Burkina Faso

Somehow, through a mixture of luck and planning (OK mostly luck), we have missed the worst weather in many of the countries on our itinerary; we had some cool days in SA, a slippery road in Gabon and one beautiful tropical rainstorm over the ocean in Ghana. But it had to go wrong somewhere and now we were driving back into the Sahelian countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania at the hottest time of the year. No matter how much you drink you never need to wee, our pillows are soaked after half an hour in bed and our drinking water is hotter than McDonalds coffee.

With this in mind, it was tempting to drive straight through to lush, temperate Morocco but so many overlanders had told us that Burkina Faso is 'really nice' and the people 'lovely' that we decided to explore a little and work out what these bland superlatives meant, whilst they said it sincerely it does rather sound like describing that 'pleasant' cousin to a would-be suitor. Burkina is one of those fake countries with made-up borders and so it has a bit of everything but not a lot of anything. In the south there is woodland (but no rainforest), in the north the Sahara begins (but not the bit with any natural resources in it), and the population is made up of many small tribes (but there's no fascinating ancient kingdom). As a tourist this offers little to focus on and for the Burkinabes it offers little economic opportunity.

Music, however, is a big thing in Burkina and we had already met some great drummers in Ghana who had proudly told us they were Bukinabe. So we first headed for Garoua - a small town in the south which is the centre for the Lobi people. We had read that the Lobi are not strict followers of Islam and so their culture revolves around informal nightclub/bars called boites where they drink locally made millet beer and play impromptu sessions on balafons, a kind of amplified glochenspiel. Unfortunately when we went they all seemed to be drinking bottled lager and listening to European dance hits. Hmmm, maybe the culture here was not holding out so well after all.

We had more luck in Bobo-Diassolo, the main city in the south, and Ougadougou, the capital. Bobo is a small, gentle city but has a lively French cultural centre and loads of music venues. We saw a great drumming/singing band at a club with lots of local youth who took turns to dance African-style in front of the stage - think Zulu war dance with some break-dance moves thrown in. And in Ouagadougou we visited the music museum and were guided by an exuburent youth and then treated to musicians frenetically playing all the instruments in a sound-room afterwards.

In between all this musical excitement we visited the main natural attractions in the south - a lake with some resident hippos and a cascade waterfall which tumbled over small drops for three or four kilometres. Whilst neither of these were exactly Kruger National Park or Vic Falls we had a really lovely couple of days exploring the two and camping next to the lake at a small site that a young family were trying to set up as a cafe and guesthouse. We found that the people were indeed 'lovely' - everyone we spoke to was gentle and friendly and conversation seemed easy and natural. One evening a local English teacher approached us for a chat and we talked about mangoes and politics. He was frustrated by the governments excuses for not alleviating the poverty in his country but he spoke in a reasoned and informed way, unexpected in a country with little education and such extreme hardship. Later, in the cities, we found the inevitable begging to be less aggressive than normal and in fact many of the would-be beggars tried to sell us something in return for our money.

We also spent some time sight-seeing in Bobo, not that there is a lot to do in the traditional sense. The museum was full of the usual 'this is the harvest-dance mask of xxx tribe' type exhibits which were well done enough but all merge into one after a while. More interesting was the temporary display in the lobby which had a dozen or so pieces from an art competition with categories in different media (sculpture, painting, mosaic etc). It was striking how many of these centred on the need for Burkinabes to understand their culture and history and use it as a resource, whether through art or music, nature or family. We were commenting on how positive this attitude seemed when we came across a sculpture tackling the ongoing problem of female genital mutilation and this contrast reminded us again how complex the arguments for and against modernisation are.

In our short stay, we would have to agree that Burkina is indeed a 'really nice' country with 'lovely' people. For such a disparate and impoverished country we found it remarkably upbeat and a surprisingly easy place to spend time. We can only hope they can find a way to improve their lot that doesn't change this too much.

Photos
At the lake