Wild & woolly Ouagadougou

Ouagadougou. Pronounced waga-doo-goo, it is shortened to Ouaga for the initiated. As a name, it must rank among the most mellifluously conceived on the planet, up there with Timbuktu and Beaverton. It is, simply, fun to say. Ouagadougou. Where are you going? Ouagadougou. You contracted dysentery where? Ouagadougou.

As a city, Ouaga occupies a stretch of dusty plain on the central African plateau not too far from absolute nowhere. Already the first breath of the harmattan, the annual West African trade wind from the Sahara, has arrived. Many of the streets are either dirt or so covered with dust as to seem dirt, and this is forever being stirred in the air like an upturned snow globe. We take to calling it Ouagadusty.

Though employing a Los Angeles-like city planning approach, the center of town is surprisingly compact and easy to navigate. It revolves around the Grand Marche, a big block building that once housed the main market until it was gutted by fire in 2003 and is, like so much in the city, left to decay in its own good time.

Bicycles and motorcycles command the streets here, unlike in Ghana, where until one gets to the north you only rarely encounter a two-wheeler. Crossing the street at the busy Place des Nations Unies circle in Ouaga is a challenge and may be enough to have your health insurance suspended. How the vendors selling phone cards and napkins work the passing vehicles is a wonder on the order of those levitating Indian yogis.

Of the city generally there is a sort of derelict air. Everything is worn and weathered. It seems barely sustaining itself against the sun, the ravages of the dust and the general disinterest of its military dictatorship. As many of the 1 million population came from simple villages one questions if the city returning to a more primitive condition is not a perfectly acceptable outcome to them.

The sections that appear to have made the greatest attempt at modernity seem the roughest. Passing the old Palais de Justice, desks and chairs, as if tossed from the windows, lie here and there in the yard amid other debris and garbage. A man sleeps on a piece of discarded planking at the top of the steps.

But somehow the presence of French on signs and billboards adds a soupcon of character that cancels out some of the other. I can’t identify what it is exactly, but despite the general state of disrepair, the dust and monumental heat, I like Ouaga. But maybe it’s just the name.

(Picture: The Grand Mosquee in the central district of Ouaga)

Ghislain & the bishop

Our first mission once in Burkina Faso is to get to, of all places, the Ghanaian Embassy. Jeanne needs to secure a new visa for our return in a few days’ time. The rest of us have multiple-entry Ghanaian visas and can come and go as we damn well please.

Being at the embassy is unexpectedly comforting after the journey from the border. It is especially welcome after the taxi ride from the Ouaga station, which finds all five us and our bags crammed into without question the most battered, most beat up, ricketiest, most run-down car in all of Africa. The inside of the doors is just exposed rusting metal. The floor is all uncovered frame. What is left of the dash is largely collapsed and covered in dust. To get going a few of the driver’s friends have to push us down the road a piece before the engine catches.

Learning that the Ghanaian Embassy does not in fact take Ghanaian cedis, and none of us yet has ceefah (having dismissed the enthusiastic moneychangers at the border), Maria and I agree to go find a bank. We take everyone’s leftover Ghanaian cedis to exchange.

We soon find a bank, but learn to our surprise that despite being neighbors, Burkina wants nothing to do with our cedis. No one, it turns out, will take them. Luckily, they do accept U.S. dollars, which we change for Alice. And it does have an ATM that accepts VISA, so Shawn and I can get cash. But the others are, for the time being, ceefah-less.

Returning to the embassy, we find that our group has grown by one. Ghislain Kabore is a dark, handsome Burkinabé of about 30 with more than a passing resemblance to the actor Don Cheadle. He is the nephew of the bishop to whom Alice’s family has a connection. It is unclear how he got tasked with being our welcoming party, but by the time Maria and I return he has already been instructed to deliver us to good coffee.

Our first stop, however, is our hotel, which Ghislain has taken the liberty of arranging for us.

“This is nicer,” he says matter-of-factly, explaining why he doesn’t take us to the place we’d pointed to in our guidebook.

Stuffed into his car, he drives us down a bumpy side road in the eastern part of the city and then through a wide gate. Scattered around the large, quiet compound of sun-baked scrub grass sits an arrangement of low, concrete buildings. Called the Centre Polivalent, it was established by a local cardinal, Paul Zoungrana, and is operated by a group of resident nuns. It is small oasis hidden from the dusty chaos of the streets outside.

The rooms themselves are quite nice. They are very clean and equipped with two single beds with mosquito nets (the cardinal wanted, apparently, to discourage any shared-bed hijinks), a fan and air conditioning. The bathroom is also clean, with a nice overhead shower.

Admittedly of a miserly turn of mind, I’m still surprised at the price, about US$34. Isn’t this Burkina Faso, the third poorest nation on earth? If I can’t get a steal of a room here, where in the Ouagadougou can I?

Once we’re comfortably set up, Ghislain makes good on his promise and drives us back to the city center to a French-run patisserie. Even using the word “patisserie” has us swooning in anticipation. And Patisserie de Koloubo south of the Grand Mosquee doesn’t disappoint. We gorge ourselves on fresh pastries, baguette sandwiches and the richest, creamiest café au lait this side of Montmartre.

Full and fueled we return to meet the bishop, who is also staying at the hotel. He turns out to be a quiet, impressive man in dark-rimmed glasses and white vestments. He has about him the gravitas and bearing that I imagine coming in handy mediating some African election gone wrong or writing a line of self-help books.

Ghislain, for his part, does not strike me as the devout type. Dressed in a crisp, white shirt and black slacks, and sporting the air of someone with some money in a culture with little, there is clearly more to him than meets the eye. And then, almost on cue, he leans over to me and whispers in my ear, “I would like to take some beer.”

When I start to respond enthusiastically, greatly preferring this plan to the card game now being discussed between the girls and the bishop, he coolly turns his back to his uncle and puts a finger to his lips. “Shh.”

(Picture: Me and Ghislain)

Bye bye safe journey, part 5

Despite Lumumba, the trip from Paga to Ouaga manages still to be very interesting. This is flat, hot, dry country. Aside from the small clusters of simple conical huts that are traditional in this region, it is home only to spindly shrubs and hearty, brittle-looking trees. At intervals, dusty paths lead off into the bush. I wonder who takes them and where they lead.

Since crossing the border, vendors don’t approach our bus here when we stop. Few people seem to be about at all. Even the highway is largely empty and we go long minutes without seeing another vehicle that is not pulled by a donkey.

We pass a number of marshy areas dotted beautifully with white lilies across the surface. We peel our eyes for hippos but see only a man pulling in his fishing net. On the shore, his wife collects a pile of charcoal while a couple of naked kids entertain themselves on the small, muddy beach.

Later, passing through the town of Kombisiri, I see a group of boys playing on not one, not two, but three foosball tables. It seems a mirage or perhaps I now have some brain-stewing fever. No wood in the buildings, but foosball tables? Then I see another table some miles farther. I can’t even imagine how they find their way here.

Lumumba said nothing more during the trip. He took no notice of us at all. As Ouaga finally looms in the distance like a worn and dusty Oz, I think again about how to handle the ambush he’s surely organized for us. But then, about 10 minutes before the station, he all of sudden has the driver stop and let him off. We don’t see him again.

(Picture: A shot of the main Ouagadougou bus station)

Bye bye safe journey, part 4

Lumumba is a young man, in his mid-20s. He wears aviator sunglasses, a Quicksilver baseball cap, baggy jeans and flip flops; he wouldn’t be out of place hanging out in the parking lot of some high school. At first, he seems to take no notice of us.

We’re on the road about 15 minutes when he calmly ventures back, wearing his salesman’s smile. He even removes his sunglasses. I expect him to ask what happened, why we decided to abandon the taxi. But he doesn’t, and the fact that he doesn’t only fuels my suspicions about him.

“Nice tactical move, obroni,” I imagine him thinking. “But rook takes castle, I’m afraid. Here I am. Your move.”

Instead of asking about our abrupt change in plans, he says, “Your friend, the one with the motorcycle, they said he didn’t have the proper paperwork so they wouldn’t let him cross the border. But I helped him. I led him to the place to get the papers.”

“Oh … OK,” we say.

He stands in the aisle, a hand on the back of the seat on either side, and nods confidently, as if everything is falling nicely into place. There is a long moment of awkward silence. When he doesn’t return to his seat, Jeanne speaks up, “I’m sorry, but we just want to be left alone. We don’t want to talk.”

Fire, meet tinder. In an instant, his mood changes. He stiffens and his face goes hard.

“Who are you?” he demands. “You are no one. You cannot speak for everyone. Who are you? Did you ask the others what they think? That is rude. I was talking to Mr. Greg. I don’t care what you think. Who are you anyway? You come to my country and be rude? You can’t come here and act that way. Why don’t you leave?”

There is a pause. He is waiting for an answer, but we remain silent, as do the rest of the passengers. This seems to anger him further.

“You think you are so important because you travel to all these countries. I have traveled. I have been to many different places outside. Just like you. So you are not special. I am as good as you.”

Still no response. So he picks up steam, adding new energy and new historical dimensions to his tirade.

“You come here and treat people like that. You are racist. You are a racist. This is my country. Not yours. Why don’t you go? Get out. You are racist. You come to Africa and you steal all of our resources. You come and take and take. Because you are white you think you can take whatever you want around the world. That is why we are poor here. You enslave our people. You don’t think we remember but we remember. We will never forget. Now you try to put chains on our minds but you cannot. We won’t let you. We are strong. We are just waiting. Now you have a black man as president. In the Black House. We are just waiting. And then we are going to rise up. We are going to control you to the max. Who cares about you?”

By this point, he seems to have finally talked himself out. A few more words sputter free, but without a response from us he soon seems to have lost interest. It is a startling rant, but revealing about a guy about whom we all had misgivings. Can a person embrace notions of the kind he just spouted, calling himself Lumumba, while also being truly the chummy, glad-handing helper he set himself up to be? Seems unlikely.

He finally resumes his seat and no more is said on the subject of plundered resources or chained minds. For the three hours to Ouaga I do, however, imagine scenarios in which we will greeted at the bus station by his friends. I try to prepare for the inevitable dust-up.

(Picture: Scene from a typical village in northern Ghana/Burkina Faso)

Bye bye safe journey, part 3

Before the taxi driver can reach us, one of the officers from the border station pulls up beside us on a scooter that is comically too small for him. He wants to ensure that we know where to go for the bus. It helps having French speakers in our group; it really helps having women French speakers.

The taxi driver, who surely had planned to treat us to a string of angrily delivered French epithets, which admittedly still sound more beautiful than, say, German epithets, chooses instead to gun his engine and tear by us, kicking up dust. Somehow his response confirms his nefarious intentions. He’s lost our fares and the money he’d make selling our limbs to local fetish priests.

Either appointed by the officer or just self-appointed in hopes of some commission, another man appears who leads us to the bus. We are walking briskly, keeping our eyes out for the car, which has now disappeared. The bus, it turns out, is the 7:30 a.m. bus to Ouaga. This is tremendously good news. We thank the officer who putters away on his scooter.

In another 100 yards, we’re on board the bus. Safe! The bus driver greets us warmly as if he’d been waiting the whole time for us to arrive. “Sit where you wish,” he says. We exhale, smile and find seats. Never has a bus been more welcome.

We’re busy congratulating ourselves when the white Peugeot screeches to a stop next to the bus. In seconds a yelling match ensues between the driver outside and the bus driver and a few people on the bus. It turns into a chaos of shouting and enthusiastic gesturing. As it’s all being conducted in some local language, we simply stand dumbly, watching.

“But we had a deal!” I imagine the taxi driver yelling. “Now who am I going to drive an hour out of town, empty of their valuables and then dump on the side of the road? I had my whole morning planned!”

Finally, amid all the yelling, the man who led us to the bus says, in English, “No, the police officer sent them here!” Almost instantly, the arguing stops. This important detail appears to have sealed the deal. There is still grumbling and the occasional interjection from the driver outside, but the tone has changed.

In another few moments, the atmosphere on the bus has returned to normal. Passengers who got involved in the back and forth turn from the window and take up their seats. And then much to our joy we see the taxi driver slam the door of his car and speed off.

And then I catch a glimpse of the front of the bus.

“Oh crap,” I say.

“What?” the others say.

“There’s Lumumba.”

And there he is, having appeared at some point in the confusion to take a seat a few rows back of the driver. And is that the other man from the taxi? The one in the black shirt?

(Picture: A little premature, but this is across the street from the entrance to our hotel in Ouagadougou.)

Bye bye safe journey, part 2

The Burkina Faso border office makes the Ghanaian effort seem like the finely appointed, well-oiled working of a Swiss bank. Take the two border agents from their broken-down desks and you wouldn’t be crazy to have dismissed the entire place as abandoned.

In one dark corner sits a couple of mothballed fans, a discarded bicycle, a dust-covered scooter. On the walls of chipping plaster peels an old Burkina Faso tourism poster. It looks so old I wonder that it doesn’t bear the country’s former name, Upper Volta.

The man who first takes our passports is wearing green, military-issue pants, flip flops and a soiled white tank top. He scribbles something in a large, weathered ledger. We then move to a position before the second man. A taciturn older gentlemen in a disheveled uniform, sunglasses and a black beret, he’s straight from central casting: This is an African border agent. As if to seal the deal, once he’s completed stamping our passports he lights a cigarette and leans back in his creaky chair.

Just then the tall American enters, nods coolly at us and takes a seat. He is wearing a motorcycle jacket and carrying a helmet. Perfect, I think.

During the 20 minutes or so it has taken us to go through the process, we’ve discussed our waiting transportation and decided that we will break our arrangement with the bush taxi. Something about it just doesn’t feel right.

Jeanne and Maria, both French speakers (we’re out of the realm of English now), explain the situation to a couple of the uniformed guys lounging in the shade in front of the office. They point out the car on the off chance that the men might recognize the driver or Lumumba from some recent Interpol warning. We ask if there is a bus. The men point in the direction of the station a few hundred feet down the road.

We decide that I will give the bush taxi driver 2,000 ceefah (about US$4) for his trouble and then we will make a beeline for the bus station. Lumumba had earlier assured me that the morning bus for Ouaga had already gone and that the next one didn’t leave until noon. But it seemed worth a try.

“This is going to be ugly,” I say, thinking of the response we’re likely to get from the driver after all our earlier negotiations. “He is not going to be happy.”

“Nope,” Shawn says. “We just need to keep walking once we tell him. Just keep walking.”

We make a small huddle to focus our resolve. And then as if it had been our purpose all along we stride confidently toward the driver who, seeing us, moves to open the trunk of the car for our bags.

Once beside him, I say, “We’ve decided that we’re actually going to take the bus. But thank you very much.” I tuck the 2,000 bill in his shirt pocket.

He is totally and completely dumbstruck by this turn of events and stands frozen and speechless. This gives us the window we need in which to escape and we quickly start moving up the empty street toward the bus.

When after about 20 feet nothing has happened, I say, “Well, that was easy,” wiping my sweaty palms on my shorts.

But in another 30 feet, I hear his car engine kick into action. In another second, I hear him charging up the road toward us.

(Picture: A shot of roadside near the Burkina Faso border)

Bye bye safe journey, part 1

The Ghanaian border station is less a station than a place to sweat while the three bored-looking guards whack your passport. It’s not exactly a formal sort of process. Being issued a receipt at the grocery store has more emotional heft.

As we file through, another American joins the line behind us. He’s way too tall for anyone’s good and is either Southern or an arrogant ass. A short conversation reveals he is guilty of both. He affects an exasperated air like African border crossings are a chore, yes, but just a natural part of life for guys like him.

Outside the border station things get interesting almost immediately. The same moneychangers, who we put off 50 yards earlier, are waiting. They are apparently permitted to move freely back and forth as they please. Each one offers the exact same rate as the next and none seem the least bit inclined to haggle. Certain subtleties of free-market capitalism have not yet made it here. We thank them but pass again, sure we’ll get a better rate in Ouagadougou.

By this time another group of men has taken a great interest in our little group. These are the bush taxi drivers, and they want to drive us to Ouagadougou. How generous of them. Enter Lumumba. You may recognize the name as this overly nice, way-too-familiar and altogether shifty guy shares it with Patrice Lumumba, the African anti-colonial leader who helped the Republic of the Congo win independence from Belgium in 1960.

Lumumba is not a driver. He is, he explains with a wide, solicitous smile, going to Ouagadougou just like us. He is Ghanaian, he tells me, and makes frequent trips to Ouagadougou. For a reason I can’t discern, he insists on showing me his passport as proof of this fact.

“I have a friend who works in the Ghanaian embassy in Ouaga so if any of you need to get a new visa I can help you do that,” he says. As it happens, Jeanne needs to do precisely that, and I wonder if he had overheard us talking. It is strange, but undeniable truism that when away from home, a facility with English becomes a kind of red flag when toted out by a certain type of person.

“OK,” I say, trying to put him off. We’re in the middle of a complicated negotiation with one bush taxi driver and I feel like I should help. The problem is the car can comfortably fit seven people, but they want to fill the car with our five and three more, plus the driver, for a total of nine. We might as well travel inside our own backpacks.

The back and forth goes on for 20 minutes, attracting an audience of some 15 men, all of whom have something to say in the proceedings. This is a ragtag bunch for whom this scene must serve as a kind of theater.

Finally, we seem to agree that it will only be us, Lumumba and another man for a total of seven. We stow our bags in the trunk and climb in. We will first be driven the short distance to the Burkina Faso border station.

I notice that Lumumba has taken the front seat and that as we drive he is feverishly texting someone on his phone. I can’t help but wonder, of course, if he is alerting his colleagues that he has a few tasty white fish on the line.

(Picture: The road to the Burkina Faso border)