"I learned how to do bronze with my father. When I was a young boy, he would hold me in his arms while he worked on his craft. It was an apprenticeship that existed between father and son." Issouf sits on a ragged wooden stool against a cement wall. He's concentrated, sweat dripping onto his hands as he gently shapes the bee's wax model. He takes great care to get the proportions right. The mother's hands are perfectly positioned under the book she holds with a child poised on her lap. Issouf decides the child's head looks a little small. He adds more wax. "Et viola", he says with quiet satisfaction as he holds it up to show me. Issouf and his team of around twelve artisans work to create lost wax bronze pieces for Ten Thousand Villages. "Everyone is happy here. We don't get in fights, we have discussions. I seek to understand each person I work with, to really know them. We're like a family." Lost wax bronze making is an intense process, and is one of the oldest known forms of bronze casting in the world, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC, having sustained little change since its inception. Starting with a bee's wax form, artisans sculpt their models and then cover them with banco, a mixture of donkey dung and mud which has been arduously pounded together with a pestle, the same material used to construct homes in Burkina and other nations around the world. Adding two layers of banco over the wax, he creates a small hole which reveals only a portion of the wax model. After baking under the midday Sahelian sun for a few hours, Issouf will bake the hardened, now unrecognizable form once again, this time in white hot coals of what seems like an ever-burning fire. He'll tend the coals, turning the pieces so that the wax leaves the model through the small hole completely. Surely this is a craft of patience, and endurance. Standing over a fire, in the sun, which at mid-day in Burkina can heat workshops to well over 100*F (39*C) without the addition of white-hot flames is not for the faint of heart (or for those who are prone to fainting in general). After the wax is melted completely from the model, it's time to heat the bronze. Various artisans have told me that bronze melts at around 1,200* C, or 2,300* F. Artisans use any recycled bronze they can find -- bullet casings, bronze knobs from gas tanks, and old bits and pieces they've collected. Carefully pouring the molten bronze into the stone-hard banco model, it’s left to sit for hours, sometimes days, to harden. Once cooled, the earthen model is broken by hammers and small chisels, revealing a rough, many times incomplete, bronze statue. The abrupt edges of statues are smoothed with large metal files, and that's when the pieces, borne from donkey dung and bullet casings, truly shine. As a final touch, artisans add patina, breathing life and dimension into their pieces. And then the process begins again.
Because banco models must be broken away from the bronze that lies beneath, every lost-wax bronze statue is unique. After creating this piece, Issouf must start the process again from his chunk of beeswax. A craft shaped by millenia of practice, Ten Thousand Villages has invested in preserving something that is at the heart of Burkinabé artisanal culture. And not only is the historical art form maintained, it's celebrated when invested in. It's given value and made accessible in the international market-place. By paying him a fair wage for the work he loves, Issouf takes great pride in his work and the life he lives. "With the work Ten Thousand Villages supplies, I have been able to save money, and eventually built my own house, the one you see here. I am proud of the work I do."
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After going to midnight mass with my host sister, the scent of incense still on my clothes, Vanessa told me that it was “time to start cooking”. I looked at her in bewilderment, and asked her if she was joking. But low and behold, a 15-minute moto-ride later, found myself grating cheese and falling into a state of delirium. By 1:45am, I had grated half a kilo of cheddar, and also cut up green beans for soup when Vanessa told me to go to bed, because this sort of work wasn’t normal for me. I was too tired to argue that it wasn’t the type of work but the time of work that wasn’t “une habitude”, so I went to bed.
The next day I learned that the reason we had prepared so much food was because Christmas here meant visitors. And then more visitors. People coming and going from our house all day, Muslims and Christians alike, rendering visits to neighbors, family members, friends of friends, cousins twice removed. People came and went, eating, drinking, exchanging stories about recent deaths, births, and gossip from a few nearby villages. “How do you know if you’re the host or you’re going to other houses to be hosted?”, my friend Lauren asked. Good question, I said. “How do you know when it’s over?”, my sister asked. It kind of just ends when you lock the door, I said. I missed Christmas with my family in the States. I exchanged cozy sweaters for sleeveless shirts and weird tan lines, snow and a chance of freezing rain with 90 degrees and a chance of dust, and my grandmother’s apple pie for papayas and poulet biciclette (google it). But I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing Burkinabé Noël, where it was, at it’s foundation, about loving neighbors well. I’m learning a lot about that here. Radical hospitality is something Burkinabé people are known for, and that’s thrown into sharp relief on holidays. There weren’t lights or a Christmas tree at my house. My family didn’t play Christmas music or exchange presents with each other. But they did feed every person who entered our compound, children and adults alike, and made sure everyone felt welcome regardless of who they were, even if they happened to be complete strangers. There was no schedule, and no one knew how many people would show up. But we were ready for them. I’ve walked into my host family’s house for the first time. All curtains are drawn, and I’m greeted by seven hulking couches and the head of a stuffed antelope mounted above the entrance to the dining room and rooms beyond. Cecile, my host maman, pours some water into glasses on a shiny silver tray. I’m told to sit down, and people start talking at lightning speed, jumping from French to Moore to French to Moore. What am I doing here? I want to show people I’m grateful, but how? The TV is on, a nice buffer between my disorientation and what’s happening around me. After thank yous and last-minute details my MCC friends leave. I’m here with my host parents. Alone. I smile, and they smile -- silence. But only for a moment. Marius, the son of Lamusa, the woman who diligently cleans my family’s house and the surrounding area, appears in the doorway. Marius is probably eight months old, and is fasnicated by me, probably because I’m white. He’s adorable, and in broken French I start talking with him. My host parents laugh at me as I play with him, and try out a few English words with me about babies. “This is fun”, I think. “I’m making a connection with my host family – I can do this.” Marius sits on my lap, and we talk a little more. And then Marius pees. All over me. At first I didn’t realize it, but once I do I start to laugh. My host parents look at me, confused as I find a way to say, “Marius is not dry”, because I don’t know the word for “wet” or the verb “to pee” in French. They say, “ahhh, go take a shower and change”. They aren’t surprised at all. Or maybe they’re embarrassed? I’m not sure, but I this has probably happened before. I manage to hand off Marius to Lamusa and go to my room, trying not to let my wet skirt touch my skin. Moments later, there’s a knock on my door. Cecile says something through my door – her muffled French is hard for me to understand, but I’m able to pick out a few words I know: l’eau (water) and coupe (cut). What she has told me is that water has just gone out, and that it might be out for a few hours. I stare at the ceiling, close my eyes, and smile as I hear the shuffle of her plastic sandals on cool grey tile grow fainter. This is hilarious. Within the first hour of living with my host family I’ve managed to get peed on. I can just change, and then shower later, right? I find a few babies wipes I had packed (ironic, I know) and clean up a bit. At least to a point which I feel like I can wear other clothes. I enter the living room again, and Blaise, my host father, has changed the channel. He’s watching a Telenovela in French, so the mouths of the people and the words they’re saying don’t match. I sit with him, enveloped by one of the large couches. He smiles at me, and explains to me what’s happening with the show. Blaise is an important man. The retired governor of a neighboring city called Ziniaré, he carries with him a sense of excellence and prestige. But he’s also incredibly generous and authentically kind. We talk for a while -- well, I try to talk -- and he helps me with words and phrases I don’t know. After apologizing once again for my French later that night at the dinner table, he stops me and in French explains, “Rachelle, learning another language takes courage. To have courage. It’s important”. I’ve heard the word “courage” several times already during my time here, and I think it’s something the Holy Spirit is encouraging me to remember. To have courage is not easy no matter who or where you are, but I know it’s vital, especially as I start out. It will take courage for me to spend time with people when I could choose not to. It will take courage for me to buy more credit on my cell phone, because words don’t come easily to me in French. It will take courage for me to build relationships with artisans, to ride my bike on cramped streets, to ask questions. But as Blaise reminds me, courage is required in all of this. And it’s something I’ll probably receive slowly, inviting the Spirit of God to sustain me moment by moment. I’m brimming with nervousness, excitement, and a little bit of dread as I anticipate how difficult some of this might be. My daily prayer is for God to provide me the courage to fail, and then succeed (maybe). All that said, I know that it will take me some time to work up the courage to hold Marius for extended periods again – and I think that’s okay. |
AuthorThis year, I'm living in Burkina Faso with the Mennonite Central Committee and learning more about art, development, and peace. You can follow my journey here as I seek to tell many stories. ArchivesCategories |