Thursday, April 28, 2011

Bang Bang and life goes on

Sometime last night members of the Police force at one of the barracks on the eastern side of the capital stepped out on to the streets to roam the neighborhood  firing in the air.

This the latest in a string of protests about pay and the rising COL that Burkina has seen in the last few months.

The police "mutiny" then spread to the barracks of the Republican Security Company who are billeted right in the middle of the city, just two blocks from where I am accustomed to work from and 5 blocks from where we live.

Its a surreal situation with an area of one block around cordoned off to vehicular traffic, those businesses in the vicinity shuttered and closed as periodically the sound of gun fire can be heard from within.Beyond that point though, life goes on - businesses opened, trucks unloading and loading goods. goods being moved from point to point.... and yet, not 500m away from all the hustle and bustle guns are going off.

We live in strange times