Getting Settled In

Written Sunday, October 24, 2010

Last night my father told me we were going to the village and whenever I asked what village he meant I got no response. So, as with everything else, I just nodded and smiled. He told me to be ready to leave at 7am to leave. So I was ready before then to eat some breakfast. After we ate, he said he was going to go look for a car and would be back. TWO HOURS LATER he returned with an extremely beat up truck. So, I got into the truck and we started driving in a new direction towards what looked like nothing. The road was terrible. It was wide enough for one car and the entire thing was full of huge pot holes. It felt like riding on the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland for half an hour in 100 degree weather. Once we got there I discovered that the village is called Imasgo and it is where my father grew up.

We pulled up to a large courtyard filled with people facing a building that looked like a church. There were hundreds of people sitting on the floor or on little stools that they brought and standing. Everybody was trying to stay in the shade. My father gave me a stool and we sat down together. I could not see anything happening, but I could hear a couple people speaking Moore into speakers facing us in the courtyard. I figured out that I was sitting in a Catholic mass with the entire village as the congregation. The service lasted for three hours. We moved our stools five times to try to chase the shade as the sun moved. I have no idea what the sermon was about because I couldn’t understand anything. I just stood up and sat down like other people around me. When the service finally ended, my father and I shook hands with around fifty people (nobody told me their names). Then he insisted that we rest before heading back to Koudougou. We sat down with one of his brothers and the chief of police for Imasgo in a gated area. They pulled out three bottles of hard liquor and started to drink. They wanted me to drink too but I said I was too exhausted and dehydrated, plus we hadn’t eaten since 6:30 that morning and it was 12:30 on a Sunday! After my father noticed how tired I was, we said goodbye and headed back home.

While we were at church my dad pointed at a little girl near me and said it was his daughter who lives in the village. I keep discovering that my dad has more children every single day. Tonight he told me he has a son in Ghana studying English at the University. He told me that he gave his son my phone number so he can call me to practice English…I can’t wait for this person I’ve never met to call and converse with me in broken English while I am here. Burkinabe families have very diverse structures that are never really explained to us. I have no idea why one of my sisters lives in this village. I’m also curious how many children my father actually has. If I’m meeting 1-2 a day at this point, he will have about 100 by the time I leave their house.

Tonight, I talked to my dad and my brother Sidoin for a while after dinner. I tried to explain what jobs my family members have in the US. It was really difficult because they are jobs that don’t really exist here and I don’t know how to say them in French. I said my father evaluates the value of properties, houses, buildings and land, for a branch of the government. They think my dad inspects houses after they are sold. I told them my mom hires people and she helps people with problems like health insurance if they go to the hospital. They think my mom is an accountant for hospital insurance. Explaining my brother’s job as a business consultant went terribly. I tried to say he is hired by varying companies to help when they have a problem. I said for example, a company wants to introduce a new product to a region. He researches and evaluates the region and their needs, then helps the company appropriately market the product. They said they understood after I elaborated for ten minutes. Then they asked me if I bought my computer from my brother because he sells laptops and cell phones.

Our next topic was brought on by my brother and it was about my love life. He wanted to know about dating in the US and what it’s like compared to Burkina. He said that I am too old to not be married here because you get married when you’re 18. Then he asked why I don’t have a boyfriend and I explained that I didn’t want to leave anyone behind in the US. Sidoin interpreted this as me saying I wanted to bring someone home to the US with me. So he started telling me that I need to meet someone here and take them home with me. He informed me that every single man here would want to go to the US. He also said that when someone likes me they will just walk up to me and say they love me (without knowing me) and we will be together then get married and move to the US. Dating sounds so uncomplicated in Burkina! When I said that I would tell the person they are crazy because we don’t know each other, Sidoin said that response is not a possibility. I explained that I don’t think a relationship would last once we got to the US because the circumstances would be so different. His response was that after two months I could get divorced and find another man and he would be happy to stay in the US. I got this weird feeling that my brother wants me to take him to America. He keeps saying it’s the land of dreams and that he really wants to go there and he’s studying English right now to become an interpreter in the US. And he’s single and I’m single so clearly all criteria match for marriage.

 Tomorrow all of us are going to the embassy in Ouaga to be introduced to the people working there. All of us are giddy with excitement because there is an American cafeteria! We got to pre-order our lunches and I think most people ordered enough food for two meals. When I was with a group of trainees today we all talked about how excited we are for our taco salads with guacamole and milkshakes. We’re in for disaster if we’re already missing food from home this early in the game!