Violence truly scares me. In my adult life I’ve never felt
the need to hurt someone physically because they pissed me off or wronged me. That isn’t to say that I’ve never intentionally tried to annoy or hurt someone
emotionally. When I get to that intense point of anger I always think to myself
how can I be the bigger person, how can I make the other feel really low?
Physical contact never crosses my mind. (I'm not talking self defense here, I'm all for that) Maybe because I’m bigger and stronger
than the average woman, it just never seems like it would be a fair fight.
After you put your hands on someone you automatically lose in my book. So when
this situation of violence occurred at my site, with my friends I was completely
taken aback.
I was hanging out at my village pharmacy one evening while
the Cecile (the pharmacist) and Fati is getting ready to go home. After Cecile
locks the door she hands Fati a bag of ochre. The guard of my health clinic
come running out of the bust chasing 2 goats. He is in a full sprint and at
this point I chuckle a little. Seeing a grown man chasing goats is a pretty
funny site. Let me give you some background.
It is currently rainy season in Burkina meaning people are
cultivating crops for the following year. This is the season that determines
how well you’re going to be eating/living for the next year. More importantly
it is the season when people must tie up their animals. Cows, pigs, sheep, and
goats…not chickens though. They can do whatever they want. Since people have
open fields it is very easy for an animal of the non-chicken persuasion to
wander in and eat everything.
Ok back to the story. Moussa the guard chases these goats
into Fati’s yard while Fati walks back to her house. Moussa yells ‘FATI!’ and
he proceeds to scream at her in local language. She responds to him with what
seems like ‘look man there’s nothing that I can do, stop yelling at me.’ At
this point I think that its all fun and games. Burkinabe usually play fight with
each other. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been ready to pull my
earrings off and daub on some vasaline to find out that they were just joking.
I’ve been here for nearly 2 years and I feel pretty knowledgeable about the
culture. I think that he is going to end the next holler with a smile and then
we’ll all go home and enjoy some fresh ochre. WRONG!!
Moussa grabs Fati’s arm. I look into his eyes and he looks
completely crazed/ She says one more thing then he draws back his fist and
punched her dead in the jaw. He draws back again and lands another blow on her
forehead. Fati stumbles back spilling ochre all over the damp ground. Cecile
comes running from the pharmacy with me. We both are screaming for him to stop.
Cec pushes Moussa away. Fato walks over to her house. I think that she is
running away. WRONG AGAIN! She reaches into a corner of yard and pulls out a
full machete. I wait for Moussa to run away but he bands down to grab a giant
rock and tries to come at her with it. Cecile is successfully backing Moussa up
as Fati trie to chop him with her weapon of choice. They stumble just missing
each other with deadly blows. Cec wrestles the rock from Moussa. He walks into
the storage closet at the health clinic and comes back out with a big blunt
piece of wood. It was like one of those cave man head bashing sticks. Why was
that in the storage room? As he starts to run at Fati with the stick Cecile
begins to scream and tap her mouth. More neighbors rush out and the situation
ends.
Now you’re probably wondering where I was when all of this
weapon introduction was occurring. Well, at first I was watching in horror. And
no, I’m not about to jump into a machete giant blunt stick fight in a foreign
country. This fight was not about who was strongest. Since a lot people were
malnourished at some point in their lives I’m bigger that most women and men.
Despite the fact that most people have about 2% body fat and the rest lean
muscle, I still think that I could hold my own. The only problem is that it’s
not really about strength. As you can see our buddy Moussa switched weapons
twice. It’s about who can find the biggest stick/rock the quickest and bash it
against their opponents head. I was never trained in any serious combat,
including street fighting. Call me a coward but I wasn’t eager to jump into
this one. As all of this was happening I grabbed Fati’s 2.5-year-old daughter
(who was watching the whole altercation) and took her to my other neighbors
house.
After the fight Fati was furious. She began throwing insults
at Moussa and telling him that she is going to wok him. Wok is similar to
voodoo. Well voodoo probably came from wok. It’s basically when you use black
magic to gain money, kill someone, make someone fall in love with you, etc. I
speak to Fati afterwards and she shows me her wounds. I also find out that the
fight started because Moussa asked her to tie up one of her kid goats because
it was eating him bean crop. She told him that she couldn’t because the kid was
still breast-feeding. Usually they only tie up the parent goats. The kids won’t
wander too far from the mom. If she tied up the kid it would have not been able
to effectively breast-feed.
Moussa received no formal reprimands for him outrageous
behavior. My Major of course slapped him on the wrists and the guy still guards
the clinic. Where is his guard post you ask? Why it’s outside of my very own
bedroom window. This is where he sleeps almost every night. We’re practically
roommates. I do not trust this man. Clearly he has some anger and mental
issues. I often have daydreams of him getting into a fight with me. Sometimes
when I see him I hope that he tries to start something with me so that I can
whoop his behind, too bad I don’t own any goats.
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