01/26/2013
Always being reminded of my Mother, which I love, whom I love dearly! For everything.
Last night, like so many nights, I am reminded of my mother. In the black of the night, with no electricity, no cars, no big screen TV's, no computers, not even a cold Coca-cola the kids have each other and their imaginations and their own energy. I hear a group of about 10 to 20 young little girls, I would imagine by the pitch of their voice, all chanting in unison, all clapping in unison, all singing in unison. That is what the women do, they all get together in a big group and they sing of chant. It is amazing.
I saw the same thing in the last village I lived in, but that time it was grown women, the women of the village chanting or singing together to make entertainment. It is amazing the wonderful things that are produced when you do not have alcohol on every corner to aid as a crutch for your amazing boredom. Where you are actually encouraged by society to go and drink because society has lost all imagination and therefore any fun and enjoyment there is. The only enjoyment comes from going to a bar with "your friends" and getting drunk. I speak like this, and actually can speak like this because I have lived this exact life I speak of. I lived it for 25 years of my life. And I was pretty good at that fake life of fake fun. It is fake because everything produced by alcohol disappears when your blood becomes less saturated by the drug. And again, with a disclaimer I write this. I am not trying to say alcohol is good or bad or otherwise, all I am doing is explaining the reality of the situation, and based on your personal prefrences, or your particular lifestyle and how my words lend credibility to it, you can make up your own mind.
But all I know is that it is so amazing listening to women or girls all together, screaming, clapping, chanting, or singing in the middle of somewhere in the pitch black. You can hear the energy and the joy in their voices. It is such an amazing picture you get in your mind trying to imagine this group of females all gathered together in someones court, or in a public area all making this beautiful sound together. I love it so.
I have also seen the same thing in the daytime, as I pass the school and the boys and the girls are seperated on the playground. The boys usually doing something physical, like some form of futbol, with whatever they can find for a ball. The girls are usually gathered together, with their arms around each other and they are all singing or chanting in unison, moving toward each other and then away from each other. I suppose it is like a little game, one group v. the other group where they sing in unison and move toghether while the other group backs up in unison until it is their turn to sing.
Everytime I see this it reminds me of my Mother because she is so special and so innocent like these beautiful little girls who will maybe never be overtaked by the love of money or the love of alcohol. They may never grow cold, callous, and bored.
Another thing that amuzes me everytime I see it would be 12 year old children driving around on a moped or even a motorcycle, depending on size I suppose. I saw this all the time in the city I trained in, and now I see it all the time in the village I live in. It is wild to me, but it is just accepted here. It is a reality here in Burkina Faso.
As I said, it is amusing until you get into a van/taxi to be driven two hours by a guy who looks to be about 13 or 14 years old. I had just got into Banfora, the regional capital, after a 2.5 hour brusse taxi ride through unpaved, uneven, ununiform roads/trails through the country of Africa. Many times there are holes in the road, so many times the taxi/van drives on the complete opposite side of the road for 10 or 15 minutes, as we are the only car on the road. An occasional motorcycle will pass us or pass by in the opposite direction, and the occasional person biking or walking gets passed by.
As we get into Banfora there is a 9 year-old telling me that the big Rakieta bus leaves at 12 noon and it is 10 am right now. He tells me that the "petit Rakieta" bus is leaving now. I decide I will leave now rather than wait for two hours to take the big bus to Bobo, where I have to board another bus for a 6 hour trip to Ouagadougou. I let them put my bike on top of the van/taxi and get in the car to go. There is about 10 women who were from another country as I could tell by their hair, their dress, and their distinct scarring and tattoos. I later found out it was a group of women from Niger who came to Burkina for some kind of medical treatment. Burkina is a very very poor country, one of the poorest in the world, and Niger is even more poor than Burkina.
There is also another man in the van who is around 55 years old. He is a very friendly man who talks in limited to no French to me and we converse and smile back and forth. Then I look at the driver, and OHHHHHHHHHH! It is the 13 of 14 year old kid, at the helm with the van running. I think, "WOOOW, Wow, wow, this was funny before, kind of cute. But now this is just strange. This is not good. Is this little kid going to be driving us to Bobo for my next bus?"
I looked at the women and the man, all of whom were African and a bit more experienced in African travel than I. Noone seemed to mind, noone thought anything of it. I just watched and waited, in a state of shock. I thought we were going to switch drivers and leave. All of a sudden the little boy puts the van in drive and starts driving down the crowded road. WHOA. Ok, everyone else seems fine with it, I guess it is ok. He makes he was through town, and we are on the way out of town and all of a sudden he pulls over, in jumps a man of about 30 years old and we take off for my next bus. Disaster averted. Wow, that was a close one.
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