Azalai Hotel Independance Ouagadougou

... dollar that, for all Naprisca’s explanations, he still didn’t know the first thing about whose national jersey he was having on.

We went back into the taxi.

It seems to be a custom in African countries to show up in front of your bus well in advance of your departure time, like one hour or so. I don’t know exactly why, because even if giving them names the day before made sense now – for some reason they made a roll call of all ...

... on us, but everyone soon realised we had no intention of buying anything any more here. We got back into the taxi.

But I’m the most obvious target for all sorts of schemes as to how to milk me of money. Westerner as I am, and looking unlike anyone else around, people swarmed around me like flies. And they came up with all sorts of outrageous ideas. In a way you should even admire their creativity. After we had entered the car and were just about to start, a guy came up to us ...

... capitalism. He was more in favour of socialism with an accent on welfare state. But for some reason his idea of a welfare state wasn’t exactly shaped after Scandinavian model. More in the mould of eastern European communist ideas, he was increasingly leaning towards one-party system and authoritarian approach to governing. Which eventually cost him his power. Because in the best tradition of their understanding of democracy - where democracy is when the things are the way I say ...

... the window, but it was completely dark outside. Only the sound of an occasional car or motorbike could be heard and that was all. So I unfurled the mosquito net, took out my own bedding and decided it would be best to try to sleep as much as the new bed and the new country would p**mit me on my first night h**e.

My first visit to Africa ev** had just begun. In the country many people wh**e I come from nev** heard of. And in the capital city with the coolest name in the world.

... like the hamburg**s th**e, because they have an ingredient I nev** thought of: boiled potatoes! They add a c**tain texture I nev** knew could make a burg** THAT much bett**. I do not, howev**, suggest eating one immediately before a long journey on the back of a sweaty, fly-infested bus cramped between unclean (to say the v**y least) and sweaty people. Just a suggestion.

S**ge sat in the back row and gave me, oh joy, the middle seat in the second to last row. I really was sandwiched ...

... corner and every side of the road, making it near impossible for a pedestrian to pass without movement akin to dodging bullets). Mme Sirima saw me in the middle of the street and stepped out of her car to greet me as I approached her. I went in immediately for a friendly hug and she pulled me back and went in for the bisoux (four, an awkward four kisses on the cheek) and then shook my hand. The greeting was longer than I was used to. I got in the passenger seat of her car and we set off ...

... t like me at all, so throughout the walk I thought of scenarios for why I wasn't feeling well and how I was going to make myself bett**. I came up with z**o ideas. Eventually, aft** asking sev**al people, I found the Barclays Bank ATM and took out some cash. My plan was to exchange it, but I arrived in Accra too late to get to the exchange bureaus and they w**e sure to be closed on Sunday, so I just took out a lot of cedis and hoped that would be enough in the airport in Ouagadougou, or ...

... from all ov** the continent in a restaurant called L’eau vive or Wat** of Life. Our money chang**, Ousmane, whom I had met walking down the street earli** in the day, had brought his pretty wife. Appie had brought a Burkinabe filmmak** recently returned from New York whom she had met just an hour before at SHowniz, a sprawling pavement bar on Avenue Kwame Nkrumah.





The nuns, who run this particular mission, s**ved us ...

... told us that we needed to apply for the pass at least a week in advance and that she thought that we could come back next week. Luckily, the three of us are such nice and pleasant people. We chatted with her a while as she took down information from our passports and filled out a form on the computer. She mentioned that she had been trying to find someone to correspond with in Canada and that it was very difficult. She printed four copies of the ...

We decided last night at supper that today would be a day of rest. We were all too tired to have another big day of travel or activities. Dave woke up during the night with a case of diarrhoea. Ann woke up rested and very happy to have escaped the bug this time! Sanga came to pick us up at our suite at 9 AM. We left our dirty clothes to be washed by a woman at the hotel. She took it all. Sanga gets his clothes washed by ...