Eating Baba Ghanoush in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso

Lebanese food. It’s not quite what I expected to see on the menu. We are in a charming hotel, the only one in Gaoua town, tucked away in the hinterlands of southwestern Burkina Faso. The Hotel Hala is airy and unpretentious. The rooms are basic but mercifully equipped with running water and AC units. The food we order – an assortment of appetizers that my colleague and I share for dinner – is fresh and delicious. We are content and delighted by all the pleasant surprises we keep encountering in this flat and smallish land-locked country.

It is late June. The rains are late, and the FIFA World Cup is going strong. Our evening activity includes not only writing up notes of the day but also watching soccer matches on plastic chairs, gathered with locals in front of an old television that’s been in use since well before the advent of HD and flat-screen TV.

Our days start early, around 4:30 am. I get my obligatory caffeine fix by scooping a local brand of instant coffee into my small water bottle. A few vigorous shakes are enough to create something brown and strong and room temperature that doesn’t taste great but does get me moving. I eat a few handfuls of cashews (my African travel survival food), and I’m good to go.

 

Up with the sun to start the milking

We hit the road and arrive at our destination before sunrise. The farmers and pastoralists we visit are already busy starting the day’s activities. Women prepare food. The cows are let out of their pens for milking, after which they will be herded a dozen or more kilometers to the nearest watering hole. It’s a daily ritual that we have seen across numerous cultures and countries of Sub-Saharan Africa as we travel to see and discover the continent’s indigenous cattle.

Lobi cattle: small, humpless, and made of tough stuff

But these cattle look very different from the others we have encountered. They are a dwarf breed, beautifully proportioned, but only about ¾ of the size of other indigenous cattle. Called Lobi, after the tribe of people who own them, the cattle descend from an ancient lineage, the Bos taurus, which arrived in Africa some 10,000 years ago. Unlike the zebu cattle, descended from the more recently introduced Bos indicus, the Lobi have no hump.  And while you encounter zebu breeds all over Africa and Asia, the little Lobi cattle are a rare sight, found only in this remote corner of Burkina Faso and in a small area across the border of neighboring Cote d’Ivoire.

 

At work

We speak with cattle owner, herders, and researchers about the Lobi cattle and their remarkable hardiness. Though pint-sized they pull ploughs and fend off diseases, like trypanosomiasis, that devastate cattle herds across the continent. They require less food and water than bigger breeds, and pound for pound are much more efficient at producing milk and meat. But appearances are deceptive, and their diminutive stature means that the Lobi cattle are vastly overlooked and underappreciated.

Meanwhile, we are enchanted with these small animals and the people who care for and rely upon them. The stewardship of Lobi cattle is split between the Lobi farmers, who own the animals and use them to plow their fields, and the Fulani herders, who take care of them in exchange for payment, food, and the use of the animals’ milk.

A welcome as warm as this woman's smile

We spend a few days here. We talk, we walk, we listen and learn. We take photos. Mine are amateur, and mostly a way to connect with the people I interview. My colleague is the pro with the big backpack full of equipment, the eye for lighting and dramatic angles, and the years of experience working in the bush.

One late afternoon, we sit in the shade of a thatch hut waiting for the cows to come home and listen to the mischief making of a group of 3-year olds playing inside. Their giggles are contagious and remind us of the universality of childhood laughter and delight.

We are far from our familiar, and yet connected by the small moments and gestures that define human life. After a few days on the ground, we go to say our farewells to the Fulani pastoralists, who watch the cattle so assiduously that they will spend the nights by the animals’ pens to safeguard them from potential marauders. Their lives are basic, their food security is fragile, and they survive very much on the margins of modern ways. But their parting gesture is a gift– eight guinea hen eggs, oblong and slightly bluish, holding all the delicate and precious promise of life and sustenance.

 

Drinking the morning milk

Epilogue

In late October, normally quiet Burkina Faso hit the headlines.  Several days of civil protests successfully brought an end to the 27-year presidency of Blaise Compaore in Burkina Faso, who was trying, through an act of parliament, to further extend the number of terms he could serve. Protestors burned the parliament building. Compaore resigned and fled to Cote d’Ivoire. A military government filled the power void and is supposedly in talks with civil society and opposition groups to set up new elections in November 2015.

Encouraged by this momentous change, hopeful pundits began talking about the possibility of a Black Spring that might ride a wave to end the limitless terms of Africa’s presidents-for-life. However, that trend seems to be stymied, and in the meantime the list of ensconced leaders is impressive. For example:

President	Country	In office since
Paul Kagame	Rwanda	2000
Denis Sassou-Nguesso	Congo-Brazzaville	1997
Idriss Deby	Chad	1990
Robert Mugabe	Zimbabwe	1987
Yoweri Museveni	Uganda	1986
Paul Biya	Cameroon	1982
Jose Edoardo dos Santos	Angola	1979
Teodoro Obiang Nguema	Equatorial Guinea	1979

Meeting Khal Drogo in Turkana

Turkana landscape

We’re several hours into the purported short cut, a dusty set of rough tracks so rugged they send us bouncing to the roof of the car despite our seatbelts. Once again, the ride we were told should take only 3-4 hours is stretching into many more. And although the driver is from the area, he’s finally admitted that he’s lost. I try to hold back an “unph” as we hit another hard bump, but it escapes my mouth anyway.  My colleague S. looks at me with a wry smile. “This is what we call an African massage,” he says.

The views are spectacular. We are driving through the arid landscape of northern Kenya, on the western side of Lake Turkana. We’re only a few dozen kilometers from the Ethiopian and South Sudanese borders in an area known as the Ilemi triangle. Because of violent disputes over this land, along with the presence of bandits, cattle raiders, and far too many automatic rifles, we are traveling with a second vehicle that holds two armed guards. They are not particularly convincing, however, and seem more interested in catching a nap than watching for trouble. 

Hills and dust

The region is far hillier than I had expected, and it holds an austere beauty. Locals will tell you that 20 years ago, the area was covered in grass that grew knee high. But a decade or more of failed rains and persistent drought have decimated the vegetation, along with the pastoralist lifestyle of the Turkana tribesmen.  Without grass and vegetation, their animals are dying off. Used to living off the milk, blood, and meat of their livestock, the proud and fiercely independent Turkana are increasingly relying on food aid and income support programs from government, international, and faith-based organizations. 

Food aid

When we first arrive to interview and photograph the Turkana and their cattle, we run across a massive scene of food distribution. Tribal elders oversee the process from the shade of large huts made of wattle and daub. Rations are divvied out from 90-kilo bags of maize, large piles of beans, and plastic Jeri cans filled with cooking oil. The atmosphere is calm. Men and women wait patiently for their portions. Some of the older women are dressed in traditional leather skirts, while many of the men wear AK-47s strapped diagonally across their chests. Once they receive their rations, the women carry the goods off on their heads with sweeping, graceful strides.

And then we see him; one of the biggest and certainly most imposing men I’ve ever encountered. Turkana adults tend to be long and lithe. But this man is a head taller and considerably broader than any of them. He is all muscle and clearly as strong as an ox. His legs are like the trunks of a sturdy, mature tree, and we are told he eats an entire goat each day. We’ve met Turkana’s version of Khal Drogo. He is the community seer, responsible for predicting when they should move the cattle or launch a cattle raid. If he blows it, the punishment could be death, his, though that’s hard to imagine. Like the fictional character from Game of Thrones, this man is fearsome and feared. Hundreds of scarification marks decorate his torso, one for each man he’s killed in livestock raids. When I ask him a question (through a translator), he looks down at me with disdain and tells me to give him my hat. I don’t. He snorts, tells us not to take photos of him, and moves on. 

I turn to interview a group of men, more willing to talk but reluctant to be photographed, because of the condition of their worn and dusty clothing. I take a few portraits, only headshots, and elicit smiles as I show them the results. Later, we meet beautiful Turkana women, whose heavy piles of brightly colored necklaces define their wealth and beauty. They are worn day and night, through sickness and childbirth, and are only removed in times of mourning.

We accompany young herders and their cattle to the nearest watering hole across a hilly landscape scattered with dark, volcanic rocks. We spend the night at a local Spanish mission, staffed by young professionals, foreign and dedicated, who have left more comfortable lives to work in this desolate, isolated place. They make the best of meager surroundings and share stories full of humor, wonder, and admiration for the fierce and resilient people who make this land their home.

Lake Turkana

Before our visit to gather material for the Turkana chapter of our book project on indigenous African cattle diversity is finished, we dip our feet into Lake Turkana. We spend hours pushing and digging our truck out of the beach’s soft sand, helped by a large group of men, women, and children that emerges to help. We drive off only to watch the truck’s back left wheel go bouncing by as we try to make it back to town.

A crowd forms. The sun sets. The adventure continues.  Stay tuned.

Speak softly and avoid the big sticks

Our colleague, JD, turns to face us from the front seat. He has that sparkle in his eye, the one he gets when he’s about to launch into a good story.

“Did I ever tell you about my fellow student at Oxford? He was a fairly prickly character, not known for his diplomatic prowess. He came to Ethiopia to do research and was speared to death by some local tribesmen. There was a certain irony to the story, as he was quite an accomplished darts champion.”

We are driving through the amazing landscapes of the Ethiopian countryside. We have passed the golden savanna of the Rift Valley, dotted with acacia trees, conical huts, and haystacks shaped like loaves of bread. We’ve driven past the green highlands, through a torrential rainstorm. We’ve seen jagged mountains, green hills covered with coffee and banana plantations, and vast lakes. We’ve visited Borana herders near the border with Kenya. We’ve criss-crossed the country towards the Sudanese border to meet with Mursi pastoralists. They are famous for their elaborate body decorations, including painted designs, scarring, incredibly creative jewelry, and earplugs. Mursi women also are known for the large lip plates they wear, made of ceramic, as a sign of status and value. They start stretching their bottom lips at puberty, with increasingly larger disks, the size of which at marriage will determine the bride price their family can claim.

It’s as though we’ve stepped right into the pages of the National Geographic magazines of my childhood.

I’m working on a fascinating project, which involves photographing and learning about the indigenous cattle of Africa, and their importance to the culture, lives, and livelihoods of the people who keep them. So I am traveling with a photographer and a fellow writer to some of the most remote bits of various African countries.  I am also speaking with researchers about the scientific importance of the genetic diversity and resilience of these traditional cattle, many of which are at risk of disappearing.

It’s an incredible experience, which involves long days that start before sunrise, exotic foods, and the need for a strong bladder. Creature comforts are few and far between, but the rewards are great. Though our time with local herders and farmers is brief, it is intense and striking. We start at dawn with its milking and early morning activities, all bathed in the light of the rising sun. The middle of the day is reserved for following the cattle to water, and late afternoons for interviews and photos as the light turns golden and cows come home.

The result will be a gorgeous coffee table book. The photos will be amazing, drawing out the beauty and dignity of the people, animals, and landscapes we meet. The book will speak of tradition, but also of change.  It will highlight diversity and adaptation. What it won’t show are the behind-the-scene moments; the time we had to break our colleague out of his hotel room, discussion of how many camels I would be worth, or the time an irate pastoralist chased our photographer with a stick.

We have several more countries and encounters to go. So stay tuned.

Can do-gooders do good?

William Hamilton cartoon, New Yorker

There have been numerous articles lately challenging the notion that wanna-be do-gooders in developing countries actually do any good. The criticism is primarily aimed at white, middle-class volunteers. And the image is that they do little more than pop into some rural village just long enough to feel smug and take selfies with small, smiling brown children.

One article describes how the author, while volunteering in Latin America, discovers that the brick wall she and others are trying to build has to be torn down and redone properly each night by the villagers they are supposed to be helping. She ends up concluding that her volunteer time is better spent raising money for good causes, rather than trying to do work on the ground. Another story in the Guardian quotes a study concluding that, "voluntourism is more about the self-fulfillment of westerners than the needs of developing nations.”  The Onion also gets into the fray with a satirical story about a supposed volunteer describing how her 6-day stint in a rural Malawian village has totally transformed her Facebook profile picture.

Well, that’s all very fine. I agree that voyeurism and selfies may not seem like appropriate motivations for volunteer work. And I’m sure that not every volunteer project is valuable.

But I also think it’s easy to be critical. 

Living in Peru and Kenya has shown me multiple examples of places where well-meaning, foreign volunteers actually do make a positive difference.

Our older son was involved with a group that spent years building houses for people who had lost everything following a dramatic earthquake and tsunami in southern Peru. Staffed almost exclusively by short-term, foreign volunteers, they not only laid the bricks properly but also successfully moved countless families in need from shacks made of straw and scraps to solid, if basic, housing. Was it enough? No. But it was a step in the right direction. What’s more, they filled in where no one else would. The government’s response was negligent, at best. And the town suffered a fate similar to poor parts of New Orleans or Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina – left in the wake, while wealthier and more touristy areas were rebuilt.

Here in Kenya, government investment in human capital and potential is meager to non-existent. I had lunch with two Kenyan women recently, who argued that the only working health and education services are either private and expensive or run and supported by NGOs. That might not be 100% accurate. But it’s clear that large swathes of the population lack access to basic services, such as decent schools, sanitation, clinics, roads, power, clean water, and anything resembling a social safety net. 

So it’s the private sector that fills in many of the gaps, including not only the entrepreneurs and NGOs, but also lots volunteers.

In our year and a half of living in Kenya, we have met an impressive array of people who have mounted schools and businesses and organizations aimed at helping to improve the lives of those the government leaves behind. It is a testament to the incredible potential, energy, and enterprising spirit of this country.

But the task is great. And in some cases, it benefits from the help of foreign, wanna-be do-gooders.

In February, I visited an orphanage just outside of Nairobi for children whose mothers are in prison and have no fathers or other family to care for them. I was with a small group that was bringing them donations of food and art supplies. The center has a school, dorms, playgrounds, and kitchen, eating, and cleaning facilities. Everything is very basic, but also bright and cheery.

While the staff and teachers are Kenyan, the center also uses the help and hands of non-Kenyan volunteers (many of them white, middle-class foreigners), who come for periods ranging from one month to one year. The volunteers live on site and help feed, bathe, clothe, teach, and play with the kids. Some have further professional skills, like a physiotherapist we met. But mostly, they offer affection and support to children whose experiences of trauma and challenge seem so much bigger than they are.

Critics of volunteerism, and voluntourism especially, will site examples of projects that are ill-advised, exploitative, and more likely to deepen divides between the haves and have-nots than to build mutual understanding. This really gets to broader issues of what it takes to create programs that are actually useful, appropriate, and effective. Development specialists have been arguing and struggling with this question forever, though most agree that you have to listen and learn from local stakeholders about what they see as the key problems and potential solutions.

Clearly, being paternalistic, patronizing, or self-promoting is not the ticket to successful volunteerism. But all I’m trying to say is that not every volunteer’s selfie represents a portrait of selfishness and superficiality. Sometimes, there is a measure of good in do-gooder efforts, even if it comes in pint-size packages.

World Turned Upside-Down

Even since Britt got me hooked on yoga, I’ve been spending a lot more time upside-down than I used to. Yoga is big on “inversions”, postures like headstands, handstands, and shoulderstands that get your feet up and head down. But that’s not all. Many of the basic poses – the bends and bridges, the triangles and twists, even the omnipresent down dog – involve putting your head lower than your hips.

If you ask, many yoga instructors and enthusiasts will tell you that getting upside-down is good for you. They claim it improves blood flood, helps the lymphatic system, and decreases stress. It increases upper body and core strength, they say, and takes pressure off the diaphragm and lower back.

There doesn’t seem to be much science to either back or disprove these benefits, though I can vouch for the upper body workout part. In contrast, there’s pretty strong evidence of the risks involved with inversions among people with glaucoma, high blood pressure, or congestive heart failure. Also, if you are prone to vertigo or inner ear problems, as I am, you have to take it easy and build up your tolerance over time. If you hang upside-down too long, the science is clear. Too much blood pools in your brain, and you die.

Whether literally or figuratively, many people recommend turning yourself (or your world) upside-down every once in a while to get a new perspective on things. In yoga, that generally has to do with clearing your mind of clutter, refocusing, and getting your mind and body more in balance.

In the wider world it can mean rethinking previously held notions.

Malcolm Gladwell has a Ted Talk and series of lecture tours based on his most recent and best-selling book, David and Goliath, where he argues, “We are never more alive than when things get turned upside-down.” Much of what he describes in the book is about challenging common viewpoints by inverting widely held assumptions. As he turns certain arguments on their heads, he tries to reveal their flaws or, conversely, the hidden strengths lying beneath the side we usually see.

Moving from the northern to southern hemisphere, as we have, turns lots of things on their heads. Summer is winter. The north-facing side is sunniest. The moon is reversed – or for those of us living near the equator looks like a boat instead of a crescent. Because of the way most modern maps are drawn, we think of the southern hemisphere as being on the bottom half of the world. And I confess there are days when it does feel like we are walking upside-down.

Long before Malcolm Gladwells’ books, there was an Argentinian cartoon character called Mafalda, created by “Quino” Lavado, who became very famous in the Spanish-speaking world for her way of innocently re-examining common views, stereotypes, and politics. In one series of panels, she explains to a friend that it is because the southern countries live upside-down that they are less developed than the northern ones – as it causes all their ideas to fall out.

With Mafalda in Buenos Aires

There are different groups and thinkers and artists who suggest that flipping world maps everywhere would be a way to break old thought patterns – including the notion of who’s on top. Joaquin Torres-Garcia (1874-1949) was an avant-garde Uruguayan artist, who wanted to turn Eurocentric art traditions, including their elitist tendencies, on their heads. Along with creating a style he called constructive universalism, meant to be accessible to everyone, he worked to promote Uruguayan and South American art and artists. His own work features geometric images of towns, common objects, and characteristic people. Among the most famous, however, is an inverted map of South America, where it is the continent’s southernmost point that gets the top billing.

América Invertida, Joaquin Torres Garcia.

For many people, having their world turned upside-down comes as a result of a dramatic or traumatic change in their lives.

For us, it has come more often through choices – and a deliberate sense of curiosity and adventure. I may never fully master the acrobatic inversions of yoga. But my life has indeed become richer and broader from turning it upside-down from time to time.

When Life's a Picnic

Our fabulous Kenyan picnic set and blanket

I have something of a picnic basket fetish. It all started years ago at the Globe Theater in London, where you are allowed to eat during the performances. “Let us dine and never fret!” is the motto, borrowed from Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

We were watching the Merchant of Venice and eating mushy sandwiches bought from the theater’s snack bar. Meanwhile, the people next to us were enjoying champagne, smoked fish sandwiches, and strawberries pulled from a beautiful picnic basket, complete with crystal flutes and porcelain plates.

I was mesmerized. It was all so civilized and compact.

Within the week, we had bought our first picnic basket. It was green, wicker, and had straps to hold things in place. We got to pick out the enamel cups and plates that came with the set. We used the basket until the wicker gave out, and still have the dishware. 

Enamel dishes from our original picnic set

Over the years, we’ve picked up more picnic sets. There’s the Yogi Bear picnic hamper we found in an antique shop, probably dating from the late 50s or early 60s. The top opens up like butterfly wings. The plastic plates have compartments like an old-fashioned TV dinner, and come in the retro pastels and aqua blue so typical of that era. We also have a backpack picnic set for hikes. We have a pretty basket lined with blue and white-striped fabric and filled with place settings for four, which lives in France and accompanies us on European car trips. There’s one that had a special place for wine bottles, which we gave to friends upon leaving Peru.

Our retro Yogi Bear picnic set, circa 1950s-60s

For Christmas, Britt got me a Kenyan picnic basket set, complete with metal dishware and a waterproof Maasai fabric blanket (made by a woman who turns out to be Peruvian).

I love it.

Kenya is especially conducive to picnics. The weather is often sunny and mild, and there is no shortage of spectacular spots for spreading one's basket and blanket. The trick is to steer clear of monkeys (avid food stealers), large carnivores, or angry herbivores. We once had a lovely picnic lunch with a giraffe, and enjoyed watching hippos and a lioness (from a safe distance) during a picnic breakfast on safari.

Obviously, people have been eating their meals outdoors and on the ground since early man climbed down from the trees. But evidently, the term picnic is relatively recent, dating back to 18^th century hunting parties and country feasts.  Picnics are very popular in art and literature from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, where they take on the romantic air of the English countryside, French Impressionism, Tuscan sun, or such.

Picnic food has varied over time, and picnic menus reflect all that is traditional in the culinary habits of various cultures.

Our 1988 edition of Joy of Cooking offers six different picnic menu suggestions. Some are more traditional, as in grilled frankfurters, barbecued ribs, or cold fried chicken. But there’s also fried fish or lamb kebabs. The side courses are predictably American, too, including corn, coleslaw, potato salad, tossed salad with 1,000 Island dressing, and celery or carrot sticks. Then there are things like oat bread cockaigne, dill batter loaf, and nut creams rolled in chives.

For comparison's sake, here are the suggestions from the 1953 edition:

1.     Wieners or hamburgers rolled in pancakes, chilled tomatoes, rye crisp, cheddar cheese, gingerbread in cup cake pans, pears and grapes, coffee.

2.     Sautéed Canadian bacon on hard rolls, snap bean salad with lettuce, onions and French dressing or potato salad with lots of lettuce, deviled eggs with liver sausage, watermelon, poppy seed cake, coffee.

3.     Baked ham, Italian salad, bran muffins, Roquefort cheese balls rolled in chives, sour cream apple pie, berry pie, coffee.

4.     Broiled steak, canned French-fried potatoes, picnic salad, soft buns spread with butter, pickles, white cake with chocolate icing, salted nuts, coffee.

5.     Sautéed eggs with bacon or sausages, baked beans or jambolaya, olives, toasted buttered French bread loaf, apples, gold layer cake with caramel icing, coffee.

6.     Fried fish or chicken, baked potatoes, potato chips or green corn, coleslaw, dill pickles, beaten biscuits, banana chocolate cake, peaches, coffee.

It makes one wonder whatever happened to canned French fries.

Going further back in time, you find menus that include pigeon pie, beef tongue sandwiches, a souse of pigs' feet, veal loaf, boned herring, and lamb cutlets in aspic jelly.

My tastes tend towards lighter fare – and to following the wise words of Omar Khayyám:

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Ah, wilderness were paradise enough!