Month: February 2007

The nurse who works in Ouaga also owns a fabulous hotel. We just got back from dinner there. She is married to a Burkinabé, that’s what they call people from Burkina, I just love that: Bukinabé. Paulina’s husband’s family is from Belgium. He’s lived here all his life, his parents, now passed, ran this hotel, where grew up, Hotel Richard. Paulina herself is from Chile: Chileanebé! She is a nurse at the embassy by day then comes home to nine dogs and this big old hotel inherited from her in-laws. The place is dreamy, a huge swimming pool, plus lion, ten kinds of antelope, red buffalo, and a wildlife park-full of other animal trophies hanging on the walls, african art everywhere, white table cloths and uniformed waiters serving you dinner, with two kinds of wine and a cheese course, then killing you with strawberry mousse or creme caramel for dessert.

We really want to see elephants while living in west Africa, and many people drive for hours to the wildlife parks, camp for days and never see them, elepant hide nor elephant hair. I thought: here is the guy to ask! Here is the guy who will save me from a safari where we only see guinea fowl, which I saw from the road on the way from Niger. “Oh, yes,” he says, “the best time see elephants is now, fevrier, mars. I saw more than 100 when I was out today at Parc Something Somthing.” My jaw: still on the floor.

Then, somehow, Richard started talking to me about the Cathars and the history of the holy grail and Mary Magdelene, and this conversation was waaaaaaaay beyond my DaVinci Code level of expertise and/or my level of French. I had to make him say the word “parchment,” which should have been a give-away, three times.

Oy, it was a good time. That co-worker of Peter’s, she knows how to throw a party. And now you know the good time of year to see the elephants in west Africa.

Our trip to Ouaga conincides with the 20th biannual Festival of Pan African Cinema of Ouagadougou– the West African version of Cannes. I’ve never seen so many Europeans in my life, the place is full of them. And Americans! Walking down the streets of Ouaga!

This morning, sitting at the table next to us, while Camille slurped her mango, was an obvious french-style african-hollywood director: the shoes, the watch, everyone wanting to shake his hand, a skinny french woman at his table dripping with Jean Paul Gaultier.

Of course the front desk of the hotel doesn’t have a schedule or a poster or anything, even though the hotel is packed with the aforementioned Europeans, Americans and director-types. We asked where we could find information and they pointed us to the streets of Ouaga in the most general way. We walked in the hot sun, kids complaining every step, motos wizzing by, deep open holes in the sidewalk, not finding anything except an african guy with a FESPACO badge looking for the same office we are. After talking to a couple of guys in front of the building where the office is not, (we had been directed to the same building) he confidently takes off down the street. We follow him for a few sweaty blocks. Some people are following us, and this is annoying me. I turn around to get a good look at them, and they look like us, except they have FESPACO badges. “Anglais ou Français?” I ask, and she is American, with a Dutch boyfriend, and a map and knows where the FESPACO press office is–it’s the opposite direction from where are heading.

The press office is literally around the corner from our hotel. Being a film-maker myself, I feel I have every right to go in press office and am graciously handed a schedule and discriptions of all the movies, post cards and flyers.

We would love to be spending all day watching movies, but we have kids and therefore, a babysitting issue, so I read all discriptions of the movies and and try to find one I think kids could watch.

The beauty and the difficulty with the movies shown is that they are about Africa. I sort of forgot this crucial aspect of the festival. Therefore, the movie discriptions start like this: “a young former Sierra Leonean fighter stuggles to find his bearings between his rehabilation center and a national reconciliation tribunal…” or “After a jail sentence, a young man with a cruel past and an uncertain future is realeased…” Hmm, not so much good for kids. “Marion, a young prostitute from the outskirts of the city decides to move downtown…” Uh, no. “Mustapha has spent the past five years of his life in prison for drug trafficking…” “Making Off is set around a shooting scene and tells the tragedy of the three characters involved…” “Marjolie sleeps with a dignitary of the Presidency of the Republic, he dies in the course of the action…”

I finally found a short film I thought kids could handle, about a boy whose family lives at the garbage dump in Burundi. It was fun to go the theater, camera crews outside, everyone wearing a FESPACO badge. The directrice of the film came out and spoke to an audience that might as well have been the United Nations, followed by much applause.The theater was nicely air conditioned, but they had light trouble, are they on? Are they off? The film began. Camille immediatly hid her face in her lap and kept it there the whole time–she says she just didn’t want to watch the movie– and Stefan promptly fell asleep.

Peter and I liked it though.

Tonight we will go see another short film, this one about a guy who has collected bottles on the beach in Tunisia for 30 years. At FESPACO, the only kid-appropriate films are about, as Pippi Longstocking calls them, Thingfinders.

Avocado and shrimp salad by the pool, under a mango tree, trying to figure out the West African Film Festival movie guide.