I had been invited by one of the members of Parliament we had visited when celebrating the end of Ramadan to join a training of young women of the ADF/RDA, the liberal party. Of course, I agreed to attend. This meant that, instead of sleeping in, I got up at my regular time, to be ready to start the training at eight.
Of course, the training didn’t start at eight, but somewhere around ten, when finally mr. Gilbert Noël Ouédraogo, minister of Transportation and leader of ADF/RDA, arrived. When he walked into the room, everyone got up; something Dutch ministers can only dream about.
For some reason, Seydou and the MP had decided I was an important, honourable guest. I’m not important, of course, but I tend to hang out with people who do have some interesting position, which might explain the confusion. To make up for this lack of any title to introduce me by, I have been renamed representative of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) by Seydou. I’m sure IFLRY doesn’t mind having such a shiny personality as their self-declared ambassador (right, Bart?).
The MP responsible for the organisation is the patron-sort-of-person, not really paying attention to the fact that this seminar was about empowering women and how to fight male domination, happily interrupting plenary discussions among the women with his loud voice, demanding they would properly introduce themselves, or shouting whatever else came into his mind, barking out orders to people, telling people what to do, what to think, when to applause, etc, even telling journalist who to interview, resulting in an interview with me for television, without me, nor the journalists, really wanting that.
The MP and Seydou made sure that I, being on of the important guests, was mentioned and thanked in the minister’s speech, which meant that Lot Boch got properly introduced to the participants.
The day ended around 17:30h, instead of 15:00h, as had been envisioned, and the next day would start at eight again, but this did not stop us from going out for a bit of dancing. I had decided I wanted to do that, and of course, Seydou obliged by taking me into town with his friends. I do feel a bit sorry for Burkinabé men, I must say. They go out of their way to make women happy, getting them drinks, food, escorting them wherever they want to go, etc., and doubling the effort when lady involved is a special representative of IFLRY. I think men are the real victims of gender roles in this society.
Seydou had brought along a good friend of his, a thirty year old guy, who happened to be chef de police. I felt quite safe with the tall policeman on his big motorbike accompanying us. Together, we went to pick up a young woman who had come from Niger, and who proves once more that young, urban, West-African Muslims take joy of life much more serious than their religion She is 35, has an eight year old daughter, is divorced, wears a sexy top and high heels, calls everyone ‘chéri(e)’, is covered with perfume, and does not really talk to men, but rather orders them around, but: she veils herself when she goes out. However, once in a nightclub, she easily looses the veil and hits the dance floor. She will marry some hunky guy next month, and I’m invited to come to Niger and join the party.
The night club was a very obscure place, with only a few red lights, which made me inquire with Seydou into to what extent the nightclub doubled as a brothel. This gave him the opportunity to eagerly inquire after prostitution in Amsterdam, and, while we were talking about immoralities anyway, about homosexuality. I told him that homosexuality is fine with us Dutch, because homosexuals don’t hurt anybody, and made some reference to the ‘tolerance’ the Burkinabé are so proud of themselves. I think he understood.
We danced for about an hour on African beats and Western 90’s hits, and then Seydou decided I was tired and that we should go home.
We had to sit through the ‘closing ceremony’ of the seminar Sunday morning, with the minister of Transportion coming in again. He wore a shirt with not only the name of the party, but also his own portrait and name on it. If only more people would do so: very useful when you’re bad with names. He seems like a genuinely friendly man, though, and with his boyish face, high shoulders, and eagerness to break into laughter, he does not strike me at all as the typical Burkinabé patron.
The only downer was that Seydou became ill with malaria during the day. I made him promise he would call me whenever he needed something, or when the illness would get worse, and he promised several times to do so, and I knew he lied and would never do that, depriving me of the possiblity to get into my societal designed gender role and take care of him a bit.
PS Check out the accompanying pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/44709947@N00/
Of course, the training didn’t start at eight, but somewhere around ten, when finally mr. Gilbert Noël Ouédraogo, minister of Transportation and leader of ADF/RDA, arrived. When he walked into the room, everyone got up; something Dutch ministers can only dream about.
For some reason, Seydou and the MP had decided I was an important, honourable guest. I’m not important, of course, but I tend to hang out with people who do have some interesting position, which might explain the confusion. To make up for this lack of any title to introduce me by, I have been renamed representative of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) by Seydou. I’m sure IFLRY doesn’t mind having such a shiny personality as their self-declared ambassador (right, Bart?).
The MP responsible for the organisation is the patron-sort-of-person, not really paying attention to the fact that this seminar was about empowering women and how to fight male domination, happily interrupting plenary discussions among the women with his loud voice, demanding they would properly introduce themselves, or shouting whatever else came into his mind, barking out orders to people, telling people what to do, what to think, when to applause, etc, even telling journalist who to interview, resulting in an interview with me for television, without me, nor the journalists, really wanting that.
The MP and Seydou made sure that I, being on of the important guests, was mentioned and thanked in the minister’s speech, which meant that Lot Boch got properly introduced to the participants.
The day ended around 17:30h, instead of 15:00h, as had been envisioned, and the next day would start at eight again, but this did not stop us from going out for a bit of dancing. I had decided I wanted to do that, and of course, Seydou obliged by taking me into town with his friends. I do feel a bit sorry for Burkinabé men, I must say. They go out of their way to make women happy, getting them drinks, food, escorting them wherever they want to go, etc., and doubling the effort when lady involved is a special representative of IFLRY. I think men are the real victims of gender roles in this society.
Seydou had brought along a good friend of his, a thirty year old guy, who happened to be chef de police. I felt quite safe with the tall policeman on his big motorbike accompanying us. Together, we went to pick up a young woman who had come from Niger, and who proves once more that young, urban, West-African Muslims take joy of life much more serious than their religion She is 35, has an eight year old daughter, is divorced, wears a sexy top and high heels, calls everyone ‘chéri(e)’, is covered with perfume, and does not really talk to men, but rather orders them around, but: she veils herself when she goes out. However, once in a nightclub, she easily looses the veil and hits the dance floor. She will marry some hunky guy next month, and I’m invited to come to Niger and join the party.
The night club was a very obscure place, with only a few red lights, which made me inquire with Seydou into to what extent the nightclub doubled as a brothel. This gave him the opportunity to eagerly inquire after prostitution in Amsterdam, and, while we were talking about immoralities anyway, about homosexuality. I told him that homosexuality is fine with us Dutch, because homosexuals don’t hurt anybody, and made some reference to the ‘tolerance’ the Burkinabé are so proud of themselves. I think he understood.
We danced for about an hour on African beats and Western 90’s hits, and then Seydou decided I was tired and that we should go home.
We had to sit through the ‘closing ceremony’ of the seminar Sunday morning, with the minister of Transportion coming in again. He wore a shirt with not only the name of the party, but also his own portrait and name on it. If only more people would do so: very useful when you’re bad with names. He seems like a genuinely friendly man, though, and with his boyish face, high shoulders, and eagerness to break into laughter, he does not strike me at all as the typical Burkinabé patron.
The only downer was that Seydou became ill with malaria during the day. I made him promise he would call me whenever he needed something, or when the illness would get worse, and he promised several times to do so, and I knew he lied and would never do that, depriving me of the possiblity to get into my societal designed gender role and take care of him a bit.
PS Check out the accompanying pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/44709947@N00/
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