Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Ouagadougou rings in 2008 like it's 1945


Happy New Year from Africa Flak.

Here’s a photo from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso right after the New Year was wrung in. OK, maybe not. But I swear I saw a tiny mushroom cloud at the establishment where we rung in the new year. At least one group of young men was throwing firecrackers under every table in their general direction. Others were lighting blocks of them by holding the explosives in their mouths and then throwing. Very fun.

On different business, I visited a friend at the state hospital on New Year’s Day and found more than the usual number of family members waiting for patients being treated at the emergency room. Traffic on New Year’s Eve was as bad (and as dangerous) as usual – we saw a green taxi trying to race a souped-up BMW down a long, straight boulevard. This year, the presence of Gendarmes at intersections reduced some of the crazy vehicular behavior.

Anyway, the curmudgeon in me wonders how many of the people in the emergency room were being treated for firecracker-related injuries.

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