Burkina What? and Life of a Nassara

Last fall I began corresponding with a class of high school students in Michigan as part of the World Wise Schools program. In reading their recent letter I realized that a lot of people might still wonder why the heck I decided to join the Peace Corps and move to Burkina Faso, which even the lady at the post office in my hometown didn't know was a country (ending up with my mom writing Burkina Faso, West Africa on everything she sends me). Moreover, even when people realize it's a country in West Africa and learn a little bit about the culture they still view it as an oddity, like being able to answer the random Jeopardy question that includes an obscure Shakespeare quote. This blog is dedicated to people still wondering, "Lara, you crazy, crazy person, why did you join the Peace Corps and why do you keep trying to tell me to care about Burkina Faso"

First of all, let me say that being in the Peace COrps is by no means for everyone. There are many challlenges which people don't even anticipate. In fact it is not unusual for some volunteers to quit (or "ET"-early terminate aka "the pan am award") during training/service. Of our original GEE/SE stage maybe about 1/3 are gone now. Some people leave for family reasons, others because they get sick and/or don't like being sick all the time, language issues, food, or because it's just too hard. So if you absolutely can't imagine doing this or wanting to do this, you are not alone. That being said...I (so far) really like living in Burkina Faso and despite not having some things like running water, it's, in many ways, just like living in the United States in that there are good days and bad days. No matter where you live or who you are, nothing will ever change that. So, I could have a bad day in Burkina because the guy at the bus station is a jerk and decides to write Nassara (whitey in Moore) down for my name or I could get stressed out because there's traffic during my commute to work in the US. Some people are nice (like my friends in village) and some are not (like the guy at the gare).

But what really prodded me to fill out that ridicously long application and actually go to the five doctor's appointments? I had spent most of my life in either a classroom or a laboratory and was sick of only reading about the world in books. I wanted to experience it, learn another language, and do something beneficial (or at least try) at the same time.

But Burkina Faso? First of all, when you apply to the Peace Corps, they don't tell you where you're going and you don't get a choice really. You can request a region of the world (regions are continent sized) but usually then just send you where they want. But Burkina is a very cool place and I am happy (at least for the moment-lets not jinx it here-there's still too much time left in my service) that I ended up here. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact in the most recent United Nations Human Index of Development Burkina ranks the second lowest in the world based on a number of indicators like literacy, life expectancy, etc. Several worn torn countries (Iraq and Somalia) are not listed because it is too dangerous to collect current stats there, so Burkina is and isn't the second poorest country in the world. That being said, it's poor. This is a bold statement, but poverty that I see on a daily basis in village for the most part does not exist in the United States. But that's another question to elaborate on another day.

But you shouldn't care about Burkina just because it's poor. Burkina Faso is so much more than a tiny African child with a distended belly running down the street in a charity infommercial. It's a real place. The Burkinabe are real. My friends in village can be at times even more articulate and intelligent than some of my American friends. Some of them have even finished university and know more about American politics and history than some Americans. You should care about Burkina Faso for the same reasons you care about other interesting places like England or New York or I don't even know where...because as a human being you are not the only person inhabiting the planet earth. There are 6 billion plus of us out there, so if we're all going to make this work, if we're going to get along, we might as well try to understand one another. So why not start with Burkina? Alright, this is getting a little too warm and fuzzy, a little too feel good, so let's talk about that guy who wrote Nassara on my bus ticket the other day and what it means to be a whitey in West Africa.

I was in my regional capital, went up to the window to get my bus ticket to come to Ouaga, paid the guy, and sat down. That's funny, I thought, he didn't ask me what my name was for the ticket. Then I look down and seeing it glaring back up at me: Nassara, written quite neatly in the nom line right next to the date and time of departure. I generally don't have a problem with people calling me Nassara because I am white and I tend to be the only white person around unless I'm in Ouaga, etc. So sometimes it's just easier than to get into a big conversation with someone about why they shouldn't call me whitey. This bothered me though because I've talked to this guy before, he asked my name before, why not today? People who know me in village call me by my name, Madame, or Tante (aunty in french). This is nice. This makes me feel like they don't think of me quite as much of an outsider. It's a little bit more welcoming that "hey whitey, what's goin' on?"

Being an outsider extends beyond people calling me Nassara and talking about whether or not I understand Moore, in Moore, while I'm standing right next to them (the longest conversation like this was twenty minutes long in my bush taxi a couple weeks ago-I didn't say anything. I'd like to think I get the last laugh on that one-what kind of a jerk talks about you for twenty minutes while you're sitting there? How rude! It was more funny for me than anything else anyway :) ) In the beginning the villagers were curious about what vegetables I bought at the market and asked me what kind of food I ate. I even told my neighbor that I eat Nasar-riibu (Nassara food) because she doesn't speak French and that's pretty much what they call everything that isn't to, or they use the french names.

At the end of the day, to survive the name calling and stereotyping it just takes a sense of humor and the realization that most people here say things like that because they are honestly curious. 99.9% of the time it's a mixture of ignorance and curiosity, it's not malicious at all. Ahh...ignorance and curiosity...those two words at times describe the encounters I have with villagers but that's also why you should care about Burkina. Those two words say it all. It not only describes people's reaction to me here, but also the reaction of my friends and family to my experiences here. So the next time I'm walking down the street in Ouaga or my regional capital and someone yells out at me: Nassara Bonjour! I think I'll just wave, say hi, and keep on walking. Or maybe I'll even get to have a conversation with them about America and what I do here as a Peace Corps volunteer. That is what Peace Corps is all about anyway, reaching out to someone on the other side of the world and showing them that we're not that different, and (cheesy as it may sound) if we work together maybe the world can be just a little bit better than it is now (sorry again for the feel good factor, but hey, I was idealistic enough to join PC, so what did you expect?).