The village we visited was in the middle of a cotton field. As we went off road to where we were building the hangar we drove right through it. Dried up and withered. Only left the prickly bolls. The children came running. Straight through those bolls just bare skin to the ground.
We got out of our vehicles and came face-to-face. Face-to-face with the women and children and men. The people we were going to live with for the next few days. The people we were serving.
They reached out their hands, each of them. I had an urgency to grab hold of them and hug them tight. But I held back and just touched their hands.
Their eyes stared at us hard and long. Like they were looking deep within our souls. I wondered what they were seeing. I knew what I hoped they weren’t seeing.
The differences. The opportunity. The prosperity. The wealth.
I found myself wanting to tell them how beautiful and special and smart and talented they are because I felt like that’s what they were thinking about us. We were the Americans. The people with everything – literally.
But my words of English couldn’t reach them. So I smiled big, patted their backs and held their hands, and said over and over again in French “Jolie” – “Pretty”.
I continued to look that first day in the bush. Look for the happiness I wanted desperately to see.
I thought there would be an oblivion to the world outside the dust and cotton and huts and goats. The happiness must come from not knowing any better. Not knowing what’s really outside of this land in Africa.
In some ways this was true. For most of them the image of their faces on our digital cameras was the first time they had ever seen the beauty of their faces.
But as they looked in my eyes and mine in theirs, it’s like they knew. They knew what could be. They knew what there was on the outside.
I didn’t see happiness.
I saw envy.
Not an evil kind just a kind out of desperation. Their eyes were pleading deep down inside. Pleading for reprieve.
We slept that night under the night sky and more shooting stars than I ever knew truly existed. As I looked up at each one of them it was funny what I saw. Focusing on just one star at a time I only saw one. But when I moved my eyes just slightly away, that one became many.
At the time I did not know it, but as the week went on I began to see something in those stars.
I was focusing on happiness as one bright shining star. But turning my attention away allowed me to see the whole picture.
I invite you to follow along over the next few weeks as I unfold my thoughts from Burkina. I am taking it slow because there is a lot to digest when writing one post. It is hard and draining looking back and reflecting. And it can’t be captured quickly.
Read the before story and the other posts I’ve written since returning HERE!
And don’t forget to learn more about Engage Burkina and another wonderful organization Hope for Burkina.
Burkina Faso Overview from Living Water International on Vimeo.
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