I've
gotten used to the fact that life in Burkina is vastly different from
life in America. But even after 19 months here, Burkina still
manages to catch me swinging empty air on some wicked curve balls.
It's safe to say that I struck out this past month in Burkina.
March
and April are considered the “hot season” in Burkina, with
temperatures consistently hitting 110. In the shade. Towards the
second half of April, intense humidity sets in as the sun devours
every last drop of water it can find. While the functionality of
sweat is questionable in 110 degree heat, it just doesn't work in
humid heat. Sweat's job is to cool down your body. It accomplishes
this task by evaporating from your skin. But when the air is already
full of water, sweat just hangs out, follows gravity, and soaks into
whatever is touches.
The
bright side of intense humidity means that rain (might) come soon.
That rain finally came at the end of April and beginning of May, as a
few storms moved through Burkina, bathing the entire country in
sweet, glorious water. Thus began the “rainy season” in Burkina,
a season full of rainbows and daffodils and waterfalls. The Great
Unicorn and Hedgehog Migration begins directly after the first rain,
during which villagers join hands and sing the traditional African
song “Everything is Awesome,” recently popularized by the Lego
movie. At least that's the story I made up while sitting in my hut
enjoying a solid rain session.
Rain
sessions are easily my favorite past-time in Burkina. If you're
unlucky enough to be stuck outside and far away from your hut when a
storm arrives, you've already ruined the perfect rain session. Your
feet and clothes will be covered in mud as you traverse the dirty
trash rivers that spring up along all of the major footpaths in your
village. Your bike will be completely will be completely ruined no
matter how hard you try to keep it dry. If you happen to be stuck at
a bar with cold beer, however, don't panic. A beer rain session might
be just what the doctor ordered. Night storms also don't result in
good rain sessions. While they significantly cool down your hut, the
objects falling and hitting your tin roof sound more like hedgehogs
than balls of water, which tends to keep you up at night, thinking of
all those poor hedgehogs. A solid rain session requires weather
awareness, planning, and a little bit of luck.
The
first step is to find an activity that you can do inside your hut for
a couple hours that doesn't require any social interactions. Maybe
there's a movie that you really want to watch, but is too long/scary
to watch at night. Or maybe you want to write a short story about
unicorns and hedgehogs dancing to the Lego movie song. Regardless of
the activity, make sure you conserve enough battery on the necessary
electronic devices to commence the activity when the moment of truth
arrives. Don't stray too far from your house if you sense that a
storm is likely. While some questionably trustworthy volunteers
claim to be able to “smell the rain,” most volunteers determine
the likelihood of a storm by the proximity of huge ominous black
storm clouds, high winds, and growling thunder. Some volunteers have
also developed early warning systems based on common storm paths.
For example, if a large storm hits Hallie's village, which is 140km
north of me, I know it will hit my village in a couple hours and
prepare accordingly.
In the
absence of an early warning system, storm awareness is all about
keeping your head on a swivel. Storms can arrive in a matter of
minutes, so an escape plan is essential lest you get stuck seeking
refuge with Burkinabe instead of taking advantage of the one
foolproof excuse to be anti-social in village. Once arriving at your
place of refuge, enjoy the first cooling drops of rain. This ritual
serves to immediately cool your body, but also to confirm that the
storm isn't just a “tease,” showing a little bit of ominous black
cloud “leg” before moving on to the next village without giving
up a drop. In these situations, be careful about warning the
volunteer in the next village that the storm is just a tease, as you
risk high levels of embarrassment and a serious drop in self-esteem
if you discover that it rained in their village. Once rain is
confirmed, immediately blockade yourself inside your hut for the
foreseeable future and enjoy the fruits of non-labor! It's important
to note that rain sessions can extend for hours beyond the period of
actual rain. Excuses like “it's too muddy,” or “it's going to
be dark soon,” absolve the volunteer of any and all guilt. A solid
rain session can solve a lot of problems.
 |
| Such a tease... |
 |
| Baby goats enjoying a solid rain session on my porch |
My story
begins after a few solid rain sessions in the beginning of May.
Around this time, a period of traditional initiation ceremonies began
in my village without my knowledge. My unawareness was partly due to
the fact that I was in Ouaga making a presentation on Grassroot
Soccer at a meeting (and celebrating a certain tequila soaked
holiday). Due to the nature of the traditional ceremonies, however,
I wouldn't have been told about it even if I were in village. I
first became aware that something strange was afoot when I got back
to my village and observed a long procession of the men in my village
walking down the road following a few older men holding big walking
sticks and blowing on small gourds to make a moaning, whistle type
sound similar to the noise made by blowing over an empty glass
bottle.
After
exiting the bush taxi, I returned to my hut and discovered that the
door to my small courtyard was gone. It had broken off its hinges a
while back, but I still used it to keep goats and other dangerous
animals out at night. When I asked my neighbor if he knew who had
taken my door, he explained that it was being used during the
sacrifices. I was at a loss for words and immediately started
contemplating what that could possibly mean. However, the door
wasn't all that important to me and despite the difference in
cultural norms, I figured the door couldn't be in too much danger.
That
night, my village was strangely quiet. The silence was pierced every
once in a while by the gourd sound as well as other moaning sounds,
which I assumed were bugs or birds. It became apparent the next
morning that most of the sounds were actually made by people.
Shirtless men were still walking around blowing on the gourds. Other
men swung large arrowheads tied to a long rope around their heads,
which produced a deeper moan. I tried to avoid these people, as it
seemed like that was what everyone else was doing. At breakfast, I
asked my friend Ibrahim what was going on. He explained that a two
week period of “customs” had begun last week, consisting of
initiation ceremonies for young men and women in the dominant ethnic
group. It made sense when he explained that the initiation period
only occurred once every two years, as I didn't recall any similar
period of time last year. I told him about the “sacrifice door,”
and he explained that the door was most likely being used to keep
kids in a courtyard where they couldn't see the sacrifices and
rituals. He explained that before being initiated, boys and girls
weren't supposed to know exactly what happened.
It seems
like an intrusion of cultural privacy to recount everything that I
saw and heard during the next week, but I'll do my best to give you
an idea. From what I saw, the days were filled with a series of
sacrifices and rituals that men and women performed with the
supervision of village elders. Every other evening there was a
procession of men that would walk the length of the village making
strange noises with different objects. Apparently the women weren't
supposed to see these processions, as they were chased away when they
tried to watch.
It's not
unusual for me to feel like an outsider in my village. In fact, it's
damn near impossible not to feel like an outsider when people call
you a “whitie” every day. But It had been a long time since I
felt so uncomfortable and clueless in this country. There was
nothing to “figure out” about what was going on. These
initiation ceremonies were happening because they had always
happened. I tried to think of something I had experienced before
that compared, but all I could come up with was the creepy voodoo
culture portrayed by the new TV series True Detective. Not that any
of the ceremonies were evil, but they evoked the same disbelief and
the same empty feeling that comes with the impossibility of ever
coming close to understanding something happening right in front of
you.
The
influence of animism and other traditional beliefs isn't just
confined to the rural villages of Burkina. In urban centers, widely
held traditional beliefs still influence society. One morning, as I
was waiting for a bush taxi by the road in my village, I began
talking with a formal dressed Burkinabe businessman. I was surprised
to learn that he was a traditional healer on his way to the capital.
He explained that a man from the village next to mine who had moved
to the capital was extremely ill and had requested traditional
medicine instead of “Western” treatments. This man valued
traditional medicine so highly that he was willing to pay the $40
transport of a traditional healer from his ethnic group to come to
Ouaga. And apparently this was a pretty common occurrence, as the
traditional healer looked more like stock broker than a Burkinabe
villager.
An
extreme example of the continued power of traditional beliefs in
modern African society took place recently in Koudougou, one of the
biggest cities of Burkina. A man there was lynched in the middle of
the street after being accused of “stealing” multiple men's
genitals. A group of men claimed he was a “sorcerer” involved in
black magic. The mob decided that justice would be best served by
brutally murdering him. In reality, the “sorcerer” was a con man
who would claim to have cast a spell that rendered men impotent,
after which his fellow con man would approach and sell drugs costing
upwards of $60 to “cure” the men. Clearly, the fear of sorcery
and other forms of black magic is still very real, especially when it
clashes with the powerful cult of Burkinabe masculinity.
For more
details, follow this link to the article:
On a
lighter note, A HELICOPTER landed in my village recently.
Helicopters had flown over my village before when the president,
Blaise Compare, was visiting my regional capital. So when kids in my
village spotted a helicopter and starting chasing it as if they could
catch it, I decided to continue reading. Once the sounds of the
helicopter died down and the kids didn't return, I ventured out to
the road and to see what was going on. Sure enough, there was a
large white passenger helicopter sitting on the grass next to the
toll booth surrounded by a huge crowd of Burkinabe.
To put
things in perspective, a lot of Burkinabe know what a helicopter is.
Most don't understand how helicopters work, but villagers do not
think it's a giant mechanical monster that has come to destroy their
village. Thanks to cultural globalization, many kids and adults
alike have seen a helicopter at some point in pictures, on TV, or in
a movie. But to see one in person was definitely a spectacle.
Apparently the helicopter had touched down to refuel from one of the
large trucks following it. I'm not a pilot or a mathematician, but
I'm pretty sure helicopters are faster than fuel trucks and can take
more direct paths to their destinations, which leads me to question
the logic refueling on the side of the road instead of at an airport
or military base. But after reflecting on the logistical planning
skills of Burkinabe Peace Corps staff, I realized there was no logic.
 |
In a
classic display of educated Burkinabe pessimism, one of my high
school friends explained to me that the US or France had probably
given the helicopter to Burkina because it was old or broken. Many
educated Burkinabe are of the opinion that everything in Burkina is
of a lesser quality than things in other countries, especially the
developed world. I have a hard time arguing with them, because it's
largely true, but a lot of times this pessimism leads to gross
generalizations about the lifestyles of people they have never met in
places they have never been. The attitude also completely ignores
the question of need and leads to inaccurate assumptions regarding
the nature of development.
For
example, when I asked my high school friend why Burkina Faso needs a
better helicopter, or even a helicopter in general, he got flustered,
laughed, and changed the subject. The truth is that the government
of Burkina has no practical use for a helicopter, much less a new
helicopter. The government is in no position to use the helicopter
for medical evacuations, police enforcement, or fire response. There
is no military threat to the country that would warrant ownership of
attack helicopters, which would actually contribute to instability in
the region. In fact, one of the only people who stands to benefit
from the Burkina Faso government's ownership of a helicopter is the
president. Descending to a political rally in a helicopter is pretty
impressive. Not to mention it would be a handy escape vehicle in the
event of a political coup, assuming the helicopter operators were
your friends. If Blaise is smart, he's kicking a ton of extra money
their way. Which brings us to the issue of the MONEY IT TAKES TO RUN
A HELICOPTER and the millions of ways it could be put to better use
in one of the poorest countries of the world.
But
educated Burkinabe don't see it that way. They see the helicopter as
a symbol of what their country doesn't have. It doesn't matter to
them that a helicopter does absolutely nothing to further basic
economic development, or that 10 political/military elites out of the
entire population of Burkina Faso benefit from the existence of this
helicopter. What matters is that the country they call home doesn't
have a new helicopter and had to accept a “hand me down” from the
“rich world.” They also can't get the iPhone 5 or a good laptop,
which dooms their country to eternal poverty.
Since
the “helicopter day,” my courtyard door has wandered back to its
usual spot and things seemed to have returned to normal. I can
wander my village freely and be called a “tubabu” wherever I
please. I once again only feel like a semi-outsider instead of
completely clueless, which I've grown to accept as the norm in the
village of Takaledougou
