This week in BFA

Sorry for the delay it has been a busy week. Let's start with last weekend. The Peace Corps had a COS party (close of service) for the group who will be leaving sometime in the next few months. We hosted the party for them on our roof-top. Yes it was loads of fun and you should have been here.

In my classes this week the conversation topic was education. Nearly every night without fail the conversation led to a discussion of marriage. There are three keys to shifting the conversation to marriage. Those keys are; girls, village, education. Girls in the villages (not Ouga) are normally finished with education by the age of 12-14, not because they are university graduates or even high school graduates, but because usually they are married off by this time.

Let me tell you about some of the rational behind the young marriage age. My favorite (not) is the girls are put into arranged (at times forced) marriage at this age because "they will become pregnant". Apparently pregnancy in some of the villages here is cause by girls turning 14 (at least that's the impression that I get). This represents a gigantic step in biological sciences everywhere.

Another reason for the termination of girl's education is because once a daughter is married she belongs/is the responsibility of her new husband/his parents. Public school tuition here ranges from around 20,000 cfa ($40) in large cities - 2,000 cfa ($4) in the villages per year. The new families often can't or won't shell out the 2,000 cfa for a daughter in-law's education in the villages. That sounds harsh but often times the families can only legitimately afford the education of the son. Go ahead and say it, "gosh we're lucky to live in a place where we can go to public school for free/relatively free".

In Ouga however, the views on education are much more "progressive". Girls here often finish high school (in French, college, pronounced Frenchly) and even manage to turn 15 without getting pregnant. My friend from Peace Corps lives in a village whose size I will classify as not quite tiny but slightly less than small. From that area there are two students who are at the University of Ougadougou. Not bad for a small place but not great considering I have four university students in my Thursday night class, and one in my Tuesday night class. That equals five university students that I teach three of whom are girls. Did I mention they all came from Ouga not the villages and they have managed to turn almost 18 years old without getting pregnant.

Please do not take any of this as an indictment on the education system here or of the social norms in the villages. Yes there is room for improvement but I will not make the suggestions rather I'll let you read what some of my students suggested as improvements. One suggestion was to eliminate school fees for girls, another to eliminate school fees for everyone. The need for improved infrastructure was sighted so that teachers can actually make it to the schools in the villages. Giving teachers a house in the village was floated as an idea because often the teachers do not show up to class. Two of my students cited the need for orphanages for the large number of parent less children living on the streets.

Those are suggestions from real people who, if ever implemented, would see the benefits. Please note that when I asked my students about how to change their education system they did not say that Burkina Faso needed to be a sparkling example of modern democracy in the world before we could fix education issues. Although one student did mention the need for protection against corruption in the classroom such as; teachers dating students and giving them high marks as a result. That's right, there's not really a line here, teachers can date students. Personally I'm not OK with that and for the record I am completely freaked out when my female students flirt with me and I avoid or promptly remove myself from any questionable situation (happily it does not happen often.

All in all it has been a big learning week. Why? you ask, because I did way more listening that talking this week, try it.

Peace,
Ben