Raise your hand if you remember the South Park episode called The Quest for Ratings. The episode where Craig’s TV show, called Animals Close-Up With A Wide Angle Lens (complete with totally goofy music), threatens to cancel Stan, Kyle & Cartman’s show of South Park Elementary Super School News. Anyone? No? Well here’s my own version: Rex with a close-up lens. I’ve grown to love Rex. He's a bon chien, and when I tell him so his tail wags wildly.

Rusty made a keen observation on my behavior of late: I’ve totally let go of my OCD need for planning. I strive to live in the moment, a totally foreign concept to me. I understand why the Burkinabe buy tiny packets of soap powder, versus a large size that would eliminate daily runs to the marche. After all, a meteor could hit Pô and we’d have wasted money on unused soap powder. I’m beginning to wake-up daily with a surprise-me attitude. No more long lists in order to make a list so that I can make a list to begin to prepare my list and then make a list.

And speaking of lists and compulsive behavior, raise your hand if you recall how much I love/hate preparing for very large parties. Yesterday was the grand fête for the Club de Commerce year end. On Wednesday I spent the day at the marche and various alimentations to locate a few things needed for the party. A few? Right. The kids were determined to cook and invite every VIP in town, which was, in fact, a grand idea. I was awake until 02h00 Thursday baking four chocolate cakes and making bisap that had to be placed in plastic sachets, tied in the classic Burkinabe fashion, which was kindly demonstrated to me by Leon. We nasarras don’t even know how to tie a plastic bag, and that is, indeed, a fact.

So, 50 sachets of bisap and four gateaux au chocolat later, I dropped into bed, only to be awakened by Rex at 05h00. And as long as I was up, why not begin cooking the 15 packs of spaghetti for the fête, while at the same time waiting for students to bring the ingredients for their fish sauce. Somehow I pictured the tiny, dried minnows available at the marche. But no. Gladis arrives with a kilo of whole, sizable fishes. Ready to be cleaned, sliced à la mode de a loaf of bread, and fried. Hmm. Not in my kitchen. Outside, please.

Now dried fish in a sauce was relatively unappetizing to me. I had it many times last summer. Guess what? . . . it’s fishy. If you’re lucky in Burkinabe culture (certainly not in my world), you’ll lift the lid on your plate and find an entire catfish head staring up at you. I suppose it’s like finding the lucky charm in some European cakes. But a charm is hardly a fish head. Don’t need no fish-head surprise to bring me luck. And yesterday? Whole fish parts, heads, eggs, organs . . . uh-uh. Not gonna happen. So I decided to prepare an impromptu sauce arachide, with lots of piled (pronounced peel-aid and meaning pounded) peanuts. The girls laughed and laughed at me. Nasarra making sauce arachide completely unlike the Burkinabe. Hey, at least it’s not going to be fishy. And my vegetarian site-mate will surely thank me. However, these gentlemen, all profs at the school, appear pretty happy, so perhaps one of them got the fish head. Actually, they're happy because they loved my sauce arachide, even though they laughed at the way I prepared it.

Now, raise your hand if you recall how much I hate the drop-in. No drop-ins, ever, is my mantra. No one needs to see this new mural on the wall of my salon . . . Martin, here, and his family being the sole exception. In fact, no one would dare visit me without calling first . . . except in Burkina. People show-up on my doorstep constantly. Rex and Dora, one or both, have taken to sleeping inside my home most every night. In truth, I love having a dog in the house again; though I’ve tried to explain to Rex that there will be no barking before 6:00 a.m. Right. I’ve tried to explain the same rule to Jill, always without success. Ne bark pas is my newest phrase in Franglais. I say it with authority, albeit without success.

Anyway, whether inside or outside, regardless of the time of day, Rex and Dora can be relied upon to bark if anyone comes into the courtyard. This is a great doorbell/security system, and there was a time when I never thought about who might be arriving. After all, visitors weren’t here to see me . . . I didn’t know anyone in Pô. But these days, every time Rex barks, my heart skips a beat and I wonder who is coming to visit, unannounced! I’m always thrilled when it’s only the children, wanting their photos taken. Here's la petite Victorine and her big brother. They live in the courtyard with their mom, Sada, who works at the pump down the hill.

What’s worse about the drop-in is: other than my closest acquaintances and the children, I rarely recognize these adult drop-ins. Without a location in town, I have no idea in what context I’ve met these people, most frequently young men. Why, just earlier today someone dropped by. It wasn’t even 09h00, and had I not chosen to take off a day to recover from fête-prep, I wouldn’t even be here. I ask you, who drops by before 08h30?! Raise your hand if you know you’ve been guilty.

So, did I just agree to allow this gentleman caller to stop by again tomorrow at 09h00? Were the professors and guests at last night’s party as pleased with my sauce arachide as they seemed? So, raise your hand if you think that I tasted fried fish eggs. And the fish sauce? Who was that man at my door this morning? We can only speculate.