Rain

Rainy season has begun

I think the last time I wrote about the weather I said it had rained a bit, but not enough for people to start planting. What they did do, to get ready for cultivating and planting, was to clean up their fields. When you buy something here, whether it is a pile of tomatoes or loaf of bread, the merchant will put it in a black plastic bag. All winter I have been appalled at the number of these black plastic bags that have been blowing around all over the place. People just drop them on the ground or throw them over their walls as if they were biodegradable and would disappear after a while. The first step in preparing the fields is to go around the field, pick up the bags and burn them. Then, if there are stalks and roots from last year’s crops they are cut out and burned as well.

The next thing is to prepare the soil for the seeds. You can do this the old fashioned way, with dabas, as these ladies are doing here:

A fair number of people in my village have mules and plows, which they can use to cultivate a bit deeper with a lot less human effort. Good neighbors will sometimes loan their plow to friends after they have finished with their field.

After the dirt in the field is loosened, you have plant the seeds. If you look closely in their hands you can see the peanuts these ladies are planting.

After this, you have to wait for the rains. Too much and not enough are both bad.

Donkeys

I mentioned that donkeys are used to pull plows, and showed you a picture of one at work. There seem to be quite a few donkeys around my village. I sometimes hear them braying at night, and often during the day. They seem to be more noisy at some times than at others. I am not sure if it is mothers calling to babies, like the sheep do, or if the noise is a mating call. I had never heard a donkey bray before I came to Burkina Faso, and I don’t know exactly how to describe the sound. First of all, it is not a simple hee-haw like the sound we made as kids. It is incredibly loud and seems like it should be coming from a bigger animal. It almost seems like the poor animal can’t get the sound out without a lot of painful effort.

The donkeys are mostly used to pull two wheeled carts called “charrettes.” The girls who bring me my water use this kind of cart to carry my 200 liters of water. Kids and adults use them to transport the mud bricks used for building and the sand and clay used to make the mud mortar that goes between the bricks. People also use them to haul wood from the bush and things they want to sell at the market. After the kids have delivered the loads, they sometimes have races down the road, standing up in the carts, like charioteers. The donkeys do not have halters or bridles with reins to guide them. The driver carried a switch, cut from some handy tree. If you want to donkey to move to the right, you hit it on the left side, and if you want it to go left, you hit it on the right side. Donkeys are dragged from the court yard by a rope tied to one front leg. They are allowed to wander free after the harvest, but now that things have been planted again, they are staked to the ground with this rope around the leg to some spot far enough away from crops that they can’t get them.

More about black plastic bags

I am happy to report that there are some enterprising ladies in Burkina Faso who have found a use for these ubiquitous black plastic bags. They cut strips from them and weave them into a fabric to make purses and wallets. I wish more people were doing this. It would help clean up the country! Here are some samples, modeled by some of my fellow volunteers:

A Purse

A wallet

A toiletries bag

A Bike Story

BAD PEOPLE EVERYWHERE

In one of our first meetings with the directorice of the Peace Corps here in Burkina Faso, she reminded us that there are bad people everywhere. Even though most Burkinabè are generous and honest, they have their fair share of criminal types. Volunteers do tend to get a bit romantic about the good qualities of the Burkinabè and to forget the fact that every culture has bad guys. I have encountered two so far, but not face to face, thank goodness. A couple of months ago, after I had locked the gate in the wall of my courtyard for the night, I went to my "office" to check my e-mail. When I returned to my living room, I could not find my cell phone, which I was sure I had left on the table. Someone climbed over the wall and quietly entered the house to take it. Since then I have started to lock my door whenever I am in the house, and I have given up sleeping in the court yard. A friend told me his cell phone was taken from right beside him while he sleept outside. It is kind of a nuisance, but I was lucky that it was just someone snagging that small item, and I was not threatened or hurt.

The second encounter was a couple of weekends ago. I had a skin rash in reaction to an antibiotic I was taking and the Peace Corps doctor asked me to go to the medical center to have the doctor there take a look at it. I rode my bike there and left it in the "parking" while I went into the compound and waited for her to be ready to see me. While I waited, a man entered the courtyard and came over to me. He said something I did not understand and waved his hands by his ears. I thought he was looking for help with pain in his ears, but others have told me that was to indicate that he was deaf and dumb (which he was not). After I saw the doctor I went to get my bike, and it was gone. He had told the kid who was watching the bikes that I had said he should take my bike to town and get something for him. He left his bike there in place of mine, but it turned out he had stolen that one from someone else. The Peace Corps bikes are quite distinctive so the police and gendarmes both thought they might be able to find it, but sofor a couple of weeks there was no luck on that front. From now on I will be locking my bicycle (the original or a replacement) even when I leave it in guarded parking. Sad to say, there are, in fact, bad people everywhere. I am really happy to report that most of the people here seem appalled at the idea that someone would steal it and they have been supportive and have spread the word about it.

Just when you give up hope
I was in Ouagadougou for a work related activity I will tell you all about later, and decided while I was there I would pick up a new bicycle to replace the one that was stolen. Because the bike was not locked and I did not have a "parking" receipt, the Peace Corps rules say I am responsible for it and have to pay for a replacement. I would hate to see them try to collect for the poor father of the little boy who was fooled into letting the thief take my bike, so I was happy to pay for it. Well, not really HAPPY, but willing. They gave me a used bicycle and charged me the equivalent of $200 for it, which is a just about half of the value of a new bike like this.

The day after I paid for it, I got a call from the Gendarmes in the big city about 23 kilometers away from my village (I will just call it X for simplicity, because we are not supposed to give out any information about where we live) saying they had found my bicycle. I was going to take a bus to X to retrieve it, but when I found I could get a taxi to take me from the capital to X for about $40, I decided to go that way. I am sure glad I took him up on it. When we got to X we stopped at the Gendarmerie at the edge of town assuming that would be where my bike was. It turns out there are actually three different gendarmeries in town and my bike as at the one on the other side of town. The bus station was half way between them, and if I had taken the bus I would have had a long walk just to learn that the bicycle was at the other place.

When we arrived the bike was sitting there in front of a pile of about 30 bikes. I am not sure if they were all stolen and the owners had not been located, or what. I had asked the bureau to print up an receipt/proof of ownership and with that and my Peace Corps ID there was no problem, We put it in the trunk and headed out. The driver told me he was surprised that there was no charge. He said if it had been his bike they would have demanded payment for their trouble. Go figure.

The front tire was completely flat and the bike was in first gear on each gear shifter, so I expect he rode it that way for a while. The break cable was frayed and the gel seat is also somewhat the worse for wear. Surprisingly, there was a new set of hand grips on the handle bars. I guess he stole them from somebody else. The Peace Corps put on a new tire and break cable and a volunteer who was leaving the country gave me a slightly used seat, so it is almost as good as it was before its adventure.

The Peace Corps safety and security folks talked to the gendarmes and found out that they had been chasing this guy, who had stolen something else. Apparently the tire went flat and he abandoned the bike. He got away, but the gendarmes rescued my bike. Go gendarmes!

Janet D. Larsen, Ph. D,
Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychology
John Carroll University
Peace Corps Volunteer
Burkina Faso, West Africa

Kid’s birthday party

Remember the parties you had when you were a kid? Imagine being a girl here in a village in Burkina Faso on your 9th birthday. There is what it would have been like. When you get home from school at 5:30, some of the neighborhood kids are already there, waiting for you. While you go into the house to wash and put on your party clothes, they sit quietly on a bench, waiting (something African kids do amazingly well).

Your best friend goes into the house with you and puts on the clothes you wore to school, because they are prettier than what she was wearing. When you have on your party dress, your adopted “extra grandma,” the Peace Corps Volunteer, takes your picture.

Your mom has brought the tables and adult chairs out onto the porch and put on the nice table cloths. There is a big plate of the kind of shrimp chips we get in Chinese restaurants as appetizers that your mother made. She gets a package of little disks at the boutique and drops them into hot oil. They expand and get crispy as they cook.

After a while your father rides into the courtyard with a bag of things from town. He went to look for candles and something for the adult guests to drink. Your mom and big cousin, who is living with you so she can attend the Lycée, put each candle on a little piece of cardboard to make it stand up and to catch the wax. Your mom puts a big thermal insulated bowl and a couple of metal cooking pots on the table, along with a few plates and silverware for any adult guests who might want to use them, and dinner is ready. You look at the table with your nine candles spread all around and wonder how you are going to blow them out.

Fortunately your mom and dad are joking with you, and they gather them together so you have a chance to blow them all out at once. A few people try to sing “Joyeux Anniversaire” (AKA Happy Birthday to You) but they do not seem to know the tune. You try to blow out the candles, and, success! Maybe your wish will come true.

Your mom spreads a mat on the porch for the kids to eat on and reminds you all that you need to wash your hands. While everyone is running to the water buckets, Mom gets a big bowl of spaghetti ready putting sauce on the top. When everyone is gathered around the bowl, you all dig in, eating only with your right hands, of course. It is hard for you American friend to believe how quiet and cooperative all the kids are. She takes their picture, too.

While you all are eating, the adults are served on plates at the table, and they even get pieces of fish on top of their spaghetti and sauce. Unlike a birthday party for kids in the US, there are no party games, and no favors to take home, although Mom does package up some of the shrimp chips or spaghetti and sauce to send home with some of the kids. There are no presents from your friends and no birthday cake, although your neighbor baked something chocolate, called brownies, in her Dutch Oven. They were yummy! Quite a different experience.

A Mass Baptism

A Mass Baptism
June 1 was Ascension Day, a legal holiday in Burkina Faso. I was informed that there would be a big Mass at the Catholic Church, at which a lot of young people would be baptized. I wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate for me to go, but my friend who co-leads the sex education meetings for girls invited me to come. I asked what time and she said 9:00. Remembering all the times I have waited for a hour for a meeting to start I wondered if 9:00 meant 9:00, but like a good American I got there at 8:55. Much to my surprise, it sounded as if things were already in progress. When I parked my bike and headed toward the church one of the ushers (designated by a green sash with a red cross on it) came over to me and directed me to the door to the front of the church. There I was again, in one of the seats for special folks, right up by the altar. There was not room next to my friend, who was a few rows back, so the usher directed me to the bench right behind the nuns. The mass really had not yet started, but the folks were all saying the rosary.

When I looked out over the congregation I was stunned to see how many young people were there to be baptized. You could tell who was in the group by the fact that almost all were wearing clothes made from the same material. The styles were very different. Some of the boys wore just shirts of the pagna, but others had matching pants, long or short, and others had tunics and pants, which that remind me of men’s pajamas. The girls had a wide variety of styles. Some resembled ball gowns, with lots of satin or other material in addition to the pagna material. Some looked like a typical American little girl’s dress, but many were in a traditional African style, with a fitted bodice and pagna, wrap around skirt.

The boys were all seated in the front rows of one section, and the girls in the front rows of another, and across the chancel from where I was sitting the other side was filled with teens and young adults. I tried to count the boys, to get an idea of how many were in the group. They were in the first seven rows of benches, with about 25 boys on each bench. Comparing that to the space taken up by the girls and young adults I guessed between 300 and 500 people to be baptized. Later I was told several “official” numbers that ranged from 425 to 475. In any case, a LOT of people.

The way they managed this was, when it was time to baptize people, three priests and a couple of helpers created three baptizing stations. Each person to be baptized had a piece of paper to hand to the priest, giving their name, much like the cards the students hand to the Dean at graduation at John Carroll. They also carried white candles, unlit. One of the helpers handed the priest a small gourd filled with water. Another positioned the person over a big bowl and the priest tipped water onto the person’s head three times (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I presume, but did not hear). While people filed by to be baptized the choir sang a series of songs. Even though they sang in the African style that I find hard to listen to for long, I was right next to the choir and could appreciate the harmony and watch the choir director, which was interesting. By the way, the Mass was all in Moore, as were the songs. I couldn’t understand a thing that was said.

After everyone had been baptized, they all filed around again for the priests to make a cross on their foreheads with holy oil. That went a bit faster, but I kept thinking about how tired the poor priests must be getting. I wonder if they needed someone to message their thumbs and wrists after the service! With everyone back in place, the priests and their helpers passed the flame from the big Christ candle to the newly baptized folks until all the candles were lit. There was a short prayer, and everybody blew out the flames. I wondered what an American fire marshal would have thought of so many young folks waving around lighted candles at such close quarters. They newly baptized folks then each held up a crucifix on a cord of some kind. The priest said a blessing (and I noticed that the man sitting next to me had help up his rosary, too). They, in unison, they all put the symbol of their new status around their necks, reminding me of the Masters degree students putting on their hoods at graduation.

Then it was time for the Eucharist, and the newly baptized folks had their first communion, followed by the rest of the congregation. Not exactly like a first communion in The States! After the Mass I visited the homes of a couple of people I knew who had relatives who had been baptized. At each home, food and drinks were served, and music was playing. At one home I visited the neighbor was having a similar party and there was loud music playing at each. Once in the court yard I didn’t notice the competing music, however. I think a lot of folks had several calls to make.

I wondered whether the reason there were so many children being baptized was because the church is relatively new in the town so they had not been baptized as infants. Close, but not quite the right idea. I was told the reason was that infants are only baptized if their parents have been married in the Church. Otherwise, they have to wait until they are old enough to understand things and go through two or three years of preparation before their baptism and first communion. I think those baptized at birth have a different time for their first communion. In any case, it was a stunning number of new members for this church! I understand that these same folks will not have two or three more years of classes before they are confirmed by the Bishop of the region.

A note about the weather
It has continued to be hot, but now it is a bit muggy. Everyone is waiting for the rains to begin. We have had several days when it looked like there might be a storm, and even some strong winds with the smell of rain, but the ground is still bone dry. A neighbor, who is a cultivator, told me that, if it does not rain enough for folks to plant the seeds of some plants, like millet, before June 15, there will not be enough time for the grain to fully develop before the rains end in the fall. The result would be stalks without good grain to provide food for the coming year. This could be a serious problem.

Another wedding

Another wedding

I was invited to another wedding at the Catholic Church. I had met the father of the groom, but no one else in the wedding party. This wedding was on a Saturday at 10 in the morning. When I arrived at the church there were lots of cars and motos, and even a bus. In the front of the church was a small band, consisting of two keyboards, a bass guitar, a drum set and a trombone, playing rather up beat music that sounded like it could be European popular music. There were orange and white balloons at the ends of some of the rows of benches, like you might see flowers or bows at the ends of the pews at an American wedding. There were six or eight men running around with video cameras. I think one was an official videographer and the rest were friends of the bride and groom, but they went around like a swarm of bees, filming every moment. There were at least that many people with cameras clicking away so I kept my camera in my back pack until the reception, when I felt more comfortable taking pictures of these folks I did not know.

There were eight girls in matching pagnes with matching peach colored satin tops with a strip of the pagne material sewed on them diagonally. You can see two of them in the picture below that I snapped at the reception.



The procession started with a boy carrying the crucifix, followed by a flower girl in an orange dress, the girls I described above, and the bride and groom arm in arm, the bride in a flowing white dress and veil like you might see at an American wedding and the groom in suit and tie. Here they are at the reception



They were followed by 10 priests. The processional music was Mendelson’s wedding march, the one that is often played as the recessional music at American weddings. After getting the bride and groom settled in their chairs in the front row, the girls all rushed off the join the choir that was seated in the front four or five rows. Throughout the Mass, the choir, over 50 voices strong, sang many songs that were literally music to my ears. They used beautiful European style singing for some anthems that were probably from the classical repertoire, and enthusiastic and joyful voices on some other numbers that sounded like gospel music. There was not a screeching voice to be heard.

The service was entirely in French, so I could follow most of what was said. The bride read from one of John’s letters and the groom did a reading that, if I understood correctly, was from the writings on one of the Saints, although I did not catch the reference. His reading was accompanied by background music from one of the keyboards. This had clearly been carefully planned and rehearsed. This church is quite large and has a good sound system. Microphones were used throughout so it was easy to hear the bride and groom say their vows. They had either memorized or were reading them, but they did not do the “repeat after the Priest” type. After the Eucharist, the bride and groom said a prayer together, and then the groom ran over to join the choir for the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah. It was clear he was a popular member of the this choir that had come from Ouagadougo (on that bus I saw) to sing at his wedding. They ended with another song that sounded like it could also have come from the Messiah, and they sang it in English. The main part was “forever and ever” repeated a lot. Then the band broke out in another upbeat tune and the bride and groom lead a line of dancers around the church. All of this lasted about two and a half hours.

There was not the traditional receiving line at the church. People just left the church and headed down the road into town to the reception. The midwife who does the sex ed presentations with me met me there and guided me through proper behavior for this part of the event. We started out walking to town, wheeling my bike. Eventually someone picked her up on a moto, I hopped on my bike, and we joined the long line of cars and motos going to the reception.

There was a head table for the newlyweds and their parents, and another table for special guests, mostly the priests and nuns.



The bridal party and special guests were served from platters onto china dishes, but the rest of the crowd (a couple of hundred, I would guess) were given Styrofoam boxes packed with two kinds of rice and sauce, a very small piece of chicken, lentils, some kind of meatloaf thing that may have been sausage, and, of course, tô and sauce. No silverware, unless you were special, like me. I ended up taking the box with me and passing most of the food on to the family of my community homologue, who had given me the message that I was invited to the wedding.

There was a time for a toast to the newlyweds and remarks from the families. The bride’s father talked for her family, all in Moore, so I have no idea what he was saying. The groom’s brother told a story, in French, that was the story of the romance. It seems that the groom started in school at the “petite seminary” at the center where we had language training, which I wrote about before. When it came time to decide whether to go to the university or “la grande seminary,” he chose to go to the university, where he studied philosophy. The bride was in her last year at the lycée and needed a tutor in philosophy. That is how they met. Even though the groom decided not to be a priest, it was clear that he is very active in the choir at the Ouaga church.

The wedding cake was actually three little cakes, which were put on a stand designed for this purpose. There were crowds of people with cameras around the cake cutting. They did not do the “feed a piece of the cake to your new spouse” ritual you see at American receptions, however. In the picture below you see the cakes and, in the background, a guy eating from ome of the Styrofoam boxes



The choir gathered in front of the bridal party table and sang a couple of numbers to the bride and groom, ending with the “forever and ever” one. That got a big laugh. Then they began the process of presenting the gifts to the bride and groom. The bride and groom stood in front of the table and people filed past to present their gifts. The guy with the microphone announced the name of the donor for each one. They you could congratulate the bride and groom, and one of the attendants gave you a little net sachet with a couple of nuts and a mint, kind of like the table favors you might have at an American wedding. At that point people started to drift away and helpers started taking down the decorations. Party over. All in all, it was very interesting.

As I rode home I passed the house of the groom’s parents, and there was a big party going on there, too. I think it was the party for the neighbors and that the bride and groom would appear there later for the singing and dancing, but I did not stop so I am not sure.

As you can tell from the description, these are relatively well to do people, and the bride and groom have adopted a lot of European culture. It was quite a contrast to the other wedding I described last fall, and was also very different from a Moslem wedding I (sort of) attended recently. More about this in a future blog...

Nancy Drew and Technonolgy

Technology in my town
The Burkinabè need to have copies of all sorts of papers, like identity cards, school completion certificates, and birth certificates, in order to apply for jobs or to be admitted to the next level of school. As a result, there is a market for a copy center, which I was surprised to find here. It is a little one room place with a copy machine, two computers and a printer. It is not an internet café because it does not have a connection to the internet, but you can see that it would like to be, because their sign has “Yahoo” on it. It is only open during the hours when there is electricity in town, 8AM to noon. It may be open in the evening when the power comes back on, but I don’t ride my bicycle in the dark so I have never been there at night.

Power
While there is electricity a few hours a day in the center of town, out where I live there are no electric lines. People who live in this area and can afford them use big batteries, even bigger than car batteries, to run electrical things like CD players and TVs. My neighbor, Prosper, has a solar panel that is hooked up to his battery and whoever is home moves the solar panel around during the day to keep it facing the sun. Other people take their batteries into the part of town that has electricity to get them charged. As I mentioned before, Prosper connects my little battery into the circuit and charges it whenever I let him know I need to have it charged.

I have not yet been invited into a house that has electricity so I do not know whether people with power use other appliances, but I would bet they have fans and refrigerators. I am pretty sure that things like washing machines and dishwashers are unheard of in this town, but I could be wrong about that. Several of the larger boutiques and the small marques that sell drinks have refrigerators, and someone has a freezer because a lady was selling frozen beesap at the marché.

Beesap is a local drink that is made by boiling the leaves of some plant in water, with a lot of sugar and a touch of ginger. It is relatively safe for me to drink it because it is boiled in the process of making it. I just have to hope that they did not decide to dilute it with water from the well if they made it too strong. When I first tasted it, I did not like it all that much, but since then I have had some that was pretty good. Maybe it was just that it was a cold drink on a hot day that made it taste better, but I think there are different versions and that the first one I had was a little heavy on the ginger.

Because there is not electricity all day, the tailors I told about in the clothing blog use old fashioned treadle machines. Some look like they are really old machines like people used to use in the states, but some are more modern, with zig-zag and embroidery options. They appear to have been retro fitted for the foot treadles. A belt from the treadle goes around the motor shaft and runs the machine.

Nancy Drew in French?
I have been trying to study French by reading some young reader type books from our local “lending library” that consists of maybe 150 books in random piles on shelves at the place in town that has a copy machine and a couple of computers. I selected a book called “Alice and the Candlemaker” as my first one to try. It features a teenage girl, old enough to drive, named Alice Roy. Her father, James Roy, is a lawyer and she has two girlfriends who share her adventures, Bess and Marion, and a boyfriend called Ned Nickerson who makes an occasional appearance. My first thought as I began the book was that it seemed a lot like a Nancy Drew book. When I encountered Ned Nickerson, I decided it WAS a Nancy Drew book with a few changes. Then I thought to look at the author and that settled it, Caroline Quine.

Those of you who were Nancy Drew fans when you were younger, help me out here. I am curious about what has been changed and what is the same. In these books Alice lives in River City that is, I think, in some southern state because they drink ice tea with mint. They have a live-in house keeper (named Sarah), because Nancy’s mother is dead. Sound familiar? Let me know by replying to my message that I have posted, or send e-mail to Larsen@jcu.edu.

I am now on the third Alice Roy book, and the reading is getting easier. I try to “read through” words I don’t know and get the meaning from the context, but sometimes I have to do a translation word by word, using the dictionary, because I can’t understand the story if I don’t. I think if I keep on reading books at this level I will learn a few new words, and will get to be better at reading French. They are not as engaging as Harry Potter, but about the same reading level.

Weather and other surprises

Weather
I thought the hot, dry season would last through May, but I was wrong. We have had several showers and the other day there was a big storm, with lots of wind blowing the dust around before the rain. There were big storm clouds with lightning and thunder. It was very dramatic storm with a good downpour of rain. The path in front of my house turned into a little stream. Unfortunately, I have discovered drainage problems with my new wall around the courtyard. I had to wade through about 3 inches of water to get to my gate. My friend Prosper and his friend Basolé saw what had happened and made a drain hole at the base of the wall that pretty much solved the problem. They even found a rock about the right size to close off the hole to keep out snakes, which people worry about here. Since then we have had another big downpour and one night with a gentle rain that lasted for hours. There were only a few puddles n the courtyard. Prosper says he will find some dirt to fill them in because you do not want puddles during the rainy season as mosquito breeding grounds.

When it rains, things cool off temporarily, but it often returns to the 100 degree mark shortly after the rain stops. Other days there may be cloud cover and highs in the low 90s. I am not sure how long these rains will last. I think they will be pretty irregular for a while. People do not start working in the fields for a while yet, and I understand you have to time the planting of your crops so that there is rain consistently when you do plant your seeds. Since the rain has started the weeds growing, however, and there is a carpet of green in each low lying area. The sheep, goats and pigs are happy to have fresh shoots to munch on.

Trees in the dry season
In the fall some of the trees lost their leaves and I had expected most of them, except for the mango, to follow suit. Wrong again. Most of the trees not only kept their leaves, but grew lots of new shoots where folks had cut off branches for building and fire wood. The ones that did lose their leaves started to put out flowers and then seeds in the middle of the hot, dry season. Before the rain began most of the trees had put out leaves again. I don’t know how they can be growing with no rain. I had expected them to be dormant until the rain started. They must have tremendously deep roots to get the water they need to grow like this.

Other odds and ends

Traffic
I live rather close to a major highway. It is a paved, two lane road between two big towns. The locals ride bicycles and motos on it, but I even get off my bicycle to cross it. Most of the traffic consists of busses going between the two towns, bush taxies, big trucks transporting gas, wood for cooking, or other products, and some private cars. You can often stand at the road, look both ways, and see nothing but bike and moto traffic, but when the trucks and busses come, they fly by. The drivers, especially of the busses, love to use their horns, which are loud and may play a tune instead of just beeping. All this is fine if they are letting bikes and motos know they are coming and another vehicle is coming toward them, so get off the road. Most beep at anybody they see on the road. This is not so bad during the day, but it goes on all night, too. I am a good sleeper, but sometimes it takes a while to go to sleep because of the sudden sharp sounds of the horns.

Bicycles
Most of the bicycles here are simple single speed bikes, although you occasionally see a three speed or a 10 speed. It is amazing what people carry on bicycles. You may see baskets of goats with their feet tied together on the way to market, or chickens hanging from the handle bars. More often than not the women have babies on their backs and something balanced on their heads. The men often have huge loads of boxes, bags, or lumber, tied on with stretchy black bands made from old inner tubes. I brought bungee cords with me, but these black bands work much better. You stretch them tight and easily adjust them to any size load. Some people have baskets on the front of their bikes, but I have not been able to get one because my mountain bike has a bigger frame than the local ones and I have not found anyone who knows how to put one on for me.

Bicycles are often used for fetching water in the plastic jerrycans I showed you in a previous blog. A couple of these make a pretty heavy load, and it is not surprising the bicycles break down pretty often. It is rare for me to ride into town without seeing someone replacing the chin that has slipped off their bike. Peddles tend to get broken and fall off, and tires go flat. Because bikes are the main means of transportation here, there are a lot of places to get help if you have a flat tire or just need some air. New peddles and new seats are on display at boutiques all along the road.

Cadeau? Cadeau?
When I am riding my bicycle kids tend to chase me and try to keep up for a while. Some are really good runners. The ones that bother me are the ones who catch hold of the luggage rack on the back of my bike, or my back pack that is strapped to it, and either pull or push. I don’t have great balance, so when they do this, I put on the brakes (which takes them by surprise) and chew them out. Most of the kids along my regular route have figured out that I don’t like it and leave it at yelling “nassara, pas de cadeau,” that is, “foreigner, no present?” I guess tourists sometimes respond to this phrase by giving small coins or candy, but I have a strict policy of “pas de cadeau” because if I start giving things to kids (or adults who often ask the same thing) it will never end. I am not here to give physical gifts, but, hopefully, the gift of knowledge. I also think that this may be the only French phrase kids know. They see a foreigner and figure they will not understand the local language, so yell the only French phrase they know. I am trying to teach them some other things to say, by following “pas de cadeau” with some other French greetings. We shall see if I have made any progress on that front after two years.