List of Eight Things That Are Making Beth Happy Right Now

8. "Friday" by Rebecca Black.
How on earth could this be making me happy, when it is apparently inducing severe vomitting in everyone else on the face of the planet? It's one of those "so bad that it's good" situations.
Plus, the lyrics are easily changed to suit every day of the week and every possible situation. My kids are particularly good at this and many lulz ensue.
If you want to hear a version of this song that won't make your brain bleed, listen to this.
If you don't value your cerebral integrity, go ahead with the face-palmingly unforgettable original.
But what I really think you should all do is watch this parody (btw- DON'T get in the van with Uncle Dave. I'm just sayin....)

7.Super-short hair
Natalie Portman in "V for Vendetta", Demi Moore in "G I Jane", Persis Khambatta in "Star Trek" , and Beth in "Just Went to the Hair Salon Today and Said What the Heck, Cut it All Off."
Ok- maybe my hair isn't quite a marine-syle buzz-cut, but it's not far off by much.

Yes, I look kind of scary.

And yes, I love it!








6.Chanel Sculpting Eyebrow Pencil ( in brun cendre)
Just because I have no hair doesn't mean I don't want eyebrows, people!
And the best way to make my mangy, sandy-colored eyebrows look all awesome is to use this exactly-right, natural brown pencil that is the Holy Grail of the eyebrow-enhancing world.
And there IS such a world, I swear it upon my Mac Brow Set.

5. No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series by A. Mc Call Smith
If you don't know these books, start reading them NOW. They will not only entertain you, they'll make you wish to be a better person.
What happens after that is up to you, of course....

4. June 2011
Just thinking about next month makes my heart sing a bit, for a variety of reasons. One of these is the medieval faire at Andilly. We attended last year and the year before that. But this will be the first year that my kids and I will be WORKING there! Expect to hear MUCH more about this in a future post....

3. Ray William Johnson - Equals Three
One-stop shopping to meet all of your weekly YouTube viral video needs.
What? You say you HAVE NO weekly YouTube viral video needs?
Well the, you'd better watch this now and get over being so classy and highbrow and stuff....

2. Battlestar Galactica
I'm talking about the awesome 2003 miniseries, which was followed by a pretty darn fine bunch of shows from 2004 to 2009. I'm sort of rediscovering this, as when it first aired, I had no access to US tv shows because I was still living in Ouagadougou. (Just loading a short YouTube video there could take half a day. Seriously.)

What I'm NOT talking about is the original 1970's Battlestar Galactica, which, at the time, I loved with a mad passion. I have to admit that much of this mad passion was directed at actor Dirk Benedict, whom I ( and just about every other 12 year old girl I knew) had a crush on. Starbuck!
*Swoon*
Fond memories of my girlish fantasies (some not precisely G-rated, let's just say) featuring Starbuck tempted me to use the magic of YouTube to have a look at the old show.

And now I have proof that 12 year old girls in Nebraska in the late 1970's did not come with factory-installed Gaydar.

"Non-threatening" is the nicest thing you can say about the guy. The feathered hair, the high-pitched voice, the arch delivery of the oh-so-cheesy dialogue... what was I thinking?
My brother's guinea pig had more sex-appeal.

In the new version, the character of Starbuck is played actress Katee Sackoff, who is hundreds of times sexier and infinitely more masculine than Dirk Benedict. Even a straight woman, forced to choose between the two of them, would opt to date Katee.
I'm just sayin....

1. Bang Girl's Pages of Truth
My daughter Mallory doesn't read books, she inhales them.
So, it's no surprise that her first-ever blog is made up of her reviews of various novels she's reading. If you're interested in seeing it, contact me and I'll send you a link. As she's only 13, we're keeping her blog private for now. ( Creepers gonna creep, and all that)

The only thing I love more than a good list is a good batch of "before and after" photos.
Sadly, I don't have many pics, as I was too busy and disorganised to take as many as I should have...
But here's a couple of good ones for your perusal:
On the left, you can see the door to the balcony that is now part of the twins' New and Improved Bedroom.

And on the right, we can admire the awesome new ceiling that Paul put in for us (the man has mad plastering skillz, srsly!) and the gorgeous apple green paint on the walls around Alexa's bed....








Below, we see things are being put back into place. This is Mallory's bed:

The next step will be to glue cork board onto the wall above Alexa's bed and the finish the raw edges at the top of the wallpaper....
There also remains the small problem of the cement bar running through the wood flooring near Alexa's bed.
There was much debate about what to do about the yawning chasm left behind when the original wall came down. Paul said cement would do the trick nicely and I thought it would be fine...and it would have been if it had been well finished....
But the job was rather sloppy. By the time he was doing it, I think Paul was tired out and slowly losing the will to live.
At any rate, it's not beautiful and probably best covered up by an attractive area rug....

Reader’s Meme

(Courtesty of Oreneta )

The rules: Bold the ones you've read completely and italicize the ones you've read part of. Watching the movie or the cartoon doesn't count. Abridged versions don't count either. According to the BBC, if you've read 7 of these, you are above the average.* My comments are in parenthesis.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (good book, but I like ‘Persuasion’ better)
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (I spent my teen years reading moody gothic novels. Good fun!)
4. Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (for school. didn't think it was all THAT)
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell (made me cry!)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott (many, many times)
12. Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk (Never heard of it or him. Is that bad?)
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger (annoying)
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (one of my favorite books.)
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (I never understood why kids were supposed to like this book. I found it SO annoying. Hated it!)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (A fun book to read outloud for your kids!)
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (TBR)
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (TBR)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Why is this crummy book on this nice list?)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (« The Moonstone » is a better book, IMHO)
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery(The whole series!!!!)
47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (I love this book, but it's too sad to read it very often)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (ever read 'John Dollar'? Even creepier!)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (I love this book!! You should read it too!!) #
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Read it for a class and managed to completely erase nearly every detail of it from my mind afterwards. Good for me!)
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (What is this doing here?!)
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden -Frances Hodgson Burnett(Big FHB fan!!)
74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce (No! Never! Gah!)
76. The Inferno-Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola (My daughter is reading this for school right now-says it is very depressing and very long)
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (I’ve only read « Never Let me Go »)
85. Madam Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ( sooo good!!)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (so annoying!)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down -Richard Adams (One of my favorite books of all time. One of my « comfort reads »)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I never like Roald Dahl as a kid, but I started to enjoy his stuff as I read it to my own kids. 'The BFG' is the best!)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My additions:

101. The Lamplighter- Maria Cummins

102. Endurance- Alfred Lansing

103. The Jungle- Upton Sinclair

104. Precious Bane- Mary Webb

105.Black Beauty- Anna Sewel

*Is this TRUE? It seems like a very low number to me....

# I've added my own twists to the meme:

a. red bold for all the books you really love and would recommend that other people read.

b. list five books that you think should have been on the list.

Also- isn't this list kind of strange? Why would crap like 'The DaVinci Code' and 'Bridget Jones' be on it? And why the obscure modern stuff? I'd never even heard of, say, "The Cloud Atlas" (though I looked it up and it seems to be pretty interesting). Still. Odd.

A list of stuff ( just because I like lists)

1. Project Runway- I adore Tim Gunn. (Not that I'd ever want to meet him, mind you. I dress so badly that it would probably give him physical pain to look at me.) In case you are some unfortunate creature living under a rock and don't know of him, he's the co-host of a fabulous and "fierce" reality show that pits young clothing designers against each other in various challenging situations, ex: must make an evening gown in just 8 hours, using only materials purchased at a corner grocery store.
Let me add that I usually HATE reality TV. The kind of thing where a bunch of people live in a camera-filled house together and gossip about each other is just...so tacky and dull. But shows where people show a real talent, such as singing or sewing? They're a win, IMHO.

2. The Birthday of the Twins- The Dynamic Duo turn 12 this Sunday, which is kind of scary for their mom. My babies are nearly teenagers? Gah!
But it's all good, right?
The girls have opted to celebrate with lunch at a chinese restaurant and a vist to the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. (I'm so lucky to have such cool kids!)
Then, when the school holiday is over, they'll hand out invitations and we'll have a little party with their friends here at home.

3. Pumpkin Soup with Cumin and Coriander: This is a family favorite that is appearing on the table fairly often these days:
Sauté one chopped onion and 2tsp of cumin in two tablespoons of olive oil. Steam or boil about four cups of chopped pumpkin until soft. (If you boil it, drain it well afterwards). Purée the cooked onion and pumpkin til smooth, slowly adding three to four cups of chicken or vegetable bouillion. Wash and chop up a small bunch of coriander leaves? garnish each bowl with coriander, a tsp of creme fraiche (or sour cream)and homemade croutons.
Easy, yet kind of fancy, and very tasty...

4. Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: This podcast is my new "escape to reality" these days. It's about an hour and a half of discussion and debunking : urban myths, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and paranormal crud get taken on. I especially enjoy it when they go after anti-vaccine whackos and homeopathy.

5. Dingue, Dingue, Dingue- Here's some French pop for you. It's the song stuck in my head this week. Sadly, the only lyrics I know are three words to the chorus...and they're all the same word. The kids are possibly a bit tired of me singing the word "dingue" (crazy) over and over and over again...but it's a cute song! (Here's the lyrics in French and in English, if you're interested)

This month, I’ve got a favorite season, pod cast, food, a website, song, tv show …

November Top 10 List

1. Fall- Nine years in the relatively invariable climate of West Africa gifted me with a mad love for seasons. These days, put me in a temperate zone and whatever season I’m in is my favorite, just because I know it will all change in just the course of a few months.
So, right now it’s autumn in the Haute Savoie and all I can say is: gorgeous.

2. A Way With Words- I want Martha and Grant to come visit me, tell me interesting stuff and be my bestest friends 4ever. Is that creepy? Is it inappropriate to feel so strongly about two public radio hosts that I’ve never met? Probably, but I’m powerless against the charms of their hour-long show that examines all the oddities and foibles of the English language. I laugh and learn something new every week. If you are curious about English slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and just speaking and writing well, this is the go-to program…

3. Burkina-style Peanut Sauce - This is the national dish of Burkina Faso. Cooking it brings my four kids down to the kitchen saying « Smells like Ouagadougou !». It also has the advantage of impressing guests, as most people have never eaten it before- especially not an authentic version. You need: chicken broth, tomato paste, Maggi seasoning cube (but use it appropriately!!) , peanut oil, chicken (thighs work best), vegetables (for sure cabbage, also sweet potatoes and green beans. Eggplant, potatoes, and carrots are also good) You also need a bunch of peanut butter- preferably one made specifically for African dishes. Skippy or Jiff won’t work. Fresh-ground stuff from a health food store would do nicely.
All of this is assembled into a sauce and then usually served with tô. But rice works, too. If this sounds tasty, leave me a note in the comments section and I’ll give details on the recipe so you can make it at home…a bit of Burkina chez vous.

4. Cake Wrecks: Many thanks are owed to Joy and a few other readers that led me to this endlessly fascinating blog that documents the worst in professional cake decorating. Today, for example, it features a birthday cake that is « ornamented » with a pile of dead leaves on top of the icing. Not marzipan foliage, mind you, but actual dead, rotting leaves. Must be seen to be believed, really… Go check it out and consider it your « Cake Tuesday » offering from me.

5. I Gotta Feeling- I don’t usually get popular songs stuck in my head. My strange brain tends to add only oddities to my inner soundtrack. For example, when a pal burned me a cd with a song in on it about trapped miners committing cannibalism, I was humming it for days. And a more recent brain-worm tune for me has been the old hymn « In the Sweet By and By ». So, I’m not generally a Black Eyed Peas-ish kind of person. But when I took the kids to the cinema a few weeks back, I ended up wearing funny glasses, listening to talking guinea pigs wishing I were in the next room over watching Surrogates . But that was only appropriate for my older kids and, so I was keeping the twins company as they enjoyed G-Force. It turned out to be tolerably cute, as I am rather fond of guinea pigs. So, now the song I Gotta Feeling (prominently featured in the film) makes me think of secret agent rodents speeding down the highway in over-sized hamster balls and I smile… Plus, this is the only song that I know the words to that has the phrase "mazel tov" in it.

6. Glee- I’d seen it mentioned a few times on the web by bloggers I like, so I downloaded the first episode of the series. Then, I settled down with my three daughters to watch it. It’s kind of like High School Musical, right?
Wrong.
It’s clever, scorchingly mean, amazingly funny and SO not for 11 year olds. So, the twins don’t get to watch, but Tya and I are enjoying it. As someone who was in the school music scene back in high school, I find it particularly enjoyable. I think Tya likes it because the world of a US high school looks so exotic to her…there’s no cheerleaders or swing choirs in French lycées- not ever. Quelle idée!

7. Asphalt- Maybe it smells a bit dreadful, but it is still my favorite paving material for the month of November. As I write this, a team of eight men is outside my house, putting the finishing touches on our newly-paved driveway and parking area! It’s actually fascinating to watch (to me, anyway…but then, I don’t get out much) and I just spent an hour leaning out of Tya’s bedroom window, watching them work. JP was teasing me, saying that only old men like to stand around and watch construction projects. I begged to differ. Small boys like to, as well.
By Friday, it will all be cooled, hardened, and ready to drive on. Yippee!

8. The Nation- a brilliant magazine that keeps me in touch with US politics and helps me not be (too much of) an idiot.

9. The Annemasse Conservatory of Music- It’s a small school run by the city of Annemasse, just about a 20 minute drive from my house. In September, I joined the choral group there and am really enjoying it. It’s not just the singing itself and the nice new friends I‘ve made- it’s the whole ambiance of the place. It’s heavenly to be in a building full of nothing but musicians who are busy learning and improving. Very inspiring.

10. Top 10 Lists- They are so very appealing. Make one and you automatically feel organized and authoritative. The only problem is that, while 10 is a nice, round number, it can be hard to come up with that many good items….

Another Awesome List

In keeping with the great "Taciturn Tuesday" tradition, I reduced yesterday's post to complete silence. Which is as taciturn as it gets. So, like, yay for me, right?

It's Wednesday morning and I've just gotten home after driving JP to the Swiss border for his bi-weekly commute into Geneva. I typically enjoy the drive a lot. On the way there, JP and I chat. Then on the way back, I listen to some awesome podcast or another.

But today, I didn't listen to my lastest download. Instead, I pondered this: I love lists. I really do. I usually start my day with a to-do list and then take probably an unhealthy satisfaction in crossing off each item as it is accomplished.

I enjoy responding to the Facebook notes that ask me to name my favorite movies, books, cities, whatever.

And when I read a blogpost in list-form by someone else, I think it's SO interesting, be it "My ten favorite non-prescription medications" or "Forty two reasons not to annoy my cousin Chad".

So, it's very odd that I actually post very few lists on my blog. I think there's just one- the one that gives several key signs that you have lived in Ouagadougou too long.

That being the case, today I present to you no less than TWO lists: What's In According to BurkinaMom and What's Out according to BurkinaMom. These aren't thoughtful and long-considered- they're just some of the things I currently like and some of the stuff I am So Over.

What's IN:

1. A Way With Words - It's like broccolli for your brain, but it tastes GOOD!!!   This public radio show is where Martha and Grant make you smarter in all things English language related and at the same time, show you a good time.  A GREAT time even!!!( I keep telling you to download this show.  DO it!!)

2. Marmite on whole wheat toast- It's like having a big lump of salt for breakfast, which to me is fabulous. Jam is out, yeast spread is in!

3. The song Beth by Ken Flagg - "She never smiles the same way twice and she always gives me good advice." I listen to it almost daily. (Find it on iTunes.)

4. Bella Buttons necklaces. I REALLY want one. I might just have to order one soon and call it an early Christmas gift to myself.

5. Episodes of The Guild on YouTube. - If you have ever played World of Warcraft, or know someone who does, you should give it a try. So funny. Felicia Day is a genius, bless her nerdy gamer heart. I read recently that the show is 'like "Friends" for geeks- only it's actually funny'. Very accurate, IMHO.

6. France- Yes, the entire country. I wrote some mean stuff in a recent post and I am apologising by declaring France Very In. (What I wrote was all true, though.)

What's OUT

1. Chai - I am SO over this. I drank lots in Ouaga and now I can't stand it. Can't say why...

2. 'This American Life' on NPR- This former fave of mine broadcast a few dull and/or lazy episodes last spring and they lost me. 'The Friendly Guy" and "Classifieds" were a couple of the culprits. (This one will probably be back on my 'in' list soon, but not quite yet. I'm still pouting.)

3. Television - You have to watch the programs according to a schedule determined by other people. How lame is that? I don't have the time to mess with it. Until I get TiVo (which in France will be, like, NEVER), I am declaring TV out.

4. Washing windows- I don't mind most housework. Really, I don't. But washing windows has got to be the most frustrating and thankless task of them all. So, washing windows is now officially out. I'm just going to keep the curtains closed 24/7. It's almost winter anyway and curtains keep the heat in, right?

5. The Sex Pistols- I listened to them when I was a kid -who in my generation didn't? But when I hear their old hits these days, all I can think is things like 'Why are they so angry?', 'Why do they have to yell all the time?', and 'Why are they on my childrens' iPods? Isn't this the 21st century?'

6. Couscous- It's like sand, only less tasty. And no, adding raisins doesn't help. I'm never eating or cooking it again, ever. It's out.

This has been a good day! Got lots done- the moving contract is signed, invitations are going out, I'm selling my furniture, and my efforts at costume design have the twins' dance teacher in raptures. Of course, the day would have been even nicer if the electricity hadn't cut out for the whole afternoon. ..

And now it's the evening and about time for choir rehearsal. My house at 7:30 every Thurday night until 9pm, we sing!!
I am off to eat a quick dinner before everyone arrives.

As I'm short on time, I'll just post the next few items of the "What to bring/not bring when you move to Ouaga" list:

1. Batteries : Yes
Batteries are elusive and expensive. Your friendly neighbourhood kiosk will probably have some dubious C cells in stock that cost far more than some nice, non-corroded Energisers back in North America or Europe. So, battery hunting almost always involves a trip into the center of town. With lots of hunting, you will probably find what you need, but incredibly high prices. I just had to get a battery for my daughter’s little plastic Timex watch. The battery for it cost about 15 dollars- which is about what the whole watch cost back in the USA.
For your cameras, watches, etc, bring batteries. It’s just easier.

2. Shortwave Radio: No
Unless you are some kind of mad ham radio hobbyist, it will serve no purpose. While Ouaga lacks the polish (and regular electricity) of many of the world’s cities, it’s not the wild frontier. We listen to FM radio and communicate with cell phones, like normal people.

3. Cell Phone : yes and no
Over the nine years we have been here, I have seen cell phones proliferate like bunnies. I’m talking really bored Catholic bunnies. Suddenly, they are everywhere. And cheap! At the one of the big service providers, you can get a little phone and everything you need for it for about 30 dollars US. And this is probably a far better option than bringing your cell phone from North America to use here. Remember- over here the current is 220 and not 110. If you bring over a 110v phone from elsewhere, you won’t be able to recharge anywhere but at home, where you have your step-down transformer (you brought that, right?). You won’t be able to plug it in when staying with friends, staying at hotels or when at work…. just seems a bit silly. Of course, coming from Europe, it’s a different story. There’s no difference in current to worry about. You probably should bring a phone from Europe. Just don’t bring anything too nice- that you can’t bear to lose. Cell phone theft is rampant here.

You know you have lived in Ouagadougou too long when:

1. The temperature is 85° F and you agree with your Burkinabé friends that it's really cold.
2. Your medicine cabinet is full of chloroquinine, Coartem and Quinimax because somebody at your house always has malaria. Plus, you know what mebendazole and metronidazole are and aren't afraid to use them.
3. You really like tô
4. The only closed shoes you own are your sport shoes. Everything else is sandals. In fact, you think that a new pair of "tapettes" constitutes formalwear.
5. You can drink Orange Fanta without gagging, even if it’s slightly warm.
6. You think that people that speak only one language are odd
7. You are completely out of gift ideas for your family back in your home country: leather, batik, bronze, carvings, embroidered table cloths, Tuareg silver…you have exhausted every possible type of craft in Burkina.
8. You would never phone anyone between noon and 3 pm. That’s “la sieste” time.
9. You are easily impressed by imported foods. Pie made with fresh pumpkin, for example, pales in comparison compared to one made with the canned variety.
10. Most of the street vendors know you by name and don’t bother hassling you to buy souvenirs.
11. You throw a pagne (a wrap-skirt made out of local cloth) on over your sweatpants when you go to answer the door, so that you look “decent”. (This one is only for the ladies, obviously. If you are a guy wearing a skirt, you probably have issues that go beyond my capacity to advise you.)
12. You’ve had to explain to your kids what mittens are. They’ve never owned a pair
13. If you see even one more woodcarving or bronze statue of Princess Yenenga and her horse, a mother and child, a baobab tree, a mask or an African mammal of any description, you will grab said statue and, gibbering and foaming at the mouth, beat yourself on the head with it until you are unconscious, just so you don't have to look at it anymore.
14. You own a herd of goats
15. You think it’s normal for perfect strangers to ask after the health and well-being of your “old ones back in the home village”.
16. You will, with no embarrassment whatsoever, discuss every aspect of your own and everyone else’s latest illnesses, up to and including severe diarrhoea, sparing no details.
17. You have eaten every item on the Rec Center menu at least once.

And finally, the most serious warning sign that you have been in Ouagadougou far too long:

18. You not only wear a pagne, you carry vital personal items in the top folds of it! A few days ago, I was getting undressed and a Kleenex, a key and some money fell out of the top folds of my local-style wrap skirt. I suddenly realised that I have completely, unconsciously learned to emulate the Burkinabé women that I work with. Really poor women don’t own purses, of course. They carry their money and small items secreted in the top, rolled-over portion of their wrap skirts. I didn’t even really notice I was doing it, but when I thought it over, I realised that while I do have a purse that I carry when I go somewhere in my car, most of the time I don’t carry one. If I’m popping down to the corner shop, I just grab a few coins and fold them into the top of my skirt, along with a couple of Kleenexes for my allergy. I guess you could say purses are a sort of symbol of prosperity and modernity here. It’s something that middle-class women carry and poor women do not.

But here I am- I’m far from poor and I do own a purse. I have more than one, even. But I somehow find it more comfortable to fold up my money in my pagne. It’s strange and probably a sign that I need to go back home and get “Frenchified” again.

I got the French friends safely to the airport last night, in plenty of time for their flight. Not that it was easy. About five minutes down the road, I got a flat tire. It's the fifth one in the last five weeks. ("Gee Beth. Does the Car God hate you?" "Why, yes, He does. Thank you for asking.")
I stopped the car immediately, but it was SO freaking dark we couldn't see a thing. Ouagadougou is not rich in street lamps. I was forced to drive on a bit to get in front of a lighted building.
Luckily, my French dudes are do-it-yourself marvels. M. mostly built his own house back in France- and it's a really nice house! While staying at my house, L. fixed the plumbing in his spare time. I am not kidding.


So, these guys had the tire changed in about ten minutes, which was amazing, considering that all their baggage had to be unloaded so they could get at the spare. And while we had positioned ourselves to get some light, it was still pretty dim. This was a problem, as I have no flashlight in my car. Maybe that seems like a basic safety thing to people living elsewhere in the world, but it is impossible to manage here. I have put flashlights into my car three times while we've lived here. After a few months, the flashlight is gone and NOBODY has a clue as to where it could possibly be. They are obviously being stolen and after the third one, I gave up. )
But the guys were brilliant and had the tire changed in a jiff. We got to the airport in plenty of time. Goodbyes were't too sad, as they are our neighbors back in the village of Saint André and we're moving back there in July. I'll be seeing them again soon.


I have a few more responses to the comments section. Again, I'm posting them here, as they could be useful or interesting to others.

1. Yesterday, in my enthusiasm for lower-body coverings I completely forgot to mention the whole shirt issue. So, here it is: It's hard for women to go wrong with upper body clothing here. If you went topless in a village, you'd draw a crowd- but it would be because you are a foreigner, not because they are amazed/shocked/excited/offended/freaked out to see a (gasp!) breast or two. It's an attitude that I find very sensible and think should be emulated world-wide.

But the average non-Burkinabe is not going to be at ease waltzing around the countryside topless, so let's move on.

T-shirts are always good. Can't go wrong.
Tank tops, sleeveless, form-fitting, lowcut, are all perfectly acceptable, when paired with a modest lower-body covering. No problem. Even visible bra straps are not an eyebrow-raiser.

The only exception would be for people working with local Protestant groups: missions, churches, aid associations linked to churches. I have found that these people are more in tune with conservative western standards of dress. It's better to cover the shoulders and go with a full-coverage neckline.

Bear in mind that all this is my guidelines for having good, easy contact with people at ALL levels of society here. If you are only going to hang with wealthy people and expats, of course your normal developed-world dress-sense is fine. But if you are a researcher that wants to be out in a village, talking to people about health care practices, or whatever, the contact will go easier if you make an effort with the clothes.
For toursts/visitors/adventurers it is a good way to show that you respect local norms and want to make contact with "average folks"- which is sort of the point of coming, isn't it?


2. The other question I got recently went as follows:
"I was wondering about the effect of seeing so many foreigners stay for a while and then leave their country. Does it make the average Burkinabé somewhat indifferent to the strange white couple next door? Is it possible to make local acquaintances or are there too many social barriers?"

I'd say that this is FAR, FAR from the situation here. I predict that when you move here, nearly EVERYONE in your neighborhood is going to want to be your best pal. Even if you are only staying a few months. Even if you dress weird.
People here are, on the whole, very kind and welcoming and it would not occur to them to reject you because you weren't a long-term fixture. In fact, they are very interested in pen pals outside of Burkina and will keep contact with you long after you are gone.


That said, it's kind of complicated because, well, you (expat person) have "lots" of money and your neighbors probably don't.
Sure, if you live in Ouaga 2000, the very chic neighborhood, you'll find you are surrounded by only wealthy families. But all other neighborhoods are very mixed. Wealthy expats live right next door to local families that are just as wealthy or middle class or very poor.
It works out, but can very stressful.

Here's what one expat family wrote in their blog (I got this from one of John's great articles):
"After living in a place for two years, you want to feel comfortable and that you're being accepted as an equal and not just seen as a wallet with legs. But you can never be that. All I want is to be in a culture where I'm normal again. I came here wanting to drink millet beer, eat tô, and get to know Burkinabe. Now, all I want is an Anchor Steam, some Taco Bell, and to blend in."

Umm...Ouch.
I think it was very brave of them to articulate this so clearly. It hurts, but it's very honest and very reflective of a major aspect of life here. Burkinabe people will ask you, a foreign person, for money. Frequently. It's a big part of life. Needy people will ask you for money for food or medical care. Better off folks want money to buy a motorscooter or school fees. Everybody needs something and they hope that you are going to pay for it.

For people coming from the developed world, this can be hard to swallow. We tend to avoid mixing money and friendship at all costs. It can kind of ruin things for us, making us a little bitter and suspicious.
But in Burkina, money is part of the whole package of friendship. You have to figure out how to handle it. Which can be hard....

So, far from being met with indifference, as a new arrival in your neighborhood you will be the subject of much interest and friendly interaction. You will get invited to wedding and funerals. You will be hit up for money on a daily basis.

And, yes, it's one part of life here that I will NOT miss.

The strike has turned into a gentle respite from the pressures of daily life. Lots of folks are home from work, but there are still enough small shops and stands open that you can find pretty much everything you need. The streets are not clogged with traffic and everything is very quiet, but not creepily so.
Nice.
But I do hope that measures will be taken by the government to help their citizens face the current economic crisis. Just because the people aren't burning down the President's palace out in Ouaga 2000 doesn't mean they don't need or deserve help. JMHO, of course.


I am keeping busy with some friends visiting from France. Two guys from our home village in the Haute Savoie have been here doing a school-aid project and a training session with a bronze-maker. They've been running around Burkina for two weeks, travelling, exploring and making lumpy bronze things. Happily, they realize that their bronzes are NOT going to count as gifts for the womenfolk left back home in France, so I've had the guys out souvenir shopping for the last two days. They seem to have found what they wanted, which is good, as they leave tonight on the 3am Royal Air Morocco flight. Better them than me. The only place I want to go at 3am is bed. Luckily, they can check in at midnight, so I'll drive them over to the airport about that time tonight.
Never a dull moment around here.


I did get a comment on the blog today asking about wearing capri pants in Burkina. I'll go ahead and respond/pontificate here, as it's more comfy than over in the cramped "comments" window:

I think that capri pants and pants in general are perfectly ok for women to wear here. But I recommend that you wear them with a tunic/long shirt. The idea is to cover the bun/haunch area. Covered to mid-thigh is good. Dressed like that, you don't risk offending any of the more traditional-type people that you might want to interact with.


Now, when you arrive in Ouaga, you will occasionally see young women wearing tight pants and no tunic-type cover-up. Bear in mind that the elite Burkinabé are used to western dress. And lots of expats have no desire to fit in with the locals, so wear whatever they would wear back in France.
Also, Burkinabé protitutes dress this way.
So, if you are working with middle to lower class Burkinabé, it's much better not to set off these negative connotations of great wealth, out-of-touch foreigness or prostitution.


Certainly once you are out of Ouaga, you will have MUCH better contact with the villagers if you wear the tunic/pant combo, or even better a longish skirt. Or best of all, a pagne. It will cost you about 5 dollars and be SO worth it. I can't tell you the amount of positive contact I have with Burkinabe people, just by wearing this basic element of local dress. So think about it.

But if your job is really active or you just hate skirts, the capris will work out fine, if they are done right.


Now what you should REALLY do, everyone, is check out the latest post by Valentine. She riffs on art class and displays some of her latest work, which is FABULOUS!
I'm just saying.

Things in Ouaga seem to be calm this morning. I'll be going into the city center in about an hour, so I'll have a look and see what's up. The government seems to be expecting a large, peaceful demonstration.


So, as I have nothing to add in the way of news, I will comment on the latest faddish craze sweeping the globe:

Everybody is moving to Burkina Faso !!

OK. Maybe there are three or four of you staying behind in North America and Europe to keep things going, so ice hockey and the Louvre don’t disappear from the face of the earth. But everybody else seems to be headed for West Africa.

I sort of feel that way lately. I’ve gotten so many e-mails the last few months from people getting ready to move to, or at least visit, Burkina Faso!

Of course, I think it’s great and I am very happy to share what little wisdom I have garnered over the last nine years or so. In fact, it makes me deeply happy to think that my advice might help make someone’s move here easier than my own was, so many years ago.
Actually, my first stay in Burkina was in 1994 and it was a complete disaster. I was supposed to stay for two months and I barely lasted two weeks. It was so mind-bendingly horrific that I’m sure I will eventually write a long, extremely humorous novel about it. Or at least an interesting blog post.

But we don’t have time for pointless digressions- we need to get down to business.

I started writing Part II of my list of what to bring to Burkina and quickly discovered that I have a lot to say on the subject. A whole lot. So, I’ll have to break up the list, publishing it here a little at a time.

Toothpaste : Don’t bring

At Marina Market a couple of days ago, I did an informal toothpaste survey. A close look at the shelves revealed over 13 different kinds of Colgate toothpaste. There is whitening formula, breath-freshening formula, sensitive gum formula and, in short, everything except a special formula for demented expat mothers of four who stand around for ten minutes in Marina Market staring at the toothpaste.

They also have four kinds of Crest, a wide variety of AquaFresh (pump and tube! Woo!) and Signal. They even have entertaining (in a disturbing way) French brands of toothpaste that taste like grass.

There is a heck of a lot of toothpaste at Marina Market, even in this time of shortages.

Scimas Market has lots of different types of Signal and AquaFresh. They also have various varieties of Close-Up.

Close-Up is the brand you are likely to find in the small local shops and stands outside of the city center. You can depend on finding your choice of red or green Close-Up. These places also tend to carry odd brands of toothpaste labelled in Chinese characters, with the stray bit of English thrown in to add glamour and exoticism.

They are quite cheap. I think that this is because they are mainly composed of plaster, powdered human bone and arsenic. Just a guess.

Stick with the Close-Up.

One exception: If you are bringing a huge container over and have extra space, you could bring along a case of good, cheap toothpaste. It might end up costing the same as, or less than buying it here.

But if packing space is limited, don’t waste space on it.

Battery operated (or rechargeable) fan: Bring

This is an item that you will only need (probably) three months out of the year. But you will be very glad you have it when it’s 10pm, 100°F, the power is off and you need to get to sleep. Or even worse, you have kids tossing miserably under their mosquito nets.

Our first years here, we used our personal fans a lot at night during power cut
But over the years, we got used to the heat.
Related anecdote: Last weekend, Valentine and I brought a visitor from England to see the Village Artisanal craft center. As we walked along, our visitor asked “So, how do you handle this heat?”

Valentine and I were shocked.

“But..this is NICE weather!” my daughter protested.

“Yes! It’s VERY cool today! Lovely!” I added.

The English Rose smiled and said “Well, I guess that answers my question.”

So, eventually you get so acclimatised that you don’t even know you are acclimatised. If that makes sense.

I have found that when I feel that it’s “too” hot here, I take the two-pronged Burkinabe approach:

1. complain a bit (they call it “venting” for a reason)

2. move very, very slowly

But the first few years, the fans came in handy.