I thought I would provide a bit of a description of how the wedding progressed. I’m sure a lot of you will be absolutely horrified at my description, not understanding how things are here, but hopefully you will get that I had a great time in the process and wouldn’t really have had it any other way.

I think for a lot of people it was a bit of a surprise that I had only just announced our engagement and then like 4 weeks later I announced that we got married. I’m sure you’re wondering “it’s been 15 years, so what’s the hurry all of a sudden?” Well, in reality, we did actually get engaged in April, April 5th or something, and Loren actually even called my dad to get his permission. My father was of course a bit confused by this given our history but Loren’s actually kind of old fashioned in certain ways. I think my father’s comment was something to the effect of “if you can manage her, you’re welcome to her”. Loren offered to send some cows (by DHL I think), as per tradition here, but my dad was concerned about space (cows might not fair so well in Newmarket) and more importantly, the reaction of his wife, and their 5 cats. So he let Loren keep them.

In the intervening months, it was actually kind of touch and go. We had a lot of big fights and nearly called it quits. But we also did some pre-marital counseling and resolve a lot of the big issues, including some of the deal breakers. We decided we would marry – civil wedding in Burkina and church wedding in Canada, but we never set a date.

I had decided who my witness would be. It was a pretty easy choice. Rachel Johnston Nacoulma, was a new friend I had made here. Someone I think has a good head on her shoulders, a solid relationship with God, and… an African husband. As white as Loren is, his reactions are more often African which causes a fair bit of exasperation on my part. Rachel and I would have a number of discussions about our “husbands’” behaviours and the frustration. Here, your witness isn’t just like your best friend brides’ maid. The witness is the person you expect that when things get rough, will step in and help smooth the waters, give you advice. The person Loren had wanted as his witness originally, was someone he respected a great deal but who is Muslim, doesn’t like me, and wanted Loren marry an African woman, I think preferably one of his daughters. So I wasn’t too comfortable with that.

Anyway, we found out in September that Rachel was pregnant, and due to go back to Ireland on maternity leave from Feb til May. So I said to Loren that it would probably need to be in January or in June, as we’d be in Canada July and August. We didn’t get on discussing it until early December when we thought about the fact that Julia, his younger sister would be here visiting, as well as Shanalyn, his cousin. So I think it was just before they arrived, he picked a date based on their schedule, and just one month away.

Now, I think most people (women) would find that quite stressful. After all, there was work and school to finish, Christmas happening, New Years’, planned travelling with the relatives, and then to plan a wedding on top of that might be a bit much. A few things saved all of this. The first was that my only real responsibility was to show up. Here, weddings are largely planned by the men. They do all the organizing and setting up, ordering food, getting the rings. Even your dress is pretty much optional. I doubt if anyone would have remarked should I have shown up in work clothes. It would have been chalked up to my being white (or being with Loren, which also comes with a lot of margin). The one thing that could have been a problem was the fact that you have to post notification of your marriage on the City Hall for one month but you need to provide all your papers to get that started. In usual Loren fashion, where he gets away with the most incredible things, they waived the need for the papers, copies of our passports would do, and we only posted for 3 weeks, not 4. Loren joked that it was good thing it was being posted in Koubri so none of my Ouaga boyfriends would come down there and read it so they couldn't object. I responded that it was good for it to be in writing only as none of his girlfriends could read.

Actually the spreading of the news was part of the problem, that being because Loren is 1) very well known, and 2) an infamous bachelor. If he told everyone, and we had it in Ouaga, we could have expected over 1000 people to show up. So we kept it super quiet. I don’t have a huge number of friends here but I think I invited about 10 or so people. With that we still had about 140 people. So my only concern, besides getting my original birth certificate (and Ben’s so we didn’t need to do blood tests) was to get a dress.

Because of Christmas and New Year’s, every tailor in town worth talking to was busy. Actually that time of year is huge for weddings as well for 2 reasons: 1) everyone comes home at that time of year anyway/ or is on holidays and 2) because you are nearly 100% certain that it will neither rain, nor be over 40oC. As it was, it was 37oC the day of our wedding and it did rain 3 days later, which is slightly more common than snow in July in Toronto. Needless to say, tailors are very busy. There are wedding shops in Ouaga but they aren’t as numerous nor as well stocked as North American ones. We did find some material at one of the European textiles stores, but then found a little shop that provided material and had wedding catalogues they said they could copy. I already had a design in mind, and we found a cool, blue coloured material, that was slightly stretchy. After looking through catalogues, we revised the design slightly so it would be more similar to something they knew already (Burkinabe are famous for telling you they can do something, and then can’t). Just to be sure, I had actually ordered a dress online through Victoria’s Secret, not very wedding like, more evening gown, but I knew if I had a plan B then plan A had a much greater chance of success.

We decided after that we would add sleeves which they agreed to do but in hindsight was more than they were able to do. As I put sleeves on my drawings, I started to laugh as I realized what my design now resembled. I pulled out my computer and showed Rachel a scene out of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, and we had a good laugh calling me Princess Aurora after that. Needless to say, not having a 20 inch waist, nor waist length blond hair, I didn’t look much like her in the end. We ended up changing the sleeves anyway to being open rather than slim fitting to make room for error. So, December 31st we went and took measurements, gave them the final design and the blue material. We ended up deciding to do Rachel’s dress in the same materials so had to do it there as well, as they don’t sell the material. I came back on Jan 7 to try on and refine.

The dress was nice but they were having some problems: they had made the front lopsided and instead of 10 cm wide white in front, it was more than 20 and that wasn’t fixable, and one shoulder too tight, they put the sleeves on sideways, and couldn’t figure out how to make the train attach so I didn’t have to hold it. After 3 visits, the dress was quite good (Wed night before the wedding) so all they had to do was clean it and I could come back on Friday to get it. All good right?

That night I get home and I’m beat. I go to bed with an excrutiating headache and have weird dreams and body pain. I know the signs…. Malaria. 3 days before my wedding and I get malaria. So on getting up on Thursday, I take the first of the treatments and pray that because I caught it early, maybe it will spare me. Thankfully that was true, as Rachel had invited several of my friends over to her house to have a bridal shower for me. In French, this is translated as the last night as a young girl. I had to laugh at that. It was a fantastic party. First she dressed me, as fitting for a woman who will be married to a Gourounsi man (Loren grew up in Gourounsi country). Rachel had some of the teachers from her husband’s organization come and teach us all a few steps from a Gourounsi dance which was quite hysterical – the first part you look like you are grabbing someone’s butt, then you flap like a chicken and turn in a square like the Macarena, which is somewhat difficult, at least for 6 white women apparently, however long we might have spent in Africa. I think Julia has video which I will try to get burned. They very kindly gave us a 9 out of 10 for our efforts at which point Rachel explained to us that they normally teach pre-school children so it was on that scale we were probably being rated.

Following the dancing, I was dressed for my wedding in toilet paper, and a back up dress, also in toilet paper was put on my friend Ineke. Mine was definitely prettier but it fell off which isn’t optimal for the wedding so Ineke’s dress won. We then had dinner, and then the ladies each wrote me a piece of advice or prayer on a scrap of paper that I got to take home.

So Friday. The night before the wedding. I didn’t go to work til afternoon, as I still had malaria. My boss was arriving at the airport and he called just before he was supposed to get on the plane in Ghana to come to Ouaga, only to find out that the agent had booked the tickets in the wrong direction and he was booked that day to fly from Ouaga to Ghana instead. We sorted that quickly, thankfully but not what you want as last minute stress. It gets better. At 6pm, thinking I was just picking up my dress, I show up at the tailors and she says the dreaded words, right after greeting me – Madame, there has been a problem. Apparently when they dry-cleaned the dress, the lining shrank. They ended up having to pull the skirt and sleeves apart and starting over with a new liner. When I put the dress on it was like they had never measured me in the first place. I rapidly text Rachel, who also has to pick up hers, and say “BRING THE TOILET PAPER?!” Her dress, or rather the jacket was also completely wrong and we spent nearly 4 hours together at the tailor’s until he got it sorted. They can’t figure out how to attach the train so we just cut it off right there. I didn’t have my shoes with me so she didn’t have any idea how much to cut so we had to wait until wedding day to see how long it still was. Rachel recounted to me all the unbelievable things that had gone completely wrong at her wedding but how she had a great day anyway.

Exhausted we then joined Loren at a maquis where he had filet of antelope grilling away and had a couple now badly needed drinks.

Wedding day was fantastic regardless. Rachel surprised me with a couple beautiful bouquets which I didn’t think of until Friday night after the bar but really didn’t care at that point. Getting dressed with shoes I realize my dress is still 6 inches too long at the back but it’s too late to do anything. We arrived early to the City Hall in Koubri but as it we drove with the windows down, I was quite windblown on arrival. I decide I need to go to the bathroom and realize abruptly that this was now going to require some significant logistical genius. I hadn’t taken into account 2 things: that any toilet I would have access to at that point would be a dirt hole in the ground, and that I could not just lift my skirt as it was skin tight to the knee – I would have to hold it up and pull it down at the same time. I was suddenly grateful there was no train! TMI I’m sure. I decided to hold it and worry later.

Clark and Carol, Ben, Julia and Shan nearly arrived late as Clark went to the Prefecture instead for some reason and Loren’s witness, showed up 2 minutes before as well. So we all go in without any sort of ceremony and plop ourselves down. The Deputy Mayor officiated the ceremony. She was quite serious in nature but there is always an undertone of amusement in any African in my experience. She made the day even more fun, and certainly for me took a lot of the stress off. She first needs to confirm that all the names are correct especially because most of the names are not Burkinabe and fairly confusing. So my father’s name, written in capitals on my birth certificate went from Gerald to Geralo and my name as always was spelled with an s instead of z. Elisabeth is the French.

So having corrected this, she starts by telling us that all the things that we have complied with, documents provided etc and what we have agreed to. In Burkina you can chose Monogamy or Polygamy (uh we chose monogamy) and if your stuff becomes shared or is separate. As we are both responsible for large companies and potential liability in large sums, we agreed to separate belongings (biens separé). She reads out Loren’s name, family etc and birthdate (Sept 29, 1977 – or in French 77 is 60- 17 – soixante dix-sept). She reads mine and thinks she has read the year wrong so says my birthdate year as soixante dix neuf, or 1979 instead of 69. We correct her, and she looks at us as though we are crazy and again reads it as 79. We correct her again, she looks at me, shakes her head and continues. I’m okay with that!











Seeing everything in order she proceeds to read the law. As she put it, you need to hear it, understand it and agree with it or we stop now. Because “once we attach it, we cannot undo, no matter how tight” (quand on attache, on peut pas detacher, meme si il serre). Loses something in translation but made me laugh. I found it interesting the things they put in the law, such as fidelity is required by law and even under polygamy there are procedures to follow. Not sure what the penalty would be… it is civil law after all. Finally she required that we stand up and say our vows. She told us to hold right hands. Loren takes my hand, looks me in the eye and says “Bonjour!” as if greeting me for the first time. She requires us to say Present when she says our name and when we agree, we must say YES! very loudly. She calls Loren first and when he says Present, she tsks and teases, saying “No one could hear that, are you sure?” We proceed in this way with much laughter and amusement. She gives her blessings, and then says you may kiss the bride. Loren, being shy, kisses me on each cheek. The attendees went crazy saying NO NO NO!!! Do it right!!! So he kissed me properly and all was good.













So the Deputy gave her blessings and warnings to each of us and we had lots of photos. Loren managed to keep his shirt buttoned through it all and his sleeves rolled down but after the photos he couldn’t take any more, the sleeves went up, the first button undone and his sunglasses back on his head. At least he didn’t put the ATS vest back on – he was going to wear it.

We went to the maquis/restaurant down the street and had a great party. Even the provincial tribal chief came to the reception which was a great honour. Both Clark and a long time friend, Sami gave their recounts of how we met and the events leading up to the wedding. I had heard of the stories behind Loren's other nicknames: Whirlwind and Break-the-City, but finally learned that he had earned the nickname Sniper when he had returned from Canada and recounted to his friends that Ben was born. They called him Sniper for a person who with one shot can hit the mark.

We had a lot of meat, as we had 2 front quarters of Roan antelope as gifts as well as 2 pigs. That and beer and whisky and life is good. My only remaining problems were the fact that people kept stepping on the back of my dress as I was dancing so I had whiplash and a 6 inch strip at the bottom which was filthy, and I did finally go to the toilet and it wasn’t as difficult as I first thought, even, or maybe because of wearing 6 inch heels.

















So we are finally married, and will be in Canada for our church wedding. I will bring pictures of our life here, and will probably wear the same dress. Our rings are silver and Loren’s has already tarnished/gone black, but he figured out how to clean it with diesel and clay. We may get them changed to gold, later. We’ll see how things for the Canadian wedding progress. Preparing from 10000 miles away adds challenges but I also have a more African level of expectations so I think some people may find the whole thing a little strange. Oh well.

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.