Lisa and Ben Go To Africa

A birthday, a wedding, a good bye, and a funeral

2012-02-01T14:55:00.001-08:00

It was quite the weekend. After 5 weeks of vacation, then 2 weeks of my cousin Virginia visiting, life gave me a shove back into reality. I got a very well rounded set of experiences in just 4 days.

Backing up, Thursday, Jan 26 was my father's last day at work at a company he has worked for some 40 years, going from the bottom to the top, stopping at every job in the middle, taking it to be one of the largest general contracting firms in Canada and a public entity. Quite an accomplishment. And quite a marker in my mind as to how far life has gone. I remember my dad at 40 telling me he would never retire. Never say never I suppose.

On Friday, Benny turned 10, another significant marker in time for a child. More teenager than child, my little boy is quite independent and in many ways his own person. Still the cherub faced, good natured kid he was even as a baby, I am starting to see some of the characteristics that will settle and stay. He is in too many ways, my child. But I realize again, I am running out of time to have much influence on his character, and that someday my baby will fly the nest.

Friday night we stayed at Koubri, for the first time in many, many months, as we haven't had much time to be with Carol at all. I haven't slept at Koubri since last May I think, and not in the cold since 2 winter's ago, before the car accident. Carol is off again in a few weeks and I realize what little time we have, as after that we likely just be crossing paths for the rest of the year again.

Saturday, we went to a wedding, Myriam's sister. Of course, everyone wanted to know when Loren and I are getting married. Many comments were made about us being next. I know I am sort of the hold up, not Loren as he has asked me. I just haven't answered altho that is as much due to his behaviour as my aversion to commitment. Anyway, this wedding was extra special as she was marrying a Captain of the military. She was put through the works, required to wear a flak jacket, full rucksack and helmet and RUN in her dress and heels from the City Hall to the Officer's Mess (I think this is why it was built less than a kilometer away). Apparently she got off easy - some brides have been made to CRAWL, knees and elbows then sit at dinner in their dress all dirty and ruined.

Saturday night we said goodbye to Virginia.It was a lot of fun but as we know, all good things must come to an end. Vee and I are such that no matter how much time passes, we pick up where we left off. With FB it's easier to keep up but somehow things were different this time too. I don't know why. I felt bad that I had to work and I was spent so much time rushing about. Vee reminded me that it was her I was going to go travelling with, when I got pregnant. I was going to inform my boss on July 1, 2001 that I was taking a year (2002) sabbatical to travel. We had a plan to do Africa starting in Burkina heading south then to India, China, Japan back to Vancouver where I was living at the time. I got as far as telling them I was leaving but it was for maternity leave instead. She went to Australia instead, called me from the airport on her way, out the day after I gave birth.

From the airport, Loren and I went to a restaurant to eat. We met a man who is a friend of Loren's friend Micha. Micha is a German who took 2 years to travel from North Africa to South... on a bicycle. (that would be like riding your bike Labrador to Los Angeles and back, not using any roads and dodging bullets. He then came back and settled in Burkina, started a business, adopted a child. He was essentially Loren's older brother (he was about 45). I've only met him once or twice. He was the one who convinced Loren to do the trip to Canada saying it was very important to connect with family. On our return from Canada, Loren went looking for him only to find out he was in the hospital. This man who we encountered on Sat at the restaurant, Loren had met in Micha's hospital room. Micha had cancer of the spinal column/nervous system. He had known some 8 months before that he was going to die, so instead of seeking treatment, came back to Burkina. Yes, he knew, even as he convinced, Loren to go to Canada. This man told us that Micha had just come home from the hospital that day. Loren hoped that meant he was doing better, we discussed going by his house to see Micha and meet his mother.

I had 2 very bad dreams that night. One that Ben was badly hurt in an accident and I had to watch him die. The other was that I was leaving our house, Loren was still at home when the military struck again and I was forced to run and hide, unable to get home and warn Loren what was coming. I saw a friend shot by the military. I awoke at 4 am grateful to find Loren alive, and thankfully remembering that Ben was safe at Koubri.

The next morning Micha died. The man we met at the restaurant called Loren to tell him. We went to his funeral Sunday afternoon.

It was very stark. I've never been to a funeral in Burkina although I know several people who've passed away. This was quite poignant to me though for so many reasons. Micha was buried in the same cemetary as Burkina's Golden boy dictator, Thomas Sankara. The cemetary is much like the rest of Burkina, red dirt, dusty, full of garbage and black plastic bags. The ceremony was, well, unceremonious. Micha had become a muslim only a few months before. The hole had been dug some time earlier that day. The body was carried in a cube van, on a mattress, wrapped in a straw mat and a white cloth. Cement blocks were put down and a wood board and the workers argued about how to go about the business of laying the body. They took the mattress and white cloth and then dumped the dirt back in. As we stood back from the flying dust, I stood with my arms around Loren as I watched him cry silently, again losing probably his closest friend (his best friend Marc was killed in an accident in March 2009). An old woman came up and scolded him for crying saying he needed to be strong for Micha's mother. A slim woman, she stood there with Micha's adopted child (now a young man) and the Imam, tears rolling down her face.

I looked around to see if I could see Sankara's grave. You can see them, his and the other officers killed are marked in white tile and shine, especially in that place where most of the graves are unmarked mounds of red dust. Some have a few bricks surrounding them, others small crosses of wood with their name carved in it. Others a slab of mud with their name scrolled by someone's finger, sitting formless ontop of the mound. Others with nothing at all. There were no flowers, no tombstones, no elaborate stoneworks. Farther away, you can see where grass has covered the mounds, and some were so small, you wonder if the child was ever even given a name. Just next to our feet, 3 small graves in a row, no markings at all. In that moment, the truth of human tragedy came crashing in on me. Who are we and what does what we do mean? If anything at all. There are 7 billion people, and the one thing we all have in common is we will all die someday.

At the end of it, we greeted other people there with mumbled condolences and I hugged Micha's mother very hard. I got the idea that this wasn't her wish that he be buried in Burkina but she said he was happy and smiling in his last hours, what more could she ask? She asked about my children, I said I have a son who is 10. She smiled, and told me how lucky I was. Don't I know it.

Benny has been given a poem at school to study, we learned it together.

The Difference - Jean Pierre Simeon

For each one mouth, 2 eyes, 2 hands, 2 legs

Nothing resembles a man more than another man

So between the mouth that wounds

And the mouth that consoles

Between the eyes that condemn

and the eyes that light up

Between the hands that give

and the hands that strip

Between the step without a trace

and the steps that guide us

Where is the difference

the mysterious difference.

And now back to our regular programming

2011-10-30T04:29:00.001-07:00

I was just writing to an old friend who found me on LinkedIn. I met Lisa on a trip to Europe in 1994 - she was a travel agent at the time, from Australia, and we kept in touch over the years. The last I heard from here she was driving dump trucks for a mining company in Aus. I can't even remember when that was. Anyway, I remembered I had this blog since I seem to have forgotten about it since then. Actually life has been so hectic since then, it's only recently I've had time to slow down anyway.

Backing the story up, back to April when I last wrote: Ben and I went to France for 2 weeks, we met my mom there. We had a fantastic trip altho, as per my usual I packed too much in and we were beat by the end of it. Having no real idea what Ben would have liked to see, I didn't know how much time to put in where. We didn't have a lot of flexibility partially because my mom likes to have a fixed agenda. We bought a rail pass for flexibility but she wanted to make reservations anyway! Turned out to be a good thing because it was Easter vacation for france and the one trip we didn't reserve was full so we had to buy tickets anyway.

While we were away, more groups got on the "shooting in the air" bandwagon, including the municipal police, the customs agents and others. Was just as glad to miss out on that. When we came back in May there was another rebellion in Bobo which was much worse. We saw the troups leave Ouaga and were concerned - we didn't know if they were going to help or to fight. Turns out they went to control the situation - it was an all out for 3 days in that city. The rebels were actually going into people's homes and stealing, as well as dragging women out into the street to rape them. The Ouaga squads surrounded the garrison and took over - anyone who fought them were killed, anyone who was missing from the garrison at the end of the day was hunted down. They say all the weapons were recovered but I'm not so sure. At the end, across the country, over 600 soldiers (no officers) were court-marshalled, some 123 put in prison and about 50 were executed. Some officers were demoted for lack of controll of their troups. The actual death toll of non-military was about 6, a couple were children hit by stray bullets.

It's been quiet since then but not forgotten. For Dwahli (spelling), some Indians here had a party and were setting off fireworks. Not knowing what it was, several bars shut their doors and sent everyone home. There is still a strong sense of mistrust for the military and really this is far from over. I expect we'll see some form of rebellion again soon, if not from the military. The student uprising of last Feb was also appeased as the police who were responsible for the death of that student were given 15 years in jail. Justice seems to have been served, but we'll see. We get to relive the shooting regularly as the mosque near my house apparently was recording their call to prayers on the day of the shooting so the mueszzin now blares out "Allah Akbar" (described to me as meaning God is very big) with the sound of shots being fired in the background. Fitting in some respects.

Benny was in Canada July and August, I decided to stay here for a variety of reasons including that I was completely exhausted. July was insane as Steve my boss was here the whole month and again stood me on my head. Although he brought me another expat, Dave, which has since made my life and my job SO much easier. I again have confidence that the technical side is being taken care of. Andrews was just way too busy. We're slowly getting there. I managed to get all our outstanding accounts to 60 days and under.

August Loren came home from his job in Fada, for which I am very grateful. He got sick with a liver problem and was home a lot. Then I got sick early Oct - malaria, typhoid fever and a lung infection, and was off for a week. It actually took several weeks to recover as the medication I was on gave me an allergic reaction and horrible headaches. I got more meds that made me stoned and gave me more allergic reactions. I'm really just starting to feel normal this past week. I don't remember feeling that horrible in a long time. I wanted to cut my head off! I can definitely feel for people who have chronic pain - I can't imagine wanting to live with that!

We are coming home at Christmas. Derek and Myriam are currently in Canada - Myriam managed to convince Derek that it was important for his children, if not for him, to know their family in Canada. And by some miracle he agreed. I equally said to Loren that I would really like him to meet my family and friends. He couldn't do the same time as Derek, so he chose Dec/Jan as the time to go. Again miracles do happen. So we're in Vancouver Dec 11 - 16, Regina Dec 16 - 21, Winnipeg Dec 22, Toronto Dec 23, Ottawa Dec 24 - Jan 6, Guelph/NF/Toronto Jan 7 to 14. Whirlwind I know. Guaranteed I'll be exhausted when we come back. My cousin is coming back with us and staying for 2 weeks as she promised Ben that she would come for his birthday. So we'll do Nazinga one weekend and we'll see what else we can fit in.

I have renewed my contract with Steve/HGS. It's a 2 year contract, but we'll see. Things are going well and I have a series of projects to accomplish to get us into steady state. We'll see where things go from there. Yes for those of you that are better in math than I am, that makes 4 years, not a 1-year sabbatical. Given the political situation in Canada and the US, I see no point in returning to the government. And although I have all these new found skills as an office manager, these are Africa quality skills and are only so transferable to the Western world where running by the seat of your pants is generally frowned upon. I mean if I just put it on my resume it would look really good. Within 2 years took an exisiting business of about $250k US per year with 2 remotely managed employees to $1.5M per year with 17 locally-managed employees; developed and implemented all procedures including accounting, importations, stock and inventory, training/evaluation/performance. Well, almost anyway, that's the next project is to get all of that written down. That and our first audit. I've learned a lot and done a lot, I mean when I compare beginning to end, it just doesn't feel like I'm anymore knowledgeable! And I still feel like I'm going by the seat of my pants!

I think that is the real next thing to learn - how to stay on when things go into steady state. I've always been a projects person, I stay for the project and then hand it over. So it will be interesting to see when I get to steady state, if I will stay or if I will get itchy feet and want to move on to the next thing to learn. Then again I was thinking perhaps it might be useful to get some of the education that normally goes with the position I hold, like an MBA or some thing. We'll see - I just bought MBA for Dummies as an ebook. we'll see if that helps LOL.

Scare of my life

2011-04-23T16:38:00.001-07:00

Sunday April 17, 2011

Thursday at noon, I got a call from Ben's teacher to pick him up. They had gone swimming so weren't at the school but that the school had been attacked again by striking students and it wasn't safe for them to return. Thursday was the day of the funeral of one of the six students who were killed in the original demonstrations back in Feb. The police/military had suppressed that one fairly violently, 6 students were killed and many more injured. This girl was 16 I think, though most of them were university students. How demonstrating at other schools, and injuring young children helps their cause, I'm not sure. Pauline said a girl in her daughter's class, age 6, was hit in the head with a rock and is in critical condition in hospital. Where kids today in Canada are learning lock down procedures, so kids in Burkina schools are learning to get under their desks and cover their heads should the school be attacked by strikers. Given this is something that happens every year in December, it's an important skill to learn.

The rest of the day was normal. We packed to leave for Fada the next day and Ben went off to bed at 9:30, since he had no school the following 2 days – he left his bag at school with no way to recover it til Monday so he had no homework either. The power had been out, so he asked to sleep on the porch, but he got up when the power came back because he was getting bitten by black ants (I am glad he did!). I started to work out around 10:30. I heard gunfire in the distance, wasn't sure what it was for. Assumed it was police dealing with striking students after the day's events. Then just as I was nearly finished, I heard a gunshot fired into my house. I dropped to the floor in the hall away from windows. The sound was in my bedroom, I heard it strike the window louver, the ceiling, the wall, and drop to the floor. I crawled around the house, shutting off lights and fans, closing window louvers and shutting Ben's door. There was no more sound for about 20 minutes… and then it started - all different kinds of weapons being fired into the air. I chanced a look outside and watched the red fireworks blazing in the sky. Needless to say I didn't sleep much, and certainly not in my room which faces the front of the house. They would come and go until 6:30 in the morning sometimes it would be quiet for 20 minutes only to start again right in front of the house.

The next day, I slept instead of going to work. Some people couldn't make it because roads were blocked and military were stealing cars I was told. Later I would find out how extensive the damage was in town (see article below). I told Ben he was not to go out, his friends could come in the court and play but he was not to leave the yard. Ben asked to go buy bissap (a juice) just 100 yards from the house, I agreed but said he must come back directly. 30 min later he's still not home so Eliza and I went looking for him. He had stopped at a friend's house and was playing. I was furious, and for better or worse, I gave him the lowdown of what's going on and why I need him to listen to me – I've never seen his eyes so big. He chose to watch tv the rest of the morning which was fine by me. I slept from 9am til 1pm. When I woke up and went outside to see my neighbours, I saw a fire truck at the end of the street. I went to Mahdou's house – he's a retired military, used to be a driver for the President (although he doesn't actually have a license, go figure). Turns out, at noon, soldiers came again on our street, shooting into the air, terrorizing the people there, clearing a space so they could burn down the house at the end of the street. The last 3 houses (mine is the 5^th house) on my side are all lived in by colonels in the military. Fortunately no one was home in any of those houses. It took the fire department 4 hours to put the fire out. Given it's a concrete block house, that was some fire.

Ben came out to play with his friends and over to see the fire. They were the unfortunate witnesses of a soldier stepping on to the hard top at the end of our street and direct his pistol at an oncoming car. The car of course screeched to a halt and the boys all ran for their lives into my courtyard, terrified. The soldier stole the car and took off.

I wanted to leave for Fada, as it seemed quieter but heard that the military were stealing vehicles on many roads, and I was advised to stay put by Loren and the Canadian consulate. All was quiet Friday night, in our neighborhood but still hot in others. All of this was apparently because some soldiers didn't get their extra lodging and food allowances in their pay on Thursday. These soldiers were actually the Special Presidential guard. They actually mutinied, storming and breaching the Presidential palace. The President escaped without harm, to his downtown office, then to his village 25km outside of town. He returned Friday morning as he had a meeting with the UN Secretary General in the afternoon.

Saturday, the merchants whose businesses were trashed and looted on Friday took to the streets. To their credit they stole absolutely nothing. They broke into and trashed the President's political party office, the National Assembly, burning public transit buses, and vehicles in the mayor's office yard. Compared to what the soldiers did the day before, this was nothing. They were eventually dispersed by municipal and national police who barricaded the other political buildings. Much of the downtown area looks like a war zone. Even the Marina Market, the grocery store I usually go to here in my neighborhood, stood blackened and quiet today as I passed it (trashed by soldiers on Friday). I was stunned when I saw it. I've been going to that place since I lived here before. I know many of the people who work there personally, and now they will not have work for many months until the chain can get the place cleaned up. The ladies who sold fruit outside, their stands trashed and scattered.

The President dissolved the government Saturday and declared curfew for Ouaga. He immediately set about replacing all the heads of the armed forces, chiefs of staff, state etc, in land, air and special forces military. The Prime Minister has stepped down (he was put in power in November 2010). None of this stopped the fighting. This is after the President just spent every day for the last 2 weeks (since the last problem) meeting with every branch of the armed forces to discuss what their issues are and getting them resolved. Ironically, the afternoon of the 14^th, he had met with the final group and the issue was considered resolved.

Benny is showing signs of stress; general listlessness, not enjoying any of his activities, looking glum. We spent some time talking about how he felt; being here instead of Canada, the stress and worry of what was happening, what he missed and what he liked being here; and praying last night. He was sick with stomach pains in the night – with vomiting and diarrhea so I think that was part of it. Today, Sunday, he seemed in better spirits.

There is a tense calm in the city. There was more violence in Po, near the Ghana border, same thing but no one knows why. Perhaps the soldiers felt left out of the last 2 months of revelry by their counterparts in different cities. Who knows.

http://www.lobservateur.bf/spip.php?article16213

If you load the Google toolbar it has a tab for Translate and will translate the whole story into English in about 30 seconds. It's not the best translation, parts won't make any sense, but the article gives a good blow by blow recount of what happened the last 3 days in town.

Monday April 18, 2011

Went to work today, tired as I didn't sleep at all last night. There was just too much going on and I couldn't see the sense in what was happening. None of it made sense and in my exhausted state I somehow came to the conclusion that these people weren't rational, were capable of nearly anything so I was going to stay up and protect myself and my son. I have the bag I packed for Fada ready to go and if that meant driving through curfew, so be it. Why I'm still up now, at nearly midnight is beyond me.

It's supposedly over. The group that started this recent round is calling to their military brethren to stop the madness, providing a public apology for the "inconvenience" caused. Now that they got what they want, others should be sensible. I have not a doubt in my mind that they had right to be angry with the government – 10 000s of soldiers losing just $15 from their pay – when you are probably only paid maybe $200/mo anyway, the question of where all that money went? But exactly where did shooting through the night, injuring people, stealing cars, tvs, phones, computers, alcohol, etc, looting stores, raping women, taking passports of tourists and sowing complete chaos, while allowing bandits to terrorize and roam free, help your cause?

But they're on a roll. I don't see that this is going to stop if meeting with the President for him to hear all your concerns and having them met isn't going to prevent this sort of thing.

The divide has opened between military and the public, the government and the students, the merchants and the justice system. No one is happy. Everyone is tense and tired and edgy. This isn't a quick heal. There is still much gangrene to be painfully cut out before the healing can begin. What reassurance is there to the public that their security is provided for? What gets put in place to prevent money from going missing or minimizing violence at demonstrations? What retribution will there be for the crimes committed? What possible way will the government soften the blow of price increases that have/WILL result from this, especially on the poor (better than half the 14 million in the country) who will be hit hardest? Gas was 642 (about $1.40/L) on Wednesday last week. Today it was anywhere from 682 to 1500 per L. My Hyundai I10 sewing machine on wheels with a 30 L tanks costs nearly $50 to fill already. Bread went up from 125 to 150 over the weekend, more than it's gone up in the last 10 years. At least so far, staples appear to be consistent. The trust that was so tenuous before is gone now.

Saturday April 23, 2011

Things are calmer, as people wait to see what happens. The RSP apologized for the "inconvenience" they caused which is to say they started it but it wasn't them going around looting – which I understand to be true from various sources. It's understood that this situation was created out of Blaise's desire to not see the military style problems of the Arab world come to his door. He was in fact, bribing the Chief of Staff of the army to not start a coup d'etat. But the military, non-commissioned soldiers were being marginalized – they have to pay for their own uniforms and had a fee deducted from their salary every month. They were losing about 1/5 of their salaries and 65 million CFA per year coming from them was going to officers, who are living in nice houses, driving nice cars. The chief of Staff was known for his blatant showing off of his wealth to soldiers, rubbing it in their faces as it were. So what started as a legitimate issue, got out of hand quite quickly and as other non-commissioned soldiers caught fire, it was directed the wrong way. In fact many of the places they looted were actually directed at officers as well, most of them being owned or financed by the heads, like the Chief of Staff. It just got out of control and other places that were nearby were hit as well. Why they burned down the Marina Market in my neighborhood, I'm still not sure – it was the only place in my neighbourhood that was hit. I understand that actually the military broke in and it was civilians who looted and eventually burned it because of the security cameras.

None of this justifies it in my thinking and probably in the thinking of a lot of civilians, but it has brought some of the solidarity back between them. Most people understood the problem and so weren't terribly surprised when certain people's houses were burnt down (apparently the Mayor had called the military "thieves" which is why they attacked him, last round. They were caught on camera making him say that the military were not thieves, over and over).

The President has named himself as Minister of Defense which is interesting. We'll see what these changes bring about. But I think the President is caught in a place of his own making that he's going to have a hard time extricating himself from: he can either make the people happy and get rid of the corruption and graft, or he can make his cronies happy and keep things the way they are. If the people are unhappy, he will have a civil war on his hands. If he stops the graft, what will the extremely wealthy of this country do to him? One of those people, the most notorious of them, is his younger brother. The plot thickens.

Meanwhile, there is still curfew, which is being strictly enforced. So I sleep well at night knowing, I need to get it in before the next part starts, and that for the moment at least, I can.

April Fools! Poisson d'avril - (April Fish jokes) - this one was stinky!

2011-04-03T08:27:00.001-07:00

This has to be the meanest April fools joke I've ever seen. Apparently the curfew WASN"T over on Friday - it just ended today in fact. But there was someone texting people and telling people it WAS over. There were apparently some 350 people arrested on Friday in Ouaga for being out after curfew. Not sure where they put them all.

Hesitant to say it's over but

2011-04-01T14:25:00.001-07:00

Well that was pretty short lived. The curfew is already over - ruined my night! I was out for drinks with a bunch of blokes from the mines and thought I had to run home to give my house girl time to get home before curfew. Turns out, I didn't have to rush. Anyway, there will be other nights. I don't think we'll travel to Fada just yet though, I want to wait and see how things pan out.

Okay, apparently there was an additional issue on the table that the military hadn't been paid for missions made to both Sudan and to Ivory Coast. Sudan would be the equivalent of not paying Canadian troops for going to Afghanistan. Ivory Coast was before it got ugly but still. So the President met with 150 representatives of the military yesterday? or this morning and they seem to have come to some understanding. The military has promised no more shooting or demonstrating (at least not over this issue) and I guess the President promised to pay them. He also promised compensation for people who had damage done to their property (the Ouaga military trashed parts of the downtown area - I figure this should come out of their pay but that may not be the most expedient path to peace). Apparently the reason why the Mayor of Ouaga was attacked is he's 3rd in line for the throne (after the President and the Prime Minister) and probably not as well armed as the first and second. The General was attacked as apparently it was his girlfriend that caused the original 5 military to be incarcerated. (I just realized that I've been translating from french - militaires to military - what do you call them in english? soldiers I guess?).

2 other things of interest that occurred during all of this: 1) the government froze the assets of a number of mining companies here without any notification, using problems with their taxes as a pretext. Waiting to hear what that's about - that's not normal procedure. 2) the World Bank has promised 57.5 BILLION F CFA ($150M Canadian) to Burkina for the development of its mining law and membership into a Mining ethics community - putting it in the big leagues. I'm sure that mining would go away here same as Ivory Coast and Liberia if revolution breaks out here. I'm thinking the President was highly motivated to get things sorted ensuring the safe arrival of a lot of money.

So anyway, that's the lowdown. I'll keep you posted as to how this actually pans out. I suspect there's more to come...

I have a curfew - I haven't had one since I was 17

2011-03-31T16:45:00.001-07:00

Hi,

I haven't written in a long time. Mostly life has gotten into a day-to-day so it's not terribly interesting to write or read about. The last month however has provided more interesting fodder for ruminating about. I would like to stress before you start to read, that at no time were we in danger. I know that immediately makes you worry, but before you get into what I'm saying, I don't want people freaking out. We were never in danger although it was a good time to be cautious.

The last time there was a curfew called where I lived was in 1986 when I lived in Scarborough and Paul Bernardo (aka the Scarboro rapist) was prowling my neighbourhood. Anyone under 19 had to be inside by 9PM. I'm in less danger at this point than I was back then. However when one has a child to consider, it SEEMS more dangerous.

Starting about a month ago, there were demonstrations over a University student who allegedly died in jail. Depending on who you ask - the government or the students - he either died of meningitis or of abuse. Schools were closed as striking students were going around the country, setting tire pyres and generally causing disruption. The kids just went back to school this past Monday. Ben was on break when that started anyway - he was in Fada with Loren so wasn't missing much. Ben's school went back earlier but they had to do recess out back and the police were a regular presence at their school to deter strikers. The school was very professional, keeping the parents notified of circumstances. One day when we were driving to Fada we went through the remains of a demonstration by students, burning tires on the road, and the national police in full riot gear with truck mounted weapons. The police were very good at cracking down on the demonstrations and I think managed to do it without killing any of the demonstrators.

Then last week early Wed morning, I was awoken in the middle of the night to hear gunfire - that's quite a frightening thing to hear. It wasn't immediately close to us, and I had been hearing it earlier that day when the airport was killing birds. The next day, all of downtown was closed, people fleeing the city as military were firing off their guns and ransacking stores, and shopkeepers were doing their best to protect their property. Apparently it had started the night before as young military stormed the military camp near Derek's house (Pauline, my secretary also lives near there) and took all the arms. They went around stopping taxis, dumping out the passengers and forcing the taxi drivers to drive them around the city all night as they created chaos. Again miraculously, no one was hurt. We closed our office for the day and I kept Ben and all his friends inside our courtyard - not allowing them to even play in the street near our house. The military were protesting the courtmarshal and imprisonment of 5 of their collegues who were involved in some kind of scandal. The stories were unclear as to exactly what happened but they seemed to have some right to what they were saying. It apparently had to do with a Minister's girlfriend accusing them of something. Clearly an issue between politicians and military which can't be pretty. By the next day, everything seemed to be calmed down. We went to Fada for the weekend to see Loren.

Sunday, I was too tired to drive home so we stayed til Monday morning. At 6AM we were having coffee with Loren, as we prepared to head back to Ouaga and saw a number of military sort of hanging about. We left quickly, and not an hour later, they had the same thing happen in Fada. We had no idea until we had reached Ouaga. We actually passed Derek heading to Fada, and he AND Clark got stuck in Koupela as the Fada military drove east and then south to Tenkodogo. Clark was heading to Togo so wandered south behind them (Tenko is on the road to Togo). Derek eventually made it in to Fada. I called Loren to see what was happening. He and Derek had gone into Fada from the jobsite. Apparently there was a baracade and the military were stopping people - if they happened to like your vehicle, they took it and left you on the side of the road. In front of Derek and Loren, they took the pickup of a white pastor, so they did a u-turn and went back to sleep at the worksite. Everything was closed in Fada anyway so they wouldn't be able to get anything to eat or drink, or to get fuel (they have a diesel tank on site). The military apparently fired a rocket at the main courthouse and went to Tenko to free one of their collegues again who had been tried and courtmarshaled but this time it was for the rape of a 14-year old girl. A delegation was sent from Ouaga and apparently things were settled and put back in order.

Then Tuesday night - I heard a rocket launched and explode, not close by, and more distant gunfire. I had to travel Wed and Ben's school was closed so again, had him stay in the court much of the day. Apparently there were more demonstrations and the military attacked both the Mayor of Ouaga's house and also a General's house.The Mayor tried defending himself and his family, and is currently in hospital. Other military around the country also held demonstrations to support those in Fada and Ouaga. The President spoke on tv Wed, without saying a lot. I'm trying to figure out why these people aren't in prison. I'm guessing the national police (gendarmes) are enforcing the curfew, not the military. The last time something like this happened was in 2007 and there was a big gunfight in town between the police and the army, the damage is still there to see. It was because one group was paid and the other not. Despite Blaise (the president)'s history as a captain, it appears he no longer has good control over the army and we're hoping that he will use this opportunity to regain that. He's one of the longest standing politicians in the world, having been president since 1992, and dictator for 5 years before that.

So last night - Wed, they called nation wide curfew - 9pm to 6am - until further notice. There is nothing open, no pharmacies or even the airport. Since most flights heading to Europe are at night, this complicates things. We were the chosen neighborhood to receive military attention. It was quite frightening to hear gunfire from automatic weapons as well as rockets and heavy artillery go off at close range. They were close enough I could hear them yelling and chanting, close enough to tell there were women in the group. And this went on from 9:30 PM til about 1:30 AM, then it was just intermittent and further away. After 3AM I was sound asleep so couldn't tell you if it continued. It was very stressful, and the only really saving grace for keeping the fear under control was knowing their intent was not to harm civilians. I do have to say tho, in that time, I gave some serious thought as to Plan B should things get out of hand. I had a bag packed with 2 days of clothes, our papers, meds, flashlights etc. and I spent a chunk of time thinking through places to go. This isn't an easy task as my car is basically an egg shaped sewing machine on 4 bicycle wheels and many of the roads leading out of the city are under construction, even if you wouldn't potentialy run into military on them. Bush roads in this thing are out of the question. And then of course, there's Andrews. I would have to go get him. He's a Ghanaian who hardly speaks french and I wouldn't want to leave him in the midst of all this. We have a pickup at work, or it's about 20km ( a long walk) to the farm... Anyway, that's where my thoughts were going. I think the most useful thing I did during that time was a short workout, kept my mind occupied and relieved some of the stress.

There is considerable solidarity with my neighbours. We have taken the opportunity to reconnect and look out for one another. Many of my neighbors are military or retired anyway - they don't seem bothered by this. Not sure if that is helpful or not.

Tonight is quiet... so far. I guess they decided to share the love with a different part of the city. I recorded some of the gunfire from last night and relistened to it. I can hear my cat meowing and the gunfire sounds like it's just outside the window, which it more or less was.

I wonder if that's something you get used to. I mean does being African and/or born in a place where a shaky political situation is the norm, does that help you develop coping mechanism that I as a soft, upper-middle class Canadian may not have? I know that you can get used to a lot of things. Like I used to get really grossed out by cockroaches and over time I just got used to them. Physical aggression, I used to want to throw up watching kids push each other around in the playground, now I like watching mixed Martial arts and the UFC from my martial arts training. I even like to fight. I think of the monologue of Chris Tucker in the movie Rush Hour, how he became a cop because he basically grew up lying on the floor so they wouldn't get caught in the cross fire of bullets from the gangs fighting. Something like that has to do something to a person. Make them hard, talk about adrenal fatigue. You would live in a constant state of drowning in cortisol. On the flip side, has living the good life for the last 20 years changed the President from a hardened military Captain who supposedly killed his best friend to become dictator, into a soft, flabby politician? If things get ugly, will he pull that military side out that hasn't been seen in 10 years?

The general mood here is mixed. Some are thinking it should all blow over in a week or two. Others think its an opening for another revolution. The people are tired of the corruption, of seeing big contracts go to the President's family members, of politicians getting away with literal murder without retribution, public funds being used for personal purposes. Most seem to think it's time for the President to step down, but few are agreed on how that should or will proceed, or who could or should succeed him. There is no clear alternative, which may be a good thing given the situation in Ivory Coast. We just had elections in November, I don't think I know a single person who voted and yet he was the clear winner. I don't recall seeing any propoganda for any other candidates, there was no debate on tv, and of course it's not known if taxpayers money was spent on his campaign.

So that's the deal. I don't really have a good head for looking at a political situation and reading it or understanding the forces at work, even whithin Canada. Just trying to deal with day-to-day and make a Plan B. It's hard with Loren and much of his family away. I'll keep you posted as to what happens next.

Merry? Christmas.

2010-12-27T17:32:00.001-08:00

Hi, Wishing that everyone had a wonderful Christmas with close friends and family.

Sorry this, post isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. The last few weeks have been quite chaotic and so many things have happened that I'm certain that my perspective on life even is completely different than it was even a month ago when I was home sick for 10 days contemplating why I took life so seriously, and problems so personally. Sorry we didn't send a card or even an email at Christmas to most people. It's been pretty much complete chaos here since mid - Nov (actually pretty much since I arrived in July) with life throwing curve balls at every second free breath. I haven't felt this out of sorts in a long time. I'm hoping things will slow down again in January as I'm not sure I can do another 6 months like that!

Of course it's end of the year so all the accounting and reporting etc needed to be wrapped up, and having taken over a week off, it was time to play catch up. Our truck for work was broken down but I in the office so didn't worry too much about others using my car and I figured Ben would survive if I didn't come home for lunch a few days. Then one day I got a phone call asking me to come get Ben from school, but I couldn't even though his school is a mere 4 km from my office, because I didn't have a car. The reason to pick him up? The school was being attacked by striking high school students. The reason for the strike and the strike actions don't exactly match (not sure they ever do really) but the reason was 12 years ago there was a journalist who was assasinated. The journalist, Norbert Zongo, was a friend of Loren's family, and was known as the "voice of the people". He was the editor of a paper call the Independent (which exists today but is much less independent then back then). Norbert wrote an article regarding the President's younger brother and his relationship to a well known singer, Aicha Kone from Mali. On Dec 13, 1998, Norbert's car was stopped on the road between Nazinga and Leo, I believe the same road on which we had our car accident last year. He and the 3 other people in the car were shot and the car lit on fire. What I didn't know was the Loren was slated to be in that car that day - Norbert had invited him to go wherever it was they were headed. But Loren was busy that day - life is fickle. That was shortly after I left to go back to Canada, and shortly before I returned to visit in Feb 1999. Burkina was stood on its head. Over 60,000 people attended Norbert's funeral, and on Jan 21, 1999, there was a dead city strike. When I came back, I found a very different place than I had left - people were angry and the air was very tense. Anyway, Ben got a ride back with our neighbours thankfully.

Every year now (although I don't remember it being this way so much last year), students strike in protest. However the strikes have degraded to them attacking other schools, trying to break down the doors and throwing dynamite - not large ones... so far into the courtyards . Not sure how that protests the political death of journalist exactly nor how it tells the government what kind of changes you want to see; it certainly doesn't relate at all to Norbert's principles of justice and integrity. So Ben was off school for a week until the protests were over. No one was hurt in any of the schools attacked, but I think a couple of protesters were injured or killed by police (remember these are children themselves probably not more than 16 to 18 years old) but it wasn't widely publicized. I worry that it will go farther and farther, threatening people's safety in a more general way.

Following that my boss came and we had an action packed week while he was here, including performance evaluations and goal setting for next year. I got a good evaluation and a raise, and we seemed to agree generally what my strong and weak points were. However, he seemed to want to make me responsible for the other manager's responsibilities which I'm not sure is fair or appropriate as the whole reason he's here is to manage things like stock levels and the technical side which I don't have any experience in. I think that my reluctance comes from the fact that if I'm going to manage it, I always feel like I have to really know what I'm doing and the amount of effort that it would take for me to be able to assess him, I may almost as well do it myself. In which case I'm not sure why I need him. He's a nice man and takes a lot of pride in his technical work. He falls down in many of the same areas I do - reporting, accounting, follow-up - so it's double the work for me to deal with it. That and he doesn't take kindly to a woman who is younger than he is telling him he won't get his bonus if he doesn't hand in his weekly reports.

I was also given sales targets and other performance things to live up to which I generally feel inadequately experienced to deal with. I'm seriously considering taking a management course part time - either here at one of the colleges or on line - not sure whether I want to do a BA/some kind of graduate certificate/diploma in business or if a more practical/tools oriented college course would be appropriate. Of course doing it here, in French would have the advantage of being more specific to my needs but also more challenging to do in French. Not sure that the added stress will be good in either case.

Then of course it being end of year, having end of year accounting and reporting to do. And learning about prep and delivery of Christmas hampers to clients, while sending them emails saying if they don't get their outstanding bills paid we'll have to cut them off. We have one client that owes us about $60k US (the equivalent of more than a months' worth of sales for the whole country), $20k of which is over 120 days. And that's just one. It's frustrating that they complain we don't have enough stock, very chicken and egg! It's all new to me and sort of frustrating.

Loren had to go to Niger with his dad to get ostriches for a training Clark was giving before Christmas, which they managed to find, buy and bring home. Unfortunately one died on the way home of heat stroke and probably being knocked about in a cage on horrible roads. Benny finished school on the 17th and I sent him off to Koubri for the week - Loren and I, and Derek and family were scheduled to head out there on the 24th for Christmas. However, the next curve came on Monday the 20th at midnight when Clark called Loren to say Carol was having severe abdominal pains, much like appendicitis but he had 15 visitors at the farm for training so he had to go back. Loren took Carol to the hospital that night and came home around 2am. At 5am he got a call which he didn't hear, then my phone rang. It was Carol in the clinic calling to say that her drip had run out, she was in severe pain and couldn't find anyone to help her. So I got dressed and raced over to the hospital. I found Carol down the hall from her room, moaning in pain and no one around. I went and found a doctor and nurse who got her a new IV and pain killers. She had an ultrasound which showed she had a strangulated hernia - a hole in the abdominal wall with a part of the intestine caught in the hole which was blocking anything from passing. Very painful and very dangerous. She was scheduled for surgery to start as soon as the doctor arrived (same doctor who saw me and Clark the year before, after the accident who told me that the contusion on my head was minor and that Clark was fine. So I wasn't exactly reassured.

So she spent from the night of the 20th to the morning of the 24th in the hospital - I spent from the morning of the 21st til the morning of the 23rd with her as she had surgery on the 21st.. Ben had been at Koubri with them and had to come home early, only to be sent off to stay with Myriam and her kids (Loren's brother's family). He had fun anyway - Ben plays with Danika (age 6) and Darelle (age 4) much like he plays with Bryanna and Gracie. He didn't want to come home. He was happy when he did come home and the girls stayed over too. Loren had to go to Fada to start a new job, and was busy getting all his machines, guys and supplies ready, and came home late on the 24th. Derek was in Boromo finishing up a job/starting another so also came back late on the 24th and Clark was doing a training for 15 people at the farm so came in to Ouaga the afternoon of the 24th. On the 23rd I could see that if someone didn't take control of Christmas it wasn't going to happen so I started planning for it to happen and pulled off the planning and execution - of 3 days (6 meals) at my house with 9 of us including sleeping arrangements, seating, decorations and presents when I hadn't been planning on being home at all - in 24 hours. Fortunately before she got sick, Carol had started some of her Christmas baking, Ben did a lot of it when she started to not feel well, so I was spared from baking at least. Derek and Myriam didn't stay over - we're glad enough to leave their kids with us!

She's on the mend now, eating a bit here and there but trying to keep it to juice/tea and soup - pretty hard during Christmas when everyone else is eating cookies and chocolate, cheese, turkey and beef tenderloin. But I think more than anything she's just grateful it doesn't hurt so much anymore! She's so much better she still managed to fuss and do dishes and play with the kids. It was a little crowded but cozy. And being in Ouaga was different than on the farm - it's cold and quiet on the farm. In the city, we were frequently reminded about how fickle life can be by the nearly constant sound of ambulances running about over the last 3 days.

We've grown in numbers at the house - was given 3 chickens for Christmas (3 french hens?), not quite sure what I'm going to do with them. I'm fairly certain they'll get eaten just not sure if it'll be by me. I'm quite certain I won't be the one preparing them! Although it;s a handy skill, not sure I want to practice just now. I should have had someone take a picture of me trying to get them untangled today (we have them each tied by one leg and they got intertwined), giving them water in a cup made from a cut up coke bottle, and feeding them rice. Quite domestic. LOL. Unfortunately one of them was tied in such a way that it couldn't get into the shade. It died of heat stroke, but we noticed soon after so prepped it for cooking - Loren took it with him to Fada.

It turned out well, as I think we were just grateful to be having Christmas together and all of us so stressed out and tired from the previous weeks, just happy to hang and not have anything specific to do other than eat, play games and watch the kids play. Even my house girl came over at Christmas to help with dishes and preparations.

On the 26th we woke up to find that one of our dogs had died in the night. Derek kicked her because she was being a pain as usual, and I think broke something in her head. I'm still pretty mad at him for it although Clark seemed to think she was actually sick. SHe had been sick all through Christmas, throwing up and just generally not being her usual annoying sucky self - she wouldn't come when called and didn't eat. There were no vets open on the 25th so couldn't take her. That night I think the other animals knew it wasn't going to end well as even the cat lay down with the dogs that night. Loren found it and took it away before one of the kids saw it. Ben was pretty sad but perked up when I said we could get another one. I'm more sad for the one that's left, she's kinda lonely now, so it would be good to get another one.

I'm in a state at this point where I kind of feel like life is short. I find it strange for example to hear Clark talking about a hip replacement. He's walking with 2 canes still, a year after the accident. He needs a hip replacement operation but was told that it would only last for 15 - 20 years. His logic is he should wait 10 years to get it replaced because getting a second replacement done at 80 will be hard. For a man with diabetes living in a country with a life expectancy of 50 for urban men (Clark is 60 this year), I found that logic really strange. I should live in pain and inconvenience when I'm younger and healthier on the hope that I'll see 90 with a still functioning hip?

Needless to say after all that I'm tired. All the men have gone back to their prospective job sites and Myriam has gone home with her kids, and back to work. Loren will be away for about 6 months coming home about once a month and us visiting about the same, seeing each other twice a month - which is more stress for me. Carol is staying here til the 30th for when she gets her stitches out - meaning I've been playing nurse - watching her diet, putting her eye drops in for her before when she couldn't sit up to see in a mirror, even giving her shots! Not something I ever wanted to learn in my life - it's harder than it looks. Ben will head back to Koubri with them until Sunday or Monday. School/work starts again on Tues. I think once we get back into routine it will hit me that Loren is away. Right now everything is still sort of on it's head.

Meantime, we are planning our vacation to France with my mom in the spring. There are still no definitive plans about staying or coming back to Canada. Given that staying will likely mean 4- 6months of every year trying to see Loren as he does a job in another city, this next 6 months may be very telling.

I finally got my new computer - it's a good one a Toshiba P505 with an i5 chip, meaning it's fast and huge - 18" screen. We have skype now too so we talked to my family via video on the 26th. I'm going to call my dad tomorrow on it. If you have skype, our id is lisa.zippy so send us an invite and we'll chat! I know from talking to my sister that I can understand why Loren doesn't stay in touch with his family in Canada (other than it's expensive by phone). Some how seeing them was good but it was sad too. I mean the real interaction in our lives is not there. The kids can see each other but can't play, my sister and I can talk but not hug or go do anything together - it feels quite artificial. It almost makes it worse - perhaps that's just the mood I'm in lately.

Life is fickle, and short. Your passing may or may not be noticed. What's sadder is those left behind. But ultimately, no matter how indispensible you think you are, others will move on and deal with life without you. And no matter how important you think that task may be, it'll get done even if you aren't there to do it.

I have a quote here from a book called Fit over 40 by Jon Benson

" while I've never been a control freak in the sense that I wish to control others, I most certainly wanted to control my own life, security, circumstances, health and destiny. ... control is the ultimate illusion. It does not exist in any shape or form, yet most of us desire some form of it. We are literally seeking a ghost, so it's no wonder we're disappointed quite a bit in life.

Someone may say, I can control if I go to work or not. No, you cannot. You can only make the effort to go to work. You may be involved in a car accident on the way to work, forcing you to go home orto the hospital. You may show up to find yourself fired - perhaps your whole department relegated to the world of downsizing. All things of true importance are ultimately out of our control. However, all things are manageable."

More maunderings

2010-12-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

The blog hasn't really been happening I guess. I kinda feel like it just turned into maunderings about normal stuff that everyone goes through. It was a worthwhile thing to do at the time but I guess I would rather connect with people on a more individual basis. I'm getting a new computer (I don't think I mentioned previously that we were robbed and had pretty much everything electronic stolen - fortunately my work computer was at work) so soon will again be in regular contact. We're getting Skype too. The work computer doesn't have a webcam so I'm making sure that the next computer does.

When we were only going to be here for a year, I guess I was fairly focused on accomplishing what I thought I should for that year. The thinking being I'd be home soon anyway so just to be present where I was. Now, I'm here for yet another year and as that progresses it becomes less and less certain what the future holds in terms of location and long term plans. Things are evolving with Loren and me and although I'm not really closer to a particular answer, as the picture gets filled in the future will show itself. I find myself thinking about the contacts and relations I've left behind and how I maintain that as ultimately to me, that's what makes life worthwhile.

After a great deal of stress with work (as my last blog details every drop of blood I sweated!) it's only gotten worse - to the point where I was again experiencing road rage and wanting to run people over with my car. I also physically threatened to kill someone if they f'd up again - and I meant it. That one I'll give myself some grace because it was the guard who we pay to protect the house whom I've caught sleeping just about every night. The nights he wasn't sleeping - he took off somewhere without telling me. I had to go meet someone and Ben was asleep. I told the guard that this is the end of the year when there are lots of thefts. If he's sleeping then someone could kill him. My son is in the house and if anything happens to my son, I would personally kill him with my bear hands. He definitely didn't sleep that night. One night I came out and kicked him - still doesn't deter him. The next time, I'm going to bind him up with duct tape and put chili powder up his nose. Sounds cruel, but when you've had your house robbed and this guys only job requirement is that he stays conscious for 8 hours well, it's annoying.

Anyway, I got sick again - I honestly think it was the stress. I love the terms - makes your blood boil, or seeing red. I've had those happen and I'm pretty sure they aren't good for you. And again all of it stems from someone not doing their job or doing it so badly it creates huge problems. We've been trying to import our products going through the proper channels - meaning you get an inspection by COTECNA before you ship and then going through customs should be easier. Well COTECNA was a nightmare which I can hardly explain with the amount of back and forth trying to get papers, having to resubmit documents 2 and 3 times because they were lost. When it was all finally done and we had our truck in Ouaga we couldn't take it out of customs because some idiot translated an item from grease gun (pistolet) to rockets (fusille). To transport arms across international borders of course requires special papers which we of course don't have because well, we're not shipping arms. However I was warned that finding anything remotely like arms on my truck would require that I be imprisoned which doesn’t do much to improve my mood. So we took everything off the truck and they were satisfied that there were no rockets and let us leave. I think I could have killed someone. The process that should have taken a total of 10 days from start to finish and could have been done by my secretary turned into 5 weeks of me phoning clients reassuring that their stuff is coming, redoing documents, working weekends, having meetings and finally being threatened with prison.

So it's probably not a huge wonder I was sick the following Monday. I got to work, worked for a few hours then felt tired, I also had a low grade fever and what looked like an allergic reaction where my skin was clear but you could see it was red underneath - hard to describe but the skin itself wasn't red just underneath was - more like carbon monoxide poisoning if you've ever seen that. Someone had my car so I couldn't go home. So I lay down in one of the rooms. To say I fell asleep would be an understatement - I crashed. It was closer to being knocked unconscious. I slept for an hour, and then someone drove me home. Over the next 48 hours, I slept for 36. In the few I was awake, I went to the clinic. From the blood work he said I have typhoid fever, salmonella poisoning and that I'm anemic. Add an allergic reaction and of course that's a fantastic recipe for being tired. A week later and I was still tired. I could drink a coffee and go directly to sleep all night. The dreams that go with that concoction of drugs are quite interesting as well.

I got a medical certificate to be off work for 10 day and I tried to go to work earlier but got up at 1PM so that doesn't really work. I still worked at home - responding to emails, and doing some work that needs doing that doesn't require my presence in the office. I went in to do salaries and make sure they had money to pay bills for month end and for errands. But that's it. Anytime something stressed me, I'd drop it immediately and do something else. Spent a lot of time on facebook and buying Christmas presents for my family online. I wandered around facebook and looked about 15 people's pages randomly just to see what was happening in their lives, sent emails to friends I hadn't connected with in awhile and seeing lots of pregnancies and newborns which was exciting. Then there were deaths too, like a friend from high school I've recently reconnected with whose mother died a month ago. I always remember her mom as being someone who was very hard and driven. My friend was one of the few whose parents were divorced. In the 80s that was rare. Now having been a single parent, I can sympathize with how hard that must have been to deal with 2 kids and a divorce. I can also see through the in memoriam and videos that were put together that she was actually a very loving person and an extremely giving person, who contributed a lot to the community around her. I look at my own parents and sort of see them as people who are kind of floating through life – driven people but with side-blinders on. I am inspired to see the great things this woman did. It comes at a time when I'm wondering what a real life looks like. I have a busy life, no doubt - a parent working full time, in a stressful and demanding job. But what is it that makes you look at life and have those moments of satisfaction where you did a good job and really felt like you contributed or made a difference? I can't criticize my parents - I only hope that they have those moments of satisfaction in their life - I just think what I think is important or what inspires me is quite different than what it is for them.

It's like that line in City Slickers I guess where you have to find out that "one thing" for yourself, because it's different for everyone. I know for me, connecting with people is really important. And as much as I flit in an out of people's lives because I move so much, I still reach back, and I hope that even though I can't stay 100% current with people due to distance and sheer numbers, that everyone knows how much I care about them and how grateful I am that I've been blessed to know so many wonderful people. There are the differences too between the small pleasures like petting an animal or reading a good book, and the larger things like helping someone make an important decision or giving someone a needed push in the right direction. I'm thinking part of it is reflecting on the things you do to take the time to witness where you have made those contributions - not so much for others to recognize but just for yourself to recognize and take some joy from them. I think about how stressed I get when these problems arise and I realize that I take problems quite personally - both from the perspective that somehow I should have been able to avoid it and also that whoever created the problem did it intentionally or without consideration for me - fundamentally lacking respect for me and my time. Neither is really a useful way of looking at the problem. Others might find satisfaction in dealing with those kind of things but I just feel angry, tired and resentful - victimized even.

So in terms of here, as with life every time I move (which is frequently so you'd think I'd be used to it by now!) I am still trying to find my way, my place in the community. Loren's friends love me and think I'm crazy. I'm of course nothing like any of the other women they know and they are fun to talk to. But even at home there is only so much satisfaction in sitting around talking to people, even where you can connect and be helpful. I've been trying to get more involved in the life of Derek's family - arranging dinner or outings once a month with the children and a "mommies night" for Myriam and myself to talk and pray and hang out. At 32 she's gotten somewhat lost in being a mother and working, and has forgotten what fundamental gave her joy in life for herself. Perhaps we will discover together. There is the language barrier and there are the strong cultural differences but it's interesting to go through that learning together.

The sky is this absolutely phenomenal colour right now - a pink and orange glow. The best parts of Harmattan, it's so dusty and will only get worse, your nose is always full and you constantly feel the need to wash BUT it's nice and cool at night, to the point where you need sheets and a blanket, and the sunsets are really incredible and almost every day like that - both a product of the dust. And there are less bugs.

I am to the point where I don't want to lead anymore. I am tired of feeling like I'm the only person who does stuff because it needs doing, because it's right to do so. I keep asking the question "why am I leading this?" I ask it both of work and of my family life. I got tired of watching everyone do things in a half assed way around me, tired of telling people how to do their job and why it’s important to do it well (rarely get there); tired of telling people why they need to respect their wives and families (this is a losing battle as far as I can tell), and why spending all day everyday drinking at the bar is a waste of life (these aren't teenagers I'm talking to, they are men in their 40s and 50s), listening to people justify their pathetic behavior, and thinking they have zero right to complain about their government and the state of their country. No one thinks of consequences - short or long term, just doing whatever the hell they feel like doing. I could take that stance, but of course there are too many people counting on me for that. Can I just screw off and leave my son at home? Sure I can but is that going to give me the result I'm looking for with him? No. Can I just leave my work to do itself? Of course but then I'm accountable for how that turns out, even if it's not my business, even if it's not my money - and I care how I do my job. How do you get people to see that? I guess it's a matter that they don't have a desired outcome either, in terms of their families or work. They just do without thinking where that's going - or what the greater impact of that is.

I guess it would be nice to see something of excellence and get to follow it instead of having to try and create it. I'm having to reinvent the wheel at work, a wheel I know exists but there's no one to show me what it looks like or how it works. When I worked at EC, that was one of the greatest things about some the people I worked with - seeing excellence, people who are the best at what they do and who had no ego - they just wanted it to be the best it could be. When there was the opportunity to work with these people, it was an amazing process.

So anyway, I have some more photos - got a new camera. I will try uploading later.

Shmorgasborg

2010-10-09T06:38:00.001-07:00

Sorry, it's been a long time since I blogged. Actually I've been writing, I just keep forgetting to post so this will be a selection of those.

Sept 2: Shrugging into the heaviness of life.

That expression isn't mine, but it's stuck with me ever since I heard it. No, the author of that is Loren's dad, Clark. Clark said it when he was retelling the story of walking in the dark at Nazinga a long time ago. He was shaving with an electric razor and not really paying attention when he nearly walked into an elephant. This elephant wasn't too happy with him I guess, and Clark tried to yell but like in nightmares, couldn't get any sound out. He took off at a run and, just like a nightmare, tripped and fell. He rolled over to find this elephant had chased him and was now standing over him. Clark said, he was quite certain he was going to die and prayed that he was ready to go to the Lord, while a small part of his mind wondered if it, death, was going to hurt. For whatever reason, the elephant wandered away. Clark got to his feet, in wonder that he was still alive. And he said he was so certain he was going to die, it took him awhile to shrug back into the heaviness of life. I felt that same way after the car accident back in Dec. I think I may have written the very same. I was so sure I was going to die when I saw us heading for the tree that it was quite the feeling to awaken after and determine I was actually alive. I can't say I was joyful in that moment as I was fully appreciative of the gravity of the moment, not knowing how everyone else was only knowing I was covered in blood, and that death was still a reasonable possibility.

I liken how I'm feeling to that moment only in the heaviness that life sometimes feels, like you are shouldering a heavy load, or wearing a huge coat, that threatens your ability to keep moving. I had a bit of a fairy tale going without Ben here. Certainly I missed him a lot, but as with any absence, you tend to forget the tough stuff. The first night, we went for dinner with Clark, Carol, Derek and family, and were the last to go. Ben wanted to go with Loren on motorcycle of course, although he was quite happy when I got him from the airport to sit in the car with me (yay, no seatbelts, and he gets to sit in the front). As I drove home by myself, I saw in front of me a horrible motorcycle accident; the bike was full under the car. The people had been pulled off to the side already and surrounded so I couldn't see. I kept driving with my heart in my mouth, knowing it wasn't Loren's bike but also knowing how fickle life is. It could have been. And I pictured Ben in pain, lying on the ground with his huge blue eyes asking me why this kind of thing happens. All I could do was pray that it never does. There is so much in life that you can't protect your children from – the worst thing of all, yourself. Loren thought I was angry at him I was so serious, but really it was just that: feeling the weight again of parenthood and all the strong feelings that go with it. Knowing the battles between extremely conservative father and expressive, Jim-Carrey-esque son that are to come. Even myself; I get tired of all the silliness and I hear the words come out of my mouth, time and time again, "you're being silly"(my mother) or "knock it off"(my father), knowing what damage that it's likely doing to his self-esteem. Picking a school, wanting him to integrate, yet wanting him to learn and be motivated, to achieve and be unique. Wanting to keep him safe, yet wanting to give him wings, and knowing there's just so much out there that you can't protect them from. Wanting him to grow yet still be my baby. Wanting to give him everything he wants, knowing I can't and shouldn't, and knowing that will spark fights with Loren. I've never believed in having a lot of stuff, but somehow it's hard to fight (and yes, I have a lot of stuff). And having to choose between spending time with my family and friends or with Loren's. None these things individually are light, together, I feel like I'm climbing narrow stairs carrying an elephant, trying to watch for boobytraps.

He's already got diarrhoea and a rash in his armpit that looks like ringworm. We're already fighting, with Loren too about watching movies, buying him another phone, how many toys he has, playing his DS too much, showering, brushing his teeth, cleaning his room, not going out to play in his pyjamas, asking to be excused from the table, feeding the cat, and changing the litter. I add mediator to my long list of titles.

Sept 21 – Good thing I didn't ask for a haircut

I came home to find my house naked. I'm sure that sounds odd. We had some half dozen trees out front, one was touching the telephone wire and the other was bothering Loren and my neighbour because some branches would touch his aluminum roof when it was windy, and during rainy season that's pretty much every other day. The guard offered to "tailler" meaning to trim it. I got home and was appalled to find 3 full trees cut right down to the stump. The guard very jovially asks "c'est bon, non?" and I of course said NON!!!. He seemed confused so asked "de quelle cote?" meaning exactly how was it not right. I said everything. When I asked to you to trim it so it wasn't touching the wire, what part of that meant cut down the whole tree? And when you asked before to trim the one touching the roof, did I not say I didn't want you to because I was worried you would cut off too much??! He just looked and said, ah yes of course, you're right. I said it was a good thing I didn't ask you for a haircut, you would have started at my knees.

This is the same person who was confused as to why I was upset that he didn't show up for work and sent no one to replace him. His logic was he was at home praying for me and he didn't feel right that he send someone else just in case something happened. So I asked "therefore it's better that you stay home and pray?" and he very happily replied of course! I said well I'm not paying God, I'm paying you, and I'm paying you to be at my house at 6PM til 6AM and if you don't show up again or send a replacement, you're fired (this is the 4th or 5th time). So he didn't show up again the next day and sent his son who just sleeps on the terrace. We'll be ending his contract end of the month and getting a security company in. This is after we had someone break into the house, while he was on duty - sleeping. I thought it would help him sleep lighter but nope. He still sleeps every night.

Anyway, my former boss at Environment Canada is retiring. Judith was always an amazing person - incredibly smart yet practical and without ego. She was never about being right, but getting it right. We went through a lot of program changes together. I spent more than 3 years doing Offsets, which I don't regret but I think I should have left earlier. She did it for over a decade! That's perseverance. We had our disagreements, and there were periods of time where things were so stressful that we really got on each others' nerves, and couldn't agree on nearly anything. But I completely respect her and even now, miss the conversations we had and the brainstorming we did together. It's interesting when you can look back at parts of your life and point specifically to someone who made a huge difference, turned you in another direction, or who influenced your thinking profoundly. Judith did all those things for me. It very much has me thinking again about my own philosophy and how I manage my own life. I look at all the things she's accomplished and how much she knows, and then there's her personal life which is something pretty amazing as well. Makes me wonder what I do with my time. Makes me re-think how I want to manage my life. I know I have another 20 years to be where she is but I know that if I got to start over, I don't know if I could do everything she has. And that's okay I guess, I am where I am for a reason, but it's fun to be inspired in that way. I wish Judith all the best.

And it reminds me, as I'm trying to sort out the same invoices over again, that some things in life are the same no matter where you go. I think the tree conversation is easily a conversation I could have had at EC. Trying to get software to work is sometimes easier than getting government employees to work.

Oct 9 – Puppies

We have started our own zoo. We got 2 female puppies yesterday – they are just 4 weeks old and surprisingly large for their age. Sort of typical African mutts – came from a litter of 6, with 2 males. One is called Socks for her 4 white socks and her sister is Shoeshine – who is just the chubbiest little thing. Both cute. We made jokes about having a puppy factory with 2 females – Loren could sell dog meat that way and have his own supply. Gross I know. What was really gross was Andrews cutting the tail off one of the dogs "so it will grow big". African logic apparently.

Now feeding gets complicated. The cat is getting cat food when it's available which is pretty easy; the dogs are getting rice with sauce, milk and occasionally a bit of meat. There is dog food but rice is cheaper, and dogs are, apparently, omnivores. We bought puppy food which we'll give them in a few weeks. Ben gets to clean up the dog poop.

We've decided to fire the guard too. I told the guy who brought him to us the real reason being he doesn't show up all the time and forgets to send replacements so it's easier to get a service where they figure the replacements out. We'll see how that works out. Loren told the guard that HGS is paying for a service so we don't need him anymore – typical African version of saving face. So now the guard is going around the neighbourhood bad mouthing us. He made the mistake of going to one of our neighbours, Mahdou. Mahdou is one of Loren's good friends. The guard told Mahdou that the reason he was fired was because Loren doesn't like him and that Loren had no right to fire him because I was the one who hired him. Mahdou of course knows the real reason, and of course also told Loren what the guard said. So Loren confronted the guard and the guard denied it saying, Mahdou was lying. The next day he goes back to Mahdou and say "tu m'a vendu avec le blanc" – literally you sold me to the white guy. What a mess – just glad he's leaving. We gave him a month's notice so he could find another job, but mid-month I'll give him his salary and say get lost (or translated into African face-saving – we're giving you time to go look for something else).

My frustration level lately has been quite high, and unfortunately my attitude has suffered for it . So I've been crapping on people and generally being ornery. I can't help it, just every little thing of late gets me to yelling mad so quickly. Probably the humidity and all the bugs aren't helping. It's the end of rainy season so it's not super hot but very humid, and there are a million bugs, just in my bed, somehow despite mosquito net. Both Loren and I have blisters from the blister bugs. Loren has a whole row on his lower back – he probably had one small one but like I described last year, when you break the blister the liquid creates new blisters where ever it touches. His belt probably rubbed one and spread it all over his lower back. How many weeks til November? I go on break too for a month! Yay.

We'll see if I actually take it. I'm way behind on my work plan because the invoicing process was transferred to Ouaga and then on top of that, we had to erase all the historical invoices and start again because it was mixed with what was billed by the Ghana office. We have over 400 invoices to put back in the system and I decided to do a waybill/invoice/payment reconciliation only to find out that there were tonnes of mistakes with double billing, and about 50 outstanding invoices. That took a whole month out of my schedule to redo. And trying to get taxes done, and social security registration, don't have office insurance yet and still don't have all the contract stuff together... AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! Breathe, Lisa, Breathe!!! Bit at a time.

Blogging

2010-08-12T12:57:00.001-07:00

Blogging

Sorry to all, I haven't written in a long time. I guess much of my reason for blogging in the first place has kind of moved on. I mean originally the blog was to answer the constant stream of questions that I got from people - that were usually the same questions - on how one prepares for this kind of adventure, why I was going etc. Then it became a tool for connecting and telling about what was going on, the different, the scary, the fun, how Ben and I were doing, and how things were going with Loren (which out of respect for his privacy, I haven't really been forthcoming). With so many things going on it was ranting, and talking out my thinking, and therapy for some of the other stuff. Since then, well I've seen a lot of people when I went home, and things are more complicated now that I've decided to stay longer. And I realized there are a lot of people reading this and it is a public blog so I don't really get into some things. I was surprised and felt very humbled to find out exactly how many people were reading my blog, even if occasionally. Thanks to all who do. I feel blessed to know there are so many who care about my goings on, no matter how insane or rant-y they are.

Also I've found there is stuff that some people can't handle – even as I tell "white" people here about some things that have gone on, they kind of freak out. So I feel kind of responsible if I have a whole bunch of people I care about who can hardly imagine being here, freaking out over something I've said.

I had a good trip home and saw a whole lot of people. It was of course, too short and too long all at the same time. I gained a lot of weight going from one meal to the next seeing people. From morning coffee to lunch to afternoon coffee to dinner to after dinner drinks, I saw over 150 people in 24 days. Not including going to church and spending 10 min with about 30 people. I felt I did okay at spreading my time out and spending more of it with the people who matter the most (if I didn't get to see you much please don't think you are less important!!). Of course it's never enough, especially of those who you are accustomed to spending all your time with.

Another good thing is I got my crowns (teeth) and they look nice. In fact my teeth never looked nicer, they are straight, not cracked or chipped and they're all the same colour. I'm not 100% sure they are glued well. They are thicker than my natural teeth so they take a little getting used to and I have a thlighthe lithp but they are way better than the temporary ones. So I'm happy with that. I was surprised how a small change as to the shape of the inside of your mouth can affect you. My teeth don't sit quite right so I'm forever clacking my bottom front teeth against the backs of the top ones. The first day that made my jaw so tight, it gave me a blinding headache so literally Loren had to drive me home and walk me to bed with my eyes covered. A little rest and a muscle relaxant cured that but it was quite excruciating at the time.

An odd item was we got cat food in the grocery store which makes life a whole lot easier for me in terms of trying to figure out what to feed my cat every day. He didn't like dog food at all (which I can understand, it's disgusting) even the canned stuff so he was getting spoiled, literally and figuratively, as he would get rice or pasta, whatever we happened to be eating that meal, and he got whatever meat was rotting in the fridge. Usually ham or liver pate. Now I just give him that, but it was $4 for a little box and $12 for a medium size bag. Still cheaper than ham.

On other stuff I've had my boss Steve here a lot of the last month so did not really getting a lot of work done as he likes to come into town and stand me on my head running about to different clients, going out etc. He also came with my friend Patrick. Patrick was my reference for this job and one of the perks is he comes to visit me twice a year. Pat and I were friends in University for several years and spent a lot of time together, and he hasn't changed much other than there is the occasional night where he'd rather go to bed early than go out drinking again (old age, what can I say). I think our instant closeness made Loren somewhat jealous. I would catch him staring evenly at Pat as if weighing carefully. Even Steve seemed jealous oddly - not sure though if it was for me or for Pat as he and Pat are good friends – and probably he was annoyed because Pat and I kept teasing him about how much he talks. Literally one time, a client said to Steve, "OK OK, I'll buy it! Just shut the f* up and get the hell out of my office!"

Steve has offered Loren a contract and more if that job goes well. In fact he offered Loren to open his own branch of HGS called HGS Projects - to do big set ups and stuff, sort of general contracting. Loren already does a lot of that and more but not jobs of this size, level of technical and complexity. The fuel farm set up he offered Loren to manage costs over $300M USD. Loren will be in Ivory Coast for at least 2 months, maybe more, with breaks to come home God willing. It pays him well, but will have him gone for a long time and potentially with follow up work so he'll be gone maybe another 3 months again after that to Mali. He's also going to areas that aren't unsafe but not what I would call safe either. This still isn't 100% and Loren and I are both very wary of Steve and his projects as he is very visionary with not much in the way of solid grounding and he likes to cut corners. I'm sure Loren can handle it but we've had some long discussions about his concerns. For example, I sent Steve my work plan for the next 3 months and he said but what about all the work we're going to win? My reply was, you win it and I will make space for it. He's so in the clouds sometimes! There are probably many (especially my family) who are laughing at that. It's highly ironic that I am responsible for organizing anyone – they must be wondering what kind of state these people are in if they want ME to organize. I may not be able to clean my room or organize my house. However, I do think I'm relatively good at planning on a management level so I think that's where I'm providing value.

I also finally got some feedback from Steve. I suspect that was because I asked Patrick if Steve had said anything to him about how I was doing. Patrick said, and Steve confirmed that he was very happy how things were going here (even though we are not quite there yet in terms of getting everything in place). It takes so much longer to do things here that even though it's been 9 months I've been here, it takes time. More so because even when you get someone who's good at their job, they usually aren't the quality you are accustomed to at home. They don't think terribly far ahead so you spend a great deal more time teaching than usual. For example, Pauline is very good. But she's not accustomed to the kind of pace Steve and I set. I spent 2 hours explaining prioritizing and how to use a day timer to write down tasks that she's given each day, how to determine what comes first if she's overloaded – and she is overloaded already – but as she gets accustomed to doing it, it won't take her so long. She also doesn't know how to delegate so even though we have an intern, she doesn't give her anything to do and doesn't explain it well when she does so it comes back full of errors. All of these things take time and experience that can't be learned overnight. Sometimes when you've been working a long time you forget how much you learned over time about the administrative. So I'm pretty proud of my work, even if I do say so myself! J

More fun here. I am just getting over having malaria and dysentery at the same time. I wasn't feeling well when we went up to one of the mine sites on Thursday, I thought it was all the travel over crappy roads but then Sat night it grew into a fever with chills and aches and diarrhoea. Loren gets mad when I don't take medication as soon as I get symptoms but I prefer to wait a day or 2 as I rarely get sick and hate taking anything. He said something like " didn't your internet research tell you that malaria kills people?!". He is forever teasing me about looking everything up on the internet and that I take medication made by western doctors who've never been to Africa. I took the medication early Sunday morning and spend most of Sunday in bed. I even answered the phone and talked to someone but had no recollection of it later.

I feel like all I ever talk about is the bad stuff that goes on here and am giving people the wrong impression. Certainly life isn't easy and there are dangerous elements to it but then there are anywhere you go. Here we don't have gang shoot outs and execution style killings. Date rape occurs here for sure but not the Paul Bernardo/serial rapist type. There are no pedophiles to worry about, but there are more drunk/bad drivers, more physicality, more obvious bad influences of sexuality and drinking, but less drugs. Really I don't know what it is but I love being here. There are so many problems but then Burkina isn't like Nigeria or Sudan or Congo or Ivory Coast. It really isn't so violent or political though it definitely has the potential for it. The problems are just different.

For example, I was sitting at the bar with a bunch of guys - which I hate mostly because they are always at the bar, neglecting their wives and families, spending money they don't have, getting drunk, looking at women, and talking garbage. Some old man was teasing Loren that if he didn't marry me soon, he was going to steal me. We got into a conversation about how can you steal a wife and I said, you maybe can't steal her like a radio or a wallet, but in the same way if you leave your house and a robber can come to steal your radio, if you don't spend time with her, someone will come steal your wife's heart. These men were actually surprised and a conversation ensued about what I meant. These guys honestly had no idea that their wife was a person who needed affection and time with them. A couple of men actually got up and went home.

We've had discussions about drinking and driving, smoking/second hand smoke and children's health, cheating on your spouse, and the effects of cell phones on the breakdown of African traditions. People here seem in general more connected to the politics (though not necessarily better at making choices) and goings on. They talk less about television shows and more about real life. It's varied and stimulating and if you can make one person think twice, well that's good enough for me... for now. I don't know how long that will carry me. But then I had the same problem in Canada, where I don't mind going out now and again to a restaurant or to a bar, and having some activities but at the end of the day, what's the point of it? I always get to a point where I feel like there's got to be more than this. And so I feel that here too, it's just hard to get it off the ground because I don't know where to start, whereas in Canada it was difficult from the aspect of availability of time to do things.

I realized why I was saving so much money here. Apart from things being a little cheaper, even though I'm earning about a third of my salary, everything else is paid for. I was given a car, HGS pays for the gas, insurance, maintenance (I don't even have to remember to do the maintenance! Bonus!). They pay my cell phone units, my lunch if I eat at the office, my internet, and a couple flights home per year. Loren pays the rent and I pay my water and electricity, food and whatever, and someone else is paying my mortgage. Probably also the lack of decent shopping is helpful and the fact that I can't get Chapters, Amazon or any other online store to send anything to me here. Gotta love the golden handcuffs!

clarification

2010-07-22T12:44:00.001-07:00

Hi all, I'm back in Burkina now and although I miss my Benny Bear, I'm
enjoying a bit of freedom, staying out late and seeing people etc.

I wanted to clarify on my last post that when I said I miss my
friends, I didn't mean I don't miss my family. I meant that the only
thing I really miss is people, not places or stuff. Just in case
someone thought that odd.

I don't start back at work til Monday so it's nice to get some free
time although I'm mosting wasting it and not getting my stuff done! I
find the timechange going east easier than going west so don't feel as
tired but I end up staying up late so get up late so don't get many
business hours to do things.

Home?

2010-07-19T06:28:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. My mind has been a mess since Loren was back in May, after our fight. Work was crazy, and getting ready to go back to Canada was taking up a lot of brain space. I did write a couple posts but they were such rants, I didn't post them.

I took Ben to Ghana with me in May and once again school couldn't come up with his homework in advance so they did it for him - definitely changing schools. He had a lot of fun with Steve's kids. School ended mid-June. Ben ranked 3rd in his class (of 10) with a score of 8.5/10. He was pretty bored, he had no incentive to work since he could get good marks without doing anything - not even showing up apparently.

The trip to Canada was long and challenging. It was fantastic to see so many people. I miss my friends the most. I even saw some friends and family I haven't seen in several years. At the end I saw more than 150 people so you can imagine, there wasn't a lot of time for resting. By the end, I was exhausted. Benny is sad since he will be staying an extra 6 weeks. I hope that works out. I pray for his safety and for him to make good choices, as there are different challenges and dangers to being there, than in Burkina. At 8 (and a half) he's still a little boy in some ways, many ways really. I am grateful for him to have the opportunity to be in both countries. There are many pluses to each. When he is in Burkina I don't worry so much about bullying, pedophiles, lack of exercise, body image issues, etc. The other thing that doesn't happen in Burkina is the separation of "cool" kids and "geeks". Kids will chose to hang out with whoever they hang out with based on interests of course but there isn't the same kind of "cliquey-ness" if that's a word..

There wasn't much time for Ben and I to spend together either. We did some stuff but mostly I was running about as was he, going to camp, doing kid stuff with Gramma etc. and seeing his friends. I will miss him a lot.

When I get back I will need the time to sort a few things out. I have to get him into a better school so I will be spending a fair bit of time trying to sort that out and really doing my homework this time. I didn't have a car last year and Loren wasn't always available. Also I think he's starting to realize that whatever his philosophy was in terms of schooling, it has changed when he realized what his son was not getting in the way of education. The other things I want to do are start finding some extra curricular stuff. I have found tennis courts, and swimming pools so I will be getting him out for those things. There is even a golf course but I suspect it's just one large sand trap. They aren't exactly environmentally friendly to start with but are worse in a stressed enviroment such as in Burkina as opposed to Canada. I want to find him some other structured activities and hopefully a church.

I am at Charles de Gaulle airport, sitting next to a dog who is wearing a diaper. I guess that's better than being in cargo.

I have a lot of travel over the next couple months. I have the rest of the week off, then will get back to work hopefully finding the office still standing and not broke when I get back. I have a stack of stuff to organize and do. Then in August Patrick is coming and we'll be travelling around to the various mine sites together. Basically several days of drinking and driving - yes we have a DD. I will be bringing much gravol and ibuprofen.

No I don't have a forward plan - will write when I have one.

Gotta run - flight leaving shortly.

One part down, one to go.

2010-05-02T16:16:00.001-07:00

Hi all, well unfortunately or fortunately there seems to less to write
about of late. Loren arrived home on Wed night. His ticket said he was
to arrive at 14h40 (2:40 pm for you non-military Canadians) but
somewhere in the last 7 weeks they changed their schedule and didn't
bother to mention it. So when he called and asked if the plane was on
time, they said "yes of course", but he arrived at the airport to
discover that on time now meant leaving at 7PM and making a stop in
Togo. So he didn't actually arrive in Ouaga until 10PM. His 45 min
flight turned into a 7 hour wait at the airport and a 3 hour flight.

The stories he has are painful to hear. He talks about being spoiled
coming back to Ouaga - he was literally in the bush with nothing,
drinking river water, being swarmed and stung daily by bees, eating
manioc (a kind of mashed up grain) and bush meat - deer, monkeys,
whatever they could kill - so here with electricity, cold beer, and
vegetables, as well as not having to worry about workers striking and
getting shot at, Ouaga probably seems like paradise. Although it's a
lot hotter here, it's less humid (40+ deg and only 35% instead of
35deg and 80%!). Just at night, he said they needed a fire because it
got down to about 18 - 20 deg C. Here, at 4AM it's still over 30deg.

Loren was amazed at how much Ben had grown in 2 months. He was also
amazed at how big the cat was and immediately started talking about
putting it in a casserole with wine sauce. I THINK he's joking.

At least he's home. I found myself strangely distant when he arrived.
Part of me was expecting that we had to start all over again and it
was as if I was shut off from our relationship and had to be
re-started, like a car that's been parked for 7 weeks. It didn't take
too long to get back up to speed and the next part in some ways
doesn't seem so bad anymore, in others feels worse. It will be 10
weeks and I will have been re-Canadianized somewhat so we'll see how
it goes. At least I have something to look forward to. Like being
freezing cold! I'm bringing my coat!

We went to a funeral this morning. It was our friend Michel's
grandmother who died. So we drove out to her village. She was a
chief's wife so it was kind of a big deal. We sat out under mango
trees eating chicken and rice, and pork and french fries, drinking
coke, beer, whiskey, water. I wore a knee- length skirt and still
managed to get a light sun burn on my legs under the trees as my legs
haven't seen sun in 8 months. We sat and talked, and Ben of course was
bored, as all children are at parent functions. Fortunately Loren has
a couple friends who are quite amusing. Yves showed Ben how to make
origami boxes. Yves is also absolutely hysterical and had us nearly
crying because we were laughing so hard. He likes to mix english and
french. So he said things like, we were traversing the school yard in
running, and told Ben that he was to "be regarding me during my
conception" (regard in french is to watch, and conception is a design
- so totally different than the english).

During the funeral, they do something of a salute - anything that has
to do with the chief, they do 4 shots from a gun, just powder, no
ammo. This happened to be a muzzle-load shot gun. What was funny -
along the lines of being in the desert, by camel ride and hearing cell
phones go off - was the first round of shot set off a bunch of car
alarms. I think I nearly peed from laughing so hard.

Having said that, I don't think I quite have the hang of their humour.
Loren was telling the story of a group of friends who had very little
so they decided to pool their resources to send one to Europe to get a
job. So each of them sold all their possessions - bikes, everything -
and sent one guy to Europe. 2 weeks later they see him again and ask
him what he's doing back. He says "it's cold up there". And everyone
around the table bursts into laughter.

Another one, that I did think was funny but not nearly as funny as
everyone else seem to think: a boy at school is asked to write a story
describing a picture. The picture shows a boy being chased by a
crocodile. The boy writes: Drissa nage (swims), crocodile nage. Drissa
nage nage, crocodile nage nage. Drissa nage, nage, nage, nage, nage,
nage!!!!! Crocodile nage, nage, nage, nage, nage, nage!!!!

And some of you are thinking, what the hell is wrong with you?!

Anyway, it seems odd that I will be home in less than 2 months. Let me
know if you have any requests for artwork, batiq, cloth, statues,
masks, or little instruments. I won't buy a djembe - too heavy. Benny
is staying until the end of August. Then he gets one more month of
vacation when he arrives here. I am checking out 2 new schools near my
office since he seems terribly bored where he is. We'll see how that
goes. But I'll miss him!! We've never been apart that long!

Off to shower then to bed. I don't think my hair has been 100% dry for
nearly a month now. Your scalp sweats and your hair stays wet inspite
of/because of ? 40 deg weather. Keeps you cooler anyway. I'm getting
used to sleeping soaked in sweat. Just a few more weeks of this, but
then the mosquitoes will be back too. Africans don't believe me when I
talk about the mosquitoes, horse flies and black flies in Northern
Ontario and in some of the parks. But at least those don't carry death
and disease like malaria and sleeping sickness.

I will be going to Ghana in a few weeks and am debating about taking
Ben with me so I can stay a little longer. We may have to drive to
Tamale (about 6 hours costing about $600 total airfare and another
$200 in gas) and fly from there because from Ouaga to Accra is just
too expensive (about $900 Canadian for me and $600 for him). Our
Burkina visas have expired, as has my Ghana visa. Should be an
interesting trip for him. I also have to do a couple minesite tours so
don't want to leave him too much.

Awesome book

2010-04-25T18:22:00.001-07:00

http://www.evebrownwaite.com/

I mentioned that the current bain of my existence and at the same
time, my saviour, is ebooks.com. I typed Burkina Faso into the search,
and came up with a bunch of boring World Bank stuff that costs
ridiculous amounts of money, and this.

First comes love; then comes malaria.

I laughed so hard at the title, I bought the book instantly and read
it all... today. This woman's writing is terrifically down to earth
and she sounds ever so much the JAP (Jewish American Princess) she
paints herself to be.

Yet for me, too much of what she was saying sounded familiar - things
I've thought about, worries, fears, mental debates I've had, when I
was here before, when I was at home wondering why I wasn't in Africa,
and now that I've returned. We don't have landmines and gunfire to
deal with here but much else is too similar.

Hope you read it, enjoy!

Photos

2010-04-17T15:06:00.001-07:00

Running out of excuses for not posting photos! Now that I have regular internet. Okay so they're a little out of order.
We have Benny back in March, playing on the computer.

Danika (left) and Darel, I think this was back at Christmas

This was Christmas at the farm - this is Marcia and Larry. Marcia was the one who broke both of her legs in the car accident. I was kinda chilled to find this photo afterwards. I had forgotten I had taken it.

Myriam and the girls opening presents

Ben and Loren playing with their presents.

Here's the cat back in November. And something more recent.

You can tell he was just a baby, cats here don't have blue eyes. Hi eyes are orangey now. Our cat is part possum (likes to hang upside down), part caracal (can jump like nothing I've seen!)

I'll add more later.

Yay!! It's raining!!!

2010-04-13T16:25:00.001-07:00

Time for an update

2010-04-13T16:06:00.001-07:00

April 13, 2010 - Time for an update. I haven't written in quite some
time. It's been a tough few weeks, I've spent a lot of time reading
and just thinking. My boss was here over Easter and so I was running
about for much of that time. As I get to know him I realize that
Steve, my boss is someone I have a great deal to learn from on both a
personal and professional level, though we don't agree on a lot of
stuff.

Loren has been away now for 5 weeks and will be home in 2 more weeks,
which is great except the week following that we go through yet
another long separation, even longer than this one, 10 weeks instead
of 7. It sounds kind of silly when I say it that way. I mean really,
what's 10 weeks, it's not even 3 months. But this time has felt
interminable and I worry the next will be worse. Planning for the trip
to Canada and the actual trip itself will probably fly so I'm sure it
will feel shorter. That and it won't be hot season anymore.
This hot season has been strangely, not as hot as usual. Instead of
harmattan coming in January and having a normal cool winter (I swear
Mom! It gets cold at night here! – she doesn't believe me), we had a
rather warm one. But then mid-March when it was supposed to be the
normal "hot", we had harmattan and actually had some nights where one
could use sheets. We did have a few days of 45/46 degree weather but
it hasn't been a lot. Now it's April. Rainy season is around the
corner so the humidity is mounting – it's trying to rain, and it has
in areas to the west and the south, but not here yet. So it's 42
degrees and probably 50% humidity.

It's hard to explain temperatures over 40 to someone who's never
experienced it. Everything is hot. You lie in your bed at night and
the mattress is warmer than body temperature, like someone with a
fever was lying there before you. The walls are hot, your shampoo and
soap feel hot. And of course the water is hot because it's up in a
concrete water tower all day. Overnight we are still around 38 until
about 3 or 4 AM when it finally drops to 30. Everything is pretty much
made of concrete so it takes awhile to cool down especially if it was
in the sun. I find it interesting that at the office, the interior
stays fairly cool, even though we may not have had the aircon on
because of power outs. Yet at my house, even if I close all the
shutters, the inside still gets really hot, perhaps it's not
adequately isolated, meaning the office has another door closing off
the hallway to the interior, whereas my house does not. Anyway,
working on the concepts of hot and cold because air conditioning is
not always an option.

Power outs. SONABEL (National Burkina Electricity company) is
obviously a monopoly, more or less like Ontario Hydro (and still is
really) was or Hydro Quebec is. It's not like you've got somewhere
else to go for power – unless you buy a generator, which is where
we're headed for the office. Some days it's not so bad, a few hours.
This hot season has been very bad, power outs started happening back
in late Feb, they started being daily in March and by end of March,
you could expect that the power would be out for as much as 50 hours
per week. Yup, like a third of the week. It's been 7 hours a day for
the most part, which hours seems to change weekly so I guess everyone
gets a fair dose. They were nice enough to leave the power on most of
the Easter weekend in my area. Generally, power is on before one would
go to bed but still there have been a number of nights where we slept
outside and power came on at 2AM. I have aircon but have avoided using
it up until recently – the humidity is just too much and the house is
no longer cooling down enough to sleep in. It still feels 40 inside
and the fan just blows hot air around. Rather than put on 2 A/C, I
just let Ben sleep in my room. I put the A/C at 27 to cool the room
off before sleep, then to 30 to sleep, then I shut it off/open the
windows/turn on the fan at 3AM. Aircon is crazy expensive here. My
usual electricity bills with a fridge (20 years old, Freon,
inefficient as hell, from Italy that we bought for $250), regular
computer/internet use, cell phone charging, and about 6 ceiling fans
runs about $50/month. At the office, with the same but with at least
one A/C running pretty much all the time, the bill came to $300 for
one month and that was with the power being off half the time! It's a
little frustrating being hot, tempers tend to flare so it's always
good to keep your sense of humour with you.

There is some kind of rich irony somewhere that I'm sitting here right
now with a terrible heat rash all over my neck and from about the
knees down, but shivering because I'm covered in sweat and sitting
under a fan. Poor Benny's neck looks like he's about 100 years old.
It's absolutely covered in heat rash. He insists it doesn't bother
him, he wouldn't tell me if it did, but I don't see him scratching it.
I tried putting this powder on it called Salvatis powder, everyone
here uses it. My legs are covered in it, works great for getting rid
of the itch but for some reason it made Ben worse, so we're using a
cortisone cream which doesn't make me very happy but seems to work
well... until he sweats it off running around. I can't imagine how he
manages at school where I don't know that they even have a fan. 17
little bodies, stuffed into an 10 x 20 foot room in 42 degree heat.
To be honest though, using A/C just seems to make the humidity worse
which is the other reason I try to limit my use. Stepping out of a 25
deg, air-conditioned room to a 42 degree, humid day is like walking
into Hell itself.

Where Loren is, in Central African Republic, is probably a lot kinder
climate-wise, running daytime about 35 degrees (although the humidity
is high and they've had a few good rainfalls) and 25 at night.
However, fact is he's in the bush (probably where he'd rather be
anyway) but he's also not too far from where the LRA have entered back
in the CAR from Sudan. He's about 80km from the raids and fighting,
where the rebels have stolen vehicles, food and killed a number of
people. It's not as bad as it is in DR Congo, where thankfully our
friend Nick is no longer stationed. Loren has had other problems such
as a bunch of his workers went on strike so he had to fire them, lack
of supplies, fuel, money. He said it was the same as last time but
this time he knew so he's not pulling out his hair. He figures he's
getting about 30% of what he could be doing if they would actually
fund and resource the job properly. Makes working in Burkina sound
like a dream.

I had to laugh. I was out to a mine site visiting clients. These
clients are from a Canadian company, and most of them are French
Canadian. When I tell them that I'm actually on sabbatical from the
Canadian government, they laugh and ask me "so what's harder? Working
in Burkina or working for the government?" To be honest, the
frustrations are quite similar. Bureaucracy beyond compare, procedures
that change before you have a chance to write them down, people who
have no advance planning skills who spend more of their time figuring
out why it's not their responsibility than they spend doing their job.
Not 100% true, in either place but remarkable.

Benny has added recently to his list of health issues – he broke his
nose and has determined that he is allergic to school – at least the
one he's currently attending. Before Easter, before my boss arrived,
we had Dembele's son, Djamal sleep over for a few days. We had power
out as usual, just before bedtime, so the boys put the mattresses
outside for sleeping on. They decided to wrestle a bit, Ben was lying
on the mattress and Djamal fell backwards on to him. Normally this
would probably not cause a problem but because it was power out and
thus pitch black, Ben didn't see it coming and did nothing to protect
himself. The back of Djamal's head met squarely with Ben's nose. When
I got a flashlight on him, there was blood everywhere and quite
clearly he had broken his nose. After a bit of ice on his nose, the
bleeding stopped and the swelling went down, and they headed off to
bed – I on the other hand was ready for some Valium or something! Poor
Benny! Poor mommy! That really freaked me out. His nose still hurts
but of course that doesn't prevent him from trying to wrestle his
friends or playing soccer and crashing into people – which makes me
totally CRAZY!!

Then there's our cat who is providing a great deal of, uh,
entertainment. He is a real hunter and has grown to be quite large
given he's only 7 months old. His expertise? – lizards, geckos. I was
treated to the lovely feeling of stepping on a fresh, dead gecko he
left me under my seat at the dining room table. Fortunately I was
wearing shoes. The baby ones he eats which is also disgusting. Other
presents include cockroaches (they are 2 inches long here, they climb
out of the drains – he doesn't eat those thankfully) and any other
large bugs he can get ahold of. He caught some kind of grasshopper
thing last night – it was huge, and could jump/fly up to the ceiling
before coming back to the floor. Caught it mid-jump and then had a
ball with it. He was so hot, he would stop and pant like a dog in
between. I was worried about him so made him stay in my bedroom
overnight to cool off (had the A/C on so the floor isn't 40 degrees).
There are also these big, black shrews (like giant rats) that skulk
around the yard. I don't think he'll mess with them because they stink
and are really mean, but we've had him vaccinated just in case. Benny
is quite attached to him (me too, he is awfully cute!) so I feel bad
because I know animals don't tend to last very long here, certainly
not the 18 years a cat can live in Canada. He'll either get sick, or
get killed, possibly by another cat, a dog, or someone looking for a
meal.

This probably still all sounds very negative. Yet for whatever reason
it's just the way things are and it doesn't feel nearly as stressful
as being in Canada does. A friend sent me an email today (verified on
Snopes http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp ) in which the
Washington Post has a famous violinist play in the Metro Station in
Washington DC. Joshua Bell played 6 intricate Bach pieces for 45
minutes on his multi-million dollar 1713 Stradivarius, during rush
hour, in which time over 1000 people passed him. Only 6 people stop to
listen and 20 people give him money, without stopping. He earns about
$32 for his effort. The irony being that he played a concert 2 nights
before in Boston where the average cost of a seat was $100 and he
plays on average 200 international concerts a year. Only one person
recognized him. I'm figuring the average person wouldn't know good
violin playing from average, never mind exceptional, and had it been a
singer it might have been taken more note of. However, the point is
taken and there is a sense of people sadly shaking their heads at the
truth of what that story tells. The point is, that would never happen
here (first there's no subway so everyone is in a vehicle or on a
motorbike but other than that!). People here will take time to stop
and watch or listen to a street performer, even if they aren't good,
just for the entertainment of it. People will stop and dance to music
in the street, even professionals, even if the quality of music isn't
good because the sound system is terrible. So even when I tell you
horrible sounding stories, I still will tell you that I'm less
stressed and less out of sorts that I was when in Canada. There is a
calmness and a sense of guided purpose (even when I don't know what
I'm doing!) and a feeling that I'm in the right place at the moment,
that somehow makes all the challenges and frustrations okay. I also
don't get as frustrated because I feel it's more about learning my own
response than it is about dealing with the frustration. Really that's
what it's about anywhere but perhaps I cut Burkinabe more slack than I
cut Canadians.

Ooo! I just heard thunder! Hopefully that means rain...

Schedule for Canada visit

2010-03-23T01:55:00.001-07:00

Hi all,

Here is the revised schedule. I had wanted to go to Ottawa first so
Ben could visit his old school but it would mean having to go to
Ottawa twice from Toronto. Going to Guelph twice is easier!

Friday June 25 to Monday June 29 - Guelph
Monday June 29 to Monday July 5 - Toronto/ Niagara Falls (probably on
the weekend)
Monday July 5 to Thursday July 15 - Ottawa
Friday July 16 to Sunday July 18 - Guelph and Toronto (fly out Sunday night)

Ben of course will be there longer. Felicia is the director of his
social agenda so you'll have to book your time with her!

Coming home...

2010-03-06T09:54:00.001-08:00

Coming home...
Well as some of you knew, I was only going for a year, August 2009 to
August 2010. That time was for Ben to spend some time with Loren and
learn about where his dad comes from, and it was for Loren and I to
spend some time together as well. I booked my tickets last year, in
early May and you can only book 330 days in advance so even though I
can stay for a year, the latest date I could book was end of March. So
of course it's getting close to the time when I would have to decide
if I wanted to stay longer, and if so, how much longer.
Loren is heading to Central African Republic next week which I knew
was going to happen at some point during our stay. He originally had a
6 week contract and they have now added 2 months on to it, so he'll be
back end of April for 10 days but then heads back again until early
July. That's a big chunk of time away. So we talked about what we
wanted to do and we decided that Ben and I would stay longer. I was
mostly concerned about whether or not to change my tickets since that
would cost about $500 plus whatever fare increase there was. We also
decided Ben would benefit from going back to Canada for the summer
(July is a particularly unpleasant month here with lots of
thunderstorms and heavy rains). So we're coming home at the end of
June (arriving 4pm Thurs June 24 in Toronto – I fly back to Burkina on
Sunday July 18th). I get 4 weeks off so I will be returning to Burkina
mid-July but Ben will stay until some time in August. So the title of
this post was a little misleading. We are coming home, but for a
visit.
We haven't set a timeline for how much longer yet but I will again
have to be thinking about it around October as my sabbatical expires
November 17th and I have to decide if I am going to return to the
government. My thinking right now is that I definitely would not
return to my old job (they haven't filled it yet), but I don't know
that I would leave the public service entirely. I had several offers
on the table when I left, a few in government working for people that
would be interesting to learn from, a few in the private and
non-governmental sectors. I figure my current experience will make me
just that much more saleable, with the added responsibilities.
Ben's doing well at school but he's bored. For the fundamentals, he's
doing more than he would have in Canada but they don't have a very
good balance. The science is almost totally lacking, as is art and
music. At least he's getting a whole lot more exercise than he was,
he's like a string bean, long and lanky, and all muscle. He rides his
bike (Loren and I got him one for Christmas) and plays soccer every
day. He's outside running around for a minimum of 2 hours every day.
At night we read, or talk, or play games like Monopoly or Scrabble. On
the rare occasion, we watch a movie or play video games on the
computer. There's a whole lot less computer time than there was and we
are down to one movie every other week!
I've largely healed from the accident although I'm still having a few
problems due to my shoulders and my broken rib - sit ups and pushups
are definitely out. I've unfortunately gained some weight (and lost
muscle) so feeling a little pudgy but it will come off again as I get
back into my routines.
Work is going okay. It's still pretty stressful with all the stuff to
learn and the staff are not making it much easier. They aren't really
the kind to take their own initiative, in fact if I'm not watching,
they'll sit around and do nothing, not even the stuff I gave them to
do. I'm having to learn all the taxes (9 kinds of taxes!), labour
laws, English and French accounting practices, international
importation and exportation procedures, as well as all the products,
their uses, selling and getting to know the clients – much of it in
French, as well as all the cultural things both in Burkina and in
Ghana. My head feels pretty full lately, actually over my head but I
figured it would take me a good 6 months to feel comfortable – maybe a
whole year! We have a new GM with an accounting background starting.
He's been a GM at a large logistics company so we are hoping for a big
turnaround in the company. It's reached critical mass and needs to get
more of the right people in.
Anyway, that's the deal. I know a lot of people who won't be terribly
happy that we're staying but the next few months I think will be
fairly telling. If you can handle hot season in Burkina, you can
probably handle anything. We didn't get much of a Harmattan or winter
and we jumped into hot season about a month early. It was 45 deg C
when I arrived back from my trip to Ghana on Wed March 4. Hoping for
some early rains as we have daily power outs (it was from 6pm til 9:30
pm tonight!) and will likely have some water shortages soon too.
So that's the word for the moment. I'm hoping to catch up with a lot
of people so I'll post more about when I'll be in what cities. I am
tentatively thinking (this is VERY tentative)
• Ottawa June 25 to July 1,
• Toronto and Niagara July 1 to July 5,
• Guelph July 5 to July 12,
• Ottawa again July 12 to 16 and
• Toronto July 17 and 18, when I fly out at 7pm.

See you then

Whew.

2010-02-14T02:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a month since the last update. It's been a busy one. Gramma
Lungren changed her flight a couple times I think, as she didn't feel
ready to go but finally she headed off to France. Unfortunately that
was while we were away so we didn't see her off. Apparently Air France
was fantastic with Gramma Lungren, makes sure she had a wheelchair and
that she was comfortable. Clark has also headed off to Central Africa,
two canes in hand.

The 25th was a very long day. First waiting for the plane to arrive,
then finding out it was nearly an hour late, then waiting, watching
all the other people get off before finally spying my mother and
sister. It was nearly 11PM by the time we got them settled at the
hotel… with Benny of course. I went back to get them the next day,
after they had a swim and a good lunch. Then we showed them the REAL
Burkina. Lol.

We got back to our house and just hung out a bit. We left on Wed
(after much difficulty getting a rental truck) to go to Nazinga for
Benny's birthday. We didn't really celebrate it as we had planned the
party for the farm on Friday night. We did a tour on Thur and saw a
lot of baboons, a few elephants, coba, and warthogs. When we got back
to the camp, it was strangely empty of animals, normally there are
elephants in the water hole. The weather was really bizarre too so
that might have been it. Finally just before we left, they arrived at
the hole, but the kids were too tired to even want to look. We had
lunch on the way out then, drove to the farm.

We had Benny's party Friday night. We were waiting for Derek and
Myriam but they were quite late so we started the paddywhack machine
without them. Uncle Derek did help with the Royal bumps tho. Benny got
some nice presents including a remote control police car and
basketballs. We left on Saturday back to Ouaga. I took Felicia and
Bryanna around Ouaga a bit on Sunday - a good day to go as there is
practically no one. As it was just haggling for some cloth was very
tiresome for them. The heat does get to you even if you are used to it
but coming from winter in Canada makes it even harder.

Benny was sick on Sunday with a high fever, so Gramma stayed home with
him. We had planned to go to Gorom on Monday but with Benny sick,
Loren thought it best to wait. So we super dosed him with cipro and he
was better Monday afternoon.

Tuesday we left, stopped in Bani (arriving at noon - not ideal!) and
saw all the mosques - most of which were damaged from the Sept 1
floods but it was neat to see them. I had been there in 1998 and there
was only one at the time which foreigners weren't allowed to enter.
The guide called ahead to Dori for a guide for us. Ali took us to
Oursi to see the dunes and the marsh. We ended up stuck on the side of
the road half way between Gorom and Oursi with a radiator full of
holes. The driver had been a little hard on the truck and now it was
overheating. So we stopped at a village which had probably never seen
white people up close before (only ever in 4x4s whizzing by). So we
were surrounded in the car while the driver and Ali, and village men
chewed tabacco to fill the hole. The kids found that a bit tiresome,
you feel a bit like a caged animal, especially when the French they
know is limited to 'donnes-moi bonbon/argent/cadeau' (give me
candy/money/gift) and 'ca va?' (how are you?). Finally we refilled,
and were on our way.

The kids had fun at the dunes, rolling down the hill. We watched the
sun set then returned to the lodgings. We stayed overnight in the only
lodging in town basically - which were a bunch of straw Peul huts… you
have to crawl to get in. Because of the sand, my bed was on a tilt,
which was actually good for me to sleep on, except I couldn't turn
over. We turned in early, although probably only Ben and I slept well.

The next day we tried to get in to see the Museum in Oursi but you had
to drive up a sandy hill to get there and our truck got stuck
(actually just the driver didn't know how to put the vehicle into
4-wheel drive). So we headed to Gorom. We sent the driver with the
truck back to Dori to get it repaired by a guy that Loren knows there.
(Loren was highly amused that we phoned him to tell him we were having
problems, and that we wanted the number of the same mechanic his dad
had used when HIS family was visiting Gorom). We went to ride on
camels and sleep in the desert. We bought nice blue and purple turbans
for the occasion (also good for keeping sun and dust off).

The kids had great rides - it was about 12km and took over 2 hours to
get there - they had comfy camels with a couple guys sitting behind
them holding them on. Felicia had the ornery teenage camel, my mom had
a really old one that you had to whip to make it move faster than a
plod, I had a bad saddle which left me with a welt on my butt - so I
got down about half way and walked the rest of the way. It was hot and
dusty but my butt felt better that way!

We arrived, and they prepared a big bonfire and a meal of spaghetti
made with a very fat chicken. By the time the meal was ready, the kids
were asleep, so we ate and prepared for bed. Given how hot it was in
the day, you couldn't imagine how cold it was at night. We only had 1
blanket for the 5 of us. I was okay as I kept my turban on and I used
another turban as a sheet. Felicia ended up using Ben's t-shirt as a
head warmer. Mom was on the end and was not a happy camper - it was
cold. She was better once I finally convinced her that wrapping her
head was going to keep her warmer than putting her head under the
blanket. We slept on a mat, and started evenly spread out but when I
woke up at 2 AM, I was in the same place and the other 4 were huddled
in a small group about a metre away. The kids were warm, it seems but
I know neither Felicia nor my mother slept well. The only time I was
really cold was about 5:30 AM when it seemed to turn really cold. To
keep warm, the camel "shepherds" make a hot bitter tea. I woke up at
2am and had a cup which turned out to be a mistake as I was awake til
4 with all the caffeine.

On the way back we phoned the driver to come get us. Only Felicia and
Ben took the camels back. I got some great pics and video of them
racing along. When we finally got back in the car, we were too tired
to even think about going to the market. The driver promptly got us
stuck in the sand again so we had to get out before we could leave. We
finally got on the road about 10, got to Dori for 11 to drop Ali back
off and eat lunch. We arrived at Kaya, about 100k from Ouaga, making
good time, when something large and metal fell off the car. The driver
stopped and put it in, then did 70kph all the way back so taking an
extra hour to get back. We were beat when we got back!

Felicia and Bryanna left the following night. It was pretty hard on
Benny to see them go. But he still has his Gramma here. He is feeling
like he misses Canada and his friends. I know this will pass since he
was completely fine before they came, in fact he was comparing how
much he liked Africa compared to Canada and Burkina was marginally
ahead. He is feeling sad to the point where he told my mom that he
thinks I love Loren more than him because I'm putting what Loren wants
(for us to be in Burkina) ahead of what Ben wants (to go to Canada).
Also Ben is kind of acting up lately, he's been taking money to buy
stuff and trying to sneak it out. He said he found the money but I
know he took it from the dish of change I have for him to go buy bread
in the morning. Mostly he buys candy to share with his friends but I
don't think it's about candy since Felicia brought a whole cupboard
full from Canada, and the other day he bought a sponge (he said he
needed it for school). So now I have to deal with him lying and taking
money as well as the Canada issue. But then he's 8 so I'm sure this is
just the beginning of more complicated issues to come.

It was hard having my family here. My mother and I don't tend to get
along well to start with - although I told her about the comment I
made in my last blog about her not coming to see me, but Ben so I had
a built in babysitter (Felicia told me some people thought I was being
derogatory towards her and that she might be offended but I was being
more self-depreciating and it wasn't meant to be insulting). She
thought it was funny because there is enough truth in it to make it
so. Anyway, we have had a big fight already but did manage to come to
some understanding as we usually do eventually. But mostly it was
stressful because I wanted so much for them to understand what I like
about being here but couldn't figure out how to show them. I felt like
if I couldn't all they would see was how dirty and difficult life is
here, and all the stuff that Benny was missing. It didn't help that
Felicia was sick when they got home. I appreciated them coming but I
found my two weeks off anything but relaxing. They seemed to enjoy
themselves anyway, and my mom seems to still be enjoying her stay. She
gets out for walks when Ben is at school; although the surrounding
neighbourhood is a little limited it's pretty different from home so
I'm guessing it's sort of interesting for her. I found a girl who
speaks English to take her around to the market and downtown a couple
days, and I hope to send her with Ben one afternoon to see the
crocodiles and to do a couple other short day trips before she goes -
the zoo, the museum, etc.

Since the trip, work has been hairy. Somehow, when you are gone, you
end up doing an extra 2 weeks work in advance of leaving, and an extra
2 weeks when you come back. That's some wonky math in my books.
Anyway, it was a ridiculously busy week. We did a trip to Youga, in
the south of Burkina. Normally we take the road between Manga and
Zabre but that road is so awful normally, and we had to get the car
out of the country to renew the "laisser-passer" (permit for having a
foreign car in the country) so we went through Ghana. It took us
nearly 6 hours to go as we got lost. Then there was no border crossing
at Youga so my passport currently indicates that I'm still in Ghana as
I've not been stamped back in. Turns out that we can get a
laisser-passer in Zabre without leaving the country and they also had
fixed the road (sort of - now it takes 90min to drive the 100km
instead of 2 hours) so our trip to Ghana was a complete waste of time
and caused more problems than it solved.

I've been having a few problems with the guy they sent me from Ghana,
Andrews. He is constantly bothering the guys who are doing the
workshop. He is always watching them and making sure they are doing a
good job but he's constantly getting in their way too. He had me come
out to look at it because he didn't believe they would be able to get
the shelving in after the building was enclosed. I told him they can
be taken apart. Then he was worried because there was a beam in the
middle of the room, wouldn't that get in the way of the shelving. I
told him it was going to be holding the shelving up so no, it was
fine. Apparently while I was gone to Gorom, he thought that the
contractor (Loren) was putting in too many air bricks, that because
they weren't solid, we must be getting ripped off. So he had them put
in solid bricks at the top. Unfortunately this now means that all the
heat will be trapped in the top part of the building and the fans will
be pushing hot air down. I have no idea why Loren listened to him and
it's all mortared in now so unless I get them to rip it out, that's
the way it's going to stay. Now he's wondering why we don't have the
green lacquered roofing like the house. The reason is that it's double
the price but doesn't reduce the heat within the building enough to
justify paying double. We didn't buy the cheapest stuff but couldn't
justify paying an addition couple grand for the best stuff. It's his
attention to detail that makes him good at what he does but he's
stepping outside his area of expertise and is starting to create
problems because of it. I don't know him well enough yet to deal with
him effectively. I already made a huge mistake criticizing him in
front of Pauline. He was using our cleaning lady to serve his friends
dinner on a Friday night. We got a Ghanaian girl so she could
understand what he wanted and cook Ghanaian food but her hours are
quite specific. I was not happy with him and felt I needed to correct
it quickly. I apologized afterwards but it wasn't the best way to
start.

As if dealing with Andrews and Ben and work and my mother wasn't
stressful enough, Loren is preparing for his trip to Central African
Republic. He's taking Dembele with him which will be good since I
think he finds it frustrating trying to get the guys there to help
him. With Dembele he has someone he can count on who knows what he's
trying to do. I'm not really happy about it but it's hard to begrudge
when it's such a good opportunity, for both of them. The money is
really good and it gets Loren's CV a big boost, having worked
internationally and with the European Union. More I feel bad for Ben
since Loren's leaving with coincide with my mother leaving, and I have
to go to Ghana right after. I asked Carol (Loren's mom) to watch him
as it will be a hard time for him, and she will but then she's leaving
too a few weeks after to go back to Canada for 6 months. It's going to
be a difficult time for him. But I think I can use it as a teaching
tool as well. This was the sort of thing I think Loren had to deal
with all the time growing up, a constant stream of people coming in
and out of his life. It will also be challenging as it will be hot
season and tempers can be short when it's that hot. We're trying to
get the air conditioners fixed beforehand so at least sleeping can be
comfortable. Otherwise we might be sleeping outside!

Now that I have a better internet connection, thanks to work, I will
try to get some photos up.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's to those who celebrate it. It's almost as
crazy as Christmas here with booths set up all over the place for
wrapping presents.

January 16 - update

2010-01-16T05:05:00.001-08:00

Jan 16 Update

Just a quick update to let you all know that Aunt Marcia got great
care while she was in France and I believe is en route to Regina at
this moment. She contacted Carol and I heard she sounded her usual
lovely self. She was even talking about coming back to Burkina to
finish her visit. She said she was in the best hospital in Europe for
broken bones and was well taken care of. Thank God! The doctors even
thought that she might be walking again in about 3 months. Wouldn't
that be amazing?!

Loren's grandmother was released from hospital last week. Ironically
while I was heading there to pick her up to take her to the Mission
guest house, I broke a rib so ended up staying at the hospital to do
tests and xrays while she got to leave in my car. I was just turning
to put my purse on the seat when I heard/felt a loud crack. It hurt a
bit but as I started driving it hurt more and more to the point where
I could barely shift gears. The doctor said it was out of place from
the accident and while moving back into place, it broke the cartilage
where it attaches to the rib cage (now it's really out of place!). The
muscles had spasmed to protect the internal organs so after several
hours of rest (and lots of painkillers) it relaxed. Thank goodness for
Loren and his uncle Bruce who shuttled me about and took care of me
that day.

Anyway, Gramma is still sore and bruised, anemic and dizzy but she's
at the guesthouse where Carol is taking care of her. She will delay
her trip home as she isn't ready to fly. I think she's a little
discouraged at the state of her health but she's back in form, bossing
people around (lol!) so we figure her spirit is back!

Clark doesn't look like Zorro/raccoon anymore, but is still walking
about with a cane. He is sort of able to get up and walk about himself
now, but it's tiring and he of course over does it so ends up on his
back again the next day. I'm guilty of that too. I decided that I'm
getting fat from not exercising so did the Cardio DVD from P90X. I
used to (just a few weeks ago) be able to do the whole thing with out
breaking 70% heart rate. 10 min in I didn't think I'd get to the end.
I didn't do all the exercises and I thought my heart was going to
burst out of my chest. Stupid idea for someone who's lost as much
blood as I have and I paid for it the next day with fatigue and
swelling. Loren is always telling me I'm too much in a hurry. I
suppose he's right!

I'm a lot better. Considering that for 2 days following the accident I
couldn't walk or sit by myself, I'm doing great. I actually went out
with Loren on the 31st for a few hours. I did a little (cautious!)
dancing. I still have sore shoulders/collarbone, ribs and tailbone so
find it hard to sleep. Up til today, I haven't been able to wear
t-shirts, just button downs, because I can't pull them over my head,
but I can now as long as the shirt is pretty loose. I'm heading to
Ghana early Feb so I will go see a chiropractor when there. My boss
knows an American who is practicing there. But boy do I miss Dr.
Chewpa, my chiro and Dan my physiotherapist!! I know if I could get to
them regularly, this would be gone already! Loren has been calling me
"gros bebe" or big baby.

I am back to work, and we have our office all set up. We should have
our workshop completed for mid Feb and we should have the company all
registered and ready for business in a couple weeks. We have signs
being made and the boss arrives next week with the technician. Very
exciting! Nearly ready to step into phase II which is increasing the
sales and market share of the company.

Following that, my mom, sister and niece are arriving on the 25th so
we are trying to get the house ready for their visit. We had a number
of things planned but everything has changed due to the accident. We
don't know if we'll be at the farm as Clark and Carol are in the city.
Loren and Clark were both supposed to be away but might actually still
be around at that point. We will still go to Nazinga but not sure what
else we'll do. We'll just have to play it by ear I guess, depending on
how my family feel. Travelling here is not like road trips at home,
it's very tiring. It's hot, dusty and the roads are crappy. So 100km
can take two gruelling hours.

Felicia, my sister is staying 10 days. My mom is staying 5 weeks. She
isn't really here to see me, she's here to see Ben. So I figure I have
a built in babysitter as I have to go to Ghana and potentially to
Ivory Coast in Feb. Ghana is for a managers meeting. Ivory Coast is to
open a new office there. They are supposed to have elections in March
so we won't get an office or anything, but we do want to get the
business registered. I'm a little bit worried as I've heard some not
great stories about Ivory Coast but it's not like I'm going to the
Sudan or something.

Shortest post ever! But then it's not terribly exciting lying around
getting better.

December 31 - Christmas Blessing

2009-12-31T10:26:00.001-08:00

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 19 Nothing for Free

2009-12-20T05:51:00.001-08:00

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.

Finally, an update... it's been busy!

2009-12-08T03:05:00.001-08:00

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.

nothing to report but always something to say

2009-11-15T15:19:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-04T14:36:00.001-08:00

...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 31 - take the Bad with the Good

2009-10-31T09:00:00.001-07:00

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 27 - end of 2 months, wow!

2009-10-27T16:40:00.001-07:00

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!

Answer to Prayer

2009-10-21T06:04:00.001-07:00

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!

Oct 16 - moving on

2009-10-17T04:59:00.001-07:00

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.

palu

2009-10-06T04:01:00.001-07:00

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.

Hirings and firings

2009-10-01T15:34:00.001-07:00

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.

At Least The Car Is Not On Fire

2009-09-23T11:10:00.001-07:00

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.

So for those of you who were worried about Ben, he is doing pretty good. There is still a lot to work through but it will come eventually.

September 23

It’s getting hot out. Carol warned me of that. We have fans so that helps somewhat. We also have air conditioners but given the history of other parts of this house, let’s just say I don’t have much confidence that they work! We can’t test them at the moment because the controllers require AAA batteries which I’m having a hard time finding. In general after a rain it can even feel cold enough to need a sheet at night, but now that rainy season is coming to an end, it’s heating up again. October is hot because it is still humid from rainy season. In November the humidity will die down so hot doesn’t feel so bad. Right now we’re about 39oC and 50 – 60% humidity. It will be worse in late April when it will be 45oC and 80+% humidity. The temp will run around high 30s for the next 2 to 3 months and will cool down in December.

Still having a problem with ants. It’s annoying to find them crawling on you (little tiny ones) but it’s terrible in your bed – both the little ones and the big sugar ants which bite. Kind of makes you a little crazy and every little itch makes you practically jump out of bed. I have a solution I found online that includes boric acid and sugar water but it’ll take me a couple days to find the boric acid. Loren killed a tsetse fly in the house the other day. He thought it was a little bizarre because you rarely see them outside the bush. Those are the flies that bite and give sleeping sickness – kinda look like horse flies, kinda feel like them too! Ben has so many bites on him, I can’t tell if it’s just the same stuff or if he has anything new. I know when I moved in my sleep and touched my mosquito net because that spot will have about 50 bites in a 3 inch radius. I am trying to find Permethrin which is a product you use to treat your net so bugs die if they touch your net. It’s a fairly safe product, highly recommended when travelling to malaria infested areas.

You get used to the bugs after awhile. There are always crickets in the house at night now, but at least there are no more caterpillars. In a couple months there will be fewer mosquitoes when it gets dry. There are baby geckos running around – they aren’t so smart – I found one climbing my mosquito net and it got stuck in a fold so I had to take him out by hand – yuck. Others nearly get stepped on or like to hide in your clothes, and unfortunately, my cupboards don’t close properly so I occasionally find a gecko or ants in my clothes. Ben doesn’t have a cupboard so his clothes reside in a suitcase which gets closed properly!

(kanchan posting for lisa)

Pictures!

2009-09-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

(Kanchan here posting photos for Lisa)

Front of our house and the front yard

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Ben and Luic, playing Luik's DS

Ben's Room

Kitchen

Bathroom

divers

2009-09-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Sept 16 – ok I tried uploading photos but the system kept crashing so sorry, no photos yet. I even compressed them! The largest photo was 49kB. Whatever.
Ben is now registered for school. I paid the first instalment of $150 and still owe about $150. Not bad for a private school. He has a uniform, for which we bought material to make him a couple shirts and have to buy him some jeans. Poor Ben, the 2 things he hates most to wear, jeans and button down shirts. I’m sure it will be easy to convince him that at the end of each day he needs to change into play clothes. School starts Sept 28th. They go from 7:30 AM til noon, Monday to Friday, and 3 – 5 on MWF afternoons. Kinda weird hours, but sorta matches the work day. They have before and after care too, you can arrive as early as 7AM and have til 6pm to pick up. The school provides books, we provide workbooks, pencils etc. They get a recess in the morning with a snack and they do a bunch of other activities as well such as swimming and martial arts apparently. His courses will be French, English, Math, Science, Geography, History, Art/Music I think, and Social studies. The school is not far away, less than 5 min on motorcycle but I think it’s about 1.5 km away. A bit of a walk in the noon time heat so I’ll have to figure something out for lunchtime pick up.
I can’t recall if I mentioned previously that the school offered me a job as a coordinator of children’s activities. I’m still thinking about that although it is unlikely that it pays very well and I would have absolutely no idea what I’d be doing! My other option was to start doing my Master’s but I don’t relish the idea of doing an entire master’s by correspondence (London School of Economics – Environmental Economic program)
We also now have water, sort of. They came to install the water meter and turn on the water and then ran away as fast as they could. The tap in the kitchen works fine which is fantastic. When I turned on the outside tap to allow water into the bathroom area, the bathroom was showered in water because the pipes connecting the sink were broken (soft pipes) and it sprayed the bathroom. Neither the shower nor the toilet work in the main bathroom and I was so frustrated I didn’t bother checking the en suite. At least we don’t have to live out of containers anymore and can start drinking tap water (the containers held diesel so only used the water for cleaning, taking showers and flushing the toilet). This means we start drinking tap water soon. It’s not the parasites or anything that will cause problems... it’s the chlorine. The available free chlorine in the water here is higher than the amount allowed in swimming pools in Holland.
Sept 17 - Other advances into the modern world, we have hired a girl to do the housework. Caroline is 18, and she will be here from 9AM til 6PM, 6 days per week to clean, cook, run errands, wash clothes and watch Ben if I ever find work. I pay her $75/month which is a good salary. She watched him this afternoon while Loren took me to the bank and groceries. She did her high school in Ghana so speaks English if with a very harsh accent. Ghanaians speak English but it’s hard to understand. Earlier this afternoon, we left Benny to play while we walked to the market (it was far about 45 min!) to get baskets and cloth. I was wearing sunscreen, 30 SPF but I still look like I’m wearing a white t-shirt with a bright red necklace. Matches my Rudolph nose very nicely. Doesn’t do much for the mosquito bites, scratching is not advised.
For those moms freaking out that I left Ben in the house by himself, it’s all good. I left Ben one day for an hour to play with his friends because Loren only had his motorcycle to take me to do errands. I locked the door to the house and he played outside with his friends. I felt bad at first but I knew that Luik’s dad was home if he really needed anything. Then I found out there are several kids here, same age as Ben whose parents leave them most of the day locked out of the house. They work from 7 til noon, come home for lunch and sieste, then go back to work from 3 til 6. THAT I cannot imagine! Like I said earlier, there are a lot of freedoms here that we couldn’t and wouldn’t do at home. Here, I know he is safe, I leave him my phone (he can call his dad), and there are lots of neighbours and people around to help.
Loren brought a special snack over today... caterpillars. It wasn’t very timely because we are having a small problem with them right now, there are a bunch of fuzzy ones wandering about – you need to look in your shoes before you put them on – Ben found a cricket the hard way, in his boot one morning on his way outside to the toilet. I digress. So the caterpillars were in a little clear plastic bag, with the fuzziness burnt off them, and fried in oil and salt. These are very specific caterpillars which are apparently hand picked extra special off the karité trees here – extra high in protein. To quote Ben: that’s just gross. I had to agree but Loren just laughed. Loren drives me crazy with that kind of stuff. The one thing we can agree on here is none of us likes fish other than fresh caught. Loren prefers if he caught it himself. I can’t argue with that.
We have an ant nest somewhere in the house as I spent much of last night trying to brush them out of my bed. They are sugar ants and they bite if you piss them off, for example by lying on them. I keep all our sugar, flour, etc in the Tupperware containers I brought so they shouldn’t even be able to smell it and we sweep and wash the floor every day. So I may have to have the house sprayed.
So a couple more weeks till I can buy a car since I have to wait for money to come from Canada as the bank account isn’t connecting to Canada somehow. Today also I couldn’t exchange my traveller’s cheques because the internet isn’t working.
Sept 18 – went again to the bank downtown but in a rather amusing manner. There is a bank nearer to me than downtown, it’s about 2 km instead of 15km so I decided to walk to see if I can take money out on my Visa card. As I was walking, a man stopped on his motorcycle and asked me where I was going. I said I was going to EcoBank. He said to get on and he would take me there as he was going that way. (how often does that happen in Canada? And how often would you agree if it did?) So I got on and he started driving. We got to the main road and he said he wanted to take the road, instead of the dirt path next to the road but the entrance to the highway was going in the other direction so I thought whatever, he gets on the main road, gets turned around on the next exit but then instead of continuing in the direction I was going, starts heading downtown. I thought maybe he has to cross back this way. Well finally I realize he’s taking me downtown and I’m getting farther and farther from where I was originally going. So he’s talking on about how his son is on a scholarship in Canada with the bank and he himself is a swimming teacher at the Hotel Pacific’s pool and I should take his phone number and call him if I want to go. So I take his number, we shake hands and he leaves.
There was still no internet downtown but I did manage to get money.

Another gianormous post

2009-09-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Sept 7
We have been in the house a few days. It is a nice house. There is still no water though we now have electricity (but we have long power outs all day which is a bit annoying but that’s the way it goes). Water is because the water company’s computers are all screwed up from the flooding so they cannot bring up the info on how much the owner still owes. Therefore they will not give him a new meter/account. For water, we send our guard to the local water tap and he fills up 4 large containers, this water is only used for washing and cleaning as the containers were used to hold diesel and gasoline, so we buy drinking water. We generally use the outside toilet except at night because we aren’t sure of the “quality” of the sceptic tank, and from the smell of the toilet it’s probably not so good, even when we run a couple buckets of water down it. Tap water is very cheap at a cent a gallon approximately, and drinking water is about a dollar for 1.5 L in a bottle or 10 cents for a half litre in a bag. It’s pretty clean but it gets expensive when we’re each drinking a couple litres per day. I don’t have a fridge yet so have to be careful with how much food I buy and how I store it – good thing I brought all those Tupperware containers. The garbage collection in Ouaga has improved. They have a group/association that comes around every few days – women with carts pulled by donkeys – collecting garbage, costs $5 per month instead of people burning it. Not sure where it goes from there. The things we take for granted in Canada!

(side story – when I lived here in 1998 and worked at the Ministry of Environment, someone came in my office asking “Minotti, what do you do with garbage in Canada?” to which I replied “Landfill?”. He said thanks and left. He came back 2 minutes later and said “what’s a landfill?” so I did a quick sketch of a cross section but didn’t know the word for liner or geotextile so described it as plastic cloth. He grabbed my sketch with a quick thanks and ran off. Makes me wonder if that sketch became the design drawing for African landfills... scary)

The owner said he would paint the house and fix the broken windows but I am not going to hold my breath on that. It’ll probably have to wait until it stops raining anyway so it’ll dry faster. They need to wash the walls first as they are quite dusty. I am still looking for a girl to come do housework, cooking and such. She will also be able to watch Ben now and again, pick him up from school, or at least be someone who is home if I get work or run errands.
I have many things I still need to get for the house. We have no plates or glasses so are currently eating semi- African style, communal pot but using forks, and communal plastic cup.
The house is in a nice neighbourhood although a little loud – but that is typical. We are unfortunately quite close to the mosque, where they like to remind you several times a day exactly how big God is, by loudspeaker, and notably since it is Ramadan, at 3 AM where they tell the muslims to get up and break their fast before going to pray at 4:30am, again at noon and again at 7PM. Makes it easy to always know what time it is.

There are a WHOLE bunch of boys on this street ranging in age from 7 to 12. Ben has already made good friends with a few of them. Some just come to play with his toys but others are genuinely just interested in playing with Ben which is great. One kid in particular, Luike, is 8 years old and has his own DS so they play that together. Ben spent a few hours at Luike’s house one evening and I met Luike’s parents and his 2 older brothers. Super nice family. The other kids, some I had to educate on the African protocol of coming to a person’s house, knocking, greeting the person, asking for Ben, and again, saying good bye when they left. They are more diligent about it when Loren is there of course. However, they don’t have any problem when I ask them questions or to run errands. I have already sent Ben to fetch drinking water with some of the kids. It’s not far, probably took him 20 min to go and return. Something he’d never be allowed to do in Canada. So he is having a lot of fun now, which is great. He can run all over the neighbourhood. I think I will get him a cellphone for just in case but otherwise, he’s good about telling me where he’s going and generally it’s within a block or so. It’s very safe.
Today Loren and I went to go register Ben for school. It’s French system and has English Immersion so Ben would have to do school in French. Supposed to be a decent school with a high rate of success. The level should be approximately the same as Grade 2 in Canada but maybe a little harder. Hopefully he’ll meet even more friends there. Apparently they have uniforms which will be new for him but makes it easy to know what to wear everyday!

Our health is getting better, the diarrhea seems to have stopped for the most part although once we get to drinking tap water we may have it for a bit again.

Sept 10 – it’s been a little stressful. Loren came with a fridge which is great. Last night there was another big rain storm at midnight. It didn’t last long, about an hour, but was so intense that it was frightening. The sky was blood red! I got up to close all the windows as rain started to come in the house but I was so scared I went back to bed quickly. I thought Ben was asleep when I looked in on him but apparently he woke up and was too scared to even come to my room!

I was talking to Luike’s mother on Tuesday and saw Ben fall off his friend’s bike. He seemed to be okay so I went in. He came in crying moments later with his hands full of blood and his chin cut open. I was trying (rather unsuccessfully) not to panic. His chin was split about a centimetre and I felt he might even need stitches. I had nothing with which to clean it and close it as I didn’t bring any medical tape nor antiseptic (I knew I could buy some here but don’t have it yet as I didn’t think I’d need it so soon!) I used drinking water to clean the cut but had only paper towel to use. I used the last units on my phone to call Loren thinking he might take Ben to the hospital. He didn’t think it needed it so just used a regular bandage to cover it up. I’m not convinced it will stay clean that way – it keeps falling off because it’s near his mouth and because he’s so sweaty.

Wednesday, Ben was climbing a tree and the branch broke, he fell from about 6 feet up, flat on his back on tile and hit his head. He was ok but has a bruise on his head. Loren went to the pharmacy for ibuprofen, antiseptic and heat rash powder (Ben has a REALLY bad heat rash all over). Loren joked that for most people these are the bare essentials, for Ben they are his “quotidien” (daily dose). Another friend joked that Ben’s African education was commencing early.

Loren and I will hopefully go get me a car soon so I can get around to buy stuff like medical tape, food (now that it won’t sit and rot on my counter. It’s hard to keep you and your child healthy eating food that is slowly rotting on the counter. I had to throw out a quarter watermelon and 4 eggs the other day.)

On the good side, I managed to charge my computer and Ben’s DS (the power stayed on long enough!). I also hope to get my air card and internet set up soon so I don’t feel so cut off! I think that’s why I’ve been writing so much (that and of course there’s a lot that is new).

Sept 11 – have internet, sort of. Took 2 hours to do a 300MB download and it only did part of it for some reason. Downloads clocking in an astounding 20 Kbps. May not be updating or emailing as often as I thought, don’t have nerves of steel to wait for pages to open. It’s worse than dial up. Looking into ADSL because Skype will not be a possibility on this wireless trash.

chaos

2009-09-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

Sept 1, 2009 - We are still in the hotel. Part of the city is in a state of emergency. I heard the rain start at about 4AM and by the time we woke up at 8AM our courtyard (out back of our room) was full with 6 inches of water. They had record rainfalls clocked in at 240mm over 8 hours, 266mm by the end of the day. For a country that annually gets under 900mm that is quite a lot, I figure it was the 100 year storm. We were very lucky, there is little effect where we are – we had a tiny leak of water, but the room next to us was flooded. About a quarter of the city was flooded and many people are homeless. I heard only one person died, it was a police officer, but a few are missing still and potentially dead, swept away by the water. A lot of people live in mud brick homes so if it had been overnight a lot of people might have been hurt as houses collapsed all over. There will be no power for awhile and probably no clean water. Markets will be closed as will stores. I think the hotel is well stocked and has a generator so we’ll be okay. I was purifying water and putting it in bottles but I think I will buy for now as the water will be quite dirty. If things don’t clear up soon, there may be cholera. I just hope that it gets hot again for several days to dry things up quickly. We will stay at the hotel until things clear up, well realistically we can do nothing else as we don’t have any mode of transport other than Loren right now and many roads are closed. It’s a good thing we didn’t move or we’d likely be stranded with nothing. One bridge is broken and the main hospital has damage so they are transporting the sick to other hospitals. The government has opened the schools for people who have nowhere to go but they have no insurance or anything so they will have to rebuild on their own dime.

Loren spent the day helping a friend whose house fell down and said he would come by later. He is out with some friends, sitting in the dark, drinking beer. Some places will have generators but not many, certainly not the places where he is drinking J.

I am worried for Dembele. I can’t get through on the phone and I’m sure that their house has fallen down by now. With the last rain, the roads were already inundated and terrible. I think he’d be lucky if nothing happens to them. I worry for Cita and her pregnancy. She could get very sick. With people leaving their homes, there are many thieves as well since people can’t take everything with them.

Sept 2, there was no internet yesterday so I couldn’t send. We got into the house today and it is fine, but needs some cleaning. I am hoping to move out of the hotel today but the house needs cleaning, needs the water and electricity hooked up, and has no furniture. We spoke to a carpenter this morning and he will have beds built by tomorrow, a dining room set for 6 by Monday or Tuesday next week and living room set by the following week. That’s fine, we can deal with that, it’s just the first couple days that will be challenging. The owner is out of town and will meet us this afternoon I hope. Having already spent 4 months rent on this hotel, I am anxious to get out of here but not at the expense of staying in a house with no power/water etc. We’ll see how it goes.

Driving around you can see the aftermath of the storm. A lot of stores have all their stuff out front, drying. Many homes and shops are destroyed and some areas where the water was flowing really fast are dug out and the dirt spread everywhere. But otherwise it appears mostly business as usual. It is sunny and hot so everything is drying up nicely. Loren said there will probably be no mosquitoes for a few days because the storm would have washed out all the stagnant water and their nests. Positive thoughts in a challenging time.

Sept 3
I am currently waiting to hear from Loren that the owner has settled everything. We are hoping to have the house today, but who knows really and even if we get it, it may not have water. It needs cleaning as it is quite dusty, a couple windows are broken, there are no screens on the windows yet and we are having furniture made. Loren has some stuff already, like burners to cook on, but need to purchase a fridge (second hand from France so probably full of Freon), cushions, mattresses and need to get someone to install cupboards. It will take quite some time before we are complete.

Ben’s school doesn’t start until October. He gets 2 weeks vacation for Christmas and Easter and other days off, school ends in June.

So far it has been a real range of temps and weather as it is rainy season. Some days it’s hot and sunny (35oC) and humid; and other days, usually after it rains, it is cooler, like 20oC. Nights are pretty cool but the rooms are hot still. There are no screens so I cannot leave the door open (we are on the ground floor and have a terrace door so someone can get in the room, as can bugs – and there are LOTS of mosquitoes and flies – they hang knitted curtains which are only so effective). Ben has lots of bites as do I but his legs look like minced meat from scratching. We are being careful with him taking anti malarials but haven’t been super smart with the bug dope. There aren’t a lot of bugs in the room, but mostly because they spray the hotel, which doesn’t make me too happy. There is no where to put up the mosquito nets in the rooms. We are getting beds made with posters for hanging the nets.

The food is awesome as usual but then I am not so picky about the appearance. They make a lot of sauces that I really like. Tomatoes and bananas are quite cheap and plentiful as are oranges and grapefruit. People are focussing on cultivating grains right now during the rains and will get to the fruits and veg more in dry season. Mangoes are done unfortunately but now mango juice is readily available. There is a new company – Dafani, that specializes in juices, so for $2.50 you can get a litre of juice that is quite good. Ben is a little picky so has mostly been eating spaghetti, rice and bread. He doesn’t seem to like meat much but did eat some rabbit and has meat sauce on his pasta. Milk is in short supply so I have him taking supplements. People here get their calcium from bones, marrow, cartilage but he won’t eat those either. There is some cheese but it’s expensive. A box of 8 “Laughing Cow” costs about $4 and they don’t exactly have a lot of calcium in them. Ben doesn’t like Emmental which is the most common cheese here. 150 g of parmesan costs about $4.

The restaurant here makes great food but has been quite expensive, usually about $15 for breakfast and $20 – 50 for dinner, depending. Djamal came to stay over with us for a couple nights so the meals were pretty expensive. The hotel is nice with a bathroom in the room (toilet and shower are combined), tiled floors, a nice front lobby with tv and wireless (although slow and intermittent – so I type all my stuff in Word then copy). They have a nice area out back with a bar and cabanas, a huge pool and a kids’ pool. I paid about $500 for the 8 nights I’ve been here – I got a fair discount for being friends with Clark/Loren.

I have a cell phone 011 226 76 56 81 82. 226 is the country code and 011 is to dial international. It’s fairly expensive to make calls but not too bad. Canada is a little more than $1/min and I can call locally for about $1/5 min. I don’t know how much internet is yet but surfing is quite expensive.

Loren is back, we can move into the house now. The water will not be set up as the flood caused damage to the Water authority’s computers so it may take some time to get it. However we can get water in a barrel from nearby.
So will write again when able.
Love Lisa

We're here

2009-08-30T04:05:00.000-07:00

We had an uneventful flight – I had to pay $250 for my extra (extra large too!) bag. My ankles swelled up like crazy in the plane for some reason, so I could barely put my shoes on! I made the mistake of eating in the Paris airport – 33 euros for a quick lunch! We arrived on Wed night at about 7pm local time. Loren and Derek picked us up, we went for a quick drink and checked into a hotel as Loren hasn’t been able to secure a house. I think he wants me to choose it because he wants me to be happy with it. Anyway, the hotel is nice but around $100 per day and a meal for Ben and I about $15 for breakfast or $40 for dinner, so we don’t want to stay here too long!

There is WiFi in the hotel but it was easier to type in my room and copy to the blog page as my keyboard has problems when the computer is running on battery. I was having problems speaking French at first and understanding too, but I think it was just that my brain was full as it seems to be better now.

Thursday we ran a few errands – money, registering at the consulate, which you can apparently do online now, getting a cell phone. Each of those errands was its own lesson in patience – the first bank didn’t take traveller’s cheques, my blackberry doesn’t take a SIM card and it’s really expensive to operate one – more expensive than the plans in Canada so we bought a cheap cell phone – which has a Great Britain/Hong Kong adapter but couldn’t find an adapter head for here. Anyway! Then we visited Loren/Derek’s house and Derek’s family. Ben had fun playing with Danika and Darel and even spoke French with them. He seemed embarrassed to speak French with the adults. Loren found an old adapter for my phone but it didn’t charge. Loren took it apart and fixed it – he’s amazing at that kind of thing.

Friday we went to the farm even though neither Clark nor Carol were there. Alessan, Ben’s friend was there and showed us around. There was a dead duiker (pronounced diker) which had been bitten by a snake. We were warned about walking in the long grass, which is a problem since it’s rainy season and ALL the grass is long. We even saw a viper slinking around. Scared me for sure – Alessan went after it with a rock but it got away.

We had a less than fruitful day yesterday. Loren and I dropped Ben off at Dembele's house to play with Djamal and Rachid. The boys have grown a lot. Cita, their mom is pregnant and due in a month or so. She looks so tired, I think she was sick a lot and I mean like malaria not morning sickness. Anyway, Ben was happy to play with them. The roads in their area make Limebank in winter seem like a dream. I don't think Loren left first gear. It's only about 5km from the main road but takes at least 30 min to drive it.

Loren and I left there only to run out of gas about a km away, so he called Dembele who got us diesel - Loren had to reprime the diesel pump... by sucking the diesel into it using his mouth. I see them doing that all the time. That's gross! From there we went to a bar to meet up with the guy who has the keys of the house we were going to see. Unfortunately he wasn't there because it was raining and he doesn’t have a phone – go figure. It rained all day and everything turned into a giant red mud puddle. Loren said no one does anything during the rain. In between down pours we eventually went to see a place that no one had lived in for several months. It wasn't bad - 2 bedrooms inside bathroom and shower, living room, large yard - but the kitchen was outside way at the back of the yard and it needed SO much work we wouldn't be able to move in for several weeks.

Went back to the bar, and called another place but it was nearly $1000 per month. The other places are closer to $250. I will have to purchase the furniture for it though. To buy a house would be about $35 - 40k plus the other costs of transfer, and setting up utilities, and furnishing. We went back to pick Ben up - Djamal came back with us - and we ended up getting stuck in the mud. Finally we got back to the hotel around 9pm - what a waste of 12 hours! Carol called me before I left to say 2 things: not to get discouraged by the rain, and that nothing moves quickly so have patience. Useful advice in just the first few days.
So here we are on Sunday – I have Djamal and Ben playing outside, something I would never do at home, just let the kids roam around by themselves. I may have a hard time pulling Ben back when we get back to Canada.
I asked about schools and found out that they are a little different here. They have something called CP1 and 2. 1 is for kids who don’t really speak French – to bring everyone up to speed as there are a lot of kids who only speak their dialect. CP 2 is like grade 1. Then there are 4 more levels of primary grades, 4 levels of intermediate grades and 3 high school levels of which the names are very confusing. The higher your grade, the lower the number – i.e. level 1 is like grade 11 and level 2 is grade 10. The last grade is called “terminale” or “the last grade”. Amusing.
As for health, so far we both have diarrhea and I have a stomachache – I have Ben on probiotics so I suspect that is why his stomach doesn’t hurt. Trying to keep us hydrated and fed as eating times (and types of food) are quite different.
Ben mentioned going home a couple times, but seems happier now that he has Djamal to play with. He hasn’t played with his DS once yet while here. So that’s the update. My phone number is 011 226 76 56 81 82.
Hope everyone is well.

What to bring?

2009-08-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

Ok lots of people seem to want to know what I'm bringing. I couldn't really answer before because I was still thinking about it and even now, I still have to sort my bags and I'm sure something will have to get left out.

We get 2 bags each at 50lbs a piece so that's 200 lbs of stuff. Except the bags have weight too, about 12 lbs a piece so really we get about 150 lbs. It costs $200 to bring an extra bag (up to 50lbs or 40 minus the bag weight) and it costs $60 to have a bag weigh more than 50 but less than 70 lbs. Logically then one just adds 20 lbs to each bag, and that is cheaper. It's just REALLY heavy and might rip your bag. SOO much to think about when packing.

So the contents. I told Ben he could have one bag of toys and books. That worked out to 38lbs in his 12 lb bag. He had to do 3 cuts: the first to purge toys he no longer wanted, a second cut to put some toys in storage and some that he wanted to bring - second cut resulted in 90 lbs of toys and books, so he did a third cut that brought him down to the required weight. I was surprised by some of his choices. I added some stuff back in because I felt bad, and i will just deal with the extra cost.

We're bringing about 3 weeks worth of clothes and footwear. You can buy stuff there or have it made - shoes are harder. But really there is hot season, rainy season (which is hot but also humid) and "winter" which is dry but gets down to 5 oC sometimes so requires sweaters and shell jackets. I think for the 2 of us, we have about 70 lbs of clothes/footwear.

Housewares: Loren never really said what the house would have. You can get stuff there but I figured I have it and generally the quality you can buy in BF is not that good. So I brought some kitchen stuff like goodknives, can openers, tupperware, lifters and cutlery. I debated on bringing pots and pans and may yet since much of their stuff is aluminum there. I'm bringing a few towels and sheets just to get us started as well as a couple pillows. It should also help Ben feel a bit like home. I also am bringing a therapy ball and some resistance bands - weights would be a little heavy! I am bringing some weapons to practice with (foam nunchuks and a bo)

Books, I'm bringing about 40 lbs of books to read - everything from religion to economics to management. I remember last time wishing I had brought more books with me. I hope to find a good online e-book seller so if anyone knows of one, I'd be grateful.

Toilettries and medication: again, can get a lot of stuff there but am bringing anti-malarials and some anti-biotics. A bunch of vitamins mostly because it can be hard to get vegetables. Sunscreen, bug itch and Off. The brand of facewash I like, shampoo and conditioners, moisturizer, some make up. Probiotics, omega 3s, calcium. I have no idea how much this might weigh. Will probably have to cut it back.

Stuff I'd like to bring but can't justify or might ask someone to bring when they come: a keyboard/digital piano, microwave -they may have them there, I don't know. My sparring gear and karate gi.

So I figure I am well over my alloted weight limit, I hope to keep the excess cost to under $300, we'll see how successful I am.

It's funny though. This is a puzzle that my brain likes but is tough to optimize. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and I know it is one of those things that keeps running in the back of my head that causes me to lose part of my brain use for the everyday stuff. So I get forgetful and more stressed.

Still lots of stuff left on the list to do: finish packing, finish visiting. medical claims and 2010 taxes, photo album. Not difficult just time consuming. Something I'm a little short of at the moment.

On my mind

2009-07-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

I think people who really know me will find this funny or ironic or something. I have a lot of people asking me what's happening on the other end, like when we arrive. Where will we live?Where will Ben go to school? What kind of work will I do? I really don't have answers to any of these questions. Part of it is that there is just too much to worry about on this end that I don't have time to consider the other end. Part of it is that there is very little I CAN do from here, without spending thousands on phone bills and even then may not get the best result. Part of it is that this is a partnership, so I'm leaving some of the details to my partner, Loren, to sort out. I sent one email asking about schools, and he got on it - he recently called to say he found a very highly recommended bilingual school (english and french) and has a couple potential houses lined up in the south of the city, but hasn't secured anything at the moment. Part of it is I have confidence in myself to get it resolved when I get there if I need to however challenging that might be.

I wonder/worry about Ben fitting in, making friends, being happy, staying safe, staying healthy - we wrestled with what additional vaccines to get him (rabies? probability of being bitten is low to medium but is fatal and the vaccine costs $600 here - resolved through 1 call to a friend who said I can get the shots there). I worry about his relationship with his dad and my ability to support him/them.

The reason people might find this all very interesting is they know that I am a control freak and wonder if not having control might kill me. I'm sure there is at least a small corner of my brain that is fretting about it, the bit of hardware in the background that is running a program and slowing up the software in the front. I can't help but worry a bit when I let myself think about it, but I give much of that up to prayer. Matthew 6:25-34 says it all - "who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"... "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - that last part always makes me laugh.

What is killing me is that I don't feel like I'm doing this all that well (leave it to me to not only pick a challenge but decide I have to perform well with it). I feel very bad about leaving work early in order to have enough time to pack. As it is, I'm not going to make it without help. The other thing bugging me is how much weight I'm gaining because I eat when I'm stressed and I'm too tired and sore to exercise (somehow lugging boxes doesn't seem to constitute exercise). It's just 2 -3 pounds every months but not much fits anymore and over the last 8 months it has really added up. There is a paradox in there that if I would just go to karate I would probably feel more energized but it is hard to convince myself of that when I feel like my legs are going to break from going up and down the stairs with heavy boxes and I'm mentally and physically wiped from packing/cleaning/purging/sorting/organizing. I did realize that there was a part of me avoiding black belt class because I don't want to see all those people who gave me a hard time about getting my belt so fast - I'm tired of feeling bad around them - but I'm feeling bad because I don't make it to class and I really want to go. All this feeling bad is very tiring! (I can hear my friends laughing at my neuroticism!)

Doing this by yourself is quite draining as well. I hired a girl off kijiji to help with cleaning and I found just having her around to help - move boxes, pack some stuff, go to the store with me - made me feel better and I was more productive. I don't even know her, she's a nice enough kid and quite hard working. But really what it comes down to is kinda like it's easier to be brave when there is someone else to be brave for. It's easier to be motivated and organized when you have someone to be that way for. I have to be organized when she comes over or she has nothing to do. It cuts the work in half and I don't feel so overwhelmed. I am starting to see where all those studies are coming from that say if you are married/have a partner, you live longer and have less stress. I know I can call on my friends but even that has it's own burden.

I might have said this before but the other thing is the logistical nightmare that this is, trying to live in your house, still needing to eat, shower, dress, play, use stuff, etc. and try to pack 2 sets of bags - stuff that stays, and stuff that's coming. That and having gained weight, what clothes do I pack? I know that within a couple months of being in Burkina, I will be back to 155/size 8 but none of that fits at the moment. So I end up taking at least 2 sizes of clothes with me as well.

I have about 14 days til I have to be done packing (it's more but we're away for 5 days this weekend). I have a few days after we move out to do other stuff, like get visas, traveller's cheques, buy a laptop that don't need to be done right this minute. According to my schedule, it's not going to be done (I know it always does - usually by staying up for the last 3 days straight - I can sleep on the plane I guess!). So if I see you and I look a little wild eyed (or sleepy!) it's not you.

Ok I'm good now. Venting done, time to get back to it. Thanks for listening!

Good byes

2009-07-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

I spent this weekend enjoyably with several people I was never supposed to be friends with.

As a federal public servant my obvious masters are the political ones who would like it very much if we (civil servants) could stay very clinically detached from our stakeholders. But in Environment (and I'm sure this must happen in other areas too but I think it's very strong in areas like Environment) you meet people who are so passionate about their work, and not in an egotistical way, where it truly is about their love for the planet, the science and technology and innovation that can be used to save it, and their drive for integrity in their problem solving. It is hard not to fall in love with them, to feel a kindred sense of purpose, to be inspired at their dedication. I spent Sunday evening with people who are stakeholders in the program I am have been slaving away at for three years. I've spent a lot of time talking ideas, hearing their concerns, sharing stories with them, and feel painfully aware of the void I will have in my life as I wander out of the circle of influence. I'm not worried they will forget me, or that we will have nothing in common as I turn a corner (ha - that one is for you Karen)., more I worry that I will want to talk to them, want to share more of it with them, and they will be out of reach. (yes I know there is email etc, but I'm really a face to face kind of person - technology doesn't really cut it for me). They are as much my family as my real family are.

Saturday night was spent with a bunch of young men (yes Don, you can count as a young man for the purpose - I'm taking a bit of artistic license). Now don't get any ideas. Yes these are the same men who used to bruise me regularly when I saw them. I know I'm not making the image any better am I? :) I was out with my friends from karate, some of whom I haven't seen in awhile and I became painfully aware of how much I had missed seeing them (see previous paragraph comment about being a face to face person). I feel like God has been slowly weaning me off karate and my friends from there so it isn't so painful at the end. I'd spend hours talking to Fred about fighting at work, and he taught nearly ever class I was in for over a year. And Colton, hours on MSN talking about all sorts of stuff. These boys are half my age but closer friends than I've made in a long while. Plus Don, Alex, (and others from Bergeron who weren't present), will leave a big hole, that's hard to fill.

I've been deeply blessed moving here to Ottawa and meeting all these people who have inspired me in so many different ways and who I care about so much. It seems ironic to me that I am finally in a place where I've met people I don't want to leave behind - a first for me - I'm usually so busy looking forward, to what's next, that it never occurs to me that I could miss someone. Must be getting sentimental in my old age...

Slum lord

2009-06-21T11:30:00.000-07:00

Wife-beater t-shirt and greasy cigar are apparently optional. lol

So I have a tenant- praise God!! And it's a really nice family. I hope this all works out. We've signed the lease for the year and they are clear that I could come back at the end of it and they'd have to move. We'll see what happens. The deal is even sweeter because they are going to use a lot of my furniture so really the only furniture I need to move is my piano to my sister's house and my bed. Now for the really great thing... in exchange for lowering the rent a little bit, they offered to let me store all my stuff in the basement instead of having to take it to storage. That's huge!! Overall I'm spending less money since the amount I lowered the rent by is less than the cost of the storage - but more importantly, it probably saves me several days. And as I look at the calendar and see how few days there are left (9 1/2 weeks... ominous film reference) a few days is worth quite a bit.

Anyway, the calendar is filling quite rapidly and I'm starting to feel a little frantic. We crashed this weekend since it was the first weekend in months we didn't have a commitment. Ben and I both slept in AND had naps. I think next weekend shall be the garage sale. I am home Wed Thu and Fri to some cleaning, purging, packing and yard work (getting people in to help).

We'll be in Toronto Aug 10 - 13, Guelph Aug 14 - 17, Collingwood Aug 18 - 20, Niagara Falls Aug 20 - 23 and back to Ottawa just before we go -so the last 2 weeks are completely spoken for. The rest is filling up pretty quickly too...

Important Dates

2009-06-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd summarize the important dates for people so they don't have to search through all my ravings and maunderings to find out when we leave.

Last day at work (official) - August 14 but I have taken the whole week before it as vacation and intend on using much of my sick leave as well. I will need it for my mental health and probably for other people's phyiscal health so I don't kill someone!

Visit to S.W. Ontario to say good bye - July 17 - 19; and (approximately) August 15 - 23, maybe earlier depending on if we go on the XCIV annual canoe trip or not on Aug 7 - 9.

Benny's plans: school finishes June 25, trampoline camp June 29 - July 10, Gramma's place in Toronto July 11 to 18. And of course spending as much time with his "buds" Josh, Alessandro, and Aidan.

And the ever important Departure date: Tuesday August 25th at 5PM from Ottawa Rail Station. We take an Air France bus to Montreal, fly to Paris at 11PM, have a 4 hour layover and transfer to Ouaga arriving around 9PM local time or 4PM EST. Not too bad - one of the shorter flights, about 25 hours door to door. Maybe with such a late flight, Ben will sleep on the way to Paris. I'm sure he'll be anxious/excited so we'll see. Last time he was awake for hours!!

Packing and purging

2009-06-07T21:56:00.001-07:00

It happened Monday morning following my black belt exam... I felt the immediate need to start packing. This is the ongoing challenge of packing for multiple scenarios - I don't need it anymore, I need it now but will pitch it when we leave, store it now, need it now but will store it when we leave, taking it but need it now so will pack it when we leave... etc. all that times 2 - once for me, once for Ben.

I have the list of stuff to bring which of course is a lot, probably too much. When i actually compile it, I will reassess. I have more things to do than I could complete if I had til October to do all this stuff, and at the moment we stand about 8 weeks from moving out and 11 from leaving.

To make it worse, in all the stress and training I've gained 20 lbs so nothing fits but I'm extremely reluctant to buy any clothes if they aren't on the list... but even then what size to buy? I KNOW I will lose it all in Africa and possibly more so if I buy it to fit now, it won't fit within a few months of arriving. Each time I've lost about 10 lbs in the first MONTH.

As for stuff, ideally I'd like to go with the philosophy of "do I love, do I have to have it (tax stuff, legal stuff etc), does it have sentimental value" but I know that I can't be that ruthless. I can't even do it for Ben's stuff! He's doing better than I am! He's already filled 2 boxes for giving away. I debate culling some of his things so I don't have to store stuff that I'm pretty sure he won't miss in a year like his trains/Thomas stuff and some of his stuffed animals (he has 20 dogs! I havent' counted the rest!) but a friend warned me against that. I have already rented a 10 x 10' storage room, but if I have to store all my furniture, I'm going to need more space!! It's a tough thing to balance - I'll save myself $2000 if I don't need the space plus whatever I sell it for, but then I'll need to replace after and that will be more than what I save/make out of all that. I guess the added bonus would be not having to move it all! And that is worth a lot too!

Too many decisions to be made all at once.

Prequel the rest of the story

2009-05-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

Ok so I said I'd get back to the last 18 months, after Loren left to go back to Burkina. So he left at the end of October and we went to Burkina Dec 9, 2007 til Jan 10, 2008. Wow, was it really that long ago? Lots has happened since then. But I get ahead of myself.

So we took the bus to Montreal and caught a plane (side note of warning to anyone thinking about travelling using airmiles. I used airmiles to get to France then bought tickets from Paris to Burkina. I paid several hundred dollars in taxes on the airmiles portion, then $4200 for the Paris - Ouaga part. Turns out that the WHOLE trip, would have cost THE SAME. SO I WASTED 10000 airmiles on this trip.). We met with Carol (Loren's mom) in Montreal, and then flew to Paris. Loren's Uncle and Aunt visited with us during our stopover which was 8 hours long. Ben was exhausted so slept on the bags through much of this. We arrived in Ouaga at 9PM local time (4 PM EST) after about 24hours of travelling. It was a nice change as it was about 30 oC instead of -15. We were met by Loren, his dad and several old friends and I immediately felt like I had come home. I was so relieved to be there, I was so happy to be there.

We stayed at Loren's parents' farm for the majority of the trip. They have a lot of wild animals on the farm - no cows, few chickens. Mostly monkeys, snakes, hyenas, warthogs, etc, oh yes, and a chimpanzee named Juliette. We stayed largely on the farm for the first week, just hanging out, not too exciting. One day I noticed what Ben was writing in his journal. It was scribbles and things like " this is a bad book". He was clearly unhappy but true to form didn't show it. He would occasionally say that he wanted to go home. I could see we needed to get out an do something but I didn't quite know what to do. Clark was not there frequently and Loren only had a motorcycle. There were a number of vacations/ holidays while we were there fortunately so Loren could spend a lot of time with us. He had to work once in awhile but mostly he stayed at the farm. On Tabaski (Muslim "easter") we finally got out to see my friends Dembele and Cita, and their 2 boys Djamal who is Ben's age, and Rashid who was only 2 at the time. Although Ben and Djamal could not communicate, they played for hours well into the night, jumping off sand piles, playing with trucks, collecting bottle caps. And they finally fell asleep in the truck.

We drove back to the farm and Loren and I started to talk, we talked for hours. I could see that he was opening back up to me the way he used to be. We talked about why I hadn't come to Burkina until this point (because he hadn't invited us) and he talked about trying to stay out of my way so I could decide what I wanted, like marrying someone else. Still in a guarded fashion we discussed what could work. After some of this, Loren looked at me and said "if you would agree to live here, I would agree to marry you." I'm sure most of my female friends are thinking "What a jerk!" and now all the guys are going "why?" - not the most romantic thing in the world but from Loren that was like him proclaiming from the mountains. Just to complete the thought, I haven't answered him yet, even now 18 months later.

The rest of the time went a little better for Ben - I still cringe just thinking about how unhappy he was - but he met more friends and got to do things he'll never be allowed to do in Canada at his age, like drive the truck on his dad's lap (on the highway), go on a motorcycle, hang out at construction sites and play on heavy equipment. When we left it was really hard for Benny, he was sad to leave, saying he wanted to stay. We'll see how he feels a few months in. We'll see how I feel a few months in.

Not that everything was perfect. Loren and I had a few fights, Benny even had a fight with Loren. And there are a few things that we will need to work through, but I am learning quickly about the idea of picking ones battles, and choosing which are insurmountable or "hills to die on" versus those that we can live with. I'm not sure that Loren wasn't reconsidering his offer too

I thought about this trip a long time. Work wasn't going well but rather than this trip being a boon, it was almost a burden because I couldn't in conscience change jobs only to tell them that I would likely be leaving shortly. So I continue at my job, just waiting for the time to pass. When I told Ben that I had decided we would spend a year in Burkina, leaving in July or August, he immediately burst into tears... not the reaction I was expecting or hoping for. He said he was going to miss all his friends, and as painful as that was to watch, it has sort of cemented in my head that now is the right time (actually last year would have been the right time but hindsight is 20/20). He still makes up excuses why we can't go but I think he has accepted the idea and is even looking forward to some aspects.

As for me, I have soooo many things I am worried about, planning, preparing - the list is literally a 1000 items long - some small - need visas, need vaccinations - some are big - what if Ben gets really sick, what if he does really hate it? What if I hate it? I think once we get there and normal life starts to settle in then the real work of figuring out what the plan is going forward can begin.

The pre-quel

2009-05-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

I think I said I would tell the story that leads up to all this. I'll try to be brief, there's a long history here.

It started when Greg Krueger went to Rwanda in 92, got Africa fever and contaminated me with it. Although I am obsessed with travelling anyway, didn't need much of a push there. I got into a program at York University after I graduated from Waterloo. It was called Leadership Skills Abroad and included an 8-month work placement overseas. I didn't really qualify as I didn't have a master's in anything but I guess my co-op experience (11 terms!!) had them interested. My reference embellished a number of things including my ability at school and my ability to speak french (he said I was bilingual from speaking it at home with my parents - I NEVER said that so I have no idea why he did). So yes, I got in on a lie.

I went to Burkina on Hallowe'en 1997. I was supposed to work at the UN office, working on desertification but that office wasn't doing anything so they moved me to the Burkina Ministry of Environment in Environmental Impact Assessment. I arrived November 1 at 7PM local time, it was 38 oC and I could not understand a word anyone was saying. (in my defense, my francophone roommate was having some challenges as well). This was a regular problem and I embarassed myself fully in the first few weeks. I got a teacher to give me lessons 3 times a week and was going fairly well by Christmas.

November 7 we (all Canadians) were invited to the Ambassador's house as he was new and this is tradition. I arrived and met 2 tall blond boys, who actually were anglophones and made friends. One was Loren, the other was his brother Derek. They introduced me to their parents. Loren and I spent a lot of time together, talking, going out etc. By Christmas we were dating officially and in January we did a couple trips together. We started discussing the idea of getting married by end January. At that time, I was 28 and he was 20. We had a lot of fights but always seemed to resolve them.

I left in August 1998 to come back to Canada for my sister's wedding. I worked for several months to make enough to go back but wasn't sure where Loren and I had left things so only planned to go for a month in March 1999. When I arrived, Loren seemed less than happy to see me but we sorted things out. Unfortunately I left again and we didn't really keep in touch.

Fast forward to 2000. I started to plan to move again - to Vancouver this time. I went for a job and house hunting trip in July and visited with Loren's family there - not realizing that Loren had recently arrived there. I moved to Vancouver in September 2000 and we got ahem re-aquainted. He was working in California and going back and forth so we spent some time together but mostly apart. He decided to go back to Africa in May 2001. I debated going with him but decided to stay and continue developing my career. I was also planning a world tour - a one year sabbatical to travel the world. And well of course that never happened.

Just a few weeks after he left, I discovered I was pregnant. I couldn't contact him as the only emails and phone numbers I had were for his parents. I finally wrote him a letter and he didn't receive it and get in touch with me until I was over 5 months pregnant. That was a bad time for me, I was pregnant, alone, my grandmother died, I was laid off from my job, 9/11 happened and I lost half my investments. I moved back to Toronto in November and lived with my mom for nearly 2 years while I waited for my house to be built. Ben was born in January 2002, Loren and his mom came to visit for a month. We never really spoke about what to do, it was a difficult time. Then he left and we didn't speak for a long time. He received pictures and such from me through his parents who passed through occasionally. I received very occasional phone calls from him. Until 2007 when Ben started asking about his dad.

Loren and I talked about my bringing Ben to visit Burkina, but I wanted Loren to come here first thinking that a trip to Burkina would be hard enough for Ben without the added pressure of meeting his father for the first time. So Loren and his mom visited in October 2007. It was awkward and challenging for all of us. Loren seemed very distant from me, but tried hard to be with Ben. Loren's departure was really hard on Ben. But knowing we were going to visit seemed to help.

Not nice to leave it here but I just wrote a whole decade of info. I will write about the last 18 months later. I'm tired - it's been a long 12 years!! I will get back to the last bit a little later.

Tickets and a new direction

2009-05-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, we have a date now. Tues August 25, 2009. The date was pushed a little later for 2 reasons: my grandfather turns 95 on August 25 so in all likelihood there will be a party for him on the 23rd, and Ben thought it would be good to be there for his cousin Grace's birthday on the 27th. I couldn't leave it that late or we'll have very few days to prepare for school which starts on Sept 8th.

Air France is insane as far as I can tell. I saw tickets for $1250 one day, the next day they were less, about $850 (this is per person, ONE way), the next day they were $1354 and its not like AirCanada or WestJet where it's a day that is less sold than another day. All days from June til early Sept are the same price. W.E. Anyway, got a good deal from TravelCuts along with flight and medical insurance (OHIP doesn't work over there!). $3850 all in for both of us round trip, unfortunately have to pay $250 per change per person and am not allowed to book return that far in advance so will definitely have to pay $500 to change from March to next summer (unless things go that badly and I want to come home in March!).

The last few weeks at work have been difficult. I have at least partially checked out already. My brain and my heart are not in my work and I am very disheartened by the continued lack of political will on both sides of the border. I think this move signals the potential for a complete change in career. I'm done with climate change. Time for something that people are actually doing something about! There's a lot to choose from. I think we will be finding a new direction very soon.

Three things down, 997 to go...

Counting down

2009-04-10T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to think about how to get organized - what do I take, leave, sell, donate, pitch. Since we'll probably be back eventually, it's hard to go about just pitching things but how to decide what to keep. It costs a fair bit to store things, but how much more to replace them? With Ben's stuff there is the issue around toys, he can only take so much but how much will he outgrow while we're away.

I just got rid of a mattress, the one from the spare room but now I don't have space for people to stay over. It's easier to get rid of things knowing that I have something different I want in that space eventually but still, there's a cost.

The first rip is the hardest.

Where to begin

2009-04-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

Well I guess first, thanks to Kanchan for setting me up. She knows me too well. I guess I would have had the time once I got there but there are too many questions that inquiring minds want answers to before I go, like when are you going?

Unfortunately at this point, I don't have many answers for you. Here's the plan so far.
- request 1 year sabbatical from work (check - actually took 15 months starting in August)
- buy plane ticket (not done yet - anticipated date, mid August because July is too expensive and June is too yucky as it's rainy season)
- find Ben a school (Loren is working on this as are other family members - I'm not too worried about it)
- figure out where you are going to live (again, Loren's job, I have some options if he doesn't come through but I have faith)
- figure out what I'm going to do when I get there (have options, not going to worry about it for now, but I am taking a laptop and will be available for contracts)
- what to do with my stuff (renting out the house - the notices are sloowly going up in different places - and put my stuff in storage)

And of course the big questions of why are going (although some think they know the answer to that already) and will you ever come back, I don't have time to answer at the moment so will get to that. Some people don't know the "story" behind why I'm going to Burkina, so I figure I'll get into that eventually for completeness. Back soon with more details.

Lisa's New Blog

2009-04-04T14:04:00.001-07:00

Lisa will start posting here, soon.