And You Thought Holiday Traffic in America Was Bad

Christmas came, and passed. It was successful, or as successful as you can have when you’re living in West Africa. So, to pass the New Year, Kathryn (my host sister) and I accepted an invitation from our host family to come to their New Year’s party. We were really excited to go visit them! Kathryn lives significantly closer to them than I do, but my travel is much easier because I just had to take one bus on a paved road (this is a big deal in Burkina Faso). So, I thought the trip would be easy. I would leave at 8am and arrive at my family’s at about 1 in the afternoon. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

So, the bus only left at one time (8am), which wasn’t enough time for me to leave my site and get to the bus before 8, so I had to leave the night before and stay in my regional capital for one night. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. We have a satellite office there and there are many hotels. Well, what I didn’t take into consideration was that it is the holiday season and many people are moving around, so all the hotels were full. Luckily, throughout my travels, I’ve been in a lot of situations where I really had no plan and things didn’t go quite as planned, but somehow, they always worked out. So, I didn’t panic. I eventually found a place I could camp at for the low price of $2.00 per night. Perfect. Except, I had no tent, no warm clothes, and nothing suitable for camping. (And for those of you who think living in Africa is like camping, you couldn’t be more wrong.) Also, it’s the cold season, so the temperatures get to about 60 at night in my part of the country, so it’s kind of cold for camping. Anyway, so I eventually found a tent that another volunteer left in the office, and went over to set it up. When I got there, I saw a huge group of about 30 other white people (a rare thing in West Africa), and even rarer, they spoke English. They were from the UK doing an overland tour from Cairo to Cape Town. It’s a weird feeling, when you have to speak English and come across many other white people. Anyway, I fell asleep pretty quickly, but then woke up about an hour later freezing because I was only wearing a tee-shirt and my jean sweatpants, not the warmest clothes ever. All in all, I got about 2 hours of sleep that night.

The next day, I had to leave early to catch my 8am bus out of the city. I called my normal taxi man, Kareem, to come and pick me up. Well, what he didn’t tell me on the phone was that he already agreed to take a couple other volunteers to their bus station at the same time. Next thing I know, all 8 of us are crammed into a small taxi trying to get to the bus station on time. Little did I know at the time, there was no reason for me to rush to the bus.

Normally, they start loading the bus about 30 minutes before the scheduled departure. Well, 8:00 came … and went, then 9:00, then 10:00. Ok, what’s the problem here? I finally get up to see what’s going on, and they tell me that the bus is broken. Super. But we are scheduled to leave at 12:00. Only 4 hours later than planned. This, relatively speaking, is not that bad. So, I’m sitting around, waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Finally noon rolls around and the bus starts… woohoo! So, I hurried and put something on the bus to claim two seats (one for me and one for the other volunteer I was travelling with), when all of a sudden the bus takes off out of the station like a bat out of hell. I’m the only person on the there and the previously “broken” bus is now speeding around town. I felt like I was in “Speed” haha. Finally, after about a 20 minute tour, we head back to the station. As far as I could tell from the runaway bus, everything seemed like it was working fine, but apparently, no, it was still broken. This time they assured me that at 1:00 PM, we will definitely leave. As I expected, 1:00 came and still no advances on the bus. Then, finally, they bring in another bus. Thank God. But the new bus is only half the size of the original bus so there isn’t enough room for everyone, so it’s a mad dash to the bus. I’m pushing big African women, small children and goats out of the way so that I can make it onto the bus. I get on when the mechanic announces that the original bus is fixed. I was doubtful, probably considering that there were a significant amount of bus pieces still lying on the ground. But everyone got off the new bus and loaded the old bus. We were crammed on there, sweating, and the bus was still going no where. So, again, we all get off, and at this point, I was about done. I was getting hot, sweaty, hungry, and annoyed. I was about to just go home and forget the entire trip. But, I ate and got a new wind and decided to wait a few more hours. I really wanted to see my host family and Kathryn.

Finally at 3:00 (7 hours late), the mechanic announces (again) that the bus was fixed, so once again, everyone loads onto the bus. This time, it seemed like a good sign because they actually started loading the bags and the bus was on, they were revving the engine and everything seemed good. The motos and bikes are tied down, and we are preparing to leave the station, when, naturally, the bus stalled. Typical. The mechanic gets off, takes a couple of minutes to fix it, and once again, “it’s fixed.” This time we actually make it out of the station! Woohooo!! We get about 20 minutes outside of town, with the bus only breaking down once, when a woman decides she doesn’t want to make the trip. Which, who could blame her, I’m doubtful if we will actually make it either. But, then the kicker, she had to get down her moto, which was on the top of the bus. So all the men had to get off the bus, untie all the motos and carefully lower down her moto. This whole thing put us another 45 minutes behind schedule.

So, now it’s nearing about 4:30, and we are only 20 minutes outside of the city. I still have a 5 hour bus ride ahead of me. But, we were going, finally. The bus only broke down… 2 more times. Then, about 5 hours later, a dehydrated, starving, smelly, dirty, tired me arrived at my host family’s house. A trip that should have been 5 hours, turned out taking 14.

When I arrived at my family’s, I was greeted by a huge sign saying “Welcome Home, Sara & Kathryn!”, decorations, music, food, and family. So, at the end of the day, I would do it all over again. I would sit at that stupid bus station another 8 hours waiting for the bus so that I could come here. I’m happy to be here, and happy to spend the New Year’s here in the company of good people.

‘Tis the Season (12/06/2010)

Well, it’s that time of the year. God, how times flies when you’re having fun… or when you’re sweating your ass off and fighting away invasions of insects in West Africa. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and my birthday have all come and gone. In October and November, I was craving pumpkins, watching the leaves change on the trees, and of course, Halloween candy. Now, it’s December, and I’m craving Christmas. I want snow, Christmas smells, Christmas trees, cookies, decorations and lights. I live in West Africa (in case you forgot), so there’s nothing I can do about all these cravings. I have one lone Christmas smelling candle (thank you, Mom!!!!), which I don’t want to burn because I don’t want it to run out. I just keep smelling it, and thinking of all you lucky people in America, who are surrounded by friends, family, and Christmas cookies.

This week is my last week of school before Christmas vacation, and I’m just as tired and burnt out as the kids are, so I decide to avoid teaching today and throw a Christmas party at school. It was probably the most pathetic Christmas party one has ever seen. First of all, I wanted to teach them about the history of Christmas in America. The town I live in is split between Christians and Muslims, so I start by explaining to them that in America, Christmas is not only for the Christians, but it’s for everyone to celebrate. Then, I started to tell them traditional American Christmas stories, which is when I lost them, and they thought I was completely bat-shit crazy. I mean, I would too if I were them. I told them about this magical, fat man named Santa Clause who flies around the world in his magical sleigh pulled by magical reindeer (only I didn’t know the word for reindeer in French, so I told them he was pulled by an animal like a horse). He lives in the North Pole and has midgets that work for him and build toys. Like I said, they thought I was crazy. I continued on to tell them that the night before Christmas he stops at everyone’s house and gives them a present, so that when they wake up in the morning, there’s a present under the tree. This is when I got the question. “Madam, why doesn’t he come to Burkina Faso?” Uh oh. What do I say here? No, this magical, fat man doesn’t avoid your entire continent. He is make-believe, and it’s actually the parents who put the presents under the tree. Crap.

After my stories didn’t go over too hot, I decided to teach them some Christmas songs. Once again, this didn’t go as planned. First of all, I couldn’t remember the words to any Christmas songs, except the chorus to Jingle Bells, and Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer. Then, the dreaded part, I had to sing to 80 little Burkinabé children. Half applauded and the other half laughed at my pathetic attempt at singing. There’s a reason I always fake singing “Happy Birthday.” Then, I wanted to play them some Christmas tunes from my iPod, except I don’t have any. I stole a couple of songs from my site mate before class, but they were all instrumental only Christmas songs. I mean shit, can I get some Alvin the Chipmunks Christmas tunes, or something entertaining I can give these poor kids.

My final failed attempt was making Christmas decorations for the classroom. Not only do we have no supplies, literally no supplies (there was about 10 packs of colored pencils which all 80 students shared), but they lack all creative ability (something they never harp on as children… critical thinking and creativity). So when I tell them to draw something relating to Christmas we can hang in the classroom, they draw exactly the same pathetic Christmas tree and “Happy Holidays” sign that I drew on the board. When they are all finished drawing, which took an exceptionally long time considering, I wanted to glue the drawings to the classroom walls, which, once again, turned into complete chaos. I had 80 children running up to me, “Madam! Madam! I need to glue this!” I only have one small bottle of glue, so I’m trying as best and quickly as I can to put glue on every single piece of paper they hand me. During the gluing chaos, the kids are putting up their pictures on the walls. I’m finally done, and not only do I have glue all over me, but I accidentally glued one girl’s finger to her paper, and spilled glue down another girl’s back… woops. Then, I have time to breathe and look around at all the decorations. This is when I see that the kids went crazy while pasting their pictures. There was one paper glued to the ceiling, one glued in the center of the blackboard (obviously, “because it’s the best one, Madam”), and then I see the picture that takes the cake. It’s a picture of a half-nude NASCAR girl in a bathing suit. I live in a country where it’s slutty to show your knees, and now, I have a picture glued to my classroom walls of a girl in a bikini… excellent.

So, now, I’m home. I’m exhausted, and it’s the end of my holiday party. It could have been better, but it also could have gone a lot worse. All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. I’m retired back to my humble abode, and am sitting eating Reese’s (thanks Grams!), smelling my Christmas candle, and watching “Elf.” Merry Christmas, and enjoy everything about Christmas that I am missing right now!