Can't name a specific triggering incident but, despite our obvious disadvantage as unarmed tourists, we are becoming almost militant after the endless petty police checks and trumped-up pipsqueaks demanding that we take everything out of the truck. When one "official" wanted everyone and everything off Stanley, Adri instead invited him on board and gave him a guided tour.
We hoped the guards would be off the roads today but the jerks were back on duty and I had to clamber down from the crows' nest several times before we finally reached our long-quested and war delayed destination, the wonderfully named capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou (pronounced "wagga doo goo").
First stop was post restante where our group cleared out the waiting mail. The lady serving us was lovely, smiling at out eagerness for letters and the huge amounts for some of us - very few of Bob's expected 14 parcels from Karen were there but Hawk collected 40 packages, costing him 6000 CFA.I got letters from Mum, Dad, sister Jenny and school friend Ros.
Bob and I headed to a market miles away that sold just vegetables, only to find everything we wanted, and more, at a fantastic covered market just a few hundred metres from the post office. Here, fruit and vegetable stalls sat around a central meat market where eight or so hopping and flapping vultures stood guard over tables piled with "bons filets" - actually fly-covered meats. My stomach nearly turned.
Ouagadougou is a confronting example of life in a country where government means military coups and unstable democracy. A bunker armed with mounted machine guns guarded a row of shops selling bronze statues and on the roundabout at the centre of the market was a huge anti-aircraft gun and a smiling and chatting group of uniformed soldiers. How awful to live this way, your country permanently and visibly in readiness for war. The people's aggressiveness, apart from the Post Restante lady, suggested that Burkina Faso might have been the aggressor against Mali, but we don't know. I can't decide if the corruption in Mali was worse than the armed idiots here. The language we've let fly with over the last few days in the naive belief that the roadblock guards don't speak English may blow up in our faces one day! Kel's “This idiot wants you out” came floating up to us this morning and his derogatory remarks about another soldier's intelligence or lack of it made us smile in the face of another jerk with a gun.
Just out of town we came to another stop, where everyone had to get off the truck and Kel had to stand in a long queue of hassled drivers to get a piece of paper which he then had to hand to in with money just 10 metres further on. The rest of us stood for ages in the sun before an officer finally checked them, barely knowing which way up to hold our passports. At another roadblock, a group of 10-year-olds, pawed over our precious documents.
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