Your Tax Dollars at Work

Came back from the desert to a series of emails from my father, a scanned copy of a 5-pg letter from the Canadian Arts Council informing me that they will be giving me a huge pile of free money in order to do research on witches in Ghana.

Free money! And witches!

The only hitch is that I have decided to leave Ghana, as I feel a level of hostility here that is not good for a person. I've started scouting for jobs, mostly in Asia. (I'm not particularly ready to go back to Canada, where the elusive balance between fresh and jiggy and boring and stodgy has yet to be reached.) But I am a vain person and I wanna have my name on a book.

So I'm moving north, to the witch camps. I'll divide my time between Gambaga and Nakpanduri, where there is no cell reception, no Internet and no pizza. Perhaps I will get a car. And maybe a pet goat.

Into the Tenere...

After a week of sinful living, we got up before the sun and headed all groggy and dehydrated to the bus station for our trip to Niger. A former Peace Corps from Niger now living in Ghana, told us it would be four to six hours to go from one capital to the other. She must ride on a magic carpet, because it took us 10 hours.

Crossing the border was painless and the differences between Niger and Burkina were subtle but important: Niger is at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index while Burkina is a couple spots above it. Still, at Burkina there was no hassle. At Niger, there was a huge gaggle of dusty, dirty, scraggly boys, all with tomato tins around their necks, all looking for "cent francs" or "un cadeau" or something.

Niamey was wonderful. Hot and dusty, but really laid back, yet really vibrant. We made a second home of GG's, a bar with rotisserie chicken and chips and cold bottles of Flag beer and basically wandered and explored and finally figured out that to get a cab, one has to shout their destination at any cars that pass. If the driver speeds away, he's not going in your direction. But if he nods, you get in and wait for him to drop you and the other passengers in order of destination.

We spent a morning with the last herd of wild giraffes in the region, loading into two cars with three other backpackers and finally -- FINALLY -- getting away from the city after more than an hour of dithering and dickering. There was the usual annoyance at the gate: the fee for entry, the fee for guide, the fee for the vehicle, the fee for a blue sky and an intense sun, the fee for simply breathing. And a drive with the guide up on top of the car, looking for what have to be the tallest giraffes I've ever seen, camoflaged brilliantly in the sandy terrain.



A day later, we were sardined into another bus, this time pointed north in the direction of the fabled salt-trading city of Agadez, the gateway to the Tenere desert. The same expat told us expeditions into the desert could be expensive -- around $1,000 for a week -- and we scoffed. We'd only be gone a couple days (who needs to see a week's worth of sand?) and so it might be a couple hundred bucks. Of course, we only discovered that there are no ATMs in Niger after we'd already set off for Niger, so we'd already sent off a request for a Western Union transfer. We were counting our pennies the whole way and annoying the artisans in the process. But after a morning of to-ing and fro-ing with Dan the Man and Trevor Whatever, our traveling companions for the following eight days, we'd bargained the cost down to $500.

Emily and I, dry and dusty and exhausted from the bus ride, flopped back to the concrete cell that was our hotel room and discussed the choices we've made in life. "This is going to be the hardest traveling I've done," I remarked, at which Emily blanched and said, "Seriously?!" We were spending eight days camping in the desert, with a driver and a 4WD and a cook that would make us mutton stew with couscous, mutton stew with rice, mutton stew with potatoes. Still, I've never had to poop outside before.



Our first night was came with a brilliant salt-and-pepper spray of stars, but was brutally, brutally cold. I woke Emily up with my shivering. We were sharing a blanket, huddled in our little tent, trying to ignore the ridges of sand digging into our backs. The next day I bought two pairs of socks and that night I wore everything in my backpack, including silk long underwear and two pairs of pants, with a pair of pants wrapped around my neck like a scarf. I'm considering writing to Gap about this, as it's the perfect thing to do with gauchos, which are likely long out of style. I wore them around my neck most days until well after noon, when I had finally thawed, and I looked smashing.



Overall, Niger was gorgeous. Lots of rocks and rock art, including some amazingly detailed giraffes carved into a rock face some 8,000 years ago. The people were gentle and generous and I learned a new card game, Huit, which demands to be played in French and is an even funner version of Uno. Yes, funner than Uno.

Boo'd Diamond

Two years ago, I stumbled upon the FESPACO festival, arriving in Ouaga just as the festival opened, purely by coincidence. I was oblivious in the way that most tourists are -- there was a stampede at the opening ceremonies and two people were trampled to death; I only learned this at this year's festival -- and really enjoyed the event, having no expectations of it. I thought it was romantic to sit under the stars, watching African films in Africa surrounded by Africans.

This year, we waited two hours in line just to drop off our accreditation forms. Schedules and catalogues became as scarce as cold water, the festival hadn't printed enough and ran out only a day into the seven-day event. Some film-goers picked up their $25 passes for free. A couple times we made it to the theatre before the film, which would arrive in the arms of an usher riding on the back of a moped. We missed the opening few minutes of "Africa Paradis" because there guy with the keys to the box office hadn't shown up and there was no one to sell tickets.

Still, we saw some amazing films and had a very decadent week of sleeping in air conditioning, washing in hot water, swanning about watching movies and eating pizza at every opportunity.

The winner, Ezra, was a picture about child soldiers, shot in Rwanda but ostensibly about Sierra Leone. My favourite, Juju Factory, was about Congolese living in Belgium. I cried like a baby at the end of Tsotsi -- man, that kid can act! We both loved "Shoot the Messenger," a highly controversial BBC film about black stereotypes, and a documentary about the Jonestown massacre, the "don't drink the Kool-aid" cult of the 1970s. We had long discussions over "The Mother's House," a documentary following an 11-year-old girl and her HIV-positive mother while they lived for four years in the grandmother's house. The girl spirals downward under the eye of the camera, cutting herself and getting hooked on drugs.

But, secretly, I think we were most looking forward to Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland, the Hollywood contributions to Africa's Cannes. To be considered for competition, a film must have a director with an African passport, so neither of these films were fighting for the Golden Stallion. But they were undoubtedly the most popular films of the festival, with line-ups that started an hour before the film and stretched around the block.

Unfortunately, both were dubbed in French, so we didn't stay for Last King. Still, I caught enough of Blood Diamond -- mislabelled as Bood Diamond in the program -- to know that I didn't like it.

In truth, I was bound to hate it. I've got that uppity self-righteous thing going on about Africa and of course, feel very strongly that no film with Leonardo DiCaprio in it could ever capture the complexities of an African issue. And there's the smokin' Jennifer Connolly as journalist character, that was bound to raise the hackles, what with the blouse unbuttoned to here and the "what wouldn't I do for a story?" arc to the storyline. (And the god-awful dialogue, perhaps made worse by the French translation, I dunno, but who says with a straight face: "I prefer complex situations.") There is a moment where, confronted by supposed Karamajor fighters armed to the teeth and looking like fierce little Dogon trolls covered in fetishes, Connolly brashly pushes forward and asks for a picture. She squeezes them together and frames them up as one of them claims her for his wife. I was immediately annoyed. But upon further reflection, I decided this is actually an interesting tactic and may have to try it out, should I ever be in the presence of angry Keebler elves.

Still, there is the siege of Freetown, which is as exhilarating as the first 20 minutes of Ezra, three times as bloody and probably not far off. And the right-on moment at a rebel checkpoint, when two little 10-year-olds shoot a patronizing social worker in the head when he tries to rationalize with them as though they were children.

But there is also a moment where they drive on the LEFT, which is just stupid Edward Zwick, and a moment where, looking wistfully out the window, Connolly spies a cheetah running alongside the media bus. A media bus? A cheetah? People, please. And the shot of Jack Dawson at the end -- I pretty sure he was channeling Jack Dawson -- with the elephants munching on the savannah below. Elephants? Savannah? Man, Mozambique is pretty, but Sierra Leone is gorgeous in its own right (that's right, Zwick. RIGHT!) and it doesn't look like Mozambique. There are few elephants and hardly any savannah.

Boo'd Diamond wasn't much of a misprint afterall.

Border Cross-ing

Filled with a spirit of discontent towards Ghana, my roommate, Emily, and me decided to skip the 50th anniversary celebrations and instead head north to Ouagadougou for the FESPACO film festival and then to Niger from there.

We caught the dreaded STC, which I'm increasingly convinced stands for "shite transportation company," and were nattering away about how, for all the frustrations I feel lately, the great thing about Ghana is the fact that there are no touts when you travel. It's all very systemmatic. You want to put your bags in the bus, then you get a baggage ticket and then you get on the bus. You don't want to put your bag on the bus, then you just get on the bus.

Seventeen hours later, the bus deposited us in Bolgatanga in the dead of night and we made our way to a little hotel on the edge of town. It's humid in the south but so dry in the north that our skin dried out pretty quickly and we were clamouring for lip gloss and moisturizer. A leisurely breakfast and then we were in a shared cab heading to the tro-tro station, where we caught a shared cab to Paga, the border city that's better known for the sacred crocodiles that are hand-fed sacrificial chickens by tourists looking for ghoulish photos.

We handed over 20,000 cedis each, expecting 10,000 in return. Instead, we were told it would cost us each 5,000 for our bags, which had ridden in the empty boot of the car. There are 8,000 cedis in a Cdn dollar, so that means we were being charged less than a dollar each, but more than a dollar in total. And it didn't matter anyway, because I will fight on principle and this, to me, was a principle worth fighting for.

So we fought. Much hand waving. Much clucking of tongues and indignant "ehs!"

But the driver had our money and therefore all the power and he just walked away. In the end, the boss told us that if we didn't like it, we could go complain at Customs. He underestimated my willingness to embarrass myself over 10,000 cedis. A principle is a principle.

So we went to Customs and they probably watched in disbelief. Small talk about the journey and how long we'd been in Ghana and where we were from and where we were going. And then the pitch: "We are having a problem and we're hoping you can help." And then the ace card: "This is not how Ghanaians treat their visitors." And then the save: Snap, snap and a small boy is sent to find the driver.

We trot out our Twi (Emily's is soooo much better than mine) and joke about my two words of Ga, "thank you" and "goat's ass," which are pretty much all I need, I've found.

And within minutes, the boy is back with a 10,000 cedi note. "In fact, they were talking about this issue when I arrived," he said.

And we were off to the border, where the guards noticed that Emily's entry stamp had run out about a month before. A month and three days to be precise. It costs a 200,000 cedi fine per month that the stamp is expired, but I've found that it's much easier to pay the fine than try to deal with Ghana Immigration in Accra. When I left at Christmas, I paid 600,000 cedis and it seemed a wise investment. I just nodded and tried to look innocent when the man asked whether I understood that a leave to stay for 60 days was, in fact, a leave to stay for 60 days.

But these guards were going to charge us an extra month for the three days. The pitch: "Oh my friend, isn't there anything we could do?" The ace card: the silent stare, the idea that we have lots of time to think it over and maybe negotiate. And again, the save: Emily's Twi. A small lecture followed up with a "Have you heard?" in Twi, to which she replied, in Twi, "Yes, I have heard."

And then we walked to Burkina Faso.

Niger

Some pictures of Niger. A write-up to follow when I'm not so scattered or, um, bus-lagged.





This is one of our campsites, just to get a sense of the dunes. That red speck is our jeep.




Hidden in the middle of this photo is a small block school, the only boarding school for Tuareg children.

Racism

This is the headline that ran in the Statesman...



And this is me, working my contacts, at the baseball game.