Today’s mission is this: to walk to the small market nearby and find manioc, a starchy root similar to potatoes that I regularly had when I was living in Vanuatu for two months. I had missed it desperately, especially the manioc laplap with coconut cream, but of course you cannot find such things in the UK. My eyes lit up when the host family told me I could find manioc in Burkina Faso, along with lion and camel meat.
I set off, and it’s not long until I meet Marie, one of the girls I did face painting yesterday. She is sitting under a tree by herself, and it’s only 3 pm. I guess she’s one of the kids who cannot afford to go to school. “Wakka, wakka! (Come, come!)” I call her and hold her hand. We walk along for a bit and a few other kids see us from afar and scream excitedly. They come running and running but when they come closer, they stop and just stare with curiosity. So I gesture them to come and soon there is a flock of us walking. “Marquillage! Marguillage!” They ask for more face-painting but I tell them, “Après. Petit marché, où? (After. Little market, where?)” A number of fingers point toward slightly different directions, so I walk towards the direction where the majority of the fingers are pointing towards. We walk the road with the mosque on our right, and whenever there is a junction I ask again, “Petit marché, où?”. The kids point toward right so I turn right. Another junction, and the kids go right. Another junction we go right again. The mosque is always on our rightside, and we are back to square one, quite literally. “Petit marchè! Petit marchè!” I keep saying and the kids now drag me to the opposite direction of where the market should be situated, and they take me to the spot where I did face-painting yesterday. I chuckle and get my kits out.
I have a booklet with all sorts of face-painting samples, and the kids busy themselves choosing which ones they want. A butterfly is popular among girls, just as it had been in the UK. “Tante! Tante! (Auntie! Auntie!)” The little fingers pull my sleeve and my skirt to grab my attention, and point towards the picture they like the best. It’s my second afternoon spent with the kids in the village, and I am slowly getting to know their personalities. Inesse is the fierce one, the one who bosses everyone around and has the loudest voice in the group. And of course it’s Inesse who pushes everyone away so she gets the first face-painting out of all. Ibrahim is the mischievous one, and always pulls a funny face when I take photo of him. Marie is the quite one, and her shyness reminds me of when I was little. She’s the only one who remembers and calls me by my name. She got a little upset when her turn didn’t come round fast enough, but even when I told her to come forward, she wanted the other girl to get the face paint first. She has a kind heart in her.
Sometimes, flies gather when I am face-painting, and it took me sometime to realise the source of it. A girl could not stand still when I was painting her hand, and she kept twitching and jerking her right leg. When I turned her round, I saw the back of her leg grazed deeply, revealing her pink flesh in a long line from her ankle to the back of her knee. The flies loved to sit on her wound. I remember seeing this in Vanuatu, where kids hurt themselves but the wounds are left open, completely untreated.
After seeing this yesterday, I packed my antiseptic cream and band-aid in my bag. When I see that Safi has a big chunk of her flesh cut off from her ankle bone, I chase off the flies and wash it with my bottled water. I cannot wash away all the sand that has gotten into the wound, and have nothing else to clean it properly. I have no choice to make do with a band-aid.
After some time I grow tired and hungry, so I ask a teenage girl nearby. “Je suis fatigue. Manioc?” She speaks little English, just as much as I speak French. Her name is Rose and is 17. She takes me to a stall that sells fried potatoes and tells me “No manioc here”. When I come back with food and sit down, the kids flock around again. Rose tells them off in French and the kids step a few steps back. Maybe she told them to give me some space. In Kenya and Vanuatu, the kids were quick to come and satisfy their curiosity, touching my long, non-curly hair and my pale skin. Not in Burkina Faso. The kids keep their distance until I beckon them nearer. I think giving someone some physical distance is part of their cultural manners.
After the fried potatoes, I try out maize porridge from another street stall. It’s sour, as if they have put lemon juice in it, and comes in a thin plastic bag. I saw a boy sucking the porridge out of the bag earlier and wanted to try it. All this costs me 400 franc, which is around 40 pence.
It gets darker which means time to go back home. It’s been my fourth day in this city of Ouagadougou and I still haven’t managed to venture out properly.
My mission to find manioc continues.
Windsbird: Footprints around the world 