Postpone for Democracy

It's an arduous task, holding fair elections when the population being asked to choose is poorly educated and access to information consists of pictures on billboards and word-of-mouth. The presidential elections, held every five years, have so far been pushed back 2 weeks due to insufficient distribution of voting cards. But they've been peacefully delayed, so there's no cause for alarm. From what I can tell, there are two main candidates in the north, although I've seen smatterings of support for other less-funded aspiring presidents. Up until about a month ago, there were very few billboards or pamphlets being distributed for any candidate. Now, billboards like this for the incumbent, YAYI Boni, are common in larger cities.



While there are plenty of little pieces of paper being tossed around by little kids supporting this candidate, ABT, some people still choose to campaign the old-fashioned way: by painting blandly on as-yet-unfinished buildings.




And then some people are so devoted to their local candidates that they can't bare to physically separate themselves from him (or her).


Music's in the air, people are registering at the last minute, and you can feel the buzz of an impassioned crowd. Some pundits are (correctly) labeling this an extension of the fete season. Others are calling it a triumph for West Africa's Latin Quarter. No matter what, this should be an interesting weekend. That is, of course, if election day isn't again prolonged...

On the Road Again

So Mark and I took to the streets this week on our bikes to work out our itinerary for the upcoming Borgou Bike Tour. This is what we knew about where we were going: nothing. Didn't know where we'd eat, where we'd sleep, or whether or not the roads we were relying on even existed (the best map we have was drawn in 2000). After an exhausting taxi ride that placed us in Tobre, where a volunteer presently resides, we took off at 3:00 to try to make it 40 km before finding a place to sleep in a town called Sinende. Here's what we found:

And our room for the first night...

Apparently there's a fete every year at the start of the dry season where people take to the streets to swing burning tires around, effectively lighting all of the dry brush on fire. A very eerie experience and quite a surprise given that it was going on outside of our window.