This month has gone by very quickly, but I also feel like I’ve been in Ouaga for quite awhile. I leave on Friday morning for Ghana. There, I’ll spend two nights on the beach in Kokrobite, and the last night in Accra before catching the flight to NYC. My mom is coming to meet me in New York, so I will eat exciting food for four days (such as raw vegetables, dairy products and fruit-that-aren’t-mangos). Then I board a flight for Guatemala, where I’ll spend six weeks before capping off my trip with 10 days in Mexico? (Hate me? Sorry. Know who loves me? TD Bank, and their student line of credit that I use irresponsibly.)
Anyways, what have I been doing? Not a whole heck of a lot. The research project is not really working out. In the end, I’ll have 7, or maybe make that 6 1/2 interviews. But more than just the quantity, it’s the quality of the interviews that are really screwing me over. I’m asking: what do Burkinabe NGOs think about polygamy? How does it affect their programs? The answers? We don’t really think about polygamy, and it doesn’t affect what we do whatsoever. Interesting, but not exactly enough for me to write a thesis on.
So instead, I’ve been doing not much. (Seems to me that most people involved in development mostly do not much.) I read a lot (In the last 7 days I’ve read both the Handmaid’s Tale and Foundation, and before that I’ve read Catch 22, Cat’s Cradle, the Golden Compass and the Life of Pi) and I play with the kids in the family. I’ve been hanging out a bunch with a couple other foreigners, as well as some Burkinabé friends. I’ve been walking around, buying stuff a bit too much (I’m broke), and studying for the GRE. I’ve been hiding out from the oppressive heat in internet cafes, where I transcribe interviews and dick around online.
I am starting to realize that I don’t really like doing research through interviewing. It makes me feel awkward, and I don’t enjoy it. Call me boring, but maybe policy-related studies is my true calling, because I get a lot more out of using government documents and statistics as my data.
Anyways, the most interesting event since my last post was the trip to Sapone. I think, however, that not many people will understand how I felt going there, except maybe Danielle and Linda. It’s weird going back to a place loaded with memory, especially a place that you had said goodbye to, thinking you might not be back.
I guess, for me, Sapone was all about the kids. The enormous gaggle of kids who watched and laughed at our every move, and entertained us when there was nothing else to do (which was often.) I had sort of wondered whether they would remember me, or whether I would just be lumped in with the category of “white people who have stayed in the village.” I was, however, overjoyed that they remembered my name, or at least the Moorefied version of my name – “Catalindi.” Some had grown a lot, some were disturbingly almost the same size. None seemed to have disappeared. It felt like nothing had changed, for much of my time there – I walked around and said hello almost like no time had gone by.
The town has also grown. There are new houses and other buildings all over the place. Prosperity has perhaps increased, because there is a wider variety of vegetables available in the marketplace. But besides that, everything is where it was, as I remember it. The dude who runs “Sport Bar Sapone” is still creepy, the woman who sells dried smelly fish still loud and boisterous. The countryside is still beautiful, in a harsh, rugged way that only some people seem to like. There are still farm animals wandering by my table in the morning, and goats still hide out in the toilet when it’s raining. The cockroaches, however, seem to have diminished.
But these details are all secondary, because for me the places I love are all about the intangible feel of the place. In Sapone, it was a feeling of contentment, of peace, of the tranquility I felt when I breathed in the air in the morning. I got to feel that again. The year after I left Burkina the first time was hard, and somewhat tumultuous at least in my personal life. Since I’ve moved to Ottawa I’ve become very happy and content, but I always felt like I had to go back. I have now, and I feel sort of put back together again.
I don’t really know if I will go back to Burkina again any time soon. I was thinking of going back in February to continue my research, but since the project doesn’t really work I don’t think it will be worth it. I think there’s a big chance I will be back in Burkina one day but not anytime soon, unless I get a job or some other sort of official reason to come here. I’ve come back now, I’ve revisited, I’ve proved to people and myself that I didn’t forget the place, I’ve made my peace and all that cheesy stuff. I think now I want to look forward and see new places. But I still love this country, even though it’s a frustrating and annoying love.
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