Saying goodbye to the people in Reko was a strange affair. Of course, it was Elli who had worked there and I hadn’t been there much at all, but still. They had welcomed us with open arms, making us feel like anyone who was friends with Hanna got an honorary membership in the village too. And they had been so accommodating to Elli in her work, helping her to dig in the solid dry soil and weighing harvests.
We had a little meeting outside Madi’s house, with Madi and Kassoum (the other man who had helped Elli when Madi was busy) and two of the village elders, while a hen and her chicks ran around, trying to steal groundnuts from the calebash bowl Madi had put on the ground. Elli thanked them for all their help and gave them gifts, they in turn gave us a beautiful little shirt to give to Hanna’s baby, as well as more groundnuts and a way too big bag of white beans (I’m serious, it was probably more than five kilograms, what are we to do with all these beans?). They wished us luck in our work and that we would be successful and that we would be healthy and our families too and said that we were always welcome back.
When we were about to leave, the children asked to be photographed, and of course I couldn’t say no. They all got so excited, though, the smaller children got trampled and I had to tell them to calm down. I don’t know if they got my bad French, most of them had not started school yet and probably didn’t speak anything other than mooré. It is strange, this fascination the children have of being captured in a photograph. Having your face show up on a tiny camera screen. Maybe I would have been the same, if I hadn’t had a journalist father. I remember my childhood as being constantly photographed. I got quite blasé about it.
The sun had already set when we left Reko and its sounds behind. A boy was leading a huge black bull by a rope. Goats were being herded back to the village. A lonely donkey was screaming somewhere in the distance.
This was the last that we saw of Reko. It is very possible, even probable, that we’ll never see it or its people again. A remote village in northern Burkina Faso, when would we have a reason to just pass by? I’ve left many things behind in my life, as I’m sure everyone has, many last meetings with people. But rarely have I been as acutely aware of the finality of a meeting as I was now. A really strange feeling, it was.
Reko is one of those truly friendly places on Earth, and we have been lucky to get the opportunity to spend this time there. Truly blessed, really. The prayers of all the villagers for our good luck has come true.
The next day, we left Ouahigouya for Gourcy, and three days of transect walking in villages there.
Katja Malmborg 