Street Kids

I forgot to mention a few funny things I saw on my trip to Bobo. During our drive past the hundreds of car accidents we saw another funny thing was that they don’t have truck stops for the drivers to pull over and take a rest, so instead the trucks stop half way on the road and half the way off to take a nap. And in order to get some shade and some breeze and have no one steal their truck you can see men sleeping under their trucks. Literally underneath it on the ground. I saw this hundreds of times, men lying underneath to get some shade. It looked extremely dangerous but I think it was the only way for them to cool down. Another funny thing I saw was men riding their bikes with fifty live chickens hanging upside down in the front of the bike. The men ride into a town and sell these chickens. They are extremely clam upside down I don’t know if all the blood makes them pass out or what but they just hung there like decorations. It was amazing. I tried to get a photo but they were always flying by on the free way so there was no chance.

My mom also is bugging me to mention the street children, and I had no intention of forgetting them, or finding them not worth speak about but rather it is so common sadly that its like commenting about the pigeons in NYC. There are hundreds upon hundreds of homeless children in Burkina. They are homeless because they lost their parents because they died, malnutrition, HIV, malaria, diarrhea, the list goes on. More commonly people push their children out, especially the boys around nine or younger if they cant afford to feed them. It is extremely difficult to look at a nine year old, who obviously hasn’t had a good meal in years, and tell them you don’t have any money when you both know it’s a lie. There are boys walking the sidewalks with extended stomachs from eating too little for too long, wearing only a pair of pants with no underwear, and often shoes too large for them they have either stolen or gotten from someone.

This was why the man hitting the kid with his car was just beyond what I could handle, I snapped like a twig. I don’t think I’ve produced a better evil eye than the one I gave to that man. Some boys in this situation of being kicked out of the home go to other countries to seek a “better” way of life and often find themselves trapped in the middle of basically a slave trade. They work 7 days a week 18 hour days, for nothing and are forced to sign a one-year contract. Burkina has had many families contacting the police saying their sons are missing and then they return a year later, empty handed and broken down. The girls’ story is just as sad if not worse. Prostitution is a common job here, and for a young uneducated girl with no family, it is easy to slip into. Eve says that even married women will sell themselves on the side to make a few bucks. Children here will do any job, mostly the jobs no one else wants. For example selling gum or belts to people. Even cell phone cards, or if they do have parents, I’ve seen kids as young as three holding their little hands out for some money. The parent or adult is usually right around the corner, but looking at a four year old with almost no clothes and their little hands. I have to NOT look, even though they wave. If I look I get sick and want to pick them up and take them home. It’s hard; thankfully I haven’t seen any children here hooked on drugs. In Kenya so many children sniffed glue because it suppressed their hunger and they got high, so a lot of them were addicted to it and were constantly high. It not just hard for foreigners though, you can see some Burkina people giving money away to the children, and usually my best rule is that if I have some food to give away give it! If you don’t finish your food while your out, give it away. Unlike in the US if you gave a homeless person half a pizza, he might say I don’t want your leftovers, in Africa you will be thanked with giant smiles. I don’t eat out much here but sometimes if I have some cookies or crackers I hand them out, it does become mild chaos and sometimes difficult when you run out but its something for them. So that’s a brief summary and heartbreak of what could be a child’s life in Burkina.