Thoughts on Being a Type-A American in a Developing Country

“You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. Do not complain. Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking.” –Maya Angelou

Sometimes we turn to each other during sessions and joke, “Hey, remember that time we joined the Peace Corps? What the HELL were we thinking?” We laugh, especially when we have giardia and a flat bike tire on that same day. In essence, Peace Corps training is a sick masochistic fantasy world where your limits are constantly tested. You lose all control over your own life- your chosen language of communication, your schedule, and, at some point, your bowel movements. Once the simultaneous diarrhea and vomiting start, you have no choice but to resign yourself to it. (After all, you apparently aren’t a real volunteer until you poop your pants. Check). This is tough on us Americans because there is so much in the states that allows us to feel like we have control: schedules, rules, order, logic, Imodium. But it turns out that all those values which we think are just inherent to living life are actually not all that important elsewhere.  Allow me to explain…

First of all, time doesn’t have the same importance in Burkina. There isn’t even a word for “late” in Jula. The best we can say is that someone was “not fast.” Time is not some other-worldly God that we obey, it is something  that the Burkinabe can manipulate at their discretion to the annoyance of any and all nasaras in the vicinity. It doesn’t really matter what time the bus leaves. It will go when it goes. Ça va aller.

Logic and order are not valued here. This is especially counter-intuitive and frustrating for nasaras like me. Here I was thinking that we should always be trying to increase efficiency and have things just make sense. I guess I never questioned why this was important to me. And why would I question it? In America, everyone else thought that these things were important too so I never had to explain myself.

But this is the best part about living in another culture- you learn so much more about your own culture and in doing so you realize that your way of thinking and doing things is a) not the only way and b) maybe not even the best way. If you never experience a culture different from your own, you miss out on these insights. And, in my humble opinion, I think that this might be the fundamental cause of most problems in the world. If we never bother to consider why people in other cultures behave differently, we never question our beliefs, our traditions, our thinking. It’s as if it never occurred to us that there are reasons why other people behave differently.

It’s easy to notice how the Burkinabe behave differently, but discovering the reasons underlying those behavioral differences is a lot more nuanced and revealing. Like when you are waiting 2 hours for a bus to come, it’s pretty easy to understand that time isn’t highly regarded here. But as you spend more time around the Burkinabe, you’ll find that it’s more offensive to not greet someone you pass than it is to be late for something. And it takes you a lot longer to get somewhere when you have to say good morning to everyone in your family first, then proceed to ask how their family is doing (even though you’re in their family and know what’s going on... duh) and then say good morning to every single person you pass on your bike and ask about their family and their work. I’m learning to do this although I don’t think it will ever feel normal for me, since I come from a culture where not only do you not say hello to someone you pass (especially not a stranger), you instead try to divert your eyes and ignore them. Can you imagine saying hello to every person you passed in the grocery store or on the street? Can you imagine pulling up to a drive thru and having to have 5 minutes of small talk before placing your order? As an American we just want the essentials, namely getting our cheeseburger. Greetings just aren’t necessary for that transaction to occur.

Our logistical Peace Corps tech guy who is Burkinabe and who spent some time in New York City said it best when he said that Americans “flee” when someone says hello to them. “Pourquoi tu fuis?” I’d have to agree. I couldn’t help but picture him standing in the subway and trying to ask for help in the little English that he knows, meanwhile lugging his 3 huge suitcases (he said he looked like Eddie Murphy in the movie Coming to America) with New Yorkers purposely avoiding him. And you’re thinking “well yeah, they’re New Yorkers, of course they’re assholes”, but I couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed of my culture when he told me this story. Why are we so petrified of a little human interaction? I can think of times when I saw someone walking towards me on campus and would purposely play with my cell phone to avoid having to speak to them. And I’m still trying to figure out why this is the case…

I think that maintaining social connections might be more important in Burkina because when you need help your neighbors are the first people that you turn to. In America, we have this sink or swim attitude that people should be independent and fend for themselves. And maybe we become too independent and we forget that we’re social creatures and that we need human interaction. I’m not sure yet if this attitude is a weakness or a strength, though I think it may be either depending on the situation. But maybe America can learn something from Burkina in this respect.

With that said, there’s a lot that I would like Burkina to learn from America for my own sake and for my own sanity. For instance, there is no such thing as a line here- everyone just pushes up to the front. This injustice frustrates me to no end. And no one sits in their assigned seat even though there is an assigned seat written on your bus ticket. So maybe America is doing something right, after all. Next time you’re standing in a line complaining about how long it is, be grateful that you have a line to complain about in the first place. The rest of us have to push past sweaty men with body odor who just arrived even though we’ve been standing there for a whole hour.

In situations like these, the American in me wants to scream. Sometimes it does scream. Literally. And very loudly. Like when I start yelling in English at a bus station in West Africa where no understands a word I’m saying. After venting, I follow Maya Angelou’s advice and change my own thinking…  

Specifically, I adopt the Burkinabe “ça va aller” philosophy. There’s a reason that this is the name of my blog. It literally translates to “that is going to go” in French, but it means that everything will be fine. People say this when I can’t communicate something in Jula (like when I said in Jula “I am dead” instead of “I am finished”), when a bus breaks down, when someone is sick, etc. In Jula, they say “A bena bi,” or literally, “It’s going to be” to signify the same thing. And when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do to change things even if I wanted to. So I turn to the person next to me and say ça va aller and laugh. Eventually, we get to where we need to be. Maybe not on time, but we’re there.