Village Girl in the Big City

My best friend in village is my 15 year old neighbor. This may seem strange to non-PCV’s but I could probably write an entire separate blog entry on why kids/teenagers make the best friends in villages. For now, though, you’ll have to take my word for it – they make some of the best friends.

Anyways, my friend, Odile, has barely left village. The few times she has was to go to the small town 12 km up the road, which hardly counts as leaving village. So, since she’s been my friend for almost 2 years and I’m leaving soon, I wanted to do something special for her. I decided to take her to Bobo.

We started our voyage at 8 AM the Friday before school started. Or at least we were SUPPOSED to start at 8 AM. Of course for a Burkinabe (especially a villager) meeting times are really just suggestions. Having never left village, Odile didn’t seem to realize that when a bus is supposed to leave at a certain time, it’s generally a good idea to be at the bus station on time. Especially when you’re taking one of the 2 bus companies in the country that usually leave on time. Luckily, I had anticipated this when I planned to leave at 8.
So sometime after 8 AM, we’re on the road. I expected her to be giggly and excited as she had been all week leading up to the trip. However, she IS a 15 year old girl so the other option for 15 year old girls is to act very cool like she takes buses to the second largest city in the country all the time. Odile chose this option. (Though a 15 year old girl who takes buses all the time would probably have slept during the trip instead of staring incredulously out the window and asking “Is this Banfora? Is this Bobo?” every time we came to a village or town along the way).

We got to Bobo at lunch time and had some tasty kebobs and fries before going to relax at the PC office. The PC office is full of wonders for someone coming from a village. First of all, there is a toilet. I can confidently say this was Odile’s first time seeing indoor plumbing let alone a toilet. In addition to a toilet, there is a shower. When it came time to shower, she said “We should go get water, huh?” “Oh, no,” I smiled, “Follow me!” and showed her the marvels of the shower – just turn a knob and as much water as you want falls on your head! Genius!

There is also a refrigerator/freezer at the office. Odile wanted to fill every bottle she’d collected during our trip (every villager knows you can NOT throw away a plastic bottle – there are so many uses for them!) with water and leave them in the freezer. Hours later when she pulled one out that was entirely frozen, she cried out in amazement. “LINDSY! It is all solid! The whole thing! And so cold!” I can go out on a limb and say she has never seen ice before our trip.

So, the office was full of wonders, surely the rest of the city must be too. We went to the Grand Marche to look around. Odile was insistent about buying things despite my continuous warnings that the Bobo Grand Marche would not have much to offer her for $4. Certainly not the pair of pants and school bag she was hoping to buy for herself and the toy she wanted to buy for her little sister. As we walked around, I let her do the talking since I certainly didn’t want to try buying anything in that ridiculous market. She very quickly learned how far her money would go – the answer was not very far at all. After half an hour, she had spent almost all of her money on a pair of pants and much to my relief, she was ready to leave. I took us instead to the market I prefer – the western style super market. We bought a variety of things including sausage, cheese, a pineapple, and chocolate cake (none of which she’d ever tasted – a problem I eagerly sought to rectify.)

We took our goodies back to the office where we ate and watched a movie on my computer. Here is where I thought I would get more of a reaction from her. Until this point, she had not seen my computer. She had certainly never seen anything computers can do like go on the internet, talk to someone on another continent for free…but none of these things seemed to impress her. Eventually I concluded that this technology was so far beyond what she had ever seen before, she didn’t really grasp it. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself because I personally think the internet is amazing so everyone else should too.

After spending the night in a hostel (where she was too cold because I kept the fan on all night)we had a leisurely breakfast and got ready to go back to village. When we got back, I started wondering if the trip had been as special for her as I’d wanted it to be. I didn’t have to wonder for very long. The next day, Odile’s little sister came up to me and said, “Odile said you guys slept in a bed and had a fan. And that you didn’t have to go get water it just came out and you stood under it. And…” I smiled as she continued, satisfied that even if the trip wasn’t quite what either of us had imagined it would be, neither of us would forget it.