Feeling adult-ish

Great news team, living on my own is everything I always dreamed it would be. Seriously, since going to college all I wanted was a place of my own. A private room would no longer cut it; I wanted a place without roommates, a place where I was the only one who used the bathroom, a place where all the food in the fridge was mine. I used to day dream about such a place. It may seem silly, I know, but in my mind having a place of my own was like a right of passage, a sign that I was a fully functioning adult. And now I have it, in West Africa of all places. Granted there is no fridge, or television or air conditioning or really any furniture of any kind, but it’s all mine. Inside those walls I can wear whatever I want, listen to the same song over and over and over and over again, I can read all morning, I can do any sort of weird work-out I want and make as much noise as I want because I am the only one in there. It’s so wonderful, just like I always thought it would be.

So while I’ve made the leap forward, and have my own place and a real, adult job that doesn’t involve busing tables or taking orders, why is it that I still feel like a child? Oh I know why, it’s because I currently live in Burkina Faso, I’m less then 30, unmarried and a woman.

The other day we had our teachers meeting, where all the teachers get together and discuss a little of the last school year and get ready for this school year. It was the first time I had seen all the teachers at my school and also the first time many of them had seen me. So naturally, they talked about me for a while. In Mooré, with vague, incomplete french translations, as if I wasn’t there. They talked about how since I was a woman and single they needed to be careful visiting me or that men needed to be careful visiting me, or that no one should come inside my house but of course it’s okay to chat with me, or maybe watch out for me and make sure no men try to take advantage of me, or something along those lines, and then looking at me expectantly with a pointed ou bien? And me staring back, mouth slightly open with a confused look on my face as my brain tries to catch up on everything that has just been said and then works to translate a response…and then they keep talking. Now it seems while I can do my own laundry by hand, surely we should find her someone to clean the house and the yard -- no she can clean the yard herself -- no she can clean the house herself but not the yard, no, surely not the yard, let’s find someone to do that for her -- no if she wants to clean the yard herself, let her do it, let’s just give her the tools that she needs -- no I think we should find some kids to at least clean her yard for her.

It’s manifested in neighbors brining over plates of food, or looking at me dubiously when I’m cooking some American looking food in the kitchen, or always telling me to come over and watch them cook and telling me to eat more and eat more, but really eat more or you’ll get sick. Granted in a different mood these things are looked at as a huge blessing, with wonderment at the generosity and fraternity that people here show to an undying degree. Always looking out for me, seeing if there is anything I need and more than willing to give me the shirt off their back if I need it. But after 4 hours of discussing the importance of ending class on time and good discipline in the classroom, I just cannot see it in that light.