Patrick came around early and, after Donat was able to contact a guy at a research botany, Patrick and I went about heading to the other side of the city. The guy here was able to give us examples of most of the plants, not only their scientific names, but also chopping a portion of them off with his machete. The most difficult for him was the Zibri vine, even though it was virtualy the thinnest of the samples.
This hour long saga was followed by visiting one of Patrick’s closer friends in the city. As this is being taken from both memory and photo imports, names have now escaped me, but it may have been similar to Matthew (actually all forgotten names, from hereon in, which are necessary will hopefully show that it is obviously a forgotten name). Matthew was lucky enough to have the ability to jump in and out of his brother’s pad (bedroom and living area) whenever he was not there, the other fortunate thing with this is the fact that his brother still was on the same property as the parents, but was able to have a separate building.
After downing a couple of mugs of steaming hot tea (in the steaming hot weather, which I’d now acclimatised to) it was time to have some tea, maybe Chai. To do this, we walked down two blocks to a corner where a group of friends were hanging out at. The six, or so guys seemed intrigued with this white guy approaching them. Soon enough we all got along to chatting, while Matthew got along with his hot drink concoction. Being only three glasses available, this turned out to be a relatively communal affair with nine of us drinking up. A brief example of the guys: Three of them spoke another language that was apparently Fundi (spelt wrong, I am sure, but sounded similar to that) which, like Portuguese is to Spanish, Fundi is to Moore; Patric emphasized the difference in selling his name to Patrick, which was very uncommon to the norm (ie Patrick was not common); King was out of his prime pimping outfit, which was his night time attire whilst around the ladies and there was a guy who was more then eager to be the person to assist in the creation and running of a Burkina-be embassy Down Under, and that I should be the Australian ambassador for the ‘to be created’ embassy in Burkina Faso.
Somehow time seemed to run straight from under us, and after talking to the compadres in their hang out spot, as well as being gawked at by a number of passer bys, it was time for Patrick and I to head on back to Reciproka for some nourishment. It was not all just fun and games whilst at Reciproka (and dining), once the plants had been sorted out and the plant-worthy plants taken care of, in terms of being planted and being watered, it was also the best time to take identity shots of them, and try to establish a database/ spreadsheet for the natural form of the ingredients for the batter of the natural construction.
At last, a decent sized lunch was demolished, where I think by now it was about 15oo heures. With lunch finishing up at about 16oo heures, Donat and Patrick discussed how my previous failure at taking adequate photos of Ouaga 2000 monstrosities was to be taken care of via Patrick driving me around tomorrow and me pretending to be an architectural engineering journalist comparing the upmarket areas of capital cities around the world for their aesthetics, era of influence and the adequacy of design.
Patrick had to head off for his own agenda to be tended to, but he wanted me to join in on his adventures. Actually, he had pre-organised meetings for me to partake in. To allow for his legitimacy in taking me to his appointments for the day, he emphasised the need to show me where he was schooling at and several other locations. He showed me where the majority of the lecture theatres were and actually informed me how the government and upper tier of society were trying to segregate people in schooling. The board would allow for a couple of people to come from international locations to teach English, and German, but even though they were given the opportunity to the freedom of teaching there had been tension developing amongst one of the exchange (USA) professors. There was an unofficial limitation on the extent of marks allowed to be given to the students (ie kind of like the bell curve statistical marking system). With the exchange professor being honest in her own approach of mark distribution she had been given the one only warning, with (apparently) the government having a link in the board of education, for the university, also providing their iron fist to the issue at hand.
Wow, anyhow, after this little hidden story being told to me, Patrick and I went about seeing his friend we had seen earlier on in the day, Matthew, as well as several other people. This time we rode his bike to another guy’s place. He was also called Patrick. Note that he had the same spelling as the Patrick I know, and not the Patric that had been met earlier. For a couple of hours we talked on the street, while sitting on deck chairs from Patrick’s house. While sitting here we were able to see another Nasara (female) walking along with a local guy. With her attire and physique, she looked like she was here to view the backstreets of Ouagadougou (possibly other areas of Burkina Faso), unlike the business people and tourist that otherwise would plague the, polished, streets of Ouagadougou. While looking at the passer-bys and listening to the French Moore being spoken and picking up a good amount of the conversations, I was lucky enough to be approached on numerous of times by four or five kids on a cornering house. They seemed OK at first, but their constant harassing, and prodding, made the other guys get irate at them and allowed for them to vent their anger on my behalf.
With the sun disappearing, and sick people needing tending to, it was time for people to go their own ways. This gathering had been organised to allow for a girl to come along and meet us (actually me), but time was against us, as she had to work for extended hours. While going, a group of four of us went in the same direction, and the lead biker suddenly pulled over, and we joined him, the realisation dawned upon everyone, bar me, as we walked into a clothing store. This was where the girl had been working for an extended number of hours. If only I had have grabbed a photo of her, this over energetic, young 20s girl with the ability to converse to us with unbelievable enthusiasm that it exhausted me. An hour later, we had to go once again and I still had no idea who she was (in terms of Patrick’s setting up), until it was too late. Saying seya to her, the boys went their own way and Patrick and I went to another person’s place for a meeting.
This is where Yvonne and I had our first, of a number, meeting. Patrick and Yvonne spoke for an hour, with my French and English contributions made throughout and suckling away at the water in a plastic sachet. Towards the end of the… session, it was planned so as to Yvonne and I were to meet in two days time at a garden in centre de ville (centre of village). A hug later and being guided out, Patrick and I left for Reciproka. It was here where we spoke about the two ladies that had been visited today and decisions had been to not worry about visiting the first lady, more due to several reasons. Patrick told me here how she had a boyfriend and I should not enter her life, even as a friend, due to the typical jealous behaviour of the men in the country.
This will obviously sound stupid, but I had not realised the main purpose of the evening was to find the right lady for me to hang out with for times over the next week or so. Oh well, the purpose of this experience was to both volunteer and be a part of all community involvement.
