The Yard Sales of State College

Moving to an unfurnished apartment, and the ensuing hunt for furniture, reminded me just why it was that I had always chosen to live in furnished apartments.

On the other hand, it has given me the change to rediscover a bit of creativity, which has been sorely missed. By that I mean I have gone exploring in my new corner of State College, and along the way I have discovered fun things I didn't know about.

One such cool thing is called CentrePeace, which teaches inmates life skills and they repair the furniture which is then sold. It is filled with all kinds of neat stuff, and I am now a HUGE fan. 

There was a random yard sale along the street I live on, so I stopped to check it out. 

While I was originally concerned about the reasons for which one might possess such an item, a friend pointed out that many soldiers in WWII would bring Nazi artifacts home as souvenirs. Phew. I'll take that explanation.

These are Edison music rolls. Apparently Edison spent time in central PA, which is a bit of trivia that is new to me.

From a lady at CentrePeace I found out about a big church community yard sale, which had such excellent record selections as the following:

I didn't buy those two though, I opted for an AWESOME album of The Supremes, and discovered lots of new favorite songs. Also a Dvorak and a few Gershwin albums. I also found an old, black trunk, a cookbook, and lots of pretty frames. 

Totally a success.

Unceremonious

I would just like to apologize for failing to conclude my trip with a deserving post. 

The day after I flew back to France is the day that the Air Algérie flight departing from Ouagadougou went missing (filled with Burkinabè and French people, among others).

Eventually we learned that it had crashed over Mali,

and frankly I think the shock of that made it too hard for me to think about my trip.

But I should point out that I made it back, it was wonderful, and I find that I miss it. 

People there warned me that once you go, you will always go back.

Alas, sitting around in a maquis in State College is hardly a worthy replacement (were I able to find such a place to begin with), and the start of a new semester makes my life seem a whole lot less 

action-packed.

Until the next adventure, at least ...

Chicken Sh*t

The title of this post, as you will discover, had both a literal and figurative role in my day yesterday.

But I'll come back to that.

First, Amadou took me out to visit his boss' farm, and we were given the tour. To get there, we followed a rough trail/road into [what felt like] the middle of nowhere.

Drove through some cattle, too ...

At first, I couldn't figure out why it looked so different. A cornfield, after all, is a cornfield. But then I realized that in most US cornfields, the mechanization of farming means trees are a nuisance. Here, they leave the trees in the middle of fields, because most of the work is done by hand anyway. [Disclaimer: I have constructed this logic based on the trees/no trees observation. I don't know anything about farming, so this could be all wrong.]

The farm was up kind of high -- here's looking out over some of the fields towards the hills in the distance.

They are growing lots of corn, some eggplants, tomatoes, lettuce, and piments (some kind of hot pepper, the dictionary says a chili). Here's a tiny chili plant:

Amadou even posed for a picture! The fabric he's wearing is called Basin, and it's very  fashionable and expensive. Designs are woven into it, and then it is dyed in all sorts of neat ways. It's also shiny, which is probably part of what makes it so expensive. I think it feels super uncomfortable, but Amadou assures me it isn't. (It's almost like that plastic-y paper that you sometimes see on labels and stuff -- I tried to tear a scrap to see if that's what it is. It isn't.)

Discovered this is the work of termites. I'm simultaneously impressed and horrified. Kind of looks like a sand castle? In a sense, it actually is.

The farm also has chickens. Lots of chickens. The chickens to eat were all white and in a separate pen (he said there were hardly any because most had been taken to market, but there were still a lot). These are the egg-laying chickens. SO MANY.

Here are a bunch of the eggs, to be taken off and sold:

This is where the post title comes in. The boss wanted to give me a gift : either a chicken, or eggs. My shock made me pause, while I considered my options ... I leave in two days and don't cook, but do I really want to have to carry back a dead chicken?

My hesitation was my downfall, because this was decided for me. Chicken it is. So the son went off to pick it out, and brought it back ... Feet tied, and STILL ALIVE. I don't know how well I covered up my mini-freak out (I'm no bleeding heart for animals, truth be told, but this is one step too close to the farm-to-table trend for me). So because I was too chicken shit to hold it (I mean, I held it for like 5 seconds while Amadou did something), Amadou had it like this while he drove.

The literal part of the chicken shit comes on our drive home. Because, you know, farms don't tend to be in the center of a city, we had a ways to go to get back into the usual part of Bobo. On the way, the chicken did its business ... Onto Amadou's hand. He seemed pretty unfazed and just moved the chicken out over the road as fast as he could and laughed. We were heading to a maquis for a "matinée dansante" (more in a second), and when we handed the moto over to be parked, he handed them the chicken. I thought this was because they were going to prepare it, but when we came out to leave several hours later, they handed it back to us. I guess they don't prepare chickens at this place. Amadou took it home with him, but he said today we'd give it to a restaurant to be prepared.

Anyway, on to the matinée dansante. It's basically a dance party in the bar that starts at like 4pm on Sunday, instead of late at night on Friday or Saturday. They played music from all over -- Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Sénégal, Congo, Burkina ... It was pretty fun. Everybody danced (including me, because why not).

Today is pretty much my last real day -- tomorrow I take an early bus to Ouaga, and then wait around several hours for my late night plane. I'll be back in Paris early Wednesday morning. I can hardly believe it has been a whole month!

American Cola

All the knock off sodas come from Mali. 

... But they're bottled under the authority of the Monarch Beverage Company (based in Atlanta, also tied to Coca Cola), so really I think it's more that we both produce the real brands, and the knock off version of the real brands. 

Caterpillars (and stuff)

Last night Amadou brought over the prepared caterpillars. You sauté them in oil, with onions (and I think he said tomatoes too). To be honest, they aren't half bad. The hardest part is the psychological struggle of knowing you're eating caterpillars.

On a more typical note, I discovered Youki (which is the Brakina beverage company's soda brand; the WPop of Burkina). America, we need to have a talk. Burkina has "Moka Café" flavored soda. WHY DON'T WE HAVE COFFEE FLAVORED SODA?! It's awesome. We should get on that.

Amadou also brought over some of the baobob powder that is used to make the jus de pain de singe. It's seriously just a yellowish powder. I tried to dump it in water and make my own, which turns out to be not how that works. Amadou just laughed at me.

En grève

Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The is the workers' union headquarters for the Hauts-Bassins region.

Surprise! Other money?

It took until my last week here for me to discover that there were other coins I had never seen --

25 FCFA and 10 FCFA. I asked Amadou how I had managed to get so far and not know this: he said these were introduced sometime around the 1994 devaluation, because things got so expensive that they needed a few smaller denomination coins (for example, a box of matches is 25 FCFA). There must not be that many in circulation though, because they don't seem particularly common either.

It's a bit hard to tell here, but they're allover gold (kind of looks fake).

While I'm back on the topic of money, here are the 100 and 500 FCFA pieces I didn't have around to post last time.

Monkey Bread Juice

Around when Ramadan started (Karem, here), Amadou asked me if I knew what galettes were. I have slowly learned that just because I know what something is in French in France, that doesn't mean I know what it is in Francophone Africa. So I hesitated, before saying that I knew what French galettes are..

It turns out in Burkina, galettes are these little fried cakes. You see tons of women making and selling them all along the roads -- apparently they're a Karem specialty, for breaking the fast at night. They are either rice-based or millet-based, and they're sweet, but not THAT sweet. And they're delicious.

Along with galettes, I also tried haricots nébié, which is some sort of beige bean. They were cooked in oil I think -- they were pretty good too.

The juices are the best though. I branched out with two new types recently: Bissap, and Pain de Singe. Bissap is actually hibiscus, which I've only ever ecountered in the form of perfumed shampoos (Meg and Gennie, remember that?). It turns into a dark red juice that is super sweet and delicious. I see huge piles of the dried leaves along the side of the big fruit and vegetable market, so at least now I know what it is. Pain de singe, after much googling, turns out to be the fruit of the Baobob. If you look up pictures, you'll see that inside the brown shell things, there is white powder (I guess the seeds are dried out? It's hard to explain). The white powder is then used to make a sweet juice. Honestly, it's another thing I would have sworn was dairy-based. It's thick and white, and has a slightly grainy taste -- almost like a pear. It tastes somewhere between an orange and a peach. It's really, really good.

I also caved and got a salad at one of my favorite restaurants here, Les 3 Karités. I had been super cautious, since everyone warned me about eating raw fruits and vegetables that might have been washed in local water. Amadou assured me that this place uses stuff to kill bacteria, so I figured I'd give it a shot. So far, so good, which is awesome because I am seriously missing salad at this point.

Triumph!

Be it known that today, July 16th, I officially triumphed over the neighborhood children's doubts -- 

we're officially buddies now. 

It began when Amadou came to get me, and I walked out to little voices yelling "Mooolly." Amadou couldn't stop laughing. I was proud of myself; I'm finally moving past toubabou.

Then a tiny girl (maybe two at the most) ran up to the motorcycle when Amadou was dropping me off after lunch and basically tried to climb on. So Amadou stopped and she grabbed my hand and clearly wanted me to pick her up. Obviously, I can't do that, so I went home. But then I came back to visit the kids. So it all started with me helping some of them to cook (cut up leaves and egg shells and sand and water, duh). There were races (and thank you very much, I can still run faster than almost all of the kids). There was a lot of tickling on all sides (these guys realized right away that they could tickle me back though, so props to them).

Then I got my camera so we could all take pictures ...

 

It was extra fun because the teenagers clearly wanted to talk to me too, but were too shy at first. Once I was out playing with the younger kids, it gave them a chance too. They wanted to speak English with me, so we did that a bit. Everyone is always curious about my hair (and I don't care), so I let them touch it. I told them that their hair is fun because they can do neat braids and stuff, and my hair won't do that.  Then two of them even braided my hair (I need to up my skills), but it still doesn't look as cool as everything people can do with their hair here. I think the braids and designs are so much prettier than the weaves people like to wear, but Amadou says that women love to copy women in Mali and Senegal, and "les meches" have always been a big thing. Hair is a big deal here, but the story of Africans and hair culture is a long one (as my friend Beatrice and her sister once spent a night explaining to me ...).

Papi was not amused.

This is one of my best buddies. I let her play with the camera, which is how we have all of these pictures of me looking like a sweaty hot mess (did I mention it's really hot in Africa?).

The little girl in the front on the left is Grace, my little buddy with the attitude. You should be able to tell who it is, since she's giving her best death stare to the camera-woman. The little girl I'm holding is the one who tried to climb onto the motorcycle with me.

I can't even tell you how happy it made me that they aren't afraid of me anymore. 

Seriously, best. day. EVER.

Reading

In what can only be described as a major oversight, it took me until my last week to realize that there were probably newspapers I should be buying and investigating.

Sure enough, there are:

There were actually a gazillion more (as you might expect), but I was overwhelmed, and just asked them for the ones from here. I can't tell if they gave me Burkina newspapers, or Bobo newspapers, but at any rate, it's a good start.

They didn't have this week's issue of the Jeune Afrique magazine. The cover story is an interview with "Blaise" (Campaoré, the President). Actually, hunting down an issue was quite the task, since I wasn't the only one who wanted to know what the President had to say about his term coming to an end in May 2015. The current term limits mean that he cannot run again (he's actually been in power since a 1987 coup, but that's a long story for another time). The cover quote said "One has to step down one day. The question is when, and especially, how." This is particularly attention-grabbing, since politics these days are dominated by anticipation of a referendum to modify the constitution so that Blaise can run again.

After trying out a few places with no success, we went to the central librarie (bookstore). They had just gotten in a shipment from Ouaga, so I was in luck! In the meantime, I perused the other books ...

Here are all of the other magazines and newspapers (they even had Le Canard Enchainé!).

The classics, of course.

Incidentally, as one might expect, Blaise doesn't exactly go spilling the beans to his interviewer about his plans. It was still an interesting interview though. It will be interesting to see how the election plays out as things draw closer. I'm certainly rooting for a peaceful transition, and I know I'm not the only one. The CDP (ruling party) has backed itself into a bit of a corner by not prepping a new candidate, and there is a much stronger opposition than ever before -- three big players publicly left the CDP to form a new opposition party, the MPP.

For now, talk of a referendum on modifying the constitution continues, but nothing is official yet. So we wait.

Music and the Neighbor(s)

When I got home yesterday afternoon, I heard people playing instruments next door (I have a new neighbor, who is French). So of course I went over to see what was going on. She apparently does African dance in France, and came here once before with her dance instructor to visit his family. This time she came back for a vacation and to learn more about music and dance. She's pretty cool as far as I'm concerned.

At any rate, I found a group of guys holding these big string instruments, which turn out to be called goni (the internet seems to spell it n'goni, but it sounded like just goni). I guess they came over to have a jam session (she's learning to play too). The body is a callebasse, or gourd (of some huge variety) covered with some sort of animal skin. The online descriptions I have found seem to suggest that most goni have 8 strings, but these guys told me 8 strings is for beginners. This one has 16 strings! Even this one is for moderate players I guess, because he said he has another that's bigger at home -- 22 STRINGS!!! [I technically think the bigger ones have another name, but I can't remember what it was. Goni seems to be a general name anyway.]

  I asked about tuning, of course -- they said when it's new it's a pain, but otherwise it tends to stay put. They do re-tune for songs though, so they're not totally off the hook.

Because I'm hardly one to sit back and listen during a music session, I picked up the 8 string one and they explained how to hold it, and which fingers you use to play. The highest notes are closest to the body, and the lowest notes are closest to you. You use your pointer fingers to play the very highest notes, and your thumbs to play the rest -- until you graduate to the big instrument, and then they appear to have various positions (like the stringed instruments with which I am more familiar).

Drissa is playing here, and he's the one who started teaching me. I learned to play a few riffs pretty quickly, and he seemed pleased that I was picking it up. He offered to get together and teach me more, which would be fun, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to learn in my last 10 days. I wish I could buy one to bring home and practice on, but it seems impractical (not to mention costly). Next time I'm here I'll have to start lessons right away.

There was also a calebasse drum (huge and you play on the dome part of it (resonance underneath). They had me try it out once, which provided confirmation that I cannot keep two separate beats at the same time (this is why piano and I were never friends, in spite of my efforts). I survived, but needless to say, I appear to have made a wise choice in sticking to the string family. They sang for most of the songs too, and I was happy that I'm slowly beginning to pick up a word here and there of Dioula.

I'll have to go exploring in Paris (and the US!) and see if the Burkinabè communities are making the goni there, or playing any concerts!

Beach vacation? (Just add water)

I sometimes forget how sandy the soil is here, until it doesn’t rain for awhile and it suddenly looks like we’re in a giant, overgrown sandbox. Sometimes you see kids playing in the sand like they’re at the beach – why not?

Now that Amadou has taught me how to ask 'what's your name' I have been out convincing the neighborhood army of children that I'm really not that scary. Also, that my name isn't "white." Today I was hanging out with a group of 15 or so, playing hand clapping games (hat tip to my elementary/middle school self for pulling through on that one), and playing other little games. Some of the older kids told me they're learning English in school, but they didn't want to prove it :) The younger ones take longer to convince, but slowly I think I'm nearing triumph (it's harder because they haven't learned French at school yet). The neighbor's two-year old shakes my hand when he tells her to, but she throws me a mean stink eye in the process. She's a tough cookie ... I like her.

It's funny, because now that school is over, the kids roam in packs, playing. It reminds me a bit of my neighborhood in a weird parallel way. Nobody is worried about constantly keeping an eye on their kids, nobody is on their case if they hit each other, and they work it out on their own. And they range from probably 8 months to 14 years old. Doing their own thing, watching out for each other. I feel like a parenting book should be written by Burkinabè parents, not some expat who thinks they've seen the light (I'm looking at you Pamela Druckerman). 

Foutou, Littering, etc.

I tried foutou de banane the other day:

It’s basically a tô made out of plantains (and whatever else) instead of corn-based. I had it with the sauce arachide (peanut sauce), operating under the theory that it would be like peanut butter and banana. I was pretty far off, but it was still good. BUT HUGE. I feel like I ate mountains of it, but visibly it only looked like I had taken two bites. Oh well.

We also drove over so that I could see the big stadium that’s at the end of the major street you turn off of to get to my place.

I didn’t realize that my boulevard basically dead-ended at the stadium until we got up close.

I had been collecting all of my trash into a busted plastic basket, figuring that sooner or later I’d take care of it (besides, most of my trash is those stupid black plastic bags).

Well, the other day, my neighbor came along to check on things, and saw the basket. He said he’d take care of it, and as I stood by and watched, he took the basket, walked across the street to the schoolyard wall, and dumped it out, before walking back to me and handing me the basket.  I knew that pollution was bad, especially because you see trash lying around everywhere, but something about that really hit it home.

The evidence of my crime:

I’m going to have to adopt a highway or something to do penance when I get home.