'Le blanc, le blanc!' You hear it everywhere you walk in Banfora, a small town in southern Burkina Faso. Kids smile and scream it at you as you wander past. At first, I thought they had mistaken me for Hollywood spunk and shining star of the comedic acting profession, Matt le Blanc, but no, it simply means 'the white' in French. It jars a bit, being referred to in such terms, but eventually you don't notice it. You get used to standing out a little in West Africa. So we made it to Burkina Faso, a country that has obsessed me since I was a nerdy little kid ingesting the Reader's Digest Atlas of the World when I got home from school. It must be the name. Even its old label of Upper Volta, and the
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