My Golden Birthday

This year I turned 24 on the 24th, my golden birthday, and my first birthday in Burkina Faso.  I knew it was going to be a Burkina kind of Birthday when I woke up to a flat tire.  Lauren and I were making the journey to Josh’s site that day, so we meet up in out district capitol the night before in order to catch the early morning bus to Ouaga on the 24th.  Happy Birthday to me, I have a flat tire.  Luck for us , the closest bike guy was enjoying a Nescafe out front of his hanger.  He hadn’t set up shop yet, it was only 6 a.m. but at least he was there.  Actually, it was his son or an apprentice, and two white women with a flat tire was a little too much for him at such an hour.  After me trying twice and Lauren once to explain to the boy that there was a hole in the tire, we gave up and just let him pump it up with air.  At least this would get us to the bus stations on time to catch our bus. 

The trip to Ouaga went smooth as usual on our bus company of choice, KGB.  They are new to the area so the bus tend to not be as full, and the buses are yellow, American, Blue Bird  school buses, complete with signs still to  in English.  It’s like riding the bus in elementary school, only with chickens piled in the isle and 10 motos and a goat tied to the roof.  I’m not joking, once we debarked in Ouaga we realized there was a Billy goat on the roof, typical of transport in BF. 

         In Ouaga we made a pit stop at the beloved Marina Market to get all the Western foods needed to make a Christmas feast.  I was bound and determined to make eggrolls for dinner, my birthday wouldn’t be complete with out them,  and went on a mad search to find egg roll wrappers.  Finally, after searching the entire store (I couldn’t ask the store staff, because how do you say eggroll wrappers in French?) I spotted them in an out of the way fridge on my way to the checkout counter.  Alas, my Birthday dinner was saved! 

After buying everything possible for a delicious Birthday/Christmas dinner Lauren and I met up with Josh and headed to the gare to catch a taxi brousse to his site.  Now a bush taxi is roughly the size of a 12 passenger van, or slightly bigger then the Nany van, with 4 to 5 rows of bench seats that hold 25 to 30 people.  It’s a tight squeeze, however people get off and on along the route so numbers are constantly in flux.  Also, there aren’t exactly set leave times, the taxi waits until it is full to leave.  We got lucky and only had to wait at the gare 2 hours for it to leave. 

The 3 hour bush ride took over 4 hours because of an off road detour, and only the first hour was on a paved road, but we made it in one piece, including 11 of the 12 eggs we had carried on our laps in a plastic bag desperately trying to keep them from breaking.  We arrived at the city closest to Josh’s village just as the last rays of day light were fading, and, as to be expected, my tire was completely flat again.  We hurried to catch a bike repair guy before they went home for the night, but were too late.  Josh did the best he could to pump up the tire with my Peace Corps given bike pump and we prayed it would get me home, and, thankfully, it did.

It was past 7 by the time we finally made it to Josh’s house and we were all tired and hungry.  Lauren and I wasted no time in starting dinner.  Making Nany’s eggrolls in Burkina Faso on a gas tank stove with no electricity was a challenge, but it had to be done.  It was all coming along pretty well, until I got to the rolling.  The wrappers need to be refrigerated until use, and, well, after the 7 hour journey from the store to site they had dried out.  Also, they weren’t the square wrappers I was use to, but were triangles.  I got a little innovative with wet paper towel and raw egg and made it work.  Then came the issue of the oil- when I told Josh I needed enough oil to fry eggrolls plus some, he didn’t quite understand how much oil that entailed.  That’s okay, use a smaller pot and only cook one or two at a time while pushing them under the oil, pouring hot oil over them.  It had to work. 

        While I rolled and Josh fried, Lauren made a delicious soup, a Burkina version of Olive Garden’s Tuscany soup.  As we cooked, Josh turned on his sort wave radio and we caught the Pope’s catholic mass on the radio.  It was comforting to hear familiar hymns and remember that despite the 90 degree weather and being in Burkina Faso, it was still Christmas Eve.  Finally the eggrolls were done and I just needed the sweet and sour sauce and dinner would be complete.

        A huge Thanks to all my family members who sent me ketchup packets, to which the sweet and sour sauce would not have been possible.  Dinner was served.  May I present to you my finished stack of eggrolls, not quite up to par with Nany’s, but as close as could get in the conditions.