Marc was the West Africa IT support division of a major hotel chain. The
support call-centre was the study in his home, and whenever an issue was not
soluble by telephone, he would travel to the hotel, driving or flying as the
distance demanded. The back of his car was filled with cardboard boxes
containing a rather random selection of bits of PC. If I understood correctly,
he had just been to clear a paper-jam in the printer in reception in Niamey Novotel,
a round trip of over 1000km, accompanied by his girlfriend: free hotel rooms
were a perk of the job.
I asked why he chose to base himself in Burkina Faso of all
places. Surely there were more sophisticated options, such as Cote d’Ivoire or
Senegal? “I am a native,” he replied. “My father was Brazilian, my mother was
French, and I was born and raised in Burkina. Three passports!” He held them
up.
“Where was I planning to stay in Ouaga?” This was an interesting
question. My guidebook mentioned several pleasant sounding hotels or
guest-houses. The only problem was that they all cost at least five times my
budget, partly due to the inflated value of the CFA. It also mentioned a couple
of unpleasant sounding places, where I was left with the impression that I
would be lucky to retain any of my possessions after a night or two’s stay,
even if I was not actually expected to pay by the hour. Based on this, I had tentatively
planned to avoid Ouagadougou altogether, either by not arriving in the first
place or by travelling straight on after I got there. This was too much for my
French to explain, so I settled on “don’t know” as a simpler answer. Marc and
his girlfriend exchanged some incomprehensible joke which included mention of
the viler hotel options and much laughter; I caught the gist. “You can stay a
couple of nights in my house.”
We continued at high speed down an empty road. After the
border, the countryside slowly became greener. “Proper” African villages began
to appear by the roadside, round mud-brick huts with conical straw roofs, full
of straying goats. I would like to have stopped to take in the scenery
occasionally, especially as we crossed the bridge over the White Volta, but for
Marc this was a commuter-journey, to be endured not enjoyed.
His house turned out to be a pleasant whitewashed bungalow
down a side street within walking distance of the centre of Ouagadougou. It had
a staff: a sad-eyed housekeeper named Jean, whose first two tasks that evening,
Marc instructed, were to pour beers and then take my laundry. My harissa-stained
garments from the Sahara crossing had defeated previous efforts, and I had
planned to give them to an opportune beggar, but bemused by the whole situation
I included them in a rather sweaty bundle.
Marc drank two beers to my one, and explained what a
wonderful place to live Burkina Faso was. We then drove over to his girlfriend’s
(identical looking) bungalow on the far side of town for dinner. Marc drank
five beers to my two, while the pair of them explained again what a wonderful
place Burkina was. Their explanation was less than clear, and appeared to
revolve around drinking in bars and/or shooting animals, mainly in neighbouring
countries rather than Burkina itself. Marc then drove back through the unlit
streets, and poured himself a huge scotch (I declined). Ouagadougou was a
marvellous place to live, he asserted in case I hadn’t already understood,
downing another large gulp of whisky.
At breakfast he looked somewhat worse for wear, compounded
by an early morning support-call into his helpdesk. My laundry was in much
better condition, immaculately presented by Jean with my T-shirts miraculously
harissa-free and actually ironed (when had he found time to do all this?). Jean
then disappeared briefly and returned with fresh French bread to accompany the
excellent coffee.
I headed into “wonderful Ouagadougou” to look around. It is
the only capital city I have been in with more goats than people (mental-flash
image: Thursday 5pm, boarding the Piccadilly Line Tube at Leicester Square).
There were indeed some bars, occupied by the usual aid-agency workers with
their four-wheel-drives watched over by badly tipped young boys. There was a
French supermarket, less splendidly located than the one in Niamey. There was a
small cathedral and a smaller mosque (unlike the surrounding countries, Burkina
Faso is not predominantly Islamic). There were dusty streets lined with dustier
shops. There was not much else. I found the bush-taxi park in preparation for
next morning, and returned to the house.
Not much to photograph: bush-taxi park.
In the living room was a piano, a missed pleasure, and since
Marc was still out I played for a bit, watching the geckos scamper across the
walls. Jean came to watch, and when my limited repertoire was exhausted, I
thanked him for the laundry and asked about his life. He almost smiled, and
told me that he lived with his family a short distance away. He was lucky to
have this job, the patron was very
generous, it paid well, and there were many side benefits: Marc often threw
away good stuff.
Marc returned carrying in some boxes of miscellaneous PC
spares, swiftly downed a first beer, and was embarking on the second: “What do you think of Ouagadougou?”
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