The Word Nisara

No matter where we are on the planet, life is not easy. Take Washington DC, for example. My city has been absolutely pounded with snow. More than 2 feet, or a small child. That's an insane thought to someone living in a place where rain is difficult to come by. So in DC, we have the struggle to heat the home, make it to work, and get to the grocery store so we can put a plate of food on the table for our loved ones.

Take a 180 turn and you might find yourself in Burkina Faso where daily struggles are far different, but still are related to our basic needs as human beings. Over here, we struggle with extreme heat and infertile land to cultivate, leading us to the basic need of putting a plate of food out at night for our loved ones.

This world may have its extremes, but the basic human needs of water, food, and shelter still plague all of us everyday.

Except me. I have the good fortune of being a Peace Corps Volunteer, where we have enough money to eat everyday, the neccessary healthcare required to live in such extreme conditions, and a staff fully equipped to counter the problems that we may face. So my basic human needs are met, what next?

I struggle everday to fight the stigma of being a white guy. I have been a minority at middle school and high school, but I still grew up in a very good home in a good situation. I am one of the fortunate ones. For the first time in my life, I am experiencing the effects of being a minority. A student of mine who speaks pretty good English asked me the other day in a concerning tone, "Why don't you have friends here?"

That question has plagued me for the last week. And the truth is, I don't know why. I am limited greatly in my abilities to communicate, but it runs deeper than that. I come from a background that is impossible to describe to folks, even in English, and a culture with qualities that clash greatly with the culture I have been dropped off in.

The word Nisara is the most hated word in my dictionary. It means white person. While it does not have the connations of racial slurs in America, in fact having Nisara things (cars for example) is a good thing here, to me it is an extremely divisive word.

Today as I was returning from lunch I walked past a dad and his daughter, with the father pointing at me saying Nisara so the child would learn that is what you call white people. I struggle everday to fight the stigma, to have people call me "monsier" or my actual name "Dylan." I gave up trying to tell adults, but instead I try to tell the kids that words like "Nisara," "Toubabou," and "Le Blanc" are extremely impolite and disrespectful. While I have managed to get a few neighborhood kids, there are still a thousand more left to go.

Judge me not by the color of my skin, but by the content of my character. -Quote adapted from Martin Luther King Jr.

In other news, I met the President of Burkina Faso at a Taiwanese Fisherie last Sunday. The Taiwanese built a fantastic fish farm in Bagre, a town of my closest PCV neighbor Carolyn, that has been handed over to Burkinabe government. The meeting was actually a complete suprise--I was wearing shorts and t-shirt as it was Sunday morning. I was completely embarrased.

I am in the process of transferring computer lab rights to some students who formed a computer lab committee. While I still have full control, I am eager to lessen the rope of access so that I no longer have to spend every waking hour dealing with whiny students wanted to play Zuma and Pinball. For those of you who don't know the program DeepFreeze, familiarize yourself. It is the greatest program I have ever used.

Also, read up on Guinea with the link I have posted here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/africa/03guinea.html