My Journey to Africa's Dano Village

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By

F. Stanley Boyd

I’m Tina Murphy-Kaulback when I met Frank Boyd for the first time in
Halifax years ago I was overwhelmed by the feeling that we had known one another
at a time centuries before in the much-fabled and ancient city of Atlantis. With
my belief in reincarnation and as I am an ancestoralization medium through which
the dead speak to the living, I learned much from my African journey. The
thought of contacting my friends when I returned to share what I learned was
very much on my mind. When Frank heard my story of how the trip transformed me
as a professional rebirther, he was impressed; he also wanted to share its
message with others, who seek adventure and also want to understand life’s
meaning more fully. My Burkina Faso trip will forever be fresh in my mind and it
is as fascinating to me now as it was when my two-day flight took me to that
place, the Dano village in Africa. Don’t miss it.

Quotes from Tina Murphy-Kaulback

“Dagara people see with their third eye – they don’t see what we see – they see more – they know what’s going on and they can tell you.”

“They exist over there to survive – not to download ring tones from the Internet.”

“They are happy people; they are very, very poor, but they don’t want for anything; they are very happy people. We have so much; they have so little.”

There are two of us, Canadians from Nova Scotia, who make this journey to Africa. Both of us are always seek the meaning of our lives and we are both women. My travel mate is my friend, Marie Lucas; we are like soul mates in that we travel often together. In any case we travel from Halifax south to Boston to east to Paris, France, across many datelines and time zones. At Paris we meet others who are going with us to our first African stop, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. I would say the reason I am going to Africa is to go home and it is to connect with the ancestors on a deeper level.

As I am flying and Marie and I are talking, covering mile after mile in the sky and I reflect back on the East Coast Village in upper New York State where our journey actually begins.

The East Coast Village

The leader and founder of the East Coast village is of the Dagara tribe, a spiritual leader whose name is Malidoma Patrice Some. The Dagara creation story sees the planet as a frozen extension of a much brighter and more harmonious spiritual world. Malidoma says, “If we don’t maintain this world, something will happen to the Other World. Our relationship with the Spirit World is a two-way stream, and we need to fine-tune and maintain the lines of communication between the two worlds.”

Malidoma says his past is his best teacher and in writing, “Rights of Passage,” he says My name means, “be friends with the stranger/enemy,” I was taken from my village when I was 4 years old by Jesuit missionaries to be trained to join a new generation of Catholic priests. At 20, no longer able to endure the abuse and indoctrination of the seminary, I escaped back to Dano, my village. Once I was home, however, I received a mixed welcome. Many people in the tribe considered me a “white black,” contaminated by the sickness of the colonial world. Determined to reconnect with my tribe, I relearned his native tongue. A year after my return I asked the village elders to allow me to undergo the arduous process of initiation, a rite of passage usually undertaken by 13- and 14-year-olds.”

I pass the six-week ordeal and I am enthusiastically welcomed back into the tribe. I later go on to earn a Ph.D. in political science at the Sorbonne and another in literature at Brandies. I am the author of Ritual: Power, Healing and Community (Swan-Raven Books) and Of Water and the Spirit (Putnam Books).

“The Dagara people understand that the spirit that animates each of us in our life can be reborn, and that the purpose of this reincarnation is to try once again to fix this world. And this is why when we are not at peace until we find ourselves useful, wanted, valued and needed. We do not come here into this world on vacation. We come here for service and we have to remember what that service is. The nature of our service – our purpose – is configured already in the Spirit World before we come here. Community is the mirror that allows us to see our purpose, and the school is where we first learn the meaning of service.”

At the East Coast Village Marie and I learn much from Malidoma. Marie writes to Malidoma: “Opening to my heart, my ancestors, my life purpose and my African lineage has been a life saving experience.” Writing of his experience with the East Coast school and with Malidoma’s teachings Jonathan Post of Cherry Plain, NY says, “ There is an old technology that we lost a long time ago: the recognition that you can know in yourself, and in your bones, Spirit in Nature.”

We learn divination: how to communicate with the Spirit World. There are the “katomblais,” spirits that live in caves, they assist when through divination we undertake to seek unity with the spirit world.” They assist us in the determination of your life’s purpose. Using something like a divining stick and objects from the divination kit that have symbolic meaning one divines one’s life purpose. That, among other rituals, is what we learn at the East Coast village. The village is in the Taconic Hills in eastern New York, near the border with Massachusetts, a half-hour due east of Albany, New York.

“The program aims at teaching the medicine of Mother Nature, at recreating the natural instinct in the souls of people and reopening the eye to see the sacred again with an eye unhampered by modernism.” Says Malidoma.

That was then, and now it seems so long ago, and only after the passage of two days of air travel since we landed in the sweltering heat of “Ouaga.”

By contrast Halifax is about to fall under the spill of a cold weather pattern, a blizzard of some 95.5 centimeters of snow, white Juan that was preceded by the devastation of that tropical hurricane, Juan. We’ve been “Juaned” to death. The bill to remove white Juan from the streets of Halifax will top $10m, but for us to travel to our destination in Africa will not cost quite that much. Right now, some snow would keep the dust down and us cool.

The Independence Hotel in Ouagadougou

The bill to remove the polluted air from “Ouaga” might even match the cost of cleaning up the snow in Halifax caused by white Juan. The villagers wait for us to welcome their visitors from the West. A leader from our village in New York, Robert prepares the way for us by being there two weeks before our arrival.

Sareal helps us through the baggage checks with ease. The driver of our van is ready at all times to assist us, to take us to town for supplies, to make telephone calls all things we do with ease and take for granted here in Canada. In the van the driver sleeps but at the airport still we load up the van and away we sweep for the Hotel Independence. Here we meet another of our group, Laura and her friend, Afta, who makes drums. Afta promises me one that I shall pick up on my way back to Canada where it shall be the envy of all my drumming acquaintances who will want to play it in their groups.

The next morning Stephen joins us to go to Dano; he was with us in New York and he comes from Germany to take the course with us. We meet to discuss the events planned for the day. Throughout the entire trip we need to exchange money. On starting out we have Canadian currency, in New York we acquire US in Paris we get a little Euro in Ouaga we obtain CFA’s (Communante Financiere Africaine) and our driver takes us to the local money exchange, or bank.

It is January 12, 2004 and it is hot, very hot. We must go to the teller one at a time and we each require a translator to get what we want. Small bills and coin are in short supply. This takes about one hour and a half as things move in Ouaga.

As we finish we go out back to sit and wait some more. We are overlooking the street where there is much activity. The air carries with a grey hue, car fumes and other exhausts. Vendors surround us asking us to buy. Women men and children carry items on their heads. As our cars stop the children would come up to our cars to sell fruit of different kinds much as the squeegee kids do at major intersections here in Canada, with one difference in Ouaga they are everywhere.

Ana and I are walking and talking and at the same time we are visually taking everything it: we are moving slowly but our minds are racing at top speed. Visually we survey the entire scene as we are walking when, all at once my eyes meet the eyes of a beggar, a tall African man and they are fixated on him by his gestures, as the local people speak French and Dagara together. Motioning with his hands we know he’s asking for money or something to eat. Moving on, some of us went back to the Hotel but Ana and I go on. Vendors are bombarding us trying to get us to go to their booths to buy.

Then, there is this booth where there are beautiful hats of many sorts. I want to wear it, and take one back home as a reminder of this trip. As with everything, you need to dicker, if you do not dicker, the vendors are insulted. I feel that everything here moves slower and is stress free.

The Dano Village

We spent what seems like hour after hour of waiting to go to Dano and around about 2 pm we embark on a five-hour van trip to our destination in the remote village of Dano in Burkina Faso. (The Dano village, located in Burkina Faso, is about 12 degrees north of the equator in latitude and 4 degrees in east longitude of the prime meridian. (See, map of Burkina Faso.)

Finally we load up the van and we are on our way. Everyone is very excited and when this happens everyone gets very chatty. We drive and drive. The highway is paved since the last time some members of our group made this trip. “Thank heavens”, I think to myself. There are still potholes in the road. We see people walking and some driving bikes. Animals wander into the road we must honk, swerve and race to miss, or dodge them.

We stop at check points to pay tolls so that we may move on to Dano. About half way we stop to get something to eat and drink and to take a bathroom break. We are approaching this roadhouse with a very beautiful thatched roof and fortunately it is open and it has tables and chairs.

So we stop and instantly the windows of the van populate with about 10-children selling fruit and sesame cakes, a sweet treat. We buy and then go for our drinks. After about twenty minutes we get back into the van and after dark we arrive at Dano.

Our journey is yet incomplete as the compounds to which we are going are some five miles off down a very dusty road filled with even deeper potholes than the road is dusty.

Suddenly from out of nowhere I have a heart tugging sensation as we approach closer to the compounds that seem to get stronger and strong as we inch forward. It all seems like slow motion. I feel a total peace come over me and a very deep sense of belonging here and it is as if I am coming home. Tears well in my eyes so that I can hardly keep them back from my fellow pilgrims’ notice, so I look out the van’s windows in vain but there is no way to hide these feelings that are so profound that I imagine that others are also feeling. My tears are tears of joy; I know you know what I mean.

Finally we reach Malidoma’s compound and here we meet others who join our group, Palma and Kenon and Jonathan, the beer maker, Stephanie with her son Sam. We settle down in our new quarters. Our dwelling for the remainder of our visit is made of cement block with nothing in it. The windows are metal that open a little; the reason being is the mosquitoes that carry malaria. We need nets to cover our beds to protect us from mosquito bites and we also had an entire round of vaccinations before we left Canada and this is essential. Also while here we take pills to avoid malaria on our return to Canada, the USA and Germany where the members of our international group reside.

To maintain us here the villagers do a lot to each day including cleaning the sidewalks with brooms and carrying on their heads enormous jars of water for cooking and bathing. The connection here is that I have been able to communicate with those who have crossed over, ancestors, those who are dead and this helps me with my work as a healer and through rebirthing I am able to help many other people who experience problems in their lives. I have been doing this for quite a while now and it is fascinating. African spirit medicine that I am studying here is helping many people in the developed world and I use this medicine when I am rebirthing.

You see the Dagara people see with their third eye – they don’t see what we see – they see more – they know what’s going on and they can tell you. They are happy people; they are very, very poor, but they don’t want for anything; they are very happy people. We have so much they have so little. I just want to be here and to observe and to connect with them. I am at home here and I believe I am at home now. I tell Marie, who has African origins, that I am still a black person in a white body. When I came home to Canada I find it hard still to venture out, things are so confusing here; in Africa everything is reduced to simplicity. They exist over there to survive – not to download ring tones from the Internet.

All Rights Reserved Copyright 2004 © - F. Stanley Boyd
To Contact F. Stanley Boyd by email: fsjboyd@yahoo.com

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