BF Journal: 9/22 - 9/30

Update on old content:  First up, I am getting sick of NOT holding baby goats.  I will fix this situation as soon as possible.  I am unsure how safe it is for me to do so, but I getting pretty tired of seeing them and not being able to smother one.

I mentioned going to a village market in my last post.  While there we snapped  a couple photos.  

 

 
On the way back we saw an interesting sign just outside of Bobo.  A Star of David + Swastika?  It gets weirder…

Should I visit this village?  Maybe the Illuminati are involved with happenings there.  I am on to you Obama/Jay-Z.

9/22

Last night we went to a local bar(ish) place (mentioned in the previous post).  We saw the musicians from our party there.  I tried millet beer (average quality but extremely cheap) and watched people dance to the beat of a báláfòⁿ (the xylophone-like instrument you saw in the last pictures/video post). I trying to get better at the tones.  They are probably wrong on that word.

The caterpillars got cooked and we ate some.  Here are some pictures for you.  

9/23  

Fairly uneventful.  I went swimming at night.  It was nice until I remembered that I was swimming in a pool at a hotel… during an Ebola outbreak.  I killed two flies today.

9/24

The only cool thing I did today was go the hotel bar with Jeff and Dasha after dinner.  And order a four cheese pizza + a Johnny Walker.  I felt somewhat American for an hour.

9/25

I went to a factory to learn about how people make soap out of the butter made from a Karite tree.  The products (soaps, skin care, shampoo, etc.) smell fresh and are made from natural ingredients.  I can hear the hipsters stampeding toward West Africa now.

9/26

Today’s trip brought us out 3.5 hours to Sideradougou.  The road we turned onto after Beregadougou was junky, but the countryside was pleasant to look at.  Tall trees littered the roadside.  Backs of leaves glimmered in the afternoon sun and flashed in our eyes.  Passing quickly in the 4x4 gave the sense of riding through a chandelier forest.  Scores of people on the side of the road prospected for gold.  We arrived shortly before nightfall and settled in before the next days work. 

9/27

I spent a lot of my time in a hot vehicle studying French.  We left Sideradougou to check out a village two hours away called Owo where everyone speaks Dogosé.  The village is medium sized but remote enough that everyone growing up there learns Dogosé.  I met people who speak French, Jula, and Dogosé, which means the linguistic situation is similar to Turka.  This is another contender for my first language.  I noticed intervocalic velar elision (also present in Jula), some doubly articulated labiovelar consonants (k͜p  g͜b), but only rising and falling tones (only two tones is not what I expect from a Gur language). However the distance from the house in Bobo (5.5 - 6 hours drive) will make village visits a hassle at best.

9/28

I went out on my own with Minkailou and a Dogosé informant to do some gathering of plants and names.  This is something that I will happily do for Jeff to help him out, but it doesn’t particularly interest me.  We traveled a way from the village to find a river to look for plants that grow only near water.  It took us some time and by the time we got there and collected a few specimens, we had to turn back.  The ride back was peaceful.  The sun sank as we drove and herds grazed as we passed.  Everyone was beginning to relax for the evening in every village we drove through.  Everyone waved and children yelled the seemingly obligatory “tubabu” (white person) at me.  We passed to quickly that their voices felt like part of the scenery.  We were glad to get back to our host village right before meal time.  Kids watched some bad movie with Jeff as I wrote and studied.

9/29

Today was fairly uneventful for me.  I mostly read and studied some French.  I watched goats and sheep parade by me all day.  Tiny lizards scampered up and down walls.  The sun chased me and caused me to shift positions several times.  The breezes were welcome but infrequent.  I may have lost weight sitting and sweating.  Even the flies thought it was too hot today.  I have no idea how many cups of sugar saturated tea I drank.  By the time the tea gets to the third brew (each brew adds more sugar), you can practically chew it.  I brushed my teeth vigorously tonight.

Bats and crickets chirped melodically through the evening into the night.  Swarms of moths and mosquitoes circled the lights.  And I typed furiously, sick of reading for the day.  I contemplated which language I will settle on soon and how this will change my day to day life in Bobo.  The selection of a language will likely affect the course of my academic career for the rest of my life, and I know so very little about the languages I have to choose from.  I wonder about the details of coordinating with a consultant and how precisely I will arrange village trips.  I wonder if my time spent on taking notes in Jula is wasted effort since I am picking it up very slowly.  I wonder a lot about the coming weeks and getting started on my primary reason for being for being here.  I wonder what unforeseen challenges will arise.

9/30

I traveled back to Bobo in the early afternoon.  Nothing extraordinary to report for today.  We will see what adventure tomorrow brings!