The Day the City Burned

Rainy season is over, the vegetable selection is shrinking, and the days are getting cooler. However, the massive amounts of rain we get during rainy season gives way to massive amounts of overgrowth all over the city. It’s transformed; the sights, the smells... they are all different at the end of rainy season. There is one problem, however. If the plants are all left alone, they will slowly die and decay and the city just looks terrible. Enter the cleaning crews, stage right.

 They descend en masse, chopping down everything in their path. New saplings, shrubberies, weeds, flowers, and bramble all fall to their machetes and “dabas”- versatile one-handed shovel/pickaxe/hammer-esque simple tools. Nothing is safe. When dead trees and branches are removed, they are cut up and distributed to firewood vendors. They arrive in swarms with their donkeys and carts, loading up as much as they can carry. Often a small child climbs on top of the staggering stack of wood and guides the donkey home from up high.

I see the cleanup crews everywhere I go. There is a foreman and a selection of both men and women in the groups. A third of the women have babies tied on their backs as they bend over to scrap the plants from the ground with their dabas. Other women follow these crews with coolers, selling water and little snacks to help get them through the day. In a few hours, the day will become quite hot and will force the teams to assemble under the trees to rest and rehydrate. From what I hear, this team gets paid about sixty dollars a month for three months to do this work full-time, the same salary a security guard in the national capital would receive. For single mothers or young men on their own and out of work, this is a secure source of income. As I look out the window of the “teacher’s lounge” at my high school, I see one such crew walking by. Some have fancy straw hats. I see a baby wearing a blue knit cap. They seem to be in very high spirits.

When a team is done clearing an area, they stack up all the brush into big piles and set them aflame. This is a pretty cool site to see- huge pillars of smoke rising up in all directions, tongues of flame flickering between the gaps in houses. I see this period as a new beginning. We are at an excellent part of the year- the rains have died down so people can resume normal work again but the greenery, life, and vibrancy of the village remains. Cleaning up the wild brush restores control over the city’s surroundings. It lets the citizens breathe again. Most importantly, it keeps snakes from camping out all over town. I have yet to see a snake in Burkina, but I know they’re out there. Another volunteer from the neighboring village showed me a picture of the snake she ate… it was immense. Some type of constrictor. Yeah, I don’t want those moving into my courtyard, no sir…

I know in other villages, they burn the brush and I’ve heard stories of volunteers being trapped in their houses as the overgrowth burns around them. However, it’s rarely as systematic as it is here. I have the chance of being in a larger, more developed community than the surrounding villages and we have the resources and workforce to do this. One day, I might try taking up a daba myself and jumping in. 

We’ll have to see!