in charge of visas is still reluctant, but did allow me to submit everything. Unfortunately, visa days are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I need to wait until Tuesday to get mine. Oh well. I guess a little forced rest isn't a bad thing.

By the time I got back from the embassy, my bike was ready to go with a fully rebuilt wheel - cost me $10, parts included!!! He had checked the bike over and gave it a clean bill of health. He even straightened my forks for me which should help a little with the stability of steering which has always been a little crooked! Awesome. It rides better than new!

I stopped on my way "home" to the SIL guest-house for my favourite plate of beans and sorghum. It is super-yummy, but I have only found one woman in this neighborhood who makes it. After a meal and a hair-cut, I arrived at SIL to find out whether or not they had any room for me. They (guards, cleaning ladies, laundry and kitchen staff) were all happy to see me and we had lots of laughs as they tried to imagine biking 450km in 2.5 days. I did get a room and have been resting my tender laurels ever since!!

So what have I learned from this first experience?

1) Wear sunscreen.
2) Even if you drink 6L of water, if you only pee once during the day, you are dehydrated.
3) Don't listen to your butt.

oh my aching butt!!

I awoke in Houndé, excited from the first days' success and ready to go. I packed up, found some rice and beans for breakfast, then jumped on my bike. Ouch. Oh, was my rear ever tender! I guess it has been a while since I spent all day on the seat of a bike! I had hoped to have a second day with around 200kms, but my butt was having a strike.

The other thing I realized early in the morning was that from now on, I would not be forgetting the sun-screen. Although it had been a cool day, I could feel a deep burn on my hands, my knees and my lips. Lesson learned.

I did my best to subdue the arguing buttocks and get moving. The scenery was much less interesting, with the trees thinning out considerably and with a lot more grass. It wasn't ugly - just not stunningly gorgeous as the first day. I guess that is the problems with us humans. We always want something bigger and better. If something doesn't live up to our last experience, then we don't think much of it, no matter how great it may be. Hmmm. I wonder if that is what this trip is about. A bigger and crazier adventure? Perhaps.

In the early afternoon, I was forcing my mind to think about things other than my complaining glutes when all of a sudden, the front tire just went down. I hadn't ridden over anything and there was no bang or his, it just went flat. It was an old tube that had already been patched numerous times and the new hole was in between 2 old patches. I tossed the tube out for a new one and kept going. Later on, I stopped to have a bit of bread in a small village. I asked if there might be a covered well nearby. The people I was chatting with said yes and took me on a 5 minute walk, out past the village, past the school, through a field to an old pump that had obviously not been used for quite some time. We pumped and pumped for over 5 minutes, but the water was still coming out dirty so I politely suggested that I might try the next village. They immediately told me that only 2km up the road was a very good well that is used all the time. It took me longer to walk back to my bike than to bike to the next village where I found children pumping away and beautiful, clean water pouring out!

At 5:00, I had only come 160km, despite having started an hour earlier. My average speed of Mach 0.016 was maintained, but the amount of time that I could will my butt to stay on the seat had significantly diminished! I opted for an early dinner, while passing through a large town, then pushed on to make another 10km before stopping. Had a fantastic wrap of roasted sheep-meat that was nice and tender. The muslim men here cut up the meat into little peices double wrap them in brown paper, and soak them in oil as they slowly roast over a hot grill. It is very juicy and tastes brilliant.

At 6:00, I could see dark clouds forming ahead and I promised myself that I would stop at the next village. Turns out that this was just around the corner, and it didn't come too soon! I stopped to talk with the people who were in front of a little store and pointed out the (obvious) fact that I probably wouldn't arrive in Ouagadougou today. They agreed (since it is still 80km away) and suggested that I talk to the "doctor". Someone took me to the little pharmacy depot at the other end of the village and introduced me to the medical counselor who manages the little stock of medicines. No sooner had I shaken his hand, then the heavens let loose a giant rain-storm that raged for the next hour. We took shelter in the pharmacy, but couldn't talk because the drops were smashing against the tin roof with such noise, all I could do was be thankful for a dry place to sit. Eventually, it eased off and we were able to get to know each other a bit. The 'doctor' offered me a room for the night. Adjacent to the pharmacy store room, It had a single ratan bed with an old air-mattress, a bed-side table and a wall hung with clothes. It was obviously someone's room, but it was unclear whether that someone was away at the moment, or whether they had quickly vacated to make room for me. It would be rude to ask, so I just stated my gratitude for the place to sleep. He brought me a lamp with which I could see the walls were covered with posters of rap stars and football legends - and a pious looking muslim girl praying with images of the Hadj behind her. Interesting mix.

He brought a big bucket of water into his "shower". In the middle of his courtyard, were 4 posts with some hanging cloth forming a wall on each side. Inside the 10 square-foot enclosure is a rock floor and a couple of hooks to hang clothes on. I went in with my flipflop sandals, get undressed and then use a little plastic cup to draw water from the bucket and rince myself off. The cold water felt so refreshing, it brought a smile to my sunburned lips. After a good soaping and scrubbing, I thanked my host and returned to my room. I pulled my sheet, out of my bags and hardly remember spreading it on the bed. The next thing I knew, it was morning!

Off to a great start!

I was fairly worried how my body would cope with the strenuous riding after being so sick, but it was exactly what I needed. It was as if the road had been calling me and I was finally answering, finally where I was supposed to be.

After some last-minute re-arranging to fit the loaf of zuchini bread and a brownie that I stole from Tabitha's fridge, I got on the road about 7:30. I couldn't believe how good it felt to get rolling. It was cool (27C) and although there was lots of people out and about, the road had hardly any traffic.

Not too far along, I came across a beautiful waterfall. I smiled as I thought about the dozens (maybe hundreds) of waterfalls that we stopped to looked at on family vacations. I always say that I don't need to see anymore waterfalls, but then every once in a while, one just stands out as stunning. As I munched on a hunk of zuchini bread, I marveled at how God designed earth to be so beautiful and not just functional.

The "forest" was also very beautiful, but not like any other that I have seen. The odd mix is more like a big conference of independent trees, each finding their own space amongst the almost blindingly green shrubbery and grass. The craggy Accacia, the prolific karité (or shea butter tree which locals use for making oil and soap), the young, broad-leafed teaks have been planted closer to the road and the giant boabab (or upside down tree) towers in the distance. An occasional palm tree looks like a stranger amidst the other, more leafy trees like the near perfect mushroom shape of the mango, the densely foiled avacado, and the stands of skinny white gum trees. It rained on me, keeping the heat to a minimum as I kept the bike moving northward.

I was very happy with my speed, since I was blistering along at Mach 0.016. (20km/hour). Not bad considering how weighed down the bike is. I pushed through to Bobo Dioulasso (85km) for lunch, but was VERY hungry by the time I got there. Had a good meal of beans, rice and veges (cabbage and some type of strange squash). After drinking a litre of rehydration solution in addition to the rest of my water, I got going again.

About 10km down the road, I thought my bike had developed a funny squeak. I spent quite a while listening intently and then watching my chain and pedals and front wheel to see if I could locate the odd noise. I was about to get off and have a look when the funny squeak suddenly rode up beside me and grinned!

My bike was fine, but Amidou, an 18 year old student had been riding just exactly behind me for the past half an hour without saying a word! His old mountain bike only had one working gear and both wheels wobbled considerably, but that didn't stop him from keeping up to me (apparently Mach 0.016 is fairly attainable by other cyclists too). We struck up a conversation and ended up riding with each other for the rest of the day. The squeak didn't bother me in the least, knowing it came from Amidou's chain and not from some part of my bike that was going to fall apart!

He was going to a town called Hounde,
about 105km away, which I considered quite ambitious, but he assured me that we could make it if we kept moving. Stopping only very briefly for water, we pressed on, even though I was getting very tired. About 20km before Houndé, Amidou informed me that he would soon be turning off the road to go directly to his father's fields where he would be helping to tend the crops (beans, peanuts, onions, corn and more). We stopped to take a photo and share the last of the zuchini bread. He thought it was kind of a weird food, but ate it up as only a hungry student can.

I made the last few kms to Houndé without incident and arrived at 5:30pm. 190km on my first day. Much better than I expected. To celebrate, I went in search of a store with a fridge to get myself a cold coke. Together with Tabitha's brownie, it made the perfect end to an awesome day.

feeling better

Thanks for your prayers!

There was a remarkable change yesterday afternoon. My head suddenly cleared and I started to feel in control of my body again. I was weak, but not feeling like I'd been run over by a herd of waterbuffalo.

In the evening, some friends of mine came to Banfora. (Actually, they live here but had gone away for a while and just came home yesterday). It was great to catch up with Brian and Tabitha and their 3 kids, especially since I thought that I might miss them altogether. I ended up staying the night at their house. Originally I planned to leave first thing this morning, but in the end decided to wait one more day to gain some strength and resistance in my body.

I think I should be good to leave tomorrow. Please continue to pray that my body now stays healthy on the voyage to Ouaga. It will probably take 4 days so don't be alarmed if I don't write anything until Sunday. On the otherhand, you never know when you run across an unexpected internet opportunity.

I've been sad that I haven't been able to watch much of the olympics, but what I did see (gold cup football match between Nigeria and Argentina) was heart breaking. It was such a good game and the Nigerians played so well. Oh well.

One of the peculiarities about Banfora is that there is NO public transport here at all. None. No taxis, no motorbikes, or anything. For a city this size (over 70'000 people) it is very strange. Good thing I've got my bike!

"Those who wish to control their own lives and move beyond existence as mere clients and consumers- those people ride a bike."

~ Wolfgang Sachs, For the Love of the Automobile

SICK

Saturday night I went to bed early but didn't sleep well at all. For one, there was a mouse in my room and he was intent on eating my belonging. He had already chewed holes in my notebook, so I put everything that was paper up off the floor. But I could still hear him, so I took my bags and started distributing the things that I thought he might be interested in eating around the room so that I could hear where he was and then be able to take that item of interest and get it out of the way. I even put a couple of things next to the bed and that grabbed my running shoe. If he was eating close to me, I could swat him. To no avail.

In the morning, I found a sizeable hole in my t-shirt! Oh well. But besides the noise of the mouse and the smell of my shoe, the main reason I couldn't sleep was that I was coming down sick. BAD. My head was spinning out of control and I couldn't think straight. I had a fever and was sneezing up a storm. A nasty cold. I'm sure that it is the result of being severely dehydrated and exhausted from the journey. I was exhibiting some symtoms of malaria too, but it didn't quite feel like it. I decided to take the treatment (Arinate) anyways. I don't have time to wait for the cold to go away, then start treating Malaria.

By the end of Sunday, I had already decided to push back my start-date at least one day. Today, I am feeling somewhat better, but definitely lacking in energy and need some more time to recuperate.

I appreciate your prayers.

one long day

I sure am glad to be back in Burkina. There were times I honestly wasn't sure I was gonna make it.

As I said, I got up at 5am to make it to the bus-stop, and things were going relatively smoothly. About 2pm, the bus slowed down suddenly and came to a stop behind a long line of other buses, trucks and private cars. It was the kind of scene you come across when a bridge is out and people are waiting for it to be fixed before crossing. We all got off the bus and started asking what was going on. It turns out that we were only a few kilometres from Bouaké where the Rebel forces are based. Basically all land from here-North is controlled by the rebels. Anyways according to the hundreds of people standing on the side of the road (better to stand in the breeze outside, than sit in the hot, not-moving bus) the rebels have blocked all traffic into the city. No one is getting through - not busses, cars, motorbikes, people on foot; no one.

At first, the people on our bus were just glad for the chance to relieve themselves and stretch their legs, but this quickly gave way to concern as we realized the seriousness of the situation. The line of vehicles was so long that we couldn't see the front of it. I decided to walk down myself and have a look. The line of vehicles stretched out for over 500 metres and when I got to the front vehicle I could see the checkstop up ahead another 500 m away. I was gonna count on the way back, but when I got up over two-dozen busses and 50 private vehicles, I stopped counting. Suffice to say: LOTS.

People were everywhere - it was like a refugee camp. We took shade where-ever we could and settled in. I found a bit of dry ground under a big tree and sat down, content to people watch again. They weren't saying much, which surprised me. One guy was saying - "We're goin' back to Abidjan" and another, "We'll be through soon", but mostly I just read the sad, resigned faces of people who know there is nothing to do but wait. No one seemed to know why, or to care much. This was the painful reality of their country and they could only keep trying to survive.

At first, I didn't see much evidence of rebels, but then every once in a while some soldiers would come down the road yelling away, then make their way back. I call them "soldiers", but they were sauntering more than marching and their "uniform" usually consisted of one article of army issue - either a vest or a beret; a cammo jacket or a pair of black boots - or even an arm-band. Some of them were wearing the traditional Dozo warrior cloth, but most look like they had raided a army surplus store and got to choose one peice each for a party. Most didn't have guns, but were armed with knives and big sticks. I heard things like "We've waited long enough. I've got family that died for this war, and I've fought hard. Now it's time." or... "You people think we're bluffing, but this is serious."

No one new what they were talking about and no one seemed to be taking them seriously so I didn't either. Instead I watched the women spread out their cloths on the pavement and sit in the shade of the bus, beginning to eat whatever it was they had brought or bought, and the men who layed out their prayer mats and bowed to the East as their lips moved fast repeating words and phrases in a language they don't know or understand. Later on, those spicy beans I had for breakfast began to have a party in belly. Actually, I think it was more of a labour strike. They wanted out and they wanted out NOW. Being the good unionist that I am I told them that a solution was on the way and I went back to the bus to get a packet of tissues (Hint: Never travel without them!). Having retrieved some paper, I made my way to a small village that was just off the road a little ahead. I had seen it there earlier, while walking, and now decided I should see about finding myself an outhouse.

As I came in the "main road", I was scanning to see which courtyard might have something to offer. I was looking left when a voice called to me from the right. "Hey whiteman, are you gonna say hello?" I turned, but didn't register what was being said for a second. Then it hit. Oh yes, I know this language. Not French or English, but Anyi. Turns out that the language was actually Baoulé, a language related to Anyi well enough that I could understand most of what was being said. I answered back in a joking Anyi tone, "My name is Kouadio and of course I'm going to say hello. Are you going to offer me a seat?" They were a little shocked, but laughed away.

I told my stomach to be patient for a minute - I was getting close. After all the traditional greetings and news givings and lots of laughter, I cut to the chase and asked if I could use the toilet. The man of the house said yes, then got up and took a bucket of water into the house, asking me to follow him. Now this had me a little worried. Many nicer houses have indoor showering rooms, but few Africans can stand the concept of defecating in the middle of ones house, so even very rich people often have their toilets in a seperate block outside. The anyi word for "shit" which I had just used to politely express my needs is "bié" and the anyi word for shower is "bia", so I thought there might be some confusion : either my prononciation, or from language differences.

Turns out the house must have been built by a European because there was, in fact, a toilet inside (albeit without a seat or a water tank). The beans were happy, I was happy, my host was happy to have been of service, so all was going well. It turns out that my host, a man in his mid 40s and relatively well off used to work for the Mayor of Bouake before the war (2002). He told me that the rebels had the road closed since early in the morning and were on strike, revindicating their payment for the war. They were promised lots of money to fight and now that the war is basically over, they want to be payed. They said no one would pass until their chief came in person to pay them. Their chief has now been given the position of Prime-Minister (2nd in command after the president), so I reckon it was pretty unlikely that he would come. My host just shrugged his shoulders and said "who knows what will happen - all we can do is wait and see."

At around 6pm, there was a sudden rush of people running everywhere with lots of shouting. Apparently SOMETHING had happened and we were going to be going through. Everyone scurried onto the bus which the driver already had revving up waiting for the last person to hop on. As soon as we were there, he took off, passing other busses and cars not yet ready, and speeding towards the barricade. That didn't last long as others got going and soon it was an all-out traffic jam. People were cheering and thanking God and yelling into their cellphones "We're through, we're through". I was a little more pessimistic knowing that we still had to get 5000+ people through a single checkstop all at the same time.

After about 800 metres of deisel fumes and crazy traffic manoueveres, we ground to a halt. I thought to myself, this is gonna be awhile. The motor went off and we all piled out again. By this time it was dark and the road was 3 buses wide with traffic. Again, I walked to the front (not nearly as far now) and had a look. There were lots more "soldiers" now, and many of them sporting a near full uniform. They were guarding the line and vowing that no one should cross. "The line", it turns out, is just a make-shift barrier made from branches. The real barricade is 5km away at the entrance to Bouaké. We were all sandwiched in now so there was no turning back. Once again, people spread out, finding ways to relax. One guy had a portable TV with a screen of about 3 inches. He took the headlight out of his truck, used the wires to hook up to the battery nodes and proceeded to get reception for "Marianne" the most famous soap opera in the country. A small crowd formed to watch while other groups just sat down and chatted. By this time all the food and water was gone. "Surely they wouldn't keep us here all night" queried a Lebanese buisnesman driving a truck full of cosmetic supplies. I had to admit, I didn't think we were gonna get to go through.

But what do you know; about 8pm, a big group of rebels came marching down the hill from Bouaké and within minutes we were back in our bus whizzing in and out of traffic at 7 km/hour. First gear whined like a sick dog while the driver pushed it around slower moving vehicles, using the entirety of the roadway to his advantage. This lasted for most of an hour as we made the distance with eyes and throats stinging from the deisel fumes. The real barricade didn't take that long to cross once we got there. They weren't checking papers or requiring money, so it was just the pushing of 3 and a half lanes of traffic into one that slowed us down. I still don't know what happened, but I'm glad we got through. Again, people hooted and shouted victory into their cell phones, but when we got to the other side of Bouake, the gates to leave were still firmly closed. The rebels there had heard by phone, but refused to open till someone came in person. I think that means that they were waiting until actual cash arrived. Anyways, at around 11pm, the same group of soldiers marched up and opened the gates. Another traffic jam ensued, but by midnight we were on open road. I made it to Korhogo by 3:30 and to Fereke (near the border) by 5:30am (a little later than the 6pm that I had hoped for) but I was glad to have made it. I layed down on a sack of peanuts to sleep for about an hour and then got up to find a way to get across the border and into Banfora. But that, as they say, is another story.

of keyboards and traveling salesmen

Greetings from Banfora!

First, I have to say that the French keyboard is TERRIBLE! I am in a cyber cafe and it is driving me nuts! I have used it before, but have never liked it. Sometimes I think it was designed by accident and some times I think they did it on purpose so that people would suffer as they typed. Seriously. One can SMS easier than using this silly layout where common letters like "a" are a pinky-stretch away while the "q" and "z" enjoy positions of prominence. The period which one uses at the end of EVERY sentence requires a shift key, while the excamation mark is readily available! The numbers all rquire a shift-key, but the other symbols ( &, _, <, :, (,),*, etc.) can be typed directly. The @ symbol requires using the right handside ALT key and the zero (try it), meaning both hands have to be on the right hand side of the keyboard at the same time! I'm sure with time you can get good at typing with this configuration, but it is just not layed out for maximum ease. Maybe hand gymnastics is a real sport in France and people type to get good at it. I LOVE the French-Canadian keyboard on my laptop with which I can type both english and french and both at very high speeds, with almost no strange stretches. Too bad I couldn't use that in Cyber-cafés!

OK - enough ranting and on to other things.

I got up at 5am to leave the SIL guesthouse, but had stayed up late the night before so was knackered to begin with. The day started off great with a meal of beans and french bread just outside the bus-station. The sauce that she put on it was very hot (read spicy), but it did taste very good. I was enjoying sitting and people-watching, so when I finished, I bought a notebook and sat down to observe and write about the people I saw.

Of course, I should have known that this wouldn't last long. I was writing about an older gentleman sitting near me. He was wearing an old, slightly stained suit that was not quite as bright as the one the guy wears in Curious George, but maybe it was at one time. He was sporting a white Muslim prayer cap and a wide smile as he interacted with the people around him. After about 2 minutes our eyes crossed and I nodded respect. So much for writing. We started chatting and didn't really stop until I got on the bus! He wasn't traveling, but was seeing off his daughter - a woman of about 40 who had in tow a gigantic amount of cargo that she was taking up North for commerce of some kind. She was expansive as her luggage and I hoped (read prayed fervently) that I wouldn't be in the seat next to her. The old man was full of advice and enormously friendly. Usually I am a little weary of enormously friendly people because after 20 minutes of unsolicited friendship, they consider themselves worthy of being brought to Canada for a taste of the good-life. Not so with "Papa", he just likes to chat - and it is thoroughly enjoyable.

The trip started pretty smoothly. I tried to write some more on the bus, but it was pretty bumpy and cramped. The seats were actually reasonably sized and I felt fortunate that I didn't have to sit next to the daughter of the man in the yellow suit, but there was just a lot of "extras". By extras, I mean the things that get brought onto the bus under the pretext of carry-on hand baggage. The luggage racks in these 2nd hand European coaches are quite small and fill up within moments, meaning that the extras go under your seat, under your feet, on your lap, on your neighbor's lap, in the aisle, and generally anywhere that you can get away with. Any african voyage involves extras, but going into the rebel zone where transport is difficult and all cargo is heavily taxed means that people try to bring as much as possible to help out their family, friends and neighbors.

This day, when I boarded, there was a woman in my seat. I don't THINK that she was an extra. I think she was there just to help the old woman sitting in the seat next to mine to get in all of her extras in place. There were already volumous bags under the seat in front of mine (where my feet should go) and I'm glad to have arrived when I did to stem the spreading factor. The rest of the old-lady's stuff got stowed between the front seat and the handrail. The young man across from me was transporting Palm oil. He had a 10 litre jug at his feet and another 40 litres in the cargo bay underneath. Lucky for me, the bus company stopped him from bringing that on as extras. I didn't see them, but further back in the bus I could hear chickens and goats flopping around on the ground, and was very thankful to be sitting near the front and next to an open window! One lady in front of me had a year old boy as her extra baggage. Her 12 year old and 10 year old shared the seat next to her while the young boy slept on a peice of cloth layed out between her feet. Everyone coming on or off had to step carefully over him, but I never heard one word of complaint. In fact, no one complains about extras at all, because everyone knows that your just trying to survive and make it in a tough world. They would (and maybe will) do the same.

Traveling by public transport is very cheap for me, but not so for people who earn less than a percent of what I do in a given day. So they make the most of it and that means that all travel is also business. Buying, selling and networking are all part of a given trip and here, traveling salesmen have a large part to play. There are 2 kinds of traveling salesmen. Those who stay put and service the people traveling and those who actual travel with the travelers.

As our bus pulled out of the station, one of the first kind hopped on board. He walked down the aisle with a box of perfume bottles in one hand and an open bottle in the other. He dabbed people's unsuspecting hands or arms as he walked, calling out "One dollar a bottle get it quick." When he got to the back, he put the sample bottle away and walked back to the front of the bus filling orders - some for personal use, some for arrival gifts and some for resale in the rebel zone. By the time the bus made it out of the neighborhood, he got down with an empty box!

The real entertainment for the morning, however, was a young, traveling salesman wearing designer jeans and a pinstripe suit-jacket pulled tight over a tired old dress-shirt. He got on just as the perfume guy got off and began adressing the bus (in a very loud voice) like this:

"Excuse me!! I have a problem! Yes! I have a problem and YOU can help! Where I come from, greetings are very important and if you greet someone and they don't respond well, it is a curse for you. Yes! It's true - please listen carefully. Very soon I'm going to greet you all, so I'm pleading with you all to respond loudly and with enthusiasm. I will give a valuable prize to the one who responds the best."

He then went on to explain, while walking up and down the aisle, the benefits of Aloe Vera and the pills, injections, salve, soap and drink-mix that he was selling. Didn't know that aloe-vera can cure the common cold, syphillus and arthritis? It's always worth a listen to hear the kinds of yarns that get spun. He actually sold quite a number of these aloe products over the course of an hour and a half. The funny part was that every time we neared a police checkstop, the bus driver would whistle. The salesman would duck down between the seats, then continue without skipping a beat once we had passed. He hopped off the bus in another city down the track with his box of product still half full. I didn't feel bad for him, he'll catch another bus on it's way back to Abidjan and sell the rest on the way back.

Of course these salesman only increase the number of extras on the bus. (The old woman next to me increased her pile of stuff significantly with a box of aloe vera soap, a bag of grapefruit, and a walking cane before we arrived). But at least they keep your mind off the extras blocking your leg-room and provide a better smelling aroma than is coming from the goats at the back of the bus!

Connect the dots...

Ok- new contest!

Can you name the cities that I have placed on the map? Prize for the winner.

It's kind of funny how plans change and evolve. Last year in Ouagadougou, I bought an old 10-speed to help me get around the city. Then on weekends, I started doing some day trips out on the highway and found them to be really good. So then I started taking over-night trips to see what it would be like if I ever got around to doing my dream of cycle-touring in Africa.

At the end of last year's session I had a heap of problems getting to my flight in Accra and I thought to myself, too bad I didn't leave myself a few more days of time - I would just ride my bike. Hmmmm... The wheels started turning and I decided that this year, after the course, I would ride from Ouaga to Accra.

Just before coming here, some things changed and suddenly I don't have as many responsibilities to come back for. So I have some free time after the course... "Hmmmm.... Maybe I could do a longer bike-trip". I didn't really have time to think it all through before leaving, but decided that I should stay a while longer to do some real cycle-touring. All my spare time in Ouagadougou was used looking at maps and talking with people. A plan started to formulate...

I will start riding in Southern Burkina around the 24th of August and hopefully make it to Northern Cameroon around the end of September. The capital of Cameroon will be some time after that. I have two major obstacles: visas for Nigeria and Cameroon. I picked up my passport from the Cameroonian embassy about an hour ago and that is all set. Now, when I return to Ouagadougou, I will use the Cameroonian visa as proof that I plan on leaving Nigeria, thus qualifying for a 2-week transit visa. Embassies, can be very complicated, it turns out!

Well, there you have it. "The Plan" in a nutshell. Of course, plans are subject to change and I have no idea what will actually happen. I will try and keep this post updated as often as possible.

People ask me "Why?" I never know what to say. There are so many reasons. For me, this is a dream come true. Since cycling across Canada in 1996, I have been dreaming of the much more challenging idea of touring Africa. For me riding is ultimate freedom - the place where I can really clear my head - really pray - really feel the joy of blood pumping through my veins. Being out in the middle of nowhere, I can sing at the top of my lungs or sprint as fast as I can, or just coast along with the breeze in my hair and sun on my face.

To couple this deep enjoyment with another thing that I love (exploring new things, people and places), is pure brilliance. Cycling is the best way to travel because I have time to really see what is around me, to taste and smell and be part of where I am. Meeting others along the way makes it all the better.

And this is where my other two loves meet my love for Africa. I plan to stay in people's homes as much as possible on the way. Hospitality is the only thing that some of these people have. I will not snub it in order to be independent. The money I would spend on a hotel can be used buy a creative gift for a lacking family. I pray for wisdom to choose hosts wisely and to know how to be a blessing to them.

Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live. ~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"

no visa for bicycles!

After waiting for an hour to see the visa guy. That is what I was told. Can't do it. Sorry. (Actually, there was no sorry - just can't do it). Plane ticket only. Hmmmm...

So lets just get this straight. I just traveled over 1500km to get to your embassy which is the only one in the entire region and NOW you're gonna refuse to issue a visa. Forget it. I didn't move until he offered a solution. Eventually he said that I could give him an official flight reservation. Within 20 minutes I was back and had it sorted.

When it was time to pay the visa fee and had the nerve to ask for his "champagne" - indicating that I should give him a tip/bribe (depending on how you look at it) for being so helpful. HA!!!!

Makes me so angry/sad. On the way down here, our bus was pulled over numerous times for passenger bribes (this was on the government side, not the rebel-side). It works like this: The policeman asks to see everyone's papers. If he decides he doesn't like your papers, he doesn't give them back and walks away. Everyone who's passports and identity cards, etc have just left, must get out and follow the policeman around the corner. There he decides how much you have to pay to get your paper's back. They really don't care much about the southern Ivorians as long as they have some form of paperwork, but northerners or people from other countries usually have to get out at every stop (every 50km or so).

Most of the time they leave me alone, but just outside of Yamasoukro, a young soldier told me to get out. I asked if there was a problem and he replied very tersely - "I told you to get out". I did, along with the 6 or 7 others who had been paying regularly to get through. He flipped through the passport, looked at last year's visa and decided that it was OK - he didn't even notice that it expired 9 months ago and that I have a new visa on a later page. He gave me my passport back and then started talking to the others. I just stayed with the group but after a minute, he saw that I was still there and got mad. "Do I have your passport, what are you doing here?" I replied with an edge of cynicism, "You told me to get out".

"Do I have your passport?" "You told me to get out." This went on for a while, all while we were walking towards the police booth where the bribing actually takes place. I said with increasing volume and annoyance: What is the problem? What don't you want me to see? I don't like things that are hidden. It's not good.

He told me I'd better go get in the car or else. At that point I stopped walking, but switched to Anyi and started insulting him in Anyi. By this point I was so mad, I was yelling. He didn't understand but I know some of his colleagues could. They were laughing. Anyways I went and got back in the car. They still had to pay to get their passports, but at least the Burkinabe girl who had been in the bus with me since Ouagadougou, who had a real passport with a paid visa and an entry stamp was able to escape from this one. I doubt it was due to my insults, but sometimes I just loose at these guys who are ruining their own country for their own profit.

Sorry for the tangent. Back to today, the Cameroonian embassy man hinted (not very subtly, I must say) that he could probably get my visa pushed through today (what I was really hoping for) if I could find an appropriately sized gift. Subsequently, I am going back tomorrow to get my visa. :(

When I got back from downtown, I went directly into a meeting of the Mbato language group who had gathered together to discuss how to develop their own language which they recognize, is in the process of disappearing. They were already talking about the details of what letters need to be included in the alphabet and were doing well. It just so happens that a French linguist who had worked on a neighboring language was in town and he had come to help too. This was great since he had lots of good examples and was able to help them find patterns very quickly. I was able to compliment this with the non-linguistic reasons for choosing different symbols for their alphabet and encourage them to find ways to involve lots of other people before making too many choices. I gave them the background essential information of what they need to know before starting a literacy in their language as well as give them some ideas of how to get started. The meeting was very encouraging. They are very motivated and will be holding a planning session next Wednesday to decide how to move forwards. It is always exciting to be involved in the very beginnings of a movement. The potential is just beginning to build and it is great to see.

Had fried plantain banana for dinner. Mmmmmm.... Can't get it like this anywhere else in the world! Awesome.

D'oh!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on "the story of my life". I had gone to the far side of town to get a visa and remembered everything EXCEPT my passport photos.

This is just one of many examples when I feel like slapping my forehead and exclaiming D'oh! like Homer Simpson. Somtimes the simplicity of my own brain surprises. How could I have done that? Why didn't I think of this earlier? etc. etc.

I had another one of those moments about half-way through my bus-trip down here. I had been pondering the annoying timing of things (leaving Ouaga before I was completely ready, spending too much time in expensive Abidjan, Brian and Tabitha might not be in Banfora when I get back, etc etc,). Then, it suddenly occurred to me, as I was jostling (OK bone-jarring) along, that a much better solution would have been to visit Brian and Tabitha on the way down, spending the weekend with them, then arriving in Abidjan during the week so not having to pay for the guest house on Sat or Sun, and then starting my bike trip immediately upon return to Banfora. Perfect solution! Except I was already half-way to Abidjan. Arrrgh.

I thought to myself... self... how can you be so stupid to miss such an obvious solution? Then I started thinking... this happens to me a lot, but in the end, it usually ends up well. How is that? Sometimes I feel like the bumbling detective who does everything wrong and somehow thwarts the bad-guy coming out victorious, no thanks to his real prowess. As I thought back over the events of the past few weeks, I realized that there is great truth to the statement that God works in our weakness.

As it turns out, not having got my visa that particular day was a good thing because otherwise it would have expired before I finished needing it. God was looking out for me. Another example happened only a couple of days ago when I was supposed to send my bike to Banfora with a friend, but left it at the mechanic's too long and when I went to pick it up, found the shop locked up. It turns out that when I picked up the bike the next day, I was able to make some important last-minute adjustments that wouldn't have been done if I had gone in time to send it with my friend. Thanks, God for saving my butt on that one. Come to think of it I can list about a dozen such instances where a stupid act on my part turned out to be really useful.

Basically it comes down to this. I can't take credit for squat because I just forget things and make stupid decisions, etc. God is the one that makes things work out. And that is the truth. Nothin' I have done can be credited to me.

So, I started thinking... why is it that God might be wanting to do through my stupidity this time? Well, today at church, I ran into an old friend, Laurel, from University in BC. She now works in Mali and comes down to help in Abidjan every once in a while. She told me that she is having a big meeting with a language commitee tomorrow, but feels over her head since she mostly does library and computer work, not linguistic or literacy stuff. The meeting is to help advise the people of a certain language how to move ahead in developing their orthography (that is a fancy word for the writing system of a language which includes the alphabet, the spelling rules and grammar choices. It is a highly delicate subject that takes into account a whole mountain of different factors, of which "readability" rates very high. I have studied this a lot, worked on the problem when I was doing Anyi literacy, and taught the subject in courses, so I had lots of advice for Laurel. After about 2 minutes, she cut me off and invited me to be a guest at the meeting.

A-ha. It is all becoming clear now. God wanted me here on Monday morning for a reason. I have no idea what the meeting will be like or who will be there, but I am praying that I will be able to provide wisdom. May He accomplish good things through my weakness.

travel plans

Well, the bike is almost all loaded up. I am going to ride it to the bus-station and then send it on it's way to Banfora before I get on the bus to Abidjan.

I'm leaving my computer in Ouaga so it'll be internet cafés for the next week or two. I'm missing my computer already.

And on to the next thing...

Since the course is over, and nearly all the participants and staff have left already, I thought I would celebrate with some of my other friends here. I taught an American, Swiss and Cameroonian how to play up and down the river! Tons of laughs and a meal of delicious peanut sauce and rice. Swiss chocolate for desert was perfect!

This morning, I wrapped up the last of my staff responsibilities and have spent the rest of the day getting ready to go. The first part of my trip will be by bus. I am headed to Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire) to get a visa for Cameroon, where I hope to end up later on. Unfortunately, Abidjan (a 20-hour bus-ride) is the only city near here with a Cameroonian embassy!

I have a bus-ticket for tomorrow night at 11:00. It goes all night, then I change buses at 6am and head into Cote d'Ivoire. I should arrive in Bouaké in the early afternoon and hopefully get to Abidjan before dark. Bus trips are long, hot, dusty, cramped, bone-jarring, and smelly (no one showers for 20 hours of continuous sweating, not to mention the chickens and goats that might be in the bus with us). It is the perfect chance to do some prime-time people watching.

You can learn a lot by observing people on the bus. Several layers of society can all be on the bus, intermingled together and it is intriguing to see how they interact. The entertainment comes part way into day 2 when everyone is tired but too uncomfortable to sleep and the one and only cassette tape (invariably reggae) is worn out. Almost without fail, one or two people will nominate themselves to be entertainment. They will pick a "fight" with another person or make some rediculous comment in a loud voice. The ensuing dialogue becomes something that the entire bus can participate in; people yelling their thoughts from many rows away. There is usually no "winner" person with the most wit in his arguement is considered the hero for engaging the others and brining laughter which eases everyone's discomfort. I used to think that tempers were flaring, but with time have come to learn that it is a deliberate strategy to pass time. I can't always follow the exact dialogue - it depends on what language they are using, but I always enjoy the antics.

It will probably take me 2 or 3 days to get my visa in Abidjan so I considered heading up to Abengourou to visit all my dear friends there. But I was there for a week last year and came nowhere close to seeing everyone that I should have seen. With only a couple of days, I don't know how I could do any justice, and I hate writing letters to explain that "I came to Abengourou but didn't have time to visit you, sorry."

When I have my visa, I will head back to Burkina, but stopping in the town of Banfora (close to the Ivorian border). There, I will spend a couple of days with friends before mounting my bicyle and heading off on the first leg of my journey: back to Ouagadougou.

Well, that is my plan for the next week or so. I should be able to update regularly during this period.

ps- this is the water-bottle holder that I designed with some friends that I made at the local welding shop. They are a group of handicapped (polio mostly) people who got funding to get tools and training to open a workshop. They did a fantastic job making this for me!

photos...

Not much to say, I've just been doing office work all day.
















The participants did a marvelous job with their presentations. I was really proud of them and the work that they did to put what they learned into practice.



















I just did a bit of math, and between the 24 participants at our course, they are responsible for over 41'000 literacy students in the year 2007 alone!!!!!! This does not take into account the thousands of teachers and supervisors that they train and oversee, or the hundreds of government officials, church or mosque leaders, NGOs, traditional chiefs and other influential people that they directly impact.



















Notice the difference between the 2 roads (one in front of the President's house, and the other in front of the market near where we are staying.

Extraordinary women

OK - my Facebook rant is over. Sorry to all those people I offended. Well... not that sorry, really.

Rahilla and Guilaine are the only 2 female participants in this course. I really wish that there were more, but it is rare to find an African woman educated enough to take a university -level course. Especially one who has dedicated their life to helping others read.

These two ladies are room-mates and soul-mates. Rahilla is from Niger and Guilaine from Congo - worlds apart in many respects, but they are inseperable, here. Both are extremely strong-willed, extraverted, dynamic personalities that hold their own amongst the men. They both have several children and are anxious to see their families again after 4 weeks away. But what really impresses me about these women is their utter devotion to helping their people read.

Rahilla had it good. She was hired by an NGO to head up the literacy component of their larger work in Niger. Last year, she came to the course with lots of experience, but almost no formal training in education or literacy. She ate up everything we could give her and was so encouraged to understand the deeper concerns, rather than just surface-level management. But when funding dried up earlier this year, her employer informed her that she would be let go and the project dropped. She was devestated, but not dettered. Using her severance-pay to come to this course, (the fairly significant cost is normally shouldered by the sending or sponsoring organisation) she is determined to find a way to learn and practice everything she can.

Guilaine found out about literacy in her own language just a few months before serious fighting broke out (not sure which time) in Congo. The expatriate group who was in charge of this project had to pull out. When she heard that the project would be shut down, she went and pleaded with them to stay. That didn't work, so she made an appointment to plead her case with the director of the organisation. She was told that the decision had already been made, but that did not deter her from pushing for a solution. She told them that if they were going to go, the least they could do would be to leave her the materials so that she could carry on the work. Reluctantly, (it takes a lot of trust to hand over the reigns to someone you hardly know) they agreed, and she has been organizing literacy throughout the region ever since. She loves her language, and we all love to say it. "Munukutumba" is just a fun word to say. Not quite, but almost as fun as Ouagadougou.

Facebook is the devil...

Listening to "Flight of the Conchords".

(Makes me smile every time!)

Ok, so I got sucked into joining Facebook so that I could look at the photos of some friends and of my baby nephew. The reason that I've been avoiding it for years is now confirmed: It's a royal waste of time! Wow.

Not only do I get useless updates like "Bill is going to brush his teeth", but I get an email notifying me that someone has written a note on my wall and I have to go online to look it up and then respond to it, which in turn will send an email to them to notify them that I have written on their wall. Why didn't you just email me in the first place?!!

But the bigger problem comes when I try to upload photos. After several failed attempts, I search online and find that there is a conflict between Facebook and Firefox and that I need to download an IE adapter. In order to do this, I have to download a newer version of Firefox. Great, except that now all the bits and peices like the Google search bar need updates, installations and the uninstalling of the old ones. Still no good, so I try and actually use Microsoft IE to do it. First I have to install ActiveX. OK. FINALLY... It gives me a dialog box that says "upload has failed, please try again". ARrrrg. Explain to me why this is such a phenomenon...

Fortunately the day has been productive with other things for finishing up the course. It seems surreal that we are done already. The time has flown by. I am currently putting the finishing touches on a powerpoint slideshow with contributed photos from all the participants and staff, telling the story of the course to music.

I'm really wishing that Burkinabé TV would show some of the Olympics. We only get one channel here and there isn't much to work with. They showed aobut 45 seconds of the opening ceremony on the news last night. I guess when your country is as poor as this one, you don't go around splashing millions to buy TV rights to airtime for that 1% of your population who own TVs. Still, I miss it.

The good thing that happened today is that Nicki and James finally won a City Chase event!!!! Yeah! They're going to Newfoundland for the National Championships! They stand a pretty good chance. Last year Nicki and partner Jen came 3rd. James and his old partner won and also won at World's. AWESOME.

http://www.mitsubishicitychase.com/championships.asp?nav=champ

The light at the end of the tunnel...

Not that this has been a tunnel, by any stretch of the imagination, but, like the rest of the people here, my mind is beginning to focus more and more on what is ahead...

And I'm starting to get excited. Tomorrow is our last day of classes. Monday is the final assesment. That in itself is going to be great - We have given each small-group a role-play through-which they will solve a problem and demonstrate what they have learned about a particular topic to the group. Each role-play calls into question 2-3 different topics and numerous principles than are to be invoked. Since they have had written tests at the end of every week, this is a great way to prove their ability to apply the learning to a complex reality. They are actually REALLY hard questions, but the quality of the participants is so good that I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Tuesday is wrap-up stuff and Wednesday is the closing ceremony. By Thursday, everything will be done and I'll be free to go. It will be sad to say goodbye to the participants, many of whom I have developed a very deep relationship, with. But on the other hand, another adventure awaits.

This afternoon, after staff-meeting, I rode my bike across town to pick up my passport with a "Regional Visa" It gives me 60 days to go into any country in francophone West-Africa as many times as I like, as long as I don't leave the region. I probably won't use it in every country, but it only cost me about $60 - that's less than what I paid for my original entry visa for this country!!

On my way back, I stopped at the "Institute Geographique" and picked up a couple of road-maps to get me started. Now it is really hard to concentrate on the jobs that I have left. (There is actually quite a lot of administrative stuff that needs to be finished up so that I can leave next Friday).

This evening was the "Staff Dinner" where Cathy, our course-director took us all (there are 7 of us including herself) out for dinner. It was nice to spend the evening in an air-conditioned, fancy restaurant, enjoying yummy French cuisine. I shared a meat platter with a colleague and it came with french-fries and spinach as side-dishes. Yep. The French do have good cuisine, but sometimes it is just weird.

I'm kicking back this evening, enjoying the cool pre-rain breeze, listening to Colin James, eating a bit of nice French chocolate (dark with mint filling) and tossing around some philosophical thoughts.

In this year's course, we have been talking a lot about epistemology, (the study of knowledge). Why in the world do literacy teachers in the backwoods jungles need to know anything about western philosophy and logic?

Partly because what you believe about the world influences greatly what you believe about how people learn and what literacy should do. And partlybecause they need to interact with an ever-widening group of NGOs, international funding agencies, government education systems and outside experts, all of which have there own underlying reasons for believing what they believe.

Today, I was role playing "Monsieur Toutestbonne" (Mr. Itsallgood), representative of the post-modern view-point. We all had a good laugh as it was a good skit demonstrating how major views have changed. I really hammed up the appeal to cultural differences to prove that there were no universals. Afterwards, I met with a particular group to discuss post-modernism affected them. One of the questions I asked was "What Mr. Toutestbonne would say about God."

They said, "Well since everything is good for him, then God must be good too, and he would validate all cultures". I pressed a little more, saying, but if God is absolute, then that would be very hard for Mr. Toutestbonne to believe. They insisted, that "No, since every culture believes in a single, all-powerful, creating God, then it is up to each culture to decide how to worship or deal with him. It took me a minute but I realized that our experiences about culture and God were very different. In their experience, every culture (Christian, muslim, or animist) does have this understanding of God as it's basic premise. All west-African cultures (that I know-of, have read-of and have heard of) really believe this, but from there, they do many things differently. I had to explain to them about cultures that they had not yet experienced. About cultures where there are multiple gods, none of them being creator, but each dominating part of life. Other cultures where there is no particular God, just a nebulous "force" that is out there. The really hard one for them to believe was that many people believe that there is no God at all!!

The thought was so far-out to them, beyond their experience, that I'm not sure if they really believed me. They did come around to understanding why the current movement of thought that they read about in the news seems to be very permissive in allowing people to think and do whatever they want with very few constraints (also very very far from their cultural experience). Was very interesting.

Tonight I played the infamous "Lili". This is one of West-Africa's most played games and it is, essentially, a version of Parchisi (which I haven't played since I was 11). My friend Moise, from the neighborhood took me to his house for some beans and a good game. Kicked my but, of course, but it was a fun time!

In the words of my favourite philosopher, it is very easy to tell if someone exists...

Quand on veut un mouton, c’est la preuve qu’on existe. (If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists).
-Le petit prince; Antoine de Saint-Exupery

photos at last

A sampling of pics from the cultural weekend.































So much fun...

So much to learn...


Soooo much food!




















So many great people!

So many memories!

The end of a long weekend. Well, the weekend was the same length as any other, but it seemed long. Really long.

The "weekend of culture" was awesome, though. It was my idea to have a weekend set apart for the sharing of cultural foods, songs, stories, dances and more. The participants come from 9 different countries, but there are 23 ethnic groups represented. The staff represent another 7 cultures! So, since it was my idea, it fell to me to plan and make it work.

I was really proud of everyone and how they all pitched in to make it work. We gave the kitchen staff 2 days off and each country (or group of neighboring countries) had a chance to provide one meal during the weekend. They also had to help with the dishes and cleaning, and all these things were a real learning curve for some of the participants who come from cultures where men do not come within 20ft of a kitchen, EVER. But everyone pitched in and it all got done.

(With a little help). Although I had everything delegated out, I still had a lot to do, making sure that the groups were working together well and were able to get there work done in timely fashion. In addition to taking part like everyone else and giving instructions/directions, I had also had several unforeseen tasks:

• Like finding and changing gas bottles when one (we were running 4 stoves to make the meals for 32 people) ran out half-way through cooking Sunday-morning breakfast.
  
• Like playing tour-guide to the front-half of our van while we took the participants on a scenic tour of the city of Ouagadougou (the Burkinabé with us sat in the back seat and had a very quiet voice).
  
• Like teaching a man from Mali (who had never held a kitchen knife) how to peel and chop onions.
  
• Like taking a participant to the hospital (he is OK now), running down to the local shop to get more dish soap when the 3 litres I had bought got used up half-way through Sunday-lunch dishes!
  
• Like mediating disputes over the appropriate cultural ways to deal with infidelity and divorce (was an extremely hot topic of discussion that started with one participant sharing what is done in his culture and ended in a 3 hour debate into the wee hours of the morning).
  
• Like opening up the plumbing under the sink to find the source of the blockage!
  
• Like (succesfully) defending the net by myself while the rest of my football (read soccer) team ran up on an offensive break away that got messed up.
  
• Like telling-off the whole group for worshipping God like white people (we had a church service together, and I got right ripped off that they were being too polite to dance. I ripped into them, saying "If you really believe what you are singing about, you'd better let it show with your whole body.
• Feeding the laundry ladies, groundsmen, guards, and even the public-roads workers who were digging a ditch near our compound with all the left-overs! (S000 much good food, it was incredible).
  
• Like explaining 31 times that I don't know how and am not authorised to make copies of the movie "Animals are Beautiful People", which we all watched tonight as a finale to the weekend.

All in all, it was a great weekend, but I'm pretty tired. Not much rest-time. I'll add some pictures tomorrow.

from a box?

Here are some pictures from yesterday's "Olympic Games". They are always a hoot. Well, it's just past midnight and I need to go to bed so I can get up to make pancakes for 32 people (I'll explain that tomorrow).

This evening, I have been doing some more research on "learning styles" which I will be teaching next week. With the exquisite smell of mosquito coil swirling around my ankles, I'm listening to The Cat Empire and drinking wine from a box and indulging in some Roquefort cheese that I found at the expensive supermarket downtown.

(It was on sale because it was past it's due-date, but hey, it's blue cheese!! What's it gonna do, go mouldy?!) Well, OK, I'm not actually drinking the wine OUT of the box, but the spanish Sangaria is so cheap that it does come in a cardboard tetra-pak and from there I pour it into my fancy wine glass (read coffee mug).

Life's all about the finer things!

This afternoon, I went out to get a visa for my bike-trip and was very proud of myself for remembering to bring my passport, vaccination card and money. Of course I got there and realized that I forgotten the obvious (passport photos). How do you translate "the story of my life" into French?


Quote for the day:

"We can not develop people. They can only develop themselves."

J. Nyerere (first president of Tanzania)

Late!!

OK, so while I was working on my blog last night I decided that I needed a bit of help staying awake. I didn't want to walk to the other side of the compound to get a coke, but I did remember that I had bought a Kola nut down-town the other day (they are very useful for striking up friendships since they are the traditional thing to share). The kola-nut is a mild stimulant since it contains caffeine, but it turns out that the kick is a little stronger than that of a coke. I finally went to bed around 3:00 but still couldn't sleep for a while.

I had set the alarm on my cell phone for 6:00, but when I woke up the sun was shining in the room and the birds were really loud. My first thought was that the alarm hasn't gone off yet, so it must still be early. Fortunately, my mind didn't buy the explanation and continued to raise nag my body to look. I looked at my cell phone and it read 5:45. No problem. But then I heard traffic and people talking out on the street. Hmmm... I got up and checked the computer clock: 7:49!!! Yikes.

I was still foggy, but then remembered that I had had a problem with my phone-chip and had taken the battery out to reset it. Totally forgot to reset the time. Oooops. By the time I showered and dressed, I had missed breakfast. Then I remembered that I was supposed to go make some last minute photocopies for my class. Fortunately, Gideon is a good friend and volunteered to run do that for me while I get something to eat. (In the mornings, there is always people walking by with breakfast on their heads. You simply call one over and say, I'd like 25 cents worth of rice and beans, or porridge, or whatever they happen to have in that big pot on their head - Today I got balls of couscous and bean-flour mixed with with sugar - odd but good for a hungry, barely awake Steve).

I did manage to get my stuff together and my head on straight enough to arrive at class just in time. Of course, today just happened to be the day that we were taking a class-photo! It took me a few minutes to work out why everyone was wearing their nicest shirts (I was wearing my Burkina soccer jersey which is nice, but not quite to the same level). My lesson went well, but somehow, when I looked at the clock I thought to myself... "Wow! I have 30 minutes left for this last exercise! - it sure didn't take long to get through all of that information!" I gave instructions, and had everyone get into groups. I couldn't work out why everyone was looking at me funny, until one participant spoke up "Don't we get to go for coffee break today?". Somehow, I was half and hour out and the contents of the lesson had actually taken longer than planned, not shorter!

Ooops again. I recovered nicely, though by saying. "Turn over your sheets and look at the list of common problems when planning lessons... which one of these have I done in the lesson that I just gave you? After a few seconds, the answer came back... "It's number 4 on the list! You tried to teach to much content for the allotted time."

"Yep. Good Job. You guys have learned the lesson. This last exercise is for homework." Whew. Afterwards, one of the staff came and told me that I did a great job of feigning surprise when they asked about coffee break. "Ha ha ha. If you only knew..."

Since, I was nice enough to let everyone have a coffee break (sarcasm to be noted) we all ran out into the courtyard and had somebody take pictures of us with a dozen digital cameras. I don't know whether any of the shots worked or not yet. As you can see, the one from my camera isn't that great. The sun was pretty bright, so maybe looking up wasn't the best idea. Hmmm.

Oh... another thing that I love about Ouagadougou... Waffles. Yeah, that's right, this is a culture that loves their waffles. Not the way we like them (hot with multiple sticky toppings), but at room temperature with icing sugar sprinkled on them. I thought it was just the cook on-centre who made them, but it turns out that you can get them at all kinds of little hole-in-the-wall shops. People here think they are a really chic snack!

Olympic Games Cancelled!

No, not in Beijing. Our sporting events here have been temporarily suspended.

But I'll get to that. First, let me tell you about my bike-ride this morning. Finally, I got to go for a ride with Paul. As soon as we got to open highway he started pushing me, to see how fast I would go. I was keeping pace, but then we came across another member of Paul's cycling team and he kicked the pace up about 3 notches. I spent a lot of time trying to keep my wheel inches behind Paul's so that I could keep up! It was pretty hard core, and I wasn't sure that my bike would keep up, but it did a good job.

I'm glad that psychologically, I knew that I wasn't going far (had to make it back in time to teach class). On the way back, we met another young cyclist, so I'm starting to get to know the community a little bit. Kind of makes me want to stay here and race and do the Tour de Faso instead of launching a cyclo-touring trip.

My lessons today concluded the section on Results Based Management. It was a really fruitful teaching time because the participants were so eager to understand these ideas. RBM is the system that most international donors and multilateral literacy agencies are using and the participants know that the future of their projects rest on the ability to communicate effectively with others. Anyways, they were really happy to have some of the complicated stuff explained in a way that makes sense to them and applies directly to their situations. We did a number of skits and activities together that allowed them to feel comfortable with the language and ideas of the system. It is a relief, however, to have it over with because it was sucking me dry in terms of time and energy.

Tomorrow, I will teach a lesson on planning lessons! Should be fun. They will have to design a lesson to teach the volunteer teachers in their projects how to improve their teaching. It will serve as a bit of a recap of what they have learned in the past few weeks as well as a practical application. I can't wait to see what they come up with.

I was pumped about having a large ultimate frisbee session for our "Olympic Games" this afternoon, but we decided, as a group to give it a miss. Instead, we called for an afternoon of solidarity mourning. Noel, one of the most senior members of our group got news today that his Mother has passed away in Congo on Sunday and the burial is tomorrow. He was raised completely by his mother because his father passed away when he was quite young.


Noel is the head of one of the biggest literacy programmes on the continent of Africa. He has thousands of teachers under him and tens of thousands of students every year! And he does this in an extemely remote (2 weeks by boat to Kinshasa) part of the jungle in the Democratic Republic of Congo! Needless to say he is one of the most respected people around (it is a real honour to be able to teach with him and we try and make use of his experience as much as possible). So, we called today a day at half-mast to honour the woman who brought Noel into the world and brought him up.

I was really impressed with the solidarity of the students who decided it would be good to pay a group visit to express their regrets. They appointed spokespersons, practiced some songs to sing and then we all went together. The message was given that, although he can't be with his family, we are his family in Christ and are here to share the burden. After a couple of songs, one of the men prayed for Noel. Then, one by one, each one came forward to shake hands and say a few encouraging words. Those who were close to Noel, put their forehead against his forehead for a moment. This brief touch is the symbol for deep friendship or kinship. It was a deeply emotional time and I pray that it was healing for Noel.

"Brother, your burden of grief is too heavy to bear alone. We are here to share it with you".
















(Noel is the participant on the far left-hand side in this role-played panel of experts.)

By Thunder!

Last night I went to bed early (10pm) so that I could feel good getting up for a bike-ride with Paul this morning.  I was really looking forward to it since I had to cancel Thursday morning's ride because I had to too much work to be done (and I had spent most of my afternoon putting new tires from Canada onto the wheels).  Anyways, the going to bed early didn't end up doing me much good, 'cause I woke up with a start at about 2:30am. 

 

The thunder was so loud that my ears were ringing.  I don't know where the lightning hit, but it was close enough to shake our entire cement-block building.  For a minute, I thought the roof was falling in, but my second thought was... MY COMPUTER!  It was still plugged into the wall and it was very likely fried.  I looked over and the light was still on, so jumped out of bed to unplug it incase there were anymore shocks coming.   It took a while to calm my heart-beats back to a normal BPM, and I finally got back to sleep.

 

I figured that with all the rain, our ride would probably be called off so I stayed in bed.  However, it stopped around 6:30 and Paul came by at 7:00.  I went out to greet him and on the way grabbed my bike.  Disaster!!  The front tire was flat.  I'm sure it wasn't flat yesterday.  I was sad to see Paul ride off on his own, and I discouragedly (I love the English language) sat down to patch my tube.  Eventually, I went off on my own and had a great ride, up a highway that I have never been on before. 

 

I went about 40km out, to the President's village (Zinaire) and then hurried back for lunch.  It felt really good just to be on open road.  I installed a special water-bottle holder that holds a 1.5litre bottle, so that was very handy, but it won't be sufficient.  I am thinking of maybe buying a thermos to keep 2 or 3 litres in, and attaching it to my rack, so that I can go a whole day without needing to get water, just in case I end up stuck in the desert in Niger somewhere.

 

This afternoon I helped Francois send some money to his brother in Cameroon.  Earlier this week, he had got word that his 4 year old son is deathly ill.  We have been praying with him, and trying to find ways to get some money to his wife.  We were finally able to use Western Union (who took a tidy 20%!) to his brother who will take the money to the village for his wife to be able to buy medicine from the dispensary there.

 

The other thing we have been praying for is that there have been a number of viruses circulating here lately with lots of casualties.  Computer casualties.  The IT dept has been working overtime, so I decided it is not enough just to pray for health for the teachers and participants, but for our computers too.  Sounds silly, but they are essential to our work.  Between the viruses and the thunder, we need protection!

 

 

 

 

Triangles

A while back, I said (facetiously) that I would soon do an exposé on Isosolece triangles. It was never meant to happen, but due to overwhelming demand (that means you Jennette), here are some triangles that I have found around here...




Enjoy!

Ouagadougou social life...

Yesterday evening, after dinner, I went for my evening walk with Gideon, showered, had a quick pass over what the participants were working on in their groups, and then got on bike and went out on an excursion. I was invited to a "reunion de jeunesse" at the church. This is kind of like a youth-group except that "youth" in Africa generally means between 17 and 30 year-olds without kids.

There was about 15 or so young men and women there, and we had a good time singing and dancing. I absolutely love the clapping rhythms - it is incredible to me what amazing sounds can come from so many people clapping, each to a different rhythm. It is cacophonous and beautiful at the same time. The group was made up of mostly university students and included students from Togo, Cameroon, Chad and Cote d'Ivoire. I felt quite at home and enjoyed the dancing to no end.

I got back late and made some last minute revisions to my lesson for today before hitting the pillow about midnight, but got up by 6:00 to meet Paul, a friend of a friend. He is a cyclist -he was in the race on Sunday and his team did very well, apparently. He took me for a ride out of town and it was thoroughly enjoyable. We didn't go far (about 60km round-trip), but we pushed it pretty hard. He is much better than I am but was very patient with me. Wow, can I ever tell that I am getting old and that I haven't done much fast cycling recently. I was really wishing that I had my new ultra-light bike (currently in my basement in Calgary) instead the old-clunker tenspeed. I must have done alright, though, because he agreed to go for another ride on Thursday, and in fact, to make it a regular training ride!

To do the ride, I had to skip breakfast and got back only about 12 minutes before class started. A quick shower, and then slipped into class with 2 minutes to spare. Whew. It was me, teaching the first lesson, so I guess it was a good thing that I didn't get a flat tire!

This afternoon we had a special dance session. It is was a kick-off to the mandatory exercise event that I am organizing. The participants focus so much on the studies (it is pretty full on with stuff to do morning, afternoon and evening) that they forget to do anything besides walk from their rooms to the classroom. It was a successful event with everyone turning out to dance.


Not just any dance, however. "La Danse Alpha" (The Literacy Dance), as it was coined, has become a serious tradition in our course. It started one day last year, when all the participants were falling asleep in a class I was teaching. It was hot, everyone was tired, and we needed to move a little so I made everyone stand up and I led them in a little exercise based on the old camp song "Silly Willy". This is the song where you start by moving the finger and gradually add body parts until as many body parts as can be moved at the same time are all keeping time. I got them moving their fingers and then explained that "a literacy worker sometimes had to do more than one thing at once" and so we added arm-movement, then 2 arms, then I told them that "life could be very complicated with all the varying tasks" and we added legs, and that "the work would make them dizzy some times, so had better practice turning in circles", and so and so on. This was all spur of the moment, but it gave such fits of laughter that they ask for it continually ever-since.

Anyways, to start off our "Olympics", we had this special dance-session of the Danse-Alpha. I brought in speakers and cranked up some old Bony-M tunes. It was hilarious. I got them doing disco moves and all kinds of crazy stuff. A total riot. A very different kind of dancing than the previous evening, but a ton of fun, nonetheless.

This evening, Gideon and I were invited out for a party. A young British woman that works here, (she has been helping out with some logistics for our course) is going to marry a man from Chad and they will be leaving for England in 3 weeks. She and her fiancé were having a good-bye party and we got invited. Brilliant. It was a fun evening with a ton of young people (mostly international student-friends of the fiancé's) and some GREAT food. There were several Cameroonians present so Gideon and I had a grand-old time remembering "home" with them.


Lay your problems on the floor
clap your hands and sing once more:
Everybody, let's go to the "King"

We can dance there
dance and eat an ice-cream.

Bony M - Happy Song

who'd have thought?

Bicycle races are coming your way
So forget all your duties oh yeah
Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today
So look out for those beauties oh yeah
On your marks get set go
Bicycle race bicycle race bicycle race

Queen - Bicycle race.

This morning it looked like it was going to rain again, but I had two things that I really wanted to do: a) Ride my bike (yes, I finally got it back during a break in the rain at 4:30pm).
b) Go to church.

I didn't want to wear spandex and running shoes in Church (dress-code is pretty strict here), but I also didn't want to get mud on my good pants, and it really did look like it was going to rain again. The simplest solution is to put the good set of clothes in my back-pack and head off, which I did, leaving a bit early because I wasn't entirely sure of the way.

As I approached the main-road (about half-way there), I looked up and saw a group of cyclists (read racers, not the every-day joe on a bike) go by. My heart jumped. Any other day and I would have took off and tried to make some cyclist-friends, but I was on my way to church, not out for fun. As I got closer to the road, another group went by. One of the riders waved at me. They've got nice bikes (well a lot better than my old ten-speed anyways), and helmets and riding jerseys and everything.

"Arrrghhhh... I would love to go... Aw, to heck with it. I've got to meet them."

I saw that no traffic was coming so I jammed on the pedals hard and sped across the highway, turning left to chase them down. About half-way across the road, I noticed a policeman, directing traffic and realized that he had been holding traffic back. Now there were cars coming at me. I cut the corner hard which meant that I rode right in front of him. He started blowing his whistle at me and then yelling stop!

It was at this point that I noticed that there was an escort motorbike following the bikes in front of me. It was a race, and they were going fast! With the policeman behind me right ticked off, I decided I had better not stop and that the only thing to do was to join the race. I started really giving it, hoping to jump on the back of the peleton.

It was at this point that I realized that the people lining the sides of the road weren't just Sunday-morning pedestrians, but cycling fans who had come out to watch the race. I realized this because as I started to catch up, the crowd went wild. They were cheering and screaming and laughing (you have to realize that I was wearing running shoes and an old MEC backpack full of clothes and, regretfully, my giant French Bible that must weigh 6 pounds!)

Anyways, the laughing/screaming crowd gave me energy and I closed the gap to less than 20 metres. The escort bike had noticed me by this time and moved aside so that I could move into position. However, by now we were going uphill and into a wind. I started to fall back and began to wonder if I would be able to make the back end of the peleton after all. Just then, the front of the pack made a break for it and the rest followed, leaving me gasping for wind and trying not to let my backpack weigh me down, mentally. Turns out that they were sprinting for the turn-around. 180 degree u-turn and back-down the other side of the hiway. Yikes. This was the first time I had really ridden the bike in a year and I wasn't very confident of a high-speed turnaround. With all those spectators, I decided to take it easy and push hard on the other side.

I did push hard, but there was little hope of catching the group. I kept them in my sights, but by completion of the lap, I was soaked in sweat and conceded defeat. Instead of doing the next turnaround, I just kept going to (unbeknownst to me) the finish-line! The announcer was out on the street, yelling at me into the microphone and the crowds were going crazy. I smiled and gave a victory-wave to the crowd as I crossed the line! The last 2 km to church made for a good cool-down, although I was still sweating profusely by the time I got there. Sure glad I brought a change of clothes.

When I walked into church, I was surprised to see that the service hadn't started yet. I guess the whole race incident must not have lasted more than 10 minutes, though it seemed like a lot longer than that. I sat down and started to work out what in the world had just happened. It is kind of surreal and bizarre, but then again, this is why I love Africa.

I guess I don't have to participate in the Tour de France, now (Go Sanchez!! by the way, and I see that Cadel Evans is holding steady). I have already experienced 1000's of screaming spectators cheering for me as I chase down the peleton! Today is a day I will never forget.

Thanks God!

smile... it can't rain forever...

Well, it's still raining so I thought I'd better write about some things that make me happy...

Top 10 Things that I Love about Ouagadougou!

10. Yoghurt. I don't know of anywhere else in Africa that loves yoghurt so much. Some places have home-made yoghurt in a bag. Other places sell tiny, imported tubs from France, but this is the only place that mass produces it's own yoghurt (flavoured, sweetened or natural) that you can buy in any store that has a fridge. Awesome.

9. Honesty. Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary who gave this country it's current name "Burkina Faso" which literally means "land of men with integrity". And it holds true today. I feel safer here than anywhere I have been on this continent. Of course, I still need to be a shrewd bargainer in order to get a good price, but I have no sense of the anyone being out to get me. One thing I have noticed is how genuinely happy people are to help, whether it be with advice or directions, they off er it freely and are happy to see you on y our way with just a thank you. Corruption here is minimal compared to anywhere else in the region and people are not afraid of the police.

8. Mangoes from Heaven! The sweetest, juiciest, tastiest, hugest mangoes all come from this country and they are in season NOW.

7. Have I mentioned how many bicycles are here?

6. W omen. Another thing that Sankara tried to instill in his countrymen was a profound respect for women. In a famous speech, he said

"You are our mothers, life companions, our comrades in struggle and because of this fact you should by right affirm yourselves as equal partners in the joyful victory feasts of the revolution. We must restore to humanity your true image by making the reign of freedom prevail over differentiations imposed by nature and by eliminating all kinds of hypocrisy that sustain the shameless exploitation of women."

And it wasn't just words. He campaigned to end female circumcision, changed the law so that women to request divorce, encouraged contraception, condemned polygamy, created a ministry of women with a woman in charge of it in addition to the appointment of women to positions throughout the government, and made female rights a central priority of the government! It shows today. Women here walk straighter, ride their own bikes, own and run business, look you in the eye and speak without fear.

5. Photos. People aren't angered by the taking of photos. If they don't want a photo taken of them, they smile and wave their finger, signaling no. That's it. No yelling. No demanding money in exchange, etc.

4. Salt. There is a great deal of variety in the kinds of food available on the streets of Ouagadougou, (all of which I love) and it struck me the other day that with almost all of them, you add your own salt- the one serving you will put a little pile on the side of your plate and you mix it in to your own taste. I have no idea why, but it sure is different!

3. Beauty in the dust. I like the architecture here. The people appreciate beauty, and though they have no mountains and no ocean, they make beauty appear.

2. There is a tremendous sense of cooperation here. The people know that they don't have much and that if they are going to get ahead, they need to work together. The literacy programmes are proof of what can be done with very little when people are motivated. Burkina has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world due to a lack of primary schools and the amount of poverty (less than $2 a day). However, the rate of adults who enroll in literacy classes is very high. As a class, they develop trust amongst themselves and often work together to develop an income generating project.


1. Smiles. These people have brilliant, sincere smiles making a flat dusty land with few natural resources one of the happiest places on earth. When I think of Ouagadougou, I think of the smiles. And it is contagious.

ps- Most of today's photos came from the net (flickr.com)

blah...

Listening to:  The Northern Pikes

 

Well, it has been raining non-stop for the last 5 hours and is showing now signs of stopping.  I made a runner to make it to the dining hall, but other than that, my Friday night plans are pretty much kiboshed.  Oh well, I'm tired anyways.  Class has been pretty full on for the past few days.  I have been up front a lot and it is draining since the classroom is so hot.  For some reason, there is very little air movement in there, and it just heats up (body-heat as well as solar oppression).  So, it's probably best that I just go to bed anyways. 

 

Its not all bad, though.  A great thing happened today, though.  Ice Cream!!  Well, sort of.  More like an icy sorbet, really, but it made me smile.  When people ask me what I miss from home, I usually reply, nothing.  I honestly, don't think about Canada too much.  I'm too busy enjoying life here.  I don't even know if I can say that I miss ice-cream, but I sure do love it and when I get a chance, it sure great!

 

Well, I don't have much of anything to say (as evidenced by my writing about dessert).  Here's an idea... What do you want to know about?  If you are reading this blog, what are your questions?  What do I not explain fully?  What are you curious about? 

 

Well, the internet is out due to rain, so I guess I'll send this off in the morning. 

 

OK - it is now 11:45 the next day and it is STILL RAINING!!!!  Ok - not entirely true.  It did stop this morning for about 2 and a half hours, but the internet didn't come back.  I'm glad that they at least have a generator here so that we're not without electricity too.  Not long ago, I took my bike out to get a spoke changed, but left it with the mechanic, telling him I'd be back in an hour.  Now it is raining so hard that I can't even hear the music on my computer!  I might wait a while before attempting to get my bike back.

 

A good day to read a book and enjoy the cool air!

 

quote for the day:                       Oh, the water...  Oh, the water
                                                     Oh, the water...  Hope it don't rain all day

 

                                                                    -Van Morrison:  And it stoned me.

 

life according to a schedule...

Wow, my body isn't sure what is happening.  I'm living life according to a schedule again.

 

Meals are served impeccably on time, and I do my best to make sure that class hours are kept.  One of the most ironic things is that I, Steve, am in charge of keeping everything on schedule!!!!  Class is from 8:30 till 12:30 (including coffee break) and then 2:30 till 4:30.  I invented a "generousity box" which late- comers are asked to contribute  25 cents to if they are late, or if their cell phone beeps during class.  Of course everyone claps for the "generousity" of the late comer and the embarrassment is a very good deterrent.  If they only knew that I didn't make it to a single class on time during 4 years of undergrad education!

 

After dinner, I have time for a walk with Gideon, my Cameroonian colleague.  We start out talking-over our lesson plans but  somehow get sidetracked to African politics every time.  I really appreciate my time with him because he has some excellent insights into culture.  (He is the literacy coordinator in a part of Cameroon that is VERY different than one he grew up in, and is now experiencing other African countries (like Burkina) and the cultures of our participants at the same time that I am). 

 

When we get back from our exploration of the neighborhood , I go check on the group projects that the participants work on in their evenings.  It is always fun to listen-in while they discuss the day's lessons and how they apply to particular situations.  I would love to stay and eavesdrop longer, but I need to get back to my room and make sure that I have everything ready for next-week's lessons.  I'm so glad that we have internet access here so that I can do a little more research.  After writing down some thoughts for a Blog, it is time to head to bed already.  6am comes early when the sun peeks in my room and calls me for a run before the temps get too hot. 

 

What kind of adventure is this anyways?  Not much of one when your day is all planned out for you...

 

Ah, but that is where you are wrong.  Life here is always an adventure.  Just when you think that things are going according to schedule, the photocopier breaks down and you need to run out and scour the neighborhood for a store or office that can make 300 copies right away, which tends to be a difficult thing in the middle of a thundershower!! 

 

Then, there is the surprise staff-meeting which everyone votes to have in your room.  (That's what I get for having the best snacks around!).   Then, while walking in the evening, you discover a lady selling some form of food that you have never seen before... Hmmmm.... gotta try it.

 

Sometimes the adventure is in the little unexpected events of the day.  The best part, though, is interrogating the participants during breaks and meal-times about the road-conditions between different towns, cities and countries.  Planning my next great adventure!!

 

ps - I got my bike back today (had left it with a friend after the course finished last year) and I'm super excited.  This little-old ten speed (second hand from the Ouagadougou market) has no idea what it is in for!!

favourites...

Well, the first day has come and gone. I am now relaxing in my dorm-room, listening to Bedouin Soundclash on iTunes and enjoying the overhead fan set on high. It is 8:00 pm and the temperature has cooled down to a beautiful 27C, but the breeze is still welcome. The best part of my day was the arrival of one of the participants.

It was a real joy when Halmassad walked into the classroom at about 3:00 this afternoon. He was 7 hours late for class, but that didn't matter to anyone in the room. We were all just really happy to see him.

Halmassad is a muslim man from a nomadic group of peoples in a country near here. His journey is a 3-day trip on public transport, plus however far he has to travel by Camel to get to a centre that has public transportation!! I'm not kidding. That is where he lives - amongst nomadic camel herders!

One of my brightest students, Halmassad has an extraordinarily deep love for his own people. There is very little written in his language, but Halmassad has been working to change this. He is the author of a many books on many subjects, all aimed at helping his people. He travels constantly, meeting with different groups of families as they move their herds around the desert and teaching them the skills they need to read and write.

His people have been in the news in the past few decades mostly because of their rebel movement which struggles (often violently) with the government which makes decisions about their region with little or no input from the local people. The rebels consider themselves to be oppressed and under attack from those who run the government.

Of course Halmassad is not his real name, nor could I include photos of him or the people he works with. This is a sensitive subject and I don't want to endager him or his work. At one point, Halmassad was jailed after being accused of helping in the rebellion, but he has dedicated his life to bringing change to his people by teaching them how to communicate with the other peoples in the country. He is crusading for empowerment through the the pen instead of the gun.

And it is working. Many people (including women) are beginnning to read in their language and then making the jump to writing in the majority language of the country. His people have not known peace for a long time, and Halmassad sees literacy as the key to bringing it to them.

Apart from the fact that he can drive a camel and a 4WD, write fluently in 3 languages, navigate the internet and the waterholes, and teach a group of nomads to change their situation through the power of writing, Halmassad is still my favourite student. He is quiet and reflective. He waits for everyone else to give their point of view (sometimes on a very heated subject), and then he proceeds to explain how the differing views have their merits and why somewhere in the middle is probably a wiser approach. He is a true peace-maker, a lover of his language and his people - a real visionary and man of action.

A short time ago, we were worried that Halmassad would not be able to attend part 2 of the course. First of all because there was a lack of funding for him to come (funding cuts around the world have been severe over the past 12 months), and then more recently due to a very serious bout of illness. We were relieved to hear that the Doctor cleared him to come (on the proviso that he doesn't exert himself too much). He told me that he wouldn't miss it for the world!

Is it wrong to have a favourite? I don't know, but I do know that I am praying a lot for Almassad. You don't meet people like him every day!!

$2 a day

Well, this is it.  Tomorrow we start!!  I'm super excited.  Most of the participants have arrived.  We are just waiting on those coming from Central African Republic and DRC.  Thank you for praying. 

 

Today, the dining hall opened up and it was such fun to come to each meal and find more and more people have arrived.  It was like an ongoing reunion-party all day long, with lots of hugs, cries of joy, and so much laughter.  There is such a strong bond between this group, I remember now, why I believe that these training courses are so important.  It is the cross-polonization of minds as each participant drinks in the experiences of all the others!  Today was, for me, a little taste of what heaven will be like... Jumping up again and again to welcome old friends to join in the feasting!

 

According to several independent groups, around 85% of Burkinabés live on $2 a day or less of income!  (http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/eco_cou_854.pdf)

 

Incredible.  Since the dining hall hasn't been open till today, I have been eating food from the street for the past few days and gave myself the challenge of seeing if I can survive on $2/day.  My love for food didn't allow me to skip meals or even skimp on the amounts, so I ate well from Friday to Monday, but I am happy to say that I was able to average $1.75 Cdn per day (except for Sunday when I had supper twice because my Cameroonian colleague arrived late in the evening and I took him to my favourite Senegalese eating spot).

 

I was feeling kind of proud of myself until I realized that the statistic is living on $2/day, not eating $2/day.  I wasn't counting the fact that my lodging is already paid for (including water, electricity, internet) nor the fact that a Burkinabé man should be saving for a new pair of shoes, a bicycle, and books for his child's education.  It is a good thing that lots of them can grow some of their food!

 

Wow.  I have a whole new respect for these people.  I wonder how increased food prices will affect them over the coming months (the price of rice has already nearly doubled here in Ouagadougou).  When I talk with the Burkinabés about how they will survive, one thing keeps coming up.  "We share".  Those who have a little bit more are required, by cultural constraints, to help their family members who don't have as much.  Voluntary communism.  Hmmm.

 

I am continually humbled by this place, no these people.   It is the poorest country I have been to, and yet the people have the most integrity and most sincere smiles of anywhere.  Not to mention, one of the most wide-spread grassroots literacy programs anywhere!  They are an inspiration. 

 

 

World of Wheels...

When I was younger, I had a set of questions that I would use to break the ice with people. I would often just say out of the blue: Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if the circle had never been invented?




















I never really gave it much thought, it was just a silly question that helped in those awkward -silence type situations. The last couple of days here in Ouagadougou, I have found a new appreciation for the circle.

The people here absolutely depend on the wheel. It makes sense. A flat dusty country with few resources, vast open spaces and a hot sun that saps the energy. Is it any wonder that the bicycle has flourished here like no other country in Africa.

In fact bikes are so prolific here that there are very few taxis because everyone goes by bike. And I do mean everyone. Old, and young alike. They certainly don't let dresses impede them from getting around. Those who can afford it upgrade to moped or
motorbike (though I have yet to see anything more than 125cc). If long distances are needed, they simply put the bikes on top of the buses or minivans which run up and down all the main roads of the country. Arriving close to their destination, they get out, bring the bike down and then ride off to where-ever it is they are going. Brilliant.

Not surprisingly, the "Tour de Faso" is considered Africa's premier cycling event and is put on by the same organisation that does the Tour de France!


Is it any wonder that I love this place?


This afternoon I met two guys that lost use of the legs as children (from Polio), but they had bikes too! We had lunch together, and although life is by no means easy for them, they are not left to beg as in many other cultures.

In addition to bicycles, the Burkinabé people use wheels for lots of other things... like shoe-stores, restaurants, and hard-ware shops! Donkeys pull the loads that are too heavy for humans. Today, while searching for something scrumptious for lunch, I came across a blacksmith shop that used a little wheel rigged up to his bellows. His little son turned the wheel and kept the fire hot while he worked!



Thank God for the circle.





























So, the challenge for today... Can you count how many wheels are in the photos attached to today's blog?


























ps - Tune in tomorrow for a riveting exposé of the isosolece triangle!

home

Burkina Faso!

I absolutely LOVE to travel, yet somehow, there is something really enjoyable about settling in somewhere and unpacking your bags. The SIL centre here in Ouagadougou feels like “home”. It is just plan nice. Also, having good internet access and a phone make me feel like I’m connected to the world again after 2 weeks of travel.

Of course the itch to explore hasn’t gone away… As soon as I got the internet up and running, I started looking at maps, and making potential plans for my bike trip. It is hard to concentrate on preparing for the course, though, so I am trying to keep that in the back of my head.

The first participants will arrive Sunday, and all should be here by Tuesday for a Wednesday start. I have quite a bit to do the first week, so I need to buckle down. Right now, (or what I would be doing right now, if I wasn’t writing this blog) I am struggling to find a good way to discuss the role of a literacy worker in relation to politics and NGOs, particularly in being an advocate for the language and the people. Hmmm…. I might try some case-studies. It’s kind of a heavy subject for the first day, but then again, it’s not like we have a lot of really easy light stuff to start off with. It’s complex, important stuff all month long!

At the end of next week, I am going to running a special workshop on diagnosing reading problems and that is taking up the majority of my brain-power since I want it to be really helpful for them. This will be one of my biggest contributions this year.

Ps – just in case you thought I was suffering from missing Ethiopian food, you’d be sorely mistaken. Since I’ve been here, I’ve enjoyed Foutou with peanut sauce (Ivorian and Ghanaian cuisine), Tchep (Senagalese Cuisine), Attieke (from my region of the Ivory Coast), and several Burkinabé specialties including mangos that way close to 2 kilograms each! Although, it is not “fine dining” here, I love it for it’s unsophisticatedly strong tastes and the community feeling of eating “on the street”. You just choose one of the many tables that line a street and ask what they have. If you like it, you say how much you want (ie. 50 cents worth please, or 25 cents of millet and 1 dollar’s worth of chicken, etc). Then you sit down on a bench with others enjoying the same food and wish them “bon appetite”.

early...

When I got on the plane this morning, I was sad to leave Ethiopia behind. There is so much unexplored, untapped adventure just waiting to be discovered. I have decided that I will DEFINITELY be going back. However, at the same time, I was really excited about going to visit Peter and George. They are some of my favourite people in the world. They work for GILLBT, one of the best literacy-providing organisations in Africa (http://www.unesco.org/uil/literacyprogrammes/05_en.html)

Sometimes you have to hit the ground running. My plane arrived in Accra at 1:30pm, I left the airport by shortly after 2:00. I immediately caught a taxi to the Burkina Faso Embassy. Technically, you have to drop your paperwork off in the morning and then pick it up again in the afternoon, but I filled out the paperwork and begged them to let me get it done today. I left the paperwork and my passport while I ran (literally) to a bank, pulled out some money, then to a ForEx office to change the Ghana Cedis into US dollars, then back to the Embassy. Whew. I was out of breath, but by 3:30, I had the visa and I headed to the bus-station! Who says things can’t happen quickly in Africa?

I was itching to get the 12-hour journey to Tamalé underway. Since I got my Burkina visa in less than an hour (rather than waiting the 24 that I was supposed to), I skipped the Accra Guesthouse and went straight to Tamalé. Well, kind of straight.

Turns out that busses for Tamale only leave in the morning, so I bought a ticket for Kumasi (half-way) leaving at 6pm and arriving at 1am. That way I could take the Kumasi-Tamalé bus in the morning and be several hours ahead. However, around midnight I fell asleep at the back of the bus and some other passengers woke me up a couple-hundred kms past where I was supposed to get off. I was in a small town called Sunyani, (the blue square on the map), and they assured me that I could catch a bus back to Kumasi in the morning. I spent the night in the station, but decided it would be better to see if I could catch a bus direct from Sunyani to Tamalé instead of back-tracking. Sure enough, you can go back-roads to Tamalé, but the bus only goes on Mondays. I kept asking and found out that another transport company does that trip daily, so I took a taxi to a different bus-station, and got on the bus there, putting me into Tamalé before noon!


George, it turns out, is in London, taking a course, so I didn't get to see him, but it was great to see Peter again. He is doing really well, but GILLBT is seems to be struggling. Basically, they have got almost no literacy grants. The Western World is going into oil shock and not wanting to give up any money. Ghana is now considered to be in much less need than other places (in some ways valid, but it also offers a much better ROI due to the progress they have made). Anyways, due to cuts, most of the literacy staff has either been let-go or quit, which leaves a huge burden on Peter. He was very gracious in showing me around his offices, introducing me to people, and even took me home to meet his family. They are having their AGM in a week's time, and I could see that he was under some serious stress, so I decided not to stay long. I told him that I was going to leave first thing in the morning, and I think I read some relief in his eyes. Gee I love that guy. Hopefully next year we can coordinate time a little better and have some time to just relax together.

From Tamalé, you take a mini-bus for 200k, then a taxi for 70k, walk accross the border and catch a bus the remaining 300k to Ouaga. I got here about 4 pm. As I walked in the gate, I was greeted with shrieks of laughter. Cathy had just been telling Bea that she didn't know when I would show up - that it would be a surprise. And so it was! I was a day and a half ahead of my earliest projection (mostly because I got my visa and left Accra on the same day I arrived). Surprise. Late to Ethiopia, early to Burkina. Crazy.

the church...

Another day with Bini – awesome. Since we couldn’t go to Lalibella, we asked him to take us to a church on a mountain on the outskirts of town - After a friendly cup of machiato, of course.

We arrived at the Ethiopian Orthodox church with a sense of awe. It was obviously crafted with great care and love. In the expansive courtyard, several priests were going about their duties, and worshipers were coming and going, genuflecting and praying quietly to themselves. In another area, people were busy preparing something and Bini told us that there was going to be a funeral. The church was 160 years old and made mostly of stone.

Bini arranged a guide for us and told us that the original church was actually located at the peak of the mountain. It turns out that the church we were observing was actually a relocation of the original church which happened to be built over 700 years ago!!!! (The guide said 1700, but I know have since learned that it was built in the early 1200s). For perspective, Notre Dame in Paris was completed in 1345, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was completed in 1626 (less than 400 years ago), shortly after Canada was discovered. Christianity has been strong in Ethiopia since the 4^th century, and so in a sense, though, the guide was right. “The church” has been here for 1700 years!

After a 40 minute hike up the mountain, we were all breathing a little heavy (the climb wasn’t strenuous, but we started at well over 8000ft. The original church was worth the sweat. It is what they call a monolithic church, being excavated underground from a single piece of granite. It was completely intact and still used until 1936 when it was bombed by the Italians during the war. The roof collapsed and over 400 people died. Wow, what a tragedy. Of course the ruins were still interesting, but it was amazing to imagine what it was like before. Apparently, the monolithic churches in Lalibella are all still intact.

The whole experience was very encouraging. Thinking about how Christ has been worshiped for so many centuries in their own style and language was very humbling, and yet exciting. It is the kind of thing that I pray people will find when they visit the church in Abengourou, or Batouri or Lomié, 500 years from now. (Not the ruins, but the evidence of a rock-solid faith that is embedded in local culture and language).

On our way back into town, we met Hewit at Samaritan’s Purse where she works. I was very impressed with their work in Ethiopia and with the quality of staff that they had (Hewit included). I had a chat with the director about the possibility of me joining Samaritan’s Purse, and he was very encouraging.

Of course, since it was my last night, we went for some exceptional Ethiopian food at a Kitfo restaurant. Wow. It is hard not to think that it would be a LOT of fun to live and work in Ethiopia. Why do I find so many places in the world to be so fascinating? Oh-well, I guess it is time to say goodbye… It has been a great, relaxing vacation. I am so grateful to Tanya, Hewit and Bini for such a great time, but sad it had to come to an end.

coffee and popcorn

Dale must think that I am a curse, or a sleep-impeding demon at least! I managed to come in last night without waking him up, but at about 2:00 this morning, there was a lot of honking outside our gate. It was a pick-up truck, not a taxi, and since our electricity was off, I hoped that the guard wouldn’t open up. Eventually, though, he did. I poked my head out the window and asked who it was. You can imagine my surprise when the reply came up from the darkness “I’m Gabrielle, I’m from Calgary!”

“OK, I’ll be right down!” Bizzare. I met Dale in the stairwell. Poor guy. 3 nights in a row. He’ll be glad when Steve the sleepmonster is gone!

I woke up this morning to rain which made me kind of glad. I wasn’t feeling much like going for a run with Hewit at 6:00, as we had planned, so I went back to sleep. At 9:00, I awoke to Tanya’s voice, wondering where I was. I got up and immediately realized that I was not feeling well. Sweat was pouring off of me and I needed to use the toilet – urgently. I made it, but it was one of those instances where you think, “Can there possibly be anything left inside me?” The French word “creuvé” is the perfect word for that feeling. They use it to describe a bike tire that has lost all it’s air, and that is exactly how I felt.

So, I sent Tanya off to Church and I went back to bed. I don’t know what it was that I ate or drank, but it was making me feel terrible. Another 4 hours of sleep and a flat Sprite seemed to do the trick. By mid-afternoon, I was able to go for a walk and buy myself some bread, which strengthened me more. Later on, Tanya and Hewit brought me some Cipro which was wonderful of them. (I think their slogan should be “Don’t fart without it!”). Anyways, I decided I was feeling good enough to go experience a traditional “coffee ceremony” at Hewit’s parent’s home.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but was really glad I went. They roasted the beans over a fire, filling the room with an incredible odor. Not overpowering, just really pleasant. After grinding them up, they are brewed in a wooden flask over charcoal with several stages of heating, cooling, pouring out and back in. Not being a connoisseur, I couldn’t tell you exactly what was happening, but it was interesting. All the while, I was enjoying getting to know Hewit’s family who are all very hospitable and lovely people. My stomach was only up to one cup, but Tanya had 3 rounds. Oh yeah, they also served popcorn (popped on a fire outside). How great is that? Any traditional ceremony that involves popcorn is good in my books!! What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon... sipping coffee, enjoying friends and family and munching on popcorn!

Day at the falls...

Last night after dinner, I finally got home at around 10:30 (it is great to be in a place where you don’t have to be afraid to walk around at night). Unfortunately, I found out, at this time, that the key my room in the guest-house does not also open the front door of the guesthouse as I assumed it would (since I only got one key).

Familiar situation… only this time, I don’t have the phone of a taxi-man, and all the yelling and banging that I can do won’t be heard by Dale on the 3^rd floor. Hmmm… After some thinking, I realize that there are several doors on the second floor (where my room is located). I got the guard to bring the “ladder” which didn’t reach the balcony, but which got me close enough to reach the bottom of the balcony railing, which I used to pull me up. Of course, my key didn’t work on those doors either, but I realized that the hallway door wasn’t very strong and I could probably force it. At this point, paying for a new lock seemed like a better option than sleeping on the cement below, so I started pushing. After the first couple of tries, the light upstairs came on and Dale sleepily came down to let me in AGAIN. “Are you trying to break-in?” “Well, YEAH!!”

Today we went to the Beer Factory! Not to have beer, or watch beer being made, but because the beer company owns a very spectacular waterfall just outside of Addis and has built a nice park around it.

Hewit arranged for a friend of hers who owns a taxi to take us up to have a look. Bini was an awesome chauffeur, tour-guide and friend. He is an architectural-design student, putting himself through school by driving taxi whenever his schedule allows. His 1984 Lada was in pretty good shape as were his English skills.

It was good to get out of the city and see some countryside. The falls were spectacular and much larger than I had expected. What I didn’t expect was how many people were there. Apparently, this is a very popular place for students (high-school and university) to come to by the bus-load for a relaxing Saturday! It was very entertaining, watching them showing off and trying to act cool. Teenagers aren’t that much different around the world! Despite the crowds, we were able to hike around and enjoy some quiet moments amongst the big coniferous trees. The place smelled great because of the mist from the falls, mingling with the scent of the trees - I realized that you don’t get this kind of tree in other parts of Africa. I guess the elevation here makes them feel at home. (Addis has an elevation of 8000ft, compared to 3700ft in Calgary, and 5400ft at Sunshine Village!) More incredible Ethiopian cuisine under the trees.

On the way back, we got a flat tire. While Bini and I were getting the tools out of the trunk, some drops started falling from the sky. By the time he had it jacked up, it was a full-on rainstorm! We took refuge in the local butcher’s shop until the downpour slowed to a drizzle.

This is what I love about Africa. Nothing is predictable. Ever. Everyday is an adventure.

“Something awful has happened; something terrible. Something worse, even, than the fall of man. For in that greatest of all tragedies, we merely lost Paradise- and with it, everything that made life worth living. What has happened since is unthinkable: we’ve gotten used to it. We’ve broken in to the idea that this is just the way things are.”

-John Eldridge - Desire

food and names...

Not surprisingly, the best part about Ethiopia is all the Ethiopian food! I had injera 3 times today!! For those that don’t know, this is not a joke. Ethiopian food really is one of the best cuisines on this planet (and I do consider myself somewhat of an expert). I did discover something new, however. I discovered that I can drink coffee! Those who know me well will be surprised since everyone knows that Steve does NOT like hot drinks, and never has coffee. However, it is such an important part of the culture here that I decided to give it a go. After-all, it was a sunny but cool morning on the café terrace and the machiato only cost 17cents. It was really tasty and smooth. I wouldn’t consider myself a coffee addict, just yet, but I will probably have another. (Do you think that Starbucks will give me anything for 17 cents?)

I always find it interesting, the names they have for white people in different places. In Thailand, people pointed and whispered about the “Falang” as I walked past. In Benin, the children would run behind me shouting Yovo, Yovo, making any attempts to be low-key impossible. In Cote d’Ivoire, people would loudly shout Le Blanc, or Blofwé as they greeted me. But in Addis, I hadn’t heard anything. When I asked how they referred to white people here, I got a good laugh. They do have a word, although it doesn’t come out very often. The word is Ferenge, not very differentiable from the race in Star-Trek, Ferengi. When I was asked what was so funny, I explained that if anyone ever used that word near me, I would immediately picture a short, fat alien with big ears and pointy teeth!

(Interestingly, a quick look into Wikipedia reveals that Star-Trek’s “Ferengi civilization was built on the ideals of free enterprise, where all other goals are subjugated to the pursuit of profit” …and … "Like most of their culture, their religion is also based on principles of capitalism: they offer prayers and monetary offerings to a Blessed Exchequer in hopes of entering the Divine Treasury upon death". Perhaps the linguistic proximity of Ferenge and Ferengi is not quite accidental. I think that describes our culture quite well.

This afternoon, we visited the museum in Haile Selasie’s palace. I was impressed. It was really well done and I learned a ton about Ethiopian culture. In the evening, I met Tanya’s Ethiopian friend, Hewit. She is a fireball of energy and a lot of fun. Together, we all went out to a beautiful restaurant called Habesha. Wow. The food was to die for. So much for learning something about gluttony. I couldn’t stop myself. And a traditional Ethiopian Mead was the perfect complement. How do these people stay so skinny? Answer: They dance. The Habesha had live music playing all evening and towards the end, dancers came out to show the traditional dance. Wow. I had no idea that the human body could move that way. “So you think you can dance” is a long way off what these people can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA4_nvFlbhA&feature=related

This will give you an idea, although, our dancers were WAY better. The shoulder movement is just phenomenal!

By the way, Habesha, it turns out, is the word that Ethiopians use to describe their own skin colour, not really white, but much lighter than that of most Africans. They say when God was creating people, he had to bake them all. Europeans came out of the oven too early. The Sudanese got left in too long, but the Habesha were baked to perfection!

late...

The concept of "late" is different in every culture. I wonder what it is in Ethiopia, since I am arriving a whole day late (25 hours, to be exact). I feel bad for Tanya who is probably giving up her vacation to wait for me.

Keeping a positive frame of mind, the good thing about courtesy hotels is that the food is markedly better than that served on the plane. I decided that since I had all night, I might as well make good use of the buffet. Whooo! There was some great dishes there. A stroke of luck in my favour too: a French vineyard was having a taste-test that evening in the hotel. Had a wonderful feast. Of course, I took full advantage of breakfast too. Maybe I need to learn a lesson about gluttony. Hmmmm...

Arriving in Addis Abbaba at 1:30 in the morning (24 hours later than I was supposed to), I had to stand in line to purchase a visa, but when I finally came out, there was a taxi-driver holding a sign with my name on it. I thanked him for waiting and he assured me that it was no problem at all compared to when he had waited all night (1:30am-6:30am) the previous night, not knowing if I would come out of the airport or not! Poor guy. He was a tiny, cheerful, chap who outweighed my left foot by at least 2 ounces and he wore a ski jacket to protect him from the frigid +15 temperatures. I was just happy that he spoke a smattering of English which was far better than the zero capacity that I had for Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. He led me to his 1965 Peugeot 204 that looked like it might not be able to support the weight of both me and my luggage and after a quick push-start, we were on our way. As soon as we left the airport, he coasted to a petrol station and swore loudly when the attendant said that the pumps were out of order. This made me slightly concerned that I might be pushing the car to the guesthouse, but I needn’t have worried, as the antique ran just fine on fumes, taking us over some seriously difficult terrain.

When we got to the guest-house, the guard let us in to the yard, but told me that he had not been given a key to the building itself, or to my room. Hmmm…. By this time it was 4:30am. I used the taxi-man’s cell-phone to call the guesthouse phone. After about 10 rings, a light came on upstairs and a tired voice said that he would come down and let me in. Dale, it turns out, is also a guest there, but was gracious enough to show me where I could sleep! (Turns out that the guesthouse manager was away and things were not running as smoothly as they should). I didn’t care. I was finally here. Felt great to get some sleep for a few hours.

Today's quote: One of the great achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on [gluttony], so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe.
C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters

Our hero departs...

The journey begins with our hero (I’ve always wanted to narrate myself in that role) getting on the plane in Calgary dead-tired after several days on minimal to no sleep. I normally really enjoy trying to see all the movies offered on a flight, but this time, I just slept the entire 7 hours to Heathrow. A 25-hour layover is not much fun. UNLESS… you happen to have a friend of a friend who has offered you a place to crash.

I had a fantastic time with Jenny who took me to her local pub for a friend’s birthday-party, fed me and gave me a bed in her home in the BEAUTIFUL town of Bath Spa. I couldn’t get over how gorgeous the area was. I went for a run in the morning and contemplated not coming back, since the path along the canal was so spectacular.

Turns out I could have kept running since British Airways and BMI couldn’t coordinate things and find my eticket in their systems. (The ticket was issued by BA, but the flight was operated by BMI). Their phones were not working and I ended up running back and forth between the two offices until I missed my flight! Of course, both companies claimed that the other was responsible. After several more hours of getting the run-around, I was finally given a hotel-room while I waited for my flight the following day. It was a pretty frustrating experience.

The funniest thing happened when I tried to use the pay phone to tell people in Ethiopia about the changed flight. I couldn’t get through so I dialled the operator. After giving the complete number, I waited for a moment and then heard the reply “I’m sorry sir, that particular country-code is blocked, can I connect you to a different country?”

“What!? NOOOOO! (Narrator: Our hero is both devestated and highly amused.) I don’t want to talk to someone in a different country! I need to cancel my airport pick-up.” I tried again with the cell phone number of my friend in Addis. Same thing… “Can I help you make a call to a different country?” I could hardly believe the sincerity of hopeful helpfulness in her voice. I hung up, slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, laughing and laughing at the insanity of it all. And so began “Just About Crazy”.