December 1988

Dear everyone,

Well, we've really done it this time!  As you know, we've been in some out of the way places (Lanai, Pago Pago, Zanzibar, etc.) in our time, but Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, is certainly the most remote, most primitive in our experience.  In previous Christmas notes, we have always invited people to visit us, but that pattern will not be repeated here, unless one really has a need to see life on the edge.

With that introduction, let me start at the beginning and bring you up to date with our lives.  Last year, we were in Columbia, SC, with Sharon working at the University and Ken studying full time.  About midway through the year, we realized that we were running out of money, and also that the call of overseas life (after 2 years in the States) was too strong for us to resist any longer.  We were fortunate to find positions at the International School of Ouagadougou on a two year contract, with Ken as the director and Sharon as a teacher and library consultant.  By the end of June, we were off to England for two weeks of vacation -- and rain --and then found ourselves back on the African continent in mid-July.  And so the adventure begins.

Ouagadougou (which is pronounced like something you might step in on the street) is located a bit south of Timbuktu, which I always thought was a mythical place, in the Sahel region of West Africa -- a semi-arid land between the Sahara desert and the humid forests of the coastal plain.  It is the capital of Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta -- perhaps the third poorest country in the world and whose principal export is its own people to work in the fields and factories of neighboring countries.

Ouagadougou -- in fact, the whole country -- is a feast for the senses of sight, taste and smell...but it's like being invited to a banquet at a vomitorium.  It is life in the raw -- in its most elemental state -- where grain is ripped from the stalk, pounded, winnowed and ground into food right before your eyes...where one's morning jog is a slalom course around an assortment of potholes, half-starved curs, mangy chickens, wild-eyed guinea fowl and scrofulous vultures, all picking at the garbage lying by the side of the road...and where water, the very source of life, is just as likely to be the cause of unspeakable disease and even death.

To give you an idea of what I mean, let's take a walk to the bakery at the end of our street.  As we pass through the screen doors which separate our Western style house from our wide verandah and walk the short distance to our gate, it is like moving from Middle America into the Twilight Zone.  A bizarre array of characters moves into view -- a Muslim from the North, bearded and swathed in white robes and turban...a rickety donkey cart, laden with bamboo slats, driven by a waif clad in rags...a dust-covered woman, pregnant and totally naked, walking aimlessly, with pendulous breasts swinging to and fro while she mumbles incomprehensively to herself...a Tuareg from the deserts, tall and swarthy, clothed in the indigo robes for which his race is famous, trying to hawk finely worked leather goods...and a gaggle of scrawny children and bawling babies, playing in the filth which lies outside their homes.

As we look to the right, we pass by the U.S. Embassy compound, surrounded by its iron fence and guarded by an array of lethargic local employees who congregate under the trees to escape from the sun...and work.  To the left are broken down homes made of sun-dried, mud bricks, corrugated iron sheets for roofs, offering the barest of shelter for uncountable numbers of people.  At the end of our street is the airport road, a paved thoroughfare which is normally jammed with bicycles, motorbikes, and a few cars weaving their way among the two-wheeled vehicles.  We look into a ditch by the side of the road -- a man is standing in a puddle of blood and gore, wringing the necks of a flock of chickens and disemboweling them on the spot.  We cross the street and are greeted by old beggars, their eyes staring vacantly -- blinded long ago by parasites introduced through the bites of black flies which inhabit the banks of the country's few rivers -- connected to children by short poles which are used to guide them on their morning rounds.  We reach the outside of the bakery, artfully dodging the deformed parking boys and street vendors hawking fly-blown meat and moldy bread, open the door, enter and...we're in Paris.  Long baguettes, light and fluffy croissants, an assortment of sorbets and crème glaces, raison buns, cream doughnuts, café au lait, freshly squeezed orange juice, and wrought iron tables at which one can sit all morning while one reads L'Express or the International Herald Tribune.  Incredible!

At this point, it would not be inappropriate for the reader to ask, "What the hell are you doing there?"  It is a question which sometimes crosses our own minds, but the truth is: Everyday is an adventure!  We never know what each morning will bring, whether at school (which is wonderful, by the way) or at a visit to a local village where we are treated with such hospitality that we weep with shame at our own selfishness.  We work very hard, 7 days a week, sometimes from 5:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night, and we are frequently physically and emotionally drained, but we feel very much ALIVE and excited.  True, we miss the wildlife of Kenya -- the most wildlife one sees here is on the slides of our stool samples at the health unit -- and we are anxious about our health in a country where one's bowels often feel like they've been invaded by ping-pong playing amoebas from hell.  And we certainly miss the serenity and beauty of an afternoon on Lake Murray or a weekend at a country inn on the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.

But those things will still be there when we return, and for now, there are still exotic places to visit and adventures to be had.  We have begun to chalk up new countries on our list of must-see sights:  a visit to Niamey, the capital of Niger, and a week in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the French West African answer to Honolulu. During the Christmas holidays, we will camp at Nazinga, one of the few wild animal preserves in the country, and perhaps take a ride into the desert.  In April, when the heat becomes so oppressive in Ouaga that even the vultures begin to wilt, we will travel to the humid coast and laze in the shade.  This summer we will be Stateside again for six weeks, and next year we know we will visit Nairobi for a teachers' conference.  Who knows what else lies ahead?  Bamako, Banjul, Dakar -- a whole host of exotic locales.

At any rate, we are very much interested in receiving mail here in the peripheries of civilization, so please write when you have the chance.  We promise to answer all letters as soon as we have a free moment.  Until next time, however, we wish everyone a most Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with only goodness and love.