Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A Couple of Interesting Interactions w/ My Friend's Family

My friend’s two daughters (ages 4 and 6) always tell me they want their mom to find them skin lightening cream so they can have white skin like mine. It breaks my heart when I hear them telling me this. In response I tell them that their ebony skin is so beautiful as it is and that my skin color is so boring. Upon hearing this the girls adamantely shake their heads and say that that is not true and that they still want white skin.

A few few weeks ago as I was waiting for my friend to finish preparing dinner I crossed my legs to get more comfortable in my seat. Seeing me do this her 4 year old daughter imitated me by crossing her legs as well. Masse, her mom, saw her do this and commented on it. I think to myself, “Oh, that is so sweet. She is copying me.” Masse then asks me if I know that crossing my legs when I sit is a totem (Burkinabé word for something that is strictly forbidden). She tells me that when I cross my legs it means my mom is going to die. I think to myself, “So basically I have been offending everyone since my arrival to Burkina. I was surprised this was the first time I had heard about it. I knew there were certain ways Burkinabé don’t sit e.g. Indian style because they consider it improper but I did not think it was a totem.” I was like okay even though sitting with my legs crossed is a like second nature to me I will try not to offend her and her family ( I doubt they would care though) and find a new position to sit. So I uncross my legs, rest my elbows on my knees, and rest my chin in my palms. I think to myself, “Good. This is a comfortable position. Probably won’t offend anyone.” Upon seeing this my friend tells me, “You know, that position is also forbidden. When you sit like that it means your dad is going to die.” I could not help but laugh because there must be so many gestures, movements, positions, that I do that are forbidden/improper here. I must be offending everybody! I know that the locals do not care how I sit or move; I think they just figure I am ignorant and let it slide.

Who Wants a Good Flogging?

A few weeks ago I attended a village event in Zabre commemorating the chief. There were hundreds and hundreds of people from Zabre and its surrounding communities there waiting to see the chief. However, those were not the only people in attendance. There were some men whose job was to keep the peace—not policemen but ordinary villagers. How did they "keep the peace", you ask? They would go around with long sticks yelling at villagers and flogging them. Granted I am not sure if flogging individuals, men and women alike, to get them out of the way or if they are not crouching down enough is the best people way to keep the peace but I suppose it works. If they were not there, there definitely would be risks of stampedes of people being injured or even worse. My friends and I arrived late to the event so we were all the way in the back. I wasn’t really all that worried because being the only whitey in the region does have its advantages. I (and other volunteers as well) am not sure if we are given special status because of being white or because the villagers view us as being a guest to their communities. The line is often blurred. Anyhow, there were two crowds at the events. There was one crowd immediately surrounding the chief and then there was another circle maybe 30 feet further back in a form of circle watching on. However, between the two circles there were the men “keeping the peace” with lots of flogging. We managed to get to the front of the second crowd but we were still quite far away. The “peace keepers” were yelling at the people that no one was allowed to cross them to join the other group. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to take pictures of the ceremony. However, I was not disappointed for long because once one of the men passed me and saw that I was white he called out to me and said, “Nissara(whitey) you can pass the line but just you.” Camera in hand I happily joined the group. However, it meant that I was to be separated from my friends as they were not allowed to accompany me. Flash forward to after the ceremony of sacrificing chickens, the crowd was then instructed to head to another spot. So we all head over there. It was quite chaotic with everyone racing to get a good place to watch. About 5 minutes later I arrive at the new location. I arrived but was not in the immediate vicinity of the chief (that place is reserved for higher ups and people with special status). I was at the front of the line but I was not passed it. I was quietly and patiently waiting like a good villager. In the meantime the “peace keepers” were waving their sticks and yelling. All of a sudden out of the blue a man flogs me in the legs. The chaotic environment and surprise of being hit made me almost start to tear up. I do not think that the man had realized who he had hit because immediately afterward his friend said something in Bissa, the local language, to the effect of, “Great. Now, you’ve done it. You hit a whitey!” The man begged for forgiveness and told me to join the “special” crowd of about 20 people.

A Village Rape

About two weeks ago I was walking home from the market and I saw Ganga arguing with my new neighbor (who was at the time building his new mud hut). It seemed like an intense conversation so I decided to not approach the two but to ask Ganga later on. The next day during my nutrition workshop I asked him what had happened the day prior. He had explained that a man had raped a girl from his village and he had come across her crying along the road. I assume he has found her somewhat soon after the rape had happened. I was shocked and then ask/told him that I assumed he was going to go the the gendamerie(national police) in Zabre to report the man. Ganga informed me that he was first going to have a meeting with the rapist and the village chief to decide what should be done. I was flabbergasted and responded, “What?!? You are not going to the police! The man raped a girl and the gendamerie needs to be involved to prosecute the man.” Ganga replied that first there would be a meeting with the Chief of the village because that was the African way—to handle conflict at the village level and not involve the government/police. That night I was eating dinner at my friends house and I told her teenage daughters what had happened and I asked what would happen to the man now. They informed me that the chief would probably have the man beaten and that the man would have to pay a fine to the victim’s family. Then they told me if the girl became pregnant she would then marry her rapist. I quickly became angry and irritated and felt sick to my stomache. I had read about situations like this going on in the Middle East in one of my political science classes but I naively thought it didn’t happen in Burkina. I then asked the girls why she would marry the man who had raped her and they said no one else would want her because now she was pregnant. I then asked what happens if she does not get pregnant, would she still have to marry her rapist. They told me yes because she was now tainted(not a virgin anymore). I wanted to ask more questions but I thought that I would ask Ganga because he would know more than anyone. I headed home and mid way through the night a horrible thought popped into my head—why was Ganga arguing with my new neighbor about the rape. Was my new neighbor the rapist? The next day I found Ganga and told him, “Ganga, please tell me the rapist is not my new neighbor who is building his mud hut 25 feet away from mine.” Ganga started to laugh and told me not to worry that the rapist was not my new neighbor; however, he did not explain why he was arguing with the man about the rape. He told me the rapist lived in Koma--another quartier of my village. However, he did tell me the man worked at the market mill. This mill happens to be about a 3 or 4 minute walk from my house. Hmm…I then told Ganga about what the girls had said and asked if it were true. He told me yes the girl normally marries her rapist if she becomes pregnant because no other man would want to raise another man’s child (abortion is illegal here, regardless of incest, rape etc.,). He told me if she did not become pregnant she would not have to marry him. I asked if virginity here was important. He told me that in his mom’s time that virginity had been really important and that the girl would most likely marry her rapist but that it wasn’t as important now. However, he did tell me that this happens today with a certain tribe in the south of Burkina who places a high priority on a girl’s virginity. By then I was livid and Ganga could tell. I was like, “Ganga, that is the most asinine thing I have ever heard! Don’t people realize that once the girl marries her rapist, every time they have sex it is like reliving the rape all over again.” Ganga replied, “Todara, that is just the way things are done in Africa—it is the African way.” A few days later I was having lunch with the mayor of Zabre and I told him about the situation and asked if it was true what they had said. Desire had told me that it was not true and that the man would go to jail. This, however, was dependent upon the girl or her family lodging a complaint against the man with the gendamerie. Desire then told me that often times they try to settle the issue at the village level because the Chiefs of the villages have problems with giving their power and authority over to the government and other officials(in the past before police it was the Chief that handed out the judgment). He also said this was corrupt because sometimes the Chief may be friends with the rapist’s family or he worked with the man and so he would let the rapist off easy. His words appeased me for the moment but then I thought who was I more likely to believe—the mayor, who is a rich functionaire/ a parliamentary member who doesn’t know much about village life/politics, or the locals who tell me something completely different but who live village politics day in and day out.

The Wonderful World Of Transport

Transport. Oh, transport. I don’t know even how to begin to explain transport from my village to the capital (or any other place). Imagine this: a van with rows of seats that are meant for 4 people (a snug fit even with 4). The drivers make it mandatory that 5 people are to go in each row. We are packed in the van like sardines. It doesn’t matter if you are 500 pounds; you still count as one person across the row. Or if you have children up to the age of five, you and your one or two kids still count as one person. It is the funniest thing to watch because I will see grown men sitting on top of each across the row because there is no room whatsoever. One butt cheek will be on the seat and the other cheek will be on their neighbor’s thigh. Often times, one man will lean forward against the seat in front of him while his neighbor leans back against their seat because there is not enough shoulder room for everyone. There often times that my knees are uncomfortably shoved up against the seat in front because there is no leg space. I am 5’3! Can you imagine what it is like for men who are 6 feet +?! Sometimes they pack live chickens/goats on top of the roof or in the taxi near my feet and I will forget they are there and I will step on them. Sometimes the children will pee during the 4 hour trip. Not the best situation if they pee/defecate about ten minutes into our ride because there is no escape from the smell. The windows. I almost forgot about the windows. Well…or lack there of. I always think if we were to get into an accident, no one would survive because there are so many people crammed in the bush taxi (with no seat belts, mind you) that it would not be possible to get out. There is that fact and the fact that often times the windows don’t open or sometimes there is no window at all and there is this big sheet of wood covering where the window once was. There are multiple times where the taxi breaks down or I will hear a loud scraping noise during the trip that I imagine cannot be good for the van or us. One instance when I was going to a district capital the van was going about 20 miles an hour because it kept on breaking down and would not go any faster. This was during the middle of the day, mind you, when the temperature was probably near 100 degrees. Did I mention none of the taxis have air conditioning. So every 5 minutes the driver stops the bush taxi to lift up his seat to remove a part that looks like it belongs to the engine. He blows in it a few times and then puts it back into the car. The whole time I am thinking, “Oh my God, I am going to die from the heat and I am pretty sure you are supposed to be removing that part/blowing in it to fix it.” But after stopping like twenty times to blow in the part we finally reached our destination. There is also a tradeoff between breathing in dust and being hot. Since 90% of the roads in Burkina are unpaved they are often dirt/sand roads with many, many potholes. You spend more time in the middle of the roade or the left side of the road trying to avoid the potholes. lol. I don’t mind breathing in the dust but I do mind being hot. I always like to sit by the window on the off chance that we do get into an accident I have a small chance of surviving but I also like having control of the window to open and close it as I please. One time I had the window open because it was incredibly hot (actually, there is never really time that the window is closed because it’s always hot) but having the window open meant that we were breathing in dust. The window next to me kept on bugging me to close the window. I finally turned to the women and said, “Women, it is ungodly hot! The window is staying open! One time my friend Josh came to visit me from his village and the first thing he says once he gets out of the bush taxi at the station was, “I do not think there was one point during that entire 4 hour trip that both butt cheeks were on the seat.” One time I rode down to my village with my friend, Gwen, and I felt so bad for her because her seat was broken so she was sitting on the seat springs. She is not used to riding in bush taxis because the road to her village from the capital in on a highway so she always rides in a bus. Experiencing transport is so ungodly awful that it is funny and you just have to find it amusing to convince yourself to take it the next time.