Yel Kaye – Travel Blog, Writing and Photography

I’m probably getting way ahead of myself here in the “epic memoir” department, but I don’t think I can write much about Sapone without outlining at least some of the people who populated the neighborhood I lived in. I’ve exchanged a few emails with Danielle since we’ve left Burkina Faso, but I remember one in particular, because it reflected my own sentiments exactly. “I want to go back,” she said. “There really is something about Sapone.”

Okay, so I probably would have gotten just as attached to any village in Burkina Faso. But when I blabber on about Burkina Faso, or reminisce about my “time in Africa,” most of my memories center on the village of Sapone, especially the little neighborhood in which we lived. And, for whatever reason, the village does exist in my mind as a “special” place, as ordinary as it may have been for its inhabitants.

I feel horrible. I promised so many people I’d write. But the children barely had real address, and my Moore is worse than their French. Every day passes and I don’t forget anything but I can’t bring myself to write. What would I say? Who would I write to? The only people I’ve kept in touch with are my coworker Adama, and our neighbor Helene, who also happened to be the only French-speaking people that I really connected with. Most of the people that I cared about speak only Moore.

I’m pretty sure I’ll go back next summer. No, I know I’ll go back next summer. I don’t really think I can go much longer than that. But the countryside can be so surprisingly transient… what if one of the families I knew packed up and left for Ouagadougou, or for Cote D’Ivoire? Or, I hate to say it, what if there was a bad bout of malaria?

I should stop, and get on with this. Here are some of the people that populated the little bubble in which I lived for three months.

This is Ruth and Madeleine. Ruth is the younger sister of our friend Zaki. Both girls were outgoing, cheerful and sassy, and spoke moderately good French. They’d come over to our place every so often, to drink tea and play cards. Both girls were a huge inspiration to me; they constantly defied the demure stereotypes that I’d practically taken for granted as the norm for Burkinabe women. I asked Zaki once if she was planning on getting married soon like so many other sixteen year old girls, and she laughed at the prospect. She didn’t want to get married until she was at least twenty-five, she told me. Ruth, who was playing with my camera and giggling hysterically, agreed.

Madeleine was a shyer girl, the fifteen year old daughter of my friend Helene. She is the splitting image of her mother, but much more soft-spoken. I didn’t get to know her that well, because she moved to Ouagadougou for summer vacation to work as a maid for a family in the rich neighborhood of Ouaga 2000. Her mother said she hated it. Right before she left, Ruth, Zaki and Madeleine came visiting us one day, dressed up in their finest and informed us that they wanted a photoshoot. That’s when I captured the photograph above.

This is Mme. Ilboudo (with her baby Karim), who we knew most of the summer as “Tidi and Alindi’s mom.” She’s the mother of Ismael, Michael, Tidi, Alindi and Karim. She also takes care of Chantal, her niece. Her children became some of our favourite friends, all beautiful with big, wide eyes. Mme. Ilboudo didn’t really speak French, so I had to always get Helene whenever I wanted to communicate with her. She was taking a French class for adult women in the village, though, which I thought was really neat. It seemed that almost every day that she was not out in the field she was sitting in her yard at the loom, making cloth. I commissioned her to make me a big striped blanket, which now hangs on my wall in Toronto. It’s too bad that I don’t speak Moore, because I always wished that I could speak to her. She encapsulated the quiet grace of Mossi women, and their generosity. I gave her family most of my things when I left, and I hope that her children are lying under my mosquito net right now.

Ismael is Mme Ilboudo’s oldest child. He’s maybe seven or eight, although we never found out for certain. Ismael is deaf and mute, but contagiously cheerful. Like a lot of the other kids, he used to come for jogs with us, but like me he’d always give up before Linda and the older boys. Every time we’d hide behind a bush, and lie in wait for the others to come jogging back so we could jump out and scare them. And every time, his giggles would give us away and the boys would always spot us. Ismael’s favourite game was “stella ella ola,” which we taught to the kids on our first week. Even though he couldn’t talk, whenever we were sitting in a circle he would grab the hands of those beside him and gesture wildly until we were convinced to play yet again.