West Coast to West Africa: Regional Capital Visit

After visiting Boussé, on Friday, July 11, I went to visit my regional capital, Yako, for two days. Part of the site visit experience is taking transportation by yourself to simulate future travel during service. My community counterpart, Elie, was incredibly nice and met me at my house in the morning to take me to find breakfast and wait for the bus. Since I'm on the main road from the capital, large coach busses drive through every hour and there is usually a second one 15 minutes behind the first. The trick is finding a coach that has enough room underneath for bikes. Since Boussé is only an hour north of Ouagadougou, by the time the bus gets to me, hardly anyone has gotten off the bus, hence making it difficult to find cargo space for my bike. So, after 3 busses passing through, Elie managed to pester the bus employees enough to find space for my bike. I gave him one last look and then I was on my own for the hour-long bus ride from Boussé to Yako where I would meet a current Peace Corps health volunteer. I didn't talk about the bus ride in my previous post, but it is pretty much like any other coach ride in the US. Often the bus is air conditioned and there are 3 seats on each side of the aisle. I always listen to my iPod because the busses usually blast local pop/hip-hop/loud music that all sounds the same and gets old real fast. Sometimes they'll show a Rhianna or Bob Marley music video, but mostly they play local music.

Hotel Shalom in Yako, Burkina Faso

Once I arrived, we went to the hotel that Peace Corps reserved for the current volunteer, myself and Jamie (another trainee in my region). Talk about an oasis! This hotel is about a year old and is beautiful! We walked into our rooms and to my surprise each room had air conditioning! I'm not talking about a wimpy fan that blows slightly cold air. No, these rooms got COLD if you wanted them to. I literally jumped for joy out of excitement! I sure would sleep well that night! We were pretty sure Peace Corps didn't realize this is what they reserved for us, because the rooms cost 15,000 cfa per night, which is a little under $30 and SUPER expensive for an unpaid Peace Corps volunteer's stipend. But, we received travel allowances and we weren't saying no to this beauty!

We ate lunch under the gazebo

We ate lunch at the hotel. I ordered couscous, which has become my favorite grain ever. I eat it plain and it's delish! While the three of us were eating, an older Burkinabe man sat at a table near us. He kept interrupting our conversation to get our attention. Well, before we knew it, apparently Brittany and I were Jamie's wives. Naturally, I just rolled with it. He asked us where we were from, which is Etats-Unis (ay-taz oo-nee) in French, and then he proceeded to talk about how nice Canadians are. "Non monsieur, nous sommes A-mér-i-cains!" He talked about Canada some more. Brittany asked him where he's from and then flipped the situation saying that people from Ghana. We then explained that the US is south of Canada just like Ghana is south of Burkina Faso. He then talked about how nice Europeans are. We ignored him and continued our conversation. He then interrupted again saying, "MADAME, MADAME." This was a great lesson for me as to how it's a social norm to be rude to each other, especially women to men who harass them in this patriarchal society. "Monsieur, Monsieur, WHAT!?!" He responded saying how much he likes the Canadians that visit here. LISTEN DUDE, please leave us to our conversation. We came to a consensus that he was probably drunk. But, it's also entirely possible that he was just being obnoxious. Lesson: men expect women to be rude to them here. Volunteers have told me this over and over again, and now I've seen it in action!

These adorable hotel kittens made the experience so much better.

Air conditioning is expensive in Burkina Faso

After our lunch, I starfish-ed on my bed in my air-conditioned bed for about 10 glorious minutes of cold, and then we departed for a bike ride around Yako. Yako is similar to Boussé in that it is a large town. However, it's a mining town, so people that are looking to strike rich in the Burkina gold rush usually go to Yako to stock up on food, supplies, etc. Yako is only an hour north of Boussé, so when I need to find things that I cannot at my site, why would I travel to Yako when I could travel an hour south to THE CAPITAL. Pretty silly that they had us go to Yako, because Jamie had to travel through Ouagadougou, the capital, to get to Yako anyway. Oh well, it's a pretty cool town. We split a chicken and two plates of frites (freets, French word for fries). Now, this is not your typical rotisserie American chicken. Chickens here are not as plump as those in the US. But, this chicken man must have been trying to impress the nasaras and get us to come back again because that was one big chicken! We almost didn't finish it! We ate like kings and queens and it was amazing!

A street in Yako. During rainy season, it's typical to see standing water in the roads. Here's a typical line of stores, hair dressers and eateries found in most towns. The kid pushing the white cart sells "FanMilk" which is Africa's best version of frosty in a 8-oz. bag. It's delicious, ice cold and cheap, about $0.20 USD.

One volunteer calls Yako the Wild Wild West of Burkina Faso. We aren't quite sure what these buildings were for, but the bottoms are currently used for shops and food stands.

Remember when I said that a boutique is a small grocery store? Case and point. I don't think we'd call gas station mini marts "boutiques" in the US. ;)

Saturday, we had breakfast on a corner. The man made us omelets and put them in our baguettes. It was delicious! But then he overcharged us. Again, this was a lesson in how to handle a situation where the vendor won't budge. One egg and one baguette and one Nescafe almost always cost 100 cfa each ($0.20). Labor is rarely an addition to the total price. Each omelette had two eggs, yet the vendor was trying to charge us 800-900cfa total for each of our meals. The current volunteer explained to him that it was too expensive and we know prices of things, so why is he charging us so much. He insisted that he used the best butter and whatever else he could throw in there. She explained that we never asked for that and he needs to tell the customers they will be charged for that. She explained that we will never come back and he is no longer our friend. And he laughed, as would anyone. I told you people here are blunt. I'm learning the best I can!

We hopped on the 2-hour bus ride back to Ouagadougou. We didn't think we'd easily get on the first bus since we had to get two bikes in the cargo space. But, after much insisting, they made space. Jamie and I boarded the bus and it was packed with mostly businessmen. Two men waved me over showing me that there was a vacant seat between them for me. Heck no, I'm not about to be harassed for 2 hours. "Hey Jamie, there's a seat there!" Jamie, who is male trainee, turned around and I found a seat near a mother and child near the front. I am so glad Jamie didn't find a seat before I could resolve that situation! It's sad to me that I have to assume that all men are bad because that's so contrary to my personal approach to life. I always assume the best in people. However, c'est la vie!