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.