The publicly available stuff says about 6,000 in Burkina. That number seems to include the Gendarmerie and the Garde Champêtre. Theres also a five figure conscripted militia force which I cannot imagine amounts to much given that the gates at the camp militaire in Bobo looked like they hadnt been painted in years (Im not saying the country is so poor that their military cant even afford paint; rather I suspect the paint money in the budget gets put into someones pocket before paint can be bought with it).
Veering off topic as I sometimes do I took the photo below as a storm which caught ma petite amie and I was blowing up as we walked back to our auberge. We waited for about twenty minutes in a store and since there was no sign that the rain was going to let up and we were already wet we decided to continue on foot. In the mile or so we walked through the rain the only other movement of any kind we saw on the roads was when we met a couple of soldiers walking in the opposite direction and everyone who saw us walk past had the oddest looks on their faces which I thought was probably their way of expressing that they thought we were morons. Then later I thought about passing the two soldiers and I had to wonder if maybe your average Burkinabè is afraid of being rained on for some reason (that it will make them sick or that they will melt or something) and the soldiers had been made to be out in the weather enough to know better.
Burkinabès freaking the f**ck out as a storm blows up.
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