Season of good will
Koukouldi is not a tourist spot, though twice Ive seen buses of white people passing through with dazed or shocked looks on their faces.
This, however, being the European summer, I have seen the tourists pour in in the sorts of numbers that wouldnt seem like anything to someone passing through. But to me it is almost disorienting, like I dont know where I am. They come and set a certain tone and stature about (rich) foreigners that I then have to live with on a day to day basis.
Luckily, my village has adopted me. My counterpart said I was an African the other day and I think he meant it. Im rarely taken for a tourist anymore. I think I look too bedraggled and dirty. With the lack of anonymity for white people, people tend to learn who lives here and who has been visiting for a week. If you frequent the same places.
Normally I bear the tourists like a cross. And then there was the Sunday when they came, invaded, and ruined my work. I was supposed to be talking about the Moringa tree and nutrition at one of the churches, and in the afternoon was supposed to be my girls workshop.
The rainy season has forced me to come up with creative ways of gaining access to people, because everyone is running every which way these days cultivating and they are impossible to organize because of the sense of time they have here. Everyone wants to meet with me on Sunday if they want to meet at all, it seems. So I overhauled my schedule and made the day of rest my busiest work day. I am ok with that.
Then the four French come, and the world as we know it stops. And the woman I was working with to give the Moringa presentations cancels last minute because she wants to entertain the dignitaries. Kids about my age on holiday, here on the pretext of dropping off some medical supplies that would be considered paltry in the states but are of dire need in my village.
They got a dignitaries welcome, shown around every little nook of the village Im sure. They made a kissy face sort of Friendship at the Burkinabe. The one French woman responded to the hug the Burkinabe man who accompanied them gave. Women do not act like that here, she didnt realize he was taking advantage of her in the context of his culture. Such an act is probably about on par with sucking face with a stranger in a dance club to an American.
He then responds by acting verbally disrespectful to me, because he thinks its ok now. Luckily I dont have to follow their rules and can be bluntly rude if I need to be (and afterward claim a foreigners ignorance. Works every time.)
All the movers and shakers in my village turned up for them. The French in turn freely offered phone numbers and addresses and invitations to their houses. It became apparent that this is why they hassle me for these things. As tourists, they want to make contact with as many people as possible in as short of time as possible, so they can tell themselves that they interacted with the natives. How quaint. And to the "natives" its a status symbol, that they now have this phone number or address to show their friends. They collect them like autographs. The empty flippant invitations to France or the West fueling false hopes that this person might actually be the one to foot the bill for them to come and stay. Then they dont understand when I tell them I cant get them a Visa. Because the next tourist will freely invite them to their home for lunch not realizing that such an invitation does not mean the same thing to a Burkinabe as it would to me for example.
And so we wined and dined them, fish and pork. The stuff of celebrations here, though very meager by French cooking standards. I suppose they felt they had to do this because of the supplies they were receiving. Show the foreigners around for 48 hours, they dont sleep in the village because they are too good for it, and the Burkinabes except it. It is the price they have to pay for the pittance that they need.
Then the French wanted to take a picture, and one of them basically humiliated this villageois who didnt speak French by explaining to him how to work his camera. He didnt try to call over someone who could translate, he just assumed. My pharmacien ran over to help explain to him in Lyele to ease the situation but the French guy was completely clueless.
And in this way, at the cost of the above injuries and humiliations, they got some gause and cleanser to clean wounds.
Not only that but they set back my Sunday busy day work, to what ended up being two weeks. I couldnt work with the woman who would translate for me because she was entertaining. I couldnt hold the girls workshop because they were using the school to have lunch in, where I usually held the meetings.
It all makes me wonder what the right way to do it would be. How to make development ethical on the mass scale. Right now, it feels like the only way to do it is this hands on day to day live with them and get your hands dirty grit Ive been doing. It has paid off for me and I love it, but I cant and wont do it forever.
That said I have been thinking about extending my service a year recently. Its becoming clear to me that what my village and the people in my region really need is an advocate, a responsible representative who has at least glimpsed at the world through their eyes and remembers it once that person has been given some sort of leverage (the latter is probably even more important than the former). I feel like this would be the moral thing to do. To take what I know about the rural areas of Burkina and apply them on the national level where a more sweeping change may be possible.
I just dont know if I have a third year in me. It is very complicated. I am beginning to see more clearly though what it is that I need to be doing here and after.
On a side note, the French kids talked to me like they were talking to themselves, and I was following. I think I can declare myself fluent now.
This, however, being the European summer, I have seen the tourists pour in in the sorts of numbers that wouldnt seem like anything to someone passing through. But to me it is almost disorienting, like I dont know where I am. They come and set a certain tone and stature about (rich) foreigners that I then have to live with on a day to day basis.
Luckily, my village has adopted me. My counterpart said I was an African the other day and I think he meant it. Im rarely taken for a tourist anymore. I think I look too bedraggled and dirty. With the lack of anonymity for white people, people tend to learn who lives here and who has been visiting for a week. If you frequent the same places.
Normally I bear the tourists like a cross. And then there was the Sunday when they came, invaded, and ruined my work. I was supposed to be talking about the Moringa tree and nutrition at one of the churches, and in the afternoon was supposed to be my girls workshop.
The rainy season has forced me to come up with creative ways of gaining access to people, because everyone is running every which way these days cultivating and they are impossible to organize because of the sense of time they have here. Everyone wants to meet with me on Sunday if they want to meet at all, it seems. So I overhauled my schedule and made the day of rest my busiest work day. I am ok with that.
Then the four French come, and the world as we know it stops. And the woman I was working with to give the Moringa presentations cancels last minute because she wants to entertain the dignitaries. Kids about my age on holiday, here on the pretext of dropping off some medical supplies that would be considered paltry in the states but are of dire need in my village.
They got a dignitaries welcome, shown around every little nook of the village Im sure. They made a kissy face sort of Friendship at the Burkinabe. The one French woman responded to the hug the Burkinabe man who accompanied them gave. Women do not act like that here, she didnt realize he was taking advantage of her in the context of his culture. Such an act is probably about on par with sucking face with a stranger in a dance club to an American.
He then responds by acting verbally disrespectful to me, because he thinks its ok now. Luckily I dont have to follow their rules and can be bluntly rude if I need to be (and afterward claim a foreigners ignorance. Works every time.)
All the movers and shakers in my village turned up for them. The French in turn freely offered phone numbers and addresses and invitations to their houses. It became apparent that this is why they hassle me for these things. As tourists, they want to make contact with as many people as possible in as short of time as possible, so they can tell themselves that they interacted with the natives. How quaint. And to the "natives" its a status symbol, that they now have this phone number or address to show their friends. They collect them like autographs. The empty flippant invitations to France or the West fueling false hopes that this person might actually be the one to foot the bill for them to come and stay. Then they dont understand when I tell them I cant get them a Visa. Because the next tourist will freely invite them to their home for lunch not realizing that such an invitation does not mean the same thing to a Burkinabe as it would to me for example.
And so we wined and dined them, fish and pork. The stuff of celebrations here, though very meager by French cooking standards. I suppose they felt they had to do this because of the supplies they were receiving. Show the foreigners around for 48 hours, they dont sleep in the village because they are too good for it, and the Burkinabes except it. It is the price they have to pay for the pittance that they need.
Then the French wanted to take a picture, and one of them basically humiliated this villageois who didnt speak French by explaining to him how to work his camera. He didnt try to call over someone who could translate, he just assumed. My pharmacien ran over to help explain to him in Lyele to ease the situation but the French guy was completely clueless.
And in this way, at the cost of the above injuries and humiliations, they got some gause and cleanser to clean wounds.
Not only that but they set back my Sunday busy day work, to what ended up being two weeks. I couldnt work with the woman who would translate for me because she was entertaining. I couldnt hold the girls workshop because they were using the school to have lunch in, where I usually held the meetings.
It all makes me wonder what the right way to do it would be. How to make development ethical on the mass scale. Right now, it feels like the only way to do it is this hands on day to day live with them and get your hands dirty grit Ive been doing. It has paid off for me and I love it, but I cant and wont do it forever.
That said I have been thinking about extending my service a year recently. Its becoming clear to me that what my village and the people in my region really need is an advocate, a responsible representative who has at least glimpsed at the world through their eyes and remembers it once that person has been given some sort of leverage (the latter is probably even more important than the former). I feel like this would be the moral thing to do. To take what I know about the rural areas of Burkina and apply them on the national level where a more sweeping change may be possible.
I just dont know if I have a third year in me. It is very complicated. I am beginning to see more clearly though what it is that I need to be doing here and after.
On a side note, the French kids talked to me like they were talking to themselves, and I was following. I think I can declare myself fluent now.