I should have studied biology, considering how I can’t stop photographing butterflies and bugs. I could have become a very specialized butterfly specialist, instead of the geography/sustainability science generalist that I’m becoming. Maybe that would have made life easier?
Yesterday, Helena came with me to the village Teonsogo. They didn’t have anything that particularly unique to show, it was just like all the other villages, incredibly friendly and generous people, millet fields and some dry shrublands. But walking around with Helena made it different.
Partly, because she could take photos of me working, something which hasn’t happened before.
But mostly, it became different because while we walked, when I wasn’t asking questions about the fields and the crops and the seasonal changes to the landscape, Helena took the opportunity to ask questions about her thesis subject. Helena is a law student, you see, and she is writing about problems with enforcing human rights in a country where the culture is not based on the western, liberal principles. In particular, she studies human rights with regards to female circumcision. Incredibly difficult, incredibly interesting subject, if you ask me.
Female circumcision is forbidden by law in Burkina Faso, but it is still widely practiced in areas where traditions still hold a strong grip. Like in rural villages. Helena told me that most people that she had met, both highly educated lawyers and villagers, had said that human rights won’t be possible to enforce for real here, because they are not compatible with the “African culture”. But here, in Teonsogo, one of the women that took part in one of my walks disagreed. Her name was Yacouba, and she said: “It would be difficult, because there are so many people all over the world. But if it is possible to get it to work, it would be very good. We all come from the same place, after all.”
She had such a beautiful dress, too. And when we were about to leave the village, she came to the car with a big bag of unpeeled groundnuts for us. They are all great, the villages I go to, despite them being very similar.
During the last walk, we had been told about a very special stone formation some way south of the village. Desiré wanted to see it, so when we were done, the CVD jumped into the car as our guide and we went to climb a “mountain”. (Nowhere else, though, would they be called mountains, except for maybe in Denmark.)
It wasn’t very much a mountain, but more a big pile of rocks, but I must admit that this tor rock formation was quite impressive. Not at all like the tors they have in Namibia, for example, but definitely something special in this otherwise very flat landscape.
And the view was pretty nice from the top too.
A very agreeable day, all in all. A nice change, having a guest like Helena come visit for a couple of days.
Katja Malmborg 