Dec 31 Christmas Blessings

I was hoping to get something out before Christmas but it didn't
happen so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. In fact all
the cards I wrote to send didn't make it either, I just found them all
in a pile in my car, unsent. Sorry, they should arrive in time for
Easter lol.

In this letter I start off pretty light but then it gets a little dark
and graphic so warnings to those who are looking for something warm
and fuzzy to read.

The week before Christmas was the usual running about trying to get a
ton of work out of the way, buying presents and picking up stuff for
the farm as we would be 9 adults and 3 kids. Loren's Aunt Marcia and
Uncle Larry from Saskatchewan arrived during the week for a whirlwind
2 week visit. I met them back in 2005 and found out that Marcia also
teaches Music for Young Children. I don't think they've ever been out
of Saskatchewan so coming here is a huge thing.

We arrived at the farm on Dec 24 before dinner (by Sunday I felt like
all we had done was eat!). We went to bed collectively around 11 after
getting everything cleaned up and ready for Christmas morning.
Christmas morning we ate, read the Christmas story from a children's
bible and opened presents. We spent the afternoon playing games,
napping, cleaning up and reading. Saturday afternoon, Loren and I went
to a wedding (weddings are popular in December as it's cooler and
family are all home for the holidays). Sunday I went back to Ouaga to
do a bit more work as we were heading to Nazinga for Monday.

When I arrived back to the farm, I met the boys leaving with Myriam,
Larry and all the children. Clark had rented a Land Rover (complete
with driver) so I got in with him, Gramma and Marcia. Carol decided to
stay home. I guess going to Nazinga has mixed feelings for many of
them (Nazinga is the game ranch that Clark set up in the 70s, where
Loren and Derek were raised - it was taken over by the government in
the late 80s and they were basically given 48 hours to get out). Clark
said it was hard being there because he could see what needed to be
done and what wasn't being done. But still there were things happening
there and the wildlife area is still growing. He told the story of
when he was living there in the 80s and was shaving with an electric
razor while walking outside at night. The razor scared an elephant
that was standing nearby. Clark turned and ran but tripped. He rolled
over to discover the elephant standing over him - it could have killed
him. He thought he was going to die for sure. He said afterwards, he
realized he was still alive and had to "shrug back into life like a
heavy coat... realizing all the things that were left undone".

We did a trip around to see wildlife before dark on Monday. I sat in
the carrier rack on TOP of the truck with Larry, Ben and the tracker.
It's a little uncomfortable even with the spare tire to sit on as the
roads are all dirt tracks, some very bumpy, but it's great for
viewing, you see a lot more and from far off too. We went out again
the following morning quite early - we had coffee at 5:30 and were on
the road by 6:00 am only to be thwarted by a flat tire. We were trying
to get out ahead of the other tourists as the trucks tend to scare off
animals. Ben was riding on top with Loren this time (does a mommy's
heart good as well as her butt!) as well as the tracker. The driver
had no jack and no pump. Fortunately we hadn't gone far so we went
back, got everything changed up but by that time everyone else had
gone out. We still saw a lot of animals. The best part was when we got
back actually. I had just finished washing up for breakfast and came
out of our cabin to see about 15 elephant walking by, no more than 20
feet away. One of the big males saw and heard us (there were now a
crowd of people come to watch) and he stopped to assess. One of the
babies pushed passed him so the big one trumpeted and gave the baby a
smack with his trunk. The rest went on to the water while the big one
made sure we didn't intend his family any harm. I of course left the
camera at the farm.

Clark was going to take Gramma, Marcia and Larry in the rental truck
to Leo to see the mission station there where Bruce used to be, and we
were heading home but with only one spare between the 2 cars we
decided to go together and the rest of us would head back to Ouaga
from there. For the trip we sat the same as when we headed to Nazinga
- the boys, all the kids, Myriam and Larry in the Patrol; Clark,
Marcia, Gramma and I in the rental with the driver. We went to see
where Loren and Derek get their grass mats made for the roofs they
build then went on from there. The rental truck had air conditioning
so Clark offered to Myriam to change places so she could sit with the
girls in the air conditioning. She refused so we continued as we were.
Derek drove to Leo and we followed behind. The road is pretty bumpy to
start but then turns into graded dirt road so at least is flat. We
were following the boys in the Patrol and it was dusty so there wasn't
much to see. I decided to take a nap as I hadn't had too much sleep
either Sunday or Monday nights.

I woke up an instant before we swerved to the right to avoid hitting a
motorcycle that was driving the wrong way on the road. The driver had
over steered then again overcompensated to the left and we slid out of
control. We were doing about 60 or 70. The last thing I remember is
thinking "we're going to hit that tree, we're going to die, God
protect us."

The next thing I knew, I was lying down on my left side. I thought I
had been sleeping and dreaming the tree. But I couldn't breath, so I
pushed against whatever it was, telling them to get off, when I heard
someone crying. I realized that I was lying in a pool of blood and
broken glass and Marcia was crying that her legs were broken. I
couldn't see anything and couldn't hear Gramma or Clark. Finally I
realized there were others there, pulling Clark and Gramma out through
the passenger side window. They went to take Marcia - who doesn't
speak any French - so I frantically called to be very careful as she
had broken her legs. They then lift me out. I don't have much memory
of what went on. I remember sitting between Marcia whose legs were
twisted in different directions and Gramma whose face was covered in
cuts and blood. No one had been wearing a seatbelt. I remembered
telling Marcia not to wear hers as it was only a lap belt - I don't
actually recall if she even had one. If she had been wearing it, she
might be a paraplegic today, or she might not have broken her legs,
who knows. Gramma had been wearing hers before we stopped but had
forgotten to put it on after. I didn't have one at all not that it
would have helped.

I saw Clark on the far side of Gramma, holding 2 deep cuts in her
legs. His face was badly bruised and he thought he had broken his hip
- which he didn't, thankfully. I had blood dripping down my face and
out of the back of my head. I tried to conjure up as much of the 10
years of first aid and industrial health and safety knowledge as I
could but nothing immediately useful would come. I took my overshirt
off to stop the bleeding from the cut in my head and tried to assess
Marcia. Gramma was in shock, repeatedly asking "what happened?" Clark
was lucid. Marcia had clearly broken through both femurs. I knew that
the pain alone from that could kill her, even if there weren't
complications like internal bleeding. I said as much to Clark and to
the people around that they were not to move her. We sent someone back
into the truck to get blankets and cell phones. There was no cell
coverage so there was nothing to do but wait til Loren and Derek
realized we weren't coming.

Someone then told me they would take me to the dispensary, I thought
so that I could get medical supplies. It took 2 people on a motorcycle
to take me, one in front driving and one behind, holding me on. We
arrived at the dispensary where they dumped me on a mattress to lie
down. I kept insisting they take me back but they said there were no
supplies there anyway and I couldn't help - which was probably true. I
started to pray. About an hour later someone came to offer me an IV
with painkillers which I refused. I wanted to make sure I stayed
lucid.

Awhile after that, Loren arrived. He told me that the ambulance was on
it's way from Leo to get the others, but I was to stay put for the
moment. At least I knew that help was coming.

Derek et al. had arrived in Leo 30 min after we had the accident to
realize that we weren't behind them. They dropped the kids off with
Myriam at a friends' house and Loren, Derek and Larry returned. They
managed to call the Leo hospital but Loren went back to Leo make sure
it was coming, stopping in to see me. So this is now at least 2 hours
before the ambulance arrived to get Marcia and Gramma as the accident
occurred around 1pm and it was nearly 3pm by the time I saw Loren. The
boys took Clark to the hospital, then Derek and Larry came to get me.
I called from the back of the truck "Are we there yet?" but of course
because it was Derek who has lived in Africa most of his life, his
answer was a serious "5 more min". I told him I was joking and he
looked at me like I was crazy. Loren had stayed with Marcia to
translate and get supplies as there was nothing at the hospital. He
was sent to go buy everything I think from gauze to IV solution.

I found out later that many people had stopped to help. They had taken
out water and the blankets, some people standing nearly the full 2
hours to give them shade. One man sat with Marcia's head on his lap.
He didn't move for 2 hours because he heard my warning. The guys on
motorcycle we avoided stopped to help then took off once we were out
of the truck.

I was the youngest person in the car and in the best shape so probably
why I received the least injury and will recover faster than everyone
else. (however when we were in the Leo hospital they thought that
Larry was Marcia's father and that they had made a mistake with her
age as she clearly had to be younger than me, even though she's close
to my mother's age. But then she was the only person not to hit her
face as she was sitting in the middle and she has beautiful clear
skin). My hair was solid, crusty from blood and I could hardly move. I
had been lying on my side and apparently the reason I couldn't breath
was because I had Marcia, Gramma and Clark on top of me - somehow he
had been thrown into the back, possibly by the airbag that went off -
nearly 600 lbs fell on me. I was lucky I didn't break anything, like
my breastbone or clavicle which had taken most of the weight and felt
like they had been folded. My x-rays show no broken bones but my
tailbone looks like the letter "j" from the front. I tore my groin
muscle but it gets better with movement. I also probably tore every
muscle in my chest and shoulders. I don't need to be woken up every 2
hours because I wake up every hour being so sore. I am covered in dark
bruises and small cuts from the glass but because I was wearing pants
and boots, I was spared the huge gashes in my legs that both Marcia
and Gramma have. I have a gash in the back of my head, a 2+ inch cut
that runs from just above my eyebrows, down the right side of my nose
and 2 semi black eyes from it as well as several chipped teeth. They
didn't have any local anaesthetic left by the time I had my turn so I
opted for getting it taped instead of stitched. I made jokes about
wondering what kind of tribe has face markings like mine and being
mistaken for them - maybe I should add others to be from a better
tribe. Or perhaps I now had a good excuse to get a nose job and could
I justify getting a boob job to go with it. I later made jokes about
having permanent eye shadow and it was a good thing that purple is a
good colour for me. Of course everyone is wondering exactly how hard I
hit my head.

Marcia was later taken by ambulance to a clinic in Ouaga with Larry
and Loren - she has been put in traction and stabilized. They decided
to take her direct to Canada, via air ambulance courtesy of Canadian
Consulate, for surgery in case there are complications so they don't
have to move her again - one break is near her hip, the other near her
knee, and she broke one tibia as well I think. Gramma went in for
surgery as her face cuts were hemoraging into her eyesockets. Clark
and I stayed for assessment as we were clearly better off. We were
even allowed to go back to our friend's house to sleep rather than
stay. Derek stayed at the hospital, Myriam took care of Clark and I. I
told her we clearly have concussions and need to be woken up every 2
hours to ensure we don't go unconscious. She didn't believe me so they
phoned Clark's sister Lyn who is a nurse. She confirmed what I said so
Myriam got up every 2 hours to wake us and ask us questions to check
for lucidity. She first asked me my name, I responded "Madame Loren"
which made her laugh (this is the name everyone calls me because it's
not polite to speak to your friend's "wife" in a familiar way).

Gramma broke her nose, cracked her ribs and has to stay in the
hospital for at least a few days for a variety of other reasons. She's
a tough old boot but she is 83. Carol is staying with her, Clark is
staying at a nearby guest house. I came home last night, and Loren
went to get Ben and get me more drugs.

I keep thanking God that Myriam never got in the truck with the girls
and I don't even want to think about if Ben had been with us. Looking
at the pictures of the truck, we were lucky to come out alive. After
hitting the tree we fell sideways into a deep ditch. If that tree
hadn't been there, we would have flipped over forwards instead - with
very little hope of surviving.

So I guess I'm not going dancing tonight. But if that's the least of
my worries then hey, I'm okay with that. When Loren tried to hug me
where it wouldn't hurt, I said then you'll have to hug my left thigh.
Whenever I hurt/move, I may make a lot of noises but I won't complain
because I know Marcia hurts more than I do even with the morphine and
she'll hurt for a long time yet. I realized that throughout the
ordeal, I would have random, stupid thoughts - like oh no, my face!
(this was when it was still completely covered in blood so I had no
idea what I looked like) to which I would immediately think " you
idiot! You're lucky to still have or need a face!". In fact I think
I'll keep the scar on my nose to remind myself how lucky I got one
day.

It was interesting some of the comments I heard after the fact about
who was at fault. Gramma is praying the driver doesn't lose his job
while Clark clearly thinks he was following too closely behind the
boys therefore couldn't see from all the dust. Other people thought he
shouldn't have tried avoiding at all, if you are 5 in the car and 2 on
the bike then the lives of the 5 outweigh the 2. I don't think he had
that much time to think about it really and I don't know how one makes
a choice like that.

I have yet to shrug back into my life. Everything still seems very
surreal and I'm not sure how it is or why I am still on this planet.

Hopefully 2010 is less eventful for me than 2009 was. Blessings to all.

Dec 19th

It took so much work to get the last blog out that I didn't even want
to start writing the next one! That and it's been so busy that I
didn't have time to even think about writing a blog. This one ends up
pretty heavy. So read at your own risk. It also sounds very preachy
but in reality I think I'm talking to myself and trying to figure out
my own way… a therapy of a sort.

The stuff I've been doing since home from Ghana is largely detail
chasing. I got the house to rent as our office, ordered furniture, got
the bits and pieces I need for my lawyer to get our company
registered, met with a bunch of people, interviewed others, and
generally ran around doing errands like finding missing shipments,
buying parts and transporting staff around. I felt like I spent more
of my week sitting at my friend's bar than anywhere else and my butt
hurts from sitting in hard metal chairs. Sounds weird I know but it
really is the best place to conduct business, especially in absence of
an office, and I promise I was only ever drinking pop. I had so many
details in my head that I was having a hard time sleeping. I was so
tired by Friday that I couldn't get up and slept in til 10. I
definitely feel like I am earning my salary!

Everything about my job right now feels like a learning process. First
is all the stuff I needed to learn how to get the business up and
running, how things are done here in Burkina - commercial process,
labour laws etc. It was lots of trying to figure out who to contact
and what I needed to do. Thankfully I have a lot of friends here who
have helped me otherwise it could have been a lot harder! Not that I'm
done yet…

The second phase will be learn all the processes for quoting,
ordering, inventory, invoicing and accounting etc. and getting all
that in place in our office. The third phase is to learn all the
products. The fourth will be to learn all the clients, potential
clients and to run around selling the products.

On top of all that is the stuff I already know like hiring staff,
training them and well Steve and Pat seem to think that I will be able
to whip the lot of current staff into shape as well. And Steve wants
me to repeat the above process in Ivory Coast and Niger eventually.
And of course I'm still trying to improve my French and Moré and do
all the other daily things that need to go on, like eat, exercise,
spend time with Ben and Loren. Thank God I don't have to clean, do
laundry, groceries or cook!

It would be nice if it were as simple as all that, that I could learn
each phase in one chunk - but of course that is never possible. So for
the moment and well probably for the next few months, I will have a
perpetually full head.

I did get out yesterday, we went to a wedding, then last night to the
bar we go to for billyards. They had live music sort of… a guy with an
acoustic guitar singing, his friend rapping. They had a few acts in a
row like that. I bring this up only for the fact that a couple of them
sang songs about how terrible the whites are for bringing in the slave
trade. Loren and I had a conversation about this. It pisses both of us
off, whenever they want to go on about how terrible whites are, they
talk about the slave trade. If you want to hate whites, fine. But
first they need to remember that whites didn't start the slave trade -
they did. Whites bought the slaves but Africans had slaves to sell
(this is not like the prostitution trade here which IS driven by the
white population as Africans don't buy sex - they take it) - and
there were a number of great blacks that came out of the US/Canada
because their families were brought originally as slaves. Second,
whites were also the driver behind ending of the slave trade. And
third, there are so many other things to hate Westerners for, why
dwell on something that ended a century a go. I mean the exploitation,
rape and pillage, and corruption of Africa that goes on currently is
much worse than the slave trade ever was and is largely driven by
Western interests why not write songs about that? Too complicated and
no one really gets that they are being raped here.

Finally my biggest problem with Africans hating whites is that, if
they had the money and power that Westerners have, what would they do
with it? Exactly the same thing. The first thing they do with money is
not send it home to the village. They give power to their friends,
travel around, and they buy big cars, big houses and boob jobs for
their girlfriends.

Loren brought up an interesting point yesterday. He's very
pro-American, even pro-George W. if you can believe it (he has
American heritage, direct lineage to Abraham Lincoln apparently). He's
extremely Conservative (this is of course the source of a lot of
arguments between us me being the socialist and anti-GWB that I am).
He said not that the Americans have necessarily done a great job with
it BUT if you think about the power (political and weaponry) and the
money that the Americans have, can you think of another country in the
world that could have done better? Can you imagine that in the hands
of Canada with our baby pablum social policies? England? France?
Generally I think some of these countries that could do better don't
have that kind of power because they don't want it and don't give a
crap about anyone but themselves. For example Switzerland. They don't
even want to join the EU.

The more I work and the more I see, I realize that there is a larger
agenda on the table. You look at all the inequity in the world and yet
how much money there is and realize that things stay the same because
someone (or many people) who is/are holding a lot of the
power/money/political cards want to see it stay that way. They get
other people, like the leaders of underdeveloped countries to buy into
that, and they know that the average Westerner isn't going to argue
because the 1) can't see the link between their consumption and
problems like poverty, child slave labour, pollution and 2) they are
pretty much absorbed by their own lives as dictated by television (if
you don't believe that you should come here and see what it's like to
be around women who don't have low self esteem issues because they are
overweight). Like in Rwanda, the division between the Hutu and the
Tutsis was there from a long time before whites ever arrived but the
whites used it to further their position. This is a common ploy used
throughout colonial Africa, you can see it here in Burkina, in Ghana
and Ivory Coast. It's not new. It was done in North America as well
with some of the aboriginal groups.

It sounds very conspiracy theory I supposed but to me it just looks
like basic human characteristic really. Few people really understand
how someone or a few people could possible control that much. I
certainly don't but I see it as most of us don't understand it and
that is why we don't have that kind of money or power, were just not
wired to either want it or believe that we can have it. For those that
are wired that way, they are probably also wired in such a way that
they are less concerned about the welfare of others. I mean you have
to be pretty driven and laser focussed to get to those kind of
political levels so that would also presume that you are generally not
distracted by the side views and obstacles of poverty, social
injustice etc. Please this is a generalization, there are certainly
people with money who are concerned about these issues or at least
appear to be. I also personally cannot figure out what their
motivation is exactly (it's probably complicated) as I don't think
like that. I definitely do not have the focus or drive to be rich and
I have a hard time imagining what that would be like. (there is a
difference between wanting to be rich and being driven enough to
achieve it)

I'm also a little leery of people who try to simplify some of the more
complex issues (although that's exactly what I'm doing here). You get
some well-meaning volunteer who runs around collecting money for the
starving people in Africa - like for the Band-Aid concerts that are
supposed to raise awareness of the famine in Ethiopia etc (Ethiopia is
and was during the 1984 famine, one of the richest countries on the
planet and actually had a lots of food but it wasn't being
distributed). Most of these people have never been to Africa, or in a
village. I met a girl who was trying to raise money to buy food for an
area of Mali that was starving saying they had no food. In reality the
village had lots of food, stored in granaries. However, the men had
gone off to fight some local war, leaving only women and children in
the village… only women and children are not allowed into the
granaries to get and distribute food. So they were essentially dying
because they refused to break tradition, even to feed their families.

A side note: I'm sure all this sounds very negative but it's actually
born of a belief that once we all stop thinking that life was created
by Walt Disney, we can face reality, learn about the real agenda and
do something. It all starts from individual and consumer choice, and
to simplify things to something completely idealistic and useless that
once we stop thinking that happiness comes from filling our homes with
cheap, plastic crap from China, we can deal with real social issues.
But it comes at the price of leaving the soap opera and facing
something really difficult. I am equally guilty of this so am not
pointing anywhere in particular just being argumentative mostly! I
don't have any part of this figured out fully but I really think it's
a system so if you can drive a stake into part of it, the rest will
unravel. But it's also like trying to turn the Queen Mary, when
everyone is paddling in different directions. I also don't have this
sorted out in my own life but I think part of spewing all this into a
blog is trying to figure out how to do just that.

Part of this thinking was driven by a letter I saw that was written by
someone who had been working as a cooperant in Rwanda. He was
apparently asked to leave because he was trying to push a social
agenda which was contrary to that of the foundation he was working
for. When I read this, I wasn't surprised. That sort of thing happens
everywhere. I saw it happen to a guy working for CIDA when I was here
in Burkina in 1998. I've seen it even at home, in the government of
Canada where someone with certain outspoken ways that were contrary to
the government's position, was shuffled out to a quiet post - made to
look like a promotion but definitely a demotion in terms of power.
Most of us will never understand the backroom handshakes but I think
we can all be clear that generally it is money or power that drives
any of the dealings including development and aid money. No one gives
something for nothing.

You hear of stories like USAid "helping" the poor cacao farmers of
Costa Rica with development money but the only ones who really
profited from the process was Hershey's who got cheap single source
cacao out of the deal. Like in Ghana where it is cheaper to buy rice
from the US than from local farmers because of the subsidies, also
Ghana isn't allowed to tax certain things from the US because of
development money given. These are US examples but Canada and other
Western countries do the same thing. Nothing is given for free.

Ok, stepping off soap box now. Next topic will be on salvation… just kidding.

Hi all,

It's been a busy few weeks. I got my car, I went on a trip to see the
Burkina mines and our work sites, and I went to Ghana and saw my
friend Patrick from university. Each of those is a story in itself.

I got a phone call on Saturday (Nov 22) afternoon from a man who I
couldn't understand half of what he said even though he was speaking
english. He said (as far I as understood) that he had my car and was
bringing it up. He would meet me on Sunday morning. Ok, great. He
calls me Sunday at 7AM to say he was leaving for the border and would
call when he got there. Ok, great. I expect him to call back about 90
min later because it's not that far to Dakola from Bolgatenga. He
calls me 3 hours later and says can I come meet him? WHAT? It's a 2
hour drive to the border. Turns out he doesn't have an international
drivers license so can't bring the car to Ouaga. I was a little pissed
off by this but Loren offered to go get it for me. I'm sure he had no
idea what he was getting himself into, it seems innocent enough
doesn't it? He takes his motorcycle to catch a bus to Po on the
Burkina side. He misses the 10AM bus so has to wait for the 12:30 bus.
Then when he arrives he has to get a taxi to the border. When he gets
to the border, they try to meet and after numerous phone calls, they
are both standing under the flag but still can't see each other. At
this point they determine that the driver has gone to the wrong border
crossing. It's now 4 PM and the border closes at 6PM. It will take the
driver at least 4 hours to get there. So Loren calls me to say he is
staying the night in Po.

It gets better. The driver arrives with the car the next day, gives it
to Loren and leaves. Loren has to cross into Ghana to get it. He
arrives at the border to find out that in order for him (a Burkinabé)
to bring a Ghanaian vehicle in, he needs a Ghanaian driver. So he
calls me, not sure what to do. I had no idea so I called my boss who
said I should get one of our company drivers from Ghana to go get it -
only I can't reach anyone. So Loren, goes back to Ghana, randomly
hires some guy only now because customs has already seen the car, they
have to drive around to a different border crossing and come in. Then
Loren has to drive back to Po to drop this guy off and then come back
to Ouaga. Turns out also they forgot to tell me that the car was full
of parts so when customs searched the car on the way in, Loren was
given trouble for it. They thought he was smuggling, but he found a
waybill in the stuff the original driver gave him. Whew! So what
should have been a 4 hour trip turned into 40 hour trip. I figure I
owe Loren in a major way - not sure how to repay that kind of debt.
Had it been me, I'd probably still be standing there!

Then there was the trip to the mines. On Monday night Ben was
complaining his stomach hurt. He had a medium grade fever so I gave
him some tylenol and he went to bed. He stayed home from school the
following day and Tues night I had to take him to see a doctor because
his fever was getting higher and he was crying because his stomach
hurt. Turns out he had tonsilitis and a gastrointestinal infection. So
he was on 2 forms of antibiotics as well as anti-inflammatories. Not
the kind of stress a mother needs the first time she is leaving him
alone (well, with Loren). Well fortunately Loren came through and
really stepped up to the plate both physically and emotionally for me
and for Ben. I left feel like things were going to be okay and they
were. My boss, Steve, arrived on Wed. Nov 25. We ran about town doing
errands Wed then left Thurs for the mines. The trips up and back were
long and dusty and bumpy. Used to being the only woman on site after
working in construction, so wasn't a real hardship. One site actually
had a couple female engineers. The thing was a couple sites were what
I expected. A bunch of older men, fairly serious bunch but some are
kinda racist. Then there was the other site with open racism and
clearly hard feelings, lots of booze and the owner's son running about
drunk and stupid. I was not happy with the scenario and felt more at
home talking to the African staff that were serving than with the
people I was supposed to be schmoozing. I just can't be that kind of
sales person. Not that I'm serious as anyone who knows me would say
but I'm not here to sell just whatever. My friend Greg always said I
could sell fridges to Inuit but that's not true. I can only sell to
you if I think you have a genuine need I can meet and I have a product
I believe has value. So not hard on a mine site to sell hoses and
fittings (machines are always bursting hoses) and certainly there is a
need for the other items that we sell. So fine. So what's the problem?

I'm not sure I can define it exactly. There is nothing wrong with
making money. There is nothing wrong with using natural resources. The
environmental realities of strip mining for gold aside, there are the
fundamental attitudes of whites regarding Africans. Steve (my boss)
was quite clear about his position which I can appreciate without (I
think) becoming racist. There are many Africans who can do 95% of my
job. But we are serving companies that are owned, operated, financed
by whites. So my job is the last 5%. For those of you not familiar
with Africa, they can build or make pretty much whatever you may need
here that we can make in North America, and generally it looks good,
works fine, but it's rough around the edges (sometimes it's complete
crap, too). Even if you go into nice hotels here, there is something
missing that prevents it from being 100%. Usually it's things are not
exactly square or have rough edges. Same with service, there is
something missing in service that leaves it just short of the mark. I
chalk this up to the fact that generally they are just not accustomed
to having to get there. If you aren't accustomed to even getting to
the 50% mark, the last standard deviation is hardly of concern. For
example, if food is scarce you don't care if it's nutritious or has
rocks in it nevermind if it's not filet mignon done exactly medium
rare. Same goes for management. If you are accustomed to a hierarchy
and traditions, and in general you live hand to mouth, there isn't any
need to plan for the future. So the lack of ability to plan comes from
the fact that it's just not a part of their culture. All
understandable. I see things that I'm missing that they have, all the
time. For example, we are so accustomed to having everything laid out
for us that we don't pay attention so when travelling somewhere they
have a good eye for details of their surroundings so that even if
things change they can still find their way. I'm so used to having
street signs, maps and landmarks that don't change that I don't pay
much attention. Don't need to, so when I have to it's hard like here
where there aren't many street names and there is so much development
that landmarks change almost daily. There are tons of examples on both
sides.

Anyway, back to the problem. The problem is partially that I came here
to get away from complicated Western society, not play handmaid to it.
I can do it but I refuse to be sucked into the sales life and refuse
to get into these racist conversations in the midst of this. There are
a lot of these guys that are there to do their job and are serious. I
don't mind dealing with them but even they can go on about how stupid
Africans are. I get frustrated and tell stories but I certainly know
that not all Africans are like that and like I said before, it's very
much a matter of culture, not intelligence. I have many friends here
that I hold deep respect for. Maybe it's because I worked in the
government and the bureaucratic idiocy from people who should know
better makes anything stupid here pale in comparison. For every
example Steve could give me of a problem he has with his African
staff, I could give him a similar example from working in either the
federal or provincial government. Difference being, the people I'm
talking about are educated and should know better.

So I got home on Saturday night and Ben was still sick. Loren had
taken him back to the doctor but waited over 2 hours and was late for
a meeting so left before seeing the doctor. We determined after much
running about that Ben has malaria, high yeast in his stomach and
possibly typhoid fever to go with his tonsilitis. Good, so just before
I have to leave for 5 days, my son has 2 potentially deadly but
treatable diseases. I'm giving him enough antibiotics for an
industrial size farm and a bunch of other drugs. AHHHH!!! Well, at
least I'm certain he'll be better soon, probably in a few days. I
hope. He does look better and is eating better but is getting that
textbook fever in the afternoon that comes with malaria. He's lost 4
kg since being here but that's pretty normal anyway for the amount
that he is running around and with the heat. Good thing he was pretty
heavy to start with and the upside is he actually gets to take less
medicine (2 antimalarials daily instead of 3 because he crossed the
weight threshold).

I left for Ghana on Monday November 30th. We drove the 1000 km. It
took about 14 hours so we arrived around 1:30AM. Most of the road is
okay but the last 100km is brutal. So imagine getting to the last 10%
at 11PM only to determine that it will take more around 3 hours to
complete. Not the most efficient way to travel as you waste a whole
day and the following day is less than productive. Steve isn't the
most organized person either so I think I managed to accomplish about
1 day's worth of work. It was good to spend some dedicated time with
Steve (you can learn a lot about a person by spending 14 hours in car
with them). It was good to meet all the people and my friend Patrick
from university was there as well. I haven't seen Patrick in over 13
years and well he hasn't changed much. We went out Wed and Thu nights
and had some fantastic conversations. Really Patrick sees me as doing
a lot more than just managing Burkina but I need more time to get to
know the company, the people and then we'll see. The staff have a lot
of potential but need some work and Steve is really not the person to
develop them. However, I don't want to spend anymore time in Ghana
than necessary. We'll see. The other side of this is the fights this
can spark with Loren. And the additional travel this may entail. The
upside is the potential for additional salary, the downside is that
Steve now wants me travelling to places like Ivory Coast (which is
gearing up for elections - never a good time to visit) and Niger
(which is extremely Muslim - like will need to cover my head etc while
travelling). I seem to say this a lot but well, we'll see.

I got home on Friday Dec 4 afternoon. Loren picked me up from the
airport and brought me home. Ben was there, better but still having
stomach problems. Loren spent every night with Ben and they watched
movies and played games. Ben is writing a "report card" for Loren's
performance over the week. We'll have to see the content before I
decide to give it to Loren or not!

Finally it doesn't much feel like Christmas since it's still about
30oC during the day with clear blue skies.And Burkina being only about
15% Christian, you don't see a lot of stores with tinsel or playing
Christmas music. There is one grocery store that does but they only
have 3 songs so if you take longer than 10 min to do your shopping you
get to hear them over and over. C'est l'Afrique.

I guess it's been awhile since I've written. I guess it just hasn't
been that exciting. I have been working. I'm supposed to work from 8
am til 5:30pm with an hour for lunch and a half day on Sat. That's
pretty long hours although right now I'm sure if I'm really making
that as I take the hour for lunch to eat with Ben but I also take an
hour to do my french lessons and some times I leave a bit early to go
to the gym. I end up spending a couple hours at night doing work
though and sometimes nearly a full day on Sat so I figure it balances
out. I also am incurring expenses that I can't recover and have people
running around doing errands for me.

For here my salary is really good and actually it's the vacation time
and compensation that are really the amazing part of the package. I'm
making less hourly now than I did in high school in the 80s but round
trip airfare twice times a year to anywhere I want to go was never
part of the package. Even hourly I still make more than probably 90%
of the population.

It's weird working at home. You feel like you are always at home and
never feel like you are actually getting anything done. The other
things that make it feel weird are how long things on the internet
take. Because it takes so long to open web pages, send emails etc. at
the end of the day, you aren't sure exactly what you accomplished.
Although things are getting crossed off my list, it's just going
really slowly. Loren has been helping me with some stuff. I had to
look into how to register a company here and they give a list but
don't explain any of their acronyms, like why you need them. So he was
great at explaining all that to me. Probably got more accomplished in
the 20 minutes he spent explaining than the whole rest of the day.

The only thing that I have as a compass as to whether I'm getting the
right things done is occasional emails and one phone call from the
Director. So also not used to having so little feedback as to what the
priority is.

The Director is going to be coming up the week of the 24th and we'll
do a tour of the mines here and hopefully get us set up in an office.
I found a couple suitable places. The tour of the mines will likely
require me to stay overnight somewhere. Then the following week I am
to go to Ghana with the Director, drive down, fly back. It takes most
of a day to drive to Accra. I will be away for 4 maybe 5 days
depending on flights. I asked to not be travelling over a weekend if
it can be helped and Steve (the Director) agreed. We leave on Monday
and should be home by Friday. The house girl agreed to stay overnight
with Ben as I need someone to get him ready for school in the
mornings, feed him etc. and be there at night for dinner consistently.
Loren isn't around enough for my comfort.

Last weekend we went to the opening of a new maquis and met a couple
French guys, both who have been living in Burkina for at least 5 or 6
years and other parts of Africa for the last 10 or 15 years. They look
about mid-thirties so they must have come here really young. Both work
in construction so are direct competitors of Loren's company. They
were great guys and one guy, Arnot is married to a woman from Guinea.
They have a son a little older than Ben and live around the corner
from us. This had me thinking about the fact that I don't yet really
have friends here. I have Loren's friends, mostly men, who I can sit
and talk with somewhat if I go over to one of the nearby maquis. Some
of their wives are friendly with me. There are a few neighbours I am
friendly with. There's Dembele and Cita but with 3 kids and one is a
newborn, they don't have much time for going out. I don't have friends
to go out with and do stuff. I chat with the girl who runs the fitness
club but no one I can call and say, let's go for coffee or want to go
out dancing? Many people are married and it's sort of the same problem
as I encounter in Canada, few people have the same interests as me
which is probably why in Ottawa many of my good friends were young
people at karate. Not that I mind spending my free time with Loren or
his friends but I still feel a bit that I am missing that… to use a
french word… complicity. In English it doesn't have the same
connotation I guess, it means more like someone to get into trouble
with. Camaraderie? Arnot struck me as someone I could be friends with.
A guy of course, the majority of my friends are men at home, but here
that isn't really acceptable. One of my other friends was out with us,
and he called me Lisa which sent the whole table into a tale spin. How
dare he call me by my first name?! Everyone calls me either Madame
Loren (most people can't pronounce Loren's last name - Lungren, or
they know we're not married so don't try to call me by a last name,
thereby pointing out that we're not married) or they call me Maman de
Ben which is fine with me but it's one more layer of separation.

If I go out and have a good time by myself, (I.e. go to a bar and play
pool or go dancing, places where I know other people even), even if
Loren doesn't mind (which he doesn't), if his friends see me, he's
going to get an earful as will I.

Although you find complicity in the strangest places too. Loren likes
to make fun of my black belt since he thinks that it's basically katas
and pushups. He thinks that the fighting is choreographed. It makes me
mad but most of his friends know I have a black belt and that I like
to fight. The last person who should be supporting me in that sort of
thing is a village chief. There is a chief who comes to the maquis now
and again. He has this running joke with Loren that he's going to
steal me from Loren, calls Loren his rival. It's starting to get thin
at this point. But when out last weekend, the chief was encouraging me
to continue my training. Turns out he's a 3rd Dan in Judo and 4th Dan
in Taekwondo. He keeps telling me he's too old and weak to do it
anymore (the Judo I can understand, I have friends at 35 who find it
tough to keep it up) and the chief is probably early 50s. He
compliments me on my strong handshake grip and always wants to talk
about training techniques. The rest of Loren's friends just think I'm
crazy for doing martial arts and Loren crazy for letting me.
Unfortunately, the other thing he always wants to talk about mind you,
is village relationships (I.e. how you always give the gift chicken to
your father's brother's wife, not to his brother) and me having more
children…

We're still having guard troubles from the standpoint that Paul and
Ziidi, who alternate weeks are not cool with the hours. They want to
arrive at 6PM and leave at 6AM whereas I said 5PM til 9AM. Ziidi
doesn't speak any French. In fact it is probably fair to say I speak
more Moré than he speaks French. Paul is trying to explain the problem
to me, half in French, half in Moré. I sort of get it but am not sure
I understood his solution, and definitely couldn't answer. I told him
to take it up with Loren and he told me I need to learn Moré. This is
very frustrating for me. I am trying to learn Moré, I probably know 50
- 100 words and have a rough concept of the grammar and sentence
structure. But I'm still at the 101 level of greeting people and
putting together point form responses, very badly constructed
sentences and incorrect verb conjugation. Trying to work at a brand
new job, take care of Ben, get to the gym, improve my French and learn
a whole new language is very brain intensive. People don't understand
that Loren has been speaking Moré for well on 20 years now and started
to learn it when he was 12. He already spoke Gourounsi which although
isn't similar gives him particular advantage. The other problem I'm
having is that the way you speak Moré is different than speaking
French or English although it's closer to English. When you speak
French, your breath is held in your mouth more and it is spoke at the
tip of the tongue. English is spoken more at the back of the mouth but
you still tend to hold some breath there. Moré you absolutely must
speak pushing the air out, it's forced out from the back of your
throat (how else would your pronouce words with 3 consonants lined up
like yilgdge pronounced n'yilgedege said so fast that the front and
back of your tongue are basically flapping up and down opposite each
other) which is the opposite of what you are doing with your mouth in
French. Also I have a dictionary but one little word can have a huge
description so complex, I can't imagine ever using it yet hear it in
conversation all the time. It's like Chinese characters where one
character can be a whole sentence. For example yoa (n'yoan) -
intensive reinforcing of an idea or totality; yeesme (n'yensemeh) -
mutually rejecting the responsibility for the execution of a task. Uh,
ok. Some things are also pronounced differently depending on where
they fall in the sentence. For example dawa = mister or man. It's
pronounced dawa if at the beginning of a sentence or rawa if in the
middle or near the end.

Anyway, it'll come but I wish people would cut me some slack. Your
"husband" speaks Moré, how come you don't? It's worse coming from
people who can't speak French.

Explanation on the husband thing: if you have a child together you are
together unless your husband sends you away. Usually men keep the
children and get rid of the wife (they usually have a couple extra -
wives and children) unlike North America where men piss off leaving
wife with children and no means of taking care of them. I was told
once there are 3 kinds of women. Someone's mother, someone's wife, and
hookers. In French and in Moré the word for woman and wife are the
same word, femme and paga. It's the context of the sentence, the
wife/woman of so and so, versus random woman, that decide which of the
previous categories you fall into. (there is a distinction made
between a man and a husband) None of this bothers me really, although
it can be tiresome since we aren't married really and I'm not
accustomed to having to defer to someone all the time in public.
My French is getting better however, I am trying to get Mattieu, my
teacher to focus on things I would need in the professional realm. He
spent 2 lessons getting me to learn the names of animals (ram, sheep,
lamb; male dog, female dog, puppy, etc) and the sounds they make
including the verb and noun forms. This is generally important in
everyday conversation since many of their jokes revolve around the
pastoral since most people come from villages where their families
were farmers. However I'm not sure how far this will take me at work.
All this language learning is impacting my English since I seem to
have trouble finding the correct English expression lately. Everything
is getting mixed up, even to the point where I can't remember if I had
the conversation in English or in French, which is a good sign but
frustrating too. I'm sure a year from now this will all be a distant
memory.

...will cause endless regret.

November 4 - Having fun with translations here. As I take french
lessons and I learn more about the common mistakes I make. For example
Loren spends a lot of time at a place he calls the office. It's
actually his friend's maquis where he tends to conduct a lot of
business.
I accidentally called it his "deuxieme bureau" - the second office
since he does have a real one. Unfortunately, that has a rather
different connotation than the one that I meant (i.e. it's his
mistress's house). His friends thought that was quite funny of course.

Then there was the motorcycle Loren bought. It comes with a warning
that the motorcycle is made with "quality parts and
substitution of other parts will cause endless regret...". Clearly a
translation, probably from Chinese. I remember being in Egypt in 1994
and being given a survey as to the quality of the room. How was the
air condition? And other thighs? Having not received other thighs
I left that part blank.

I purchased a dishcloth made in China, of which the packaging
expounded on the wonders of this $2 cloth. It informs me that "sewing
at warp-wise
and crosswise by combining a high-density natural fibre surface with
the best soft interior lay, it features solid and deformation with the
best using
effect." huh? It's best features are listed at the top as being
Grease Removing, Softness and Bibulousness. Bibulousness? It is of
course now
known in the house as the bibulous cloth. So finally, I looked it up.
"being given to, or marked by the consumption of alcohol.as in a
bibulous fellow,
or bibulous evening.". I laughed so hard I nearly fell down. I think
the word they were looking for was absorbent, instead they told me
that I need
to take my cloth to an AA meeting.

I'm sure I will make many more mistakes. My favourite mistakes (mine
and others) I of course don't really want to put on a public site, but
I
do have to wonder "out loud" why the Mossi people would want to make
the words for "name" (yuur) and "penis" (yoor) so similar? You know
where that's going. Hi, my name is... or rather... Yes I actually had
a friend who made that mistake in front a village chief. I don't think
they found it
nearly as hilarious as I did. I'm sure I will make that kind of
mistake and worse in Moré before I'm done here. Apparently I have
moved up a
level in french already - I am now working out of the "6-ième ou
5-ième" textbook meaning I've at least graduated past the primary
level. I think
it's about grade 7 or 8.

Work is moving along very slowly as I had MS Office 2007 crash and
uninstall itself from my computer, and my usual "chauffeur", Dembele
has been stolen by Clark (Loren's dad) for other work on the farm. I
will be travelling to the mine sites the 3rd week of November, mostly
day trips
but will require one overnight... meaning I leave Ben with Loren. Hmm.
I'm sure I will find them all in one piece when I return. However, I
am
going to Ghana at the end of November for a meeting and to see their
mine sites and workshops there. That trip will be at least 4 or 5 days
meaning I need to find temporary care - I don't think either of them
would survive that long! I used to love travelling for work but now I
just find it a
pain, especially if I end up having to drive to Accra (over 1000km
from Ouaga and some of it on not the most comfortable roads - although
I've heard
it's improved much since I was here 12 years ago). I do plan on
getting the majority of my tasks done in the most African way, that is
sit in a maquis
(I'll be drinking Fanta) and send someone else to do it. It's actually
the most efficient use of my time really, generally a good management
practice
known as delegation. Africans are experts at it. Some stuff like
figuring out the tax system requires someone with expertise, but
running errands
and getting quotes on furniture does not. Other stuff like writing a
business plan, developing job description and hiring staff of course
I'll have to
do myself eventually. But for the moment, I'm looking forward to my
sugar high. Hey, I haven't worked in 4 months (I know there are some
who would
argue that it's been years...). Need to ease in slowly.

The weather is already changing, which is a bit weird. November is
gorgeous generally, kinda hot but sunny with a breeze and everything
is green.
The last few days have been cold enough for Ben to ask for long pjs
and sleep with a sheet. Cold means it's probably around 20oC since
it's been
35+ the last month or so. You can feel the air drying out and taste
the dust from the desert, which marks the beginning of "winter". At
least I won't
have to shovel. Sorry, didn't mean to rub it in. However, come April
when you are slogging through slush and rain you can think of me
getting up in
the middle of the night to collect water as there won't be any
available during the day. And as you are wet and cold, I will be in
45+ oC weather.

Off to bed.

October 29 – I was emailing with my sister when I mentioned something
to her that I thought might be of interest. It has given me something
of a change of perspective. I learned a few weeks ago that an old
friend of mine, his third child had a rare brain disease and died at
10 months of age. This was a few weeks before Dembele and Cita's son
was born. I was very sad for Bill but Loren didn't think much of it
because so many children die here. It's no longer as bad as 1 in 7
live to see age 5 but it's still pretty high rates. I didn't know that
Cita lost a baby between Djamal and Rachid, a little girl, which is
why there are 4 years between them. They don't even name children for
a time because they may not live, sometimes for as long as several
months (to name them).

I also learned that in the 18 months I've been away from here, 2 of my
friends have died - one from AIDS, another in a car crash, both in
their early 30s with young families. Dembele nearly died last year of
a mix of malaria and some kind of stomach parasite.

Here I've met a fair number of people who are in their 50s and 60s but
average life expectancy is still 40. You don't meet a lot of people in
their 70s. (Old women are usually killed as witches – mostly because
they are seen has no longer having value to a family so they get rid
of them). Dembele is 39. Makes life seem very precious and every
encounter with a person very important.

October 31 – More stressful things: we got a new guard of course. Eli
is all of about 19 years old and is of course learning the ropes as
guard. I don't like leaving the house without someone watching it at
all, but he still needs to learn that he has to tell people where he
is going and he can't wander off for hours at a time. So this morning
I came out of the house around 8 and didn't seem him, I went outside
the court because sometimes he is sitting with others across the
street which is fine during the day. No Eli. I had to go do some
errands so I left anyway. I locked up the house and Ben went to his
friends' house to play. When I came back I saw Eli who told me that
last night he fell asleep in the car with the windows rolled down (no
he's not supposed to be sleeping but after this I don't think he'll
sleep ever again). At about 2AM someone came over the wall and grabbed
him by the throat, flashed a knife in his face and said if he ever saw
Eli here again, he'd kill him. Then he jumped back over the wall. Eli
waited 10 minutes before moving then moved to sit in the chair next to
my bedroom window (well away from the courtyard walls). When I asked
if he saw the person's face he said, rightfully that, no, that it was
better to look away because if they know that you've seen them they
will do something to you.

I called Loren to let him know, he was shocked! He said, I'll call you
back. 10 min later he sent me a message saying a friend of ours
(former military) was going to set up a sting and take care of it for
us. I'm looking forward to seeing what that is. Strangely, I'm not
scared, I'm stressed (and like I said to Felicia maybe that's stupid
and I should be scared). Perhaps it's that I don't want Eli to get
hurt and I'm not so worried for myself (the house is locked in the
middle of the night). Perhaps it's that my first worry is that if I'm
awake, I'm fairly confident that I can protect myself and my child
(don't mess with a mother!) but if I'm asleep I worry that I can't
protect Ben from harm or from being frightened by someone trying to
enter the house. I think that also opens my thinking to Ben getting
hurt by someone during the day. That isn't so much a concern since
EVERYONE knows him, and he's always with his friends. I don't want to
speak bad things into existence but I guess I'm trying to figure out
what I'm worried about specifically. Perhaps it's all those things.

October 25 - Happenings

Well it's been 2 months and we're becoming quite domestic here,
getting into a bit of routine. Ben has school so gets me up early
(6AM) to get ready for the bus at 7AM. I go to the gym, have French
class, do some work. Ben comes home for lunch, plays and sometimes
goes back to school at which point I go out again to do more stuff or
work on the computer. We do dinner at 6:30 or 7, shower and bed by
8pm. It's hard because we have less family time to spend because the
day starts and ends so early and most of his play time is in the
middle so is with his friends. He's having a lot of fun though.

New stuff, we got a kitten today. My neighbour's cat had kittens so we
got one. I thought it was a girl but because it's so young, the
testicles hadn't descended (sorry, direct translation from French, not
sure what you call that in English) when I checked, so it's actually a
boy, a calico, all orange and white with blue eyes, probably no more
than about 6 weeks old. I think he'll either get called Squeak since
that's the sound he makes, or Skit because he's so skittish. We have
to make a litter box, by cutting up and old water container. It's
fairly well fed at this point so hopefully we can keep it healthy.
Ben's rabbit from last year's visit got sick and died.

We were child-free this past weekend as Ben went to the grandparents
with Uncle Derek and family so we made the most of it. Friday night
Loren took me to a night club that had a pool table. I haven't played
pool in years but few Africans know how to play so I ran the table for
most of the night. I won 14 games in a row, it's $1.25 a game, loser
pays. Loren plays well but I beat him too. I finally lost to the owner
who told me he would keep 6 bottles of whiskey for me because I played
so well (well that also means I have to keep coming back, it'll take
me a year to drink that much whiskey!). We went to an outdoor concert
Saturday afternoon and then back to the pool place where they had live
music from a group of local whites, Danes. I had a lot to drink
Saturday night, more than I've had in the last seven years put
together probably. I still got up at 6 for some reason and tried to
go to church. I got the time wrong – 8:30 not 7 AM so I went home to
bed and slept til noon.

A couple weeks ago, we were heading to Koubri to see the grandparents,
when I decided to stop back at the house and realized by looking in my
bedroom cupboard that someone had been in the house and the only
person that could have been was the guard. I had accidentally
forgotten to lock the back door so it was closed but not locked. He
had come into the house and had looked in my cupboard where I used to
keep money. I knew he had been in there because he moved something
obvious out of place. So Loren went and scared the crap out of him.
Loren told the guard (Zaki) that he knew Zaki had been in the house
and that Zaki was lucky because if Loren had found him in the house,
he would have shot him, like a regular burglar (thieves are dealt with
rather harshly here). Loren gave him a bullet from his pistol and said
"this one would have been yours – remember that" (Loren carries his
pistol only when he has to carry large amounts of money on him).
Needless to say, ever since then, we've had very few problems with the
guard not doing his job. He's finally getting to the point where I
maybe don't trust him but at least I know he'll do as he's told. The
guard only works at night from 5pm til 6 AM, the house girl comes at 9
but she is only here from Monday to Saturday. Most Sundays there is no
one at the house in the afternoon. And apparently someone in the
neighbourhood knows that.

I came home this afternoon to grab workout clothes to go to the gym.
There was someone in the yard, a young man who told me that he was a
plumber and had been sent to find out if there were any more problems.
I was a little suspicious because we had a plumber come already. So I
said no but there are still problems with the electricity. He said he
could fix that as well and were there any problems in the bedroom. Now
I'm suspicious so I said no. He said he was just going to get his
moped which was parked out front (I didn't see one when I came in, so
he was parked across the street) and park it in the courtyard. I
opened the front door to see my mop and broom tied together lying on
the floor. I looked at the window and saw that 2 of the slats (they
are steel) were broken, so I went running out of the house only to
find that the guy had taken off. He had seen my computer sitting on
the table and was attempting to pull the table close enough to the
window to steal the computer. He had had clearly a lot of time in
order to break 2 slats like that and put all that together. I came
just at the right moment.

Zaki now feels this is his fault – oddly, because he had entered the
house and so he has somehow brought bad luck to his job. He said he "a
peur", was afraid. I thought he was worried about the thief coming
back so I said I doubted that he would come. Zaki said he wasn't
afraid of the thief killing him, if that was what was meant to be. He
couldn't explain it to me, to make me understand so he's waiting to
talk to Loren about it, but feels he has to quit. It's weird.

Loren was worried that I was frightened so he sort of tried to brush
it off saying, c'est l'Afrique. I figure it's worse in Canada.
Personally, if I catch the thief, he's gonna wish Loren had shot him
instead. I'm going to break every bone I can lay a hand on - you can
do that here and not worry about things like law suits. That will
leave him alive to warn off other thieves.

Anyway, I thought Ben was going to feel scared, as he did after he
found out that Zaki had been in the house. Zaki told me (in front of
Ben) that he wasn't intending to steal anything, that he was looking
for food or some small money to buy something to eat (he's only paid
about $50 a month but then, he doesn't do a lot, he's basically paid
to sit and watch). Ben told me that he believes Zaki and he felt very
bad for him. Zaki is kinda like a big brother to Ben, helps him to fix
his bike, and talks to him all the time. Ben said he felt Zaki was
sorry and was telling the truth. Then Ben said that he knew what he
wanted to be when he grows up - he wants to give money to people who
can't afford to eat. Ben said he'd have 2 pockets, one for his own
money, and the other for sharing. What a little sweetie!

So anyway, I'm not too worried about the thief, unless Zaki actually
quits because then I have to start all over again finding someone,
getting them to show up, not go out, not to sleep at night etc. I'm
sure Loren will convince him otherwise but it's a pain.

Oct 26 - Loren on the other hand was worried enough about it to sleep
on the porch (on a mattress with a sheet although knowing him, he
would just as likely have slept on the concrete), as he was concerned
the car and motorcycle would get stolen. I think he was probably more
worried that Zaki would leave in the middle of the night. He found us
a temporary new guard, one of his "boys" that work for him. He calls
them that because they come to Loren whenever they have problems, like
they have a sick parent or child; Loren gives them money and they work
off the debt. This is fine until the construction season gets under
way when the "boy" will be busy during the day on a work site
somewhere meaning he won't be at the house during the day, and will
probably want to be sleeping at night, rather than guarding the house.
We'll see how it goes.

Oct 27 – Work starts next week. I have been working kinda at my own
pace so far. I've been running around my neighbourhood on the back of
the motorcycle (I have Dembele drive – it's hard to look around and
drive), looking at houses that are for rent. It's quite annoying and
tiresome. In Ouaga, most business and purchases can be achieved from a
seat at a bar, so I decided to try that. I managed to get 2 other guys
running around looking for me, and found a couple prospects that way.
Still end up running around since they try showing me everything
they've got, whether or not it fits the description of what I'm
looking for.
I've also been having this wild goose chase trying to get a hold of a
client. I had his phone number and email to which he doesn't respond,
and when I went to the address on the waybill which was all the way
downtown, I learned that they moved and that his new office was
actually around the corner from my house. Sigh.

I'm excited to start work and worried at the same time. I received my
contract and list of roles and responsibilities – feels like a lot!
Although I think once we get rolling it will get easier. I'm sure we
all feel like a fraud at the beginning, that someone is going to catch
us making it all up as we go. In this case, I did tell them in advance
that I was ill equipped and they don't seem to care so that should
make me feel better, but of course it doesn't!

Happy Hallowe'en to all. We won't be celebrating that.

Hysterical side note from this evening. Ben asked me if the Easter
bunny was real, and I told him that it wasn't real. So he asked who
brought all the eggs? I said guess, so his first guess was Santa (I
had to laugh). When he finally guessed that it was me, his face lit up
and he knew that I had bought the Transformers video - instead of
being disappointed, he was happy because he knew he would always get
something he wanted - because I always know. That kid!

October 20 - Answers to Prayers
I had a really exciting day yesterday. I slept in a bit which was nice
(Ben gets the bus to school at 7AM so I do get up at 6 to get him
ready but then I go back to sleep). I got up at 8:30 and received a
phone call from a number I didn't recognize. Sometimes I don't answer
those, but I think I will from now on!

About 6 months ago, I got back in touch with a close friend from
University. Patrick and I used to get into trouble together, failed
first year together, etc. I recall one night after the bar had closed
at the University, we decided to drive to Montreal for the weekend...
except it was only Wed (well, early Thursday). Pat taught me how to
drive standard – or rather had me drive his car home from the bar
because I was drunk but of course with my drinking ability, I would
still blow under the limit, whereas he was well over. Enough said.
There are many more stories over the course of several years, but I'd
rather not repeat them, especially in such a public fora and one where
my family are also reading. In catching up, I mentioned to Pat that I
was going to Burkina Faso. Pat had moved to Germany after university,
then to South Africa about 10 years ago. He told me that he regularly
visits Ghana and Burkina Faso as they are expanding into that area.
Pat is now the Director of Sales for that company (Lincoln - they sell
lubrication systems for machinery). Pat asked me about how well I
speak French and intimated that they might be looking for someone to
open an office in Burkina for them. I figured he wouldn't be
interested in me once he saw my CV since I really don't have any
experience in that area.

So to make an already long story short, I got a call yesterday from
Pat's business partner, Steve who is located in Ghana. He asked if we
could meet to discuss a potential position. I met him 45 min later, I
brought Loren with me because I figured if I couldn't help him, that
Loren very likely could. So Steve laid out for me something of what
the company does, where their clients were located across Burkina,
mostly mines, and an outline of the position. Having worked for the
government for 7 years, I'm not accustomed to working at the speed of
business. He offered me the position right there and I accepted. The
salary is good, about $2500USD per month, it comes with a car and
computer, and as long or short a contract as I want. I have to travel
occasionally but it's not more than a few days per month where I would
be gone overnight. Steve has young children too so understands my
concerns about working long hours and being away a lot.

Essentially, the job is to open an office here. Steve laid out the
requirements, where they were at in terms of opening their business
and infrastructure – bank accounts, I need a working visa, staff,
technical support being provided from Ghana, travel, they have
accounting and invoicing systems in place, I just have to learn them.
There of course is a huge learning curve here in a number of ways.

Some are probably thinking that I've gone to the dark side working for
manufacturing and mining from my usual environmental framework, but
they also carry environmental products for cleaning up hydrocarbons
like in-situ soil remediation products which have been of interest to
me since I worked in environmental consulting about a decade ago. So
there is an opportunity for me to do technical sales on those products
as I develop product and service knowledge. Pretty cool all around in
my opinion.

I'm dizzy with happiness but this is of course tempered with the
reality that this is going to be REALLY hard – lots of learning, lots
of challenges and it's so totally different from what I'm used to and
yet still has an element of what's important to me. I was very clear
with Steve that I felt there was a large gap between what he was
looking for and the experience I actually have. He didn't seem
concerned. He was largely looking for someone he could trust, who he
could train. Not sure if it's what I came here to do, but I suspect it
will lead me in the right direction – the next stepping stone as it
were.

I have a long history in my life of times where I felt like I was
waiting for something to happen and then just as I was getting
impatient, something would appear miraculously as an answer to what I
really hoped for. This is an example of that. The irony that I have
been (not so) patiently waiting to buy a car so I can go look for a
job, a task I was not really looking forward to anyway, and here a job
lands in my lap that comes with a car and so much more. I was also
recently working out my finances and figured out that if I want to
come home next August without debt that I needed a salary of about
$2500 (Cdn) a month to do that and here I get a salary that is more
than I need. I would say someone is watching out me.

Still, wish me luck!

October 16 - Moving on
I took Ben out of the other school last week on Thursday. Ben came
home crying because he was afraid to make a mistake on his homework.
The teacher had again verbally threatened him with getting hit if he
didn't do his homework, and a different teacher came in and actually
threatened him physically with a long piece of rubber that they use
for switching children here. So I told him he didn't have to go back.
Loren and I went to the school on the Friday and heard the teacher out
(I did tell Ben that if he was lying about it that he would learn what
a real switching was). The teacher basically said that he has a bunch
of bad kids who don't listen so what was he supposed to do. I just
shut my mouth and let Loren talk. I did learn that there are children
here who are very spoiled at home and the parents expect the teachers
to discipline their children for them (not completely unlike Canada as
far as I can tell). So fine, if the parent says to you, yes, please
beat my children for me, who am I? But Ben is a good kid and will do
exactly what you ask more or less immediately. The only reason he
wouldn't is if he hadn't understood. Anyway, that is done.

We started at a new school on Tuesday. There is a bus that takes him
back and forth. The new school is a little smaller – he is in a split
class, basically grades 2 and 3. There are only 7 grade 2 students and
10 grade 3s. There is a teacher and an aide for his class. Most of the
teachers are from Ghana so they all speak fluent English. I asked the
teacher to find something else for Ben to do during his 2 hours of
English a week as they are just learning their colours and numbers.
Ben could teach the class. Ben seems a lot happier here.

Thanks for all the concern about the malaria. Still haven't quite
figured out what went on but it's gone and I feel 100% again. It took
a long time for the last fevers, nausea and dizziness to go away. I
figure I was sick for easily 10 full days.

The latest entertainment is the new bug bites. I was bit by a black
ant on the leg, when I was sick and sleeping on the mattress on the
floor. It was like half my leg was burning and it felt like I was
getting bitten over again every hour or so for about a day. Weird. The
other bite is worse. I got 2 bites, one on my wrist and the other
under my arm. The one on my wrist I noticed, it looked like a blister.
I carefully broke it and wiped up the water, then put polysporin on
it. Where the water from the blister went on my skin, another blister
appeared. So I did the same thing and it eventually dried up. But it
looks like I have a burn on my wrist. The one under my arm looked like
a blood blister about 3 mm in diameter. I didn't pop it but I should
have. I put a bandaid on it and it broke during the night while I was
sleeping. All the liquid was contained by the bandaid thankfully but
when I took off the bandaid, I had a huge blister the size of the
gauze inside the bandaid. It being under my arm it was very hard to
contain even with bandaids so I now have about a dozen blisters in my
underarm, all of which were getting infected and kinda sore. Some of
them are from putting Polysporin on and it spreading around. They are
slowly healing but I will have a number of scars from it. Clark had
one on his back that broke and the liquid spread in such a way that he
looks like he was whipped across his side at his ribs.

I found a gym for $30/month. It's small but has a treadmill, fans,
mats and some resistance equipment. It's better than running outside
and I can do some weights as well as practice some karate. It's really
hard to do stuff at home since the floor is concrete with a textured
tile overlay which is really hard on the feet. There isn't much space
at the gym but enough to practice kicks and jumps and drills, if not
katas. I feel SO out of shape. I had to start back at a 1:1 learn to
run pace but am quickly improving. The 2 miles I had to run for my
black belt exam in 16 minutes is currently taking me closer to 30
minutes but at least I can run 2 miles now. It is still quite hot in
the gym (low 30s - cool compared to outside!) but at least it's not in
the blazing sun. My goal is to be back in at least brown belt form by
Christmas. Black belt form would probably be dreaming but I can
probably get there before hot season (March). However it will be hard
to do if I can't find someone to train with (come here a sec, Loren...
hahaha).

Ben's health has been okay. He was complaining of stomach aches so I
had my mom send a parasite cleanse. I think the parasites here are a
little bigger than those found at home so there was no apparent effect
from the cleanse. So unfortunately had to go back to plan B –
antibiotics. Started him on a course and within a couple days there
was marked improvement. I guess we'll use the cleanse to keep things
cleaned up afterwards!

Otherwise everything is same old, same old. Hope everyone is well.

October 5 - Palu or not palu that is the question.
Well it was bound to happen. I think it almost got spoken into
existence – you know when you forget to say: knock on wood? I was out
Saturday afternoon with Loren and some of his friends (or at least
with a bunch of people at the bar he goes to regularly) and one man
asked me if I hadn't gotten sick yet and I said no. I knew I was
having some kind of dehydration/heat exhaustion issue as my skin was
always hot and dry unless I was working out vigorously. However, I
left there to go home and almost immediately started to feel sick. My
bones ached and I had a headache, my temperature was over 38oC and I
didn't feel like eating or drinking. Classic signs of malaria
(paludisme or palu for short) – feels like the flu. But you just don't
know. I mean there are always so many things that have similar
symptoms. So I waited to see, I took Ibuprofen which broke my fever
and the pain so I could sleep. I slept fitfully until nearly noon on
Sunday. I had to move to the other room and sleep on a mattress on the
floor because it gets so hot in my room.

I took my curative dose of Malarone Sunday morning (4 pills a day for
3 consecutive days) – I don't ever take preventative because I believe
doing that is kind of like taking antibiotics just in case, just
creates resistance (I do make Ben take it however, it would be brutal
to watch your child go through that.). I drank 3 litres of water and
juice and finally ate. My fever went up to 39.5 deg so I took some
ibuprofen and it broke quickly, leaving me a big sweaty mess, I felt
like I had taken the 3 litres and dumped it over my body. My body
hurts from sleeping too much. So I've gone through 2 cycles of that,
and hopefully it will break tomorrow with the last dose of Malarone

When I was here before, I got sick about 6 weeks in, just before
Christmas. That was different symptoms, I think it was a stomach
parasite but I did take a curative does of Mefloquine just in case.
That in itself is probably worse than the symptoms of malaria as I was
hallucinating and kept passing out. So I took some antibiotics and I
was fine.
Benny is having tummy troubles, I think he is a little dehydrated but
I started him on a 15 day parasite cleanse that my mom sent me. If
that doesn't work, then we'll go to a round of antibiotics as it's
been going on for awhile. I trust Loren's judgement on this as he's
been living in the bush a long time where access to medical care has
been quite limited so he is pretty knowledgeable about symptoms and
treatments.

Loren invited Ben to go to work with him last Saturday. Loren is
building a tourist camp for some Belgian lady so Ben tagged along. I
don't think he was much help, Loren said he followed him around for a
bit, then found a trench with frogs in it and was more interested in
throwing rocks at the frogs. Boys.

Boring post and short. Not much further to report. Loren got a plumber
in to fix all the plumbing so we can shower now (instead of bucket
baths), can flush the toilets instead of having to fill a bucket of
water to run the water down and can brush our teeth in the bathroom
instead of the kitchen. Not a huge change, you get used to that sort
of thing pretty quickly. I'm sure I'll even forget a few times and
bucket bath out of habit. We'll get the place painted shortly and some
of the electrical stuff fixed up too. Again, pretty used to the
status quo so not exciting exactly.

I still haven't figured out what I want to do. I was reading Michael
Crighton's State of Fear (this came from an argument with Derek,
Loren's brother who I argue with all the time – Loren calls it arguing
with a rock – a fairly apt description). Derek thinks he knows
something about climate change from reading this novel, although he
did admit that none of his opinions were based on any facts or
knowledge. I believe climate change is happening and that it is at
least partially created anthropogenic ally however I think Crighton
makes a point that there is so much wrongheadedness in the way we go
about dealing with many issues. Certainly I got to see much of that
firsthand working for the Canadian government. Everyone has an agenda
and people live off fear mongering. Like Agent Smith said in the
Matrix, that they tried to make a life for people that was perfect but
we wouldn't accept it. Somehow we define life by hardship and
problems. It even says it in the Bible, trial by fire to refine and
mature. Odd since we spend much of our time trying to make life
easier. Anyway, this has me thinking that what I want is to do
something real, on the ground and iterative – i.e. evaluates and
learns from its successes and failures over time. My friends are
suggesting that all I have to do is write a proposal and someone would
fund it. Unfortunately, my thinking is no more evolved than what I
said above. I don't even know what area I might want to work in. I
just feel so ill-equipped, making me think I could take the time to do
my masters but really, I don't know that it's more knowledge I'm
looking for. I think I'm looking for a mentor. I just don't have such
an entrepreneurial spirit.

October 6 – definitely malaria
I thought I was going to die last night. My whole body hurt, I could
barely walk, I thought all my bones were going to snap. Loren is away
at a jobsite out of town so poor Benny was kinda left on his own
watching movies. I was alternating Ibuprofen with muscle relaxant that
had acetaminophen in it every 2-3 hours because the medication
wouldn't last any longer than that and it only worked well enough to
let me sleep not to get up and do anything. Loren called me to check
up and said if I didn't feel better in the morning, that he would send
a doctor to the house. My fever would swing up to over 40 and back
down to 37. This morning I took my final dose of Malarone and didn't
take any ibuprofen or relaxant because I was afraid I was going to
throw everything up. I could barely stand, I had use the wall, and
walk with my hands on my knees. I had to lie in my room because I was
afraid I wouldn't be able to get off the mattress on the floor because
I was so weak. Loren called and said his friend said to go to the
clinic and get examined, to call my friend Marie to drive me there
that with a fever that high I probably had an infection.

And then abruptly, it was over. At 9am I woke up feeling as weak as a
newborn and tired but I don't feel like lying down in bed anymore
(here's where a couch would be handy) and I don't hurt (other than
muscles that feel like I've slept too long). I'm still dizzy but again
it's like the dizzy of having been sleeping too long. Carol called
and said to take it easy because there could be a relapse in 24 hours.
I'll take her word on that. I'm sure she's familiar with it. She said
it was unusual to get malaria so quickly but because it was wet season
and I got so many bites at the beginning that it should be better here
on in. Just seeing all those bites Benny had, I'm grateful to have
bought him enough preventative medication for the whole year. Well I
think I'll shower and go back to bed. I'm tired already and I've been
up only an hour.

October 1
Wow, time flies. It just occurred to me that we have already been here
for a month. I haven't written cause well nothing else has happened
really and I've actually been a little busy.

A little hard to summarize what has been accomplished in concrete
terms. Let's see: we have a house, with water and electricity and fans
and lights; we have a stove and a fridge, table, chairs, beds. I had
Christmas yesterday as Loren's mom showed up with a care package from
my mother, with fresh pillows (Loren's were ones that his grandparents
brought over in the 70s I think), clothes for Harmattan when it gets
cold (seemed strange opening jeans and cords and long sleeve shirts
when it was 42 deg today however will not seem silly come January).
Carol came over today, Clark brought her as he was on his way out of
town with Loren and Derek to go survey a dam. So we talked all
morning, never made it to market, picked up Ben then went to see
Myriam (Derek's wife) and their daughters, Danika and Darel as they
haven't seen Carol in 6 months either. It's good to see her and we had
a fantastic chat.

Yesterday I fired my "bonne" (house girl). She was very tearful asking
if her work wasn't good enough. All I said was "sorry but I want to
try someone else, it's complicated", gave her her pay and she left.
She walked from there to where Loren was and asked him why I fired
her. He said, I'll ask (even though it was his suggestion!!). It was
complicated and had only a little to do with her work. Her cleaning
was okay but not great, her attitude kinda crappy, and her reliability
poor. But the biggest fault? Entitlement. In the first week of work,
she was late twice (even though normally they have to start at 6 or 7
and I told her to come at 9), she didn't show up once, and took off
during working hours once. I explained what I wanted in terms of
reliability and the lateness continued. I was not happy with any of
that but since there isn't a huge amount to do here, the only thing
that really bothered me was when I was trying to go out but she took
off, which meant having to leave Ben alone again. Then she moved in.
She moved a bunch of her stuff into my spare room and used it as her
room. And she tried inviting her friends over to meet me. She then
informed me that she should live here so she can get Ben up in the
morning for school and she would go home on Fridays, and not work
weekends. Now Loren was not happy (I didn't like the idea much
myself). This is not the way it works here. He said, next she'll be
telling me that she'll sleep with him, or would try to be tempting him
all the time. Does that sound strange? Happens all the time here. So I
fired her.

And I found a new girl (well girl, she's at least 30). She does a much
better job and I feel like I can leave her in the house without
locking everything up tight. She is the "little sister" of my
neighbour (little sister can mean anything!) so we're all good there.
My neighbour also took us to look at cars at her cousin's lot and of
course Loren knew half the people who worked there and after a little
conversation realized that he and my neighbour knew each other's
families (can't go anywhere with that guy!)

Now I just need to "encourage" Loren to move a little faster in
securing a new guard. The guard is supposed to be here from 6pm til
6am and he shouldn't be sleeping. He should be sitting in front of the
house. He shows up late all the time, he even left a couple times.
Loren has set him straight a few times and he still doesn't do what
he's told. He does everything else – like tonight he helped Ben fix
and clean his bicycle, he helped with the broken taps, and earlier he
cleaned out a parking spot for Loren. I just wish he would do what I'm
paying him to do!

And last but not least the only other thing going on is Ben's school.
Again, not really up to standard so we're looking for a new one. Every
day (mind you there have only been 4 so far but not a good track
record) when I ask Ben how school was, he says, Bad. The first day, I
met the teacher and told him that sometimes Ben doesn't understand
French and may not tell the teacher he didn't so to check once in
awhile. The teacher ( a man) looked at Ben and said "ca va?" (how are
you?). Ben replied, ca va (I'm fine) and the teacher said, he
understands just fine. Not sure what one can discern from 2 words but
whatever. Ben later told me that they sat around at their desks for 4
hours in the morning doing NOTHING, while the teacher got organized
then did a bit of reading out loud and math.

Apparently, there are only 3 children in Ben's class out of 10 who can
read out loud at all and at least 3 children who cannot even recite
the alphabet. Not sure what they are doing in that level. So Ben was a
little bored. The teacher told me that Ben tries to do addition in his
head instead of in columns on the paper. I figure it's the first week
and they are supposed to be bringing people up to speed. Fine, can
deal with that, I figure they will just take a bit of time to sort
stuff out.

Second day, Ben tells me that if you make a mistake, the teacher tells
you to kneel on the floor. That is a common African practice, which is
embarrassing to the children since they wear uniforms that they are
really proud of. So if your knees are dirty, in all likelihood, your
parents will beat you when you get home. I've heard of this before,
very common. But Ben said if someone makes a mistake, EVERYONE has to
kneel. And from the sound of the level of ability in the class, I
figure they might spend the better part of the day like that.

Wednesday it got worse. Ben came home at lunch telling me that the
teacher whapped him on the head when he got an answer wrong (I guess
he was already on his knees so there was nowhere to go). I knew that
switching used to be a common practice but I was pretty sure that
didn't occur anymore. Ben said he hit a lot of kids that day. So in
the afternoon, I went to the principal and asked what the policy was
on discipline, asking if they had a policy regarding hitting. She said
the written policy was no contact, that a teacher must never hit. I
told her that Ben was afraid to come back to school because the
teacher was hitting (he wasn't afraid actually, he was mad but I
didn't think that would go over so well – if you ever wanted to see a
muley look, that was the look on Ben's face, like screw you if you
think I'm going to do anything you say anymore). Loren's comment was
along the lines of, he hits at the beginning so they are more likely
to listen later (it was sort of in gest – the Africans thought it was
funny, but they did all agree that it wasn't appropriate at least). I
guess the principal said something because the teacher made a comment
in the afternoon that he hadn't hit anyone hard. I was mad!

So this morning to top all this off, I drop Ben off at 7:30, and when
I picked him up, he tells me that the teacher didn't show up until
11AM, that there were 5 classes in the school but only 4 teachers,
that a bunch of the older kids were coming in asking him where the
teachers were (like he's going to know where they are?) and then they
all ran around screaming. No one came in to check or to do anything
about it.

So tomorrow is Friday, I figure they aren't batting too high at this
point. I can't imagine what else could be wrong but I'm already
starting to look into other schools. I know Luik goes to a school that
his parents like a lot so I'm going to ask them about it. We'll see.
I've been trying to do karate but everything feels like I'm wearing
lead shoes since it's been a few months and with the heat I'm sure I'm
losing a lot of muscle mass (although I do walk at least 30 min every
day and do resistance exercises twice a week). I did a jumping front
kick and thought I must have looked like one of the dancing hippos
from Fantasia. My neighbours think I'm insane as I walk about the yard
twirling my bo (a 6' long wood stick), poking imaginary people,
whacking trees and ultimately hitting myself in the back of the head.
Nunchuks aren't much better because they see Ben running around with
them so they think I'm playing with his toys, even if I do almost look
like I know what I'm doing (at least they are the foam ones so hitting
myself in the head hurts much less than the bo). And well there's no
point in explaining katas to them.

I feel very weak. I can't believe that I could do 100 full men's
pushups and 10 chin ups only a year ago. Yesterday I couldn't do 5
nose-to-the-ground push ups and I don't even want to try chin ups. I
was injured this year so nose-to-the-ground was already hard but I
could at least do 30 or so. So I basically felt like a white belt and
figure that's as good a starting point as any. Glad I don't need to
relearn all those katas though!

Hope I have more to report soon.

September 21

I was writing to a friend about Ben and Loren and thought this might be of interest to some others so I thought I would share.

Something one doesn’t normally think of when moving, except if you move countries - you don’t know anything about the politics, religious situation, or something as simple as when are all the days off! You assume a lot are the same but many are not, like the difference between Canada Day and 4th of July, every country has national holidays that differ from our own. I’ve received this great book from Loren’s family called Third Culture Kids which is a fantastic reference regarding children who change cultures, everyone from military kids, missionary kids, refugees, diplomats, etc. and how moving and changing cultures has a fairly consistent impact on people especially children. Loren’s family have all said to me that they felt like it was written for them. Some stuff is generalized but a lot of it quite eye opening – many “ah ha!” moments. I had no idea it was its own culture!

Today was a holiday because yesterday was the muslim festival called Ramadan. Ramadan is kinda like Easter/Lent. They spend the (lunar) month fasting and then have a big party. Sunday, we went to Dembele's (they're muslim) and stayed up late partying. We brought both the boys (Djamal and Rachid who is 4) home with us in order to give Cita a break. She's due in a week or so. I think she has a little bit of time myself as the baby hasn't even really dropped yet. We tried to leave early-ish but the car broke down - problems with the electrical system. Fortunately we weren't too far, so we walked back. This is an ongoing problem, kind of a running joke by now as one day we ran out of gas, another day we were stuck in the mud, now this. Every visit there seems to be something! Anyway we went back and slept over, on a mat on the concrete floor.

When the electrical system went, the car smelled like it was on fire, so we got out quickly. Loren opened the hood, and all looked fine so I said, well at least it's not on fire. He started laughing and said that I'm starting to think like an African - they usually say something bleak like at least we're not dead. I thought it was funny but then they have really strange humour. I really wish I could speak or at least understand Moré better, I only know a few words. They have such weird jokes. Loren nearly stops breathing from laughing so hard. He said something like, I wish I could download my knowledge into your head like in The Matrix. That joke was so complicated and soaked with cultural meaning, I couldn't even begin to explain to you why it was funny.

I had a great time at the party, laughing with old friends - although Dembele and Alain were quite busy as they did all the cooking and serving (poor Cita still got saddled with the cleaning and dishes the following day – I tried to help but she thought I was too slow! They do everything standing up, legs straight, but bent over at the waist - dishes, sweeping with little hand brooms – imagine doing that 9 months pregnant!) - but we laughed and danced and argued and looked at the stars. It takes awhile to beat the uptight, scheduled Westerner out of me, but eventually I relax back into African life.

Ben is settling in okay although he said something kinda bizarre this evening. We were saying prayers and I said something like praying about fitting in and belonging here. He said he didn't want to belong just in case he had to pray for that again when we get back to Canada (I had to laugh). I told him he wouldn’t need to and I said “don't you want to feel like you fit in with your friends here”. He said - I do already. So that made me feel better anyway. I laughed and said, well I guess it's just mommy then, so we prayed that mommy would "get a life". I hate making cultural mistakes - I feel embarrassed all over again when I think about some of the huge mistakes I made when I was here before. Yawning openly at a conference in front of my DG, eating with friends with my left hand so no one would eat with me... it's a long list.

Ben is going to be bored this week as all his friends start school but he doesn't start until the 28th. I'm going to encourage Loren to take Ben to work with him where he can - he offered on Saturday but Ben was having too much fun playing. I told Ben that next time he would go regardless just because it's hard for Loren to get regular time with Ben anyway so it would be best if Ben would go, and the more he goes the more he'll be helpful and be able to learn. Loren is here most evenings for dinner and time to play with Ben before bed but with him working so early sometimes leaving at 5AM and us being a little out of the way, it's sometimes difficult for him to make it here. The longest we didn't see him was 2 days but that only happened once. I can see that Loren is trying to get to know Ben but they are SO different it seems hard. I watch Loren with the other kids, like Djamal or Rachid, or random kids we see and he is patient and talks to them or jokes with them. Like we were at Ben's school and the coordinator had her sons there. She had the older boy running about doing errands, showing us the uniform, going to get change, make photocopies. So when we left, Loren said to the boy (approximately) - bon, Grand Chef (big chief), keep up the good work. The boy was so proud. Loren tries to be like that with Ben somewhat and I encourage him to keep trying but Ben can also be so in his own head that he even kind of ignores Loren so I have to encourage Ben as well to be present in the relationship.

I was reading through an old journal I kept of things about Ben and in it I had a note from when Ben was about 3 saying that Loren was again asking me to come back to Africa with Ben and that I felt annoyed because I was having enough challenges parenting, never mind trying to do that in Africa. I had forgotten that, but remembered when I read it. I remembered what I said to him and how I didn't think I could manage. Part of me wishes I could have believed and gone back then. Ben is a great kid and he would have been pretty different had he been raised here but it would have made integration and his relationship with Loren easier.

I was saying to my mom about how much I can see we coddle children in Canada and don't expect much of them. We praise them for insignificant things and don't allow them to participate in the home as we do too much for them. Here children are very polite and respectful of adults and do every task without complaint. When I say clean up, everyone jumps right to it. When I asked where the store was to get water, and could someone show Ben where it is, 5 kids jumped up and offered, and each of them carried water on the way home, even the smallest child. There is no sense of entitlement, and everyone is invited, always. There are a lot of other tradeoffs that I don't care for, like lack of personal space like when you are in line, how adults will tease children till they cry, the practice of spanking usually still involves some sort of "device" like a switch or ruler, and they are given regularly. Bigger kids pick on smaller kids, and there is a lot of "fun" that involves hurting. Personally I feel that those come from the violence of switching etc. I'm not against spankings, but I am against using something to do it and it needs to be a strong reason. But what do I know, coming from my cushy life.

It's difficult I think for Ben because I feel like I'm a different person here than I am at home, in some ways it's good, like I'm more willing to take time to do stuff with him but my perspective on things is different here and I get angry with him for the way her reacts to some things to which I would have had a smaller response to in Canada. I found it annoying in Canada. Here it is downright maddening. Loren is more patient with him than I am many times when it comes to these things, taking the time to explain, where I may say, because I said so. It usually comes in the places where Ben likes to make up rules or come up with logic or reasons for something. For example, I took out paper for him and his friends to play with and said, if you need more, ask. Ben immediately started making up something about only if we have 2 pieces left or less each. That drives me nuts. I said, “NO I told you, if you need it, ask”. Another example, Loren was going to smoke in the car so he told Ben to open the window, and Ben argued because he didn't feel like it and started to make up some random comment back about not needing to open it. So Loren explained if you open the window, you have more air, if you have more air, you have less smoke to breathe, and that's a good thing. So Ben did it. It's frustrating for me - I feel like he spends so much time trying to think up something smart (as in smart-mouthed) to say, that he doesn't listen.

There is also a bit of jealousy I think for Ben regarding my relationship with Loren. Loren and I have a history and a friendship so we share a lot of jokes and discussion that Ben isn't part of, especially as we get back into the groove of our relationship. He probably doesn't understand why he doesn't have that with Loren and he doesn't understand why I do. He probably even feels a little left out, like I'm not taking his side, or it's some inside joke that we aren't sharing with him, or something like if 2 of his friends wanted to play something else that he didn't want to play or wasn't invited.

On the other hand, I like to spend the time to explain to him when things are different here than they are at home. I'll say things like "here, when any adult calls you over, you must go and even if they grab your arm or something, you just stand there and listen and answer anything they ask you. In Canada however, unless you know the person, you do not go over and you definitely do not get within arm’s reach of them. You must not fool around with people here, you must be respectful and listen, and not talk back, do whatever they ask of you and most of all, you must always address them as tantie or tonton (aunt or uncle)". It sounds quite strict but once they get to know you then they can start to have fun with you too.