Saturday, November 05, 2005 Allright. So on with the story, a few days late but just as good.

When we last left our heroe (okay, me) he was at the chook marche with Katie. We arrived in the usual zemi-driven state (wide-eyed and thankful for our lives) to see the splendor of the Marche Kilombo. It's really pretty, the marche itself is just outside the border of Parakou, and it's on the side of a hill. The marche occurs in the dwindling hours of light, so it's really pretty to look down on what all is down there. In any case we were quickly stopped by a guy who really wanted to tell us an awesome joke.

"Have you ever been to France?"
"Yeah"
"You know Lyon?"
"Uh, yeah"
"Well I'm the PANTHER"

Okay, so it turns out it wasn't awesome. Katie and I continued on. After a brief stop and some more classic chook moments, we returned in search of Seraphine. The same guy stopped us;

"Have you ever been to France?"
"Yeah"
"You know Lyon?"
"Uh, yeah"
"Well I'm the PANTHER"

I informed him that he'd told us the same joke not 5 minutes before, but it fell on deaf ears. He was now giving us calabashes of chook and launching into a hillarious tirade. It came out that;
- He is in fact white, his black skin was because of the African sun
- He would turn white again if he had "relations" with Katie "a few times" (mind you not once or twice)
- He is George Bush's cousin
- He is a Gyncologist
- Katie and I may not have "relations" as it turns out that I am on my period.

He also taught us a new song fragment, which we don't quite have the exact translation of... we think it means something along the lines of "penis-penis". In any case, if you have the urge to utter nonsense words in Africa... "pipi-nyagu" is probably something you don't want to say too often. It was pretty much the most hillarious thing ever.

One would think that would be a perfect cap for a weekend, but no... it got better. The next day after a spot of breakfast, I thought I'd pop in to work for a bit. When I arrived there was a ton of people with tree branches chanting and singing, beating on drums and the like. I though to myself "Oh, they started partying early for All Saints Day, cool." (Turns out like us, they don't actually party for All Saints Day) and headed upstairs. I asked on my friends at the Mairie what was going on...

"They're chanting the mayor is a thief"

Oh. Well, PC is very strictly non-political and has very strict rules regarding presence at political events and things like small riots. So, I went into my office (where there are no windows) and shut the door. It was nice and quiet in there, I thought I might be able to get some work done even. Nope! Within about 5 minutes we were evacuated and the gendarmes came. So, no work on Monday.

That being the case I decided I'd pop down to Challa-Ogoi (a very small village whose name I've probably mangled in spelling) for a litle Halloween party. All in all good times were had, and I safely returned to Parakou the following afternoon. A few short hours of rest, and on to the shuttle to Cotonou.

So here I am. I actually have a whole tirade about this trip to Cotonou, but that'll have to wait a little bit. Suffice to say, while Cotonou is still the land of the "bonnes choses", my perceptions of it have again changed after living in Parakou for near-on 6 weeks.

In other news, to shield me from political situations I've been given instructions to minimize my presence at the Mayor's office... which means I'm looking for a new place to work. This could be a boring couple of weeks.