Edouard

I’d like for you to meet Edouard.

Edouard is wise, funny and tender hearted. He studies very hard and achieves good grades in school.

Edouard used to pipe up in conversation with the most interesting stories and useful information. When the children found and killed a snake that had made it’s way into the courtyard Edouard told us stories from the village about where villagers had found snakes in their huts. He also told us Burkinabé legends about which snakes it’s okay to kill and which snakes you shouldn’t kill.
Because of his honesty and general knowledge of all things Burkina I used to double check some ideas with Edouard. When one of the boys promised to catch me a margouillat (gecko) for us to eat together I was excited because I knew gecko was consumed in the village and wanted the cullinary experience. Edouard though, gently told me it wasn’t in my best interest to eat geckos caught in Yako. The villagers usually go out into the bush to catch geckos, because it’s unhealthy to eat ones that have been around humans & human waste. I was very grateful that he was willing to tell me straight up what was okay and what wasn’t.
He was an ever-patient teacher when it came to Mooré. Every so often after lunch we would sit at the table, under the tree, and talk. He would teach me a few Mooré words and I would listen hard. When I spoke he would gently correct my pronunciation and explain to me the context of the words he was teaching me. Some afternoons he would ask questions about Canada and what life is like there. On those days I would talk more and he would pipe in with questions.

Above: Edouard hugging Augustine. (I love this picture of both of them.)

A few nights before I left Edouard and I were practicing English. He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote “You going to missed mine”. In understanding french reflexive verbs I figured he was writing “I am going to miss you.” I knew I was about to cry so in an attempt to avoid it I asked him to tell me in french what he was writing and then coached him through writing out the phrase in English with correct grammar. When we reached ‘you’ I let a few tears slip from my brimming eyes. He told me promptly that I wasn’t allowed to cry, because crying is contagious (and although he didn’t mention the cultural inappropriateness of crying I knew I shouldn’t). I wiped the tears away, stole the pen from him, wrote “me too” on the paper and smiled. I told him that tears meant that he’d had an impact on my life.

And he has. I can surely learn a lot from Edouard. He is strong in the face of inexplicable sadness and he acts with love and gentleness towards others despite the fact that life has not treated him in a way I would think fair.

Spectacles

Pictured above is a little photo shoot we had with some of our kids last Easter. It all started when Aristead (top left) pulled out the sunglasses and struck a great pose. It evolved into a wonderful time of laughter. I loved sharing these moments with my Burkina family, and today I am so grateful I get to share special moments with my family here as we celebrate Easter.

Easter Sunday was not our only glasses photo shoot. One afternoon as we sat under the hangar I got some shots of the boys in the other glasses. The story behind the other glasses remains slightly more complex.

For a while I thought they were someone's reading glasses but eventually I found out they were prescription-less and no one seemed to know where they came from.

Some evenings one of the boys would push the glasses up on his nose, pull out a book and study. Other nights the glasses would travel from face to face multiple times. Often, I wouldn't see the glasses for several weeks and then all of a sudden one of the boys would appear with the specs and a studious look in his eye, or a giant smile. I grew to love the glasses in a silly way partly because the kids enjoyed them so much. Mostly my love for the glasses stemmed from the fact that they were a thing that the children had together: the glasses were a small bond they’d created themselves in the most brother-like of fashions.

Nasara Meow, Nasara Bonbons

This is Danny.

I met him at a friend's house in Ouaga.

The little girl behind him is his very shy cousin.

Danny would run into the room where I was eating my plate of african spaghetti and fish, come right up close to me, say “meow, meow, meow”, giggle and run away. Every time he ran out of the room he would meet up with all his friends just outside the door where they would whisper and giggle. Then one of them would peek through the curtain that separated our rooms. If I tried to smile at or talk to the friends on the other side of the curtain they’d disappear. It seems Danny, was the only one brave enough to be in the same room as the nasara(white woman). Although, at one point one of Danny’s friends came into the room and to tell me Danny was speaking chinese to me. This made a lot of sense (knowing meow isn't french and seeing as though I didn’t recognize it as a part of the mooré vocabulary) and I appreciated the tip. I remember referring to Danny as a ‘petit bandit’ (little rascal-I intended it as a compliment) after leaving his house. And he was; he was adorable, spunky and I think he is going places.

While Danny's friends seemed more shy than afraid of me I wouldn't have been shocked if they were afraid. Here, in Canada, children hear stories of the boogey man. In Burkina the stories are about the nasara. Some of the stories revolve around a nasara that comes only to steal children. With this understanding it is not all too surprising too witness a child running and screaming in the opposite direction of a nasara.

I felt badly about how much I terrified little ones: no matter how much I smiled, or tried to speak in comforting tones, often children feared me. Once I sent a child running away from his village entirely and left hoping he would muster up courage to return home once he'd investigated and discovered my absence.

In smaller villages children see less nasaras and are most likely to be afraid. In Yako once children are a little older they tend to stop fearing nasaras and start to call out to us when we pass. They call out 'Nasara bonbons!' (white person, candy!). It's so common in fact, that Nasara Bonbons became my second name while in Burkina. Or, depending how you look at it, Nasara Bonbons became my name and Brittany was my second name. That may be most accurate.

Lost in Translation

The story starts like so many of mine do: out for the day visiting a family.

They lived in Ouaga but not a district that is easy to reach. Our taxi took us only so far and then some men met us at the side of the road and we walked the rest of the way. Once we arrived Adiara left me sitting in the family’s small two room house while she went to go buy rice and millet. I was familiar with this method of working: she often left me places (bringing a nasara shopping severely hampered her ability to barter). Today I sat on a small sofa and noted beauty in the simplicity of the home. The family had almost nothing (not even soap to wash their clothes), but they’d taken time to write bible verses on their walls in chalk. This home was beautiful.

I’d been instructed to rest and stay out of the heat but, after a few minutes of doing so I recognized I wasn’t prepared to wait inside until Adiara returned. I wandered out into the family’s courtyard and found mother and daughter stripping leaves for tô sauce. Although they were shocked when I asked if I could help them we soon found a working stride.

The daughter was quiet but mother was bubbly and talkative. If I’d worried at all that we would find topics for conversation I needn’t have. She told me about her life in Yako before she came to Ouaga and of her children’s schooling. As I grew to know more about her story my heart began to break. She didn’t tell me the illness that was threatening her life and made it impossible for her to provide for her children but I knew. Her strength was evident in her choice of words, in her demeanor and in her smile.

The conversation wasn’t all intense: she had some really interesting things to tell me about Burkina in general.

She asked at one point: “Do you know Black Man?” The words ‘Black Man’ were in English although briefly I’d wondered if she’d been speaking Doula. I should have understood these english words but they came out jumbled and sounding foreign. I recognized she may have been saying something else and I was misunderstanding.

“Pardon?” I said. “Do I know a black man?” I had no idea where this conversation was going as the answer seemed a little obvious. I’d responded in French hoping to avoid further misunderstanding.

“No” She laughed. “Black So Man. Do you know him?” I wondered if her english was simply a little rusty and tried to run through a list of her possible questions in my head. Her daughter laughed at me quietly.

“I’m sorry. I’m confused.” I admitted. I grabbed a few more leaves and continued stripping them. She stopped working and looked at me.

“Black.” she said. “Isn’t that english for noire?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is.” I stopped stripping leaves too.

“That’s his first name.”

“Black” I said. I was sure I knew nobody in Yako with the first name of Black. I told her so and she looked confused.

“l’homme noire.” She stated. “And So. What does so mean?”

“Yes- ’homme noire.” I said. “And sew? It means coudre. Does that make sense?”
It didn’t. I’d translated the wrong word. Our conversation continued like this for a while: speaking in French but, throwing in English words where they were needed. She was patient, I was confused and the daughter seemed disinterested. We had no trouble understanding the others french but we were not communicating.

Eventually she explained: “Black So Man is a singer.” The context of this conversation finally made sense.

She went on to tell me about Black So Man. He was Burkinabé, although he spent some time in Côte (and really, who hasn’t?). He released a very popular album titled ‘Tout le Monde et Personne’ (Everybody and Nobody). Several years ago he was killed in a car crash. According to this woman it is the Burkina version of Princess Diana: how did the car crash happen and who caused it? His wife who survived the crash has tried to dismiss the rumors and convey that it was simply an accident but people continue to speculate. The story was intriguing.

Last July I remembered this meeting and decided to find this man’s music. A german wikipedia page and a few itunes searches later and I’d discovered my favorite album of the year.

Here is 'Adji' one of my favourites from Tout le Monde et Personne. Listening to it reminds me of bus trips across Burkina.

April First!

Here in Canada it’s April Fools' day and over in Burkina the month of Poisson d’Avril(Fish of April) is just getting started. There if you fall subject to a prank you are called a Gros Poisson (big fish).

While we’re on the topic of Gros Poisson I thought I’d share a photo of a delightful fish dish from Yako. I was going to say it tastes better than it looks (which it does because it's delicious), but the other fact of the matter is we usually eat this in the dark on the street so it doesn’t matter much what it looks like.

I wrote a little bit about Poisson d’Avirl last year: the link is here.