I'm the Son of a Soul-Stealer

I figured once classes were over and the summer break got started I’d be able to do a lot better updating this thing. After a fun, tiring, exciting, disturbing, stressful, and emotionally charged roller coaster of a month, I realize that I figured wrong. This post will serve not only as an update to you all of what I’ve been up to, but also as a far-from-exhaustive list of excuses for why it’s taken me so long to get this post written. Let’s start things off with a feature of my blog that has been on the shelf collecting dust for some time now: Josh in Africa Trivia…

My parents visited me here in Burkina Faso for about 10 days last month. Which of the following near-disasters DID NOT take place while they were here?


a) We almost got into an accident while speeding along on a dirt road at night in a bus with no headlights.

b) We almost got roughed up by a gang of garden tool-wielding Burkina natives.

c) Dad almost got avian flu when he handled a live chicken in a country known to have infected birds.

d) Mom almost broke some bones when she fell off the camel she was riding.

e) Mom and Dad almost missed their flight back to the States which they thought left 3 hours later than it actually did.

A couple of these are actually pretty good stories, so I’ll go through them one by one:

a) This happened. Our bus from Dedougou to Nouna got a late start. The sun was starting to go down when we pulled out of the station in Dedougou. We spent the next hour flying down a dirt road in a headlight-less yellow school bus trying desperately to make it to Nouna before the night fell. It’s funny that the same Blue Bird yellow school bus that used to take me safely to and from kindergarten at St. Mary’s is now the same vehicle that is recklessly transporting me to and from small villages in the middle of West Africa. Who would have guessed?

b) This happened. We were down south near the town of Banfora, biking around visiting some neat sites: waterfalls, a hippo lake, and some cool rock formations that were a lot of fun to climb. On the way back into town, Mom stopped to take a few pictures of the sugar cane fields we were biking through. I was a ways up ahead, but I slowed down when I saw her stop. As I was watching her, I saw one of the men working in the fields slowing walking up towards the road. Some worries flashed through my head that I would later regret ignoring. The man held a daba- a cultivating tool with a wooden shaft and a metal blade on the end similar to the blade on a hoe. When he got to the road, he started pointing and yelling at Mom. I headed back towards them. Soon after I got there, a belligerent crowd of farmers armed with dabas had circled us. At one point, one of them reached over and grabbed Mom’s bike so she couldn’t leave.

So most of this was probably my fault. At one point during my training a year ago, I might have heard something about the importance of asking Burkinabé for permission before you take their picture. I’ve been here for a year and taken lots of pictures without incident. Most of the time, the subject of the photo is thrilled to be able to see himself on the digital display on the camera once you’ve taken the shot. This particular group did not seem so interested in seeing themselves on the camera display screen.

Instead, they were yelling at Mom, demanding that she hand over her camera and give them money for taking their pictures without permission. When I explained that I was the one who spoke French, the yelling turned to my direction. While I felt a bit nervous being in a situation like this with Mom and Dad there, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a little fun for me. My French gets a lot better when I’m worked up and yelling, and for at least the first few minutes, I couldn’t help but feel appreciative that I had been given a chance to show off a bit.

As with most arguments I have had with Burkinabé from touristy areas, this argument boiled down to money. One of the more even-headed gang members explained to me that it is their belief that if someone takes your picture, that person is stealing your soul. Once they realized that Mom was not giving up the camera, they demanded money for all of the dozen farmers present- apparently to compensate them for the souls we had stolen. A snippet from the negotiations:

Me: How much money do you want?
Him: I need money for all 13 of the workers out there.
Me: Ok, how much do you want?
Him: You have to ask permission to take our pictures.
Me: Ok, sorry. How much do you want?
Him: You have to ask permission to take our pictures.
Me: Yeah, sorry about that. She didn’t know. How much do you want?
Him: I need money for all 13 of the workers out there.

Some may say this guy did not understand my question. Some may say he was just being stubborn. I think he was a shrewd negotiator. One of the few things I did learn in my management classes in college was that the first side to make an offer in a negotiation is at a big disadvantage. The other thing I know about negotiations (one that I didn’t learn in college)? The side that is not holding the sharp, menacing garden tools- also at a big disadvantage. The manner in which the rest of the negotiations played out support this:

Me: Ok, fine. Here is 2 dollars.
Him: You stole our souls. 2 dollars is not enough.
Me: How much do you want?
Him: 10 dollars.
Me: I can give you 5.
Him: 10 dollars.
Me: I really only have 8.
Him: 10 dollars.
Me: Ok. Here is 10 dollars. Have a great day.

10 dollars for my family’s safety, a couple pictures, a great story, and 13 souls. Not bad.

c) This happened. Ok, so he didn’t almost get avian flu. While there are cases of bird die-offs in Burkina Faso from the disease, there have been no reports of bird to human transmission. And unless he started playing with the chicken’s droppings (which he didn’t to my knowledge), he would be absolutely fine. But he did handle the live chicken that was sent over to us as a gift from one of my village friends. He held it up for a picture and then had my neighbors do the killing, cleaning, and cooking.

d) This did not happen. There were no camel rides on this trip. Maybe next time.

e) This happened. For some reason, Mom thought it left at 11pm. At 5 or 6 that night, she decided to take one last look at the itinerary and verify the flight info. The plane was scheduled to leave at 8pm. As much as my parents enjoyed their stay in Africa, I don’t believe they were all that excited at the thought of extending that stay as the result of a missed flight. They made the flight with plenty of time to spare.

Having my parents here for that week and a half was great for a lot of reasons. Of course, after over a year apart, it was awesome just to see them again. I’m also really glad that they got to see where I’ve been living and working for the past year. All the stories that I have told and will tell them now have a context. So many times, I’ll get frustrated telling a story to someone back home- Many times, I just don’t have the words to be able to really explain the experience fully. My folks’ visit will help a lot with that. But what may be the most important consequence of their visit is the renewed sense of perspective they were able to give to me. There’s a tendency among Peace Corps volunteers to get overwhelmed with all the needs present in a country like this one. Many of us at times feel both powerless and useless. There are days when I feel like these people need so much more than I could ever give them- What is the point of me even trying? The following two quotes have always made sense to me, but it took my parents’ visit to remind me of just how important they are to keep at the front of my mind:

I am one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do. -Helen Keller

They say my work is just a drop in the ocean. I say the ocean is made up of drops. -Mother Theresa

One of the most satisfying parts of the visit was the time we spent with my host families in Nouna and Yako. I’ve always been amazed by the generosity and the kindness of the people of this country- In welcoming my family from the US, my families in Burkina Faso took this generosity to a new level. Not only did they open up their homes, but they shared with us all that they had; they truly opened up their hearts to us. I feel very blessed to have been the interpreter when my parents talked to my Burkinabé parents. I am the only one who really knows the beautiful things that both sides were saying to the other. There is no way that I was able to adequately translate what was being said. At first this frustrated me. Then I realized what a great problem this was to have to deal with- My French vocabulary was not nearly large enough to be able to express all the powerful things being said by all these people who love me. I’ll take that problem any day.

The day my parents flew out, something happened near my village that would make it necessary for me to strive for the kind of perspective embodied in those two quotes I just mentioned. About 15 miles from Bomborokuy, boundary disputes resulted in fighting between farmers from Mali and Burkina over farming land. The Malians killed at least 9 Burkinabé and kidnapped two others. Reports on the murders were gruesome and disturbing. As a precaution, the Peace Corps evacuated me from my site and kept me in the capital until things calmed down. For those of you especially prone to worrying about me, please believe me that while these events are sad and unfortunate, my safety is not in jeopardy as a result of them.

Hearing about events like this- people killing their neighbors over the small plots of farm land they need to feed their families- really forces you to think. For the past month, I had worked with another volunteer to organize a big party for a group of 15 volunteers who are ending their service and returning to the States this summer. It was a lot of work, and through most of it, I felt good about doing it. A well-planned, well-run party could go a long ways not only in thanking those volunteers who had served their 2 years, but also in giving the rest of us a chance to take a break and get reenergized as we continue our service. During the party itself last weekend, there were a handful of times when I stopped running around long enough to sit down, take a break, and just watch people enjoying themselves. At first, it was deeply satisfying- seeing all the volunteers having fun, most of whom aren’t what you would call the “partying type.” But with that satisfaction came a good deal of guilt. This past month, I’ve mourned the death of my Director alongside his family and our entire community. I’ve been told of horrible things happening near my village that are the result of a lack of land to grow food. And here I am, enjoying myself at a party I planned for a bunch of (relatively) well-off Americans. I’m no martyr. And I don’t feel like I need to deprive myself of every earthly pleasure in order to live a good life. But it’s hard for someone who has so much not to think about these things in a country where the people need so much.