The Masques of Tougouri

Sunday December 6, 2009

On my run this evening, I ran into (literally) a large crowd of people on the outskirts of Tougouri that turned out to be a funeral party for an elder of Tougouri. Because the man who died was an elder, the fete was complete with masques, drums, and lots of music and dancing. With some asking around, I found that the masques can represent animals, ancestors, and spirits. When one puts on a mask, he (always a male) is no longer responsible for his actions and takes on the character of the masque. The masques I saw today resembled a cross between Chewbacca of Star Wars and Klu Klux Klan outfits; the masques wore a brown shaggy bodysuit that stretched high above the wearers’ heads in the shape of a cone. Their faces were covered with masks that appeared to be made of wood or bone and one had shiny disks covering his face. Each masque carried a stick and would every so often break from dancing and run after an unlucky victim to hit them with the stick, which subsequently sent the crowd scattering in all directions every few minutes. I must admit I myself was a little scared of the masques, which my students who were present found very amusing. Nevertheless I stayed at the edge of the crowd, not wanting to get really close to the masques. I wish I could have taken a picture, because my description does not do the scene true justice, however, I was on a run and did not have a camera on me and also don’t think it would have been culturally appropriate to take pictures. However, I can safely say that I would never ever have encountered masques and drums while on a run in the U.S.

Four days later…after having several nightmarish dreams about masques while listening to the drums beat through the night, I am ready for the fete to be over and the masques to be put away until the spring, where they will be brought out to give thanks and ask for rains for the new planting season.

L.D.T.: Lycee Departemental de Tougouri

L.D.T.

Sign for the new library we just got, thanks to the Canadians.

Soccer field

The trimester is almost over (already!) so I’ve decided to have another blog entry with more information about my school. I teach at a lycee, the equivalent of a high school in the U.S., but have grades 6e to Terminal (equivalent of 6^th to 12^th grade). In Burkina, secondary education volunteers teach either at a lycee, like me, or at a CEG (College d’Ensignement General). A CEG is equivalent to a U.S. middle school with 6e to 3e (6^th to 9^th grade). One reason Tougouri has a lycee rather than just a CEG is because it is a departmental head and services 42 smaller villages. (Side note: Burkina is divided into 13 regions, 45 provinces, 350 departments, and 8000 villages. Tougouri is the head of one of the 350 departments). Despite servicing so many villages, there are only about 300 students in 6e and the numbers decrease as students age, with only 20 students in terminal. Despite the fact that school is mandatory to the age of 16, according to the government, the percentage of people who actually attend secondary school until 16 is very small, about 10%.

Because so many people do not attend school, Burkina’s literacy rate is only about 13%, favoring men at 18% and women at only 8%. Only about 1/3 of Burkina’s 7 year olds (average age to start school) actually attend primary school. The government wants 60% completion rates by 2010, but I doubt that is going to happen. Schooling, for the most part, is not free, although some new pilot schools have been established that are free. Parents do not want to spend money on schooling and some even see schooling as a threat to traditional values. For example, it costs around 25/30,000 CFA to attend L.D.T. for one year for one child, which is a lot of money given that the majority of the population lives off of less than 1000 CFA/day (equivalent of less than $2US). Another problem is finding spots for all the students. L.D.T. only has 315 places for students in 6e coming from 42 villages. Also, since many of these villages are rather far away, students have to either walk/bike several kilometers each way or find a place to live in Tougouri, which of course costs money. Some students find other families to live with during the school year, and a few lucky ones live at an NGO sponsored house in Tougouri.

Burkina has several national exams: after primary school, after 3e, and a third (the BAC) after terminal. Students need to pass these exams in order to continue on to the next grade leve. Also, students need to pass their individual classes. Grades are based out of 20 and students need to get an average of a 10 to continue and a 7 to redouble. Often students who do not pass will redouble the grade, but they can only redouble once per grade at any one school. Students who really want to try again, and have the money, can redouble again at a different school if they cannot pass twice.

The majority of jobs here do not require a high school diploma (or passing the BAC). As more than 80% of the population lives in rural areas, many people are farmers. A small percentage of the population are functionaries (civil servants: policemen, doctors, teachers, etc.). However, even to get a job as a functionaire one does not need to have finished secondary school, all one needs is to have passed the national exam after 3e (equivalent of 9^th grade). To teach at the secondary school level, one does need to have passed the BAC, but 4 years of university is not necessary. There are different levels of seconardary education teachers (with different pay scales of course) that require different amounts of schooling at university or training for teachers. After finishing school, functionaries are required to serve one year for “free”; they get paid about 30,000CFA/month ($60US) when normally they would be making 100,000+/month ($200US). Comparatively, this a lot of money to what most of the population lives off of, but 30,000CFA is not a lot to a functionaire who is more educated that most so usually wants to buy better food, medicine, etc., which means spending more money. Additionally it is hard to get teachers to work in small villages because they’ve all been to the city and like life with electricity and running water (as do I). So teachers end up spending a few years at most in village before requesting to be moved to a city, even though village is where they are needed most, which is why I am here!

Now, about my December. Winter break starts the 23^rd with the conseil de classe (final trimester meeting to discuss progess of students). However, I cannot give a test after the 9^th because I need to calculate averages and give ranks. Fortunately, I have my computer (with a good battery!!!) to do this. At the beginning of the trimester, when assigning dates for tests, I did not know exactly when the semester ended, so I’ve had to do some rearranging recently with test dates so they all fall before the 9^th. But it all got figured out, as I’ve found all things do, just sometimes takes some time. Some teachers talk as if they are going to stop teaching after the 9^th, but I am definitely continuing on, because what else would I do?