My first job at the University of Mancs was in a small office with undemanding work and nice ladies constantly making tea and biscuits. As I was studying at the time, and am quite a lazy get who could easily develop a 10 cups-a-day tea habit, it suited me down to the ground. I sat across from a usually hard-working but generally lovely young lady called Samantha. One of the ways I would waste our time was to play with a giant mouse mat map of the world. Sometimes we’d play battleships and sometimes we’d test each other’s knowledge of capital cities of the world. It was at this time that I discovered the capital of Burkina Faso was called Ouagadougou (pronounced ‘wa-ga-do-goo’). It looked as though since it was situated on an unfashionable corner of the Sahara (although I later discovered it is actually in the Sahel belt south of the daddy of all deserts) with, well, mostly sod all within a couple of days travel, it seemed like one of the most remote corners of the Earth. “I wonder what that’s like”, I thought. Anyway, as luck would have it, we found out that they hold a bi-annual film festival there a couple of weeks back and impulsively decided to board African minibuses to see this inconsequential little dot on the map, watch a few films, ‘vive’ a bit of ‘la difference’ of francophone Africa, and get changed out of our dusty old village scruffs to go and live it up a little with the afro-cogniscienti.
You may be acquainted with the concept of Afrcan time, i.e. everything everywhere for whatever reason will be late with no rhyme reason explanation or apology. Fully cognizant of this, we waited with stoical ‘British’ good grace till the 7.30pm bus broke even ‘African time’ standards by arriving 6 hours late. We somnambulantly trudged on but after a few hours of cramped dozing on the bus, we broke down for a few hours in Tamale bus station, a service-less little area of garages and flies. The problem apparently having been sorted, we all sloped back on board, and set off for the border. This time it was dawn and the immense difference that divides the north and south of this country became quickly apparent. It seems amazing that anything grows up here at all, the place is so dusty and dry. Even by mid-morning, the sun was beating down mercilessly and the sandy towns seemed deserted of all but the snoozing sheep and cattle. So, you can imagine we weren’t too chuffed when the chug of the bus’ engine steadily grew into a clank, making the driver pull over to the side of the road. Miles from any town and dust (anyone? dust?) as far as the squinted eye could see, so we just had to sweat it out in the 40 degree heat waiting for the driver to come back from the nearest town with a mechanic. At this point, like some kind of dream, an ice cream van came trundling by. One of the Nigerians on the bus used his in-built persuasive techniques to wave the truck down and press the driver to sell him a box of frozen strawberry yoghurts and sticky orange juice cartons. He then sold them on to the rest of us desperate passengers for a tidy profit, remincing us that even amid disaster, someone somewhere will be making a tidy profit, thank you very much. Anyway, a replacement bus finally rolled along, and although we were worried we wouldn't make it to the border before it closed at 6pm, we just about made it. The Ghanaian side of the border was efficient and friendly; the Burkina Faso side was pretty much the opposite. Thinking then that we would at least be in Ouaga early next morning (a mere 24 hours later than expected), we felt pretty relieved and started fantasizing about a long siesta in heavenly clean white sheets. That was, until we hit customs. What is it with the breed of officious little twits that we employ as customs officers? It seems that an arsey attitude and jumped up sense of one’s own importance is issued with the uniform. This particular sod took one look at the bedraggled passengers on the bus and mentally rubbed his hands together before insisting that we unload ALL the luggage in the hold so that he could personally search it. Having done all this, and with an expectant bunch of passengers all lined up in the car park with their luggage, he then announced imperiously that he couldn't possible search our bags that evening, and that we would have to wait until the morning. Sickened by the thought of a pointless night spent on the bus I repaired to the dodgy little border bar and tried to attain a comforting stupor. We decided on the stagger back that there was no way we were sleeping on that stale-feet-smelling coach so we pitched the tent and made the best of it on the concrete floor.
Breakfasting with the vultures which seem to haunt every African border post, we played eye spy with the signs of extreme poverty. Then, when the customs creeps finally turned up we were checked through with an alacrity which bordered on the piss-taking, and so we made our way into Burkina Faso, the so-called ‘Land of the Incorruptibles’.
From there, the journey went pretty smoothly, and we eventually rocked up to old Ouagadougou at about 2pm, 43 tedious hours after arriving at the Kumasi bus station. And jeez did we pong! We treated ourselves to a night in a smart hotel so as to have a long shower and snooze. The next few nights we spent in our tent on a floor in a hostel run by a nice group of Burkinabe.
FESPACO is the largest festival of its kind in Africa and so the city was teeming with things to do and see. We watched six films, from places like Ethiopia, South Africa, Rwanda etc which were all pretty good quality and pretty interesting. The one comment I’d have is the focus on negative stories about Africa. You only realize it once here but there is so much amazing diversity and vibrancy on this continent that it seems a shame that it is always presented monochromatically as a malnourished basket case. Sad that this should be reflected in an African film festival held in Africa but then the overwhelming presence of French cameramen scurrying around the venues might betray the reason why. It seems the French influence hasn’t waned in quite the same way as British influence has. Perhaps it is bound up with the way in which francophone Africans were encouraged to aspire to French values and society through the granting of limited recognition as citizens. Perhaps the reason you can get baguettes and pastries here is because, well they’re tasty. Not to grumble about such things, we sampled some of the gastronomic delights that a French ex-pat community demands. Having a coffee that did not come automatically served with half a tin of condensed milk and 5lbs of sugar already mixed in was my particular highlight. I felt the epitome of chic with a bandage on my leg from a Terror Squad injury and my set 4 French language skills came up trumps when suavely ordering a “jus de pomme de terre, please love”. Luckily, the ever-handy-to-have-around I could stutter a few words out and ridiculous mime seemed to do the rest for us.
The opening ceremony deserves a remark primarily because it is the first time I have been in an African national football stadium. We got a flavour of that kind of atmosphere when the speaker at our end of the ground cut out and the crowd bayed for the engineers’ blood. It finally got fixed and we watched a decent show involving whirling dervishes, kids with flags (obligatory at such dos), mounted touaregs, Jean Michel Jarre style lazer shows and some half-decent music acts. The climax was a firework display that came from outside the stadium on our side of the ground and probably constituted half the GDP of this impoverished country. It was great though and quite stirring as, since we were quite high in the stand, the debris started raining down on our heads. Even the cocky young Burkinabe were seen to be retreating from the prospect of an African firework exploding at head height. Top fun.
We went to watch a performance of musicians from the Sahel one night. This one dude is the Jimi Hendrix of drums. I swear, he could probably play drums better with his tongue than I could with my hands. He was a bit of an arrogant sod though, he kept taking over someone else’s instrument, be it the xylophone or different type of drum and playing it so perfectly and in such a diverse set of rhythmic but syncopated styles that it was quite embarrassing for anyone to play with him. My personal fave were the bouncy dancing girls though. Great, um, stamina I admired. Anyway, it was nice to get out. Now let's get back on that cosy old coach!
Labels: ouagadougou
