My poor, neglected computer. The best it’s gotten from me the last two weeks has been an absentminded pat on the monitor as I race by it on my way downstairs at six am every morning.
It’s been getting far more attention from the twins and Severin, who like to stand around and bicker viciously over it like three starving badgers fighting over the last bite of road kill squirrel. My answer to this was (as it is to so many of life’s questions) to make a schedule. So, the twins each get one hour on alternate days and Sev gets and hour per day…which leaves lots of time for other stuff, considering the fact that the kids are on a two week holiday right now.
Sev, resourceful kid that he is, REALLY found something else to do besides stare at a computer screen. He managed to get invited along on a trip to Paris to attend a videogame/manga/anime con (a 'convention' to all you n00bs). Lucky boy! He’ll leave this afternoon and be back on Tuesday.
The twins are also too busy right now to worry much about screen time.
They are:
1. Helping to varnish the wood on the addition to the house and the carport. (Three coats on over 80 square meters. Do the math.) This is mainly what Alexa likes doing. She's quite handy...but, oddly, doesn't like getting her hands dirty.
2. Planting flowers. This is Mallory’s thing, not Al's (see above info re:hands). If it were up to me, our yard would be a barren wasteland, but Mal has got dahlias, anemones, sedum and all sorts of stuff scattered about the place. Very cute.
3. Babysitting what is possibly the world’s cutest two year old. She’s the daughter of some friends who are staying with us right now. Along with their sweet, deaf and half-blind sheepdog, they have come up from the south of France for a working vacation. The emphasis is on the « working » part of that last phrase. Last night I came home from picking up JP in Geneva and Amina and Robert were still varnishing the carport (along with Tya). It was nearly 8pm!

Anyway, the twins adore having Yasmine around and find endless things to do with her. And when she gets tired, she loves it when Mallory gets a pagne and ties her on her back just like her mom does. You should have seen Yasmine’s eyes light up the first time she did it. She hadn’t realized that under all that blonde hair and pale skin, Mallory is secretly Burkinabé.

So, we’re all very, very busy. And it’s sure a good thing I finally broke down and bought an oven, as I’m cooking meals for a crowd lately. It’s SO great to be able to bake again!! It makes life so much easier!! In fact, when I think no one is looking, I like to hunch over it protectively and caress its brushed metal finish while whispering « My preciousssssss ». Unfortunately, Tya caught me at it yesterday and gave me a chastising « Don’t make me throw that oven into the fires of Mount Doom, young lady! » look.

It’s past 7am now and I need to get down the stairs and into the kitchen!! I’ve got to to prepare breakfast and then lunch for 10 today. Last night was couscous with merguez and alloco (fried plantains).

Today I’m thinking chicken and veg curry with rice.
And I’d better make pie. Maybe lemon meringue?

Goodbye for now computer, blog and interwebz pals. Hope to see you all again soon!

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.

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...

In Burkina Faso, life stops when it rains. The clouds gather, the drops start and suddenly the roads are empty of all bikes and mopeds. Off to the edges of the nearly empty streets, you see everyone huddled under whatever shelter they can find.

Maybe you see a few pedestrians, really desperate to get where they're going- nearly all of them slogging through the mud wearing a garbage bag as a poncho, or a small plastic bag as a hat.

The rain is noisy. It falls hard, pounding down on metal roofs and the hard-packed ground.

But other than that, everything is strangely quiet.

All the normal noises of the neighborhood are gone. The deafening hammering of the metal-smith's workshop down the street completely stops. The voices of the dozens of the children that play in the street just outside your front gate have vanished. The tailor's shop courtyard nearby, usually full of whirling pedal sewing machines and chatting, joking, arguing appprentices is silent.

It may rain for a few minutes.. or a few hours, but while it does, time stops. Nothing gets done, nobody goes anywhere. And that makes sense. The rains are usually hard and blinding, making it impossible to safely travel. Even in a car, visibility can be reduced to nearly nothing.

And most of life's daily activities in Burkina are carried out outdoors. Places like mechanics' garages, tailors' shops and carpenters' workshops might have a small shack or some kind of shelter, but certainly not enough covered space for everyone to work out of the rain.

Even in homes, not much can be done. A kitchen , for most Burkinabé people, is simply a corner outside with a fire and a branch or rock to sit on. No tables, no countertops, no cupboards, no roof.

Everyone rushes to shelter- maybe first pausing to get all the drying laundry and other vulnerable items gathered up and out of the wet. At our house, our guardians Salif and Rasmane would run to grab the patio furniture and pile it up next to the house, well under the terrace roof and out of the reach of the driving rain that would sometimes seem to fall nearly sideways.

People do what they have to do, then wait for it to pass.

And it always does.

It stops suddenly, like someone turing off a fire hose. Then the big West African sun pops out and everything seems to dry out in an instant. Cooking pots go back outside, the laundry is re-hung on walls and across shrubs, commuters get back on their bikes and mopeds and the smith's apprentices start hammering away again. The chairs are once more nicely arranged on the patio. And everything goes on like usual until tomorrow, when it will rain again.

The rain here in France is so...strange. It's hard for me to get used to gray and drizzly skies for days on end. I feel like everything should just stop. But it can't. This is Europe. If everyone stopped moving the minute rain fell, doom and disaster would result. At least, I guess so...

I took a "rain day" yesterday. I had decided that the rain wouldn't stop because it wasn't getting the respect it deserved. Maybe a moment of silence and stillness was all it wanted from us?

I didn't go anywhere. I didn't do any laundry. In fact, I didn't do anything terribly useful except for cook a couple of meals. I played games with the kids, read a novel, surfed the internet and watched tv on my computer. It was, in fact, a great day.

It did not, however, stop the rain.

So, today I'm back to rainy days, Euro-style. It's nearly noon and still pouring rain, but I've already been to the dump with a load of bad junk, the recycling center with my good junk, the public treasury to pay the water bill, the store to buy cat litter, etc. I guess that's how they do it here. But I miss the strange peacefullness of the Burkina rain...

When I'd take all four of my offspring out and about in Burkina Faso, quite often people would ask "Are they all yours? And are those two twins?"

When I'd answer in the affirmative, I'd generally hear something like "That's great! I didn't know white people had normal families!"


There would be laughter and I'd agree that, in general, white couples have just one or two kids and twins aren't as common.
In fact, I had a lot of fun conversations start that way, back in Africa.



Here in France, my family also draws attention, but for being larger than the norm. People look, and they sometimes ask "Are they all yours?", but they don't ever say "Wow! How normal!"
Even the French government considers three children to be a "large family" and anything over that is officially a "very large family".


This is all build-up to the fact that I went out yesterday 'disguised' as the mother of a very, very large family. And let me tell you, if you imagine that four kids get some attention around here, you should see how people act when they think you have six.

I had rushed off at noon (after a long morning of painting) to pick up the my older kids at their school. They'd ended up asking pals along, so I suddenly had a total of six kids in the car. Rather than try to magically whip up a lunch at home for them, I took them to a mall to eat at Macdonalds. We only do this a few times a year (we big families keep to a budget, you know!), so it was a special treat for everyone. Especially for Val's friend, who had no clue what to order. He stood in front of the menu completely hypnotised. It was only his second visit EVER to a fast food place because his parents detest MickeyD's with a particularly sneering and intense French kind of hatred .
As I fetched (with lots of help, of course) the three trays full of meals, the cashier asked The Question: "Ils sont tous a vous?"
I said "Oui" just to watch her eyes bug out further.


Afterwards, I had some errands, so we wandered the mall: me, eleven year old twins and four more kids, ages 12, 13, 14 and 15. (You can see them all in the photo. Yes, I am such a geek that I made them pose for a picture in the mall parking garage. It's for the blog!)
They were all good, but a bit...loud and giggly.
People looked, of course. And what looks they were- mostly a blend of "Get them OUT of here" and "Gee. Ever heard of BIRTH CONTROL, lady?"

The security guards seemed particularly interested, not in a nice way. And at one point, when the the four older ones got a couple of aisles ahead of me and the twins, I rushed us along to catch up with them.
"What's wrong, mom?" Mal asked.
"I don't want the older kids to get in trouble," I said
"What for?"
"Shopping while teenaged", I sighed
Mal looked at me, kind of puzzled, and I nearly said It's similar to 'driving while black', but I figured she didn't need any more confusion in her life.
"People often think teenagers steal stuff and I don't want any ... misunderstandings." I explained as we turned a corner and found the older kids inspecting the toys and laughing like...a bunch of crazy teenagers.
A security guard came round from the other end just then. He was quite obviously keeping them under surveillance, just in case one of them tried to stuff a Playmobil Pony Ranch down his pants and walk off with it. I gave the guy my best worst glare (which my kids call "The Eyes of Doom") and herded the kids towards the school supplies. We didn't see what we needed, so I asked the woman stocking the aisle for help.
While she didn't have the drawing paper we needed, she did have a question for me : "Are they all yours?"


After the cashier asked me that same question, I'd had about enough and was ready to go home.

"Are they all yours?" seems to be inevitable and international. It's often kindly meant, but can be wearing. There are even websites where parents of large families have collected the many possible (and often funny) answers to this question. So, I guess I'm not the only one to get a tad burned-out on the Q and A.

It was fun, though.

I woke up this morning and learned that there's a holiday to celebrate: International Book Day. (Thanks, Oreneta!) It seems like it's a bigger deal in Latin American countries than elsewhere (as far as my quick internet search shows, anyway) but I hope that it will catch on all over.

So, everybody everywhere remember to hug a book today. And also go have a look on my right sidebar and click to take a peek at my very own new Amazon bookstore. I'm still choosing books and having lots of fun with it.

What else can we celebrate today? How about spring? I am loving it this year- it's my first in nine long years.

April back in Burkina means super-hot temperatures and frequent power cuts. It means dry dust and dripping sweat. It means just hanging in there until the rainy season finally begins in June.

I was talking on Skype yesterday with a friend in Ouaga and she handed her toddler son an M&M candy to distract him while we chatted.

"Don't squish it!" I heard her say. And then, "Oh no! He just squashed it in his hand and there's melted chocolate all over him now!!"

In our house in France, even a determined toddler could not squish a candy coated chocolate. they stay hard. No melty M&Ms- just one of the many things to enjoy about being back in the Alps.

Another thing is the fabulous spring flowers. I am loving going outside to admire all the wonderful flowers that we planted back in the fall: hyacinth, daffodils, jonquils, crocus, etc..

I have been gardening like crazy the last few days. On Wednesday, I was out for nearly five hours, mowing the lawn, whacking the weeds, planting flowers and shubberies (one that looks nice. And not too expensive.) and weeding the beds of spring flowers that are already blooming nicely.
As you can see, the lawn is no small affair:

There were also the planter boxes to fill. I have three like the the one below. They weren't weren't much trouble because the pansies were planted in the fall and they suvived all winter long! All I had to do was throw a few marigolds in the middle.

I also planted a couple of lilac bushes and some lavender- two of my absolute most favorite ever flowers.

Yesterday I was out in the yard with the twins. I was fussing over the flowers and the girls were hunting around the yard for small dandelions for a salad that night.

Alexa said "You like lavender, lilacs and lilies. You, know, you should have named us after them! Valentine could be Lily, I could be Lilac and Mallory could be Lavender." She thought it sounded like a great idea and that I had really let the side down by not giving my girls a set of matching flower names...

Well, there's an idea.

And I guess I could have called Sev Larkspur? Or if were's going with flowers I love, rather than by matching the first letter, maybe Hyacinth?

We've had a houseguest this weekend. He's a Burkinabé aquaintance of JP and he's in France for the first time. He might never come back, either. He seems very creeped out by the snow and cold. (Well, I guess we are too, but we'll have to learn to put up with it...)

Besides getting lights on the house, putting the Christmas tree up and doing the hostess thing, I also found time this weekend to go to a concert.
That's right.
I actually did something that kept me up past 10pm. What a concept!
It was the Christmas concert of the local "School of Rock". We knew lots of kids in the bands, so I took Valentine and Severin and we made an evening of it. Dinner was served as the various groups performed Beatles' songs, mostly. It was the theme of the evening.
But some bands did opt for other material. One group of teens did some ACDC. The singer had a good voice, but lacked presence and conviction. "Highway to Hell" sounded more like "Highway to a Tea Party in a Quiet Suburb".

But it was a very entertaining evening and a fun way to spend time with my older kids.

It arrives tomorrow!!! The 20 foot-long metal box containing all our suff from Burkina Faso will be delivered here to our home in the French Alps.

It was only supposed to take two months for our things to make the trip from Ouagadougou by rail to the port in Dakar, onto a container vessel , to a warehouse in Marseille, to Lyon and finally to our home near Geneva. But here it is, nearly five months later...

I will be SO happy to see again my: books, sewing machine, electronic keyboard, sheet music, dvds, cds, scrapbooks, blankets, cast iron griddle, armchairs, loveseat, step for aerobics, nightstands, lamps, Christmas tree ornaments, bookshelves, carpets, and sugar-free Jello (hope it's still good...)

JP has been desperate for important books and papers that he needs for teaching.
The twins await with impatience Severin's old Pokemon card collection that he promised to pass on to them as soon as it arrives.
Valentine misses her books most

So, if I don't blog for a couple of days, you'll know why. There is going to be mad organisation and shifting going on around here. Wish me luck.

I was just doing my daily news check on the internet when I found this headline at the BBC:
Dozens die in Burkina Faso crash
The article begins with this:
At least 60 people have been killed in a collision between a passenger bus and a goods lorry in the west African country of Burkina Faso.
The two vehicles caught fire after the crash and many people were trapped inside the bus, a local official told AFP news agency.
The accident happened before dawn near the town of Boromo, 167km (105 miles) west of the capital, Ouagadougou.

It has also been picked up by Reuters and other news services.

I'm always alert for Burkina in the news, but the news is seldom good...

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...

Burkinamom has transformed herself into a French housewife, Burkinacat is doing her best to turn into a dog and a Life in Africa has morphed into a « Vie en Rose » in the Alps of the Haute Savoie.

We left Ouagadougou as scheduled on the 19 of July. Emotionally, I was all ready to go- don’t get me wrong. My mental bags were packed months before I physically packed up our belongings . But it seemed like they weren’t going to let us leave the country when I got to the airport that night . And that wouldn’t have been a good thing, as I think that even one more day in Burkina would have taken me beyond « edgy and stressed-out » and on onto the realms of « deranged and in need of medications ».

In the weeks leading up to our departure, everything seemed to go wrong. Hence my last post, which was, admittedly, a bit dramatic and worrisome.
Our house was robbed back in June and things just kind of got worse from there : endless car break-downs, money concerns, staff problems, etc… Add to all this the astounding work of packing up a six-person household after nine years , then mix thouroughly. Then preheat the entire country to 42°C and bake until done. Really done. And there you have the recipe for one miserable little muffin. That would be me.

I'll go into the details of the move and the trip home in a future post...it was not pretty, is all I will say for the moment. It involved my weeping piteously at the airport, begging to leave the country. Like I said, not pretty.

But now I'm in the green mountains of France in my lovely old house (pics to follow, asap). And my little Burkinacat, Cleo, follows me about the yard as I hang out laundry and clip hedges. I think that she decided that a proper French house in the country really needs a dog and is doing her best to fill the role. I'm not sure about teaching her to herd sheep, but she seems game...

Anyway, I am fine, the children are fine and I am back online as of this morning at about 10am!

I will no doubt soon be moving my blog and reformating it to reflect the fact that I'm no longer Burkinamom. You will be the first to know.

BTW- Many, many thanks for all the messages of support and concern!

Also- Are the Olympics cool, or what? I woke up at 3am this morning to watch the swimming live on tv and got to see Alain Bernard take the gold and make a world record in the 100 meter freestyle!
And Michael Phelps???? Wow!!!!

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...

So, here's the story; We're in a small Burkinabe village and all of a sudden, I change into a chicken. Sometimes I'm a turkey, but usually a chicken.

Anyway, there I am, all poutry-fied and Valentine is trying to catch me, but I run away. In my panic I run near the village reservoir which is filled with crocodiles. And there I meet the inevitable sad end of village chickens that venture near crocodile-infested waters.


This is a dream that Valentine (eldest daughter) has had repeatedly over the last few years. Her mom turns into a bird and runs around until torn apart by savage reptiles.
How strange is that? What does it mean?


Guess it's time to leave.


We'll have the fried chicken with sides of both coleslaw and psychoanalysis, please.

This has been one of the most insane weeks of my life. That said, it's probably not been anywhere near as bad as the final week before leaving France nine years ago. Back in late August 1999, I distinctly remember sitting on the floor amid the piles of suitcases and crates, weeping piteously. Of course at the time I had a just-turned-six year old, a three year old and year old twins who seemed to think that sleeping through the night was a nice concept for some folks, but not for them or me....
This time around the kids have been a tremendous help. Tya has been working right along side me and the twins packed many, many boxes of books. Which is a good thing, as we have over 2500 of them. Yes, we counted.
Severin? Well, at least he packed up his Legos and various treasures.
We did most of the packing ourselves, as the watchword was "triage". With 'only' a 20 foot container within the realm of financial possibility, we could not possibly have taken along nine-years' worth of household furnishings and knick knacks. So, sort we did. And it paid off yesterday. The container truck pulled up and the AGS fellows started loading boxes, boxes and more boxes. Everything fit that was supposed to and even a few extra items, like my crazy giant cement garden rabbit.
You don't want to know.

Now the house is empty and I'm onto the tasks of small repairs, painting and all that.
We've moved into a pal's house in Dassasgho.
No word from Inspector Sammy Dolly on the stolen goods.
I gave in and bought a cheap cell phone today. Folks that know me can once again call me at the old number.
Tomorrow is Tya's 15th birthday. She was just turning six when we moved here. Hard to believe.
Two weeks until we leave!

BTW : Happy Fourth of July!

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.

Burkina has been in the news lately. Media reports about the global food crisis quite often mention it, along with other West African neighbours that have also experienced protests and rioting by hungry citizens.

So, when I search out Burkina news on the internet, I find more and more to read. One of the latest was a report on a new child-trafficking law that was passed last month here. Prison terms have been doubled for the culprits, but people involved in the fight against this crime are afraid that it won’t do much good.
Much of the activity takes place out where JP does his fieldwork, the Mouhoun river area:

“Trafficking origination hubs include Boucle du Mouhoun in the west of Burkina Faso, the Sahel in the north, from where many children are sent to Mali, often supposedly to attend Koranic schools”

He has seen the police stop trucks loaded to the top with children on their way to work on plantations in Ivory Coast and even in cotton fields right here in Burkina.

The article mentions that some of the parents thought the children were being sent to Koranic school. But the truth is, Koranic school here in Ouaga often isn’t that much better than being sent away to do farm work. I’ve written about this before in my blog here. The children are far from home, sent out in dangerous traffic all day long to beg for money. It’s not safe or healthy and the boys learn little but a smattering of Arabic, hardly the recipe for a bright future.

Our driver Mahama lives next door to a marabout (Islamic religious teacher) that has a small Koranic “school”. Every day I’ve been asking Mahama the same question: “Are the boys back?”

At the beginning of June, he told me that there had been a huge fuss in his neighbor’s courtyard. It seems like the marabout’s donkey had wandered off and was nowhere to be found. The five boys searched all day and couldn’t find the animal anywhere. The marabout chased the boys out and said they could not come back to the house until the donkey was found. Not to eat, sleep, wash, nothing. They weren’t to come back without the donkey. The boys have been gone for 10 days now. No one has seen them. They all have families far from Ouaga, so it’s unlikely they found a way to return home. They are most likely sleeping outdoors and begging for food as best they can. Some of the boys are very young- around ten years old.

Who knows where they are now? If they are unsafe, ill or hungry?

One good aspect of the new law is that is specifically addresses the problem of children being forced to beg. Putting these young boys out on the streets and making them beg is now illegal child labour here in Burkina.
However, I have not noticed any actual decrease in “tomato-can boys” out in the streets. And the government here (like governments pretty much everywhere, don't you know) doesn’t always follow through on what they promise. Back in 2007, they earmarked funds for helping streetchildren in Burkina. It's been months now and to date, none of the promised money has been distributed. You can read about it here. The article also mentions AMPO, the orphanage where I first volunteered when I moved here to Ouaga and where Papiers du Sahel began.

The search word that most often brings folks to my blog-doorstep is "pagne". I'm kind of surprised at , but pleased with, this interest in these lengths of cloth that are so important in daily Burkinabé life! The "Pagnes 101" posts I did are the most popular of this blog. In them, I explained what a pagne is, what it can do and , finally, how to wear one. But I didn't show many
pieces of actual cloth. However, as I went on a huge pagne spree yesterday, I now have a few fun photos to share. Not many, sadly, as I managed to drop our camera on the tile floor this morning. The camera, as you may have guessed, did not benefit from this incident. JP is calling it "a stupid accident because you are careless". I prefer to call it " getting to know and respect gravity. "
Anyway, one of the grooviest pagnes out of the eight patterns I got yesterday is this one. Computers! Is it too cute, or what? For some reason, you never see this type of pattern done in multi-color. It's always a sober two-color. Patterns featuring everyday items are pretty common and they follow definite fashions. A few years back, fans were popular- oscillating electric fans in blue and beige. This year, it's old fashioned men's shoes.
But I went with the computers. It's for gifts, as I know people that like computers (Hi mom!) and I thought the fabric could make fun dust covers, or something.


Now here's one that has astounded everyone that I've shown it to. Even my Burkinabé friends find it pretty odd. I found it in a Lebanese pagne shop in the central market. The place was just a big cement block room with pagnes stacked up on the floor. Everything was priced at 4000 for 3 pagnes. It all gave the feeling of a mafia pagne shop selling cloth that "fell off the back of a truck". Kind of strange. But I couldn't resist this one.
Pagne patterns often have names, but nobody seems to know what this one is called. So, I have been calling it "Freakishly Deformed Person Hacked up by a Serial Killer". It elegantly accounts for both the severed fingers and the eyeball located in the palm of the hand.

I'm very entertained by it, but not sure what to do with it. I offered to make the twins some bedroom curtains out of it. With matching pillow shams, even! But they, shockingly, turned me down.

Hey Lynsey- want some for a wrap skirt?
If anyone is brave enough, I'll share.

So, it turned out that the twins and their little friends did NOT perform their dance recital chanting "Thees my sheet" in front of hundreds of parents and children. When the twins told me on Friday night that the teacher had said they wouldn't be doing that song at the show, I thought 'What a relief!' They would only perform two dances and 'Hollaback Girl' would not be one of them! So, it was with a complete lack of trepidation that I enjoyed the first part of last night's show.


Severin's fencing team did a wonderful demonstration. Fencing is, like, HARD! Everything has funny names and you have to hold yourself just so. You don't get to swash and buckle however you please. It's very disciplined. And I have to add that Severin looked SO handsome! I have been humiliating him with my near-constant comments on how darn good-looking that boy is. But then, if your own mom doesn't think the sun rises and sets on you, what's the point of having one?


Next, we watched the gymnastics routines (3 different groups) , the circus acts, the hip-hop dances (3 too!!) , the ballet dance, and the Japanese stick fighting. The latter, an activity with only 3 children in it, seemed to go on forever. Considering the fact that there were only three sets of fond parents in the audience that had any interest at all in the proceedings, they would have done well to cut it to a more reasonable length. Folks are mostly kind, but they can only spend so long watching three kids they don't know wave sticks around in slow motion. After about 15 minutes, you've really seen all you need to. If I'd had my own stick, I might have taken a whack at the teacher. He was out of control and needed to be taken down- a boring, pedantic French guy that seems to have the mistaken idea that he is neither of these things.


The stick fighting ended, eventually. Then it was time for the first dance of the twins' modern dance group. The music started like this, and I quote:

Lift your leg up (so petite, so sexy)
Lift your leg up (come on sexy girl, feel me)
Lift your leg up (I want you to come show me, alright)
Lift your leg up, lift your leg up (sexy girl)
Lift your leg up
Yo, you're so sexy, you're so damn fine
Step in every place, you look so divine
Man you are magical, you're one of a kind
When you are ready, come have a good time

It made 'Hollaback Girl" look like a powerful, profound anthem of female empowerment.
It made me want to say: I'm sorry I was so finicky! Bring back Gwen!!


The girls were very cute, of course. They danced so well and the crowd cheered wildly because they were so darn glad not to be watching a fourth hip-hop group or, god forbid, more Japanese stick fighting.


(The song was "Zookey" by a DJ called Yves Larock. Maybe he had to give himself such a painfully obvious "cool" stage name because he's Swiss. It's got to be hard to have rock cred when you're Swiss. You've got centuries of watch-making and cow-milking cred working against you.)


There were a few more acts, then it was time for the final dance. It's a tradition that the modern dance group do the show finale. And I have to admit, I was a little nervous. What song would they be dancing to? 'Baby Got Back' seemed like a likely candidate.


But not to worry! It turned out to be a Russian dance club song- instrumental only! No lyrics!


And here they are at the end of the show.


A good time was had by all, especially us.