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).

Well, what a week it was. Dave and I came to Tamale partly to volunteer for 'Guinea Worm Week', an annual project co-ordinated by the Peace Corps office which sends a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers, Dutch volunteers from a northern Ghana program, and Ghanaian health students out to a few dozen remote and endemic villages to help boost awareness of correct filtering procedures to avoid getting guinea worm. The worm eggs lurk in stagnant water and incubates in the body for about a year before bursting out, Alien-style, through the flesh (usually the leg or foot) to spread more eggs into the water.

We heard about it through a PC volunteer we met on the south coast and got in touch with the co-ordinator to see if they wanted more people. About 75 of us got a day's training and were then sent out in pairs to various village to stay with the resident guinea worm volunteer. It's called 'extension work' - basically having some outsiders turn up is supposed to provide a bit of a morale boost to the local volunteers, and help to check if anyone's filters need replacing, run information sessions and just generally educate or re-emphasise the need to follow the correct filtering procedure.

We thought all the villages would be pretty basic and it would probably be pretty intense but... although we were probably the least prepared of all the volunteers (not being long-term here in Ghana or with any volunteering experience), fate intervened in true African style to send us to what was probably the most remote and poor village in the whole program. Dobiso (or Dorbiso - but the spelling is kind of irrelevant as they don't get mail there and it's unlikely to be on any maps) has 54 households and about 200 residents living in mud huts with thatched roofs, surrounded by bush and groundnut and yam farms and 1 mile from the river, their only source of water. There are other villages scattered around, mostly in a similarly state although a few have bores for water. It's a good 20 miles from the nearest real town where you can buy filtered water or get public transport. A few very lucky people have bicycles to make the trip - including John, the village's resident guinea worm volunteer and our host in Dobiso.

It was kinda rough. Rewarding and amazing etc but very very trying, despite the very humbling generousity we were shown.

It wasn't so much the fact that we'd been dropped off with an inadequate supply of safe water and then our own filter broke; that we were totally isolated; that we had to sleep outside on a grass matt on the ground, or that the toilet was a pit full of writhing, humming maggots. It wasn't that the food was bland and oily and meaty. Bucket showers, dirty clothes, flies and mosquitoes are not a problem for either of us.

Nope, it was the psychological aspect of it that was really tough. Firstly, there was the overarching sense of being privileged guests, treated like royalty by people who have almost nothing except their farms and probably earn in a year what I have spent on one lavish meal. It's extremely rude to refuse this hospitality though, and most of our offers to help out with day to day tasks were just met with amusement. What they really wanted from us was something else - to observe these exotic pale-skinned creatures who rocked up in an NGO 4WD. Having white people in town was a BIG deal for most of these people - so big that our every move was watched, for five long days. We opened a book; they giggled and chattered and looked at it. We wrote something down; they wanted to know what we were writing. We were even watched as we crawled under our mosquito net at night to sleep. Dave had the worst of it because being the man, he got all the attention - plus, he managed to pick up the complicated Kratchi greetings more quickly than me. We could have basic conversations with some of the villagers who'd learnt English, and in Africa you become surprisingly good at establishing rapport without words - so you know who your friends are at least - but it's still kind of limited in a situation like that.

We spent a lot of time in the hottest part of the day just hanging out with the villagers under the mango tree shelling peanuts and agoushi (they're a bit like pumpkin seeds, made into a fairly tasty stew which is served with boiled yam) and playing cards. Dave learnt 'spa' - a psychotic kind of game that the men sit around playing and yelling over all afternoon while the women fetch the water, pound the fufu, farm the yams and groundnuts, look after the children, light the fires, etc etc etc. Despite the obvious unfairness of the situation for the women, most of them were actually pretty fiesty and outgoing - it was a shame that virtually none of them could speak English, but I still really appreciated their spiritedness and great sense of humour. One day I saw a toddler scrabbling around in the dirt (which seemed a perfectly reasonable thing at the time, although looking at my photos now I'm already thinking 'jeez those poor kids are PLAYING IN THE DIRT, how awful!!!') and the kid managed to upend a large empty water bowl onto himself so he was trapped underneath and started crying. His mum heard and then saw him, and then saw me wondering if I should run over and rescue him, and we both laughed our heads off. They're not exactly neurotic about their kids, because there is always someone around to keep an eye out. The women were also well into dancing when the music came on at night (sadly no drums in this village, just the tape player), and we danced too, although I think they were so amused/shocked by our crappy rhythm that after a while they told us to sit down!

The village chief and his linguist (theoretically you speak to the linguist rather than talking to the chief directly, but he's basically the chief's best mate) also seemed very kind and gentle men, but it was clear that the younger men - John in particular - were the real 'big men' in the village; the old men were sweet and dignified but did they have a bicycle or a tape player? No, they just had some homebrew gin and maybe a tiny radio.

As the week wore on, John became the real difficulty for Dave and I. Although he was perfectly hospitable - too hospitable in fact, getting the women to cook us elaborate meals (like fufu, which requires strenuous pounding with a giant pestle and mortar to produce something that is significantly less pleasant than the yam it's made from) and fetch us water to bathe with, it became obvious that he was just doing it to big-up his status in the village, and ultimately to procure things from us.

Doing this kind of thing in Africa you never actually 'work' a whole day - we only did guinea worm stuff in the early morning and late afternoon when it was cool, as it often involved walking to some of the satellite villages. But John could rarely get going before 9am, even though he was up at 5am blasting his treasured stereo (the only one in the village) and all he had to do was check his traps before we left. So we were walking in the sun a lot. On our second-last day we walked to a village four miles away to run an info session, and while it was cool and overcast on the way there, we did the return trip in the hot midday sun. John swaggered along flirting with some adolescent girls from another village who were carrying bowls of dried fish on their heads - after an hour and a half we had run out of water and I was verging on heat exhaustion and had to sit under a tree. John was entirely unsympathetic: the pretty girls slowed down a bit but they had to keep going, so John had to keep going, so Dave and I had to keep going too.

I'd given him the benefit of the doubt up till that point, but it had become obvious that he just wanted us to help him out - he would act offended if we didn't eat all the massive meals (goat stew and fufu for breakfast anyone?) but that's just the standard practice there. He wasn't that interested in going with us to check filters etc - he really just wanted us to take photos of him posing at 'farming' (in reality the women do most of the farming) and 'fishing' (again I didn't know him to actually fish the whole week).

On Friday our own water supply ran out and we were having filter problems, but we had been told we would be picked up at about midday to begin the trip back to Tamale. We sat down and read for a while - the first time we had a real break from the constant interaction - as kids gathered around and peered at us and John's son Ebenezer, who inherited his dad's swagger and man about town attitude, decided it was time to start the time-honoured Ghanaian kids' practice of yelling at the white people: 'Obruni!... Obruni!... Obruni!...' By about 4pm it became obvious we weren't going to be collected that day at all. We were getting a bit tetchy. Even Dave had a super-rare moment of exasperation. The tension with John had become slightly alarming - he seemed to be disappointed that we hadn't yet given him any substantial gifts (having been expressly told back in Tamale not to give money to our host), although we had brought some small gifts and also arranged to leave various items behind for him, like our mosquito net, and I gave some of my clothes and a book to John's sister Gladys, who had toiled away at our food and water.

Anyway to cut it short, a vehicle did turn up about 7pm at night when we had truly given up hope of being collected until the next day. It was Adam, the Peace Corps guy who co-ordinates the whole guinea worm program, and three Ghanains: Emmanuel the district co-ordinator, a driver and a woman called Amelia from the GW office - one of the funky types with a 'fro and slinky trousers (most women of means here prefer straightening and skirts). Another impromptu meeting was held, praise was handed around for the guinea worm prevention efforts (despite my misgivings about John he has done a pretty good job with education, at least in his own village), translations were made, food was served for us and the new guests, and then John started DJ-ing and everyone danced and it was fine. Amelia had changed into a super-short skirt and heels and did some funky moves and the little kids started copying... one of the village women got Dave to dance with her... the kids were all shakin' their booty... it was all good. We had to get up at 5am to hit the road and a lot of the villagers got up especially to say goodbye to us. We were relieved to be away from Dobiso and particularly the tension with John, but sad to say goodbye to most of the others.

We didn't want to get their hopes up but what we're hoping to do now is help get a bore for the village. Apparently World Vision had been looking at giving a nearby village a SECOND bore, although Dobiso has none. We pondered during the week the logistics of this - you can't just hand the money to someone, because even if you give it direct to the contractors they'll almost certainly just 'chop' it. But happily, Adam was pretty positive about the prospects if we get in touch with World Vision and some other Christian group that has its own bore-drilling equipment, and liaise with Emmanuel... so, fingers crossed. It's also complicated because it's apparently good to encourage the people in the village to build relations with their local district authority - as futile as it might seem, that will potentially improve their long-term prospects. So yeah, it alleviates our rich white guilt, but at least it will make life a bit easier for the women there and probably improve the overall level of health.

I know I whinged about this before... but today it has been intense! Sometimes we manage to avoid getting these questions for an entire day, but rarely. I have to confess I sometimes give people the 'wrong' address because I am so tragically precious about my email privacy. Apparently people rarely contact you anyway - although we just had an email from a guy we met about 30 minutes ago!

Still, we are right on the tourist trail - in Kumasi, home of the culture- and gold-rich Asante people (though of course the gold is mostly owned by the kings). We went to a couple of museums and there is some fairly interesting history here. Having already heard a lot about Asante culture before we got here, though, the best thing is really the huge market. I didn't believe it would be *that* impressive as markets here all seem to be the same and are usually crowded and yes, hot. Our first expedition there was a bit of a let down, because we somehow ended up in the dried fish section - which must be about a quarter of the entire market, I swear there were thousands of stalls and the smell was dire. But we persevered and actually managed to find some stuff we wanted.

Funny little interactions with people happen all the time here - apart from the predictable address requests, people often just want to say hello and how are you, and I've finally worked out how to say a few things in Twi so that is fun. Little kids always yell out 'hello Obruni (white person)!' and sometimes just run up and squeal and hug us - one of them grabbed my sunglasses but she just wanted to try them on, which she thought was hiarious. They love pictures too; they are quite entertained if I show them the photos in my guide book or if I'm really stuck, The Economist (our erstwhile source of print news here due to its surprisingly good distribution - it's great for world news, but watch out if I start sprouting the merits of flat tax). Why do kids here so much more lively than kids at home? Being a journalist, I have to attribute it to the lack of Playstations.

I think I've mentioned before that Ghana (at least in the southern & Ashanti regions) is relatively affluent for West Africa; demonstrated by the sheer number of cars on the road, mobile phones and internet cafes. Ghana also gets a lot of aid because it is held up as a great example of African democracy, which is true only in a relative sense. There is still lots of corruption here, though, which seems to be the number one gripe of aspirant Ghanaians.

The pursuit of education is the number one priority for most children and young people here. A lot of people somehow manage to get to the UK or the US or Germany (at least a lot of the people we get into long conversations with have relatives overseas, or have studied there), but apparently they're not big on sending remittances. There are very few beggers (mind you there were even less in Benin; the extended family works well I guess), but it's very sad seeing the kids who wander around the streets and motor parks selling sachets of purified water, which is the main occupation for those who can't afford school. Those ones aren't too exhuberant.

Tomorrow morning we are heading off to Tamale and it is all going to be different there - it's much further north, drier, dustier and very Islamic (so earplugs will be required - all the mosques have amplification these days!).

Today I spotted a men's hairdressers called "Dr Jesus". And found out that Lil' Kim may be jailed - is there no justice in this world?

That saying about things being 'as difficult as herding cats' is crap - I have noticed that cats here actually DO herd. At every place we've stayed with resident cats, the cats always hang out together in groups or pairs, and can often be seen slinking along in a line or lounging together like lions.

Anyway speaking of cats, my cat now has his own blog, courtesy of Dave's mum who has not only been *extremely* generously looking after the little beast, but typing up his emails for him, so we know how he's coping with snow and foxes.

We're now in the Volta Region in eastern Ghana, and just spent a couple of nights in a beautiful mountain-top village called Amedzofe. It has its own dialect which is only shared with seven neighbouring villages – so in total only about 30,000 people speak it. They also speak a better-known regional language, Ewe (which is fairly common in Togo as well), and English (if they're been able to go to school). Our guide, who originated from the Central region could speak Twi, some French and Ga, and another one I can't remember – so about seven languages in total! And we thought the Dutch and the Swiss were impressive...

Apart from the lovely climate, the beautiful little mountain and the waterfalls, the other cool thing about Amedzofe is its community tourism project – you stay in a spare room in someone's house and some of the money you pay for accommodation and guides goes to the whole village. I think this is why we found people were very laid-back about us yovos/obrunis – they were quite friendly, but without the usual thing of asking for your address as soon as you say hello. We stayed at a house owned by an ancient woman called Mathilda, and went to the house of another very old woman called Betty for meals – she has worked as a caterer in several different US embassies in West Africa, and I think (it wasn't easy to understand her) she said she's cooked for the Marcoses and Bob Marley, although we didn't think he'd been to West Africa (surely we would've heard about it by now!) so Dave thought it might have been a diplomat with a similar-sounding name. Anyway, she served the most massive portions of food which almost defeated us.

On our first night in Amedzofe there was more torrential tropical rain, which started in the afternoon this time. There was a bit of lightning and distant thunder but it didn't really seem like a serious storm was close by... until I was sitting next to the window and suddenly heard a sound like an earsplitting gun shot that seemed to ricochet off several buildings, accompanied by a bluish flash. Turns out lightning had struck nearby – not next door as I first thought, but the TV transmission tower which was still pretty close. Mathilda came to see if we were okay – I was amazed she hadn't had a heart attack!

The drive up to Amedzofe was terrifying, because not only was it the kind of narrow, windy mountain road with a steep descent down one side that I hate, but there were more potholes than bitumen (apparently there was some funding to seal it properly a few years ago but the construction company absconded with the cash). AND we were in a tro-tro, the main public transport here, which is just a large decrepit van stuff to the gills with people and goods. Fortunately I was distracted by an interesting conversation with a man called Owen who wanted to know what Dave and I thought of the Iraq situation, given that we both come from countries that supported the war. Of course we both relish hearing what people here think about that, and since I've been in Africa it's become more clear how the whole Iraq issue has stirred anti-US feelings just about everywhere in the developing world - even in a very Christian region like southern Ghana, which receives a lot of aid from the West (although admittedly the vast majority from Europe), it's pretty unanimous.

The drive back down was with a good old classic Beninoise-style 'taxi-brousse': a Peugeot station wagon (estate car) with an extra row of seats in the back. In Benin it was relatively comfortable to squash together in the front seat of one of these - at least, preferable to the more common situation of being jammed in the back seat of a smaller sedan with at least two other adults – but it's not a patch on the relative luxury of tro-tros. It's a corny thing to say but the road trips are sometimes the most interesting part of the journey here. This time, our door didn't close so we had to hold it, and the tyre blew out on the way and we rolled the last few hundred metres towards Ho... so it was a pretty typical journey. But on the plus side, we've rarely had to wait more than 20 minutes to for the next tro-tro/bush taxi, even for long trips.

Now we're off to try and make it to Kumasi by tonight - two trips totalling 7 hours. Wish us luck...