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Published: April 20th 2007
I Spy
Caught these two peeking at me through a hole in a wall. Formerly known as Upper Volta, in 1984 President Thomas Sankara renamed the country Burkina Faso. In the dominant Burkinabe language this means "Land of the Incorruptibles", and was one of many steps taken towards improving the economy and the lives of increasingly poor population. His reforms worked too, until in 1987 another army coup led to Sankara's arrest and execution. Recently in a league table taking into account health, GDP and development, the United Nations ranked Burkina Faso 175th out of 177 countries.
Compared to my last blog for Mali where I struggled to know what to leave out, for Burkina Faso I don't really know what to write about. I only stayed at two places, the capital Ouagadougou, and the equally wonderfully named Bobo-Dioulasso. Both were pleasant and seemingly in no way as poor as the UN would have you believe.
One further stop was the sacred crocodile pool at Sabou. You turn up, pay your money and a local chap with a dead chicken on a piece of rope lures the scaly creatures out of the murky lake. They are so hypnotised by the scrawny, feathery lump that you can grab hold of their tails for
Smiling Croc
Smiling because he knows he is sacred and won't end up a hand bag. a photo. The shot was far too cheesy to include here. I never did manage to find out why the crocodiles are sacred.
From the limited time that I spent in Burkina Faso it seemed to me that the highlight of the country is the name of the capital city. It is worth remembering, Ouagadougou, because it once came up at The New Inn pub quiz: Which of the worlds capital cities has the most vowels in it? No excuses now.
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