Thursday, November 30, 2006

Here, at last, is a pic of the fabled Thanksgiving cake. Valentine's first comment upon seeing it was: "Well, as long as it's not turkey flavored, I'm ok with it."
I haven't been blogging the last few days because I knew that if I sat down to write, I would only rant about my car. This last month it has spent more time at the repair garage than at home. I am now beginning to suspect that is is possessed by demons. When I add oil,which is often, the car just kind of rinses its mouth with it and delicately spits it back out. Huge, expensive pieces of metal in the engine keep breaking off. It's grim. Add to this the fact that I keep getting stranded all over town and have to flag down "green taxis". These are unmetered, barely road-worthy taxis driven by men notorious for gouging tourists. This is a rather fatiguing, as it usually takes a while to make the driver understand that I am not going to pay 10 times the normal fare. It's sometimes hard to keep cool. "I'm not a tourist!" I want to shriek, "Look at me! Am I wearing brand-new safari clothes head to toe? Am I wearing socks with my sandals? A giant sunhat? Shorts? It should be obvious that I'm not going to pay 1500 cfa for a 150 cfa taxi ride!"
On the other hand, things at the VAO are going great. We are set up over there and starting to sell a bit. It's a bit slow, but the other vendors assure me that things pick up in December. That's tomorrow!

2 comments:

Ksam said...

Wow, I am SO impressed by that cake!

Anonymous said...

Hi Beth,
I've just come across your blog site. I visited VAO earlier this year to buy products for a small fair trade business I'm starting in Australia and managed to buy the Papiers du Sahel shop out of photo albums etc. (after reading about them in the Bradt Guide) - before my trip I'd seen the website but now it doesn't come up under www.sahelprojects.org - is there a new site I can look at?
Thanks, Kym Pointon