Considering that these are the folks that gave us the word "avant-gard", the French sure have a thing for conformity.
Consider the lowly coloring book. In the USA, it's a tome that little tikes use to express their artistic souls. And if these souls declare that the entire page depicting the teddy bears' picnic is purple and scribbly, so be it.
French coloring books, on the other hand, come with model pages. One page has the black and white image to color in, but the opposite page has the same picture already colored in. The kids are supposed to copy it. And for Dieu's sake, whatever you do, DON'T color outside the lines!!! The preschool teachers come down hard on that kind of thing.
So, from early days, conformity is the rule and it doesn't take much to get labeled a freak around here. You will not be surprised to learn that Burkinamom already has quite a rep in the Vallée Verte for being a strange oiseaux/bird.
I learned this quite by accident the other night at the party down in the village. JP had been in deep conversation with M, one of our main allies in the village. After a while, JP turned towards me and said ominously "M. just told me what people in the Vallée are saying about you."
Frankly, I wasn't sure I even wanted to know. There's lots of mean things that people could say about me, many of them true.
Then I had a sudden thought about the headlice. Someone found out we had lice in Africa? Oh please let it not be the lice...
And then he said "You go barefoot at home."
And I said "????"
"Well, " he explained " remember when we had a cleaning lady in a few times 10 years ago, when the twins were born? She went around telling everyone how you didn't wear slippers at home. "
And I guess this shocking news item made the rounds of the Vallée for years and the echos are heard unto this day -despite the fact that I now wear slippers, just like a normal French person.
Really, I do. It's so darn cold here, I'd be crazy not too.

In an attempt to escape the deviant label , I made a special effort today when a local builder came by. I sort of tried to draw attention to my bright red slippers. Unfortunately, I think he came away with the impression that I have a severe motor problem involving my feet. And he didn't seem to particularly notice the footwear. But maybe it's a guy thing.

I'm expecting a package in the mail soon and our postperson is a woman. Maybe I'll have more luck with her. When I sign for the parcel, I'll be sure and find a way to make her notice my footwear. Maybe casually bring it up in conversation?
"Gee, cold one today. Your jacket looks warm, though. And I'm sure glad to have my slippers on ."

I feel that I need to get out from under the slipper problem because the villagers have other evidence of my oddness and I think I'm scaring them.
The problem is, I walked. That was the nail in the coffin of social rejection, right there.

It was a cool Tuesday evening, I had no car and I needed to get to a meeting at the school down in the village. So, I decided to walk it: 20 minutes along a country road. It was nice. Honestly.
But I arrived to generally incredulous cries of "You walked??!!" Really??!! "
And I could see they were all thinking "Barefoot, pedestrian, non-French freak".

And I thought Africa was a challenge...

Burkina has been in the news lately. Media reports about the global food crisis quite often mention it, along with other West African neighbours that have also experienced protests and rioting by hungry citizens.

So, when I search out Burkina news on the internet, I find more and more to read. One of the latest was a report on a new child-trafficking law that was passed last month here. Prison terms have been doubled for the culprits, but people involved in the fight against this crime are afraid that it won’t do much good.
Much of the activity takes place out where JP does his fieldwork, the Mouhoun river area:

“Trafficking origination hubs include Boucle du Mouhoun in the west of Burkina Faso, the Sahel in the north, from where many children are sent to Mali, often supposedly to attend Koranic schools”

He has seen the police stop trucks loaded to the top with children on their way to work on plantations in Ivory Coast and even in cotton fields right here in Burkina.

The article mentions that some of the parents thought the children were being sent to Koranic school. But the truth is, Koranic school here in Ouaga often isn’t that much better than being sent away to do farm work. I’ve written about this before in my blog here. The children are far from home, sent out in dangerous traffic all day long to beg for money. It’s not safe or healthy and the boys learn little but a smattering of Arabic, hardly the recipe for a bright future.

Our driver Mahama lives next door to a marabout (Islamic religious teacher) that has a small Koranic “school”. Every day I’ve been asking Mahama the same question: “Are the boys back?”

At the beginning of June, he told me that there had been a huge fuss in his neighbor’s courtyard. It seems like the marabout’s donkey had wandered off and was nowhere to be found. The five boys searched all day and couldn’t find the animal anywhere. The marabout chased the boys out and said they could not come back to the house until the donkey was found. Not to eat, sleep, wash, nothing. They weren’t to come back without the donkey. The boys have been gone for 10 days now. No one has seen them. They all have families far from Ouaga, so it’s unlikely they found a way to return home. They are most likely sleeping outdoors and begging for food as best they can. Some of the boys are very young- around ten years old.

Who knows where they are now? If they are unsafe, ill or hungry?

One good aspect of the new law is that is specifically addresses the problem of children being forced to beg. Putting these young boys out on the streets and making them beg is now illegal child labour here in Burkina.
However, I have not noticed any actual decrease in “tomato-can boys” out in the streets. And the government here (like governments pretty much everywhere, don't you know) doesn’t always follow through on what they promise. Back in 2007, they earmarked funds for helping streetchildren in Burkina. It's been months now and to date, none of the promised money has been distributed. You can read about it here. The article also mentions AMPO, the orphanage where I first volunteered when I moved here to Ouaga and where Papiers du Sahel began.