Why Ouaga?

We’ve traveled this considerable distance to Ouaga, over 1,000 km from Accra, to see the Le Salon International de L Artisanat de Ouagadougou (SIAO), a biannual arts festival that attracts artisans from all over West Africa. Known for its renowned film festival, Fespaco, which runs on odd years, the city apparently determined it needed something for the even years.

Running a close second on the list of enticements is, admittedly, the promise of cheese and good coffee, which we have been forced to suffer without in Ghana. The French, whatever their failings in music and haircuts, were kind enough to leave behind in their colonial wake a taste for some of the finer things.

The British, alas, can only be credited with bequeathing to Ghana a penchant for bureaucracy and the chip, which being the English name for the “French fry” may not be theirs to take credit for anyway.

It is a long way to go for cheese and coffee, it is true. But I ask those who would criticize us for it to deny themselves those vital, life-affirming resources for two months. I suspect they will feel different after having done so. Lactose-intolerant sufferers are simply too bereft to be considered here.

With regard to the SIAO, I should mention that I’d been unable to visualize what such an event could look like. While loving art, and hoping to pick up an item or two for our evolving mask collection, I was concerned that it would prove less a “festival” and more a glorified trade show. And I’ve been to trade shows, and even glorified they are usually to be avoided.

On this our first night in the city, we left Alice to catch up with the bishop, and piled into Ghislain’s car for the short drive to his favorite watering hole to, as he so therapeutically put it, “take some beer.” After turning off the main paved road and onto a dark, dusty track, he pointed straight ahead to a constellation of lights in the near distance.

“There is the SIAO,” he says.

“Right there? Those lights?” we say.

He makes a distinctly French gesture that means “yes” but with more than a hint of “What other lights are there?”

The SIAO had started a week earlier and would run another two days. Looking at it now, the only lights in an otherwise pitch-black landscape, I conferred on it a kind of carnival atmosphere that fed my excitement. Whatever it turned out to be, I looked forward to our visit, which we’d planned for the following afternoon.

In the meantime, the culturally sensitive thing to do was to undertake a rigorous sampling of Burkinabé beers.

(Picture: The road outside our hotel)