Donkey Surprises are getting more common

Walking next door to buy some bouillon cubes from my neighbor and there's a donkey.  Back when I first arrived in country and did 3 months in a village south of Ouagadougou with a host family, there was a donkey just outside my bedroom window.  It would bray right when my tiredness would overcome my heat discomfort as I fell asleep.  They are number 2 on my most annoying animals list, not as bad as guinea fouls, but worse than pigs and goats and chickens. 

 We just stood there and looked at each other.  I have it on very good authority from another volunteer that all the donkeys died from an epidemic in mine and surrounding villages a while ago, and are slowly being reintroduced.  For the past 18 months though, its been pretty quiet. 

I think he felt safer than he really was.

So That's What That Burning Smell Was

 I was taking a bus from Leo to Ouagadougou today when we started smelling some burning (rubber it turned out).  This isn't unusual, engines are in bad repair, roads are blistering hot and car fumes make a small city smell like the most polluted ones in USA.

 This was a little unsettling though.

At least we didn't get stopped on the road by bandits.  Yes.  Bandits.

Celebrating Easter

The standard operating procedure for a Burkinabe holiday:

1) Find a big shady tree
2) Invite all your friends.
3) Get the women cooking.  They are only to approach the men with prepared food or questions about how the men would like their food prepared.  (I'm being a little harsh here, it's not a strict rule, it's just the accepted rule)
4) Crank up the music so conversation is nearly impossible
5) Leap frog the chairs in time with the movement of the sun. So the receding edge of the shade is always moving to the leading edge.
6) Leap frog, eat, drink, nap, repeat (10am to 10pm)

Usual fare includes rice with various sauces, popcorn and these fishy tasting chip things, palm wine, sodas and maybe some meat of some mysterious species.

 That big yellow jug in the center is full of palm wine (banjii).  Straight out of the palm tree it is a sweet juice.  Left alone for a few hours it ferments into a beer level alcohol strength.  Left over night and out in the sun all afternoon it's about as strong as moonshine.

 Look out!!!  The sun is touching him!  Get that man some shade!  But seriously, a square inch of sun hits you and the whole group is clucking about moving out of the heat.

These festivities are fun for an hour or two.  Like American holidays, you get bored if there's not a football game on.

Mango's are back

My last mango season.  I doubt I'll ever be able to match the one's from the tree by my house anywhere in USA.  I'm comforted by the fact that I'll be trading mangos for burritos in August.

I still like to eat mangos with a knife.  Most volunteers eat them like apples the village way.  I haven't gone that native.  My village friends think it's really funny the way I cut up the mango halves into squares:

I still haven't found a translation for fancy in Jula.