It’s been decades since I had the privilege of teaching a group of visiting French-speaking teachers from African countries. They were studying at the University of Quebec when a colleague of mine with connections to that school suggested the university enhance their education during the summer session by sending them to my university in southwestern Pennsylvania. Ordinarily, as residents of colonial Afrique-Occidentale française, they conversed in French. Unfortunately for them, much of the graduate level literature they needed to read was written in English, thus their need for tutoring. For whatever reason, I was given the task of improving their English, not an easy job for someone who spoke no more French than Pepé Le Pew, the Looney Tunes animated skunk. But, hey, no guts, no glory.
So, I entered the task with some trepidation. I was about to spend five hours each day in a classroom and longer on Fridays as I took them to sites both natural (like a state park) and artificial (like a museum) where I would engage them in conversations about things and processes. I believed that my task involved more than just trying to communicate with people of a different tongue and culture. I wanted to to instill in them an unfamiliar perspective and idiosyncrasy. These people from Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), and the Cameroons, were already teachers in their home countries, and were pursuing advanced degrees in French-speaking Canada. All of them were Muslim, a cultural heritage that differed from my Judeo-Christian and western world perspective.
I ended the task with joy. Not only did my charges become quite proficient in English, but they also imbued in me some hope. They were, generally, among the most friendly and peaceful people I ever met, and they were kind and inquisitive. With a caveat. And that was a very pleasant large man whose yellow teeth, covered in a thick layer of plaque, seem never to have met a toothbrush. He hailed from Upper Volta; and though I don’t remember his telling me, he probably spoke Moore as well as French.
Honestly, I’ve tried to remember, but I just can’t recall his name these many decades later. I do remember his descriptions of life in his homeland. Let’s go with its current name, Burkina Faso, which means “land of incorruptible people.” BK is a hot land, so much so that the locals in the north, he told me, will put flammable materials like kerosene in the shade for fear that they will ignite under the persistent heat of the Saharan and sub-Saharan country. Now, that story of kerosene seemed to me at the time an exaggeration and one akin to stories of spontaneous combustion I’ve yet to see materialize unless it’s the product of dropping the alkali metals Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, and Fr into water under lab conditions. But his point was easy to take: Burkina Faso can be summer on steroids. It is a hot place, lots of sunshine interrupted by a four-month rainy season. During the mostly dry year, the country can be swept by the harmattan, a phenomenon akin to the Santa Ana winds that fan wildfires in the American Southwest. And BK was at the time—and still is—poor. Really, really poor. Most (maybe 80%) of the people rely on subsistence farming. Few are gainfully employed in manufacturing.
For most citizens of BK living was not then and is not now easy. But the capital does have its share of “upper class.” I take the anecdotal evidence for that from a graduation ceremony I attended at expensive ($50K/yr) Western Reserve Academy in Ohio about a half dozen years ago. A classmate of the young friend I saw graduate that day lived in Ouagadougou, making him a Burkinabè, a caucasian Burkinabè if you care to ask. Obviously, someone in Burkina Faso has money. That makes some sense because in its founding, Burkina Faso, nee Upper Volta (the River Volta), was originally called Kumbee-Tenga, or "the land of princes.” Its capital, the aforementioned Ouagadougou (I love saying it), a city of 2.5 million Burkinabès, hosts the pan-African film festival known as the Ouagadougou Film and Television Festival; the area also has a wildlife park, and the nearby forest harbors elephants if you’re interested in being one of approximately 200,000 foreign visitors every year. Just be aware because…
Life has been even harder for the people in BK over the past five years than it was when he and I discussed the conditions of Upper Volta. But I predicted that worsening of conditions after hearing him discuss his homeland. He was a communist, he said. And whereas I could understand his motivation born of ubiquitous countryside poverty, I also recognized the dangers in his politics. I believe those dangers manifested themselves in the sudden increase in Ouagadougou’s population, a burgeoning of about a million people in under a decade. People with very little, people drowning in the middle of a desert in a sea of poverty, were—and still are—desperate for relief. People living under the threat throughout the rural areas run to the cities for protection.
People with no hope engender rebellion. Rebellion then precipitates indiscriminate cruelty and harm, often in motiveless malignity. Subsistence farming and a very weak economy make something like the American Dream rather impossible unless one turns to the windfalls of political corruption. Could this “land of incorruptible people” harbor corrupt people?
But why should any American, European, or Asian care? Most have probably never heard of Burkina Faso. On-the-street surveys reveal that many American youth believe Africa is a country. Practically no one seems to know of the downward spiral caused by the militias and by international neglect and incompetent government officials. Right now, on the world stage Ukrainian refugees are front and center. Right now, the charitable resources of European and American agencies go to those refugees. Besides, how can the world care for all the problematic poor in African countries? What’s next, taking care of people that have been displaced by cruel Rwandan-supported M23 militants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? This “caring for the poor” around the world is becoming increasingly more burdensome because of endless violence, much of it by people with a totalitarian bent.
BK’s harmattan blows despair over much of the country and makes me think of that Burkinabè I once briefly knew. I don’t know what happened to my charge from BK. I assume that after completing his graduate studies at the University of Quebec, he returned to his country with degree in hand. But to teach what to whom? I wonder whether or not he instilled in his students a communist perspective that they now enact these decades later as members and maybe even as leaders of a militia. With his international experience and education, did he become a leader?
Today, I even wonder whether or not he is still alive, or whether he ever brushed his plaque-encased teeth. Has he died in some skirmish either as a fighter or as an innocent victim of a terrorist attack? Did the harmattan of violence sweep over him? Did he become a “prince” in the former Kumbee-Tenga? Does he, as an educated person, attend the semi-annual film festival and live a life of relative affluence and self-care?
Whatever his fate, I assume it has been different from life during his brief sojourn in North America. And not just because of a different physical climate: He lived for a short while basking in the dimmer sun but brighter conditions of Canadian and American affluence of abundant toothpaste and toothbrushes and numerous dentists, where he was free from threats by militias and explosive cans of kerosene and where for many people the biggest threat of pain is a trip to one of those dentists or a flossing accident.
And whereas it is true that both Canada (more so) and the United States (less so) have turned in the midst of inordinate affluence toward socialism, a political and economic system akin to communism, he could, were he to return to his alma mater in this century, find a relatively safe land in which conflagration isn’t a daily threat either from exploding cans of kerosene left in the Saharan sun or from militia attacking individuals and infrastructure. North Americans generally live with less societal decay than most of the people in Third World Countries like Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic or the Congo. But without daily vigilance and care even people on this continent can be affected by a disrupting harmattan of socialism that blows ill over individualism and that drives some to attack their own country in usually futile desperation.
You might ask why I tell you this story. I wish had some profound lesson to tell or life-altering advice to give. Well, maybe this: Brush only the teeth you wish to keep.
So, I entered the task with some trepidation. I was about to spend five hours each day in a classroom and longer on Fridays as I took them to sites both natural (like a state park) and artificial (like a museum) where I would engage them in conversations about things and processes. I believed that my task involved more than just trying to communicate with people of a different tongue and culture. I wanted to to instill in them an unfamiliar perspective and idiosyncrasy. These people from Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), and the Cameroons, were already teachers in their home countries, and were pursuing advanced degrees in French-speaking Canada. All of them were Muslim, a cultural heritage that differed from my Judeo-Christian and western world perspective.
I ended the task with joy. Not only did my charges become quite proficient in English, but they also imbued in me some hope. They were, generally, among the most friendly and peaceful people I ever met, and they were kind and inquisitive. With a caveat. And that was a very pleasant large man whose yellow teeth, covered in a thick layer of plaque, seem never to have met a toothbrush. He hailed from Upper Volta; and though I don’t remember his telling me, he probably spoke Moore as well as French.
Honestly, I’ve tried to remember, but I just can’t recall his name these many decades later. I do remember his descriptions of life in his homeland. Let’s go with its current name, Burkina Faso, which means “land of incorruptible people.” BK is a hot land, so much so that the locals in the north, he told me, will put flammable materials like kerosene in the shade for fear that they will ignite under the persistent heat of the Saharan and sub-Saharan country. Now, that story of kerosene seemed to me at the time an exaggeration and one akin to stories of spontaneous combustion I’ve yet to see materialize unless it’s the product of dropping the alkali metals Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, and Fr into water under lab conditions. But his point was easy to take: Burkina Faso can be summer on steroids. It is a hot place, lots of sunshine interrupted by a four-month rainy season. During the mostly dry year, the country can be swept by the harmattan, a phenomenon akin to the Santa Ana winds that fan wildfires in the American Southwest. And BK was at the time—and still is—poor. Really, really poor. Most (maybe 80%) of the people rely on subsistence farming. Few are gainfully employed in manufacturing.
For most citizens of BK living was not then and is not now easy. But the capital does have its share of “upper class.” I take the anecdotal evidence for that from a graduation ceremony I attended at expensive ($50K/yr) Western Reserve Academy in Ohio about a half dozen years ago. A classmate of the young friend I saw graduate that day lived in Ouagadougou, making him a Burkinabè, a caucasian Burkinabè if you care to ask. Obviously, someone in Burkina Faso has money. That makes some sense because in its founding, Burkina Faso, nee Upper Volta (the River Volta), was originally called Kumbee-Tenga, or "the land of princes.” Its capital, the aforementioned Ouagadougou (I love saying it), a city of 2.5 million Burkinabès, hosts the pan-African film festival known as the Ouagadougou Film and Television Festival; the area also has a wildlife park, and the nearby forest harbors elephants if you’re interested in being one of approximately 200,000 foreign visitors every year. Just be aware because…
Life has been even harder for the people in BK over the past five years than it was when he and I discussed the conditions of Upper Volta. But I predicted that worsening of conditions after hearing him discuss his homeland. He was a communist, he said. And whereas I could understand his motivation born of ubiquitous countryside poverty, I also recognized the dangers in his politics. I believe those dangers manifested themselves in the sudden increase in Ouagadougou’s population, a burgeoning of about a million people in under a decade. People with very little, people drowning in the middle of a desert in a sea of poverty, were—and still are—desperate for relief. People living under the threat throughout the rural areas run to the cities for protection.
People with no hope engender rebellion. Rebellion then precipitates indiscriminate cruelty and harm, often in motiveless malignity. Subsistence farming and a very weak economy make something like the American Dream rather impossible unless one turns to the windfalls of political corruption. Could this “land of incorruptible people” harbor corrupt people?
But why should any American, European, or Asian care? Most have probably never heard of Burkina Faso. On-the-street surveys reveal that many American youth believe Africa is a country. Practically no one seems to know of the downward spiral caused by the militias and by international neglect and incompetent government officials. Right now, on the world stage Ukrainian refugees are front and center. Right now, the charitable resources of European and American agencies go to those refugees. Besides, how can the world care for all the problematic poor in African countries? What’s next, taking care of people that have been displaced by cruel Rwandan-supported M23 militants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? This “caring for the poor” around the world is becoming increasingly more burdensome because of endless violence, much of it by people with a totalitarian bent.
BK’s harmattan blows despair over much of the country and makes me think of that Burkinabè I once briefly knew. I don’t know what happened to my charge from BK. I assume that after completing his graduate studies at the University of Quebec, he returned to his country with degree in hand. But to teach what to whom? I wonder whether or not he instilled in his students a communist perspective that they now enact these decades later as members and maybe even as leaders of a militia. With his international experience and education, did he become a leader?
Today, I even wonder whether or not he is still alive, or whether he ever brushed his plaque-encased teeth. Has he died in some skirmish either as a fighter or as an innocent victim of a terrorist attack? Did the harmattan of violence sweep over him? Did he become a “prince” in the former Kumbee-Tenga? Does he, as an educated person, attend the semi-annual film festival and live a life of relative affluence and self-care?
Whatever his fate, I assume it has been different from life during his brief sojourn in North America. And not just because of a different physical climate: He lived for a short while basking in the dimmer sun but brighter conditions of Canadian and American affluence of abundant toothpaste and toothbrushes and numerous dentists, where he was free from threats by militias and explosive cans of kerosene and where for many people the biggest threat of pain is a trip to one of those dentists or a flossing accident.
And whereas it is true that both Canada (more so) and the United States (less so) have turned in the midst of inordinate affluence toward socialism, a political and economic system akin to communism, he could, were he to return to his alma mater in this century, find a relatively safe land in which conflagration isn’t a daily threat either from exploding cans of kerosene left in the Saharan sun or from militia attacking individuals and infrastructure. North Americans generally live with less societal decay than most of the people in Third World Countries like Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic or the Congo. But without daily vigilance and care even people on this continent can be affected by a disrupting harmattan of socialism that blows ill over individualism and that drives some to attack their own country in usually futile desperation.
You might ask why I tell you this story. I wish had some profound lesson to tell or life-altering advice to give. Well, maybe this: Brush only the teeth you wish to keep.
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