I never met more happy, cheerful, helpful and hospitable people than the Burkina be.
One month is not enough for sure to get know this country and the real hard lifestyle here,
not even to get used to it, but I am happy that I could come here at all.
We visited project for street children, nursery school in one poor village, national parks, ghettos in Ouaga, lived 3 days in a local families ,went to reggae pubs, markets, artists quarter,
discos and took part in the meetings with local officials and anti-capitalist international forum.The streets of Ouagadogou were flooded couple of times because of the rain, and I survived after riding motorcycle here which is dangerous experience.
Misery here is a lifestyle anyway, if you are not used to it after the 2 days, better go back home.
The young people here are open to learn a lot about our lives and experience but are careful with taking every proposition of change as reasonable and good for them
I can completely understand their scepticism because here it is full of rich
white people (by the way called by the locals “NASARAS” which means “white-skinned, a word which was used in the colonialist times here), they shop in the expensive supermarkets and explain to the local Africans how the should use their water resources efficiently, build housesand streets properly, make their business profit correctly, make their education better.
EXACTLY THE THINGS THAT WE KNOW FROM EXPEREINCE THAT EUROPEANS CAN DO BADLY.
The cultural and political differences between the European people and the localers are enormous.
It is both difficult for us to understand the local situation but also for the Burkina be to jump for seconds in 21 century EUROPEAN CAPITALIST REALITY!
We cannot understand why they like to have new mobile phones and buy cool clothes, why they admire the life we hate…
And they are curious how our society is still functioning while women and men supposed to be equal and homosexuality is tolerated.
They want to come to live, work and study in Europe, we want to stay and travel longer in Africa.
They believe their life will be better in Europe; we hopelessly try to explain to them that it might be just a bad dream.
They scare the Racism of the Europeans against the Africans, we scare the humiliation of the women rights in Africa.
They are angry that we can come whenever we want to their country, we are ungry that our governments are fascist totalitarianism preparing a metal fortress to close us in….
WE ARE SO DIFFERENT but IT IS ALL ABOUT OUR FREEDOM!
WE ARE ON THE RIGHT WAY when WE MEET AND TALK ABOUT OUR COMMON NEW FUTURE…
WE HAVE ENOUGH COMMON STRUGGLES…
WE ALL NEED TIME…
WE ALL WANT TO BE ABLE TO CHOOSE…
WE ALL WANT ANOTHER REALITY…
WE ALL DREAM, LOVE AND CRY…
WE ARE ALL TIRED AND CONFUSED SOMETIMES…
WE ALL NEED REAL FRIENDS AROUND US…
WE ALL WANT THAT “WE” IS REALLY EXISTING…
WE ALL SEARCH OUR IDENTITY,
CHASE OUR GOALS
AND
EXPECT
SOMETHING
MORE…
