Tags: I see it this way! Heritage Shores Bridgville De E.W. Faircloth photography photographer vacation trip travel Burkina Faso Africa Ouagadougou hotel Omar Muammar al Gaddafi Libya

During the recent colonial retake of Libya, I was saddened by the demise of Col. Omar Muammar al Gaddafi. Today I continue to be saddened by having access to a "free press" which borders on being useless at times. Gaddafi had more enemies in the Arab world than Black Africa. While in the capital city, Ouagadougou, of Burkina Faso I saw what seemed to be a mini Eiffel Tower. Come to find out, Gaddafi built it along with a beautiful hotel I saw the same day. And there remain Oil Lybia petro stations through out the city. Gaddafi's vision was to unify Africa and he spent money in that effort. The Africans knew that, and this USA citizen will never forget it. ----------- ------------------ ----------------------------- OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — Even though his portrait no longer graces the lobby of this city's premier hotel, fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's presence in this West African nation won't fade quickly. The five-star Laico Ouaga 2000 hotel (Laico stands for Libyan African Investment Co.) is just one of Gadhafi's many investments here, a legacy that has many of the local residents still happy to call him "the Guide." Gadhafi also financed the Ouaga 2000 residential neighborhood, with its rambling two-story homes and its electricity poles, bounded on one side by the city's main throughway — Moammar Gadhafi Boulevard — which ends in a wide roundabout circling the city's Memorial to the Martyrs, a Gadhafi-funded monument resembling a mini Eiffel Tower. The Burkinabe, as Burkina Faso's residents are known, credit Gadhafi with starting banks, hospitals, university buildings, roads, mosques and women's education centers. If Ouagadougou were a modern city, this sort of investment might be less conspicuous. But here, Gadhafi's pet projects stand in stark contrast to the city's otherwise rundown, dust-colored blocks and streets that are filled with far more scooters than cars. What to do now, with their major benefactor on the run and a new government coming to power in Tripoli after 42 years, is a major concern. "It was a mistake to have that photo up," conceded Maher Ghidaoui, a Tunisian and the hotel's manager. While it hung in the lobby during the violence in Libya, business fell steadily and he lost the U.S. Embassy as a client. Despite a recent cooling of ties between their president, Blaise Compaore, and Gadhafi, the Burkinabe speak fondly of the former Libyan leader. While people in the West may see him as a mad nemesis, here he was a source of hope in a country whose own authoritarian government does little for its people. "He helped build roads. He built centers for poor and orphans," said Mohammed Congo, a 21-year-old aspiring artist. "A lot of Burkinabe don't like what is happening."    -- From a Alan Boswell of McClatchy Newspapers article [caption id="attachment_5354" align="aligncenter" width="288" caption="Photography by E.W. Faircloth"][/caption]