On Tuesday morning I received a message from a girl who is in Burkina Faso right now, working for the same organization as I did last summer. I had written her asking how all the kids are. “They’re good,” she said. “They talk about you all the time.” Upon reading this, I proceeded to burst into a brief fit of tears.
This is Chantal Ilboudo. She lives with Mme Ilboudo, her aunt. I never did get her complete story, but I surmised that she must be an orphan. Chantal is 10 years old, but looks and acts at least 16, most of the time. She’s older than Mme Ilboudo’s five children, and it seemed that she did all the babysitting. It was a rare sight to see her without the baby Karim. Her hands are huge, covered in rough callouses from all her chores.
Chantal was my introduction to a voiceless group in Burkinabe society – girls who don’t go to school. She will probably never leave Sapone, and will probably never learn French. She will probably get married young, and have five children before the age of twenty-five.
On my last night in Sapone, Chantal and her school-going friend Sidonie came to visit me. Chantal sat beside me, and wrapped her arm around mine. She mumbled something in Moore. “Elle ne veux pas que tu pars,” Sidonie explained.
This is Dorcas, the daughter of Helene, the woman I still write letters to and who lived next door to us. Dorcas’ father is a Protestant minister, and her mother does not work. Her family was visibly better-off than the Ilboudos and their other neighbors. Dorcas and her siblings looked healthy, and her older brother and sister went to high school, which is much more expensive than elementary school.
I often called Dorcas my “favourite kid,” despite the fact that she was quiet and didn’t seem that impressed with us. Sure, she’d come and shake our hands like all the other children. But when the other kids laughed hysterically at our silly white-people antics, she’d just sort of sigh and keep silent. She was so quiet that her mother confided that she was worried that Dorcas would be shy as an adult!
I decided that Dorcas was not actually shy, though, just soft-spoken. In many ways, she was the boldest of the kids. She used to climb the tree next to our house every day, going high enough to spy on us. (In fact, she broke her arm falling out of this tree.) She was always the fastest to run out and greet us, and whenever the older kids asked her, she would sing us an entire song without faltering.
Dorcas started school this year. By the time I hopefully go back next summer, she will be nine years old with two years of French classes behind her. I hope I’ll get to actually talk to her then.
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