It must be said.

Today, I need to get something off my chest. And this time, I am talking directly to you, the whites, Europeans, North-Americans... or anyone else for which this particular shoe may fit. I have been observing a phenomenon that, quite frankly, baffles me to no end. I have seen it happen in front of my very eyes, and I have seen the results of this at my job. I have seen the damage it causes both medically and emotionally.

I am talking about sexual tourism...  This is something that has me conflicted to no end. 

On the one hand, you have the tourist, or foreigner living here, or whatever else the situation maybe... lets call them, Non-Africans for the time being. He/She feels lonely, finds him/herself a nice young hot sexy 20 year old and has a good time. No problem right? well... I am not sure. It is expected that you will pay the person. This person will not tell you this before hand. No no no no. They will tell you this as they leave your hotel room, house, etc. Expecting money. Because everybody knows that white=$$$.  Now, lets be clear. I do not pay for *hum*... companionship shall we say. I have never needed to do that, nor do I plan on starting now that I am  here.  But, I have heard stories, and there are quite a few, of such situations arising.  This is the result of years and years of Non-Africans coming over here and partaking in this.  The problem I have with this, is that is a clear abuse of power. (power = money). It is impossible to go out to a nice restaurant or bar on a Saturday night without seeing a creepy, disgusting, 65 year old man, with a hot 22 year old woman. Its sickening. It drives me nuts.  Oh... I am sure there is the odd case of the 22 y/o falling in love with the 65 year old... but i mean COME ON, how many can there be? 

Now, on the other hand.... the local who is being wined and dined and payed a bunch of cash, has nothing. No job. Not much of a future, and in some cases might even be living off the companionship of Non-Africans. So... it appears to be win-win? right?

WRONG.  And this is a BIG wrong.  In fact, it is so wrong, I have had conversations with some locals about this that during which I wanted to pull my hair out. People... HIV is a real problem.  

The locals will never ask the Non-Africans to put on a condom. Its not in their culture. Culturally speaking, it is wrong to make someone else look bad. Ergo, asking your partner to put on a condom is an insult, or putting on a condom would mean that you think your partner is unclean. Therefor, you can go and screw 12 people a day, and nobody will ask you to wear a condom. In fact... I have I even asked in my, hum, how shall I say... "encounters", if we should use a condom, and the answer is pretty much one of two possibilities :"No"  which leads to quite the discussion, let me tell you, or "It doesn't matter, its up to  you."  Which leads to another discussion. Yeah, so maybe its not the most sexy bedroom talk in the world, but OMG, someone has to say something! The HIV rate is high, probably around 25-30% in urban areas. Compare with less than 0.1% in Canada. Come on people. Wake up. This problem is compounded by the fact that culturally, it would be difficult for a Burkinabè to go to a pharmacy and buy condoms. The main reason is that the condom packages have naked ladies on them! Yeah. I was really impressed. Oh, and did you know that the condoms provided to the world's most HIV infected region are not as good as the ones sold elsewhere? Yeah, they break. So if you do come here, and you plan on tasting the local cuisine (heheh i love euphemisms), bring your own stash of rubbers, and really, no glove, no love.

Also, there is the whole thing surrounding promiscuity. I don`t think there is a single man in Burkina Faso that has been faithful to his wife 100% of the time. Ok ok, I exaggerate a little bit, but sometimes that's what it seems like. The Muslims have 2 or 3 wives, and the Christians all have honey`s on the side. And for the most part, they don't work that hard on concealing it. The wives, most of the time, will be perfectly happy pretending like they don't know... or pretending that they happy pretending that they don't know... or are they afraid of saying something and then getting the crap kicked out of them? I don't know.... it hurts my head when I think about it too much.

I know people, intimately, who keep relationships going with white men all over the world. That way, there is a constant stream of men, coming to visit them. One every other month or so. These men, who live in France, Canada, USA, Germany, Switzerland, etc, all think they have the love of a hot young Burkinabè stud. So they send money through money orders or through western union. Its not much, 100$ a month, or every other month. But if you have 4 or 5 honeys around the world, sending you 100$ each, every 2 months, that's potentially 1.5 million CFAs a year. The average salary here is probably around 360 000 / year.

Is this wrong? I don`t know anymore. Why am I even thinking about this stuff? Well, like I said in a previous blog... I have a huney here. And well, I might as well admit it, I am in love.

But, am I just another Non-Africa wallet? How the hell am I supposed to know? Am I a potential ticket out of here? Goodness I hope not. 

Am I one of 5 or 6 other Non-Africans currently involved with him? I would rather not know.