T A B L E_T A L K Are Americans ugly? Discuss why the world loves to hate U.S. tourists in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Learn more about Burkina Faso at barnesandnoble.com ___________________   R E C E N T L Y The men who moil for gold By J. Kingston Pierce A century after the race for the Klondike gold fields, a hiker traces the argonauts' northward course (01/06/99) Vive la roller blade! By Susan Hack In Paris, Friday night has an all-new rite (01/05/99) Death in Antigua By Steve Kettmann A host family's tragedy tweaks the conscience of a traveler in Guatemala (01/04/99) Hot spots of the millennium Where will people be traveling in 2000? Travel experts predict the destinations of choice in the new millennium (12/24/98) Not finding God in Rome By Zachary Karabell At Christmas in the Eternal City, a seeker of truth discovers that sometimes the answer you don't get is the one you need (12/23/98)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		_____AN INVITATION TO STAY WITH A WOMAN'S FAMILY IN WEST AFRICA OPENS THE DOOR TO MORE THAN HER HOME. BY TANYA SHAFFER | I hadn't noticed Brigitte until we pulled up to the curb in downtown Ouagadougou and she leaned over and tapped me on the shoulder. "If you don't have a place to stay during your visit," she said with breathless timidity, "you are welcome in my house." I was used to sudden changes in plans and to West Africans' amazing, nearly overwhelming hospitality. I'd just finished a six-month stint as a volunteer in Ghana and was on my way to Mali to visit a friend. I hadn't planned to stop in Burkina Faso's sprawling capital, but after two days and nights in a packed minivan, I needed a rest. My cream-colored T-shirt and olive skirt had turned road-dust gray, and my shorn hair -- the only part of my body retaining any natural oils -- was plastered to my scalp. Something odd was going on in my body, which for days had produced the sensation of sweating, though no actual moisture appeared. I felt like a kettle that rattles and shakes, but never quite manages to sing. I stood guard over Brigitte's cloth-tied bundles while she used the phone box outside the upscale Hôtel de l'Indépendance to call her husband. Oceans of motos swerved around me; the air was thick with dust and exhaust. Brigitte was in her mid-20s and had a plump figure and a perky, impish face with round, shiny cheeks and eyebrows that leapt and danced when she spoke. She had managed to stay astoundingly clean on the long journey from Ghana, where she'd gone to visit her cousin. Her bright orange and green print dress still looked as though it had been freshly pressed. A matching cloth wrapped her head. "I'm bringing a friend home," I heard her say. She paused for emphasis, then added, "a white friend," her voice simmering with excitement. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - An expensive taxi ride took us to the outskirts of town, to a neighborhood where solid cinder-block houses with clean-swept dirt yards alternated with vacant lots filled with rubble. She lived in one of the cinder-block rectangles with her husband -- a mid-level customs official -- their three children and two servant girls. In the open-air bathroom a mud wall separated the neatly swept section where a board covered a hole in the ground from the area where you carried your bucket of water to bathe. With a television, boom box and telephone inside the house, it was a solid middle-class home. It was love at first sight for me and little Rod, who stood shyly at the gate with her three middle fingers in her mouth, twisting her upper body back and forth as the taxi pulled up. As I swung my bulky pack out of the overhead rack, she was already at my side, and I swerved off-balance to avoid hitting her. When I flopped onto the couch in the tiny living room, she came and sat silently on my lap. Rod was 5 years old and had silky skin, the color of fresh coffee grounds, kept creamy by her mother's daily applications of shea butter. Her small face was a perfect oval with grave, wide-set eyes so dark you couldn't separate iris from pupil. She seldom spoke, but always stayed within a few steps of me, often slipping a hand into mine as I sat writing or talking in the yard. "This one's too quiet," Brigitte said, holding Rod at arm's length and brushing dust off her pink skirt with a brusque hand. "Here comes the smart one." Her face lit up with a smile as a chubby 2-year-old careened through the doorway while a stocky teenager followed a step behind. The older girl's clothes were oversized and shapeless, her feet bare. "Lidia already speaks French, don't you?" Brigitte said to the little one. "Tu parles français?" "Oui!" the baby shouted, and Brigitte laughed with delight. She barked a command at the teenager, who rushed out into the yard. "I've told her to get water for your bath," Brigitte told me. Brigitte and I spoke French, while she usually spoke to the children and servants in her native Mossi. She turned back to the crowing Lidia. "This one," she said, smiling, "this is my girl." Her son Constantin came home a few hours later, dragging a book bag behind him, his school uniform covered with mud. "Tintin -- did you greet our guest?" He slid to a halt in front of me, a 9-year-old bundle of kinetic energy; hands, knees, feet trembling to go. "Pleased to meet you," he murmured, sneaking a glance from lowered eyes. "My pleasure," I said. He flashed me a smile, dropped his bag in front of the couch and took off running out the door and through the gate. "Change your clothes," Brigitte called as he tore around the corner. "Did you see him? That one is bad," she said to me. "Bad." N E X T+P A G E | Bad feelings at a restaurant