"America is good. America is really good."

A few days ago I had a conversation with Olantine, my sister, that was a pretty defining moment of my Peace Corps experience thus far. After a dinner of to, my sister, my mom, and I were relaxing out in the courtyard. Olantine was talking to her mom in Bissa while I was looking up at the stars. My sister turns and asks me, "Brittany?" This is usually the way she starts out her questions. "Yes?," I respond. "Do they have stars in America?" I laughed. Not at her question but at my family's knowledge of my weird obsession with the African night sky. My family always seems to catch me looking up at the stars in awe. I tell her that in America there is way too much pollution and lights too see the stars,let alone to appreciate them. As we were looking over head, I noticed the lights of a plane in the distance and pointed it out to her. She asked me if one could eat in a plane. I tell her yes and she gasps in surprise and quickly tells her mom in Bissa the exciting news. I then tell her I had to take a plane to get from America to Burkina Faso. We sit in silence for a few moments and then she says, "Brittany?" "Yes?" I answer. "America is good. America is really good," she states in a definitive tone. I take a few seconds to think about what she has just said. America is good in lots of respects but we do have problems. Lots of problems. Ranging from pollution to the deepening economic recession(and everything in between). I chuckle, nod in accordance, and then ask her, "and what do you know of America?" Olantine gasps like she had not been expecting the question/I do not really think she knew anything herself. I was both interested and amused to know what my 15 year old sister, who had probably never left our small village of 3,000 people, had to say about American culture and/or American values. In about 90% of Burkina, newspapers, journals, magazines and televisions are non-existent and even radios are a rare commodity. When I talk with some of the male doctors in my village and the bigger district village they usually just say phrases like, "Obama. Bush. Americans love war." With the latter I usually try to dissuade them from having that mentality but with our track record, it is hard to make them think anything but. I return to looking at the sky and we sit in silence for a few more moments. Olantine then says, "Brittany." "Yes?", I respond expecting a question to follow. Olantine repeats herself, "Brittany. I know Brittany."