Cassandra's Village

Even though I just blogged, I decided visiting Cassandra's village merits another entry.

Cassandra and I trained together last summer (2007) to be Peace Corps teachers. Her site is kind of near mine, also located in northern Burkina. Unlike me, she lives with a host family. After a bumpy, dusty (I turned brownish-red and it wasn't a tan) bus ride we got off at her site. While walking to her house we greeted the guy who is always at her gare (bus station), the pastor from her protestant church who wanted to know why there wasn't anyone in the school office yet, the director of the private primary school, and a couple village kids who wanted to carry our bags (a sign of respect from children in Burkina). When we arrived in her courtyard we said hi to her host mom (well actually Mom #1), host siblings, and her dog.

Her family has a large, traditional style, Mossi compound. Each branch of the family gets its own house or hut, with the family spending the majority of its time in the courtyard area because it's just too darn hot to stay inside here. So, the dad has a house, and each wife also has her own house. Even if there is only one wife they still live separately in the most traditional settings because sex is so taboo in Mossi culture. Parents end up sneaking around a lot at night if they want to conceive a child.

Yes, I did just say each wife. Since a large fraction of the population is in fact Muslim and the Quaran allows men to keep up to four wives, polygamy is not by any means uncommon in Burkina. In fact many of my students have multiple moms, and many of my friends have polygamist parents. The practice is starting to go away in larger cities, as some educated women refuse to share their husbands with another woman, and would sooner just leave than do so.

In Cassandra's case, three of the four wives just arrived because they were formerly married to her dad's brother who recently died. It is traditional for the next oldest brother to then wed them, and treat them as his wives (that usually does include having children with them). In this family's case, the rumor in the village was that the husband didn't tell wife #1 about her cowives, and just started bringing them (and their kids) back to the village after the funeral. Needless to say, she wasn't too happy. Especially with the increasing knowledge of HIV/AIDS, people have become warrier of this type of situation. She demanded that if they were going to live there that they all be tested at the local health clinic. (It makes me excited to know that all that money that goes towards AIDS education really is doing something).

I'm not going to say anything here about being for or against polygamy, but rather just try to explain the situation. I would really love to just say how much it inhibits women's rights, and takes advantage of them, but in the traditional setting this sort of thing makes sense to a certain degree because someone is always looking after everyone. Having lots of kids also makes sense if you are trying to work your fields by hand. But at the same time sharing your husband with someone, or getting shoved aside because you're not as young and pretty as you used to be is frankly just sad. It will be interesting to see how this facet of Burkinabe culture changes as the country continues to develop.

Getting back to Cassandra, this has made things a little bit complicated for her. Her courtyard is busy with people these days, and the tension between her family members isn't always easy to handle. She's going to try to find another house in the village (if one is available). I hope she figures it out. People always say ce n'est pas facil (it's not easy!). They aren't kidding.

So, after a couple days of hanging out in her village, meeting her friends/villagers, I'm back in Ouaga, next stop Bobo. This vacation is exactly what I needed! I'll try to write again before I go back to village. A la prochaine!