If a Toubab Falls in a Forest, who Hears? Reflections on Life of Late.

We meet a man as we descend the cliff from Péni to Gnanfongo who asks, “where is the other Toubab? There were two. I saw you in Banfora.” The longer we stay here the less integrated we become and the more obvious we are in our efforts to conform. However, I can no longer blame them for studying us since it is indeed our job to come here and study them.

I loathe those who romanticize poverty. No one who knows their right mind loves Africa. It is not an easy or lovely place to live.

The way I figure it, we get 8 hours in the day to work, 8 to play, and 8 to sleep. But what if your day was not confined by the rules and regulations of 24-7 society? What if you instead split up your day with 8 hours to eat, 8 to pray, and 8 to love, for example? When you unplug from the mind-numbing distractions? Life becomes as long as the imagination.

Life is almost scripted here. Everyone has a role in life and they know exactly what to do, what to say, and how to say it for every situation. To do something other than the norm is a choice. Lamine, the village chief, explains to me after responding to an especially lengthy series of evening greetings from a guest that the child’s baptism was held today, seven days after his birth. The father sent someone to inform the Lamine of the occasion. He said, “therefore, I did not hear about the occasion and I did not attend. Now that the father has come in person, I have heard.”

“Why is this child afraid of me?” I ask a woman trying to hand me a screaming child who has almost certainly never seen a white person before. “Because your skin is clear and ours is black as charcoal, try to rub it off and see!”

Whereas in the West co-dependence is a disease, to be independent here is seen as insanity. Somehow, even though my skin glows more than the moon above, during our run last night I became separated from one of my housemates. I didn’t think too much of it, simply finished our workout with one of our neighbors who we were with and when we couldn’t find him, went home. Arriving at the house, everyone was terrified that I had been kidnapped or ran away from home and that they would be held responsible as my caretakers.

The concept of finishing is important here. One does not comment on the tastiness of a meal until one is finished eating. One does not comment on the fatigue of a journey until one has arrived at the destination. One does not give thanks for a task until the task is complete.

As a politeness strategy, people will often pose an obvious question to open a conversation or break the ice with a stranger. The question will necessitate agreement between both parties. A man approached us and after the greetings concluded he asked, “is your vehicle stuck?”

God and the Devil

What is the difference between being possessed by the devil and filled with the Holy Spirit? In the last five days I have witnessed both sides of the spectrum. An all-night, 21h – 5h prayer session entitled the Night of Change from Friday to Saturday gave me an incredible, but never again, experience in prayer. I witnessed dancing, singing, and jubilation, but also weeping, fainting, speaking in tongues, puking, and seizing. Upon inquiry, I was told, “this is prayer.” When at last pastors made rounds to cast out evil spirits (at around 4am) I could not tell the difference in a possessed person and a healed one. To describe the event as charismatic would be a drastic understatement. It was frankly frightening, yet it was also intimate.

In nearly 20 years of traveling back and forth to Africa, I have never felt so accepted. For once, I did not sense, nor did anyone point out, that I was the only stranger among them. Not only that, but the effects of the release of the tension, pain, suffering, anxiety, and hardship the people experience in their daily lives was to see true change. We took a break at about 1:30am and were given coffee and egg sandwiches. In any normal situation, the provision of free food and drink would have ensued chaos the likes of which are seen when someone throws out fifty dollar bills in a parade. However unexpectedly, we went out into the light rain and cloudy night to find a long line of calm people, waiting, greeting, chatting quietly, patiently waiting to receive their coffee, passing around sugar with kind words and benedictions.

In stark contrast to this event, Laura and I took a trip to the village, a place where fetishing is not merely a hobby. Although during the day and a half we spent there, she was not privy to the excess of poultry torture nor the not so paltry consumption of sorghum beer, she did acknowledge the, in the words of Dongui, ‘heavy’, atmosphere which surrounds the community (see her own blog post about it here http://shambus.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/the-village-is-heavy/). It is not that the people lack joy or are unkind, nor are they poorer or more malnourished than any other small village in a underdeveloped nation. In fact, the village is fairly well developed, with solar panels, a market, boutiques stocked with every need, and of course a plentitude of Fulani who trade milk and meat for various grains which are cultivated in the village. It is just that there is some odd feeling there, difficult to pinpoint. When we attempted to describe this quality to our collective family of Malians and Burkinabɛ back at our house in Bobo, they simply said, “you just told us they have tons of fetishes, what else are you looking for as an answer as to why the village is heavy? That explains it.”

I, too, have come to the conclusion that the difference between the outcomes at the very least of worshiping of God and the Devil (if fetishes are to be interpreted as Devil worship) is one of peace, joy, and light. In fact, I believe this indiscernible quality that was experienced in both situations can be interpreted as proof of an unseen world that greatly influences this one. While patience and perseverance are a necessity in the worshipping of a God who may at times seem distance and intangible, the long term results are worth the wait. Though it may appear as a more productive sign to sacrifice chickens until one finally falls on its back with its wings spread, it is actually more important to open our hearts and truly converse with God and in this way He will reveal Himself to us. His will may not be what we want, but it is always what we need.