I am a rock-star . . . if only to children. They know me by name. Dozens of ‘em. All over my Po hill. We shake hands. Sometimes we argue (good-naturedly) about French words. I find that I argue well in French. The right words seem to come so easily and I even understand what’s being said to me. Imagine me, arguing . . . incredible, right? In any event, the children love me. Could it be the cylume glow-in-the-dark necklaces that I occasionally hand out? True enough, jewelry never hurts.

OK, yes, it’s true. I just spent almost two weeks in the med unit of the PC Bureau in the capital city of Ouagadougou. Tomorrow would have been a full 14 days. And except for the final two days, I was essentially confined to quarters . . . meaning confined to the lovely two-bedroom apartment with full bath (including a tub), nice kitchen (I made ice cubes, constantly), and balcony. In a country where everything is either very dusty or very muddy, not to mention quite poor, my holiday in this little slice of America may sound nice, and indeed there were some good times. I found time to visit with my stellar PCV friends and even made my way to the roof of the bureau to watch a beautiful Burkinabe sunset.

This morning I caught the 7:00 a.m. bus from the capital back to Po, a two-hour journey that took over three hours due, I suppose, to road construction near Po and due to the multiple stops that all busses seem to make. Why do they stop? Well, silly, it’s so passengers may purchase food and beverages through the windows of the bus. At every wide spot in the road (to borrow a phrase of my mom's) women sell everything from bananas and bread to sachets of water and bissop. Rattling windows are forced open, and coins and goods are passed up and down. And when it seems that the passengers have concluded business, the bus proceeds. This is odd, but if you’re thirsty, it’s fantastic.

Not until the bus was at the station did I realize how happy I was to be back in Po. I exited the bus to a station full of folks asking me, in French of course, whether I needed further transport across the frontier into Ghana. Most natural question in the world. Really, it is. When you look like I do, the most natural question in the world at a Po bus station is, Lady, are you going on to Ghana . . . maybe to the beach? And it was with overwhelming delight and pride that I announced to each person, No, I live here. Each appeared incredulous. Really, I said, I live on that hill with Leon and Elizabeth. I live here in Po.

I live here. Here! In Po. I’m not merely on vacation. This is my home. I called Yaya (my homologue) to tote home my bags and boxes; and he was at the station within two minutes . . . two minutes, I kid you not, with hand shakes and that French head/face/kiss-action-thing that has been far-improved by the Burkinabe. And on the way home, all the way up the hill, the fans of this PC rock star squealed, Katrine, Katrine, you’ve come back! And inside my beautiful courtyard my neighbors and their children welcomed me home, and I almost cried. Maybe my ankle merely hurt. Seriously, however, I don’t remember when it felt so good to be home and when it felt so real to be home.

And then I spied him. My new best friend. Il s’appelle Zach and he’s building my new, private latrine. On W.A.I.T. [ that's West African International Time . . . for those of you new to this blog], while two weeks is indeed a long time to be away, it’s not a very long time to commence latrine construction. And yet, during the course of the excavation and construction, Zach has also made time to re-landscape the already-picturesque area beneath my huge shade tree. So it seems I’m getting a new stone retaining wall with room for a huge flower/herb bed and a rock garden. I’m talking huge rocks. Po is essentially on one, big rock; so imagine the work required by Zach to excavate, by hand, a very deep latrine. Deep . . . we’re talking meters, not merely a few feet.



I can see the herbs and flowers already. Is it time to plant the seeds, or should I wait until Zach has completed work? Will chickens decimate the seedlings? Is tonight an occasion special enough for glowing jewelry? I think we all know these answers, but we can only speculate.