Confession: I <3 Burkina Faso. As much as I have also come to love Ghana, I’ve always had a soft spot for baguettes and Francophone countries (we’ll see this get me into an interesting conversation later)… so this was a special treat for me. It was also a chance to visit the “vowel-tastic” capital Ouagadougou. Any Stowe High French graduates out there surely remember Madame Austin’s love of this word!
Unfortunately my high school French was pretty darn rusty, but I’d like to think it improved dramatically throughout the week given all the talking I had to do. I was the de facto spokeswoman in Burkina, a role which culminated in a visit to the mayor, education inspector, police station, and the “prefecture”, or President’s representative to the district on our final day in Bereba. I got into a long drawn-out conversation attempting to tell the prefecture that, no his position did not exist in the US, no the president did not dictate the actions of governors or individual states (up for debate right now? Maybe), and yes the individual states were far more autonomous than Burkina provinces. The result of these 7 days of complete immersion is that I was still extracting my brain from “French mode” two days after we returned to Ghana … and now I’ve forgotten 80% of my FraFra…”tant pis” as they say.
A few exciting things for AFTER our amazing village stay in Bereba:
We got stuck in an African-style traffic jam no more than 30 minutes into our 3+ hour journey back to Ouaga. Most people were alternately peeing in the bush or chasing after their bus/car/truck which had begun to roll up farther in the queue. We spent the time hiding in the shade of larger vehicles, worrying about the poor chicken trapped in our hot trunk, and embracing this facet of West African travel. Thankfully the accident that caused this delay wasn’t gruesome; it just took up 2/3 of the road.
Once rested, showered, and rehydrated in Ouaga, we went with Charley to visit the Village Artisanal. This was a huge craft “village” next to the grounds for SIAO. Expansive concrete stalls where you can see artisans practicing their craft and displaying their products are set up around a central fixed-price store. The main wares are bronze statues, embroidered tablecloths and napkins, hand-woven clothing and bags, batik prints, and leatherworks. I unsuccessfully haggled and apparently grossly overpaid for some REALLY nifty things; our chauffeur Francois said he could have gotten a certain item I bought for 1/3 the price I paid…AFTER I had already bought it. Sigh. At least I’m in love with my purchases. Laura made up for my lack of thrift with superior bargaining skillz.
We also got our Western food fixes by eating pizza, a club sandwich, and fries at a nice restaurant called Paradisio. Afterwards, the power miraculously turned back on just in time for my favorite activity of the entire week: catching a Burkinabe flick at an outdoor cinema (see Charley’s FAVL blog post about the movie). Nothing could beat this quirky ambience. In the parking lot, people were selling bananas and mangoes presumably for movie snacks. The comfortingly familiar Big Dipper was clearly visible, hanging upside down directly above the screen. Occasionally, a HUGE airplane from the very very nearby international airport would pass right behind the screen. The evening temperature was enjoyably cool while the metal chairs were unbearably hard and uncomfortable. All this for the low low price of about $1! Bonus: I think I understood most of the French/the movie.
If you are still reading this, you are a trooper. I’m about to launch into some long-winded stuff on cultural differences, so go grab some snacks.
To provide some background (or at least my basic understanding of it) on the aforementioned “interesting conversation”: there were some…um…”interesting” things going on at the national level for Burkina while we were there. First, there had been student demonstrations that turned a bit violent in the weeks leading up to our visit. The students were upset about another senior high student who died in jail, allegedly due to mistreatment. We actually headed to Bereba village really early Saturday morning to avoid a planned student demonstration near the FAVL office in Ouaga (but this one was pretty subdued). Second, military personnel in Ouaga were unhappy about a comrade being jailed, so they decided to riot (meaning, shoot guns in the air and loot stores) the night before we returned from Bereba. Third, the following day merchants were demonstrating in protest of the looting from the previous night. *NOTE: we ourselves never actually witnessed these things, but were given great updates from FAVL/Peace Corps and felt very safe our entire trip.* Fourth, set this against the backdrop of the uprisings in North Africa this past month. President du Faso Blaise Compaoré has been in power for the last 30 years via a combination of coups and elections…sound a bit familiar? Throw in the fact that historically Burkina has close ties with Libya. Compaoré and Colonel Gaddafi are close friends.
While hanging with a few Burkinabes who will remain nameless, I stated that I enjoyed speaking French and visiting Francophone countries. One became a bit ruffled by this statement, and the two started discussing in rapid French. When I finally heard “Two Frenchmen died, that’s good,” I decided to interject myself into the discourse. “Ce n’est jamais bon quand on est mort! Francais, Burkinabe, Americain…jamais bon!” I said.
It’s difficult to retell the whole thing in detail since I only understood about half of what was said to me, but an extremely simplified version of what followed: “No, no, France sucks, they abandoned their West African colonies who now suffer. But France sometimes still keeps its armies there, why are they meddling now in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya?? Libya is great. Everyone gets free water, health care, and electricity. The world needs more people like Gaddhafi. French is much more difficult to learn than English. Do you think Ghana is a bit more stable than Burkina? But really, we should just destroy all arms and let there be peace. Libraries and increased education can help create peaceful societies.”
This was a lot to absorb, and I definitely don’t claim to have understood all pieces of the arguments. Mostly I’m just throwing it out there as an interesting interaction for those who like these things. For me, I took it as yet another point of view. I’ve gotten so used to the American perspective, it was somewhat refreshing to hear a different one, regardless of my feelings about it. We've had a lot of chats with Ghanaians about education issues and their perspectives, but less so on international politics so this was a big change from our usual discussions. Food for thought…
Ok and if you made it THIS far…you are a saint! Look forward to upcoming blog posts about our first week of phonics camp, watching Ghana play England on TV, and visits to Navrongo, Paga, and Bongo Hills. :-)
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