Moving In

August 27th, 2009

After a much needed night of sleep I spent today dusting, scrubbing, sweeping and cleaning. My room had collected a large amount of dust in everything from several months of vacancy I was determined to get it as clean as possible before starting to get it dirty again! I started by cleaning out all the furniture which consisted of a closet and a table with a draw which was inhabited by a lizard of some sort. I dusted the surfaces that I could find and swept the floor. One room down one to go! Next was the bathroom. I had bought some Ajax in Ouaga for exactly this purpose and set to work with a brush, cleaning the layers of grime off of the once white tiling. It made a big different. Next I did what I could for the toilet and sink with some success, but still not “clean”. And then I was done for the day. Time to go use that internet that I’d been looking forward to!

My computer lab is just a short walk away from my house and is connected to the cyber. I went to ask one of the frères what I needed to do to use the internet. And so the bad news began.

“The internet isn’t working today.”

“Oh,” I said remembering the many times the internet in all of Oahigouya would cut out for days at a time, “how long has it been down?”

“About a month”

“Oh” I said, a bit more worried now, this didn’t seem like your small breakdown in service, “when will it be up again?”

“I don’t know,” was the response followed by a description that included such words as the government, 1,000,000 CFA, payment, and company.

I later found out that not only was the internet at CAFT out, but it had been the only source for internet in a 45km radius. And all my dreams of being in touch with the world went out the window. There would be no Skype and no email. I wouldn’t have access to US or world news. I couldn’t depend on Google and Wikipedia to answer all my random questions about the world. I was cut off, isolated, and more so than I had ever prepared myself for.

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Update: There is hope that the problem will be resolved. From what I can tell the ministry of education of Burkina was paying to keep that connection up as part of a country wide program to provide internet access. Apparently every year the connection gets cut for a certain period of time, but it should be back up sometime in the first half of next year.

Until then if you want to get in touch with me you can send me a letter at:

Bovard Tiberi
s/c Frères du Sacré-Cœur
Province de Nayala, Toma
BP 166, Burkina Faso

Or if you feel like searching around on the internet for a while for a good calling card to Burkina (you can get about 30 minutes around $5) you can give me a call at 226 (country code) 75273642 (phone number).

I would love to hear from you!