I had an interesting conversation with the mayor of my village a little while ago. We were sitting at different tables at the local buvette drinking beverages--a coke for me and for him a blend of sprite and beer (several shades of nasty in my opinion, but to each his own). When the night reached the late hour of 7:30 I decided that I needed to go to bedfordshire. But before I could get up to leave, the mayor hollered over (as we were conversing across several tables) that I should pay for his bill as well as my own. I replied with the usual "Mais Monsieur, je suis une volontaire. Je n'ai pas beaucoup d'argent." Which I suppose isn't entirely true since the Peace Corps provides its volunteers with more than enough funds to get by each month. But I prefer to buy drinks for the people who don't ask for them, and especially for those who can't afford them on a regular basis.
Anywho, the mayor laughed at my reply and then he explained to me why I as a volunteer should pay for his drinks. The following is a summary of his lecture and is also insight into the Burkinabe social system: I am a volunteer. The word "volunteer" means that I work without pay and that perhaps I don't have a lot of money to blow. I am a poor child with only a small amount of money to offer. So I should give all or almost all of my money away to someone who needs it more than I do. I should pay for the mayor's drink because I don't have a lot of money to use in the first place. [Okay. Here I asked if a person with more money who can afford to give it away can pay for his drink.] No! Having someone with a lot of money to burn should not pay for his drink because it would mean nothing. There's no sacrifice involved. It's not noble.
The example he used was Bill Gates. The mayor wouldn't want Bill Gates to pay for his drink because it would come as no loss to good ol' Bill to spend that money. He said something along the lines of, "A person who has $10 to his name should give $5 or more of it away to someone who has $0." This person with $10 has a good heart because he gives away what little he has to help someone who's just a little more sorry than he is. But a person with a million buckaroos wouldn't miss the 700 CFA (I apologize for mixing currencies) he'd spend on a sprite/beer cocktail for the mayor. It would be like nothing at all to the millionaire. In the case of the millionaire, there's no test of goodness (is that a word? I'm losing my ability to speak the English). There's no helping your fellow man at your own demise. The mayor has informed me that the test of a truly good person is whether he'll give all his money away. I'm talking ALL of it. Or at the very least, as much as you could give away to be at the same level of poverty as the person you were aiming to help.
To make a long story short: I should pay for the mayor's drink. Bill Gates shouldn't.
After this conversation I really got to thinking about life here in Burkina Faso and the abject poverty and the fact that we're either the 2nd or the 7th poorest country in the nation. My apologies--I'm not certain which it is.
The mayor is not the only one in Burkina Faso who believes that men, women and children should give their earnings away to those who are more desperate. Women walk miles to the market, sell their goods and then give the money to the family chief who uses it as he sees fit. Now you should understand the differences between families here in Burkina and those in the U.S. The families here are huge, absolutely gargantuan. Aunts, uncles, cousins (even distant ones who live far away in Ouaga or Cote d'Ivoire) are all referred to as brothers or sisters and are treated as such; for some families there are several wives and lots of kiddies. We're talking tons of people in each family, and the breadwinners are expected to support the entire family, even the distant cousins and even the ones they don't like too much. It's an obligation. So when you make money, you don't keep it for yourself and your own (what we probably call a nuclear) family. You give it to the head of the entire family and it's divided to support everybody.
Now I understand that it's expected of the Burkinabe to give themselves for the "greater good" and to work for those who can't support themselves. But I wouldn't call it noble. I think a better word for it is just plain sacrifice. Or maybe it's just leveling the playing field so that everyone has the same amount of income and no one has too much. Every person is poor, give or take a few degrees (the difference between market sellers and teachers, perhaps). Or maybe it's just socialism in the extreme. The ones with the ability and the intelligence to make money and settle themselves comfortably in a home with their nuclear family can't do it if it means the whole entire family can't live in the same degree of comfort.
So it goes, almost everyone in Burkina is poor. Or at least they're not comfortable in the way that I have been comfortable my entire life, thanks to my parents and thanks to the country I grew up in. The Burkinabe are only as comfortable as their neighbors. Here in Burkina, there is electricity in only a few places, there's no good waste management system and no clean water which means that there's more disease and death and either no resources for medical care or no money to pay for it. There's little money to send kids to school through university and very few role models to help them to realize the possibilities. There are few who can inspire these kids to want anything more than what they already have.
And that's considered normal. And it's not my place to change what doesn't want to be changed. I only offer my support where it's needed and then I move on to the next. But this conversation with my mayor really opened up my eyes to the Burkinabe psyche. Self-sacrifice is lauded and any form of selfishness is simply unheard of.
I don't get it. I can't see that it helps anything. But then again, I'm a pretty selfish person.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
somewhere a clock is ticking
That somewhere isn't in Burkina Faso on my right wrist. My battery died. I was hoping it would last another year, but alas. I guess two years was the battery life. You were right, Mom. I should've fixed it while I was home. Boo. No bueno for me.
So scratch what I said last time about teaching English this year. No English. No Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time” and no impressing the students with my dulcet tones. Well I suppose I could still sing, or hum at the very least.
We had to change the school schedule four times. That’s 4x 6 hours = 24 hours of discussing which teacher will be teaching which class at what time. Very tedious indeed. Though here’s an interesting side note: At the third rescheduling, which occurred last Saturday, I was asked to come to the school to work out my classes. When I arrived only the director and the male teachers were in the room, but I didn’t think much of it so I just plopped myself down in a seat and took out my notebook with the blue whales on it. Time to begin.
Oh no no. I was asked to leave the room and go across the school grounds to one of my female colleague’s house. I asked why, and the director responded that all the ladies needed to cook the chickens for the meal that night while the men sorted out the schedule. I don’t cook. Everyone knows I don’t cook. But I waddled my way over to the house where 10 dead chickens were waiting to be plucked. I didn’t pluck. Instead I peeled onions and garlic and I chatted with the women while the men did the heavy lifting in the salle de professeurs. I was fascinated by the chicken preparations though. The plucking and the removing of organs. I especially liked the intestines. But for most of the three hours I was there I mainly just sat and watched because the women wouldn’t let me do anything other than peel vegetables.
We the Women had to cook last Saturday in preparation for the feast that night celebrating the beginning of the school year. The event was attended by Bouroum-Bouroum’s mayor and all the teachers at the CEG. And Tinkerbell. Tinkerbelle is one of my village’s foule or crazy person. She’s not really crazy, though, just a little odd. She wears strips of pagne for a skirt (hence the name), is always topless, and wears a calabash on her head. She’s my favorite foule because she always gives me a warm welcome and she likes to build fires. She attended the dinner from a distance, but she was always within sight waving enthusiastically at me. The chicken was delicious.
I have had a bat living in my house for about a week now. He flies about from room to room at night and he doesn’t make a peep during the day. I just hope he doesn’t crap on me or touch me, ever. He’s a fast bugger and he doesn’t seem to want to leave just yet (I’ve opened my door but he ignores the exit). I’ll just have to wait it out it seems.
School started this past week. On the fourth try it was decided that I will teach three math classes. We were still rearranging the schedule on Monday and students were still lined up on Friday outside the director’s office hoping to register, so not much teaching was done this week. Instead I played the KenKen math game (thanks Mom!) with my students and I had each of them write a letter to send to students at a middle school in Doylestown, PA. I just had the students introduce themselves and describe what activities or work they do, what languages they speak, etc. Most of the letters are the same and I had a hell of a time trying to get more than one-word answers out of them. The reply I got to the question, “What do you like about living in Burkina Faso” was “because I was born here.” That’s lame. There’s very little creative or individual thought among these kids, so I’m hoping that the letters they’ll receive from the American students will inspire more in-depth and original responses the next time around.
Hmm, what else? The boutique where I always get my cokes didn’t have any change one day and I only had a 10 mille note on me, so I just gave George the 10 mille and now we keep a record of how many cokes I drink at the rate of 400 CFA/coke. I can get 25 cokes for 10 mille and it’s a sweet deal with giving George 10 mille upfront because now I never have to worry about change. Magnificent.
So scratch what I said last time about teaching English this year. No English. No Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time” and no impressing the students with my dulcet tones. Well I suppose I could still sing, or hum at the very least.
We had to change the school schedule four times. That’s 4x 6 hours = 24 hours of discussing which teacher will be teaching which class at what time. Very tedious indeed. Though here’s an interesting side note: At the third rescheduling, which occurred last Saturday, I was asked to come to the school to work out my classes. When I arrived only the director and the male teachers were in the room, but I didn’t think much of it so I just plopped myself down in a seat and took out my notebook with the blue whales on it. Time to begin.
Oh no no. I was asked to leave the room and go across the school grounds to one of my female colleague’s house. I asked why, and the director responded that all the ladies needed to cook the chickens for the meal that night while the men sorted out the schedule. I don’t cook. Everyone knows I don’t cook. But I waddled my way over to the house where 10 dead chickens were waiting to be plucked. I didn’t pluck. Instead I peeled onions and garlic and I chatted with the women while the men did the heavy lifting in the salle de professeurs. I was fascinated by the chicken preparations though. The plucking and the removing of organs. I especially liked the intestines. But for most of the three hours I was there I mainly just sat and watched because the women wouldn’t let me do anything other than peel vegetables.
We the Women had to cook last Saturday in preparation for the feast that night celebrating the beginning of the school year. The event was attended by Bouroum-Bouroum’s mayor and all the teachers at the CEG. And Tinkerbell. Tinkerbelle is one of my village’s foule or crazy person. She’s not really crazy, though, just a little odd. She wears strips of pagne for a skirt (hence the name), is always topless, and wears a calabash on her head. She’s my favorite foule because she always gives me a warm welcome and she likes to build fires. She attended the dinner from a distance, but she was always within sight waving enthusiastically at me. The chicken was delicious.
I have had a bat living in my house for about a week now. He flies about from room to room at night and he doesn’t make a peep during the day. I just hope he doesn’t crap on me or touch me, ever. He’s a fast bugger and he doesn’t seem to want to leave just yet (I’ve opened my door but he ignores the exit). I’ll just have to wait it out it seems.
School started this past week. On the fourth try it was decided that I will teach three math classes. We were still rearranging the schedule on Monday and students were still lined up on Friday outside the director’s office hoping to register, so not much teaching was done this week. Instead I played the KenKen math game (thanks Mom!) with my students and I had each of them write a letter to send to students at a middle school in Doylestown, PA. I just had the students introduce themselves and describe what activities or work they do, what languages they speak, etc. Most of the letters are the same and I had a hell of a time trying to get more than one-word answers out of them. The reply I got to the question, “What do you like about living in Burkina Faso” was “because I was born here.” That’s lame. There’s very little creative or individual thought among these kids, so I’m hoping that the letters they’ll receive from the American students will inspire more in-depth and original responses the next time around.
Hmm, what else? The boutique where I always get my cokes didn’t have any change one day and I only had a 10 mille note on me, so I just gave George the 10 mille and now we keep a record of how many cokes I drink at the rate of 400 CFA/coke. I can get 25 cokes for 10 mille and it’s a sweet deal with giving George 10 mille upfront because now I never have to worry about change. Magnificent.
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