Back when we lived in Ouagadougou, we had a television, but never bothered to hook up the antenna. And there was no question of paying good money (or even bad money) for a satellite dish.
The tv was never turned on during the week.
At all.
On the weekends, our kids were allowed to watch just one video cassette per day (with the exception of special permission from their soft-hearted father).
One of the most often viewed and most treasured of these cassettes was « My Little Pony ». It was a French tape, so it was actually « Mon Petit Poney ». In this cartoon, small, chubby, pastel-colored talking horses went about their daily activities. And their daily activities included: being adorable, going on scavenger hunts, being even more cloyingly adorable, babysitting naughty (yet adorable!) toddler ponies, being adorable some more and rescuing a rock-star pony from the clutches of an evil manager. (Note: Rock Star Pony looked and sounded very much like The Artist Formerly Known as Prince and that particular episode was, as you may imagine, peculiarly fascinating)

One thing the ponies were never, ever obliged to do in an episode of the show was flee from people intent on killing them, butchering them and serving them up as Sunday lunch. This might well have been the plot of an installment if the show had been made in France, or Switzerland.

Most of you probably already knew that the French eat horse meat. What you may not have known is that the Swiss do it too.
They’re sneaky that way.
The Swiss may seem charming but you have to watch them closely. Otherwise, the minute you sit down to the table for a nice lunch, they are plonking down a huge roasting pan right in front of you and it’s chock-full of Mr. Ed basted in an herbed wine sauce.

And I know this is absolutely true because that’s exactly what happened to me last Sunday.

We’d gone to the Swiss city of Lausanne to visit some good friends there. We’ve known M and D for many years and were looking forward to a nice meal with them and then a group visit to an old hotel that was auctioning off all it’s furnishings (note: this hotel will figure very prominently in my next post for reasons which will surprise you. )

Anyway, there we were, all sitting around the table. There was JP, the twins, Sev, and our friends’ two lovely teen-aged sons. M was in the kitchen finishing up , while D approached the table with a big cast-iron dutch oven.
He put it down right in front of me and lifted off the lid with a decided flourish.
The large chunk of meat inside had a definite gray tinge to it. I figured that it was the sauce that had given it a funny color.
D want back to the kitchen to get a better knife and those of us left at the table speculated as to what it was.
Beef was the general consensus.
By this time, D was back at the table, hacking away at it with a large knife.
I asked him what the meat was.
« C’est un rôti de petit poulain. » he happily informed me.
« Poulain » is « foal » in English.
We were being served « roast of small foal ».
« You’re kidding, right? » I asked him.
D just looked at me quizzically and went back to putting slices on Sev’s plate.
I turned to JP. « He’s kidding, right? »
JP peered down at the lumps of gray on his own plate.
« No. I don’t think he’s kidding »
« Seriously . What is it? » I insisted, a vaguely worried feeling creeping into my mind.
« Poulain. » he said again, quite surprised I’d asked twice.
« Really? What? Really?........As in « My Little Pony ?» I asked, a bit desperately.
During all this, M had been coming down the long hallway to the dining room. She could see me clearly the whole time and she swears that throughout this exchange my face went from draining paper white to flushing bright red. (Note to self: Don’t plan to earn millions as a professional poker player)

D didn’t quite get what my problem was. In fact, he’d gone specially to the horse-butcher’s shop to buy us this nice treat.
I said that it was just like serving a roasted kitten.
In other words, not so good.

The twins, of course, refused to touch it.
The men of our family, on the other hand, chowed down. Sev even had seconds and thirds. With sauce. Horse blood sauce.
Gah!!

I’m not even that keen on eating cows. I serve beef to our family maybe once a week, max. It’s always organic, relatively happy beef and usually small quantities- little chunks in a sauce over pasta or rice, rather than steaks.

The foal roast was so very, very creepy.

Luckily, M and D are good pals and we all managed to have a good laugh about it in the end
Everyone but the foal, anyway…

The weekend was both very busy and very quiet. Saturday was the crazy bit- I took the twins up for some skiing , had a couple of English lessons to teach and just generally kept going all day.
Then on Sunday, I was up early (5:30am!) and took JP to the Geneva airport. (He's now in Ouagadougou- he'll attend a conference and then get some fieldwork in. He'll be back in a month).

After that, the day quieted right down. My Big Plan was to go see 'Avatar'. We'd tried to go last week, but had arrived only to find it was completely sold out, even though it was playing on two big screens at the multiplex! I ended up watching "Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard" with the twins and their friend we'd brought along. The movie was not All That, as you can guess just from the title. And I'm thinking of sending the following letter to the director:

Dear Luc Besson,

Contrary to what you may believe, that was not a 'cliffhanger'. It was just half a mediocre film.

As a result, I'd like a refund of 50% of my ticket.

On second thought, I'd like a full refund. Hearing "Poker Face" interpreted by the Minimoys Band gave me a bad, bad headache.

Sincerely,

Beth

I thought we'd have better luck this week, as I cleverly went online Sunday morning to buy our tickets for "Avatar" (in 3-D and in English! ) online. But all of the English language showings were sold out. Every one of them all day long. We ended up cleaning the house a bit, which was NOT a satisfactory substitute. I'm afraid it ended up being a rather dull day...

So, that was the weekend. Now it's Monday and I've been doing laundry and ...cleaning the house some more. It's the day I usually change all the sheets and clean the bathrooms. And today I did so while singing "Walk This Way" the whole time.

I don't even like that song.

In fact, I think I've cordially hated it since it was played 24/7 on the radio when it came out in 1976 . That's how it seemed to my 10 year old ears, anyway. I think they may have also occasionally played "Afternoon Delight", a song which actually makes me vomit a little. (Watch out when you click the link, btw- the song exerpt starts up right away and it's NOT for the fainthearted.)

Anyway, WTW is a song that, like it or hate it, everyone has heard. You, dear reader, can most likely hum the opening bars, as they make up the second most recognised guitar riff in history. (First place must go to "Smoke on the Water", of course)

But do you know the words?
I do.
All of them, I'm sorry to report.
This is due to the fact that, as a result of intense lobbying by the guitarists, my kids' rock band (which still doesn't have a name, btw) is covering the song. They are all really much more into alt rock /pop punk, but that famous riff, plus the long guitar solo at the end thoroughly won over Antoine (lead guitar) and Max (subordinate follower guitar). They carried the day and now Valentine is busy learning the rapid-fire lyrics. She's had to change them around a bit to make them girl-appropriate and less obscene and has done quite a bit of work. Which means I've heard the song over and over and over and over again as she plays it and struggles with the words.

Me? I'm really much more of a "Sound of Music" kind of person..... lyrics like "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" just seem to suit me much better than ones that proclaim that "you ain't seen nothin till you're down on a muffin". ..

I had better luck on the phone today and managed to get in touch with the Papiers du Sahel women! Their store and outdoor workshop are both fine. Nearly all of them escaped Tuesday's flood with no major problems. Sadly, the home of one family (Ramata's) collapsed and she and her children are now lodged in a school building with hundreds of other families. But at least they are unhurt and safe.

I chatted awhile with Haoua and learned that the women are getting pretty discouraged with the project. Sales are way down since I left the project and few orders are coming in.

I was happy to be able to tell her that things may get better in the future. This month, a French bridal magazine gave about half a page to Papiers du Sahel wedding invitations!

The women now have one small order for them, but lets hope for many more to come...

If you'd like to see what the women make and how they do it, check out this site. If you'd order, that would be even better. They can't ship tiny orders to the USA or Europe, but if you'd like to give a bunch of Papiers stuff as holiday gifts, or sell it at a craft fair/Christmas fair/whatever, you can order in quantities they can ship.

If you don't speak any French, contact me and I'll take care of the ordering for you.

(NB: If you live in Australia, order from these nice people here. If you live in Utah, visit these good folks in Logan. )

If you have some money to spare and feel that you'd like to directly help flood victims in Burkina Faso, you can send your contribution to my friends in Ouaga. I have known Steve and Amy for years and know that they will do their best to really help the people that need it most.

Here's the appeal that they just sent out:

Greetings from Burkina Faso,

In a country where 14 inches of rain would be an annual rainfall, we received 14 inches in less than 12 hours. This was the largest rain since 1919. That’s going back a ways. The canals that normally evacuate the water run-off quite adequately, were incapable of doing so this time. The result was that many neighborhoods were overcome with water. In the poorer neighborhoods of the city, many of the mud brick homes were unable to withstand the rush of the water and, as a result, came down! Today, it is estimated that 150,000 people are homeless, living in schools or with family. Some lost every bit of their personal belongings, even though they never had much to begin with. A number of people lost their lives in the rushing water. Bridges and dams have been destroyed. One of the main generators, that powers electricity to the capital city, was destroyed. We were already having significant power cuts due to the inability to provide electricity for the whole city at one time. This will likely aggravate the situation even further.

The relief and development organization of our church, ACCEDES, is planning to do something tangible to help meet the needs. They certainly can’t help everyone, but they can help some and we can help with them. The plan is to provide food for 500 people for 2 months, and to provide three changes of clothing for 500, as well as to provide medicine for those who may need emergency medicine. The total cost of the relief effort is estimated at about $24,000. About $10,000 has been promised from CAMA Services. We are trying to partner with ACCEDES and CAMA to find the funds to help with this need.

If you or your church would like to help in some way, you can send a gift to CAMA Service, P.O. Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500. Be sure to note that it is for Burkina Flood Relief.

Thanks.

Steve Nehlsen
Field Director – The C&MA in Burkina Faso

I've been trying to phone Aisha all morning. And I've been wondering about Yvonne and her children, too- but she has no access to a phone. In fact, I've been worried about everyone in Ouaga- especially my many Burkinabé friends whose simple mud-brick homes stood little chance of surviving the terrible rains of Tuesday, September 1st.

Yesterday I didn't even turn on my computer or television, so I only found out about this disaster this morning. My Facebook page was full of news from many friends in Ouaga- lucky friends with internet access and sturdy homes - though there was flooding and lots of property damage everywhere.

In just 10 hours, over a foot of rain fell. Houses collapsed, cars floated away and bridges washed out.
The only bright spot is that there seem to be relatively few death reported- only five so far. The downside is that with 150,000 left homeless and this year's food crop damaged, there may be lots more suffering ahead for many people.

Here are a few photos:
This one was taken the morning of the 1st, just outside the ISO gates, very close to our old house.

These cars floating away were photographed along the Blvd Charles de G. It's the road we'd take every day to get to school and work.

This is also from our old neighborhood:

Here's one man try to keep the water out:

Here are some pictures from the next day. They show what happens to mud brick houses when it rains too much, too hard.
One of the deaths was caused by a collasping house. Luckily, it seems that most people managed to escape their homes before they fell in.


(NB: These were taken by Alice and Pete- friends from Ouaga. They are lovely people and doing all they can to help out in this difficult situation.)

Burkina Faso is already a country with many issues- education woes, poverty, corruption. The government is trying to meet the challenge of this disaster...That's what the Burkinabé press reports, anyway. But they have little/almost no money, no experience (the last flood was in 1919) and lots of other problems to deal with.
I really fear this flood will be responsible for even more hunger and disease in an already difficult environment.
In the meantime, I try the phone again.
And I wait.

It's sadly ironic that a life that a vacation chock-full of fun, outings and general good-times contains SO much material for blogging, but at the same time eats up every moment that could possibly be used to blog about it.
I've missed my blog this last week, but what's a girl to do? After we got back from a great time in Germany, our friends (ex-Ouaga neighbors) T and K arrived from Bamako with their two lovely moppets, Zoe and Francis. They're staying for about a week and we're determined to show them all the nice things there are to see in our part of the French Alps.
And that's a lot of nice things...

Yesterday, we went to Chamonix, took the little train and then the telecabin up Mont Blanc to the Mer de Glace glacier. We went into the ice cave dug into the base of it and it was "cool" in all senses of the word. (I promise some pics asap)

Today, we went to the very beautiful Annecy Lake and spent the day swimming.

I haven't loaded the pictures yet from any of this. All I've got is a few belated photos of our time in Germany. Here, for your viewing pleasure:




My maiden name is Kolb, so I found the "Kolb's Biergarten" extremely entertaining. They make nice schitzel and serve very, very large beers, which is, I guess, par for the course in a German biergarten.

Here's a view of the place.

It was in a town called Worms, which is kind of sad for them.

(Yes, I know you say it "Vorms", but still...)

What really went on in Jurassic Park :

(Apparently, it was WAY more fun than the movie made it look)

And finally, here are the girls and their cousin walking along the Rhine:
That's all I've got today, but I'll try to post again soon...

Burkina Faso has been on my mind a lot lately, as you may have guessed from my last post. It's not only the rain that keeps it constantly on my mental radar. There's also the fact that JP is still there, nearly at the end of a one month research stint.

And Aisha just called a couple of nights ago, to see if I'd "forgotten" about her.

The answer to that question was "no", of course. When JP left France he had one duffle bag almost completely full of little gifts and letters for Yvonne, Aisha and other people I'll certainly never forget.

Knowing people there seems to be the only way to get any real news of the country, that's for certain. There's little to be had online, anyway. If you google for some news of the place today, for example, you'll find out that the president of Burkina just named a new army Chief of Staff.

It's very hard to find anything about the news I got last night from JP: There were riots yesterday in the marketplace in the center of the capital city. You only find an article about this if you search with both the words 'Ouagadougou' and 'marché'- so basically, you have to already know the news in order to find out any news- if you see what I mean. And you have to speak French, of course.

As for the news I heard last night- here's what I know: The Rood-Woko market (where I bought most of our household odds and ends when we arrived in Ouaga) caught on fire and was badly damaged in May of 2003. It was an ugly thing- Sankara's graceless modern replacement for the old colonial-era structure. But at least the new cement box was huge and provided shade and shelter for many, many small merchants. Built in 1989 to hold about 2000 traders, by the time we arrived in the country (1999) there were about 5500 present.

It was chaotic and overcrowded and noisy. It smelled like dust, rotten fruit, Oro brand insect spray, blood, spices and a million other things.

The lower level was the basics: cheap polyester clothes from Asia, pagnes, shoes, hair supplies (it was the go-to place for wigs and extensions). And just after the wigs was the meat market, buzzing with big black flies and full of huge, scary machetes -my least favorite place.

Upstairs you could find the touristy arts and crafts and fancier fabrics. In the southwest corner of that level was my favorite place: the bead merchant stands with baskets and buckets full of nothing but brightly-colored beads of every kind.

Getting through the market was not for the faint-hearted. You had to duck under beams, squeeze up crumbling cement stairs nearly completely blocked by the goods of traders who'd set up their shops ON the steps and then hop over the many jerry-rigged electrical lines hanging like 220 volt spiderwebs everywhere.

Crazy as the place was, it was the center of life for thousands of people. This in mind, I had thought the Burkinabé government would make a heoric effort to get the place running again quickly. But the clean-up and repair dragged on for years. It was only just re-opened in March 2009.

And, unfortunately, things haven't been going very well. It's badly organised, the merchants claim, and inaccessible. Business is slow. It's nothing like the dynamic and lively place it used to be.

One real sore point is the presence of a great number of machine-gun toting police officers. This , in fact, was the cause of Thursday's riots. They chased a young man through the marketplace and he died while trying to escape them. The people in the market reacted by burning some of the officers' motorcycles.

There's other news, too. For the last months the crime rate in our old neighborhood has been steadily rising. The robbery at our house last year was just one of many more to come. And now purse/backpack snatchings have become a huge problem, as well.

Good news? There's not so much. Even the climate has gone funny. Out in the Winye villages, where JP does his research, the rains have come late and people are worried for their crops. The people are blaming the Earth Priests, who carried out the proper sacrifices, but too late in the year. They were disorganised and the ceremonies didn't take place at the right time. They admit that the lack of rain is their fault-how could they do otherwise. They're very sorry, but the damage is done...

« A few months ago, my friend David asked me if I thought that it would be possible to travel around the world via blog. "Like Around The World In 80 Days," he said, "but on the Internet. Around the world in 80 clicks. 80 mom-blogger clicks!" "I don't know," I said. "But it sure sounds like a cool thing to try." "Cool. And if you could visit, virtually, moms around the world, what would you want to talk to them about?"

So begins a post over at the blog called « Her Bad Mother ». It is a very good blog, probably a great one, featuring some masterful writing. It’s funny, honest and powerful. So, it is with amazement that I find myself participating in the « 80 clicks project » as a sort of featured co-blogger.

Here’s a bit more from the original post:
« Here's how it's going to work: this post that you're reading? Is the departure lounge. I'm going to link to a couple of other mom bloggers here in Canada, and to a couple of mom bloggers from other countries around the world, and they'll write their posts, sharing 5 things that they love (or maybe what they don't so much love - this playground doesn't force conformity) about being a mom, and then they'll tag a few more bloggers from their own country and from other countries, and so on. And you're more than welcome to join: just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don't know any; google any country name and 'mom' in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you've tagged them!) - and link back here and leave a comment and we'll add you to the 'itinerary,' which David will compile and post and update as the tour proceeds. »

So, here I am, one of the lucky « couple of mom bloggers from other countries».

What do I love about being a mom? If someone would have given me this writing assignment 11 years ago, when I had a four year old, a two year old , newborn twins and a husband constantly far from home, working in Africa, I would have had a very different list. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived and mostly isolated from adult company. But I still, somehow, adored being a mom. I thought breastfeeding was fun. I loved bathing the babies and dressing them up in tiny clothes. I loved singing to them, talking to them, playing with them and just sitting around watching them sleep.
I really did love everything about it. I was tired, but euphoric.

The only time I ever came close to an "I can‘t do this" moment was when my husband announced we would all be moving to Burkina Faso. Could I be a mom in one of the poorest countries in the world? Could I keep my children healthy and safe? Was this the right thing to do? These were terrible worries and they made my sense of responsibility four these four small lives seem like a huge burden, possibly beyond my capacity to competently manage.
But, of course, it wasn’t.
We all lived and thrived in Ouagadougou. My little ones grew from babies into children. And I learned that there’s more to love about being a mom than I ever imagined.

I’ve mixed the slightly serious in with the very silly, but there you go. Just because it’s silly doesn’t mean it’s not true…

What I love about being a mom:

5. I love that it comes with a title. Some people get called « Mr. President », some go by « Your Majesty ». Good for them.
But me? I’m « Mom ».
When my four tumble through the door after a long day at school, all yelling for Mom to come down out of her « writing garret » and hear about their adventures, my heart leaps. Really.
It’s a title I wear with pride. And yes, it’s one I share with many, many women all over the globe, but that only makes me love it all the more.

4. It’s the best way to meet people. When I first moved to France, friends warned me that the people in remote French mountain villages were invariably suspicious and unfriendly. Slow to warm up, to put it kindly. But all it took was a couple of walks up and down the lane, pushing my baby daughter in her stroller. Fellow moms came pouring out to arrange play dates. Elderly couples came out to coo, admire and invite us in for tea.
The same thing happened when we moved to Burkina Faso. I had just arrived and wanted to find friends, so I herded my four little ones outside and went for a walk. That was all it took. Within minutes, we had new pals galore.
Being a mom means that I have instant icebreakers at my fingertips.
Yes, children are the key to international friendship and understanding.
But we all knew that already, right?

3. There’s always someone to clean out the litter box. Someone who is not me.

2. I love that I can share everything that I love with my kids. Reading "The Hobbit" and "The BFG" to them, watching all the Star Trek movies with them, camping with them, teaching them to crochet, playing "Risk" with them, singing with them, travelling all over the world with them, cooking with them...the list is nearly endless, but it brings me great joy to say to my children: "Hey! I love this. I bet you will, too!" and then embark on another adventure of learning with them.

1. I love that I get to know and be around the four most amazing people I have ever met. I got to hold them as babies, chase them around as toddlers, and shepherd them through the crazy elementary school years. And now I get to listen to their assorted ideas, problems and clever (mostly) jokes, help them with mind-bending home work and watch them all turn into delightful teenagers. Eventually, with any luck, I’ll see them turn into caring and capable adults. This is, without a doubt, absolutely the best thing I could possibly be doing with my life.

How could I not love that?

Now I get to tag a couple of other moms around the world to participate. First of all, we'll go off to sunny Spain to hear what Oreneta has to say on the subject. Then I'll ask Reb to chime in.

I mustered the energy to go to the grocery store last night, after I got done at the school. As I wandered the aisles, I reflected on the love-hate relationship with going to the grocery store in France.
No, make that hate-hate relationship. That means I really, really hate it, right?

When we first got to France, I did sort of love it, though. It was so clean and cool there. And so much choice. But it turned out to be too much choice (see this blog post) and so many other things about it drive me crazy these days.
First of all, the gocery carts are all out in the parking lot, chained together and the only way to get one is to slide a one euro piece into a slot. It's SO annoying, especially if, for example, you go for a big shopping expedition because all you have left at home to eat is a half a shrivelled eggplant and a box of corn starch and you find that the one euro coin that you ALWAYS leave in the car just for this purpose is gone, possibly taken by one of your kids to buy gum.

So, you rummage in your wallet and find that you actually have one euro worth of 1, 2 and 5 cent coins. Hoping to trade this huge handful of change in for a one euro coin, you go into the store and find your way to the "customer service" desk, where they do the huge service of telling you that they don't have access to any money, sorry. You'll have to ask one of the cashiers. Yeah. One of those harrassed looking people over there facing lines of customers 15 deep. Right.

If you can't get a cart, of course they do offer free of charge a shopping basket you can use. It is just about big enough to hold a four pack of yogurt and a baguette. It's just the ticket if you are shopping for a single person, hopefully an anorexic one, but is useless when shopping for six normal human beings.

And if that wasn't enough to hate, I heard no less than two songs by The Police and one by The Cure being played over the loudspeakers at the Super U. It was a bad moment for me. Nothing hurts like hearing something that you think is cool being played at the local supermarket."This is what passes as Shopping with Old People music now??!!" When did The Cure fall so low? Supermarket managers in rural France got the bulletin on this and not me?" I silently lamented.

And how about this: There you are, finally in the checkout lane after a long grueling shopping session and you are thirsty. If you are in France, you are flat out of luck. You'll just have to dehydrate, get kidney stones and die alone in terrible pain. You can't find water- not like in the USA where many shops have a nice drinking fountain right near the restrooms.
In France there are fountains, but they are the kind that are large, ornamental, outdoors and marked "non-potable".
And don't think of dragging your sadly desperate self into the restroom for a quick drink out of the sink there. That's marked "non-potable" as well.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad if they sold cold drinks in the supermarket, but they don't. You know how US stores like to use that space near the cash register for impulse buys like candy and drinks? There's usually a grizzly bear sized cooler filled with small bottles of spring water, water with vitamins, water with extra oxygen and all sorts of other drinks, including my personal favorite: Diet Dr. Pepper, which is probably made up of 700 different kinds of cancer causing substances, but I just don't care.

Well, in France, forget that. No water, no anything.

So, there you are- all parched and annoyed and now it's time to unload your shopping cart. If you were in , say, Ouagadougou, the cashier would check out your items and they would pass down the conveyor belt and into the capable hands of two or three really nice young men who would quickly box everything up for you, carry it all to your car and load it for you. And you could give them a small tip and they would be really pleased because (can you believe this?) lots of people don't tip at all. Cheapskates. Then you drive home quickly and have a nice glass of water. (there's no water available in Ouaga supermarkets either)

In general, under the above system, everybody goes home happy.

In France, though, this is the point where the major stress is just beginning. You unload your cart as fast as you can and the groceries zoom past the cashier and are shoved down the conveyer belt. They pile up at the end, a veritable Mount Everest of groceries. This is when you are supposed to whisk out your handy, ecologically correct shopping bags Wait! Don't tell me you forget your re-usable canvas shopping bags? If so, too bad for you, because there are no free bags at the store.

Bags or no, the cashier keeps pushing stuff at you and you deal with it as fast as you can, but it's never fast enough. She calls out the total and you're not even half done packing everything, but you fumble around for your "carte fidelité" and your carte bleu so you can pay for it all.
You punch in your code and start bagging again as the line behind you grows and grows.In fact, it seems like the entire population of France is in that line, waiting for you to get your show on the road. Babies are wailing, people tap their feet impatiently and yes, that elderly priest is glaring at you.

So you throw all your stuff into bags, trying to keep from putting the bottles of orange juice on top of the tomatoes....You get the general idea by now, probably. Guess I woke up in a rant-y mood this morning.

What else is new around here?Well, it's been snowing like mad since last night, but I guess that's not really anything new. The kids are out right now, all four of them, rolling around in the piles of snow and falling flakes. I'm glad someone is enjoying it. I am just dreading having to dig the car out.
I'll probably manage to avoid going out today, but I'll have to tomorrow, as I have to go pick up Cristie the Romanian Handyman tomorrow at noon. He's coming back to help out with more work around the house. Lots of wallpapering, painting and small repairs remain to be done and Cristie's energy is needed to get us rolling again.
I'll be sure and take pictures of the work for all you HGTV fans out there

When people find out that we've moved to France from Burkina Faso, I frequently get this remark, or something very like: "Well, this must be a big change for you."
I guess it's one of those conversational space fillers, because I doubt they're really expecting me to say "No, actually France is just like West Africa. Except for the cheese. You guys have way more cheese here. But other than that, life is exactly the same. Yup. Amazing but true."

The reality is, that besides the fact that you breathe oxygen in both locations, life couldn't be more different, at every level.
Some examples, taken from daily life:
1. In Ouagadougou, most people don't have septic tanks. And even latrines are considered pretty fancy stuff. Most folks just find a corner, more or less secluded, and squat.
In contrast, here in France, the Septic Tank Inspector comes around and checks that everything drains where it should. One came to visit me today, in fact. His verdict? Spend money, much money because it's wrong, all wrong. And in the immortal words of the Terminator: "he'll be back".
2. Everything I own isn't covered with fine orange dust.
3. Burkina is full of black people. Rural France has none, as far as I can tell, unless they are out there hiding behind the cows.
4. I mention the cows because they are enormous here. They are like elephants with nose jobs and fuzzy jackets.
African cattle are lean to skeletal. They are the cow version of marathon runners. They look desperate, joyless and in need of a good meal.
And we musn't forget:
5. In Burkina we were never in any danger of freezing to death. This is in direct contrast to life in the French Alps in the autumn. There is already snow on the nearby hillsides and each night the temperature here at the house hovers around freezing.
To help stave off the cold, we ordered some firewood last weekend. We all had to work like mad to get it stacked up under shelter before the rain started up.
Note: in nine years in Ouagadougou, I never, ever had to haul and stack firewood.
Here's the Frogman and Tya, nearly done with moving the first half of the load.

This is the wood for the woodstove and had to be stacked up in the garage.
The immediate danger of freezing now neutralized, we've moved on to other tasks. One has been to scrape the moss off the roof tiles. This is yet another thing that we never, ever had to worry about in Ouagadougou. We occasionally paid someone to go up on the roof and brush off the dead leaves and cockroaches, but that was about it.

The garage needs to be cleaned out now that the Great Septic Tank Crisis has passed. And I haven't done anything in the yard in ages, despite promising Mal that we could plant some bulbs for the spring. So, this should be yet another busy, non-African week here in the Haute Savoie...

I just came across a website that features only blogs that post daily and without fail. Maybe I'll try it next month...September is definitely out of the question. You'd all be treated to posts like:

"Wallpapered Valentine's bedroom until midnight. Woke up this morning at 5, cleaned the catbox and put in a load of laundry. Today's plan also includes grocery shopping and re-grouting the hallway tiles. BTW: roof still leaks, srsly."

It's probably best that you be spared that.

An innovation that I am going to initiate immediately though, is a booklist in the sidebar to note what I have read recently/am currently reading. It was impossible to do back when I blogged in Ouaga, as I read so much! I could get through a book in a couple of days. That was because I had the amazing luxury of a driver to take me around. I had plenty of time to read in the car.

Also, I spent scads of time waiting. I waited everywhere and for hours: the electric company, phone company, airline office, tax office, etc. Here in France, things just seem to get done differently. I'm not saying that I don't wait for things to happen. In fact, I will probably be waiting until l'enfer freezes over for the guy to come fix the roof. But at least I can regrout the tiles while I wait.

Right now I have to end this post. It's the first day of school for my older kids. The little ones started on Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll definitely post about their schools and the French rentrée in general.

I don't want to go into details, but Friday sucked.

If it had been any suckier, it would have collapsed upon itself, forming a huge black hole right here in the middle of Ouagadougou.

And if God were merciful, I would have fallen in and been instantly destroyed upon contact with the anti-matter, effectively putting me out of my misery.

If you live in Ouaga, will be moving here or even just know someone here, this is a good place to know about: AGIR medical clinic.
I was just there yesterday morning, dropping off a bag full of old prescription glasses. One of the many great things AGIR does is provide eye care and affordable glasses for needy people in Burkina. If you have old glasses to donate, AGIR will find someone that needs them, which is great!
They also have a regulat medical clinic that features two Belgian doctors that speak English really well. They are both missionary doctors and most of the money they make from treating well-off patients goes towards subsidizing medical care for the poor. They hope to eventually set up a mobile clinic to reach out to the poorest areas.
AGIR is in the Zone du Bois neighborhood, to the northeast of the University of Ouagadougou, very near the Lycee Technique.

I guess doctors are also on my mind because there are so many sick people around here. JP was up all night and feels dreadful. Mallory is being treated for malaria and the friend that the twins invited to stay the night last night has also come down with malaria. I think the girls all caught it two weeks ago when they slept over at a house with no screens or mosquito nets. Not a good idea in the rainy season in Burkina.

Only three and a half days left here in Burkina. It's hard to believe...

This morning was spent at the electric company office in Dassasgho, again trying to close down our account. I had plenty of time to look around and count the fellow sufferers - I mean clients- waiting in line. Sixty two of us there were, crammed into a small waiting room served by six glacially slow Sonabel agents.
I had a book along to pass the time, but even counting people in line was more interesting. 'The Crimson Code' by Rachel Lee is touted on the cover as "a highly complex thriller". But it is actually a very simple soporific.
At one point during the wait, the power went off for quite a while.
That's right. The Sonabel can't even keep the power on in their offices.


But that's all over and done and now I'm busy getting the car (which I'd like to SELL now, please) repaired. Yesterday's exciting adventures in the bush knocked the muffler loose and it needs some work now. That trip was so great in so many ways.
Anyway, judging from the noise it makes now, you'd think my feeble little station wagon had a 747 engine under the hood.
The extreme racket, coupled with the green color of my car, did give me worries that people were going to mistake my car for a Taxi Vert. The cheap local taxis here are olive green and usually in very bad repair. I always fancied that my car was a nicer shade of green- more turquoise-ish, but I was probably kidding myself. Nobody has flagged me down yet, but it's just a matter of time. I hope I can get it properly fixed before tomorrow morning...

In a country where the vast majority of the population gets around by bike, scooter or on foot, the rainy season is a general invitation to chaos. No one is ever where they are suppoosed to be when they are suppposed to be there. So, you can sit at the phone company offices (for example) for over an hour, waiting for the employees to show up. Multiply this by the electric company and the water company and it adds up to lots of hours hanging out at public utilities. What fun. Remind me next time to move during the hot season. Oh wait- I forgot: I'm never moving again. EVER. It's way too much work. When I get to our house in France I am settling in and do not intend to be pried loose under any circumstances.
Unless JP gets a really cool job in, say, New Caledonia. That would be COOL!

Mostly I am making progress on our move. The house is being painted and small repairs made. The utilities will soon (I hope) be shut off.
The cats are all ready to travel. Their blood test results came back from France pretty quickly and the microchips are in, so Mr. Darcy and Cleo are good to go.

I have no access to TV and little to internet though, so I have no idea what's going on in the world beyond Ouagadougou. It's actually kind of soothing. I don't have to process any information not directly related to my immediate survival. Which is nice, because my brain is kind of tired. Maybe exhausted. I went to sleep at 7:30pm last night, fully clothed. I had laid down across the bed for "just a little rest". Right.

Finding time to get to an internet café and sit around blogging is turning our to be even harder than I thought. On top of everything else, Mallory got quite sick yesterday with a huge fever I was sure it was malaria, as she spiked a fever of 103°F. This was accompanied by some weird babbling. She told me that she had a hole in her brain and that she had lost all her happiness, among other things. It was definitely some feverish delusion, as she is better today and her happiness is pretty intact. I figure that her brain is ok, too. And the malaria test came back negative. Just one of those viruses, I guess.
But all of that certainly ate up my time yesterday. So, I have been trying to catch up today. One task is to find a picture online of my laptop. The police are inquiring into our case, but would like a picture, so I'm here to look online for something I can print out.


When I went to the police station on Monday, I was ushered, after only a 20 minute wait, into the office of Officer Dolly.
"I am Inspector Dolly."
I just stood there processing. It's not a last name I've ever heard here. I figured that I must have misunderstood.
"Sammy Dolly", he added and handed me his card. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask him what ethnic group the was from. All I could think of was the great fun I was going to have telling everyone I knew that the officer on our case was called "Inspector Sammy Dolly".


Besides having a fun name Inspector Sammy Dolly is an energetic, thorough guy. First of all, he took a long statement from me. Then called up the person that had sent me away on Saturday and chewed him out. Finally, he came over to the house, looked around, interviewed neighbors and did all kinds of police-type activities.
He thinks that he might be able to track down some of our things. Maybe.
In the meantime, I am trying my own hand at sleuthing. I've been going to various second-hand electronics stands asking for nice used Minolta camera and a Fujitsu Siemens Laptop.
No luck so far, but one guy did say to check back tomorrow.


Thanks for the messages of support. I really need them, as they help ward off burn-out.
We are moving out of our house tomorrow. Then Sunday will be spent delivering the furniture that has been sold. Then I'll have to finish up the packing, as Container Day is Thursday.
If I don't post again for about a week, don't be surprised.

Monday afternoon found me sitting in the lobby of the local police station, clutching an empty Playstation 2 box to my chest, rocking back and forth as I watched a torrential rain pound down. If there had been anyone around, maybe they would have thought I was mildly autistic, but more probably they would have pegged me as just plain strange, but I'm used to that.


In truth, I was just tired, discouraged, miserable, angry and somewhat bored.
The latter problem was caused by the fact that I, who always brag about going everywhere in Burkina with a good book (so that long waits just fly by), had forgotten my book of the day back at the car and no way was I going out in a rain that had a real "firehose on full-blast" quality to it.
Luckily, though I didn't have a book, there were the chickens. Apparently, just as a firehouse in the USA might have a Dalmatian dog mascot, a police station in Burkina has a flock of mascot chickens. And strangely enough, the rain didn't send them all running for cover. A few of them were out in the downpour (dare I say it?) frolicking. Back in the USA, we have the expression "as mad as a wet hen". May I suggest a collorary to that: "as happy as a wet Burkinabé rooster".


Now you probably want to know why I was sitting at the police station, staring at chickens, being severely depressed. The answer lies in the empty PS2 box... and in my missing ipod, cellphone, dvd player, cell phone, digital camera, computer, etc.
I was at the station to give a statement to the police about the robbery at our house early Saturday morning.


I actually slept in a bit late on Saturday. I wandered out into the livingroom at about 8am (VERY late for me!), feeling ready to tackle the preparations for the big party that would be taking place that night. I noticed that my USB stick was missing off the bookshelf where I'd left it. I figured that maybe JP had taken it and went on into my office. No computer. I went to go ask Valentine about it, as she sometimes uses it in her room. That was when I saw my phone was gone.
Then I really started to realize that something was very wrong. The main clue (duh!) was the slashed mosquito screen and bent security bars of the living room window. We had been robbed, big time.
To say I was freaked would be to but it mildly. I've had things stolen before. Heck, I've already has two cellphones stolen while I've been here in Africa. But I'd never had housebreakers and the thought that strange men had possibly been in my children's bedrooms was giving me a severe, sick-making case of the creeps/willies/heebie-jeebies. The fact that Tya's ipod was still in place in her room reassured me that they probably had stayed away from her bedroom. But all my cash was gone from my purse that hung in the back hallway, just opposite the twins' bedroom door. Not a happy thought.


I didn't cry at all until I was in the car heading to the police station. And then it was just a little- mainly for Tya's school pictures. The few she had now really were lost for good, along with lots of other irreplaceable photos of our life here.
At the police station compound, the officer at the reception desk in the tiny cement-brick hut at the entrance took down a list of what was stolen and told me to come back on Monday.
Monday?
Didn't they want to, like- I don't know....investigate? Find clues?
Whatever.

I went on to the National Gendarmerie. I don't know what the heck they are in English. They are kind of like the police, but more of a military operation.
There I was pretty quickly ushered into the office of the head officer. This guy did come out to the house right away. He looked around a bit and had his assistant take a few photos.


And that was it, until Monday. That afternoon, I showed up once again at the police station. I brought along the big, bright blue Playstation box so someone could help me figure out which of the 20 different codes written on the box was the actual ID number of the machine.
Then, it started to rain, hard. I waited for about an hour and the officer I was supposed to see never showed up. Finally, I found a kind officer that was willing to phone him and set up another meeting for the next day. I hoped that it wouldn't rain again on Tuesday.


So, yesterday at 3pm I was back at the police station for a third time. My friends the chickens were running around like mad between the buildings, but I noticed that none of them ever ran out into the road through the wide-open gate. I guess they are living the good life in there and have no reason to wander. While Burkinabé cops don't eat doughnuts, maybe they toss their chickens the odd bit of leftover lunchtime tô or rice...


And what happened next? What's going on now? Well, I guess I'll have to come back and finish this sorry story tomorrow. My time here at the internet café is about up and I need to get home and pack for the move on Saturday.

Thanks to all my dear friends and loveable family (hi mom!) for your comments on the goat wedding post. I was SO happy to see all the messages from you-it made me teary (in that happy, really-touched kind of way) .
I, of course, had many, many adorable pictures of Yann and Dawn's wedding, but some creepy thief is probably erasing them all right now.

One part of leaving Ouaga is finding homes for many of our pets. That's why Dawn the Goat HAD to get married.
We managed to find a place for her with some lovely friends that already have a goat at home. But theirs is a BOY goat and as one thing would certainly lead to another, Mallory decided that a wedding would have to take place before any change in living arrangements could take place. Who is more of a stickler for the rules of civilised life than a 10 year old Nice Catholic Girl?

So, last Saturday Yann and Dawn got married.
When a Canadian friend of mine came by that morning, I was sewing the dress. And yes, I should have been packing boxes, working on the house inventory or even blogging. But I was sewing up a white lace-trimmed goat dress. Custom designed by me. Goat-couture, if you will.
The wedding cake was sitting on the table. It was pretty obvious what it was. It was a two-tiered white cake topped with white flowers and a pair of small plastic animals: the goat bride and groom.
Sandy laughed at me a while and then pulled out her camera to take some pictures.
"There's always something crazy going on at your house, Beth" she said, shaking her head, which I took to be a high form of compliment.
But you see how I may have gotten a rep around here for being a bit of an odd bird.


The guests arrived soon after and the ceremony began. As Mallory was needed to wrestle to bride down the aisle, Alexa had to be the officiating priestess. She got right into the rôle , digging up a white vestements and various trappings.


In the end, JP had to intervene, as Yann got a bit over-wrought with the emotions of the moment. As you can see, it was clearly a love-match. At the end, when Alexa said "You may now lick the bride", they sort of nuzzled each other, making us all optimistic about their possibilities for a very happy future life together.

Aslan and Midnight (who got married last year) will, of course, stay together. They'll be going to live at a sort of urban farm owned by some friends of ours. There are no other goats there, but plenty of horses and monkeys for company.

This morning, I bought a couple of newspapers, hoping to find some good coverage of yesterday's student protests. The stories I found were very sketchy- not much better than what I blogged here yesterday. So, I still don't know the real cause behind what happened.
The only new info I have is that the CRS riot police were NOT just shooting into the air to disperse the crowds. In fact, they shoot at the legs and feet of the students. Several are hospitalized with terrible injuries, two in critical condition.

The University grounds were completely quiet today. All classes were shut down.

After a morning running errands, I turned toward the Avenue Charles de Gaulles at about 11am only to find it blocked by riot police. And just a few blocks down, clouds of tear gas obscured the road.
Something was going on. Something not good.
When I pulled into my driveway about five minutes later, I got a text message on my cell phone. It was from the French Embassy, warning of gun fire near the University. The University which is about seven blocks from our house.
And yes, as I got out of the car, I did hear funny popping noises.
For about an hour there were spurts of gun fire. At a couple of points it got very, very loud and close. My neighbour Tony, who ventured out (brave Aussie lad) in his truck, said that the Avenue Babanguida (about four blocks away) was blocked off and the police line had reached that far.


I sat outside our gate on a log with Rasmané, our guardian, listening to the guns. We shook our heads in bafflement.
"I guess they're shooting in the air to break up the crowds?" I ventured as round after round went off.
"They wouldn't actually shoot the students, would they?"


I'd heard that the students might protest today. Beside their usual grievances of huge class sizes and irregular course hours, they have a new reason to gripe. The Burkina government that never has money to hire enough professors suddenly found the cash to establish a PSU unit. That's Police Speciale des Universités. That news was like pouring kerosine on a fire, I'm afraid. But I don't have any definite news. Nothing has been reported on the radio or TV as of yet.
And as far as I can tell, I am the first to publish this news on the internet.


Things seem calm now. It's 3 pm and there hasn't been any gunfire since about 12:30 or so.


After I got home at 11, the French Embassy then called with a warning. Nothing from the US Embassy, which is par for the course. For all the blah, blah, blah about Keeping Our Citizens Safe , the US doesn't acually do much. At all. I'm a warden for the Embassy. All they have to do is call me and I phone my list of 30 or so families and warn them of possible danger: Stay out of the University area. There is rioting and gunfire.


There are all kinds of Americans living overseas. Here in Ouaga, they are mostly do-gooders, in the best sense of the word. They are missionaries trying to help people out of poverty, NGO workers doing all sorts of aid work and the every-present Peace Corps. I really feel like the State Department could step up their commitment instead of ignoring this population every time there is violence threatening.
Since I moved here in 1999, there have been several bad incidents here in Burkina. And the US Embassy always drops the ball IMO. For example, during the police/army conflict of 2006, I had to call the Embassy to get the go-ahead to warn people. And it was not a false alarm. That night stray gun fire hit houses and killed civilians.
And today once again, the Embassy looked out for their own personel, but couldn't be bothered to at least set the Warden system in motion.
Yes, they do send out emails. But the chances of someone checking their email -especially here in Ouaga, are pretty slim. This situation merited phoning everyone to make sure the word got out and no one would inadvertantly wander into danger.


I have no other real news about what happened this morning. I'll post again if anything comes to light. And please write to me if you see anything in the international press or on the internet.