Greetings From Ouagadougou

Greets from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  Hey everybody, since I don't have a decent way to get internet right now, and since I've been here for a while, I'm sending this out to kinda recap what's been going on here with me.  

Getting here we actually had a lay-over in Niamey, which was a treat.  Some lady used up to vomit bags (I've never actually seen anyone use even one before) while we were landing because it was about 80 degrees in the cabin while we were still 10,000 feet up.  Plus, there was some turbulence.  Then we landed hopped on over to Ouaga and upon landing everything looked and smelled very similar to my old home in Niamey.  Also, stepping off the plane there was that all too familiar/tramatic welcoming blast from the hair-dryer that is the Sahel wind.  The people of the plane queued up outside the "terminal" so that we could shuffle in the high-ceilinged two car garage ("terminal") to get our visa's filled out and shot cards checked.  I was hoping the whole time that nothing would go wrong because I don't think my three words of french would get me out of any sticky situations.  And the two Americants that were with me were just as useless as I was.  All went well with the luggage, although my guitar was M.I.A. for a little while.  Some nice fellas  fought over who would help my two new co-workers and I pull our luggage to the car.  Our boss (good guy) and driver (who laughs histericly every time we say Peanut Butter.  Crazy guy.) met us and drove us to our new apartments.

The road home was smooth for most part.  There is a pretty damn decent paved road system with a very buzzing downtown here.  I was surprised.  People everywhere.  We narrowly missed about 7 people on the way home.  It seems like most people have a scooter, which I can't have because of company policy (damn it), and the rest bike it.  Although I did see a ridiculously misplaced Escalade.

 I would say the city itself is a good size that you could safely bike around to get to most places.  Its just that things get much further away in 100+ temperatures.  The second day I got here it got above 110.  And coincidently I was talking to some really cool Peace Corps volunteers last night who said it was a mild summer.  And so you know what I told them? "Pshaw!" That's what I told them.  Oh, and back to the bike thing.  It seems like the couple times I've seen somebody get hit by a scooter or car its been a woman biker with a baby on her back.  Fortunately though, its a light hit that doesn't even hurt the bike...much.  The bikers always look a little annoyed, but I wouldn't even call it pissed off.  They are such tough people.  For instance, they can work construction for 6 hours in the heat and for lunch they'll grab a couple-hands-full of peanuts and be good to go for the next 6 hours of work.  I myself eat half a pizza in the AC and 4 or 5 hours later I have to eat the other half because I'm hungry again.  Well, to give myself some credit, I did burn off some calories that day with all of the fly swatting and it was only a 10 inch thin crust.  Thin crust I say!  

My apartment is nice.  Some of you know the African style with the painted concrete walls inside, tile floors, high ceilings, stuco-ed on the outside, and very curvy stylish bars on the windows.  Those of you who don't know, well, its kinda like how I just described.  I have a nice little kitchen, which apparently is used for preparing food.  I mean, I'm just use to preparing food by adding already prepared food (thanks mom, and previous cooks!) to a microwave.  Actually, I have a sweet microwave here too, but buying already prepared food here is few and far between.  And when you do find it, it ain't cheap.  I can't wait to send out some pics to some of you guys, who haven't seen a developing country, to show you the meat market.  Actually it would almost be worth flying back and emailing it while I peer in from a window so that I could see some gagging.  But I would only do that if they were scratch-n-sniff because the sight is only 1/3 of the true intensity (what with the flies, bits of fat, and goat balls).  The smell is retched.  Heinous even.  But damn if it ain't some good steak.  I just need to learn the science of marination (and no Jason Dewayne, not that type of marination).  

It so hard for me to friggin organize my writing.  I just noticed that I start out my paragraphs with one topic and two sentences later I get on a tangent and that's how I end it.  Well, until I figure it out, please bare with me.

If you can't tell, I'm really enjoying life here.  I've only been here for a 11 days and it feels like I've been here for a month.  My main worry right now, as I write this unconnected to the internet so that I can just shoot it off when I find some hotel with wifi, is getting the internet in my apt.  Things work real slow around here so you have to be extremely proactive.  Luckily my boss is so, so I just go the telephone line hooked into my apt.  Now i just need the modem and wire and connection service thingy.  Another worry is how many hours of Heroes I have left.  And other movies and stuff too, but mainly Heros.  I guess most of the world has to deal with that probably.  Times are hard these days.  Also, I don't have mailing privileges and I think it'll stay that way.  I have everything I need here and I'll just bring back African goodies when I fly back in a year.

Lets see.  Night life here is actually pretty sweet.  I went out last weekend on thursday night with Congo (speaks good english) and he showed me his favorite club downtown.  It was very nice, even by states standards.  Drinks were about the same cost as American clubs.  I was just scoping the scene so Congo and I mainly just talked at the bar and had a couple drinks.  Most of the night we were playing "How's the Hook?"  It's and challenging and potentially dangerous game that takes strong will, strong brains, a chilly heart, balls of a goat, and occasionally some nun-chucks.  One fine fact, that may or may not be accurate (Its fact to me), is that 95% of all hookers her have AIDS.  That's a 1:20 chance of not getting AIDS if copulation would take place with one.  In Vegas, they have a saying these odds:  "Play a different game."  In early May in Kentucky they say "You could win more money getting wasted in the infield and hanging around the hippee folk."  Well, no, they don't really say that, but I just did, and I'm from KY, so there. 

Now, its not a question of wether or not I would chance it even if it was 19:20 odds of not getting a disease.  The way of the hook is not my style.  Does absolutely nothing for my ego.  I would feel like a 54 year old crusty Frenchman who's living here to be put up on a money petistal.  I played the game for entertainment because I heard there were many whores here, but I couldn't see any in the club.  Little did I know, they were all around.  Dressed very nice.  Congo pointed them out to me, which told me he knew the game, but even he was confused with some.  Differences that I saw were that the "ladies of the night" were a bit more flashy.  In other words, looks more clean and dressed up than the regular girls.  But the reason I could even compete with Congo in this game was because if were bold and upfront, or tried to get you to buy a drink for them, they were obviously bad.  Anyone could tell that.  So lots would stare, give me the eye, or just approach.  One of them was named Mary (i think), but she asked me to call her Hot Cakes.  I can't make this up. Others though, I like to call them Ninja Hooks, would slyly sip on a drink at the bar and text on their phone.  Sneaky.  I don't know what Congo said to one of those, but he found out that she was one.  He was even unsure about that one.  Then there was the girl, Marium, who just danced by herself all night.  I was fairy just by the time I made my decision about her, but I voted hook.  Who dances by their self all night, not talking or looking at anyone?  Congo said "No."  He called her over with a hand motion and she didn't come.  I was like, "Damn."  She would've ran if she was hook.  

He later talked to her and got her number and Adam, Congo, Marium, and I ate lunch the next day.  I bought Congo and Marium lunch, and the next day Congo texted me that she said she had fallen in love with me.  When only communicated thru sherades.  The lunch started out awkward as I expected.  Marium was pretty shy and could speak about as much english as I can french, but  I got out of her that she was from Niamey and half Fulani/half Hausa tribe. 

So that was kinda cool.  Also, the green "M" tattooed between her eyes and her afro under her arms were cool, but not really.  

We were there for a while waiting for our food and during that time many awkward silences were had.  One silence was broken by a guy with a rack of cigarettes and cell phone cards coming up to the table and motioning for me to buy something.  Rather than scissor kick is ass for being so rude, I realized that the man was just trying to make a buck in a place where there weren't too many bucks to be made.  I shooed him off in the nicest way possible.  Another bought of sherades.  Another silence.  Another guy selling things.  This went on a couple times before I saw the next guy walking up.  I looked to see where the man was coming from and saw that their was a line of people standing at one of the entrances to the cafe.  All with things to sell Adam and I.  So I spoke in a loud volume, with a nice tone, "Merci." and waved my hand to shoo the whole line away.  Probably the reason I'm going so into depth with this right now is that I know that after a while things like this will be just a natural way to me and it will be hard to notice it all.  Things like when we were finished with our meal and had mere scraps left on our plate, a kid in his late teens came up and took our plates for us and for a second I thought he was just the waiter finally doing his job.  Instead he was there to munch on the scraps.  

My neighbors are all really kind.  Actually, every one here is very very kind and complain about very very little.  I'm not saying that they are just kind to me because they know I have money.  There is a whole atmosphere of it here.  I see it from one person to the other.  Not just towards me.  Adam lives next to a bar (and by "next to" I mean he can walk about 7ft outside of his front door and get a beer through the back window of the bar) and we've become very good friends with the head honcho, Kareem.  Real cool, laid back kinda guy.  And you know what, I just thought of this, but I just found out that he is Muslim the other night (after we offered him a beer, and he turned it down because of his faith) and he's the head guy at this bar.  Weird. Anyway, Kareem treats us well because we give him business like no otha, but also he'll not only show us where to get bread, eggs, and phone cards, he'll actually drive out and get them for us.  Ok, you know what, bad example because we give him business so people go way out of their way here if you give them business.  Adam's next door neighbor Ramatou, she just hangs out with us even though she knows little english, needs no money, is leaving to go back to home town hours away from here, and never hints at asking for anything.  My neighbor right now is Kevin and the ladies at the Manicure/Pedicure shop.  They're nice and at least one of them has a kid, Rodrick.  He's like 5 and extremely rambunctious.  His crew is always rolling like 7 deep.  Like Bebe's Kids or something.  And if I shake one of their hands, they all want their hands shook.  Cute kids, and they listen well too.  Like, today they just all ran in my front gate and were having a blast, but after a few seconds I motioned for them to get out because I couldn't see them all and they stop what they were doing right then and skidadled.  Of course, then they would sneak behind me while I was talking and hide behind the gate until I caught them.

To anyone who bared through all of that reading, hats off to you.  If you liked it, I have a book coming out in the fall... but not really.  I hope this found everyone in good health.  I'll send pics and what not.  I just found out that I'm getting the internet tomorrow (copyright May 22nd).  Take care of yourselves and I hope to hear from you all sooner or later.

Ronnie