"Nah Nah Nah Nah, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye"

"Excited" for the long bus ride

Two weeks ago, my friend, Zak, and I woke up early early (i.e. I got up at 5:15- yikes!) to catch a big bus and kiss Bamako and Mali goodbye.  We took a weeklong trip to Mali’s neighbor, Burkina Faso, to get a little taste of life elsewhere in West Africa and to see some films at the West African festival, FESPACO. 

We were both a little nervous for the bus trip- a 14 hour ride from Bamako across the border to Bobo-Dioulasso (or just “Bobo”) and another 5 hours into Burkina’s capital, Ouagadougou (ou bien, “Ouaga”).  It turns out, I needn’t have been so nervous.  Aside from the fact that 20 hours on the bus is long no matter where you are, the ride was not bad at all.  The TCV company from Burkina Faso runs a really professional show- their buses all have drivers and attendants who wear uniforms, the boarding process is pretty organized, everyone has his or her own individual seat, the luggage loading and unloading process was efficient, they do their best to keep salespeople off the bus at stopping points, and (most importantly) the bus was clean and had A/C!!!  We settled into a spot near the rear door and saved a seat in front of us for Zak’s Tanti Ami, an aunt of his who happened to be traveling back to her home in Bobo on the same bus (more on her later… )!  It was great to have a seasoned veteran, and a West African woman, on our team during the ride.  She told us when to get out to get drinks, and she told other people what do to in order to help us out- this woman knew how to give some orders!  However, I did follow her off of the bus once to use the bathroom during a stop that apparently was not long enough for using the bathroom.  Thanks to Zak’s alertness and Tanti Ami’s lungs, they were able to notify the driver and hold the bus for me while I used a lovely (note the sarcasm?) bathroom in Koutiala.

Aside from a lot of reading and some excitement about getting to Burkina Faso, our trip was none too noteworthy.  We did make friends with the 4 other toubabous (white people) on the bus- a couple finishing Peace Corps and traveling through Burkina, Togo, and Benin, and a pair of young European women who had traveled from Senegal following a conference and were making a loop of West Africa.  These women found themselves in a predicament at the border because they hadn’t purchased visas before leaving Bamako and they didn’t have the money to buy them on the spot (the Burkina visa price doubles at the border- from $100 (already expensive, if you ask me) to $200!!).  The rest of us toubabous were able to pull together about $300 they needed and again our bus was on the road.  We had a couple of hours to spend in Bobo before leaving for Ouaga, so we said goodbye to Tanti Ami and got some yummy chicken dinners at a great restaurant with our new American and European friends (and also visited an ATM to settle up).  It was a nice stop, but we were really ready to get to Ouaga….

Hanging on the streets of Ouaga

We rolled into Ouaga around 3:30am and eventually found our way to the hostel where I had made a reservation.  I regret not taking a picture of this place… It was tiny, but every nook and cranny was used in a way that gave us plenty of space.  The price was good and the staff was great- it would have been perfect except for power outages that left us without a fan and quite hot (little did we know, we should get used to this…)!  We got a bit of a slow start that first day, due to fatigue and a cold that Zak acquired during the bus ride L, but we did get ourselves installed in our more permanent lodgings in Ouaga- the guesthouse of an NGO called Reciproka that I found on CouchSurfing.  The staff of Reciproka was marvelous and they took great care of us!

I won’t hash out every day that we spent in Ouaga, but the basic routine was to sleep in a little bit, get something to eat or do a little exploring, go to a movie or two and eat some more.  Since we were feeling a little under the weather we didn’t get to check out much of the night life scene, but Ouaga is full of “maquis,” little outdoor bar restaurants with cheap beer, brochettes, fries, fried plantains, and roasted chickens (yum!!), so we made sure to try the food and drinks at several of those (we even drank beer that you can’t get in Mali!).  We rented a moto for a few days which allowed us to have a lot more freedom and to see more of the city.  It doesn’t feel as big as Bamako, yet there were lots of open and empty spaces (though one can’t really call them green spaces… ) and people and houses didn’t seem as piled on top of one another.  Especially on the south side of the city, the government district which houses the presidential palace (it’s bigger than the white house) and many foreign embassies was eerily empty and undeveloped- think big fancy buildings and compounds in the middle of empty scrubby fields…

YUM- Goat cheese!!

My favorite day of the whole trip was when we visited Loumbila, a small village 30 minutes north of Ouaga.  Thanks to an old guidebook at the NGO where we stayed, we found out about a treasure of a place where the owners raise goats and produce their own goat cheese!!  An aside:  I honestly don’t think I knew how much I loved cheese until I came to Mali.  Sure, one of my college roommates and I had a pact not to bring cheese into our dorm room for fear of devouring it all in a single afternoon, but I never realized that I loved cheese as much as I have in the past months.  You never know how much you love something until it’s gone (or super expensive and hard to get)…. Anyway, I have developed a particular fondness for goat cheese, and so this trip was perfect!  We had herb crusted cheese as an appetizer, and delicious goat cheese salads.  Also, I had goat milk yogurt with sugar for dessert.  Heavenly!  After eating, we explored the area and discovered an odd sort of resort nearby.  It was a little haven tucked into the side of a lake called Loumbila Beach.  We decided to check it out and the individual grass huts, arcade games, bathing suit boutique, bar/restaurant and attractive pool convinced us to stay a while (granted… the boutique was closed, the arcade games didn’t work, and we didn’t eat there… ).  Since we didn’t have our suits with us, we decided (against better judgment) to rent bathing suits for a bargain $2 each!  The swim was marvelous and refreshing and we both (mostly) fit in the suits.  Following our swim we relaxed on the wooden pier stretching out into the lake and giving us a lovely view of the late afternoon sun.  The ride back from Loumbila was enjoyable and we even stopped to do the bumper cars and jump on trampolines at Ouaga’s amusement park.  We are becoming quite the West African amusement park connoisseurs!  It was a wonderful vacation of a day!

Lovely afternoon setting

Relaxing by the lake after a swim at Loumbila Beach

We followed up the great day of swimming and eating with a film at Ouaga’s French Cultural Center.  A word on the films…. FESPACO is a big festival and it would have been impossible (it seems to me) to see all of the films being screened.  There were showings at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, 10pm (and even some times in between) at about 10 different locations… that’s a lot of movies!  We opted not to buy a badge ($50 and entry into all films, plus “events”) but instead bought tickets to individual films ($1-$2 a piece).  However, we were too late to find a catalogue of films with titles and descriptions… rather, we just used a schedule that included film name, director name and nationality, and time/location of the film.  Basically, we picked films based on their titles and their countries of origin- not necessarily the best way to do it, but oh well!  Most of the films we ended up seeing had a sort of political undertone… one about the UN Peace Keeping Forces sent to Mozambique after a civil war there in the 1990s (the plot also included bits of traditional witchcraft, and thus some interesting effects), and a film on xenophobic violence in South Africa (black South Africans killing Zimbabwean immigrants).  We saw a film by a Canadian film maker, one from Burundi, and another from Algeria.  It was impressive to see some of the theaters in Ouaga and the films were interesting, though some far more professional than others. 

By the end of the week, we felt like we had seen about all of Ouaga that there really was to see.  The city felt much smaller than Bamako, and far less crowded in most of the neighborhoods.  The streets were more organized (even a designated moto lane!) and cleaner- with few open sewers that are standard along Bamako roadways.  Ouaga was full of bikes, and our host even told us it was second in the world in bikes per capita to China (I take this with a grain of  salt… I mean, what about Amsterdam?).  We bid goodbye to the capital, the festival (and all of the other tourists) and headed back towards Mali on a 4 hour bus ride to Bobo.  At the bus station, we were greeted by Zak’s cousin, Nah, and her friend/neighbor, Chaka.  They guided us in darkness back to Nah and her mother, Ami’s, house.  Frequent power outages linked to the conflict in the Ivory Coast (Burkina is a close neighbor and depends on their power grid for electricity) were characteristic of our stay in Burkina and especially in Bobo.  Because it was too dark to see much, our orientation to the house was minimal that first evening, and we were happy to hit the mattresses after dinner. 

Zak and Nah on her moto

Our stay in Bobo was comfortable and lazy.  It was really nice to be with a family and to get to spend time chatting with Ami, Nah, her friends, and the other people who were in and out of the house.  Ami’s father and Zak’s mom’s stepfather are twin brothers, so Ami maintained that they were direct sisters seeing as twins are really one and the same!  I got to know a lot about the family- her two children (her son is studying in Ghana), her late husband, her time in Mauritania, Niger, and Burkina—I even saw all the family photo albums!  Ami is a true Malian matriarch- a sweet woman, but one who knows how she wants things and tells you about it!  Along with Nah, she is taking care of the handicapped daughter of her deceased sister.  The girl, Hawa, is a twin and her sister is healthy and living in Mali with other relatives.  Ami has been caring for Hawa since she was a baby, and she has made great improvements between that period and her recent 5^th birthday.  As it is, though, she is still unable to walk or use most of her left side.  She doesn’t talk, and she spends most of her time with a caretaker- tied on her back, or in a special chair that allows her to sit without falling down.  She was such a sweet girl and really enjoyed attention from visitors- she especially loved Zak!  They played a game with some balled up socks used as a ball- she absolutely loved throwing them at him!  Ami is looking vigorously for a way to help take care of Hawa and get her the therapy she needs to regain control of part of her body and even to walk and talk.  If any of you have any ideas of international organizations who work with handicapped children, I'm all ears!  

I did do something touristy in Bobo- I
visited the beautiful old mosque 

We spent most of our time in Bobo visiting with family and friends.  Nah was a really sweet hostess and we even got to meet her (secret) boyfriend!  We also spent a lot of time with her and her friend, Ben.  He is a really enthusiastic neighbor who wants to learn English, and really wasn’t doing too badly for having little to no instruction (he was, for example, just as good at spoken English as Chaka, who is studying at the University!).  The evening before we left, the four of us were chatting on the front porch after dinner.  Zak started singing “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye” to Nah, and she got upset because she thought he was taunting her about leaving when she had made it clear she didn’t want us to go.  We decided, though, that this was her song!  We were trying to come up with a song for Ben (I thought of the Michael Jackson song “Ben” about his pet rat) and he said, “Oh I know!  Jingle Ben, Jingle Ben, Jingle all da waaaay!”  Zak and I cracked up and explained to him why this was so funny to us and what the song was really about.    Hanging out with Nah and company was really a joy.  She hopes to come to Mali during the summer months for her vacation from classes, and we hope to see her in Bamako!

Our bus ride home.  Notice the window "altar"
and the yellow jug in the foreground... a
makeshift seat

After a couple of days in Bobo, it was clear that Zak and I were both ready to go home.  I was frustrated that we missed out on the market and didn’t get tickets for the fancy bus home (it was already sold out when we went to get tickets!).  Zak was ready to be home and not have to do the touristy things I was interested in doing (he was a good sport for doing most of them with me).  So, early Monday morning, we got up and got ready to catch our bus back to Bamako.  This bus was much more of an African transportation experience.  It was less organized, dirty, and unairconditioned.  Actually, the lack of A/C was better than I imagined because we were able to get a seat near the front door which was open during the whole ride.  The more annoying part of this trip was that we stopped constantly to pick up people along the route who were hoping to catch a bus to Bamako.  When we boarded the bus, I had been suspicious about why there were big empty water jugs in the bus aisles, and it became clear later that they were for the extra passengers we picked up along the way- no need for them to get a seat, they just sat on the plastic canisters in the aisles!  So, I had two very close “seat” mates… Zak and some guy bundled in a winter coat and ear muffs, sweating by my elbow on a jug in the aisle.  It was definitely great to get off the bus (after a flat tire on the way into Bamako and a painfully frustrating wait for luggage stored underneath) and get a cab back to a good shower and yummy meal.  Just like any vacation, it was fun to get away and exciting to see a new place, but really great to get home!


*As always, you can see more photos (from the trip and recent events) on my Picasa account:  https://picasaweb.google.com/alysmmoore/MaliMarch#