Millions Like Us

For a while I’ve bandied about lots of blog ideas but I can never quite materialize them into something longer than a couple sentences. It may be because I’ve now been a resident of Burkina Faso for 16+ months so I’m afflicted with Donkey Cart Syndrome, a phenomenon that my APCD illuminated for me. I’ve become habituated to things that erstwhile would have been interesting or novel but I now find mundane and quotidian… like donkey carts. Probably most of you have never seen a cart being pulled by a donkey on the street alongside cars and motorcycles, but I see these so often that I no longer see them, get what I mean? It translates into not being inspired enough by differences to blog about them. I’ve also now settled into a routine, so life now no longer seems any more interesting or newsworthy.

The above notwithstanding, I know I’m not Burkinabé and will likely never feel truly “one with the people.” Everyday, without fail, I’m treated as a curious spectacle, with people yelling “white” or “Chinese” at me. It’s mostly children who do so, but it’s certainly not limited to them. Homogeneity is completely infused in the culture, as I think is common with most collectivist societies. Yet its still hard for me to grasp why people here don’t understand that the question “Where are you from?” would be met with so much less hostility than “Are you from China or Japan?” My immaturity makes me want to respond to these overtures with “Hey, Nigerian!” or “Are you from Uganda or Togo?” but I manage to hold back.

There are certainly some aspects of life here that I embrace, like the willingness of strangers to help one another without question or pause and the repos, which is a break from 12 – 3 every day. But the country has to break at that time because it’s too hot to do anything else. It’s already over 100 degrees daily here, and I still haven’t gotten used to the stifling heat.

What I think I’m not fully conscious of is how I’ve changed since moving here, and I don’t think that will be totally apparent until I move back to the US. Some things are obvious – I can already see that my perspective has tilted in ways like understanding that I don’t need so many “things,” and this is probably heavily influenced by the dearth of mass marketing / advertising. I know well enough not to snap or hiss at restaurant waitstaff for their attention in the US, although it is de rigeur here. Same with nose-picking in public. But I may be tempted to answer my cellphone during a meeting or class when I get back, because having lived here, my attitude has gravitated towards “What’s the big deal?” and away from “That’s so rude!”

I could ramble on forever, but I’ll just leave you with an old African proverb: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life…”