Yesterday was yet another long, electricity-free day in our neighborhood. But Alexa and I spent the morning enjoying the air-conditioning over at the big medical clinic in Ouaga 2000. Yes, Al's heart problem is becoming an issue again. It seems to be more pronounced during the hot season.

She was pretty unwell yesterday, so instead of going to school, she had to go in for an EKG and a consult with the doctor. They increased the dose on one of her meds, so we're hoping that will help. The doctor also mentioned that the doctors in Paris might make another attempt to correct the problem surgically, which completely panics Alexa. In fact, she SO does not want to go into surgery again that she's been hiding incidents from me.
(For those of you new to the story, Alexa had heart surgery in Paris three years ago, but it was unsuccessful. Her heart was too small and it was too risky to go through with the planned procedure, so she came back out of surgery un-fixed. Now, we are just in a holding pattern, waiting for her heart to get bigger)

Anyway, it's all very stressful and made me very un-bloggy yesterday. But Al's back at school today, a little tired, but happy. Today was school photo day, so she didn't want to miss it!

As for the rest of the tax story... maybe you forgot about it? If you're interested, here's the end, finally. I wrote it a few days back, during a rare period when we had electricity. It's not that thrilling, but it has the 'closure' thing going for it.

Recap of the previous installments: Our heroine has just spent the entire morning being driven all over Ouaga in a vain search for someone that will let her pay her taxes. After many trials, she finally learns where she really needs to go, but first Valentine has to be rescued from...who knows what?

Mahama knows all the shortcuts. We passed through the “Petit Paris” neighbourhood, then passed by the Moro Naaba’s palace, after cutting across on a very bumpy road paved with rough bricks.

Arriving at the school, I was very relieved to see Valentine standing outside the gates, talking to a friend, not direly ill or injured. Many of her teachers were out on strike, so her day had been cut short.

She agreed to go on with me to what I hoped was the final step of paying our taxes. It wasn’t very far to the latest destination. It turned out to be a small group of low buildings hidden behind a popular restaurant in the center of the city..

We wandered around a while because, of course, there were absolutely no signs indicating where you should go. Completely by chance, we eventually walked into the right office! Amazing! At last! I sat down in front of the tax agent’s desk and got out my documentation, all ready to get started!

Sadly, they weren’t the right documents. And as she explained it all, it became clear that I could never manage to get all the papers I needed.

Our bank in France was demanding proof that we paid taxes somewhere in the world, but it looked like the Burkinabé government wasn’t going to let me be a taxpayer this year.

What did I do? I made friends, of course! Soon, the tax agent and her two colleagues in the office had shown me pictures of their kids and told me what they’d be doing for the Easter holiday. And when I mentioned that I had twin daughters, they proposed that our children marry. One gentleman offered me kola nuts, the traditional gift given to the parents of the bride. It was all in fun of course and when I left everyone was laughing uproariously. And I had been given a few clues about how to remedy my situation.

I went back again a few days later, the twins in tow, wearing adorable matching outfits. One of the tax agents took pictures of them with her cell phone. After some amiable chatting, my file was found, I presented my revised papers and the tax forms were filled out, the kindly tax agent taking everything in hand.

I wrote a check and that was it.

It was VERY unlike dealing with, say the IRS of the United States or even the French tax authorities.

First of all- hope you all had a nice day yesterday. Ours was great- we were at church in the morning, then had a nice meal with friends that night.

Now here it is- Easter Monday. The kids have the day off from school. And, as is typical on the weekends and holidays- my email is down. So, all messages for me today should be left for me on the comments section of the blog.

Now, how about a little more of the story of how I tried to pay our taxes here in Burkina? It was quite a challenge..
(If you just got here and missed it, go back to the March 19 post to begin the epic tale)

So, there I was, wandering around this huge building, without a clue as to what to do next. In my defence, I saw lots of Burkinabe folks in similar straits, looking just as miserable and confused as I did. So, it wasn’t just me being exceptionally clueless. It looked like no outsiders (also known as “taxpayers”) were being allowed any information that might actually help them to pay their taxes.

I randomly knocked on the door of an office. I played my role of the completely baffled foreigner to the hilt - a very sweet and vaguely stupid creature from a foreign land. Loosing your temper avails you nothing. Charm and calm carry the day. As a result, the fellow there took pity on me, left his mountain of dusty papers and actually guided me all the way to another big office and introduced me to the three people there.
I explained what I needed for the NINTH time.
They were very kind.
Of course, everyone until now had been kind- but they’d had no freaking clue how to really help me and had sent me all over town on a morning-long wild guinea fowl chase. (That's a wild goose chase, Burkina-style.)

But this crew seemed pretty convincing. They told me that Mme D- was no longer taking care of expat taxes (rats!) and that that function had been transferred to a building in Passpanga.

Right.

I went back down the stairs, alert for stray aliens carrying advanced weaponry (didn’t want to startle one and get accidentally disintegrated).

Back at the car, Mahama (our driver) had news: he’d gotten a phone call that said Valentine needed to be picked up at school right away. They’d been trying to contact me, but as I’d brilliantly left my cell phone at home, no one could get in touch with me. The message had just been to come and get my daughter. I had no idea if she was ill, injured , or perhaps expelled for excessive niceness, cuteness and brilliance. (She’s too wonderful to get expelled for any bad reason, of course!)

I couldn’t call easily or quickly, as Mahama had no calling credits in his phone.

Now, the strolling phone card vendors here in Ouaga are usually very present and very persistent. At almost every street corner they descend upon you en masse, waving their little wooden boards covered with the brightly-colored cards. Even after you have rejected the first one, and the second and the third, they keep coming- as though after rejecting five different vendors selling the exact same thing, you’d suddenly have some kind of streetside-shopping epiphany. As though the 20^th person to wave his cards in your face in the last two minutes would open your stingy little heart and you’d say: I know I just mercilessly and without hesitation rejected every one of your card-selling buddies, but I like your looks! I’m going to buy one from YOU!

Of course, now that I actually really did desperately need to buy a card, there was only a scattering of vendors in sight - none of them selling the brand I needed. I didn’t waste time hunting around - we took off for the school, back at the city center.

That's all I have time for now. I'll try to wrap this up tomorrow.
It has a happy ending! Really!

I could say that yesterday morning was « taxing », but that would mean I was making a very cheap pun. I’ll instead tell you that my efforts trying to pay our Burkinabe income tax were frustrating and insanity-provoking.

Taxes usually aren’t my thing. JP has always taken care of this stuff. But this year, he told me that it had to be paid before the end of March and then got on a plane for Switzerland.

“Talk to Mme. D- at the tax office. She’ll help you. See you in two months” he said.

And there I was.

After the bitterness died down (just kidding. haha. sort of) , I decided to go take care of it. That was yesterday.

I got in my car with Mahama, our driver, and headed off to the Tanghin neighbourhood, in the northern part of Ouaga. We hadn’t gone far when I realized that’d I’d forgotten my cell phone, but I didn’t go back for it. Big mistake, but more on that much later.

We continued on and in about 20 minutes had arrived. I recognised the building, as I’d been there once before to drop off some papers in years past. But it looked different now - really different - as in completely abandoned and about to be levelled by bulldozers.

I quickly asked some neighbourhood guys hanging around where the office had moved to. They told me it was all in a big new building in Tampouey, on the Ouahiagouya road.

OK

That’s a neighbourhood in the extreme northwest of Ouaga. It’s certainly not one I hang out in often, so I had no clue where to go. I never would have found it without Mahama, who knows the city really well.

The new tax building was absolutely huge by Ouaga standards- five stories, the exterior entirely covered by white ceramic tiles. It looked like the world’s largest public restroom facility.

It was so big, it was impossible to know where to enter. I randomly chose an entrance. I went up to a window and asked the man behind it where I could find Mme. D- and take care of an expat tax matter. He had no clue, but sent me over to a colleague at another window.

He had no clue either, but sent me across the way to an office. I explained to the man at the desk what my problem was. He had no idea, but was sure that a fellow on the other side of the building would know.

So, I trudged around the maze of offices until I found this fourth fellow. And I explained for the FOURTH time what my problem was.

He seemed to know something. He told me that this was not at all the building I needed to be in. (What a surprise!) In fact, I would need to go to the other new tax office, over in Gounghin. There I would find someone that could take care of my problem.

OK.

I got back in the car and we headed south.

We’d been told that this new place was near a certain truck repair garage. Luckily, my driver knew it because he was a truck driver before coming to work for us. If I’d had to find all these places on my own, it would have taken me two days, not just a single morning!

This new building was only three stories high and much smaller. I thought it would be much easier to find my way. I was completely deluded, of course. Once I got inside, I was sent to three different people on the ground floor. The last one informed me that I actually needed to go outside, around the back of the building and take the stairs there up to the second floor.

Fine.

I went around and up.

It was a brand new building, but built in that Burkinabe way that is very strange, unattractive and uncomfortable. None of the corners are square, lots of wiring is exposed, and the stairs are not designed for the use of humans. I think that aliens from outer space must pay their taxes here in Burkina, because we have their stairs. Each step is a different height, either too high or too low. The handrails are too high and made out of sharp-edged metal. (the aliens apparently have tough protective plates on their appendages.) The windows on the landing are tiny and set at human knee-level. The elements combine into a very weird, difficult to use whole.

Because of the step irregularities, you feel like you’re going to fall, but if you use the handrail, you cut yourself. And the small, low windows mean it’s very dim inside, adding to the creepiness. (note to general public: Appreciate your stairs! You never notice them until they are gone and replaced by constructions from distant planets.)

I lurched up to the second floor, nicking my hand in the process. Up there, I found yet another maze of offices. As in all these places, the doors were either unmarked or were labelled with a piece of paper bearing some mystifying notation like “Sec./Tr. 1- 56RTRX”. Looking back now, I now believe these papers denoted the rank of the alien Pod Leaders within.

As this is getting really long, I'll write and post the rest of the story tomorrow. It goes on and on and on....