December 1989 -- Ouagadougou Daze

Rain...

August in Ouagadougou is a time of violence.   Each day begins heavily, often without a hint of a breeze.  The air, sodden with humidity, lies languorously over the earth, making the very act of breathing a chore and nurturing vegetation on the furniture and in one's closets.

As the afternoon heat builds, and the sweat continues to drip, one knows that -- like the inevitability of living on the San Andreas fault -- something has to break.

And then the wind begins.  Rushing in with the arrogance and velocity of a high speed train, it whips up the refuse and dust from the street in great swirls of brownish red putrefaction, until the sun disappears from the sky and day becomes night.

When the rain finally hits, accompanied by great bolts of lightening and booming thunder, it attacks the earth ferociously, beating a frenzied rhythm on the tin roof and ripping the very leaves from the trees.  For us, it is amusement, but for the Africans, it is both a blessing and a disaster.

Without this water, there can be no life, for the country's millet crop is dependent on the annual rains.  But the outsized raindrops also tear at the mudbrick houses, literally melting them before their owners' eyes, and the streambeds -- normally dry gulches of hardened earth -- become the conduits for raging torrents that carve the land mercilessly, plundering its fertility.

In this part of Africa, life does not come easy, and the gods are unforgiving.

Heat...

The dog days of April in Ouaga are like a foretaste of hell.  The sun burns in the sky with an unrelenting intensity, bringing soaring temperatures that seer both the earth and one's soul.

We drive to the reservoir just outside of town to see what the depredations of six months without rain have wrought upon the city's principal water supply.  The air passing through the window feels like a blast from a blow-dryer.  Our eyeballs become parched -- even our armpits have dandruff.

The reservoir is depleted.  Where once there was a lake robust enough to service a fleet of Hobie Cats, there is now a mudhole.  The doctors issue warnings -- cholera, typhoid, and loathsome diseases that used to ravage Medieval Europe now flourish in our water supply.

We return home with heat induced headaches.  The thermometer on our veranda begs for mercy.  Our bodies cry out for liquid.

Pass me a beer.  Ahhhhhhh. Burp.

and Dust...

The earth in and around Ouagadougou seems as though it had been put through a supermarket coffee grinder placed on "dust" setting.  A few weeks after the rains stop, the dust is everywhere -- seeping through the cracks in windows, settling on the floors and furniture, and even invading the most private recesses of drawers and closets.  During the day, cyclists and house guards can be seen wearing surgical masks to avoid inhaling the air.  It is like trying to breathe Coffeemate.

We venture out at night for a walk.  Foolish move.  The dust, wafted up by the cars and reflected by the streetlights, looks like snow.  We taste the grit in our mouths; our teeth begin to grind.

The amber headlights of vehicles transform the night into surreality, a Mars-scape of dark yellows and unearthly orange.  Two pedestrians, backlit by a car weaving its way around potholes, appear as giant holograms reflected on a ghostly screen.  We expect Rod Serling to step out of the shadows at any moment.

"Welcome...to the Twilight Zone."

Magic...

About 400 meters from our house, there is a marketplace that specializes in products that will never make it to the shelves of your local 7-Eleven.

It is a place where religion and magic find an interface, where medicine and superstition come together in a forced and ghastly harmony.

"Step right up, folks.  Need a love potion?  Let's grind up a few lizard tongues, bat wings and dried toads.  Mother-in-law on your back? No problem. Desiccated chameleon and monkey paws taken with a glass of beer will send her packing."

The fetishes are organized and lined up like fish on ice.  Birds of every stripe and color, their heads carefully removed, lie in state next to the cloven hooves of goats and sheep.  Skulls of lizards, monkeys, dogs, cats and other unrecognizable small animals stare at passersby through hollow eyes.

Dried bats, geckos, chameleons -- our own voodoo K-Mart -- and that's just the stuff on display.  We wonder what's hidden in the back room?

"Step right up, folks, we've got just what you're looking for.  And for the ladies..."

Deliverance...

Yimdi is a traditional village of the Mossi tribe, the predominant ethnic group in Burkina Fasso.  It is located about 20 minutes outside of Ouagougou, but in a world totally removed from the amber night lights, boisterous street noise, and urban squalor of the city.

For as long as the people of Yimdi can remember, they have lived in a state of siege during the dry season.  At that time, their shallow, hand-dug wells dry up, and they are forced to march for miles to a neighboring village each day and carry back on their heads only enough water for drinking and cooking.  Washing is out of the question, and their pitiful vegetable gardens are left to wilt and die.

This year, the school completed a project to build the village a permanent water supply.  With money supplied by the Dutch government and various fund raising projects at the school, we managed to dig a well and cap it with a donated hand pump.

The village has now moved from the Stone Age into the 19th century.  It feels good.

Things Fall Apart...

About 4 hours to the south of us lies a relatively unspoiled and beautiful oasis of tranquility.  It is a game ranch, developed by two Canadian brothers who were raised in Burkina by their missionary parents and who have dedicated their lives to the conservation of the country's wildlife while adding to the economic well-being of the locals.

In a country where arable land is scarce, the competition between humans and wildlife can be fierce -- and the animals always lose.  Realizing this, the brothers combined the concepts of game preservation and controlled harvesting to demonstrate to the locals that wild animals can be a source of income and food -- a resource worth preserving.

They bulldozed roads, dammed up streams to create permanent sources of water to attract animals, and hired the poachers as game wardens, paying them to protect the animals instead of kill them.  They built tourist facilities out of local materials, constructed an abattoir to pack the game meat for sale, hired biologists to study the animals' reproductive capacity, and set in motion the beginnings of a safari industry to attract high paying guests from abroad.

Government officials visited the facility, were impressed with what had been accomplished, and saw that it was good.  And so they took it...and kicked the two brothers out.

And so it goes.

We've signed on here until June 1992, or until things fall apart, whichever comes first.  As of this June, our address will be:  01 B.P. 35, Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso.  Use international airmail.

Merry Christmas, everyone.