While I waited for my bus in Ouaga I couldn’t help but take notice at the little girl sitting next to me. She was eating gato, fried bread, with her stuffed animal rabbit. Much like little girls do, she would offer the bread to the rabbit, pretending to feed it, and then stuff it in her own mouth. It very much reminded me of a scene very common in America, a tea party, but seemed vastly out of context in Burkina. I couldn’t put my finger on what was so strange about the situation, until at last it hit me- the little girl had a toy. A made for the purpose of child’s play, store bought toy.
Children in Burkina don’t have toys. I’ve never even seen toys in stores- there’re just not sold here because they have no real useful purpose. Children make their own toys, playing with things adults deems useless. I was once visited by a band of about 5 boys under the age of 5, or rather, I came home one day to find them playing in my yard. Each was adorned with a empty sardine can with make shift wheels made out of wire, attached to a long string- Burkina’s version of a toy car that the boys could pull around. Once I said hello to them they scampered off in the direction of their compound, their “toy cars” in toe. I’ve seen another version of this pull cart, one with a small box as the body and wooden wheels attached to a pagne string. I can’t imagine someone actually making the wooden wheels, I’m sure they are a byproduct of something else, but they don’t really go round anyways. The boys drag along the box car behind them nonetheless. The children literally get the scraps of what their parents can’t find a use for.
A common practice at the CSPS is to give a child a pill packet or empty medicine box if they start to fuss. Just something to distract them. The pharmacy usually has a stack of small, empty boxes that the pill packets come in bulk in. One day a male toddler was given a box that use to hold vaginal suppositories to calm him down after a shot. The child pranced around proudly with his box, which was labeled in English, so only I was amused by the sight.
But the child that really touched me with his use of “trash” was Little Man. It was a busy morning at the CSPS and I had just finished taking temperatures. I sat down on an empty bench, facing out into the entrance, and found Little Man staring back at me. He was just wearing the neon green pants that go under his neon green boubou, the traditional Muslim getup, without the top and was plopped down in an old medicine box that was just big enough to fit his little body, feet hanging over the edge, in the middle of the CSPS front courtyard. From the look of him you’d think he was in a lazy boy. I smiled at the sight of him and he gave me a big, white smile back. Throughout the morning I watched him play in his box, pretending it was a car or maybe that he was flying, occasionally he would move around and sit in a different position, and wherever he went the box was sure to follow. That morning, he was just a little boy with his box. A very plain and simple box. It reminded me of my own childhood, when Nany gave me a box from a new fridge or stove, and we made a house out of it. For days and weeks I played in that box until it couldn’t sand any longer and Nany claimed it for the burning barrel. Incidentally as I was leaving the CSPS that morning, I saw Little Man’s grandmother in the box, one side had been ripped down as to create a lawn chair. He was perched on her lap.
Children here are a sentiment of a simpler life- there are so many things in the western world that are truly unnecessary, they just add clutter to our lives. Children’s toys for example- sure they serve a temporary purpose, but interest level has a short lifespan and it quickly becomes a garage sale item. After all, aren’t children just as amused by the trash?
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