Last Thoughts on Burkina Faso

Some of Zogore's hard workers take a photo break



Zogore's next generation plays in a tire
Photo: David Noyes



Impressions from the outside looking in have a way of distorting or presenting an incomplete picture. With that in mind, as my time in Burkina Faso came to a close, I asked some people in village what they thought of their nation’s place in the world. I asked two questions: What about Burkina are they most proud of, and what is the biggest challenge faced by the country.

Reponses were varied, but by far the most common source of pride was domestic peace. That’s not to say Burkina was totally free of conflict; there were a handful of riots and the odd act of public property destruction from 2006 to 2008, over such issues as rising food costs and poor conditions at the university. However, for the most part, and especially when compared to recent civil wars in neighboring countries like Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, Burkina has been a model of tranquility.

A cynic might say that there is little of value to fight over in such an impoverished country. A more generous viewpoint would be that the sixty some ethnic groups that live in Burkina have found ways to live in peace together. Ethnic conflicts in Africa have a tendency to break out over simmering tensions that can erupt with little provocation, as was the case in Kenya after their disputed election last year. However, while the various tribes in Burkina enjoy friendly rivalries- look at the Mossi in Zogore calling their neighbor Samo people slaves, and vice versa- they still live together, work together, and laugh together. The Burkinabe will face perhaps their biggest test yet sometime in the still indefinite future whenever twenty-one year sitting president Blaise Compaore leaves office- graceful transitions of power are rare in Africa- but here’s to hoping they can handle it with the same dignity and peace with which they conduct themselves in other affairs.

Aside from peace, other factors were also mentioned as sources of pride in people’s lives. Two people cited the increasing viability of animal husbandry allowing people to make a living where few other options exist. Sawadogo Raogo, a farmer, said he was proud of the ongoing decentralization efforts by the state that would put more responsibility for development in the hands of the people themselves. Others said they were most proud of social and public health issues such as the reduction of forced marriages, efforts to help handicapped people make a living and better integrate into society, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. One surprising response came from Tinto Adama, a 17 year old farmer, who said he was most proud that the state upholds a ban on homosexual marriage.

While social peace was a clear choice for most people’s pride, responses regarding Burkina’s biggest challenge revolved around poverty, hunger, and poor farming conditions. Rainfall can be erratic and frequently insufficient, soil quality is poor, and consequently it is difficult to farm enough crops to feed a family. “Even though we work hard during the rainy season, people still aren’t getting enough to eat,” says Ouedraogo Hamido, a farmer. Ouedraogo Kone, a farmer and carpenter, adds, “Our soil is impoverished and we need new methods so that the land remains fertile.” Combine those problems with a lack of other exploitable resources, plus drastic unemployment levels, and people’s options are few. It’s a rather nasty cycle and one difficult to see solutions for. It can be easy to condemn other African nations such as Zimbabwe, Congo, or Guinea, which are rich in natural resources but remain in desperate poverty due to myriad factors such as poor management, corruption, and armed conflict. In Burkina’s case, however, it is difficult to figure out what exactly people could be producing to improve their situation. If you have any ideas, I know 13 million people who would be eager to hear them.

What is Burkina, then? Can it be adequately described as a poor, but peaceful country? People struggling to make a living while teetering on the edge of disaster . . . Yes, but there’s more, so much more to the place, so much to be seen and experienced inside that stark framework:

It is rusted one speed bicycles and old Peugeot 50 mopeds, sheep, goats and donkey carts, Yamaha motorcycles and shiny white Land Rovers driven by foreign aid workers. It’s red dirt and blue sky, green grass for a third of the year, and the occasional spectacular thunderstorm. It’s stars, thousands of millions of stars, the milky way, big dipper, and Venus in the evening. It’s millet tô and baobab sauce, vache qui rit cheese wedges and hamburgers in the capital. It’s village soccer games where fights break out between fans. It’s arrogant public servants and malnourished children, mansions in Ouagadougou and mud huts in the villages. It’s corruption, bribery, and misdirection of funds, and a welcoming glass of water and a place to sleep in any courtyard. It’s the poorest people in the world, willing to share everything they have with a stranger. It’s sex, teenage pregnancies and rape and prostitution, and families that live together for generations and help each other, and collectively look out for all the children, the naked children, or pantless, or shirtless with a raggedy pair of panties, racing, playing, going to the bathroom in the streets, chanting “Bonjour Madame!” outside my door and serenading “Nasara Bye-Bye!” as I ride by on my bike. It’s deforestation and reforestation, floods and droughts. It’s a wedding party, dancing until four in the morning, an all male congo line while the new bride serves food and beer. It’s beggars and grafters, alongside some of the hardest working people on the planet. It’s all that and more, so much more than could ever be written on paper, or seen in two years, or a lifetime. If there were one word that could possibly describe this part of the world, with its sorrows, its joys, its contradictions and its spirit, it would be: unconstrained. Rules are few, personalities are many, and anything is possible. And it remains so, despite all the pundits and politicians, clerics and bureaucrats, aid workers, volunteers, and writers, who want to package, sanitize, summarize, regulate, tax, control, exploit, and help the place. Despite all, it remains unique, uncensored, and unconstrained. And maybe that’s what Burkina has to offer the world.