There’s a phenomenon in Burkina, and I don’t know whether in other not necessarily African countries as well, that consists in “group fainting” among girls in classrooms. This year we’ve experienced it firsthand.

Waiting in line to renew the FAR scholarship

September is the month to prepare for going back to school (the “rentrée”), which happens in October here. It’s a month dedicated to getting up and running the machinery that never stops outright for: the 300 preschoolers; the more than 100 boys and more than 100 girls in the Street Children and unschooled girls projects, respectively; the mothers in the literacy program and the almost 500 scholarships.

This is what we are up to these weeks – granting this year’s scholarships. As always, they’ve surprised me with another peculiar story, which I’d like to share with you.

It’s the case of Aguiratou, one of the girls who’s been receiving a FAR scholarship for the last 6 years. This year she will be a sophomore in high school. Her mother wants to change her to another school because last year she fainted many times in class because, and I quote, “the school is possessed by ‘djinn,’ by which she means supernatural creatures.

Like many other phenomena in Burkina, episodes of ‘fainting in class,’ which tend to be collective (one girl starts and most of the class winds up swooning), are quite frequent and are attributed to ‘Paranormal’ causes.

Different “djinns” represented by masks

I have no doubt that there are natural causes behind these episodes, but just in case, I did an Internet search on “adolescent fainting,” and came up with thousands of entries. And wouldn’t you know, the first I open points to possible causes like “excess heat,” “hunger,” and “inadequate fluid consumption/dehydration.” Bingo. In a country in which the temperatures are what they are, the food is scarce and access to drinking water complicated, the three causes are more than enough to explain these fainting spells.

With all due care and understanding, I’ve tried to convince the girl’s mother to see how this year goes, making sure that Aguiratou is well fed and hydrated, as both problems are possible causes of fainting. But, as you can imagine, it was to no avail.

It’s hard to convince her. Upon further investigation I discover that the phenomenon in Burkina has reached the level of “generalized psychosis” in some schools. That’s why the fainting happens in groups: the psychosis causes other girls to follow one who faints.

How can I summarize the rest of what I read in the short time I dedicated to looking further into the matter? There’s a bit of everything, but one thing that struck me as particularly curious is the case of a school principal in Ouaga who forbade the girls from wearing artificial hair extensions (very common here), after the school nurse pointed out that most of the girls who suffered fainting spells wore them. The nurse concluded that, though they weren’t the primary cause, the extensions exacerbated the fainting…In the health centers where the fainting girls are taken, the usual cause cited is “panic caused by the pressure of schoolwork.” But popular belief points to the schools’ locations – built perhaps on cemeteries or sacrificial altars – or to curses cast on either the fainting girl or on the school principal…

Aguiratou’s case is one more example of the day-to-day presence of a belief in “dark forces,” in this wonderful society. And it helps me to learn more about it and it reminds me that it plays a fundamental role in daily life here.

You’ll remember, along the same lines, the case I shared with you last year about Inoussa….. who, by the way, finished last year with an 8.5/10 and will pass to the fifth grade.

We’ll see what this next year has in store for us!!!