It starts with an alarm wake-up at 04h30, after a late night working on reports for the Bureau after the Internet finally returned. A very early morning when one still has unsightly circles and wrinkles under her eyes. The event entails donning layers of clothing for protection. This, on a day when we'll reach a daytime high of at least 41 Celsius. Still, it's cool (only about 88 Fahrenheit) on this happy Wednesday morning, so the layers aren't too bad.

So off to the bureau by 05h30, when it's still so dark that I need a headlight. Of course, I'm the first to arrive and find the gate to the bureau locked. And then, voila! Gate opened by our bureau guardien. I didn't know we had an overnight guard! Serves me right for never arriving before 07h30. He sleeps outside under a mosquito net. Wonder what we're protecting at GaMo Wigna. Maybe it's my grafted mango tree. Anyway, before 06h00, we're off for a quick drive to the egg farm.

Let the fun begin!
The washing of 60 hens. By the time we arrive, the sun isn't up, but the dawn has broken. This means that the hens are getting frisky . . . cocks, too, as they tend to be in the mornings. And their friskiness explains the need for the requisite layers and layers of clothing for which Yaya had prepared me. These animals have sharp barbs on their legs. They'll also peck, hard, if given half a chance.

My favorite activity in this country is holding poultry upside down by their legs. They have strong legs, so there's no real threat to the poultry. But should a leg get loose, watch out for the barbs. Anyway, no poultry was going to escape my grasp unless . . . . What the ? Yaya makes me don thick rubber gloves for protection. Yikes, now these guys and gals are slippery.

Catching the hens is the hard part. This I left to Yaya and Hassan. Imagine a coop full of groggy poultry. Imagine how quickly they awaken when chased by two grown men who can, literally, snag them right out of the air . . . whether by the tail-feathers or feet (the poultry, not the men).

My job was to guard the coop door and grasp the hens, sometimes two at a time, by their feet. After all, if Yaya and Hassan have gone to the trouble of snagging a hen in mid-air, who wants to release it for recapture. So I get to squeeze tightly one hen under my arm while immersing another in a bucket full of water and 1.5 milliliters of some type of medicine.

One must be careful when placing the hen (or cock) in the bucket. They're not the brightest of creatures and can drown . . .  so heads well above water is a must. This sounds easier than it is. So while you're splashing medicated bath water under their wings and up against their chicken derrières, you must also keep the head above water.

It's a lot like washing Jill The Pill. Getting that rump well-submersed isn't always easy. This I tried to explain to Yaya and Hassan; but the concept of why anyone on earth would wash a dog is beyond comprehension in Burkina Faso.

How many more do we have to bathe? What? There's another two coops to go?!

So why are we washing cocks and hens? Because they can contract disease and parasites. I had no idea that poultry farming was such a precise science. Happily, Yaya is an expert. Our poultry occasionally get medicine in their drinking water, vaccinations, and medicated baths. Hey, even our PC Medical Officers don't treat us PCVs with such care. What wouldn't I give for a medicated bath? Well, maybe not.

The fun part is the release. They're totally stunned after being mostly submersed. If you didn't hold 'em up for a moment, I think they'd flop over from shock. Maybe not.

Of course a little crankiness is to be expected. Actually, I suspect that it's more humiliation than peevishness. Oddly enough, they're not that cranky, proving once again that the cliché mad as a wet hen is a myth.

On the other hand, the reason for such an early morning bath is so that they're still a bit groggy from sleep. No one wants to bathe a wide-awake hen. After the exciting bathing event was over, Yaya, Hassan, and I went home for our own baths, and then back to bed, which is more than I can say for the poultry. The entire event concluded before 07h30, proving that I can wash me some hens.

So if these hens are still so sleepy at this hour, why is it that I can hear cocks crowing throughout the night, all down throughout the valley, on each of my numerous nightly trips to the latrine? What's up with that?! And who am I trying to kid? Those circles and wrinkles aren't solely from an early alarm clock. I might, however, attribute them to my lack of medicated, candle-lit baths . . . but we can only speculate.

Of late, my hut in little Pô has been a revolving door of visitors. Big fun. Not only PCV friends and their families, but also some VIPs from the Peace Corps’ offices in Ouagadougou and regional security HQ in Bamako, Mali. I feel confident in stating that each was very impressed with my home, work, and lifestyle in Pô. However, one guest was quite unwelcome.

Last Wednesday I awoke at 6:30 a.m. to screaming, screeching, wailing, and moaning here in the courtyard. It was loud. I mean really, really loud . . . all coming from a single female voice. From a woman I’d never met who’d evidently been invited into the courtyard the prior night. The wailing was unnerving. From the sound of the screams I thought surely that a snake was in her little room attached to Leon’s home. By the time I decided to peer outside to investigate, Leon and Elizabeth had left for work, and the children were off to school. Remember, everything starts here by 7:00 a.m.

After the wailing came the chanting. Repeating and repeating and repeating some long phrase in some foreign language . . . not Kassim, certainly not French. Neighbors arrived in an attempt to calm this young woman, who could not have been more than 22. Her screams carried down the valley, and very likely all the way to town. Very young children, too young for school, entered the courtyard to see what was happening. Sada ran up the hill from the water pump and took the children away.

Little Victorine, strapped to Sada's back in a pagne, is totally unmoved. OK, at one-year-and-nine-months, Victorine is a rock. I, however, am not. This is seeming a bit threatening. Do I stay in the hut, or do I dare venture out for a peek? A neighbor man arrived and tried to reason with the woman. He was violently beaten by her twig broom. It's difficult to sustain any serious injury from a broom of thin little twigs. Still. Then the woman locked herself in her room and proceeded to scream and bang for an hour to get out . . . while she alone possessed the key. Key word here being possessed.

By 8:30-9:00 a.m., I was ready to kill her. Did I mention that she was really loud? I approached her door, carefully, bearing an apple. This is Pô. No one refuses an apple. But she did. In fact, seeing a nasarra approach, her psychotic episode got even uglier . . . and louder. Seriously, if I'd been wailing like this for over two hours, I'd have collapsed. Lady, get a grip!

Now I’ve failed to mention that this was yet another day in Pô with no electricity and no water. And this woman is potentially dangerous. So I couldn’t putter in the garden, or plug-in my earphones and watch a movie or listen to music. I honestly considered beating her. I keep two large, long sticks (branches, really) in my latrine as exit ramps for the bush rats. Though the rats are large and strong enough to push open the door (and they have done that), one really doesn't want to spend even two seconds in a small, dark, enclosed latrine with a confused bush rat. Thus the exit ramps were put in place for their speedy retreat up and over the walls. Point being, I was strongly inclined to snag one of those branches and beat this woman. No, I am not kidding. She was mad . . . and maddening. 

About 11:00 a.m. she ran across the courtyard and pushed into my home, declaring in perfect French that she needed to be behind a screen so that the sorcery wouldn't get to her. Did I mention that she smelled. S-M-E-L-L-E-D! Use your imagination. Geez.

OK, silly American that I am, I didn't realize that sorcerers and genies can't get through a screen door . . . albeit, a screen door with a hole in the screen and a gap around the bottom of the door. Idiot that I am/was (or sucker, or kind-hearted, or merely stunned), I sat beside her, tried to comfort her as she held her French Bible. I actually held the hand of this insane woman and turned to some of my favorite verse:


Reggae lover that I may be, I'd never have known this entire verse were it not for the Nelson DeMille book. Thank you, you brilliant man. Anyway, knowing it in English made it easy to read in French; and it actually seemed rather appropriate for the occasion. Talk about a strange land!

I've got a little stone box filled with an aroma therapy balm (remember the French Lick box, Sally?). So I rubbed some on her hands, temples, and under her nose. Yes, I actually touched her. Then I did the same for myself. I assure you, at this point, I needed calming therapy more that she . . . and needed a break from the smell.

The beaten neighbor gentleman returned to the courtyard with her two sisters and a packet of tablets. Xanax! WHAT?! You can buy Xanax over-the-counter in this world?! Things are looking up. Way up! The man wasn't allowed in the hut . . . she started chanting again, but he passed-in the tablets. OK, big dilemma. Were they for me or for crazy-gal? Or both? One-point-five milligrams and an hour later, she was a tad calmer. We sat on the floor and I made her a cross from metallic pipe-cleaners, strung on a wide piece of cotton ribbon, on which I wrote "God will protect me" and "I resign myself to the protection of God." Or maybe I wrote "God is a smoker." You never know with my French. Anyway, she clutched the pipe cleaner cross, and became a bit more calm, though no less smelly.

At about 3:00 p.m. Leon arrived to rescue me, having heard of this tale all the way in Manga, about 135 km away. This really is a small world. His first observation was that my hut was going to need a thorough cleaning to eliminate this smell. Really, Leon? He then asks if I'd mind staying here with her until he can bring medical help and remove this woman. What the ?

Let’s wrap-up this story. Leon and crazy-gal's sisters arrived around 16h00 and we all dragged her from the hut . . . literally. Screaming ensured, naturally. Still . . . game over. Sada came to help me wash my mat and floor. I use the last of my L'Occitane perfume, which I'm sure genies hate, and make a run into town for a bottle of rum. 

So I got the rum and some juice. Why didn't I stop at the pharmacy for the Alprazolam? One must ask: retuning without Xanax . . . who's the crazy woman?! Where did crazy-gal go? Does my village have padded cells? We can only speculate.

The screen door to my living area doesn't shut. Or perhaps I should say that, when closed, it doesn't seal. Big gap. This is a result of the time when Dori the dog was locked inside my hut while I spent the afternoon in Ghana. She gnawed-off the little 1x1 strip of wood that frames the larger screen door. Also, the hinges are aged, as is this PCV, so the door simply won't close completely.

I almost never sleep with my PC-required-metal-door closed. I've got Rex and Dori; and they're better security than any locked metal door. Plus, it's hot in this land, and I want every bit of moving air that I can get. Still, with that gap in the doorway, is it any wonder that a critter sometimes comes into the hut? To further invite such comings and goings, I usually prop open the screen door with a stone. Hello! Breeze needed. And why should I worry? After all, I've got Martin to come and collect any incoming bats. 

Ah, little Pô. Pô's electricity went out on last Friday morning. No, not this past Friday. Last Friday . . . as in almost two weeks ago. Water was cut soon thereafter. I’m accustomed to this, but I had house guests from the States last weekend, and it’s difficult to explain why Pô's utilities come and go with no explanation and with no realistic idea of when said utility services might return. And now that hot season has arrived (early), sleeping with no fan isn’t fun . . . made worse when one can’t awake and go outdoors to stand under running water. Of course, this doesn’t even address the issue of water needed when one has a flush toilet. Under such conditions, I feel like a real PC volunteer. And after all, the trick, William Potter, isn't minding that it hurts. However, this morning, the electricity returned, though there's still no water. And the Peace Corps wonders why I want a pump for Pô. I catch myself holding my breath as I expect the power to fail again at any second, thus losing my Internet connection.

Last night I was awakened to the sweet perfume scent of rain. Well, that's not quite accurate. I was awakened by the call of nature. I ran outside to the latrine. These days I've got a lot of night time comings and goings in the latrine. I attribute this to dry season. Since I usually keep a bucket of water in the latrine to assure the goings of the toilet contents, critters are attracted to the water. Thus, it's necessary to say KoKo and lightly knock on the latrine wall . . . all the better to urge the speedy goings of any nocturnal visitors. What type of visitors, you ask? Big ones. Bush rats! I've got witnesses. A few weeks ago I was happily seated in the middle of the night, flashlight held between my teeth, when the beam of light caught the full view of the large mammal that ran across my foot. Though, as you might imagine, I didn't need light to realize just how large the animal was. Its weight on my foot told the entire story. Yes, they do grow this large. And in case you're curious, there are villages who raise them like rabbits for food. Would I kid you? And I wonder what's been eating my new garden seedlings.

Anyway, last night though the air was thick with the scent of rain, no rain; but I sat at my table about 4:00 a.m., inhaled the best scent in the world, and watched the lightening storm over northern Ghana. Rainy season won’t begin until May, or possibly late April; but we are occasionally rewarded with a few rain days in February and March. It’s called the mango rain . . . just enough rain (probably a grand total of two inches over three or four sporadic days) to make those yummy mangoes plump-up and ripen so that I can have mango salsa.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that this blog received a bit of a face lift . . . similar to the one that I'm going to need after over two years in this cripplingly hot climate. So I changed that blog photo to truly reflect my life in a fish bowl. My hut also received a bit of a face lift. Nothing that you’d notice. But here are a few photos since I haven’t posted any in quite some time. Out of this kitchen magic is made . . . though, to date, no bush rat magic. I've searched A.B.'s Good Eats 3, but nothing. Come on, Alton! So, where might I find a recipe for bush rat ratatouille? We can only speculate.