The Country Most Likely to be Ignored by National Geographic

When volunteers get together, they invariably talk about food. Hot topics of conversation include “What do you miss more, burritos or sushi?” and “McDonald's or Burger King, which has the better breakfast?” (Answers: sushi and McDonald's.) And if someone back in the States asks me what I'm looking forward to, I'll probably say good food and air conditioning and hot showers. But I say that just because it's easier than saying what I'm really looking forward to. Which is reflecting on my experience here and figuring out what the hell happened over the past two years.

I didn't have any particular interest in Africa before coming to Africa. I had vague ideas about wood masks, tribal scars, and cool dancing as well as AIDS, malaria, and war. Not surprisingly, the reality hasn't been that good nor that bad. I'm bored with traditional dancing, which is way less aerobic than I was led to believe--it mostly consists of old ladies holding rags and droning a song while shuffling around in a circle. And as for the bad, the AIDS rate in Burkina is very low, Burkinabé catch malaria as if it were the common cold, and other than the occasional riot, the country's peaceful.

Frankly, Burkina Faso is boring. It's not really known for anything except for being a stop over on the way to more interesting countries like Mali. Even National Geographic agrees. In a cover story about the Sahel, they featured every country the Sahel passes through except Burkina. Sheesh.

So what's a girl supposed to do when she's just spent two years in what just might be the most boring country in a continent she really has no interest in? I guess I'll digest and reflect by reading what I've written about this place, talking to RPCVs, and looking at photos. I'm a little hesitant to look at photos, though, for two reasons. The first is that photos of this place have the eerie quality of changing the reality of things. I look out my front door and see my neighbor's pants-less kids playing with a bike tire. No big deal. then I take a picture and suddenly I have a photo of adorable little African kids playing with their little homemade toy, and oh look, they have no pants, isn't that just so cute?! It's very spooky. The other reason is I don't want my memories to be skewed by photos. Humans are so visual and so dumb that we make up stories that never even happened so our memories match our photos. So if I look at my photos that have that eerie AFRICAN quality to them, I'm going to think this place was way more interesting than it is. But that wouldn't be so bad, would it?