More NAK - Raaaaasssstttaaaaaa

The next day after a mini lay-in (well, not 5am), we had a breakfast at the volunteer house, which in the light of day was where the single mum, who looked like Beverley Knight, lived with her kids and let people stay who were trying to learn but couldn't afford school fees or passing through on volunteer projects. The nurses were all sitting around in various states of illness and blaming it on the brochettes, which we'd all eaten anyway, hundreds of them in fact. They looked horrified as we said we were going for more brochettes that lunchtime.

We walked into town with no real plans, as our reason for coming to Kou was really only for the NAK. I looked around for some more flip-flops as mine were close to death, and we took a wander about the market, which was a huge red bricked maze, but was all professional with separate areas for food or clothes. We also found a shop where we could rent some pushbikes, and organised that for the next day. For lunch we did go and get some more brochettes from a stall outside a bar (shock, horror) but they were fantastic - some generic meat falling off the stick, along with onion, African cucumber and spices. Mouth-wateringly good.

After a nice little three-course meal at the house, we walked to NAK, but stopped for a few Brakina's, the favoured local brew, along the way. Again we quickly paid and got into the stadium, just to get away from all the pickpockets more than anything else. A short while later we all needed the toilet (curse those beers!) and so asked the security guard at the bottom of the concrete steps. He just pointed to a small space underneath the stadium, where a few others were just urinating up the side of the wall. A bit unorthodox, but when in Africa!

The first band was just finishing as we all settled, and the second one that came on were some Taiwanese drummers. They took a little while to get set up, the crowd in a hushed silence staring at the silhouettes on stage, before the lights flared up to reveal seven people in a bowling formation, each in front of huge drum. They were pretty awesome, banging hard on the drums not unlike the Olympic opening ceremony. The sheer speed and way that they kept in time with each other was incredible. During a break, whilst the drummers changed into dancing gear for Act II, the artistic director came out and via a translator explained each segment. Some of the people in the crowd laughed at his Asian accent, which surprised me a bit.

After a dance with swords, they changed back to drummers and the huge man at the front (must've been nearly seven feet tall, with the build of Jaws from Bond movies) took the lead. Then he got on a microphone and got the crowd on their feet and clapping along. The only thing was this massive giant of a man had the voice of a little girl! Not what we expected but it was a really good show that they put on.

After the Tawainese was a Togolese singer called Kossi Ape'son, who didn't get the crowd too excited by making us all stand up for the Togolese national anthem. He was pretty forgettable afterwards, but did get into the music a bit more and danced along the stage for a while. After a short break, the main act for the night came on - Jah Verity. This was obviously a huge reggae star in Burkina, as all the crowd got to their feet and sang along with all the rasta tunes. Jah himself came out after a big build up in a long camouflage trench coat and big army boots. He rattled out a few tunes before firing the crowd up, and actually got told off for running through the stadium when he wasn't supposed to! We were all dragged up by the local lads and danced along, pulling out some old skool skanking moves. It was really good, but I think if we were high or drunk like the rest of the crowd it would've helped - we didn't know any of the songs!

During the walk back there was a really annoying guy who followed us. He started to try and talk to us, in French, but we didn't understand him. After a kilometre of him being more than a little annoying we all turned and shouted at him to get on his bike. He got the hint.