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Stranger: hello
You: Hello
Stranger: tell me about yourself
You: Certainly I will
You: But it is a long story
Stranger: tell me the most interesting/unusual parts
You: Oh, there is much to tell, so I'll keep it recent
You: Do you know where Upper Volta is? Most people don't
Stranger: burkina faso?
You: Yes, exactly! Impressive!
Stranger: haha i cheated, google...
You: Ah, well, let me tell you: it's the worst place on the planet
You: I'm a Canadian peacekeeper doing aid work here
You: I'm guessing you know what a dirty bomb is, right?
Stranger: yeah there was a lot in the media about them a couple of years ago
Stranger: (im in uk)
You: Yeah, well, what the media didn't cover is that they detonated one here seven months ago
You: No nuclear blast, just radiation
You: Dirty bombs don't actually blow up
Stranger: yeah its a spread of radioactive stuff right?
You: Exactly. In this case I think they used Plutonium-236, which is a radioisotope... it doesn't matter
You: Anyways
You: There is a nuclear winter here; irradiated sandstorms from the sandsea to the North blows across, but because its irradiated it doesn't just blow away
You: The sickness here is absolutely horrifying
Stranger: who detonated the bomb?
You: Saheli seperatists
You: They do things like this all the time, although this is the worst
You: Usually they'll just ride into a village and shoot everyone
You: My regiment was engaged three weeks ago (again), they're just militants with 50 year old Soviet rifles
You: Which is why they decided to try something a little more drastic, although it didn't really have any impact other than to make the government crack down on them even harder
Stranger: sounds pretty sick
Stranger: theres nothing about it on the internet
Stranger: are you doing work for the UN
You: No, it's a Canadian government taskforce
You: The UN is a joke
You: I was in Yugoslavia with the UN PROFOR
You: All we did was ride around and watch slavs shoot at other slavs and we didn't do anything
Stranger: grim
Stranger: what are you doing now then... peacekeeping is a bit ambigious
You: We shoot at any Sahelis who we see, to be blunt
You: We also assist in the distribution of aid since the Burkina Faso government steals literally 100% of aid we send if we don't do it ourselves
You: The reason we call it Upper Volta is because the government of Burkina Faso (who renamed it that) is a joke
Stranger: its pretty horrible to think that, as far as im aware anyway, this has never been covered in media
You: West Central Africa is horrid
You: And it will probably never be covered in the media, since France pulled out fourty years ago and has no intention to return
You: There's nothing here worth talking about or fighting for except some of the people
Stranger: doesnt france still have strong ties to ghana
You: Ghana is on the coast
You: It's strategically important
You: And they have ties with cote d'ivoire moreso
You: In fact, people in Ghana (we disembarked there) all spoke English (sort of)
Stranger: yeah, theres loads of cheap holidays there advertised, haha..
You: I'd suggest you stay away
You: Anyways, sorry to bum you out but I've got to run, we're moving to a village upstream
You: Apparently the Sahelis are going to attack it, but more likely it's just the frigging burkina faso government giving us shit information again
Stranger: no worries man, this has definitely been the most interesting conversation ive had on this
Stranger: good luck with everything..
You: Thanks, take care
Stranger: you too
