The Art of Doing Nothing -or- Taking Tea in Burkina

In the States life is always on the go. Even an event like having a cup of coffee or tea has been turned into a moving event with the invention of paper cups, sleeves, travel mugs and drive-thru Starbucks. It has become harder and harder to just sit and enjoy your drink. When those times do arise we shun converstation and turn to our books, our laptops, our homework. Please don't expect me to be social while I sip my grande non-fat 2 pump peppermint mocha with whip cream.
But then there is Burkina. As usual life here is a little different, even drinking, or as we say here, taking tea. Taking tea is a process. It is not something you simply drink and move on with life. Taking tea is an event that can last more than five hours. When you take tea you sit together with people (shock number one) and you spend hours without books, music or other diversions (shock number two). You just sit, talk and watch as one of the guys makes the tea.
Okay, I know what you're thinking. How on earth can making and drinking tea take so long. You just put the tea in hot water let it seep for a few minutes and you're ready to go, right? Not so here. Let me see if I can paint you a picture. First you get some charcol going (no hot plates here). Then you start boiling water in a little tiny tea pot. Added to this is loose leaf China Green Gunpowder Tea. The boils for upwards of 10-20 mins. Then the tea is poured into a glass, wait not done yet. Then it it's poured back into the teapot, then back in the glass, and on and on. Ending in the teapot, it is put bqck on the charcol to boil again. After 5-10 minutes you fill the glass half full with sugar and do the pour into glass, pour into teapot thing again for a while trying to get a nice foam on top. Once the foam is formed the foam, not the tea is put into two or three shot glasses. The tea goes back on the charcol to boil again. Finally after another 5-10 minutes the tea is poured into a shot glass and everyone has a shot of tea. But wait, we're not done yet. We don't want to waste those tea leaves, so we do the whole process at least two more times, with the tea getting a little weaker and a lot sweeter each time.
So, wait, we have one guy sitting there making tea for hours, what happens to the rest of us. We sit. Just sit and chat. Five hours of just sitting, no laptop, no books, no driving the car to work. Just sitting there, honestly watching the pot boil. I'll admit it, the first couple times I 'took' tea I didn't make it. I couldn't last. I would pass by, maybe stop for a half hour, take one of the shots, and then continue on my way. Honestly, how is anyone supposed to do nothing for five hours, just be social? But then something happened. Not really sure what. But I started to gte the hang of this whole sitting thing. I found out it was okay to just sit and do nothing. Just sit and listen to the conversation (hey, it's mostly in Gulmancema, speaking might be pushing it for me). And, you know what, I think they have it right here. It's great to just sit, do nothing, and watch the pot boil.
(But don't get me wrong. I would still kill for a grande non-fat 2 pump peppermint mocha with whip cream.)

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