Impressions Of Burkina Faso

After a few weeks in Mali, boy was it a relief to come to Burkina Faso. The two countries are different and in all differences, Burkina beats Mali.

First, even though they both use the same currency, the Franc CFA, the circulation of money is completely different. In Mali, nobody has small bills and coins. If you don't have them yourself, a person you want to conduct a transaction with has to go off and find someone with change and that takes about 10 minutes. It's annoying as hell. And you can't hoard bills and small money because as soon as you get something small, you are forced to use it on the next transaction. But Burkina Faso is back to the way things should be. All denominations circulate. You don't have to worry about small money. It's so refreshing.

There are a lot of tourists here, but they are almost all French. Hence, the merchants speak mostly French. When I get a persistent merchant, I'm just plain annoyed when he speaks English, but when he speaks French, I figure at least I'm learning something. So they are much more bearable.

Prices are good here. And the country is a nice country to visit--lot's of nice places to go. Lot's of of nice places to eat.

There are a lot of persistent merchants, but most don't speak English and those that do don't speak it well. So it's definitely a bit more annoying than the refreshingly unannoying two Guineas, but it's still a little better than Senegal and lot better than Mali.

There seems to be a lot of lottery or gambling operations here.

Motorcycles and bicycles are everywhere. There are more two wheeled vehicles than mosquitos (OK that's an exaggeration).

Anyway, I like Burkina Faso. It's a good place to visit if you speak some French.