It’s quite possible that my heart is still in West Africa.

Yes, life is good here in Guatemala. I love this country. I love speaking Spanish (far more than I will ever love French). I love the music here, the food, the culture. There’s lots to do and I have tons of friends in the country, both foreign and local. It’s cheap, and it’s beautiful. Yes, life is good for me here.

But still, a few nights ago I was hanging out with a friend and I mentioned offhand to him that a part of my heart was still in Burkina Faso.

Weird that I said that, because last night I stumbled upon the news that Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina Faso) has been devastated by floods. The news is two weeks old: apparently, that’s how obscure Burkina Faso is: that it experiences its worst flood in 50 years and neither me or my journalist parents know about it for two weeks.

According to the news I’ve read only, the floods on September 1st have left around 150,000 people homeless in Ouagadougou (a city of just over a million people.) 110,000 of these people are being temporarily housed in schools, churches and other buildings around the city. Of course, it is questionable how great these temporary shelters can be in a country with so few resources, so diarrhea and other water-born illnesses are on the rise and likely to cause a big problem.

I thought that I had become pretty cold and callous by this point of my life, but when I read this news I cried. Like really, really cried. To the point where one of my Guatemalan roommates came in and I had to assure him I wasn’t crying about some boy, but a far-off natural disaster.

I feel shitty for a number of reasons, aside from the obvious sadness of so many people in such a poor place leaving their homes.

One: I didn’t hear about this for a long time. I guess I am so wrapped up in my little Quetzaltenango world that I have forgotten to check on things that are very important to me.

Two: I have no real way of contacting the vast majority of people I know in Ouagadougou. The damage appears to be pretty widespread throughout the city, so there is a good chance at least some of the people I know have lost their homes.

Three: I am not there right now, I am here. As I said, life is easy here in Guatemala. Besides needing to be careful about my safety, I am not really challenged here. It’s a cushy existence, really. I wish I could be there to lend a hand to people I know, or at least share in what’s going on.

I am usually pretty unaffected by what I read in the news. Yes, if I read about something bad that happens I feel vaguely sad or angry, but it has no real emotional immediacy. I guess it takes something being closer to home to feel that, even if that home is so very far away.

I am not sure if my heart is here, then. I am happy to be here, learning about this place. But I think maybe after the next six months in Central America it will be time to go back to Africa.

Photos of the Ouagadougou floods from the BBC.

Last year in February, I monitored the news from Burkina Faso. I got a bit nervous after reading about the huge food riots and the fact that the main opposition leader had been thrown in jail for allegedly “orchestrating” them. Things had calmed down that summer by the time I arrived for my research trip. While I was there, though, students at the University of Ouagadougou threw a huge protest about the potential privatization of their school. For the rest of my time in Ouaga, when I drove past the university every day the campus was lined with tanks.

Anyways, there’s some shit going down in Guatemala right now, and I’m anxious to go there and get a better idea of what’s really happening.

This is what I know:

Rodrigo Rosenberg, a Guatemalan attorney was murdered on May 10th while riding his bicycle. Soon after, the following pre-recorded video was released, in which Rosenberg says that if he was murdered, it was the work of President Colom.

Anyways, the many people in Guatemala are calling for Colom’s resignation. Others (including Colom, of course) argue that this is a right-wing conspiracy to take down the government. I don’t know enough about Guatemala to know what I think.

An even weirder turn came a couple days later when a Guatemalan Twitter user was arrested for posting a tweet suggesting that Guatemalans should withdraw their money from the bank Banrural, in order to “break the banks of corrupt people.” He was charged with inciting financial panic. Apparently, he has just been freed but will face fines of 6500 US$.

Anyways, weird to think what a prominent role the internet has had in all this. Fifteen years ago, could this scandal even have occurred? After all, it seems to me that the Rosenberg video was mostly disseminated by Youtube, and Twitter is a complete recent phenomenon.

Well, I leave for Guatemala in one month! Guess I will know more then.