Jeni, Rakieta and Merry when she lived with us
If you are an online friend, you may know more about Rakieta than even Merry and Jeni. Rakieta is a long, long story and is the main reason I became active online. Now I will give you a brief recap. Rakieta is 17 and is from Burkina Faso, W. Africa. For those of you unfamiliar it is one country north of Ghana. It is part of French W. Africa. Rakieta is Muslim and from one of the “villages” that surround Ouagadougou the capital city of Burkina. Since she is Muslim, she has one father but 2 mothers. The men may have up to 4 wives at a time. It is handled similarly to step parenting, but the order in which the wife was married has to do with her seniority. The lower the wife on the totem pole usually lowers her seniority in the household, but her status is usually more favored with the husband. Weird to us Americans, but the Africans understand it. No, women do not like the system. In fact Rakieta’s mother has been very open to her daughters’ becoming “Christian”. Burkanabes are either Muslim, Christian, animist or some sort of combination. All factions get along very well and in fact go to each other’s celebrations.
Rakieta’s family is very poor and has struggled a lot over the years. Many years ago when times were particularly tough she was sent to live with an uncle in Ghana to become a servant. Rakieta was 7 or 8 years old. Before you gasp at this, please understand that if you are a poor village person with few options, your sending a child to a more populated area with a relative is actually a chance at a better life for the child. Many village children/teens have gone to the city and receive a better education than can be gotten out in the bush and have more luxuries. We, in the west, can’t fathom this, but it is a harsh reality in Africa.
During Rakieta’s stay in Ghana, she accidentally spilled kerosene on herself filling a lamp. Being so young she just didn’t realize the danger. As she lit the match her skirt caught fire and her legs were consumed in the fire. She was treated in Ghana. While the care was rudimentary, they were able to save her life. She was sent home to Burkina to be with her family. In Burkina, she was cared for at the clinic. The social worker for her neighborhood became acquainted with her and tried desperately to help her proper care.
Eventually a group agreed to bring her to the US. Rakieta was then 13. We were her host family. Unfortunately the group was very young, not real responsible and not real honest. Shortly after her arrival, our family was pretty clear that we were all in over our heads. We refused to allow the group to mishandle her any further than they already had and we were able to successfully complete the proper treatment on one leg. To circumvent us, the group leader sent her back to Africa as we were required to return the child upon completion of care. To regain control of Rakieta legally the woman terminated her care. Rakieta’s parents allowed her to be promptly returned to the US by the group against our advice and the advice of the social worker. She “hung out” in the US for almost another year. Eventually she did go in for some treatment of the other leg. Unfortunately something went terribly wrong with the initial surgery and she was forced to endure 4 amputations of the leg. It was a terrible time for her both physically and emotionally.
She was returned home to her family several months later broken in spirit and physically no better off than before she came to the US.
Once we knew she was safely home, we initiated contact. The family was also initiating contact with us. Now things move pretty slow in Africa, but within a few months we were all back in contact with one another, had heard the stories and were figuring out where to go from there.
We tried to bring Rakieta back to the US one more time to get her poorly fitting, now completely falling apart prosthetic replaced, but she was refused due to her age, financial instability of the family, and her length of time already in the US.
What to do next? Well, our family started getting it’s act together to go into Burkina to visit and the Ambassador had recommended a prosthetic clinic in Ouagadougou for us to try. After several months of searching for someone who could communicate with both our family, Rakieta and the doctors we were successful and Rakieta was able to get the prosthetic fixed. Eventually she will need a repalcement, but we will deal with that when we go over. In the meantime, she moved in with the social worker where she could take better care of herself as an amputee and through our sponsorship she has been attending sewing school.
We talk several times weekly and in fact do school work also by telephone. Rakieta is very happy and healthy at this point. Her “family” in all it’s entirety is very connected to our family and community in Michigan and many wonderful friendships are being formed. I will talk more about that later.
To us, Rakieta is remarkable for her ability to not only persevere through all her tragic circumstances, but she is able to keep a wonderful sense of humor. Within hours of meeting us, we all knew what a special bond there was and adversity and oceans could never break it. Rakieta is a wonderful ambassador for her whole country. Her deepest desire is to return to Imlay City, Mi. We are trying very hard to help her reach that goal. However, wherever she ends up, she will make a big difference in the world.
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