19 Haute Volta: Koutoura - Bobo Dioulasso - Ouagadougou - Niger Border

Koutoura-Orodara, Haute Volta, Tuesday, 14 December, 1982

(DAN) At about 06:30 we got a knock on the door of the Maison de Jeuness. It was a teacher who lived next door. “Good morning,” he said in English, “may I speak with you a moment?” When I stepped outside, he said, “Do you desire your toilette with hot or cold water?” When we told later told Loren, he laughed and told us we were lucky they didn’t knock at 05:00 when they take their baths.   Actually it is earlier as Muslims have a prayer at 05:00, and they have to bathe first.

Koutoura Village, Haute Volta.

(HELENA)  We both have been nursing colds, and Dan’s overnight seemed much worse, perhaps even flu.  When Dan and I got up, we knew we weren’t in any kind of shape to strike out into the bush for at least two hard days of walking, so after a delicious breakfast of banana bread and bran muffins, we set off to walk back to Mahun, albeit by a different route.  We went east 5 km to another small village, Kangala.  We made an effort to find paths that by-passed the village although several people did see us and we caused a stir.  We even made two little kids cry just from the sight of us. We are most definitely off the beaten tourist track.  We then went north the 10 km. to Mahun. We had started out rather ambitiously with Dan carry­ing his pack for an hour and a ten minute rest.   Then I carried his pack for only 40 minutes, and he had to carry it the rest of that hour.  Fortunately, we made better time today, but after our lunch of bread, peanut butter, oranges, and lots of water.  I discovered that my hip was bothering me. We walked about 10 km. east toward Orodara, Dan carrying the pack the whole time.  We had already decided that we might as well take any transport that came along since we were on the main road anyway. When a beer and soft drink truck came along, we gladly clambered aboard.

Talk about a rough ride! The road was bad enough, but this driver liked to sail right along no matter what obstacles we encountered.  At the first stop, the driver whistled up to the helper and had him give him a bottle of the beer, Bravolta Beer, if you please. You can imagine that didn’t slow him up any.  Then the helper helped himself to a warm bottle of Bravolta, so we really felt in good hands. Several times Dan’s pack jumped a couple of feet in the air. Fortunately, the helper offered me (very gentlemanly) a soft bundle to sit on, so all I had to watch out for were the overhanging branches.

About 10 km before Orodara we went through some kind of slippery sand.  Unfortunately, a boy was riding toward us on a bicycle on the same slippery sand and on the same side of the road.  We heard something fall, and looking back, we could see that he had fallen. We drove on a good distance with the helper and a fellow passenger laughing up a storm; however, the helper eventually had the driver turn around to see how the boy was.  We had apparently run into his handle bars, but I don’t think that he was really injured.

Loren saw us arrive a day earlier than we’d expected, so by the time we got to the house, he had already set out four chairs and was cutting into a luscious, big papaya. What a welcome!

Orodara, Haute Volta, Wednesday, 15 December, 1982

(DAN)  It was a day of washing, writing (7 days in the journal) and convalescing.  Helena and I don’t feel terribly bad, but it takes me about an hour of coughing, blowing, etc., to clear my chest, throat, and nose out.  It is embarrassing because we are so seldom sick, yet we, especially I, have not felt completely well during the entire stay in Orodara.  For supper we went over to the Rempel’s and had another delicious Mennonite meal. The main course, zucchini omelet, was a recipe from none other than More with Less which also gets regular use at the Entzes’, We had papaya pie, most delicious.  

Orodara-Bobo Dioulasso, Thursday, 16 December, 1982

(HELENA)  We got up at 6:00 and had a good send-off breakfast of local cereal and local grapefruit.  Loren went to confirm that the Premiere Occasion was leaving at 8:00 while we finished getting ready.  We got to the pick- up in plenty of time, especially since we had to wait till 9:30 for somebody to arrive who had come to leave their luggage and disappeared.

Our trip route: road travel in pink and rail in orange.  Base map from Wikipedia

It was a very short two hour trip. We thought we “had it made” because Loren had drawn us a map to show us how to get from the gare to the CMA guest house.   Unfortunately, the pick-up dropped us off at a gas station that was not the gare. We wandered around three of the sides of the market before a priest at the Catholic mission told us exactly where to go. In the meantime Dan had the foresight to slip into a bank RIGHT before their 11:30 closing time. Whew!

We arrived at the Mission Protestante at lunchtime, but since both Dan and I were desperately in need of cleaning up, we went ahead and knocked on the door of the house of the woman in charge.  She said all the rooms were full, BUT two rooms were to be vacated that afternoon. She went ahead, however, and gave us the key to the kitchen.

Dan went to look for something for lunch, and right when he returned, the house guy[1] told us we could occupy room 3. Talk about luxury--clean sheets, bedspreads, hot shower, toilet seat cover, soap, everything!  The kitchen is especially a luxury.  Mighty nice to be able to cook after 3 months (exactly 3 months ago today we left Winfield).  Best of all are the three Reader’s Digest Condensed Books that we found in the room. After lunch we proceeded to go into an orgy of light reading.

In the afternoon we went to the market.  Most special among our purchases were: cooking bananas (plantains) and zucchini.  (DAN)  Since we have “full run” of the CMA motel kitchen, we bought a lot of staples that we haven’t had all trip—rice and vegetables to be cooked.  The kitchen is complete and clean.  It has two four-burner stoves, two refrigerators, two sinks, and three tables that seat six each. Missionaries of other denominations and “decent” travelers are allowed to use the facilities whenever there is room.  CMA people pay 400 CFA per person per night; other missionaries pay 700 CFA: and “decent” travelers 1500 CFA.   Bryn and Lynn must have mentioned that we were MK’s because they have charged us the 700 price. This includes the kitchen, large rooms, clean sheets and towels, soap, a fan, private bathroom including hot showers from individual gas hot water heaters. 700 CFA= $2.  Aside from the four motel rooms, there are two houses for missionaries, an office building, storage rooms, house guy quarters, and the church in the compound.  Not the least are the gardens of flowering and ornamental bushes crowned with a frangi pani tree blooming in the middle.

As we settled between the flowered sheets after a hot shower, the long train ride to Bamako seemed a long way in the past.

Bobo Dioulasso, Haute Volta, Friday, 17 December, 1982

(DAN)  Helena and I hit the streets to look for banks and exchange rates, They have the same money, CFA, in Haute Volta, Senegal, Niger, Ivory Coast and Central African Republic,  and the rate has been going down since we left Dakar. We never did find a satisfactory rate, but we did see a lot more of the town.

It is amazing how much Bobo Dioulasso is like Bamako.  At least the new part is composed

of straight, wide streets with a strip of pavement down the middle, followed by strips of dirt, lines of trees, and the open storm sewers. One difference is that Bobo is built on the square except for four diagonal streets radiating from the big railway station. The effect of the organized line of trees arching over the streets is pleasant, but sad in a quiet, dusty way.

Bobo Dioulasso Street view

We checked the price of trains to Ougadougou, and then shuffled over to the taxi park to price that mode of transportation. As usual, train is slightly cheaper and likely slower.

By afternoon our flu-like symptoms had not improved, so we decided to stay two extra days here in Bobo convalescing at the guest house.  I don’t believe that I mentioned the lending library they have that we shall look into. We spent a lot of time cooking lunch and supper. It is extremely therapeutic after three months of eating in cheap hotel rooms.

CMA Guest house and decent traveler Helena, Bobo Dioulasso.

Bobo Dioulasso, Haute Volta, Saturday, 18 Dec., 1982

(HELENA) This was mostly a day of rest, doing a lot of reading, some writing, and going to market again. This time we found some grain fonio[2] and some dry beans, but we really had to look hard to find them. When we cooked them up, it was crunchy with grit, but it was good. Once again Dan thought to flavor the beans with orange and lemon peel.

(DAN)  We’ve commented on the hot shower here in Bobo Dioulasso.   Actually, we had hot showers in both Orodara and Koutoura.  Every afternoon Loren would build a fire in his Lorena stove (with a hole in the mud right above the fire and several other “secondary burners” that take advantage of the heat from the fire) and at sundown enough water from the well would be hot for all of us to “shower” (pour water over oneself with a gourd.)

Bobo Dioulasso, Haute Volta,  Dec, 19th, 1982

(DAN)  Another languorous day of convalescence. We read, cooked, ate and went exploring in the afternoon.  Today we struck out by the old mosque into the old quarter of town. It is not tree-lined except for the ever present “mangales.”  It kind of reminded me of Navajo archi­tecture with thick mud walls, flat roofs built on several levels.  From there we walked through a newer, wide open “European” sector of town with a lot of military-use buildings and more frangi pani trees than I’ve ever seen before. Most are in full flower though they have lost all their leaves.

Bobo Dioulasso mosque and colonial building

Back at the guest house we met Gail’s friend, Francois, and two Wycliffe linguists whom she had been visiting at the famous Songhai near Mopti, They are working on the translation of the Bible in Dogon.  It is the same tribe that I mentioned in connection with the CMA mission­ary and the French anthropologists. One of the things we discussed was that there are so many female linguists. She was under the impression that the great majority of missionaries in general are single women. We decided this must be so with the “faith missions” but not with mainline churches.

Bobo Dioulasso--Ouagadougou, Haute Volta, Mon., Dec. 20, 1982

(HELENA)  It was strange to set off this morning with an ordained departure time. We haven’t taken anything with a set schedule since the famous train to Bamako, and that was 17 hours late. It was thus a comfort that this train was not on time either; although an hour and 20 minutes of delay is not bad. In general the train system here, “RAN,” looks better run than the Senegal-Mali system.  For one thing there are several trains daily rather than two per week. It also helps that the stations (most are with the architecture we’ve seen here and in Mali with pointed domes) are newer and someone obviously tries to keep them clean.

It looked as though the cars were full, but after the dust settled, we managed to get good seats.  The remarkable thing about our seven-hour plus trip was all the eating that went on.  Every time we’d stop, people would offer things through the window.  Sometimes it would be peanuts or boiled yams, but toward lunch-time we made several stops where they sold whole roasted chickens.  Everybody ate those with great relish following which they would rinse their hands and mouth with water they carry in Mobil Oil plastic jugs. Dan was rather displeased to get hit by water as the man in front would spit out the window.  We ate the bread and leftover beans we had brought along.  The French bread was delicious after the two-week rest we have had from it.

(HELENA) With today’s trip (Dec. 20) we have definitely left the Orodara fruit basket behind. The terrain got drier and drier as we neared Ouagadougou. (By the way, we almost had the promised “Christmas in 0uagadougou” which was our motto as we left the US, but we had agreed to try to meet Maureen in Niamey for Christmas.) There are still quite a few trees, but they are the thorny, more desert types. We still see mango trees, but not in such pro­fusion.

The villages we went through were similar to Koutoura except that the “concessions” (houses grouped in a circle with connecting walls) were not so bunched together as they were in Koutoura. We saw another change in the storage huts. Rather than being made of mud on mud stilts, these are made with woven mats on wooden stilts.

Donna had said that there isn’t much bribing done in Haute Volta, but today we watched an army man check identification. Any little thing wrong with it, and he would keep it until he was offered a suitable bribe.

We got to town close to sundown. We followed “Geoff’s” suggestions on hotels, and Dan found the “Palais de la Juenesse,” complete with original art on the walls. We went out to eat for the first time in ages. The restaurant was a little strange because most everybody seemed-to come in to make some sort of deals over a drink. Naturally, Dan and I thought, “Aha, drugs,” but it may be perfectly innocent. As it was, 10 or so young Europeans came and went while we were there. We had heard that there are very cheap flights from France directly to Ouagadougou (pronounced “Waga doogoo” with broad a’s as in wall) and that could explain the large numbers of young foreigners we see here. We have been bothered by drug hustlers for the first time since Dakar.

(DAN) In fact just after I had paid for the hotel and was walking back to pick Helena up, I was stopped from behind. I didn’t quite recognize him, but he said he worked at the “Palais” which I had just left.  He was on his way to buy medicine and wondered if I could spot him first 780 and then 369 CFA so he would have enough to buy the medicine. There is always that nagging chance that he is telling the truth, and he did have a prescription, albeit somewhat dog-eared.  In fact on close inspection, the amounts he was asking had been penned in a different ink, so I slipped on my dumb gringo face and pretended I did not know what was going on.  I kept insisting that I’d already paid for the hotel, etc. Even so, it was hard to shake the dude.

Ouagadougou, Haute Volta, Tuesday, 21 December, 1982

The Palais’ mattress was too imaginatively landscaped for me, and I had a hard night on top of the continuing cough. Helena, as usual, slept very soundly.  After delectable glasses of cafe au lait, we headed out to garner some information. Findings: 1. The gare routier is 10 kms out of the city;  2. The exchange rate has continued to drop. We walked over to the U, S. Embassy to register and see about gamma globulin shots. Ever since Shirley’s father died while we were in Spanish Sahara, and the U. S. Embassy could not find her, we have decided to register whenever possible.  We were finally goaded into looking into gamma globulin shots when at our hotel we have seen rats and urine slime around the faucet where dishes are rinsed. Even though Bryn and Lynn got free g. g, shots from the Embassy in Tunis, the doctor here is not even allowed to consult with us tourists.

We arrived, at the bank at 11:05, but the person would not change our money.  “We’re closed; come back at 15:00.”  When I pointed out that the sign on the door clearly said “Open ‘till 11: 30. 15:30-17:00 for personnel only,” he still insisted that we come back later. Maddening!

After lunch I took a cab (the only way to the distant gare) out to inquire into trans­port to Niamey. Due to the curfew, they only leave in the morning, so we will leave tomorrow. It is supposed to get us to Niamey the next day at noon. We have to spend the night at the border.

We spent the rest of the afternoon seeing more of “Ouaga,” including the National Museum and the large Roman Catholic establishment.  The museum was contained entirely in four rooms, each about 12 feet by 20 feet. There were two explained exhibits, one was a small Voltaic flag taken to the moon by Apollo 11 and given out of the kindness of R. Nixon’s heart to Upper Volta. The other exhibit was a meteorite that had fallen in U. V., been examined by institutions in the U. S. and returned.  There was a room of costumes, one of masks, one of pottery, and not a word of explanation. It is set up as in Dakar so that you have to pay one of the caretakers to show you around.

The Catholic establishment is very large, the equivalent of four enormous city blocks.  The cathedral and religious quarters are very large brick structures like those you might have found in Chicago in the 20’s or 30’s. According to the plaque on a statue, Catholic work was started in Upper Volta in 1901. They have several large schools including La Salle.

Today in a book store where we went to get Newsweek, we found a good collection of Tin Tin books in French. I had never seen 3 or 4 of them in any language. (Sigh)

“Ouaga” in general has many fewer trees than Bobo, much more traffic, and an incredible, ever-present cloud of dust that does not settle too well with our afflicted throats.

This morning we were surprised to see a full-sized buzzard glide down and land in front of the Gran Mosque on one of the main streets; however, this afternoon we saw three perched on the roof of the food market, two in a mango tree close by, and a sixth gliding around under the market roof.  We’re talking 3-4 ft. wing span.

Ouagadougou--Katchari, Haute Volta, Wednesday, 22 December, 1982

(HELENA)  We were only half an hour late in leaving for the “auto gare,” but later we began to wish that we had slept as much as our hearts desired.  We arrived there not long after 7:00, thinking we might have to fight for places in the bus.  We had another good cafe au lait avec pain and continued to wait much longer before the chef de la gare showed up.

Dan was finally able to get our tickets at about 9:30, but they would not start loading baggage for another age.  Suddenly we realized that a bunch of people had arrived and were also waiting to have their luggage loaded. While we waited, there were the usual beggars and sellers.  Ever since Sikasso, Mali, we’ve been seeing a lot of kids begging left-over food or coins who carry around a tin can with a handle of wire or string.  The new thing here were several young men selling women’s all-weather coats. You see a lot of men wearing them (never women) and today we saw how and where they buy them. Somehow tons of used or flawed clothing come here from the USA, and one of the popular items is these raincoats[3]. Today we saw a guy buy a BRIGHT orange, A-line coat. We also saw people buying a bright green one and several types of beige and black.  Invariably they will buy one that’s just a bit too small. I guess our laughing at that is akin to local people’s laughing at a woman tourist wearing say, a lace cap that only Muslim men wear.  Once those coats were bought (several also bought knit caps and balaclavas) they kept them on the whole HOT, HOT TRIP!

Just after we’d bought our tickets, a Dutch man came by, talked to the people in charge, asked us when we thought the bus would leave (our first bus since Morocco) then left. We assumed he’d decided not to go because we all boarded the bus at 10:00 and, yep, stopped to get gasoline. We then went through town to what must have been the driver’s house. It was quite a surprise to see Justin (Dutch friend) show up. That delayed us quite a long time because he’d bought a ticket but hadn’t thought to reserve a seat. The bus was already chock full, and the driver kept trying to persuade someone to give Justin his seat to no avail.  Justin ended up perched precariously somehow behind the people sitting beside the driver. Everyone else was stuffed in!

We finally left at 11:45 and within 45 minutes we’d all had to pile off the bus to present identification three times, thus setting the tone for the whole trip. We soon discovered that most everyone on the bus had Niger identification papers and, and quite a few of them had some sort of defect; so each stop meant a long delay for settling the appropriate bribes.

We were pleasantly surprised at how long the pavement lasted. We had pavement till 18:00 when we got to Fada N’Gourma.  All of that time the climate seemed to be getting drier. It was a WARM drive because we were sitting on the south side of the bus right within reach of the sun. That is where we had our sixth identification check.

(DAN) Since our first day in Haute Volta was started with raising the flag, it was most appropriate that we waited for an hour in Fada N’Gourma for the flag to be lowered at the Gendarmerie. It was only our 9th police check and the fifth that we had to pile out and form a neat double line in the sun while the “authorities” soberly checked the identity papers. Justin said that the business of road stops has only been this bad since the coup.  Ah yes, they not only check papers, but three times they had the helper get down the first aid kit and an antique fire extinguisher for inspection.

(HELENA)  Right out of town we stopped for everyone to pray and for the driver to install his lights properly. Then we really hit it.  Dan and I have seen plenty of dirt roads in our time, but the washboard on this stretch was historically awful. It was continuous except where we’d hit huge ruts that we’d have to go around, and since our bus had a lot of windows, it made a GREAT RACKET. We finally pulled into Kantachari at the border with Niger at about half past midnight. Dan and I took turns lying with our heads on the other’s lap, so we managed to sleep some in spite of several snorers. Others got out their woven mats and slept outside.  We weren’t able to establish ourselves the way we had at the Mali-Haute Volta border because this time our packs had to stay up on top.

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[1] This is a euphemism for “boy” which was still in full use in 1982.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonio

[3] We did not realize it but we were witnessing our first used clothes markets, re-selling US and European clothes.  This has become a major institution around the world, and our own town in the Bolivian Amazon has a very large selection used clothes establishments.