18. Haute Volta: Orodara to Koutoura

Haute Volta[1]

These few days take place in and around Orodara, just across the border from Mali.  The other villages we visited still do not appear on any maps we can find.  With better maps and internet available now you can tell that Orodara is in  the highest part of Burkina Faso, and the part that gets the most rainfall. This explains the breadbasket feeling we got in the area, inside a country that is usually synonymous with famine. In retrospect I notice that the country is part of the highlands where the main rivers in West Africa are born.  The Niger starts to the west and then flows in a long arc north of the country.  The different Volta rivers start to the south of the Niger and flow south through Burkina Faso.

Location of Orodara, in the extreme west of what was Haute Volta and is now Burkina Faso.

 

Koloko--Orodara, Haute Volta, Wednesday, Dec. 8^th, 1982

(DAN)  We awakened with the roosters and were ready to go before the customs agents. About 07:30 we heard a feeble whistle, and out of the void, Monsieur, s’il vous plait! They were raising the Haute Volta flag on the crooked wooden pole. When it finally got to the top, the soldier blew the whistle again, and everybody relaxed. The official then had everybody take his baggage down and open the top. He then just stirred his finger through the top of each. When he got to us, he asked us where we were going and then moved on without looking at our bags. At the time we did not know about the curfew following the recent coup de etat and figured that we had spent the night at the border so that the agent could have a hearty breakfast in preparation for the rigorous search.

The Haute Volta stretch of the road was not much better, though a few km out of Orodara  we actually saw a road grader. The taxi dropped us off at the BP station, and since it was our main landmark, we found the Entzes’ right away. I asked, “Are you Donna Entz[2]?” and she said, “Are you the Robisons? You were pretty lucky; we just got in from Bobo Dioulasso last night and found your last letter. It mentioned that you would try to arrive yesterday!”

They kind of remind me of what Mommy and Daddy might have been like when Nat was a year old. Loren is 6 ft. 6 1/2, (2.00 m) quiet, and kindly, insists on devotions in the morning, just after the BBC news broadcast, that is. Donna is more gregarious, has a lot of friends in town, and chats up a storm in the market. Then there is blond little Zachariah who is always into things akin to the llama droppings Nat would get into in Bolivia.  They are long term missionaries. They, as did the CMA folks, spent a year studying in France and have spent much of the last four years learning one of the local languages.  Since they were the first workers in the area, they learned the trade language, Djula. Subsequent workers have branched into other local languages. Orodara, population 10,000, is basically one tribe with its own language which is unrelated to any other language in the area (Siamou).

Loren, Donna and Zachariah.  Their well and house in the background.

Around 11:00 we went with Donna to the market. We must have walked around till 12:30 buying little bits of food needed for local cooking and doing a lot of talking.  We’ve mentioned before about the long multiple greetings we’d seen ever since Morocco, and here is no ex­ception. Every friend she’d meet would have to greet her elaborately. Among the purchases was grain, fonio called in English, “poor man’s rice” or "hungry rice" (it looks, smells, and even tastes a little like quinua.  It it also relatively high in nutritional value.) several different kinds of beans, and balls of fat called “carite” in French. It is the oil used in all the sauces here.

For lunch they eat traditional voltaic food which always consists of grain mush and a bean or peanut sauce. People who can afford it put in meat, fish, or the ubiquitous bouillon cubes. We have been seeing this dish since Banjul. For supper they eat more Western food, and for breakfast we’ve eaten large quantities of that grain mush. Donna says that West African diet in general is superior to that of much of the rest of Africa because it is based on several different grains and peanuts as staples. Grain sorghum, millet, and this “poor man’s rice” are the most common.

That afternoon we hung loose. In the evening when Loren got back, we heard some balaphone and drum music in the distance, so we decided to go check it out. It was a funeral in a compound of about ten thatched huts and as many storage structures built round like huts and thatched, but only a meter in diameter. The drums were raised off the ground like a kettle on legs.  The music was provided by a balaphone[3] player (HELENA now) who looked to be about 15. There were three drummers, two of whom doubled on cowbells, and a little boy who sat on the other side of the balaphone and played a repetitive counter melody.  Dancing to this music was a circle of women (with one man who seemed to be just joking around) that shuffled around and around.

Orodara, Haute Volta, Thursday, 9 December, 1982

(HELENA)  Since Donna felt that it would not be proper for Dan to go with her on a visit to a woman, we left him at home to get caught up on the journal (right now I am a week behind). The woman we visited is Muslim, the first of two wives.  She has had 17 preg­nancies, 8 of which are alive. This last child is almost 3 years old but weighs the same as Zacariah, the Entzes’ 13-month-old child. Donna had accompanied her to see the doctor and is making regular visits to her to try to help with all of the complicated medical instructions.

The doctor here (a Volteian who studied in France) thinks that the baby’s main problem is a terrible vitamin deficiency. This visit Donna took a box of complicated glass vials of vitamins and explained how to use them. The woman brought out a bunch of things they’d given her at the hospital, naturally with no instructions. I couldn’t tell you everything there was, but I know there was powdered milk which Donna made up in a glass to demonstrate, and there was some very salty dried fish. Donna brought some fish home to see if she could find a way to use it.

It’s just mighty good to be in a home again. Donna and Loren couldn’t be kinder or more hospitable.   Just at supper time (as you can imagine, there is always a Mennonite quantity of food) another couple arrived. These were visitors they had met when they had been in Bobo Dioulasso the past week.  Bryn and Lynn had been in Tunisia with the Peace Corps.  It was funny how Dan and I got to conversing with them about prices, exchange rates, and things that, as Donna later said, had nothing to do with the “real Africa” that they know.  It just shows how superficial our conversation with fellow travelers has become[4].

Orodara,  Haute Volta, Friday, 10 December, 1982

(DAN)  Things were a little crowded as the Entzes commented that they average about two visitors twice a year, and here they had four at one time. The others were to leave again the next morning, so we made sure that we shouldered our share of the work.  The couple kind of reminded me of a side to U. S. life that I’d forgotten about. They live off a small farm in Pennsylvania, started a consumer co-op, made yogurt while they were here and said, “Wow! This is great!” over and over. They are traveling a little differently from us.  They had $17,000 saved before they came, and they are buying a lot of crafts and having things made and mailing it all back.  On the other hand, they got tired of the ups and downs of public transport and are trying to hitch their way around.  They are only the second married couple we’ve met traveling in Africa or Spain.

Most of the day was spent resting, writing, and walking around town. Donna baked some home made bread; it really hit the spot!

Orodara, Haute Volta, Saturday, 11 December, 1982

(DAN)  It is market day in Orodara, so after washing some of our clothes, we spent the morning seeing the additional sights in the market. One of the things that was really different in our experience were the booths of used clothes. About six people had mounds of used clothing, the merchants must originally just pay for the transpor­tation because pieces of good, US used clothing sold for under a dollar. One merchant had a cow bell and a winning smile, and people were crowding around.

There was an even greater variety of food, both in its original state and prepared. I counted six different grains and at least six kinds of legume.  We bought a portion of cater­pillars, black and dried, to try.  They remind me of a cross between ispis (tiny dried fish common in Bolivia) and liver. We also ate some fritters made from bean flour. They wet the beans, pound them to flour, dry them, and then make the fritters from flour and water.

In the afternoon Helena and I took Loren’s motorcycle out south of town to see the exten­sive mango and citrus orchards out in that direction. I have wondered how the mango trees survive in the lands with 7-9 months of drought. They apparently have roots long enough to reach down to the water table at 30-50 feet.  Citrus trees cannot make it, so they have to be watered.

           

Loren had offered his motorcycle to us to make the 50 km. trip to Koutora where the two linguists have started their work; however a few kilometers of the road made up our minds.  They are very sandy and I felt that it was too much responsibility given the risk of spilling and damaging the motorcycle. 

We have always considered Bolivia to be as “underdeveloped” as any country, but Haute Volta has us beaten[5].  Orodara is around 10,000 strong, but the school system only goes to the 6th grade.  I cannot think of a town in Bolivia of more than 1,000 that does not have a high school, much less junior high. Also, the way the system is here, if you fail or get sick at any point during those first six years, you cannot get a second chance. Likewise, no matter how good the students are, only a quota can go on to junior high (in Bobo) and of those only a quota go on to high school. On the other hand the only thing open to high school graduates here is to work for the government, and it can only afford so many positions. So, apparently there is no rush to increase the number of high school students,

Orodara-Mahun,  Sunday, 12 December, 1982

(HELENA) After a good Sunday morning breakfast of oatmeal, Donna rode the bike to church along with Zacariah while the rest of us walked.  We understood the opening and closing prayers (French) but the rest, a lot of singing and the sermon, was in Djula. For the most part the African kids were very still, whereas the missionary kids (one Entz and two Remperts) were a little restless.

This is the one day when the Entzes have no help in the house (other days there is a woman in the morning to wash, clean a bit, and cook lunch, Haute Volta style, and a girl to take care of Zacariah) so we had a good old left-over meal and a relaxing afternoon.  In fact we had a very pleasant time washing the dishes while I played the guitar, and later Loren brought out a papaya for all of us to sit around and eat.

Dan and I spent the afternoon getting ready for our trip out to Koutoura where Ann and Gail, the two new linguists are. Gail had invited us, so Dan and I decided to take the market truck out.  It goes through there every six days on the way to a big market.  We would go out on Sunday evening, spend Monday there, and walk back to Orodara through the bush.

We were half ready and Dan was tracing a map of the area when Donna came running in to say that the truck was here more than an hour earlier than the earliest we expected. We rushed around, and Donna and Janet, a Peace Corps Volunteer who had come over to lend us her compass,  rushed to get a meal on the table.  When we got out to the road, the truck had left us. Grrr!  Loren had gone with us, and he found that possibly another truck would be through. Dan and I decided to wait a while.  Loren came back after an hour, and we were just deciding to try next morning when another truck drove up. It wasn’t going to Koutoura, but it would let us off in Mabun, 10 km from Koutoura.

We “jumped on” (I put that in quotation marks because I am a bit awkward at getting up into a high truck, especially when it is dark) and before we were even settled, we sped off into the night.  I couldn’t see, so at first I was standing on one foot, wedged in somehow and holding onto the camera bag and a cardboard box of things for Ann and Gail. Gradually, we settled in after Dan flashed the light on. Several people got off, leaving more room, but unfortunately I ended up sitting in some kerosene.

After a rather rough ride of almost 2 hours, the truck plopped us down in Mahun. Dan asked a boy where to find the road to Koutoura, and we set off.  There was no moon, so we walked only until we were barely out of town. We started to lay down our rain poncho-ground cloth, but when we discovered that the grass stubble was puncturing it, we decided to be brave and put the sleeping bags down without it. Maureen would have been proud of us because we were always so careful about getting our things dirty.  She would put her sleeping bag down anywhere she needed it and think no more about it.

Turnoff to Koutoura where we spent the night. Guinea savannah vegetation.

Mahun-Koutoura, Haute Volta,  Monday, 13 December 1982

(DAN)  I had a restless night, hearing animals stirring, etc. We camped too close to the road about 20 feet, so when a pedestrian would pass, it set off one’s imagination. When it got light, we discovered we had slept in a burnt-over pasture and the bottom of the sleeping bags had gotten (to Helena’s infinite revulsion) sooty.  The walk was supposed to be about 10 kms., and when we didn’t get there in two hours, we began to worry, The old Dan Robison could hit 5 km/h with a full pack any day, It is true that we both had sorish throats and I was getting hoarse, but still that was no excuse for taking 2 hrs, and 20 minutes to walk said distance.

Dan and termite mound on the road to Koutoura, Haute Volta

As usual, walking through the countryside, we began to notice things we had not before. All the fields here are composed of some sort of mounds about 20” high and 36” wide at the base. Beans, okra, millet, tobacco, etc., all are grown on these mounds. There is about a foot between mounds which I would think would be a waste of space, Loren has since said that he has never gotten an explanation for it other than “that is the way it has always been.” They look like corn hills that the Indians used, but Loren says that they do not fertilize them.

Mounds with beans in the forground and millet in the background

Also, there was not one house between the two villages. There were fields or burned pasture the entire distance, but not even any storage huts. After ten km of this scene,  Koutoura was made up of hundreds of huts and storage bins about 4 feet from each other as if land were at a premium.  Nobody owns land; it is divided up by the chief  “according to need.”

Koutoura, Haute Volta.  Mango trees in the foreground

 There began our day of being gawked at. We were shown right to the place where the two women live, and a crowd began to gather.  As we sat inside their rooms, kids started crowding in, and pretty soon about 10 were sitting in the doorway, and another group stood outside just staring at us. Helena and I later went off behind the village, but we were soon joined by more than 20 kids, just staring. They all followed us when Ann showed us the village and took us to see the chief, but the record came about 5 p.m. when Helena and I went down to draw water for our baths. The well happens to be on the school property, and by the time I had pulled one up bucket, there were (by Helena’s count) 85 kids and one teacher in a circle around us, staring and laughing. Then they let the fifth grade out, and we lost count. About 50 kids stuck around the front porch of the house until dark, and even then we had to close the door because kids kept piling in.

Among the children there was a small boy in a crimson sleeveless t-shirt that fit him like a long dress.  It said rather proudly “HARVARD”.

Ann and Gail were glad to see us because we brought mail, banana bread and muffins, but the general situation could have been awkward. They have only been out in the village for three weeks, still eat with the chief and do not have things set up to entertain. We were expecting as much, and Gail had mentioned it when she invited us, but they felt bad about not being able to feed us, etc.  However, at supper they headed into the village to eat and were met by one of the chief’s wives with food for all of us to eat at the house.

They not only arrived just three weeks ago but are the first and only linguist-translator-evangelists working for the Mennonite Church. They are 21 and 28, and in an isolated Senufu village about to immerse themselves in the language. Only two years ago Gail was working in a bank in Whitewater, Kansas. The village is supposedly animist, but it has a small mosque on one side.  We got to sit in on one of their linguistic sessions in the afternoon.  They have a sophisticated tape recorder that runs on solar-charged batteries, and they had their “informant” going through the number system at different rhythms, etc. They have a lot of hard work ahead!

We spent the night in the Maison de Jeunesse on the school property. It looked like any other round thatched hut from the outside, but we were informed of its higher function in red, sprawling letters on the inside wall.  Even as we spread our sleeping bags, we had an audience of about 40 adults, and it was not until I insisted Bonne nuit! and shut the door that they disappeared into the darkness.

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[1] Though the country later changed its name to Burkina Faso, we continue to refer to it as Haute Volta, because that was its name at the time of this account.

[2] Lauren and Donna Entz were the brother and sister-in-law of a fellow student at Kansas State University.

[3] http://www.coraconnection.com/pages/balaphone.html to check out images and an explanation

[4] It is also clear in retrospect that our French was not sufficient to converse well with local people so other travelers or religious workers were are main source of information, beyond the Africa on the Cheap book).

[5] In 2012 Bolivia is considered a medium country in terms of the Human Development Index, ranked 108 out of 187 countries, while Burkina Faso is ranked 181 out of 187.