Name: Caitlin
Bring on the 'bon-bons'
So I got back to village on Monday and opened the doors to my house for the first time in almost 2 months. Inside it was like a tomb covered in 3” of dust. Termites had almost completely eaten through the door frame giving the impression to my counterpart that someone had tried to break in, when in reality the door was just hanging off its frame. Rather than annoyed by the intrusion I was actually impressed with the termite’s work, at least they had accomplished something in this village, a destruction to others meant success to them, nonetheless I hosed them down with bug repellent. All this was only possible after I stood on a stool and put all my body weight into lifting a branch that supported my porch, which had sunk below the door frame making it impossible to open. After all that I could still open only one of my two outward swinging front doors. Finally inside I was relieved to find only one cockroach but not so happy to see snake skin and no snake…
Luckily the first people to greet me were two of my best friends in village, Mariam and Harigetou, 12 year olds in the sixth grade, the highest class in village. I have to interject on their behalf that the grading system is not the same here as it is in the US. They start school between the ages of 5 and 7 and the primary school has six grades before continuing at the highschool level. Well they ran to see me shouting enthusiastically while scolding me at the same time for being 28 days late. ‘Roukie! You said you would come back on the 1st, today is what?’ ‘The 28th,’ I said, ‘You are late!’ they said. But they still took any bag they could and helped me bring them inside. Then they both declared, ‘OK- we are going to clean, clean, clean! Until your house is, clean!’ They can be very helpful girls but I suspected this was also a ploy to get a tour of my elusive home. I never let anyone into my house and always entertain on my porch. Even though I live more frugally than I ever have, in comparison to my neighbors I am a millionaire living in the lap of luxury. I try to downplay that as much as possible, but today was an exception.
Mariam and Harigetou both grabbed rags and began beating the dust out of everything in their reach. We brought everything we could carry out onto the porch to be either shaken out or washed later. Then they both soaped up their rags and started skating around the house, leaving trails of bleach water in their wake. They turned my clean time from a full day into a couple of hours, I was elated. While we were cleaning everything and putting it back in its place it was time to play 20 questions with all my things. ‘What’s this?’ Mariam asked holding up a peeler. ‘That’s something you use to take the skin off of vegetables. (God I hope I don’t come across like Buffalo Bill here) ‘ Oh, like a knife!, she says, Yes, a knife. I realized their range of utensils is a fraction of what we are used to so I decided to try and explain things so they would understand. Harigetou holds up suntan lotion with a quizzical expression, ‘Um, that’s oil to protect my skin from the sun.’ ‘Ooooh,’ she says. This goes on for another 30 minutes, a loofa, candles, Koolaid packets, salt ginder, pepper grinder, spatula, and then they found my stuffed animals. I have one little valentine’s day bear from my wonderful cousins Sara and David, and then a stuffed lion that belongs to Tom and I because he paid for the game but technically I won when we went to Six flags, we’ve since decided on dual custody. One of my older neighbors had stopped by and she was walking around assessing my house when she came across Mariam playing with Lion. Mariam informed me with a delighted smile that the older woman was afraid of the stuffed doll, so of course she thought it would be a good idea to pretend to throw it at her until she ran out of my house. Great, so now I’m a voodoo witch too I thought. If this village had a tabloid I would be on the front page every day.
Finally my house was livable again and I took the trash that I had forgotten to burn before I left out to my burn hole, previously known as my compost pile. I went back in to get gas and matches and by the time I had returned Mariam, Harigetou and several local children and turned the bag upside down emptying its contents onto my front lawn. Then they made a mad dash for things that looked of value and subsequently fought over items they both wanted. So two of the most educated girls in village were now rummaging through my trash, wonderful. I wanted to tell them to stop but didn’t really know where to begin until Harigetou looked up at me and said, ‘You sure eat a lot of ‘bon bon’s don’t you?’ My justification was weakened seeing all the plastic wrappers strewn about our feet. ‘OK, that’s enough,’ I had found my voice and while my first reaction was to defend my eating habits because that bag had been the collection of three month’s worth of plastic garbage, I just told them to put it all back and put it in the hole to burn. They obliged and we properly destroyed the evidence that indeed, I eat a lot of bon bon’s.
Later that day I took a tour of village, walking through the market and on to the health center greeting as I went. Bon arrivee Roukie! Bienvenue Roukie! I heard everywhere I went. It was truly a “Cheers” experience. I ran into the director of the school, one of my favorite people in village for having a great sense of logic and understanding the importance of health education. He gives me a big hand shake and the cultural four kisses on the cheek, apparently we’re one kiss better than the french now. Then he looks me up and down and still smiling says, “You got bigger!” I just laughed. “Yes” I said, subconsciously trying to stand a little taller, “I got bigger.” “The food over there is really good huh?” “Oh my, yes, it is.” Was all I could muster while trying not to crack up, who says that! Well, aparently every third person I saw that day. From the butcher, to the COGES president (Ah, you are fat now, this is very good), to the neighborhood kids, to my counterpart. He even went so far as to comment on how happy Tom must have been now that I’m fatter and “pretty”. Oh the joys of a healthy self-esteem, I just laughed along and agreed that the food over there is indeed very good. I honestly would not have had one less piece of sushi, or one less candy bar, or one less margarita for all the world. In Burkina there is no media to create an ideal image of beauty, there is only the difference between healthy and sick. Those who do not have enough to eat or have fallen ill will look eerily similar to those walking down the runway in New York and Paris. Those who have higher educations and can afford three meals a day wear their weight proudly and are respected for it. They have the luxury of free time and do not perform hard labor to survive, they can afford to have more than 5% body fat. While I feel perfectly healthy I also like to be in shape and be able to pull my own weight both figuratively and literally such as when I have to carry all my luggage weighing over 125 lbs. from the road to my house. It’s a 15min. walk and not an easy task in 100 degree weather but I feel good knowing I can take care of myself no matter the what the situation calls for... ice cream eating contest? Not a problem!
thanks for your extra long attention spans to all of you who made it this far without falling asleep. Take care until next time and thanks again for the packages they are amazingly delicious!
Yours truly,
Roukie
Luckily the first people to greet me were two of my best friends in village, Mariam and Harigetou, 12 year olds in the sixth grade, the highest class in village. I have to interject on their behalf that the grading system is not the same here as it is in the US. They start school between the ages of 5 and 7 and the primary school has six grades before continuing at the highschool level. Well they ran to see me shouting enthusiastically while scolding me at the same time for being 28 days late. ‘Roukie! You said you would come back on the 1st, today is what?’ ‘The 28th,’ I said, ‘You are late!’ they said. But they still took any bag they could and helped me bring them inside. Then they both declared, ‘OK- we are going to clean, clean, clean! Until your house is, clean!’ They can be very helpful girls but I suspected this was also a ploy to get a tour of my elusive home. I never let anyone into my house and always entertain on my porch. Even though I live more frugally than I ever have, in comparison to my neighbors I am a millionaire living in the lap of luxury. I try to downplay that as much as possible, but today was an exception.
Mariam and Harigetou both grabbed rags and began beating the dust out of everything in their reach. We brought everything we could carry out onto the porch to be either shaken out or washed later. Then they both soaped up their rags and started skating around the house, leaving trails of bleach water in their wake. They turned my clean time from a full day into a couple of hours, I was elated. While we were cleaning everything and putting it back in its place it was time to play 20 questions with all my things. ‘What’s this?’ Mariam asked holding up a peeler. ‘That’s something you use to take the skin off of vegetables. (God I hope I don’t come across like Buffalo Bill here) ‘ Oh, like a knife!, she says, Yes, a knife. I realized their range of utensils is a fraction of what we are used to so I decided to try and explain things so they would understand. Harigetou holds up suntan lotion with a quizzical expression, ‘Um, that’s oil to protect my skin from the sun.’ ‘Ooooh,’ she says. This goes on for another 30 minutes, a loofa, candles, Koolaid packets, salt ginder, pepper grinder, spatula, and then they found my stuffed animals. I have one little valentine’s day bear from my wonderful cousins Sara and David, and then a stuffed lion that belongs to Tom and I because he paid for the game but technically I won when we went to Six flags, we’ve since decided on dual custody. One of my older neighbors had stopped by and she was walking around assessing my house when she came across Mariam playing with Lion. Mariam informed me with a delighted smile that the older woman was afraid of the stuffed doll, so of course she thought it would be a good idea to pretend to throw it at her until she ran out of my house. Great, so now I’m a voodoo witch too I thought. If this village had a tabloid I would be on the front page every day.
Finally my house was livable again and I took the trash that I had forgotten to burn before I left out to my burn hole, previously known as my compost pile. I went back in to get gas and matches and by the time I had returned Mariam, Harigetou and several local children and turned the bag upside down emptying its contents onto my front lawn. Then they made a mad dash for things that looked of value and subsequently fought over items they both wanted. So two of the most educated girls in village were now rummaging through my trash, wonderful. I wanted to tell them to stop but didn’t really know where to begin until Harigetou looked up at me and said, ‘You sure eat a lot of ‘bon bon’s don’t you?’ My justification was weakened seeing all the plastic wrappers strewn about our feet. ‘OK, that’s enough,’ I had found my voice and while my first reaction was to defend my eating habits because that bag had been the collection of three month’s worth of plastic garbage, I just told them to put it all back and put it in the hole to burn. They obliged and we properly destroyed the evidence that indeed, I eat a lot of bon bon’s.
Later that day I took a tour of village, walking through the market and on to the health center greeting as I went. Bon arrivee Roukie! Bienvenue Roukie! I heard everywhere I went. It was truly a “Cheers” experience. I ran into the director of the school, one of my favorite people in village for having a great sense of logic and understanding the importance of health education. He gives me a big hand shake and the cultural four kisses on the cheek, apparently we’re one kiss better than the french now. Then he looks me up and down and still smiling says, “You got bigger!” I just laughed. “Yes” I said, subconsciously trying to stand a little taller, “I got bigger.” “The food over there is really good huh?” “Oh my, yes, it is.” Was all I could muster while trying not to crack up, who says that! Well, aparently every third person I saw that day. From the butcher, to the COGES president (Ah, you are fat now, this is very good), to the neighborhood kids, to my counterpart. He even went so far as to comment on how happy Tom must have been now that I’m fatter and “pretty”. Oh the joys of a healthy self-esteem, I just laughed along and agreed that the food over there is indeed very good. I honestly would not have had one less piece of sushi, or one less candy bar, or one less margarita for all the world. In Burkina there is no media to create an ideal image of beauty, there is only the difference between healthy and sick. Those who do not have enough to eat or have fallen ill will look eerily similar to those walking down the runway in New York and Paris. Those who have higher educations and can afford three meals a day wear their weight proudly and are respected for it. They have the luxury of free time and do not perform hard labor to survive, they can afford to have more than 5% body fat. While I feel perfectly healthy I also like to be in shape and be able to pull my own weight both figuratively and literally such as when I have to carry all my luggage weighing over 125 lbs. from the road to my house. It’s a 15min. walk and not an easy task in 100 degree weather but I feel good knowing I can take care of myself no matter the what the situation calls for... ice cream eating contest? Not a problem!
thanks for your extra long attention spans to all of you who made it this far without falling asleep. Take care until next time and thanks again for the packages they are amazingly delicious!
Yours truly,
Roukie
posted by Caitlin | 12:42 PM
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