Bien Integre

November 27, 2011

The people of Burkina Faso, Burkinabé, are really starting to grow on me. Well, outside of my immediate host family. There have been fantastic days, nights, and meals with my family but I would say that it has been more challenging/frustrating than rewarding. Since my family is rarely home, my mom vends Dolo and my dad drinks it, I spend a lot of time with the children in my village who are too young to speak French. We communicate via dance and music. It is great. Last week I spent a sizable chunk of an evening teaching the kids the Macarena. I soon had a crowd of around 25 young kids shouting “HEYYYYY Macarena” and doing the corresponding dance moves.  It was truly a heartwarming moment.

Even more heartwarming was how I came home the past two nights and heard all of the children dancing and singing the Macarena on the other side of my village. And then I came home this evening to children confidently stating “je demand musica”(I ask for music). This was especially heartwarming because children in the city and Burkina usually ask for money or gifts, “Je demand Cadeau”. My children on the other hand confidently demand music. How cool and completely endearing.

My eldest host brother, Naz for short, and I also communicate through dance. There have been several occasions now where we go to a bar/maquis and just dance. No drinks necessary. Just dancing.  There has also been the occasional tea time with Naz and his friends. The guys here will literally sit around for 4 hours brewing a batch of Chinese green tea. We sat around and just talked (causé). They literally layed a rug down on the ground and plopped down (Might I add that they put the rug right over cow crap. People here are not dirty but there is simply crap everywhere). Although I was only listening to a blur of French and Mooré, it felt like I was back at home chillin with the guys. It was nice, and they tried to include me as much as possible.  Naz speaks near perfect French and is the top of his class, senior year of high school. As I’ve mentioned before, he is the only French speaker in the family but is usually so busy with school that he is never around.  He even lives in a separate courtyard from my own.  The term, family, is loosely applied here and pretty much everyone is family. There are kids running around all over the place. It truly takes a village to raise a child.

I’ve also gotten the chance to get to know the local markets. I’ve had shirts and hats made here at a local tailor (Pretty swank if I do say so myself), I have a peanut butter girl, banana lady, barber, and know local bar owners. The more I get to know people here, the more I feel connected. I hope that things run similar to this at my site. The big difference between home and Burkina is that everyone knows everyone. You greet, talk with, and relax with everybody.  At home, if I don’t know you then I do not usually want to greet or talk to you.  Here, it is the complete opposite because people want to greet you and talk with you simply because they do not already know you. Plus, there is an added bit of curiosity around the Nasara(foreigner/white person). Yes I am often mistaken as a local, Mossi, but that quickly changes as soon as I open my mouth. Shucks. Nasara for Life.

This is all to say that I am starting to really enjoy being around the people and in the culture. This is likely to change for a while when I get to my site and learn a whole new language, but this works for right now. I’ve even started to take long hikes into the bush and have really gotten to know it pretty well. On my last hike I came across a shrine of sorts but I was too chicken to do very much exploring (yeaaaa I don’t eff with that voodoo or pagan stuff. Not for me). Speaking of voodoo and such, there is a sizable group of guys and gals who are all planning on a vacation January 2013, to Benin, Togo, and Ghana. Why January? Only because the world’s largest voodoo festival/carnival takes place in Benin. Yea I’m planning on avoiding the festival buhhh the trip would be nice.

*Long conversation with host brother*

I love my boy Naz because he’s smart. Sure he’s tried to swindle my friends and I out of our money, but he does it because he’s smart. This kid has like 3 jobs, is the top of his class, is one of the 1% going to University next year, and is an exemplary positive deviant. And to top it all off, he hates TO. I think I’ve mentioned TO before but it is the Burkinabé go to food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It has no flavor, the consistency of thick grits, usually eaten with a sauce on the side, and one eats it with their hands. Most volunteers hate it but Burkinabé love it. This kid DETESTS TO. Naz calls his classmates stupid for having premarital sex, values & understands family planning, dresses pretty fly, and saves his money (All pretty rare here).  Did I mention this kid can dance too? No really, I wish I could bring this kid to site with me. We could be best friends!

…Especially if we started understanding more than 50% of the things we say to each other.

The End…

for now