A Blaize in Ouagadougou

The name ‘Burkina Faso’ is just cool. It has a kind of rhythmic quality to it that pops out of your mouth like a child down a foofie slide. Most people only know of the country because they remember the groovy ring its name has and because it hosted a relatively unsuccessful African Cup of Nations a few years ago. But then success is not something that has come naturally to the Burkinabe. They are landlocked, dirt poor and have no industry to speak of. The tomatoes they do grow are shipped south to Ivory Coast where are tinned and sold back to them at double the price. Even in a region where coups are about as popular as Lucky Dube and economic accountability sits one rung below sending FW de Klerk an annual Christmas card in government priorities, this is quite something. And this may be the only standout feature of Burkina Faso: that it is exceptional only in its mediocrity.

It is almost like a small microcosm of greater West Africa: it has the arid Sahel in the north, the humid and tropical greenery of the West, it’s zig-zagged by a number of winding rivers, hosts a variety of of indigenous animals in its parks, has bizarre cultural history from its myriad minority tribes and, the standard, has a government that came to power by snatching it in a coup. And yet it doesn’t distinguish itself in any of these fields. Its desert lacks impressive dunes or al-Qaeda, its forests house only a handful of largely tame animals such as ‘vervet monkey’ and ‘dog’, its rivers can generally be jumped over with a run-up, its cultural minorities are losing their identity and – worst of all – its power-grabbing president has lauded over relative political stability rather than buying his nephew a concorde. Even the French who colonised it were largely uninspired by it, arbitrarily naming it Upper Volta before largely forgetting about it, leaving only a legacy of bad French and good bread.

There are some exceptional things in Burkina. The name of its capital, for example. Ouagadougou. Probably the greatest named city in history. Then there are other exceptional things to consider.  The name of its second city, for example. Bobo Dioulasso. Or, branching out, the name of its largest national park: ‘W’. Then there is the penchant of the local population for flat-out strangeness: many love puppeteering, pink cowrie masks, yoghurt and high-fives. They lack the piousness of their more fervent Islamic neighbours and gamely slurp down the local brew Brakina (another great name!) on every street corner, safe in the knowledge that their booze-fuelled slumber is unlikely to be interrupted by an irate imam at 4am. The landscapes are a bit like the people and refuse to play it straight by fashioning themselves into some truly bizarre, often phallic contortions. And then of course there is the insurmountable awesomeness of the name of the president ‘Blaize’.

If nomenclature was given the eminence it deserves in regional politics, it’s very clear that Burkina Faso would be a West African giant. Nigeria, Ivory Coast and – yes – even Guinea Bissau would tremble at the mention of its silky, honey-tinged name. Alas until that great day arises it will just have to remain as the weird country where the mediocrity of things are elevated by the simple fact that people want to say their names more than anywhere else on the planet.  And this, I suppose, is pretty exceptional.