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ROBBIE REPORTS FROM
BURKINA FASO 23rd June 2009
If I could put the
experience of Burkina Faso, West Africa, into some kind of perspective and
compare it to something more familiar, I would say it's like going to a
wonderful looking, all inclusive hotel, then getting food poisoning, and
finally not being allowed to leave the country after your stay at the
hotel has expired.
In other words, when you first arrive, you are treated as a welcome
guest, a
celebrity; everyone loves you. Of course, what you soon learn is that this
is because the locals want your money and/or to join you back in Canada.
Then,
when you
arrive in Ouaga, the capital of the country, we restricted ourselves to
normal food: Fish, meat, french fries, cola...western stuff ...nothing
exotic.
Then you get
sick. And, by sick I mean you realise you can become quite the multi-tasker.
Your body is capable of producing bodily fluids from more than one orifice
at the same time. Pretty impressive stuff.
The last part of my analogy is
to do with leaving
the hotel room and not being allowed to leave the country. When you are
really sick, all you want to do is be home in bed with mom's chicken soup
and some crackers and flat ginger ale on the side. Instead, you're not
only kicked out of the classy hotel, but you have to fend for yourself
just like the locals do. This is just the way it is here. For a Canadian,
you are soon pushed way beyond your comfort zone. But for Burkinas this is
just normal just life. And, when you realise this, everything becomes much
easier. and
Burkina Faso becomes
just like any other place in the world. You eat the local food,
meet the local people and let local traditions guide your day-to-day
activity.
I left Ouaga for
the city of Koudougou.
Koudougou is meant to be my home base while I'm in Burkina because our
office is located here. I was placed with my boss's nephew. He has a
family of four. There is the dad, the mom, a 12 year old boy and a 6 year
old girl. They are pretty cool kids.
[On a side note: I
don't know what it is about black babies but they are all pretty cute.
They have to be pretty high up there with Chinese babies. What's with
those Chinese babies?! They're so cute!]
Anyway, the family
is great. The father once played on the Koudougou first division soccer
team and knows everyone in town. So getting my hands on things isn't too
hard. Not to mention, I don't get screwed as a tourist on paying too
much...which reminds me...
[side
note: knowing the value of things is probably the quickest way to get
integrated into a society. The other day, I had an argument with a lady
about a banana she wanted to sell to me for 100 CFA. She clearly thought I
was new to the country. Usually a banana is 50 CFA. Finally, after some
negotiation, I got my banana for 50 CFA. The exchange rate for a 1$
Canadian is 400 CFA. Therefore, the banana cost me about 12 cents
Canadian. I know what you're thinking but it's the principle. If I give
100 CFA to the lady for the banana than I have to give an extra 50 CFA to
everybody! ]
One of my
first real Burkina experiences was when I attended a wedding at a house
nearby. Marriages here involve protracted negotiations between the
families. The fathers and men in the family go first. The father of
the groom offers money, cola, and dolo, in exchange for the daughter of
the other family.
The money isn't
very much, relatively speaking, but to them it's more than enough.
The cola is a nut
found on trees (mostly in the Ivory
Coast). The nut is edible and very
bitter, but provides a burst of energy for a prolonged period of time. For
city folk, taking it is more of a tradition, but for villagers, the cola
is consumed by farmers when they work in the fields. Dolo is a homemade
beer (a lot like Mr. Beer!) that is made from millet. It's served at
outside air temperature (25 to 35�) and can be sweet or bitter.
Fortunately, it's also very cheap and as a result gets most people
hammered on Sundays ...after church of course.
After the proposal
of marriage, I didn't really understand very much of the discussion going
on between the fathers because it was in the local language. Something was
said making the father of the groom go back and negotiate something among
the men in his family. I didn't see what he added to the bag of proposed
items but when he returned to make his offer again, the father of the
bride was content. In celebration, the bride and groom drank their dolo,
with the bride drinking first.
However, the
wedding was not yet official; the women from each family had to negotiate.
The women, dressed
in their local Burkina dresses, sat up against the red-bricked houses
surrounding the courtyard. The negotiation among the women was more verbal
and only a few things were exchanged. Finally, it was official and the
bride and groom-to-be were very happy. Everyone proceeded to get drunk on
dolo. It was pretty awesome.
I've now seen four
weddings since then and a funeral. I've been working at the office in Koudougou,
but I also make visits to villages in the province of Boulkiemd to work
on our project.
Recently I came
back from a reunion with all the volunteers here in Burkina
Faso. We got a little touristy and went
to the Burkina - Cote
D'ivoire world
cup qualifying game. I've never been nervous to attend a sporting event
before. Excited, but never nervous. My nervousness
started with the fact that recently,
the war on the
field between the Ivory Coast and Burkina
Faso spilled
onto the sidelines and poured into the lives of most of their citizens. Ivory
coast was
suspended from having the next two home games because they overcrowded the
stadium and 9 people died. It was a different stadium, but still, I
couldn't help thinking.
Walking up to the
doors of the stadium you could see that this time, Burkina was taking full
precautions to avoid a similar situation and was refusing any more people
from entering the stadium. People were furious and some were starting to
get violent and some were being beaten by the guards. Some of our friends
had made it in earlier so we quickly got on the phone with them to see if
they could work a way to get us in. While my boss was on the phone, we did
a tour of the stadium to see if there were any doors open. No doors were
open, but there was a pool of piss flowing from each closed doorway. Some
of the people had been there since 2:00 pm and the last thing they could
do was hold it in any longer. If they left they wouldn't be allowed back
in so they just pissed off the top of the stadium or at the bottom of each
closed doorway.
Finally, we were
told to go to entrance number 8 and wait at the door. I lagged behind my
boss with three others because we were careful not to slip in the pools of
piss as we passed each doorway. I lost sight of my boss for a little while
until I finally noticed she was already inside. She was behind three
guards throwing their nightsticks at anyone storming the door. She
signalled me to come in, so I grabbed the others and we stormed the
door. I got whacked in the arm by a nightstick from one of the guards
before he realised I was a white man.
Eventually we
all got in safely
and we noticed very quickly that all the fans around us were Ivorian.
Apparently, the only reason we were allowed in was because we were all
white! It was the only section that was not packed and had Ivory
coast supporters
or white people. The rest of the stadium was full of BF black men.
The Ivory
coast supporters were separated from the
Burkina supporters by the young police cadets of Burkina
Faso. There were roughly two hundred on
each side and they had a different cheer for every minute of the game
which they did in unison. The game was fine, but it was soccer; so how
good could it be? Burkina is a young team which was outsized and out
skilled by the
Ivory Coast. However, I predict Burkina
will beat Ivory
coast in
the qualifiers for the World Cup in 2014. You
heard it first, right here.
Seriously, the best
part about the game was the Ivory
coast supporters.
They were all dressed in Orange,
green, and white and had a 7 piece band! I think instruments are something
Ste-Anne's should consider... but if there's music we need to attempt a
dance routine as well. Just a thought - perhaps Liz and Stone as
cheerleaders?.
Other things that
have happened here in Burkina include: eating bugs, getting marriage
proposals, saying "no thanks," and being stung by a scorpion. Things to
come include: Working in the fields; living with really poor people; and ,
a bunch of other stuff that I won't see coming.
I do regularly
check out the webpage and a tear comes to my eye when I hear the news
about the juniors. You're my hero Lee.
Keep it up seniors!
You obviously look good, but my concern is the pub party and this year's
theme...
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