And that was the moment when I knew it had all flown out of my reach.
Ok, let's rewind to early in the morning today.
I woke up, just like any other day, the air was hot and dry, well obviously because it was that weather, we lived in Burkina Faso. I went to go make some food. I stumbled into our small kitchen, if you even want to call it a kitchen. It was more of a tiny little table, but it was good enough for our family, we didn't need an electrifying kitchen, we just needed something that would work.
My dad already left for work and my mom was out in the village getting water, and my brother, who is 7, is sleeping in the room we share. I didn’t wake him up because he had a butt load of chores yesterday and he’s completely exhausted.
I got some bread and spread my mom's homemade jam across the bread. I make my brother a slice when he wakes up so he could have something good to wake up to.
I didn’t leave the house because I can't be without one of my parents because there are loads of child traffickers around. You might be wondering why there are so many of them? Well, the short answer is cocoa. Our neighboring countries, the Ivory Coast and Ghana are known for having the most supply of cocoa for chocolate. But the question is why is my country involved in this, well do you wanna hear the short answer or the long answer? I’ll tell you the long answer. Child traffickers are here because they steal kids from Burkina Faso to make them work at cocoa harvest. The kids don’t get paid, no school, it’s just harvesting cocoa from 6 am to 4 pm every day. Just to make your beloved chocolate. Also, all of the women in my village have lost at least one kid due to trafficking, but my family was different, my mom still has both of her kids, my brother and I.
I go to our ‘balcony’ but it’s more like a little square fenced around our house. I got lost in my thoughts and I didn’t even notice that my brother got up and ate the bread with jam, and then ran outside.
Of course, he didn’t know better for goodness sake he’s 7. But like I said, I was caught up in my thoughts and I didn’t know what was going on around me. When I noticed that he was running, he was 300 feet away from me, running. I start running shouting his name to come back. He didn’t hear me, or he was just ignoring me, I’ll never know. The next moment flashed before my eyes. I see him get swooshed up. It wasn’t my dad, or mom, or anyone in my family. It was a trafficker. The pain was excruciating, not physically but mentally. Tears escaped my eyes. That was the last I would ever see of him. Now we were like everyone else in our village. Always think first before having chocolate, you don’t know what happened to get it.
Ok, let's rewind to early in the morning today.
I woke up, just like any other day, the air was hot and dry, well obviously because it was that weather, we lived in Burkina Faso. I went to go make some food. I stumbled into our small kitchen, if you even want to call it a kitchen. It was more of a tiny little table, but it was good enough for our family, we didn't need an electrifying kitchen, we just needed something that would work.
My dad already left for work and my mom was out in the village getting water, and my brother, who is 7, is sleeping in the room we share. I didn’t wake him up because he had a butt load of chores yesterday and he’s completely exhausted.
I got some bread and spread my mom's homemade jam across the bread. I make my brother a slice when he wakes up so he could have something good to wake up to.
I didn’t leave the house because I can't be without one of my parents because there are loads of child traffickers around. You might be wondering why there are so many of them? Well, the short answer is cocoa. Our neighboring countries, the Ivory Coast and Ghana are known for having the most supply of cocoa for chocolate. But the question is why is my country involved in this, well do you wanna hear the short answer or the long answer? I’ll tell you the long answer. Child traffickers are here because they steal kids from Burkina Faso to make them work at cocoa harvest. The kids don’t get paid, no school, it’s just harvesting cocoa from 6 am to 4 pm every day. Just to make your beloved chocolate. Also, all of the women in my village have lost at least one kid due to trafficking, but my family was different, my mom still has both of her kids, my brother and I.
I go to our ‘balcony’ but it’s more like a little square fenced around our house. I got lost in my thoughts and I didn’t even notice that my brother got up and ate the bread with jam, and then ran outside.
Of course, he didn’t know better for goodness sake he’s 7. But like I said, I was caught up in my thoughts and I didn’t know what was going on around me. When I noticed that he was running, he was 300 feet away from me, running. I start running shouting his name to come back. He didn’t hear me, or he was just ignoring me, I’ll never know. The next moment flashed before my eyes. I see him get swooshed up. It wasn’t my dad, or mom, or anyone in my family. It was a trafficker. The pain was excruciating, not physically but mentally. Tears escaped my eyes. That was the last I would ever see of him. Now we were like everyone else in our village. Always think first before having chocolate, you don’t know what happened to get it.
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