At
the end of July, I had the privilege to participate in a 7 day camp for middle
school age Burkinabe students in Banfora.
Camp G2LOW (Girls and Guys Leading Our World) is a Peace Corps
initiative that was first implemented in Burkina Faso in 2011. The goal of the camp is to teach exceptional
students life skills and health practices that are often ignored in developing
countries with the hope they will spread this knowledge to their peers and
become proponents of change in their communities. Volunteers asked school directors to choose exceptional students from the schools in the region to send to the camp. Topics included HIV/AIDS prevention, family
planning, puberty, planning for the future, hygiene, and gender equality.
The
camp was an incredible success, largely due to the months of preparation two
education volunteers, Matt and Jessica, dedicated to the project. I was mostly involved in planning and running
the activities of the day, which broke up the classroom sessions. The great part about these activities is that
everything (and I mean EVERTHYTHING) was new to Burkinabe kids. They loved four square and kickball. They couldn’t get enough of the condom water
balloon toss. Even foot races were executed
with the utmost enthusiasm. And of
course soccer was a constant fixture of the camp.
The
one classroom session I was involved in teaching was titled “Planning for the
Future.” It’s a notoriously difficult
session to facilitate because having plans for the future isn’t common among
children in Burkina. The education
system is based almost entirely on repetition and copying with little room for
creativity. We had the students close
their eyes and imagine where they wanted to be in a year, two years, five years,
ten years, and twenty years. Judging by the amount of open eyes, this wasn’t an
exercise they were used to. Then we
asked them to draw what they dreamed of being when they grew up. Some of the kids didn’t know what to draw and
ended up just writing words. Some of the
kids were embarrassed to draw and started over every time a line wasn’t
perfectly straight. The kids who did
draw tended to focus on what they wanted to have when they grew up, such as a
car, a big house, or a family. I’d be
curious to see the results of a similar exercise with American children of the same
age, but I had suspicions that the results would be very different.
The
camp brought back memories of my job exactly one year before, when I was
instructor for the LA County Junior Lifeguard program. After spending most of the previous 7 months
doing small projects or sitting around, the camp reminded me of the power of bringing
young people of different backgrounds together to learn and accomplish a common
objective. It also reminded me what a
group of motivated and hardworking counselors/teachers working together can accomplish. However, I couldn’t help thinking throughout the
entire Camp G2LOW that this was the first and only time these kids would ever
have the “camp” experience that is so common in middle/upper class America. The effect on the Burkinabe kids was
incredible. After the seven days of camp,
nearly all of the kids were crying as they left. In a culture that considers crying a childish
weakness, it was a sign that we had accomplished something through our hard
work, which unfortunately is a feeling that I have not felt very often during
my Peace Corps Service.
To
celebrate the end of the camp, myself and some other volunteers decided to head
two hours north to Bobo for the night.
We had a great time, heading to a live music venue then out dancing at a
few clubs. Accompanying us was a
Burkinabe woman that a volunteer had invited over to the Peace Corps office in
Bobo, which is more like a hostel, even though we’re not allowed to sleep
there. Because it has a guard and is
enclosed by a high wall, volunteers leave all of their belongings there rather
than at the sketchier lodgings where we sleep.
On that particular night, it was a huge mistake, as the Burkinabe woman
stole a grand total of 200,000 CFA ($400) from the bags of three volunteers
right from under our noses. To add insult to injury, she stole my wallet in the
morning while she “changed,” adding another 50,000 CFA and my Burkina debit
card to her pile of loot.
From
an American point of view, she was an incredibly stupid criminal because she
stole all of the money from 4 out of 6 volunteers in one night and stayed in
Bobo afterwards. Once we figured out
we’d been fleeced, a volunteer called her and threatened to call the police if
she didn’t come talk to us. With the
help of the Burkinabe manager of the Bobo office, we questioned her and
explained that we didn’t want to get the police involved, we just wanted our money
and my wallet back. She denied everything, claiming she’d “rather die than
steal.” At the end of an extremely
frustrating hour long conversation, she had deflected all accusations of guilt,
but agreed to “reimburse us” the money we lost the next evening. She returned at 8pm the next day with 210,000
out of 250,000, promising to reimburse the rest when she could.
At
the end of the day, I didn’t give a flying …. squirrel … about the money. I cared about the principal (and the long
process to get a new bank card). As
Americans in Africa, volunteers are often identified as rich tourists who can
afford to be taken advantage of and ripped off.
For example, at larger city markets Americans are quoted initial prices
that are 3-4 times the initial price
quoted to Burkinabe. But few Burkinabe ever
actively try to steal from us. In fact,
there are countless stories of volunteers leaving wallets at bars and
sunglasses on buses and having them enthusiastically returned when tracked down.
To
have something so obviously stolen from me and then sit through a meeting while
the perpetrator calmly lied about everything was not fun. It shook my confidence in Burkinabe, however
unfair that may be to the majority of the people here. The location of the theft was also unnerving,
as the Peace Corps office had been a place where I consistently left very
valuable objects unattended for long periods of time. The fact that
we were advised not to go to the police after the theft reminded me that
so much of law and order (or lack
thereof) in this country is based on individual goodwill, not strict
enforcement of laws.
July
was a perfect example of the emotional rollercoaster that is Peace Corps
service. It’s safe to say that I need a
vacation now more than ever!
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| Campers having fun with a condom water balloon toss |
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| Yeah. I was a celebrity judge at a Burkinabe camp talent show. No big deal. |
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| Campers and counselors |
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| Playing a mother with too many kids in a skit about family planning. Hoping for an Oscar nod. |
