So it has been quite some time since I have written a blog. Mainly because I didn’t have a lot of time and also, I was going through…I guess they should be best called “lessons to learn.” I didn’t really want to type any blogs because I feared writing about the challenges because it might be perceived as complaining. The reality is my life here is not always perfect “rainy days”… Where shall I begin?
My neighbors left. There are new neighbors, a man and his teenage son, but it’s just not the same. I did everything with my first neighbors! We ate, laughed, watched TV, talked about life, went to the market, I reviewed homework with their kids…the list goes on and on. They were not neighbors, they were like family! Heck, on my dad’s birthday, October 17th, we had a mini birthday party here for him. We ate great food, I taught them how to say “happy birthday” in English and we even called my dad and passed the phone around so everyone could say happy birthday in their best English. I can’t explain how nice it was to find myself in an unknown town and I was able to connect with such a warm and welcoming family. Unfortunately for me, they left and moved pretty far away. The Burkinabe system of public employment is similar to the French system in that when a person works for the public system, the government can move them to the area where there is a need. So for example, teachers, post office workers, police, etc are placed at posts and can be deployed to another. I guess like our military moves around. The husband of the family is a police officer and his wife is a stay at home parent. It was with her and her children that I connected with the most since she was always around when I got off of work.
I think another thing that made my neighbor and I so close was that we were both foreigners in town. She is in fact Burkinabe, but she comes from a different region in Burkina. She is a different ethnicity from the people here and speaks a completely different local language. Keep in mind, Burkina, while almost everyone here is African and more precisely Burkinabe born, this is a very diverse country with 60 different ethnicities all in a country the size of the state of Colorado…nuts, I know. Considering both of our language barriers, market days together were quite interesting. We would go to the market and bargain shop and the two of us had the same level of local language. The woman selling tomatoes would say the price in Moore and then we would look at each other and in French translate and verify that we heard her right. It is quite funny because most often when a westerner does not understand the local language, people rely on the fact that they are hanging with a Burkinabe and assume that they can translate local language into French for them. Nope! Sometimes I think my Moore was better than hers…haha.
Because I was so close to my neighbor, we often talked about our families and how much we missed them. It has been 3 almost 4 years since she has had the time and money to go see her family. I demised a plan in my head on how I could help my friend go see her family and show her now 4 month old to her aging parents. I figured if I told her that I was looking for someone to help me mop my floors once a week and asked if she knew where I could find someone like that, she would suggest herself. The plan worked! She checked with her husband to see if it was ok and came back to me a day later and told me that she would totally do it. I asked her, her price and she ensured me that there was no price between us and that she would do it without worrying about the money. If I wanted to give her a tip at the end of the month, she said that was fine, but don’t worry about it. Well, I absolutely adored her and wanted to help her see her family. Even though she came to my house once a week to mop my floors and then she also insisted on washing my clothes for me another day of the week, I paid her the same amount per month that someone gets paid when they do everything including cook all meals 7 days a week. I totally overpaid her, but how could I not?! We did everything together and I wanted her to be able to save up to see her parents. She was quite shocked at the end of October when I gave her the money and also excited that I thought about her being able to save to see her family. When I paid her the first time is when I revealed my plan. A few days later her husband got word that he was being deployed to another town. I was devastated!
“Ma Voisine”, which means my female neighbor in French, ironically that is what we called each other, was leaving me! Here relationships with others mean a great deal. Even when it comes to marriages, it is not just two people who come together here it is the two entire family networks that join. If there is trouble between the couple, the two families come together to find solutions. Might be why among other things the divorce rate is so low here, but that is going to have to be another blog. So as you can imagine, by me being friends with them, whatever network that they had automatically became my network. Sadly, it was after destroying the network that I truly learned that.
Before leaving Ma Voisine asked me if her sister in-law could take her place in helping me around the house. I trusted that it would be a good match as I trusted her judgment. Her sister in-law was in a similar situation as her husband is a police officer and she too was from a different region. They lived not far from me, about a half a mile up the street. Her husband came with her to the formal introduction and work agreement. I told her the expectations, and also asked her price and explained that Ma Voisine and I had not established a price because it was between friends. She insisted that she was “la meme chose,” the same thing in French. So I told her what I paid my neighbor and I would pay her the same thing.
After about 2 weeks of eating alone, wishing my neighbors were back and going to her sister in-laws 2 or 3 times and trying to engage her the way I engaged my neighbor, I realized I was in over my head. I was paying too much for a service that I could do on my own and thanksgiving was coming and I wanted to have a big dinner. I couldn’t afford to think that I could pay her at the end of the month and also pay for the dinner. So like any corporation that knows anything, I decided to downsize. Heck, I can wash my own clothes and mop my own floor. I did my own laundry by hand for two years the first time I was here…I can do it again for less than 10 months. So I rationalized that I would pay her for the half month that she worked and thank her for her time, but I couldn’t afford it and plus I originally was doing it in order to help out a friend, hoping she would understand.
OMG! Talk about a poor decision making! I was totally thinking in terms of being an American Corporation! I took no time to consider her own personal thoughts, as she prepared in her mind to get paid for the next few months, nor did I consider the Burkinabe standard of solidarity. Not only did I get an earful from her about how it was inappropriate for me to tell her that I no longer needed her services without first calling together everyone who was at the initial introduction, but also that she didn’t care about my money and actually refused to take the half month pay. She insisted that she was “la meme chose,” the same thing, as my neighbor. And I could do everything with her that I did with the other and that the friendship was carried on through her. She told me that she actually had no idea that I was going to pay her when she first agreed to help me out. Apparently, my neighbor went to her and asked her to kinda look out for me since I wasn’t from around here and maybe we would hit it off since she was in the same boat. It wasn’t until I talked about pay when we had the formal introduction that it even entered her mind. She was doing this out of her love for her sister in-law and for me to refuse her assistance made no sense. She told me that what she was doing for me was nothing (which I agreed that the workload was pretty light considering what most people do here) and that I went about this all wrong. She is absolutely right. I did go about it all wrong. And in the midst of it, messed up the line of network I did have through my friend. Now, I almost always eat alone (except for thanksgiving) and the 2 or 3 times that I went to her house before have turned into 0. She came by before from time to time to check on me, that too dried up. What can I say, I learned my lesson. I definitely have more money in my pocket, but one less line of friendship…
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