currency

The currency in Burkina Faso is called the Franc CFA.  One U.S. dollar is exchanged for around 450 CFA.
Below you see the 1000 CFA.  This is the price of a bottle of mango juice.

 2000 CFA.  The traditional grilled chicken I've mentioned costs 2500 CFA.  

 The 200 CFA coin can purchase a bar of soap, for example.  

The 100 CFA coin can buy an egg.  With 50 Francs I can buy a small red onion at the neighbor's produce stand.  

500 Francs comes in either a coin or a small bill. 

Below is pictured the 25 CFA coin, front and back. 

Learning to use a new kind of money.  It's also the best way to learn two- and three-digit numbers in French. 

Unfamiliar Household Objects

Photo Gallery of French Plugs and Outlets

How many people knew there was anything besides the American plug?  I was among those ignorant folks who thought normal to me was normal to everyone.  A few months before traveling, I read the blog of an American teacher who came to Burkina Faso.  She suggested bringing plug adapters.  Oh!  Good to know. 

 

 

Above: household outlet.  Below: plug adapters. 

Below:  An outlet strip that takes both American and French plugs.

Door Rug and Floor Mop

When I want to mop the floor - an occasion that happens about every two days - I grab the cotton rug at the front door or the bathroom door.  I was told that Burkinabe housewives often use the water left from dish washing, something I've done as well. 

Oh, I notice that I said when I WANT to mop the floor.  Maybe I should be slightly more truthful and make that WHEN THE DUST IS MUCH AND WATERMELON JUICE DRIPPED ON THE FLOOR. 

The dust is much every day now, since we've had at least a month of dry season weather.  The wind is picking up as well, and I can't imagine what the world will look like when it hasn't rained for many months. 

The mornings are cooler, a good thing for this season.  The other happy thing, of course, is that it's coming up on watermelon season!

Water

As for water, I have wondered what that will be like in the coming months.  I haven't heard of it being any more of a problem in the dry season than it was in the rainy season; still the same innocent-looking substance.

Here you see one of those large water jugs often seen in the pictures Americans see from Africa.  
They really are everyday objects around here (this was one a neighbor loaned us.)  Young boys and housewives often pass our house on the way to the fountain around the corner.  They push carts loaded with these or a large metal barrel.  Sometimes donkeys pull the cart. Or they strap them on either side of a bicycle.
They go, whenever the water runs out.  The "Komnaba" (King of Water), as they call him, sells them water at the fountain.

 Yesterday  I saw a woman biking with full jugs of water.  And the water was splashing out of her jugs, because they didn't have caps.

It is a blessing to have running water.  Same as everywhere, by every transport, you never know what is in that water.


Left:  Blessing to have electricity, too.  Light and fan switches. 

Okay, so this is acheke.  I have no idea how to describe this food.  As usual, it is a filling substance; also a nice break from rice.  The texture might be described like very large, soft couscous.  But the taste cannot be compared with any American/European food.  It is made from cassava, if that helps at all.  When I wondered, Adama said I wouldn't want to know how it is processed!  We steam it well before eating (also because it is sour when not steamed well.)

Often it is eaten with hands, first mixing it in an oil sauce of fish, onion, and tomato. 

 Left:  internet connection key. 

When we want to use the internet, we plug in this USB key, which is loaded with a SIM card.  Using this method, we must buy units of internet. 



It would be good for developing countries to have the vast internet resources more readily and inexpensively available. 

Right:  When we want to connect, this is the screen that comes up on the computer.

 Tea-Time!  

When guys (and sometimes ladies) want to spend a quiet afternoon around the charcoal burner, boiling tea, they need this equipment. 

2 little teapots - 1 for boiling the tea leaves, one for reheating with sugar.

1 large glass, for mixing with sugar (sometimes it's equal parts sugar and tea)

the tea is VERY bitter

tiny glasses, for slurping a few sips of tea.

The normal procedure is to boil the tea leaves three times, while sitting, while talking.

Happy sitting, talking tea parties to you, too!  

Love to all,

Annette

Victory in Jesus

 "Ton nom est victoire, victoire est ton nom; si Satan ne ve pas, ca c'est ton nom!  Ton nom est victoire, victoire est ton nom; Ton nom est victoire, ca c'est ton nom."

"Your name is victory, victory is your name; even if Satan doesn't want it, that is your name!  Your name is victory, victory is your name; your name is victory, that is your name."

 Recognizing songs, singing some words here and there - and when I don't or can't, participating with feet and hands - that is a blessing. 

 I didn't stand up to testify this morning, but I sang this song.  Five women gave victorious testimonies.  More wanted come forward.  They testified that calling on the mighty name of Jesus brought victory this week - including victory over the spirit of death and the spirit of anger. 

Victory for me was a won battle against the spirit of crying.  Every day brings a challenge, sometimes great, sometimes small.  Far from home and learning things that take a good measure of strength, I feel I have a right to cry.  And every one of you bears challenges that might merit crying.  But what kind of cry is this?  Self-pity?  Stop!

 I tell you from my treacherous travel of the way: tears of pity, confusion, frustration, anger, defeat.... these do no good. 

First I fought that realization with any justification or scientific "fact" I could find. 
Get rid of my last coping strategy?  Even the thought could set my heart quivering in tears. 

Praise to my Almighty God; Jesus is victorious when I hear the Holy Spirit and cast cast out every evil spirit in Jesus' name. 

Crying out with a loud voice to Him DOES help. It is what can make my heart pulse strongly, joyfully. 

Be strong and joyful in the LORD.  Yes, in the Lord.  I can't do anything by my own strength.  I can't do anything by my own joy. 

As much as I want to bring you strength and joy by revealing to you what would revive true Christians, I am also certain that is the business of the Holy Spirit. 

Wishing you could see, I even wrote a long letter to all of you before realizing that even that is useless.  Only those whom God frees from blindness will understand what is revealed before everyone's eyes.  I don't envy the Holy Spirit's job! 

The mighty name of Jesus frees you!  By Jesus' blood you are victorious.  Be blessed.

 If you want to do something, struggle to pray for one hour - the hour that Jesus' disciples couldn't struggle through.  Pray that every chain will be broken in your life.  Take authority in Jesus' name, by the power he gave you.  Pray that Jesus fights for you. 

I know I am unable to fight for myself.    The spiritual battle is greater than most people understand. It is the grace of God to understand.  It is the grace of God to survive the battle thus far.  It is the grace of God to prosper despite the battle. 

What's happening...

Visitors, outside the front gate.  The wall behind them surrounds the clinic to our right.

A woman sells fruit directly across from us...

Another woman sometimes comes towards nightfall with large containers full of cooked beans, rice and acheke. 










The bright sunny courtyard, the laundry...freshly washed with Saba detergent powder AND the same bar soap we use for dishes (oh yes, and to get the red dust out of white shirts = soak in bleach)

We are doing well. Better every day.  Even when a nail punctures the moto tire...

A boy brought pliers, but Aziz wasn't home.  I could actually understand what he was saying, and tell him Aziz wasn't home, but might be back in an hour.

I don't understand every word, of course, and it's difficult to form my own sentences, but I love being able to get the general idea.  Rather than always translating when we're on familiar subjects, Adama asks me first if I know what was said.

I laugh when I think about how I must sound to native French-speakers.  I suppose my sentences, translated back to English, would sound something like "You not have...."  "I am think..."  ha, ha, he, he... most people don't correct me, but Aicha (Adama's sister) is very helpful.  I am happy that she is visiting from Fada for a few days. In the picture below, she is opening "la porte" for her friend.

I watch carefully how these babies are tied on their mothers' backs.... sometimes the wrapper is just tucked in, not even tied around them.  .....eeek.  But the babies know what to do!

More Food

 Great snack food... just harvested and boiled. 

 Common vegetables for sauce... all of these went into the peanut butter sauce pictured below. 

Rice and fish sauce.  Making sauce: I have three whole fish, cut in three - head, middle section, tail.  I let them set in salty water, then bread them with corn flour and fry in heated oil.  That done and set aside, I fry onions and peppers in the leftover oil.  I add green onions, a habanero hot pepper, and soon after, tomato paste. This time, I take the bones out of the fish before adding it to the sauce.  After frying all this, I add a bit of water, potasse, salt, and maggi (spice).  Now I cover and let boil until any foam disappears from the top.  I pray.  Hey, it's tasty! 

Cutting cucumbers... I'll tell you about making salad another time.  I do know that I love eating greens after feasting on rice etc. for several days!  Lettuce, cucumber, unripe tomato, and onion... and some chicken on the side.  Yum. 

Food

While food is very important, I've neglected to share with you what I'm tasting here in West Africa.
I have my thoughtful husband to thank for helping to ease the transition into a starchy, heavy diet.  Remembering the days of wishing for anything but the American cafeteria, the first time he came home with groceries, he found things that we had in the U.S.  He brought butter for me (instead of the usual margarine for a population without many refrigerators.)   He makes yogurt almost every day, which eases digestion and helps with constipation. 

When I was sick and couldn't stand the sight of tô, he brought fresh fruit: bananas, avocados, oranges, mango juice, and special apples (special because they are imported.)   When we were guests in Tantie's home and, sick for the second time, I loathed more than five bites of the perpetual rice, he brought delicious chicken.
Since then, chicken has been our special "eat out" meal.  That and porc-au-fou are pretty much the only prepared foods we buy.  You never know how long street food has been kept - unrefrigerated - or how they washed and made it. 
Here, the two of us can eat one entire chicken.... Huh?  They look normal with their feathers fluffed out, scratching on the dirt roads, running away from speeding motorcycles with their chicks.  They get no "chicken food" besides their bugs and food scraps.  In Bobo Dioulasso, the family saved the chaff from grinding corn to feed the chickens.  Otherwise, they're on their own. 
Now that I'm cooking, rather than relying on the graciousness of hosts and family, I'm working on perfecting the peanut butter sauce that Adama taught me to make. Peanut Butter Sauce, Sauce de Arachid, or Tiga-Diga Ng (in Djoula) was my first taste of African cooking from the chef Adama in Goshen.
We often eat fish.  Potato and plantain fries are on the menu.  Spaghetti is a break from that perpetual rice, but it takes trial and error to figure out how much water to add since it's usually cooked in the sauce.  There is no such thing as measuring ingredients.  Except for "potasse."  That is put in by the cap-full whenever cooking with tomatoes.
I'm not certain what "potasse" is, and I'm spelling phonetically since it comes in unlabeled bags.  Its purpose is to take the sourness out of sauce (I didn't know tomatoes were sour.)  Is sounds like potassium, and Adama mentioned that it might be related to sodium bicarbonate.  He said it sometimes fizzles/bubbles when adding it to sauce, as does baking soda when added to vinegar.  That makes sense if it's neutralizing acid. 
Here's a picture of potasse... the bag it comes in, some of the rock-like substance in my hand, and some mixed up in water the way we add it to sauce. 

The strangest new spice I've had goes by the name "Sumbala."  Adama cooked a sauce with fish and sumbala during our week in Bobo.  Sumbala grows in pods on a tree.  It is sold in large balls, which consist of many grains of sumbala. The balls are pounded with salt, and the ground spice is added to the sauce in great quantities.  Most distinctly, sumbala smells.  Strongly.  The bus company makes sure no passengers bring it on board, and it's important to brush teeth after eating it.  
 I was just telling my mother that some of the difficulty in learning to cook here doesn't lie in new ingredients.  Since settling into our own place, I've had the intimidating experience of providing African hospitality.  At least, it's intimidating to a novice cooking for guys who have learned to cook for themselves. 
The challenge is posed not only making a tasty sauce, but in making the right amount.  There should be enough for whoever might come.  And I must learn what can keep overnight, unrefrigerated.  And what will go bad.  My nutritionist sister was disgusted when I told her we even do this with meat! 

While learning to cook, I've learned to pray.  That is the most wonderful thing that food or country or learning has brought to me.  Now I seek it out.  Jesus is powerful and - even when the taste or the texture isn't quite right - I want everything I cook to bring peace and healing to those who eat it. Practice makes perfect and prayer makes peace.  Yum.  When will I greet a day with enough practice and enough prayer? 

Before we left Bobo, Adama's mother taught me how to make couscous with millet flour.  It is delicious mixed with yogurt to make what we call "degae."  (Spelling guessing again.)  Here's some millet couscous, ready to be steamed:

The last thing I'll show you for now is tô.  It could be considered the staple "bread" of this culture.  More explanation is given in the description of these two videos I took of Adama's mother preparing

tô.  I have yet to make this, although I hear it is simple! 

Preparing Tô (Part One)  

 Preparing Tô - Part Two

 Happy eating to all of you!  Enjoy things you know about while you've got them in your mouth and your stomach. 

University Classroom

We stopped by the University of Ouagadougou at about 6 p.m. and slipped into the back of this first year history class.  It wasn't as crowded as some, but was very hot (despite all the fans.)  The teacher spoke with a microphone, and when a student asked a question we couldn't hear from the back of the amphitheater.  

We looked in the door of another classroom where the teacher was dictating - commas, periods, and all - an entire lesson:

Outside the buildings were masses of bicycles.  Students came late and left early as they wished. 

Peaceful Burkina...

 I greet you from a new abode in Ouagadougou.  We moved to the home at the beginning of the week, when political happenings in the city were beginning to settle. 
Last week's protests in the cities of Burkina meant no one went to school - including Professor Millogo.  We went to Bobo Dioulasso instead, spent a happy week cooking, chilling, and listeing to news, and packed our things to move to Ouaga. 

President Blaise Compaore was in power 27 years.  Nov. 2015 was to be the end of his term; last week he tried to change the constitution so he could be re-elected.  If he had peacefully stepped down, people may have put up with him until election next year, but when he stepped out of turn,

brave Burkinabè (weary of his rule) stepped up. 

Blaise resigned that weekend; demonstrations slowed, roads cleared of brush pile blockages, and the 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew shrank in length.  The U.S. Embassy said on Monday morning,

The November 2 gunfire at the Radio Télévision du Burkina station resulted in one civilian death, and the spontaneous nature of this event serves as a reminder that the security environment remains fluid.  Since the conclusion of that incident, there have been no additional reports of looting or civil disturbances. 

At this time, the situation in Ouagadougou is calm.   Most road debris is clear, and many businesses have re-opened.  The police have returned to normal operations in Ouagadougou.  Street traffic appears to have returned to normal. 

A nighttime curfew remains in effect, from 12:00 midnight to 5:00 a.m. 

Embassy personnel are no longer required to shelter in place, but must obey the curfew and have been advised to avoid the area in and around the Place del a Nation, the Prime Ministry and other government buildings (see attached map of the area).  The U.S. Embassy recommends that U.S. citizens practice heightened vigilance if any movement to or within this area is necessary. 

The Ouagadougou International Airport and land borders have reopened.  We encourage U.S. citizens to contact the airlines for more information regarding flight schedules prior to departing for the airport. 

We remind U.S. citizens that as the political situation evolves closures or openings of borders and airports could change.  Additional spontaneous demonstrations may occur with little to no advance warning throughout Burkina Faso until a resolution of the status of a transitional government in Burkina Faso becomes more clearly established.

So last night we took a break and a nice ride through Ouaga.  We stopped for fruit and chicken on the way home after standing by the reservoir for a while.   

Annette pretending she can ride a motorcycle...

Now, getting ready to ride, for real. 

Clinic

They kept order in the first-come-first-serve waiting room by leaving it up to the patients waiting there. 
The patients patiently filled the room, changing concrete bench for vacated concrete bench, moving closer to the destination.  And more people came.  There were continually 20 or so sick persons with a parent or family member inside the concrete room, and more people hanging around the motorcycles outside.
The sickest woman there waited outside until she was called - you could see pain in the eyes of everyone watching her "walk" to the examination room with the support of two or three men.  
A nurse came out and tested each patient for malaria, weighed them on the scales, and checked for temperature (higher than 37?  Adama's was 40...)  All this happened right in front of everyone there (imagine that!)
There were several babies and as many children.  They sat quietly or slept.  When the nurse drew blood for the malaria test, mostly they were still quiet - the one that wasn't was asked by his father - if I understood right - if he was a girl? 
The entire hospital was open-air, and about as dusty as outside. Their sanitation included wearing white coats, changing plastic gloves frequently, using an alcohol wipe where they needed to prick a finger... and throwing the numerous plastic packages from injections and test kits in a pile against the wall.  The place had no noticeable smells of cleaner, ointment, or medicine. 
Our turn in the examination room: they hand wrote patient information and symptoms in a little yellow book (each patient takes this with him) and stamped it with the blue-inked hospital stamp.  The doctor did some further examining and thinking, then prescribed medicines. 
We went next door to the second of three buildings in the hospital compound - none of them large - where we could  buy half of the medicines.  One we took directly back to the doctor, who injected a large shot into Adama's arm. 
We were there for Adama's bout of fatigue (similar to what I had a month ago).  Unfortunately, I think watching that red medicine ready to fill his arm triggered a head- and stomach-ache that lead to more fatigue for me as well. 
Thank God, that was last Monday night, and we are feeling much better now! 

I don't have pictures of that hospital visit, but I do have one of Adama' s mother in her office at the maternity hospital.  She is looking over record books, the same kind they used at the infirmary clinic.  The biggest difference between the infirmary and the maternity hospital was the amount of people.  In this picture, Mouonton showed me that they had 37 births for the month of September in the district of Belleville (new section of Bobo Dioulasso).  Despite this significant number, no one showed up during the hour that I was there with her. 

Cool Evening

Rainbows come often, even when it has only rained "there."  No rain in this neighborhood tonight, but the blessing somewhere else sent a cool evening our way.

Cool enough for action!

Walk in Ouagadougou

Look at God's beautiful words become creation!  It was about 6:30 yesterday when I pulled on my shoes for a 40 minute walk in the neighborhood.  I took the camera along, and now I want to share some of what I saw with you. 

You will see the good and the bad; the happy faces of children and the trashing of creation. 





(Left:  Some high walls around homes are topped with things that will help deter thieves.  Doesn't help to deter lizards, however!  I saw a lizard crawl right over this broken glass.) 

These children followed me for almost half of my route through the neighborhood, calling a few friends along the way to also come get a bonbon or a photo. 

biking to school:

walking to school:

People are up and about early: I think the first Muslim prayer of the day comes on the local mosques' loudspeakers at 5 am.  Of course it gets hot early too. 

(Right:  People are very careful to protect trees they want to keep.  But then you have this sometime too: Below:  where all the plastic bags end up.)

Street views.

Another kind of taxi: the blue cart built onto a motorcycle.  I've seen these with all kind of loads: animals, hardware sticking 5 feet over the sides, and up to 9 or so people piled in the back. 
This is what Adama's mother had waiting to carry our bags home when we arrived in Bobo a month and a half ago.  It is also what broke down halfway home and so we took one of the broken-windshield, broken-trunk door, green taxi cars. 

 

"Prendre une photo!"                       In front of one of those many little "boutiques," stores about 10 ft. by 10 ft. where you can buy water, juice, packaged and canned foods, and other assorted goods. 

Trash burning in the street. 









Donkey sleeping by the street.

Playground.

A neighborhood well, where those without running water in their homes can go to fill water barrels.  The cart to the right is the type I've seen people pushing. Other people use a donkey and cart. 

And who was there when I returned to the house? 
He turned around and click! there I was with the camera.  
Adama!  (People here call him Aziz and his family adds the endearing "o" = "Azizo!" so he knows it's me saying Adama.)




What did your walk or drive or glance out the window look like today?  What did you notice that you'd never realized before?