the search continues...

Yesterday we saw Bobo Dioulasso(correct!)'s Grande Mosquee, a rather impressive example of Sahel mud-and-sticks architecture. Not that I have seen many others - although we did spot a few from the bus window at Bani, which also looked amazing. Then we had a quick tour of the 'ancient quarter' of Bobo, with its animist and Muslim quarters and its 'poissons sacred' - astoundingly big catfish who are barely able to submerge themselves fully in the shallow stinking stream. My crappy camera did an okay job with the mosque and the village, and I took a cute photo of a 4-year-old boy drumming on two empty tomato tins with a huge smile on his face. It's hard to get photos of people here - they're often averse to them; and I feel bad asking because there's a tangible sense of 'taking' the only thing they have; or the opposite happens and you get 50 people excitedly piling into one frame!

We went with a local man, Yacouba, who we were put in touch with by a lovely American couple we met at Gorom Gorom. Yacouba grew up here but at about 18 went to study in Norway and lived there for 17 years, before returning here in 1996. I think the culture shock was considerable. He's a lovely friendly guy who introduced us to his favourite tailor, who is making some non-bumblebee-ish clothes for me (his assistant took me shopping for some decent fabric).

Tomorrow we go back to Ougadougou and on Friday we fly to Paris (thankfully arriving the day after the Pope's funeral), then Sunday get the train to London, where there'll be a marked absence of:

every second person we pass on the street greeting us and every fifth person wanting to have a conversation.

sitting next to people in internet cafes struggling with sticky keyboards and sharing a single dial-up line with patrons sending 'URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSALS' to their many friends

kids hustling to sell packets of tissues

morning sounds of men clanking scissors together (I think they clean your nails for a pittance, although we haven't tried it).

yummy cheap French food, strangely addictive Nescafe-with-condensed milk, sachets of yoghurt, or 5p mangoes

women in truly fantastic wax-print outfits

terror at the sight of a mosquito

footpaths full of holes and hazards

..and a million other things I have got used to over the past three months.

Not that I can really liken it to a party, in fact one outstanding aspect of this trip is my sleeping hours are now usually from 9pm to 6 or 7am -- hard to believe.

We're in Bobo Diaolasso which I still can't spell; nice place mais tro hassle. Current strategy is ignoring them. Occasionally it works. Crappy French ke"yboards are more difficult, however...

Oh and unbelievably we're so good at bargaining now we can even do it in French! After much hassle and difficulty I bought some fabric, then went to (or was taken to, you canùt do anything without a crowd here) a tailor, eventually was shown some pictures, eventually translated that it requires more fabric... this was after an hour or so... I could feel sweat pouring down my back... decided to give up. The print would,ve probably made me look like a giant bumblebee wrapped in a curtain anyway, although they do great tailoring here.

Other random observations about Burkina Faso _ there are table football games everywhere but strangely they calle them boulle; it has a lot more expats than in Benin; people say bonjour all day instead of switching to bonsoir in the afternoon like Benin; there is no particular word for white person, just the generic blanc.

I've just lost two consecutive attempts to post about our first few days in Burkina Faso. So now it's all dot-points only:

- people here are called 'Burkinabes' but Dave and I reckon that 'Burkinababes' is cuter

- it's Francophone; yay, much yummier food (couscous! yoghurt! palatable beer! no fufu!!!)

- it's very very poor, even compared to Benin (which is apparently 7th on the under-development list while BF is 6th); lots of beggers everywhere, we are constantly assailed in the street; but there are still the usual rich few with Mercedes.

- there's much more corruption than we've seen in other countries - numerous roadblocks where passengers have a whip-round to pay bribes; but strangely tourists are not expected to chip in.

We went to Gorom Gorom market on Wednesday and returned last night. It's in the far north-west, apparently the biggest market in the Western Sahara with Tauregs, Bellas, Fulanis etc making the trip there to sell livestock and other wares. I couldn't believe how dry it was (although that made the 50-degree heat relatively comfortable). Loads and loads of hassle to go on a camel trek into the dunes; photo opportunities were even more difficult than usual as the desert people are very camera-shy; bus broke down for 4 hours so it took more than 12 hours to get there (although the trip back was *much* better).