Bonne Arrivée! As they like to say in Burkina Faso… Bonne Arrivée on my blog. Since moving out to Africa in January, I have been notoriously bad at keeping in touch, but now that I am connected to the internet at home, I was running out of excuses not to send more regular news!
Saying this, getting the internet was not as easy, as you may think, the guys first had to plant a pylon in the street, as no one else here is connected, then drag the lines to my house… and finally find a mutually convenient time to configure everything… which took the best part of 3 months! Anyway, here I am, raking my brains to find out what you back home might be most interested reading about.
Random choice, but chicken is as good an opening, as any, as I just got an update from Adama, the night guardian a
bout how well his hens are doing. My friend Aurélie was given a chicken and a hen on a field visit, gift from the villagers, she could not refuse. She brought them proudly home, but the sensible thing seemed to give them to Adama, who lives on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, this would help him make some extra money with the eggs and improve his family’s diet. Adama does everything very dutifully, so while waiting for the pen to be built, he let the cockerel and the hen roam freely in his house, so they would not get stolen or lost. When getting them vaccinated, the vet quite rightly told him that the ratio 1 male for 1 female, was not so good for the poor hen, and it would be better, if our enterprising cockerel could have more choice, so we bought two more hens (if you ever need shopping for live poultry, depending on the size, a hen costs between 1,500 and 2,000 CFA francs, that’s about 2-3 euros). Now a few weeks later, the first hen laid 8 eggs, and the family is getting bigger. Adama is well pleased and so are we!
Not all poultry in Burkina get such a luxurious treatment though, and when feeling hungry, you have a choice between the ‘bicycle chicken’ or ‘poulet bicyclette’, rightly named because it’s been roaming freely and the meat is so hard to eat and there is hardly anything to chew on or the ‘television chicken’ or ‘poulet télévisé’, slightly tastier and named so, because it is grilled in these glass cabinets that resemble televisions…
Now very unlucky chicken might end up eaten alive by a crocodile… nature is cruel… There are a couple of sacred lakes within easy reach of Ouagadougou. The ritual is the same each time, you can buy a live chicken at a sacrificial price of 1,000 CFA francs, not quite the premium quality of Adama’s lot, it’s fed to a croc which lumbers out of the water with much effort… and you can take photos of you with a lopsided smile and the croc grinning widely. If crocodiles really give you frisson, you can lift its tail, stroke his head… Why they don’t eat you alive remains a mystery to me. The villagers will tell you many legends. Our guide told me that one of his friends drowned in the lake, as a little boy, his body was carried out of the water by one of the crocodiles, who gently laid it on the shore… Another night, a crocodile came to his home, just for a courtesy visit…
I promise the next entry will be more suitable for vegetarians… that’s a first attempt at blogging, you’ll have to excuse me!
Saying this, getting the internet was not as easy, as you may think, the guys first had to plant a pylon in the street, as no one else here is connected, then drag the lines to my house… and finally find a mutually convenient time to configure everything… which took the best part of 3 months! Anyway, here I am, raking my brains to find out what you back home might be most interested reading about.
Random choice, but chicken is as good an opening, as any, as I just got an update from Adama, the night guardian a
bout how well his hens are doing. My friend Aurélie was given a chicken and a hen on a field visit, gift from the villagers, she could not refuse. She brought them proudly home, but the sensible thing seemed to give them to Adama, who lives on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, this would help him make some extra money with the eggs and improve his family’s diet. Adama does everything very dutifully, so while waiting for the pen to be built, he let the cockerel and the hen roam freely in his house, so they would not get stolen or lost. When getting them vaccinated, the vet quite rightly told him that the ratio 1 male for 1 female, was not so good for the poor hen, and it would be better, if our enterprising cockerel could have more choice, so we bought two more hens (if you ever need shopping for live poultry, depending on the size, a hen costs between 1,500 and 2,000 CFA francs, that’s about 2-3 euros). Now a few weeks later, the first hen laid 8 eggs, and the family is getting bigger. Adama is well pleased and so are we!Not all poultry in Burkina get such a luxurious treatment though, and when feeling hungry, you have a choice between the ‘bicycle chicken’ or ‘poulet bicyclette’, rightly named because it’s been roaming freely and the meat is so hard to eat and there is hardly anything to chew on or the ‘television chicken’ or ‘poulet télévisé’, slightly tastier and named so, because it is grilled in these glass cabinets that resemble televisions…
Now very unlucky chicken might end up eaten alive by a crocodile… nature is cruel… There are a couple of sacred lakes within easy reach of Ouagadougou. The ritual is the same each time, you can buy a live chicken at a sacrificial price of 1,000 CFA francs, not quite the premium quality of Adama’s lot, it’s fed to a croc which lumbers out of the water with much effort… and you can take photos of you with a lopsided smile and the croc grinning widely. If crocodiles really give you frisson, you can lift its tail, stroke his head… Why they don’t eat you alive remains a mystery to me. The villagers will tell you many legends. Our guide told me that one of his friends drowned in the lake, as a little boy, his body was carried out of the water by one of the crocodiles, who gently laid it on the shore… Another night, a crocodile came to his home, just for a courtesy visit…
I promise the next entry will be more suitable for vegetarians… that’s a first attempt at blogging, you’ll have to excuse me!
1 commentaire:
Almost as bad as our cat Hexadecimal, eating Blue-Tits!
Leitita, could you give a "grid" reference for your location, so that we (and others) can look at it via GoogleEarth?
How BIG are these crocs, and have they been bred for (realtive) tameness, do you think?
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