A family in Ouagadougou: "My trips are returning home"

Maria (40 years old) barely remembers how many years she has been living in Burkina Faso, a West African country. "About 15 or 16, I don't know anymore," she tells me now, from the house where she lives in the capital, Ouagadougou. Axel, her eldest son, is restless because he wants to play, and the youngest, Jordi, who is not yet a year old, has taken his first steps these days. Her husband, Thierry, also lives at home with them, and they have a dog. The family, however, like almost all African families, is extended and within the four walls of the house there is always someone visiting. A cousin, a brother, a niece, or a sister-in-law. "You can wake up one day and have people sleeping in the living room, it's very common," Maria tells me.

In Burkina Faso, holidays are closely linked to school holidays, but Maria complains that they are "four months long"; all of June, July, August, and September. School for students doesn't start until October 1st, and for teachers, two weeks earlier. "I only have 30 days of vacation and I take two weeks in the summer and two in the winter. Since I live far from home, they usually add a few days, because they understand that living far from family is not easy. Even so, I have many days left and I don't know what to do with the children."

The only solution she has found so far, while both she and Thierry are working, is to take Axel, the eldest son, to a summer camp, from 9 to 12, and the youngest stays at home with a nanny. "Jordi is too young to go to nursery school..." she explains to me. And she adds: "I get home at quarter to five in the afternoon and then we dedicate ourselves to playing, reviewing the homework Axel has done during the year, we paint, we do playdough..." she says, while the two brothers play with a plane and a ball.

When Axel returns from summer camp, he stays at home with Jordi, his younger brother, and the nanny. But instead of taking a nap, after lunch, he goes out into the street in front of his house to play with his neighbors. "It's very hot inside the houses, so it's better to go outside," says Maria. The children play tag running down the street, they get dirty, but, after all, it's a way to have fun while the vacation days go by.

On weekends, Axel goes to a basketball camp. “Axel prefers basketball because his father also plays it.” Although it is organized inside a military camp, which Maria doesn't really like, it is much better than the football training that a neighbor from the neighborhood organized where there was no “sporting or child pedagogy”.

While July progresses with a certain normality, the family prepares to travel in August. For families who live far from home, or who have a home and their heart divided between two countries, during the holiday months the planes are not for going far but for going back to see friends and family. "In August we go to Catalonia to see family, we see them twice a year, in summer and at Christmas. My trips are going home, and I really like being in my land, seeing friends, family," she describes.

Once in Catalonia, activities multiply. Holidays are for going to the sea, as there isn't any in Burkina Faso, or to Port Aventura, because Axel has already started asking for it, and because Bibi Parc in Ouagadaougou (an amusement park with a Ferris wheel and some inflatables) has already become too small for him, or to the mountains where she has an aunt. In Burkina Faso it's difficult for the temperature to drop below 25 degrees and the capital has a semi-desert landscape with few trees.

Going to the Pyrenees is fresh air! They also take the opportunity to go to the Zoo or the Aquarium. "It's not that I miss it, but if I weren't a mother, maybe I would be traveling!" she says. In Burkina, currently, it's difficult to move around and do tourism due to the presence of armed groups. Although when Maria arrived she could visit natural parks where there were animals and sleep in the desert, now outings are much more limited. That's why they can go to see the family living in the village less and less. "Here many people don't have a second home, but a village where grandparents or part of the family still live." That's why during the holidays the youngest and the young people go to the village to learn about their origins and also to help with farm work. The holidays in this country coincide with the rainy season, which is the peak time for agriculture. The annual economy of many families depends on the success of the agricultural campaign, which runs from June to October.

It has been a long time since they could visit their paternal family, who live in the west of the country, but in Ouagadougou there is also a swimming pool and restaurants where you can go to eat an ice cream when it is very hot. “I speak Catalan to Axel, French at school, the nanny in Mooré, and his father in Dyula and French,” explains Maria. Jordi doesn't say 'mama' or 'papa' yet, but he has already heard all these languages spoken at home. The holidays, which are not summer holidays for children and teachers in Burkina Faso, as they coincide with the coldest season, began at the end of May, but for someone who lives far from their country, the real holidays are those spent close to family between the Pyrenees and the Costa Brava.