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.