Faux pas

One of the first principles drummed into everyone coming to Burkina is the importance of greeting (saluer) everyone you meet – a handshake, a general enquiry ‘ca va?’ perhaps a further enquiry about health or family, or the day so far. And all the expats working here have their own story of when they omitted to do this. In my case, one day early on, when I was feeling hot and bothered, I failed to greet the security guard at the cashpoint; he then watched while I parked and locked my bike, incurring the usual fee of 25 or 50 cfa (around 4 or 8 English pence) for the privilege, gathered my stuff together and made my way over, before informing me – with, I suspect, a certain satisfaction – that the machine wasn’t working. When I had cooled off a bit, and found some cash elsewhere, I apologised and we are now on good terms.

Several times, people have said to me that they greeted me on the road when I was on my bike and that I did not respond. I usually explain that when I am out on my bike, all my attention is on the road and on avoiding the potholes. The reality may also be that I didn’t recognise them out of context, didn’t hear them above the background noise, or took them for one of the total strangers who greet me all the time, simply because a toubabou on a bike is a novelty.

Well, last weekend I got it wrong again, but in a different way. I was invited to a 'baptême'in the neighbourhood – in this case a Muslim one; they all seem to involve killing a sheep and having a street party. I was 'presented' to lots of people and shook hands and greeted them all politely. Then I was presented to the father of one of the 2 babies, and held out my hand with a warm smile – but did not get the usual warm response. A little later one of my friends explained that these particular Muslims – Sunni I think – do not greet women. We live and learn. But it was a good all day party, men and women celebrating separately, children running everywhere

All things bright and ...

I've written quite a bit about domestic matters such as power and water cuts - which, when they happen, tend to dominate. So now the lighter side of domestic life. There are quantities of plastic in use here - unsurprising when you consider that life is lived largely out of doors, and that hard and uneven floors abound. And then again, lots of water has to be moved around; most houses don't have running water, so water comes from a standpipe in a bowser - and is then transferred into buckets and bowls, for cooking, for washing - people, clothes, washing up - pretty much continuous activity in large households - and most households are large. Cooking for a household of 20 is normal, maybe over 100 for a celebration. And plastic is cheap and light.

So, to give you an insight into domestic life, here are some pics from my kitchen of the colourful plastic - made in Guinee, it says - doesn't that almost make you want to do the washing up (although perhaps not fetch the water first...)?

Fieldwork

Last Sunday I went with some neighbours out into the deep countryside, perhaps 30km from Bobo, to 'help' with sowing maize out in the fields. I wasn't much help - I did sow a few seeds, but I quickly got blisters on my office softy hands - long time since I did much digging! However I think I provided quite a lot of entertainment value, so that was probably some help in its own way - something new to talk about, anyway.

I was invited by a woman from a shop on our street; the family has at least one other shop, and a decent vehicle, and seem relatively affluent. As well as running businesses in the town, they - the extended family - are in the process of carving out fields, deep in the countryside, not even in or near a village, as far as I can see - from what looks like virgin woodland. Its a long and hard process, they are ambitious, and it looks like it will take years to do all they plan. There are a few animals - hens, goats and a small herd of cattle - and there is a farmhand who lives out there all the time - with family I think.

My friend is the second wife of what appears to be the head of the family - she is out at work most days; I guess that the first wife, her co-spouse, who she also describes as her sister, and with whom she seems to be on very friendly terms, takes overall charge of the house and domestic matters. My friend speaks good french, her co-spouse does not - so I reckon there is quite a difference in education. Polygamy is common here - more of that another time.

The first wife has two children, my friend one baby - all of whom are cared for in a fairly communal manner. The work party must have numbered about 25, including children. Lines were marked out for sowing, and seeds planted using simple hoe/adze like tools. The planting was mostly women's work, the men were mainly cutting doing the harder clearance and planting trees. Lots of hard work, all fairly good natured. None of the other women spoke much french (education again), some of the men and some of the children (boys and girls) did, so I spent quite a bit of time chatting to the children, as well as helping to mind the baby. While the work in the fields was going on, a huge meal, mainly of haricot beans and rice, was being cooked up over an open fire - and was eventually served up around midday, with the men eating in one group, the women in another, and the children moving between the groups. Then more work, before setting off home at about 4 - I had done less than anyone else, and was probably the most exhausted!

Il n'y pas de problème – Ce n'est pas facile

Two of the commonest phrases heard – no problem, whether there is, or whether there isn’t – it’s an automatic response, and often untrue. There’s no water/power/connection – il n’y a pas de problème. The lock on the front door is broken – no problem.

C’est pas facile (which is how it is said), on the other hand, generally is true, because life is not easy, and there is a constant stream of real life stories to illustrate this. People live on such narrow margins – or even negative margins – that the slightest problem can become a big one.

If your bike gets a puncture somewhere along the road, and you don’t have the money to repair it – what do you do? And how do you get to work, or home? And who looks after your child meanwhile? And if you use your remaining money to get home in a taxi, how do you then buy food for you and your child? And if your boss keeps promising to pay you, but actually doesn’t, but you still have to pay the rent, and the power, and the water as well as the food – then no wonder you come to work not having eaten… And then your mobile is stolen – so how do you contact your boss to urge him to come and pay you? Because you don’t have enough money to go to the Telecentre. And so it goes on – reminding me again of all the things I take for granted, and that, whatever frustrations I may occasionally feel, for me life is easy.
Society responds, a bit - if your bike packs up near where you work or live, the bicycle repair men will know you, and will fix it for you, because they know you will pay when you can. If your friend has any credit on her phone, she may text your boss for you. Another friend may give you some food, if they realise you have not eaten.

Goodness, this is making me hungry – time to open my fridge and see what there is for lunch.

Music Maestro

Time for some more stuff which is at least vaguely about work.

Last night I went out with the team presenting a 'Musique Interactive'. Wonderful balmy night, clear star-filled sky. The day had been cooler; at one point I had gone past a sign saying 29 degrees. I was therefore comfortable in short-sleeved shirt; the night watchman was wearing a balaclava against the cold; bobble hats and hoodies were in evidence all around.

For these events, we set up a temporary stage and sound equipment in the middle of a road - not one of the main hard-surfaced ones, but an earth road in a suitable residential district. The sound kit is powered either by a diesel generator or by arranging to plug in to a neighbouring electricity supply. The kit is good but often in a state of semi-disrepair, and there can be technical hitches along the way.

The format is roughly as follows:

Play loud music, with occasional commentary from DJ, to attract attention and interest of residents of neighbourhood. DJ invites them to come and join us - the music generally manages this on its own. First kids and then teenagers and adults gather. Kids start dancing - almost all african kids can dance, some spectacularly well. As we get going, there is a kids' dancing competition - about 4 kids from the crowd are picked to come forward and dance in front of the others; they are voted off in turn by volume of audience approval/disapproval, and get sweeties as prizes. This is the warm up act, and generates a good atmosphere. (Freak Sideshow - for free - shake the hand of La Blanche/Toubabou).

Then there is some intro stuff from the presenter, explaining who we are and why we are there, and perhaps presenting local partner who has invited us. Then a succession of singers, good singers, in stage costumes, singing songs with HIV AIDS messages in them. Some of the singers are, I think, quite well known locally - some may be the winners of previous competitions.

Then there is a question and answer session, on HIV AIDS topics, with condoms distributed as prizes (to over-16s only).

Sounds relatively simple? However, things can go wrong. The diesel can leak out of the generator - so you make an emergency arrangement with a neighbour's electricity supply - whose meter may run out, so you need to dash to buy units to feed it with - and then when we turn on the full range of kit, it transpires that the amperage is not high enough to run everything, so it keeps tripping... meanwhile one or more of the many spare pairs of hands around (labour being cheap) will have dashed off on someone else's moped to buy the sweetie prizes which got forgotten, or some more diesel for the generator, or some diesel for the moped they were going to borrow but it's out of fuel. So it's all a bit more stop/start, and takes longer to get going, than might be the case.

But fantastic atmosphere, and as far as I can tell (which is not very far as most of this is in Dioula), no-one complains about the noise, which is considerable, and drowns out all competing local sound systems - and the neighbours are welcoming because it is good to educate about AIDS.

I have been out for MI previously, and there have always been technical hitches of one sort or another - there was the time we had to push the bus half a dozen times to get there and back; the time we got rained off - rarer here than it would be at home. That night at least one of the team was sure that we were rained off because we had picked the wrong night to come - it was a night when the masks were due to come out, and they would not compete with us - so the rain may have been their way of getting the message home. Who knows. Ours not to reason why.

Do take a seat

At least in my neck of the woods, the universal item of furniture is what you might think of as a garden chair. Holding a meeting? Set out a few rows of garden chairs. At your desk? If one garden chair isn't high enough to reach your computer, sit on two. The paper catcher for the photocopier's broken? (of course) Prop it up with a chair. Need a snooze? Sit on one, put your feet on another. A very versatile piece of furniture.

This also underlines how short material resources are here - and how in comparison, time is cheap. One result of this is that there are lots of people doing jobs you might never have thought necessary - some of which are, and some of which are not.

Outside every bank cash machine is a guard, who opens the door for you to the air-conditioned unit (and closes it again, thus I suppose saving electricity); he also monitors the number of people who go in - no more inside than there are machines, usually one or two. These guards can be quite intimidating - if you are polite to them, they are charming, if not, not - and then they won't tell you until after you have parked your bike that the guichet is not working.

In most places where you might park your bike there are bike-park-attendants, who give you a numbered receipt which you need to get your bike back (this is probably very necessary). Then there are people who sweep up almost endlessly, to varying effect.

Another consequence is that things which would be beyond economic repair in Europe are endlessly repaired, by very resourceful technicians. Much of the IT kit in use would be - may be has been - written off in Europe. Mobile phones, and mobile phone chargers, with bits hanging off in all directions, keep going. Almost everyone has a mobile phone, and many (even people who don't have running water at home) have two or three, one for each network, as the cross-network charges are high and the connections unreliable. Batteries are forever on charge, usually precariously.

Mobile phones are in almost constant use - that is, when there is a network.... on Friday the national network was down - no mobile phones, no internet, no bank cash machines - because Onatel had not paid its taxes! The ploy worked - they found a way to pay up and by the afternoon it was all back on again. Bikes, motos, cars, are all kept going ingeniously if sometimes unconventionally.

And so life goes on...