Les Boutiques

Whenever you need something in Burkina, you pretty much need to go to a boutique. Boutiques are the general store – they sell just about everything. I’ve mentioned them a few times before (I’ve bought little cakes there, toilet paper, bottles of Lafi water, Dafani juices, soap, etc.). Generally you can spot them pretty easily, either because they have a sign that says boutique, or they have an ad for Nescafé on the front (you can also kind of tell just by what it looks like they’re selling).

Here’s the outside of one not too far from my villa:

I tried to get a good shot of the inside, but it was hard. There’s the counter in the foreground, with a wire fence thing in front that has lots of candies and cakes and stuff hanging from it. Behind it, in the darkness, there are lots of cubby-hole like shelves, stocked with pretty much anything you would generally need.

Boutiques seem to be the closest Burkina equivalent to our big box stores (although comparing it to a Walmart or a Target seems almost insulting … to the boutique, of course). 

I did find it entertaining though, because today I bought soap (I told Amadou I would use it to wash my hands, clothes, whatever, and this is what he said I needed). I was faintly amused, because it suddenly occurred to me that all the hippies and hipsters in the US want to buy artisanal everything. Right? Well, this soap looks an awful lot like a lot of the “artisanal soaps” I’ve seen in farmers markets and the like, sold for a crapload more than this one. I guess it doesn’t get much more artisanal than Africa.

 

I should also quickly mention that the black plastic bag you see around the soap is ubiquitous in Burkina – anytime you buy ANYTHING, they put it in a black plastic bag. Amadou said that they’re trying to put in place a ban on the infamous sachet noirs, because they’re such terrible pollution (it’s true, you see them on the ground everywhere). It will be interesting to see if the change does take place. Given the trash removal situation (spoiler alert, Amadou informs me that there is a private company that does it and the service is … unpredictable, at best), the plastic bags are an environmental disaster.

It also occurred to me, family and Lake George family, that living in Africa is kind of like the ultimate Lake George test. Can this person roll with the flow? Can they keep their cool in the face of various surprises? I’m doing my best  :)

Manifestation

Saturday, the "Balai Citoyen" wanted to have a sit-in in front of the central town hall to protest the mayor's [alleged?] mismanagement of the city and promised construction projects. I asked Amadou if we could go see it, but he said it wasn't a good idea. Nonetheless, he brought me as close as he thought would be safe, just in time to see a cloud up ahead, and people sprinting away from it as quickly as possible. Tear gas.

It turns out the sit-in, which technically hadn't received approval, was dispered by officers of the CRS (which is basically like the Riot police), and they seem to have cut to the chase by unloading some canisters of tear gas into the crowd of protesters. You can see a few of them blocking off roads leading to the central town hall here. I didn't dare take obvious pictures of them, because no police like pictures as far as I'm aware.

So they weren't even allowed to protest. If you are interested, you can read more about the protest and what happened here . It's in French, but there are also more pictures.

Eat ALL THE THINGS!

So as you might imagine, being me, eating is a major focus. Early on, I tried a rice dish with a peanut-based sauce (I think I may finally have located a country that loves peanuts as much as Americans), and couscous with vegetable sauce. I also tried a “ragout de pommes de terre,” which is a bunch of white potatoes with a tomatoey sauce. I also tried “pattes” (feet, of what animal I could hardly say). I think that might be where I draw the line. It was OK, but definitely not my favorite. I also learned (and this might just be total ignorance on my part) that peanuts start out raw. I guess I always just assumed that they came roasted, but today we snacked on some and when I cracked open the shell and saw weird white things, I was pretty confused. They’re still good, but I like them roasted or boiled or whatever it is we do to them better I think.

 

I have also tried another popular dish called Tô. Sorry the pictures aren’t better, because it is pretty hard to describe. They bring you a giant, white, solid(but slightly jiggly) blob of corn-based stuff, which you slice into with a spoon and then mix with sauce (typically a gombo sauce, which turns out to be okra?! or sauce oséille, which turns out to be sorrel). It takes some getting used to, but the sauce was delicious. I’ve also tried grilled chicken with a sauce, and fish soup (one of my favorites).  We also went to a special place that grills fish, and then garnishes with tomatoes and onions. That might be one of my favorite meals so far. Amadou says that you have to know where the good fish places are, because a lot aren’t so hot. We also had pork the other day at the bar where I was talking to people. Almost everything seems to come with piment on the side to spice it up. I like it. And a basic dish is riz gras, which I learned today (after ordering it) is not unlike dirty rice, although instead of beans there are chunks of tomato and onion and cabbage cooked in (and a few chunks of lamb’s meat, which is basically in any and every sauce). This might be a new go-to dish too.

Washed out picture of the tô

 Too dark picture of the tô (in fairness, my camera is my old Canon Powershot, which was state of the art point and shoot in ... 2005. Yes friends, the one that has survived just about everything, including being dropped in puddles of booze once a week at Tom and Marty's. And yes, you still have to flick the lens cap to get it open.)

On the sweeter side of things, I have to say that possibly joining my international list of favorite foods is a dessert called dégué. It’s a fairly thick, sweetened yogurt (almost like vanilla yogurt, but I doubt there’s actually vanilla in it) with little grains of something I can’t identify in it. They kind of look like softened grape nuts, but I know they’re actually something Amadou called “petit mil” (at least I think that’s what he called them, which would mean they’re millet I guess). Seriously, it’s the most delicious thing EVER. There are also sweetened sesame seed cakes that are pretty tasty. I also tried some little “gateaux” from a “boutique” that were more dry, but also good. I also tried a few little green things called karité, which turns out to be shea fruit (I eat these things and then come home and open up the dictionary to figure out what they are). They have a thicker skin than apples, but it’s edible. The fruit inside has a seed in the middle that looks kind of like a hardened date, and the flesh looks like avocado, but sweet. They were good.

The other thing that is EVERYWHERE here is mangoes. This is awesome, because I love mangoes, and they’re stupid expensive at home. The first one I ate made me pretty nauseous, which I was informed happens sometimes because of all the sugar, or not washing them well enough (I also downed a container of mango nectar juice at lunch, which probably compounded things). Apparently the local cure for that sort of stomach problem is to drink lime juice. I was confused, because Amadou and the neighbor who takes care of my villa were talking about citrons, and they came back holding a handful of baby limes. Amadou said “il faut le boire” (you have to drink it). I couldn’t figure out what he meant by drinking a lime at first, but it did seem to help a lot. File that away for future reference.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Mangoes ...

The other thing that makes me nauseous every day is my malaria medicine. I think this is in part because you have to take it on an empty stomach, but it still really sucks . On the other hand, it still sucks a lot less than getting malaria, so I can deal with it (besides, the nausea usually only lasts 15 minutes).

Bobo seems to have cornered the national market on beverages – there’s a brand of mango and mango-orange nectar called Dafani produced near Bobo and found just about all over the place (nectar = juice, they call it that in France too, and I’m not sure if there’s any difference). It also gets exported to neighboring countries. I love this stuff, which is why Amadou took me to a boutique to buy a case of it and not waste money buying it in restaurants.

Incidentally, I haven't had running water in two days. I haven't given the countries I've previously lived in enough credit for reliably having water come out of the faucet when I turn it on. I do have a newfound appreciation for running water though. Big time.