As if we hadn’t had enough of these long West Africa road trips, today takes another toll on us with a 5 hour long road-trip to Tiébélé while passing through Pô, the city where the military first rebelled in 1983 to overthrow the president and brought pan-African revolutionary Captain Thomas Sankara to power.
From an 8am departure, I spent most of the time getting to work in nursing our guide back to health from a really nasty bout with food poisoning (let’s just say it got so bad I was checking her pulse and blood pressure). We then arrived in Tiébélé at around 2:30pm, where we had a quick lunch and began our walk around the village.
Here every house is a work of art.
The traditional Gourounsi architecture is elaborately decorated upon the walls of their homes, turning what could have been simple brown mud-brick to vibrant, intricate exhibitions of the local artistry of the Kassena people.
Sometimes the paintings are purely decorative, and other times they are an expression of local religion or commentary on life, much like western street art.
We even were allowed to step inside one of their abodes.
They construct the entry doors purposefully low from a tradition where attacking enemy tribes would have a harder time entering; anyone who dared to enter could leave their heads vulnerable to defending machete-carrying family members inside.
After a long look around, including visiting the local Royal compound, we drove back to our hotel for the night at Hotel Imane in the village of Niorida. As for my patient I was checking on the past 48 hours? She seemed to be getting better.
- At time of posting in Tiébélé , it was 28 °C - Humidity: 13% | Wind Speed: 8km/hr | Cloud Cover: sunny