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