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.  

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.

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.