Tonight Burkina Faso plays Ghana in the CAN2013 football tournament and the town is pumped. I take my usual twilight stroll down the Ouayigouya road and the same vendor every night comes out to greet me. He has a huge smile on his face, as he waits for me to say “Zaabre Ki Beri” and swing my hand out for a full handshake. He replies “Lafi” and I return with a “Lafi bala”. I try not to, but I can’t help glance over at the 3 or 4 older Muslim men sitting on a bench against a nearby wall. They all smile and nod with approval…making me feel like this is becoming more and more natural for me and my pronunciation is improving.
Tonight, as I stop at the Total gas station to change my 5000cfa ($10) into smaller denominations, I run into another friend from Yako. It always strikes me how long the Burkinabé spend shaking hands. They also sometimes touch heads twice on either side for a total of 4. It’s comforting to see people spend so much time greeting each other; to a foreigner, it suggests more sincerity and genuineness. The handshaking happens every morning at work. Everyone gets a warm greeting in the morning with inquiries about health, work and family. It’s a little different than our way of “How’s it going?”…or “How are you?”, in most cases, we say this without even waiting for the reply. Here the morning greeting almost always includes something about your health and the well being of your family.
Returning to SEMUS, I finished up a great video chat with Bev and then took my place among the 7 or 8 men that have come around to watch the game. We are huddled around a 21” television set that has a wire thrown up on the roof as an antenna. Just before the match begins, I get a txt from Roy in Bobo Dioulasso regarding the game and his support for the “Etalons”.
At the half way mark, Ghana is ahead 1-0 and Felix and I decide to grab some dinner next door at the “Maquis Resto La Confiance” a.k.a “Chateau Bleu”. The steel table and chairs are waiting for us; placed half way on the road. Felix, a tax auditor, is still dressed in his suit making his way through the spaghetti. He pauses occasionally to spit out, onto the street, the odd piece of meat that he doesn’t feel is right. There will be plenty of large birds (I’d guess vultures) in the morning light that will clean up the left overs. As he pays for my meal, I pierce a hole with my teeth into the small plastic bag of water that has come with our meal. Water is served in clear plastic bags; similar to the plastic bags we buy milk in … but smaller.
There is 8 or 9 of his now and they are all quite animated about the game. When they get this way, I can’t really figure out if they are talking French or Morré and I’m not really following the game that well either but shortly into the second half of the game, Burkina Faso has a goal disallowed and I’ve joined the debate on officiating and injustice. It reminds me very much of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The game could not be better. I also figure out that my comrades are, from time to time, making fun of the TV commentators; pointing out how silly some of the things they say are. I’m guessing there is a Don Cherry, Ron Maclean and Bob Cole in every country. Shortly after the disallowed goal, Burkina Faso has tied the game and we move into an extra period of 30 minutes of play. After no score, we move to 5 penalty shots. In the final shot, Burkina Faso has pulled ahead and won the game. “Les Etalons” (Burkina Faso) are going to the finals of CAN2013. Remember, Burkina Faso has not even qualified for tournament in more than 15 years. This is huge.
As you can imagine, everyone is now standing and handshakes are flying left and right. We are all cheering and you can hear the rest of the town erupting in celebration. Motorbikes have begun whipping up and down the dark and dusty road in front of our compound with small horns blaring. At this time, in the middle of the handshaking and exchanges of “Merci” and “Felicitations”, I decide to introduce the good old “High Five” into the mix, as I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. Well it ain’t happening. Time and time again the person in front of me, looks at my hand…. way up in the air and they tilt their head in curiosity, smile and then decide to transition their modest handshake into a full arm swing handshake that engages directly in front of me. I kind of laugh to myself, as I realize just how good this would make as a comedic scene in a movie. I try it a few more times to re-affirm, “yep, this isn’t happening”. I look down and I see I have a text from Roy in Bobo Dioulasso…celebrating the victory. When I look up again, I hear Bassirou (the guard) exclaim that he promised himself that if the “Etalons” won, he would celebrate with a bottle of beer. This is a big deal in that he is a Muslim and I have never seen him have even one beer. In fact, it’s the only beer anyone has had tonight.
The gang continues to talk about integral moments in the game and Bassirou begins a late evening tradition in the SEMUS courtyard. With ambers burning in a small heating pit, Bassirou begins to make a traditional tea. The making of this tea involves several iterations of pouring the tea from the small pot into a glass and then back again. He holds the pot quite high in the air creating a bit of carbonating effect as the tea begins to have a layer of bubbles in the top of the glass. It’s a very nice scene to see Bassirou approach us from the dark with a serving tray plate with 3 or 4 small shot glasses of tea. He has to make two batches, one for the group still sitting in front of the TV and the second round for the group that has broken away to play their nightly game of cards under a near by door step light. As I said, a very nice scene to see such charity and brotherhood in a place where luxury and privilege are not as evident.
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