West Africa

Africa.
I don't even know where to start. There is no way to gently or logically introduce Burkina Faso to someone who has never been here. It's been a week since we arrived and still I regularly catch myself staring at something with my mouth gaping open, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. I want to tell a story about what I've experienced in the last week, but there are at least a thousand stories in my story. A lifetime of stories in the span of one week.

I want to tell about smushing 7 of us (plus the driver)into a taxi in Ouagadougou and watching in terror from the front seat as the driver passed people bicycling, walking, riding mopeds - and wincing as he narrowly missed crashing into them, into oncoming cars, people crossing the street, a stray dog wandering across the road or a mule-driven cart. Watching in amazement as all these people and things moved along at different speeds and in different directions without colliding into each other. What seemed like complete chaos was, in fact, a graceful and highly choreographed dance of bodies in motion, all with a similar objective and an enormous amount of respect for one another and for the physical space that each occupied.

I want to tell about the people, so kind and open and beautiful - stunning even. The children stare and smile. "Too babou! Too babou!" they shout as we ride by on motorcycles. "White person! White person!" It's not an insult. It's more like an exclamation and a form of greeting. In response you say, "Too babou!" or"Farafee!" (black person) or "Ani cle" ('good day' in Dioula) or simply "bonjour". When you are walking, the children (if they are very brave) may come to you to shake your hand, just to say "hello". Usually, it's one of the older children, then when the younger ones see that it's OK, they want to shake your hand as well.

Greetings are very important. A true greeting among Africans begins with "hello", moves on to the subject of health, then the health and well-being of the family, back to "hello", then again through the list. This is often repeated 2 or 3 times depending on how well the people know each other. For Too babou, usually, "bonjour" and "ca va?" are sufficient, but the handshake is absolutely essential. In the maze of the grand market yesterday, I was searching for a specific item and was led from one stall to another by varying people who claimed to have what I was looking for or knew someone who did. Each time, the same thing - handshake, "hello", "how are you?" Only to discover that the person did not have what I was looking for. Two hours later, I succeeded in finally tracking down the sole vendor in the entire market who had what I was looking for. Did you catch that? TWO HOURS. A lot of this was the "hello", "how are you?" part. Life definitely moves at a different pace here.

Oh, I have so many more stories to tell; about eating To' (polenta) and playing music under the mango tree in the middle of the cornfield with friends of the man we are visiting, about helping to harvest that same corn the next day and watching the women and young girls balance impossibly huge containers of corn on their heads as they gracefully negotiated their way across the field, about the Tuareg man who sold jewelry - when I asked him if I could take his photo, he agreed, then quickly pulled a small mirror from his satchel in order to check his appearance and make sure he was as handsome as possible - about the hotel/restaurant, run by French ex-pats, where we went to watch the rugby game on TV. It was a fixed price dinner and included the aperitif (a rum punch mixed up in what was essentially a small garbage can, and referred to as such during the evening 'Hey! There's more punch in the trash can, help yourself!').The price also included the meal (a Texas chili that would have made any Austin native proud) some bottles of red wine (not easy to find in Burkina), as much beer as you could drink as well as 'service libre' of the huge bowl of marijuana sitting on the bar. No one even thought twice about it. I, on the other hand, found it very amusing (though I didn't participate). There are so many more stories....but unfortunately, you will have to wait until the next installment to read them.
-Michelle

News about school supplies: We met with the people of PaperForAll http://paper4allcharity.com/- the association that manages donations for the school in Ouagadougou. It's a group of about 12 people, plus the school director. They are wonderful people, very kind and the association seems to be really well organized. We gave them all the school supplies that we had collected in the States and brought with us - all the notebooks, pens, pencils, clothing and backpacks that that our friends and neighbors had been so kind to donate. Because it was a holiday and there was no school, we collectively decided to wait until November, when we return to Ouaga, to purchase and donate the rest of the school supplies with the money that had been collected from friends and neighbors. The director told us that the money would be best spent in purchasing school books for the children since they currently have to share books between 2 or 3 children. The school has about 10 classrooms, but only 2 are used since there are only 2 teachers. The classroom we saw was the same size as a normal US classroom, but holds almost 150 children - 5 to a bench. I can't even imagine it, but in November we will go back to the school and I will be able to see it.