Top 10 favourite things so far!

· Smiles (mine and others): My daily dosage of smiles far exceeds the norm from back home. Often it is for the simplest of reasons too. Like when I respond/greet someone in Dioula and they are so surprised that they smile from ear to ear and laugh! Or when I use a new sentence in Dioula and am understood! The smiles of the excited kids when you pass them.

· Small acts of kindness: Often people are very kind and welcoming here. When you sit down to eat people will invite you to eat with them and to even share their food. At the market they will often slip an extra few onions or tomatoes or what ever into you bag as a present. The other day a woman sold me 3 plantains for the price of 1 just because I didn’t have the cash on me to buy more than one. People will go out of their way to help you.

· My neighbour’s kid: He is about 2 years old and without fail every time he sees me he charges at full force towards me just to shake my hand. I have to be very careful not to hit him with my bike as he will come at me from all angles. I do admit that I am a little worried that one day he will get hit by a passer by as he doesn’t look around; his eyes are opened wide but focused only on me. It is so funny to see his little legs going full speed ahead.

· Greetings: This is both my favourite and sometimes a frustrating thing. Here greeting someone is very important, and often long as you need to ask about their family, health, work… It’s great as it create opportunities to meet people and to get to know them easily, it is frustrating as once you know someone it is expected that you greet them, but it almost becomes mechanic and only once you go through the standard greetings do you get to know how they really are.

· “Basa” Gecko lizards: I need to find a way to train these little guys to sit in my house and catch mosquitoes! The lizard I find really cute and feisty. I have been unsuccessful in catching them on photo as they are just too quick, but I like watching them run up the walls.

· Yogurt: Burkina makes some of the best yogurt I have ever tasted! Sometimes they also put millet balls in it (kind of like cereal, but very small) and it tastes really good.

· Atieke: This is one of my favourite meals. Atieke is cassava couscous often served with onions and fried fish. We have our favourite stand on the way home that we sometimes stop at and pick up a bag of Atieke or eat it at the “Maquis” (bar) next to it.

· Yam and sweet potato fries: Thick hand cut fries fried in way too much oil and covered with lots of salt and hot pepper powder. Really tasty but so not good for you!

· Cashews: I’m addicted to cashews! I can’t help but buy them regularly. It happens to be the season for roasted cashews. Burkina produces cashews but has no weight in international markets mainly due to quality and also to the huge quantities that are sold to Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire “through the back door”.

· Dried mangoes: Not just because I work with mangoes, but because they are sweet and tasty!