This morning, Uschi is making a cake for Leon, but all the eggs had chickens inside, so
it’s a cake without eggs. I guess if it’s sweet and chocolate, Leon will like
it. We talked for a long time last night about who to breed to Cinnamon. Many breeding
plans formulated and discarded. Our favorite game!
Today, after making the cake, we continued on to Markoye. It’s very windy and dusty
today. I hope that the market is in a protected area. It’s so hard walking outside
when the wind blows so hard and the dirt gets all over and in your eyes. The Baobob trees
are really weird looking. Reinhard told a story about the trees and why they look as they
do.
It goes like this: God was angry about something and he took the Baobob trees and yanked
them out of the ground and turned them upside down with the roots growing out. It made a
good story and was believable considering the appearance of the trees.
I am very sick today. Really bad diarrhea. At the market at Markoye, I was very
uncomfortable, but we got a lot of great stuff. About halfway through the market, a young
man who spoke very polite broken English attached himself to me and followed me around
trying to help out. I didn’t know if I could trust him, so I wouldn’t let him
carry anything. Anyway, I bought a leather and wood basket, a small gourd container, two
camel saddle bags (gorgeous), some jewelry, and three African slingshots. Uschi and
Reinhard had rice with sauce at a cafe. I could not. A boy came to sell goat entrails
also. ARGH. There were some tourists dressed as Tuaregs and they were the joke of the
market. I’m sure that they paid lots more than we did. The boy came to the car
with us, and I gave him some socks and a shirt. He was very pleased.
After we parked for the night, I continued to be very sick. Couldn’t even sit up for
long. I rode in the back most of the day, but it is so bumpy back there. Don’t know
which is worse, nausea from sitting up or nausea from bumping around in the back. Had to
change my underclothes three times today. It sucked. We were visited by lots of
people this evening. Fulani villages near our parking place. We saw three coarse
sighthound-like dogs. Thick ears, fat curly tails, short legs, fat necks and a little bit
of underline. One particolor, one red, one golden red like Dayyat with the lighter
undersides. The people were very friendly. Uschi gave them some dates, which they really
enjoyed. Then they invited Reinhard and Leon back to their village. They returned a short
time later with a dead guinea. Uschi was stressing out pretty bad thinking about plucking
and gutting the sucker. Uschi gave them some small cadeau and I gave them some socks and a
shirt. The head man immediately dropped to the ground in prayer, thanking God for the
gifts. Then, they invited us all to their village. Uschi wanted to stay and pluck the
bird, but one of the young men offered to do it. So, he did. Probably not as good a job
but lots faster. Then we all went to the village. By then, it was pretty dark.
Before we left, I made a picture of the particolor dog who was hanging around the car. The
dogs seem much friendlier here and seem to trust their owners more. In Niger, they were
running away from the owners, especially the kids. Anyway, everyone wanted to be in the
photos, so I took one of a bunch of men, their bicycle and their dog. They were so proud!
Bikes are very common in Burkina from a Chinese project to provide them to the country.
There are bike paths, races and repair shops. It’s weird to be driving miles from
anywhere and encounter a lone figure pedaling away on his bicycle instead of a donkey or
camel.
So off to the village we went, with my pockets crammed with toilet paper, just in case. We
were provided with mats to sit on and fed “jip-jip” and some kind of small
yellow fruits. Of course, I couldn’t eat anything. I was scared to death that they
would ask us to eat with them. But they just sat around and we stared at them and talked
and they stared at us and talked. None of us knew each other’s language. The little
girls were enamored with Leon and stood around him giggling and pointing. The women were
polite, the men sitting around. At one point, Uschi thought to get some names and we were
able to get three of the little girl’s names. Aisad (I-sad), Faoumata, and Anata.
They got a kick out of Uschi’s name and repeated it over and over again. Then one of
the women set about clarifying the relationships among us. Uschi signed that we were
sisters. It was the easiest to explain. And that the rest was her family. As usual, they
love Leon’s blonde hair. They look at ours, but mostly Leon’s. Leon went inside
one of the huts and came back with a description of the inside. About the beds and such.
The women were alarmed when he went in, but I think that they enjoyed him. One of the men
came out with a large carrying case. I asked Reinhard if it was a boom box. Oh, Yeah, It
was. A big one. The man carefully put in the batteries, and a tape of African music. Very
weird and discordant, no even rhythm. But the little girls started clapping and then one
man started dancing around. Then the men motioned for us to go. So we got up and we all
went back, accompanied by half a dozen men to the car. They brought tea over with some
coals and some wood. I teased Uschi that the party was moving t the car. She said NO, I
said Yes. It was so. They set up their fire outside the car, put the tape in the boom box
and proceeded to party down. Uschi made spaghetti with garlic, onions and oil. I went to
bed. Had all I could take of partying. Poor Uschi didn’t get any dinner. By the time,
she went back after walking the dogs, the men had eaten everything in sight. So she
cleaned up and went to bed with a few jip-jip for digestion. Last night I was too sick to
eat. Only drank a little water and some tea with sugar for the last two days. The party
continued until after I slept.
