News from Burkina

I just wanted to send out a bit of an update on a couple recent events and some of our plans this coming week.

This week I had some bissap which is a local juice made from a hibiscus flower. It was made by the neighbour of one of our coworkers, but as they use local water it was recommended that we boil the juice before drinking it. (We use a filter at home for our drinking water, but boiling the water is also effective at killing any bacteria). Bissap tastes a bit like a berry juice, but is so different from Canadian juices that it’s hard to describe.

Starting last Friday the Tour du Faso has been traveling through various parts of Burkina. This is an international bike race that occurs every year for ten days at the end of October. This year it started on October 19 and will run until October 28. Each day the participants perform another stage of the course. Friday the race ran from Ouagadougou (the capital city) to Ouahigouya (the capital of the northern region of Burkina). Yako is probably the largest city between these two and the race passed through the main street (which is also one of the only paved streets in Yako). Saturday the race was again in Yako, but this time the bikers started in Yako and went the other direction- back to Ouaga and on to another town. This pattern continues as the tour goes to several other cities or towns in Burkina including Bobo-Dioulasso, Koudougou, and Banfora. Somewhere between 15 and 20 countries are participating in the race and there is currently a Burkinabé in the lead (yay Burkina!)

This Friday is the Muslim holiday of Tabaski so we have a long weekend. We are hoping to spend at least a couple of days in Ouagadougou to take advantage of one of the pools that can be found at some of the nicer hotels. This weekend (well technically starting this Saturday and going until next week Sunday) there is also an artisan festival in Ouaga with vendors from across the country (and I’m guessing some international vendors as well). This will be a pretty neat chance to get some carvings, masks, or paintings as souvenirs of Burkina.

Next week there is also a holiday: Toussaint (or All Saints Day) on November 1. While Tabaski is a Muslim holiday, Toussaint is a Christian holiday. Due to the mix of Islamism and Christianity in Burkina Faso, both Muslim and Christian holidays are recognized as civic holidays. This results in a fair number of holidays throughout the year- many of which occur on different dates each year (similar to Easter). As November 1 is a Thursday, we might be taking off work on Friday and using the extended weekend to visit Banfora. Banfora is in the south of the country where the climate is more temperate and the dry season is shorter. It has a number of unique natural formations as well as “Les Cascades”- an area with beautiful waterfalls.

Visitor from Canada

This past weekend our INDEV field placement coordinator, Grainne, came to visit us here in Yako. She had just been in Ghana to see Adam and Margaret then moved on to Burkina. Her and Clémentine (our WUSC coordinator) arrived Friday in the later morning and we started off right away with a meeting between our bosses, Grainne, Clémentine, and the three of us students. We talked mostly about what the three students last year had achieved and how their work was being continued now. As Grainne has some challenges with French, Kevin did a fair amount of translating throughout the meeting.

Friday afternoon we went to visit the périmètre maraîcher in Tindila. (And we actually came up with a relatively decent translation for a périmètre maraîcher: market garden). The group of GCIUS students showed us the work that they had done so far for the garden. The pickets had been set all around the 4 hectares and they had started to put the fencing into place. They explained a bit more about the project itself. For example, to decide where the wells were going to be dug, they hired an expert from Ouagadougou who helped with understanding the elevations and characteristics of the ground. The wells are going to be dug as far as they are able by December. As we are only getting to the end of the wet season now, part of the group will be returning in April (the end of the dry season) to make them a few meters deeper.

Saturday morning we had another meeting with everyone to discuss our mandates while we are here. Jeannette and I are writing ours together as we are doing a lot of the same work while Kevin has his own project. After taking into account all the changes that were recommended, I worked on re-writing our mandate on Monday and made a calendar of the rest of our time here and the tasks we are hoping to accomplish each week.

Grainne was heading back to Ouagadougou on Sunday morning and Jeannette was going to be joining her for the rest of her time in Burkina- partly as a translator, but also because they had coordinated a meeting with another organization which she really wanted to meet. In the end, Kevin and I decided to tag along just for the day to take advantage of the pool at the hotel in Ouaga where Grainne was staying. I’m definitely happy I did that because the water was great! While the two of us headed back to SEMUS Sunday night, Jeannette and Grainne continued on to Léo on Monday to meet with a cooperative of women who make Shea butter and various soaps and where there may be an INDEV student in the future. They also met with a couple of other organizations in Ouaga where future INDEV students may also be working.

Tuesday we had another of our big rainstorms, but that is likely one of the last ones we will see. Unfortunately, the wind and rain were not very nice to the périmètre in Tindila. The trenches that had been dug for the fencing (which are about 40cm deep) had been filled in with some dirt, but had not yet been packed in. As a result, the rain washed out the dirt and a bunch of the posts and the fencing that had been installed all tipped over. It will take some work to get them all back in, but at least they shouldn’t run into that trouble again now that the rain is pretty much finished.

I hope you are all having a great time back there in Canada and are enjoying my updates. I love hearing from you as well. And if any of you want to visit, we now have plenty of room and an extra mattress in our house (as Kevin has now moved out). J

Greetings!

Well, it has been just over a month since I left Canada for Burkina. The last month has been full of new things and some mixed emotions. While there are some things I really dislike about Burkina (most of them stemming from the fact that we are foreigners and almost everyone tries to take advantage of that) I really do love it here.

I think the most rewarding thing for me so far is that our neighbours are starting to get to know us. At first, when we walked down the street all the kids would come up to us saying “Nassara bonbon!”- a mix of Mooré and French which means “white person, candy”. Now, even though we could walk between our house and the office in about 3 minutes it takes closer to fifteen minutes. First we stop to talk to Pierre, an older man who is the guardian for our housing compound. He is sometimes difficult to understand because when he speaks in French his sentences will often trail off at the end and we are left guessing what he is meaning to say. Nevertheless, every time we enter or leave our house we take a few minutes to catch up, ask him a few questions, or just let him know where we are off to.

Next we pass a house with some neighbour ladies around our age. Christianne has come over for a few evenings, usually with one of her sisters and her niece Adela who is three. Christianne is still in high school, but if she is able to go on to university she wants to become a doctor. Across the street there is often a group of older women. We amuse them with our attempts at Mooré greetings and generally leave them with both groups laughing at our confusion over something that was said. Further along we come across a group of younger women around our age who are doing each other’s’ hair. Usually we only see this group on our way back to work after the lunchtime “repos” or on our way home in the evenings. The same goes for the group of men that we pass a bit farther along who are usually playing scrabble. We will stop to talk with each group for a few minutes. We’ve been invited a few times to play scrabble, but have not yet attempted to join (although we joke about how we should be allowed to use English words as well as French). A bit farther we come to another group of women and kids. One day during lunch we sat with them for a while and they tried to teach us how to properly greet people in Mooré. I remember about half the lesson, but every time we go by there we attempt to go through the lengthy process of saying good morning and asking about their health, family, and everything else.

Along the whole route we will also shake hands with anywhere between ten and twenty kids. While some of them still ask us for candy (generally the ones who are younger than five), most of the older ones now know who we are. They greet us by shouting “Jeannette! Kat-ee!” (I started out by saying that my name is Katelyn, but the “ay” sound seems to be a challenge so I changed it to Kat-lyn. Now, for the kids, I just go with Kat- ee.) They still shake our hands and usually attempt a few French phrases while we attempt a few Mooré greetings.

Once we make it to the office we continue with the greetings, although luckily for us these are generally all in French. Basically anyone who is just outside or anywhere inside the office courtyard merits a greeting. In our office itself we will then greet anyone who is already there before taking a seat. This process is repeated when leaving for lunch, returning after the “repos”, and leaving at the end of the day. While it can make for a lengthy process, I appreciate the time that everyone is willing to put into greeting each other and showing that they really do care about how you are doing. I think that this is something which we are really missing in Canada.

Next time you meet someone, even a stranger, try taking the time to greet them. Ask them how they are doing. Ask about their health. Ask after their family. Ask how their work is going. The few minutes it takes to ask after someone may just have earned you a new friend or taught you something new about someone you think you already know.

Living in Yako

Yesterday I got to ride a moto for the first time. I was a passenger (not driving) and had a helmet. Plus the roads we were on were not very busy. Nevertheless, I was still a little bit nervous (yet also VERY excited). This trip was to visit the village of Kingria which is about 40 km from Yako- which takes at least an hour by moto. Throughout the week we will be visiting various different villages to talk to the producers about their needs for the upcoming growing season. As I said before, this upcoming season is the dry season during which almost no rain will fall. There may be a little bit at the start, but the plants planted in the upcoming month will rely on irrigation or hand watering for them to survive until the harvest in February.

It’s pretty strange to imagine Burkina getting so dry. Right now it is actually very lush and green. There are crops almost everywhere. We even have a couple of corn plots being grown right in front of our house by the guardian of the compound. The trees are full of leaves and traveling from one city to another the road is lined with grasses and shrubs. Right now, most of the animals (including sheep, goats, donkeys, sheep, some pigs and the odd cow) are generally tied up because finding food is not a challenge. During the dry season, however, they are generally untied to allow them to scrounge for food where it can be found.

The chickens are truly free range. They generally wander around wherever they wish. When you want to eat a chicken, you need to catch it, kill it, pluck it, and prepare it yourself, after which you pick through the chicken to try and get all the meat (or you can just go to a restaurant where they will do the hard work for you).

Anyways, back to the trip. In the morning we were in Kingria meeting with the women who were working the fenced area that SEMUS had established there in 2009. It is 2 hectares large and is surrounded by a fence that goes about 40cm into the ground and 1.5m above ground and keeps out animals. These “périmètres maraichers”- there’s not really a good English translation for that- have been established in a number of villages and another is in the process of being constructed. The area inside the “grillage”- fenced area- is divided into plots which are worked by women of the village. These areas range in size with the smallest being only one hectare and serving about 40 women.

So far, Jeannette and I have had the opportunity to visit a few different sites where these enclosures are established and will likely be visiting more in the upcoming months. One of the major activities that we will be doing is an impact study on these systems and their effects on the community. We will be developing a questionnaire for various groups in the village (women working the land, their husbands, leaders of the village, etc.) and creating a report on the impact the enclosures have had in a specific village. At the same time, we will continue to visit the different villages with our boss, learn more about the agricultural system in Burkina Faso, and help out wherever we can.

Well, I kind of went off topic a bit there, but I hope that gives you a bit of an idea about my life here in Yako. I’ll let you know more soon!

Water Woes

Hey there everyone!

So it has now been almost two weeks that I've been in Burkina Faso and I'm really enjoying life here so far. Unfortunately I've been finding it difficult to write new blogs from here: not because I have nothing to write, but because for some reason I have not been able to access my blog very easily. As a result I may have my sister post some updates for me throughout the next eight months. Still I will try to add them myself whenever possible.

Anyways, for school one of our assignments is to write a page on some issue in our country every other week. This week I chose to write a bit about the water challenges being faced in Burkina and how my work while I am here relates to this issue. About 80-90% of the population in Burkina makes a living performing subsistance agriculture so the issue of water is really important here. Sometimes I will post my bi-weekly here while other times I may not, but because this one talks a bit more about what I will be doing I thought it would be interesting to share. Enjoy!

During our first two weeks in Burkina Faso, Jeannette and I have had the opportunity to visit three different Burkinabé villages around the town of Yako. Last week we visited Tindila with a group of students from l’Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec who will be working over the next four months to build an irrigation system for the women in the village. While two of the students already had the opportunity earlier in the year to visit the site and had seen similar irrigation systems in surrounding villages, others also wanted to visit villages where the irrigation system had been implemented. As a result, we were able to accompany three of the students along with four women from Tindila, our boss, and two other SEMUS employees to two of the villages where SEMUS is working. In Noussou we visited a fenced compound where women were able to grow various crops without worrying about animals entering and eating the crops. In Koassa we were also able to see a similar compound where an irrigation system had recently been installed to provide easier access to water for the women working the land in the area. The students from Quebec are looking to replicate this system in Tindila by the end of December.

Burkina Faso experiences three growing seasons. Depending on the season, they choose to grow different vegetables. Currently, we are nearing the end of the wet growing season which lasted from July to September during which corn, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and gumbo were grown and preparing for the dry growing season which lasts from November to February. During this time, rain is non-existent which means that all plants must be watered either manually or through irrigation systems. Farmers generally choose to grow high amounts of onions at this time with fewer tomatoes, eggplant, or potatoes. The third season starts in March and lasts until mid-June and is considered the“intermediate growing season”.

Over recent years there have been increasing occurrences of drought and erratic rainfall in Burkina Faso. Last year was particularly devastating for many Burkinabé farmers. While a typical rainy season lasts from May or June to mid-October, the rains in 2011 were sparse and failed to replenish the water supply needed to support crops throughout the dry season. While irrigation systems are helpful to women in the area by reducing the amount of manual work required to grow crops, I personally think it will be more effective to introduce greater water conservation efforts in this area.

On Thusday morning we met with representatives from five surrounding villages to discuss the past year’s growing season, look at challenges that were faced, and consider the upcoming dry season. One of the recurring themes was the lack of water to sufficiently water crops in the past year. For example, one of the communities has a fenced compound of two hectares for cultivation, but 300-400 square meters of the area was not used because of insufficient water resources. Even if this village had an established irrigation system it would not increase the available amount of water. The crops that farmers choose to grow in each season reflect their recognition of the water shortage problem. Three of the five villages intend only to plant onions over the dry growing season as they require very little water while the other two will plant onions as well as a few other vegetables. Nevertheless more effort needs to be made to increase the resilience of these farmers to recurring drought.

In the area around Ouahigouya (which is about an hour to the northwest of Yako), efforts are being made to introduce water conservation methods on farms. One approach is the use of furrows and ridges to channel the water and help it to remain near the surface for an extended period of time. SEMUS has also been working to promote this practice in areas surrounding Yako. Nevertheless, this process requires that farmers have the tools required to make the furrows which can be a significant investment. Another technique that is being promoted both in Ouahigouya and by SEMUS is the use of compost on fields. SEMUS has worked in various villages to build up to 30 composters per village and is encouraging people to compost animal and plant waste to be used as fertilizer.

Despite the advances that have been made in sustainable agriculture over the past few years, it is evident that challenges are still being faced by farmers in northern Burkina Faso. More training and adaptation is required before farmers will be able to withstand droughts like the one experienced in 2011. And despite the high amounts of water received in this year’s rainy season, one of the most difficult challenges is being faced over the next month as people need to make their food supplies last until the harvest in October. I’m eager to be working with SEMUS over the next eight months in the sustainable agriculture department as we look to address water shortages and other challenges being faced by Burkinabé farmers. It is difficult to determine the greatest needs of agricultural workers in Burkina Faso, but I personally believe that water shortages will be one of the most important challenges to address over my time here.

Update!

     Where to start??? I’ve done and seen plenty of new things this week. Met dozens of people (of whose names I remember very few, and made a fool of myself a few times. I’ll try to expand on some of the things I touch on later this year, but for now here is an overview of what I have been doing this past week.

      I suppose the adventure started at Pearson International although that seems like a really long time ago. Mom and Dad came to see me off. Taya and David had also come to the airport along with Kevin’s family. Jeannette had already flown to Toronto from Winnipeg on Sunday morning. Our first flight took about 6.5 hours to get from Toronto to Paris. We had about two hours in Paris to make it to our second plane and made it there in about half that time so we were able to relax for a while. According to our itinerary our second plane was going to be flying directly to Ouagadougou, but in Paris we found out that we were first making a stop in Niamey, Niger. In Niger we dropped off about half the passengers, did multiple “person counts” (apparently one person didn’t get off as they were supposed to), and waited for about a half hour before we were up in the air for another hour to Burkina Faso. It seemed like we had just made it to our flying altitude when the captain announced that we were starting our descent.

      Jeannette, Kevin, and I landed at around 16:30 local time in Ouagadougou. Anyone who has been to the airport in Ouaga will know that it is nothing big or fancy. There is only one runway and planes have to enter in the middle, taxi to the end, and turn around to take off. Security was pretty quick as well and in no time we were in the arrival areas waiting for our ride. We were just starting to talk about what we would do if Simon (the person who was to pick us up) didn’t come when he walked through the door. Just a short car ride later we were at the centre where we were staying for the next few days before going to Yako on Friday. We were living in a catholic missionary centre while in the capital with seven other students from Quebec who are also volunteering in the country over the next few months. Six of them will be in a small town just south of Yako called Tindila where they will be helping to build an irrigation system for the women in the area.

     After a long day of travelling- there was technically a night in there, but for us it lasted about four hours, we landed around 16:30 Burkina time (which is 4 hours ahead of Ontario) while other students were not here until after midnight. The three of us spent the evening looking for a restaurant that was still open by 18:30 and finally came across one that opened again as soon as we asked if they were closed J. The next morning we walked around again to find a place for breakfast and ended up on one of the major streets through the city. This is where you find almost all the major banks, a couple of embassies, some European style coffee shops, and plenty of people (in cars, motos, bikes, or walking). Later we came back and brought the Quebec students out for lunch and visited le Grand Marche. By the time we had walked from the front door through to the back door, each of us was talking with a partner vendor who was trying to sell us something.

     Our orientation in Ouaga was quite interesting and helpful. The WUSC drivers brought us around the city to help us find cell phones, take out money, buy mosquito nets, get essentials that can only be found in Ouaga, and helped us find places to eat. Friday we made some final purchases then drove on to Yako. The roads here are actually very good. In Ouaga the major streets are all paved and side streets are packed down hard enough that they are also quite smooth. The road to Yako is also paved and except for a few potholes is also very smooth. The road to Tindila is another story though.

Tindila is about 20km away from Yako and the road leading there is full of holes, bumps, grooves, and plenty of other obstacles. Friday night we brought the Quebecois students to Tindila to their residence for the next 4 months and had the chance to watch the reception they were given. Village life is definitely very different from life in Yako, but would also be a really neat experience.

     The past couple of days we have been touring around Yako and learning more about SEMUS and the work that they do. I’ve been introduced to plenty of people, but remember very few of the names. I’m sure that will come with a bit more time. Yesterday Jeannette and I visited a few potential houses, decided on where we will be living, and today we were able to move in! Kevin is staying with us for the next three days and is then moving to his own “bachelor apartment”. Today we also visited Tindila again for a meeting with the chief of the town and various representatives from the community. We also got to visit the site where the students from Quebec will be building an irrigation system. Back in Yako, we visited le Grand Marché, moved into our new house, and met some of Kevin’s friends from the four months he was here at the beginning of the year.

     Tomorrow there are no official plans as it is Sunday. We are planning to meet a couple more of Kevin’s friends, go to another market, and find some gas so we can start using our stove. We’ve been eating out for almost every meal so far. Admittedly it is very cheap to do that here in Yako- only 400 CFAs for a plate of spaghetti, rice, or potatoes with sauce, or an omelette if it’s breakfast time which is the equivalent of about 80 cents Canadian. Nevertheless, it will be nice to do a bit of our own cooking and start making our own drinking water rather than relying on sachets or Lafi (a trusted type of bottled water).

I’ll send more updates soon…

A tout!

Almost there...

In only a few more days I will finally be leaving Canada. Jeannette, Kevin and I leave Pearson at 6:50 on Sunday night, have a short layover in Paris, and land in Ouagadougou on Monday. Yesterday I finally started packing- mostly just so I can figure out what I still have to buy before leaving. I find that packing itself is not all that difficult. The harder part is figuring out how to tie up all the loose ends before going. It's strange to think that one week from now I'll be in Ouagadougou for orientation training and shortly after that I'll be moving on to Yako for the next eight months.

For those of you who have only started reading my blog recently, here's the two minute run-down on what I'm doing and expecting for the coming year:

•  I will be living in Yako, Burkina Faso. Yako is home to about 25,000 people and is about 100km to the northwest of Ouagadougou (the capital city).
• I'll be working with the organization SEMUS along with two other students from the University of Waterloo. I will likely be involved in some of the environmental initiatives that the organization is running. One is a community gardens project and the other is a reforestation project working with farmers in rural villages.
• The official language of Burkina Faso is French, however only about 20% of the people in the country are able to speak French. The majority still use indigenous languages. In my office, the working language will be French, however we will have a translator accompany us when visiting smaller villages. My French is a bit rusty, but will hopefully be back up to par after a couple of weeks.
• While the typical North American novelties (specifically food) will be fairly readily available in the capital, this is not the case in Yako where the market will be the main source of food and clothing (I'm excited about that!)
• The pace of life in Burkina Faso is very different from Canada. The pace of life is slower than it is here, partly due to the heat, but also because the culture is much more relaxed and seems to place a stronger emphasis on relationships than productivity.
• Internet connections can be fairly unpredictable (along with electricity and water supply). As a result, I may not be able to give updates on my adventures as often as I would like. Nevertheless, I will make an effort to give an update every 2-3 weeks.

A bientot mes amis!

A night to remember

On Friday night, my fellow INDEVOURS and I hosted a Global Gala event. There was a dual purpose for this event: to raise awareness about global food inequality and to raise money to help subsidize our international field placements.

Each of the 52 guests at the Gala were given an alternative identity for the night from either Canada or one of our seven field placement countries. They each had information on their employment situation, date and place of birth, and a description of their daily lives. When it came time for dinner, people were all served differing amounts of food depending on their country of residence, job, number of dependents, age, and gender. It was a really neat experience to watch the expressions on the faces of our guests. There was confusion, surprise, humour, and even a bit of anger. We asked a few people to comment on their meals. Were they satisfied with the amount of food they had received? Did they feel inclined to share with those at their table who were given less food than themselves? Did they feel embarrassed to be eating more than others? Were they angry at those who were given more food than themselves? After giving our guests time to consider the realities of food inequality, we eventually provided everyone with a full meal.

There are so many more interesting things that happened at the Gala and it would take too long and would be too difficult to describe everything that happened, but I really just wanted to thank everyone for making this event a success.

To those who attended the Gala: Of course, without our guests there would never have been an event. Thank you for taking the time to spend a Friday night with us. Many of you have played an influential role in the lives of one or more INDEVOURS and I hope that at this event you were able to see the type of people we have become.

To the community: Thank you to all the businesses and individuals who donated their time, services, money, and prizes to us. The world sometimes seems like a dark place full of greed and distrust, but seeing the generosity from complete strangers is a constant reminder of the good that is still displayed by so many people in the world.

To my professors: Thank you for your support over the past three years. You have helped to shape the people that we have become. I hope that you enjoyed the Gala as much as we did and I want to thank you again for coming and supporting us once again.

And finally, to my fellow INDEVOURS: You are all amazing people and I can not wait to see what you all accomplish in the world as you leave on your placements in September.
So when you cannot understand a word being said to you.
When you get a virus, food poisoning, or malaria...
When you are homesick...
When you cannot wait until your placement is over...
Then remember that there are 31 other people who are going through the same things all over the world.

They are the people who went through three and a half years of university with you.
They are the people who love you for your quirks and eccentricities.
They are the people who cannot wait to share your experiences when you return.
And they are the people who made the Global Gala happen!

We are INDEVOURS

Over the past semester, my fellow International Development classmates and I have been working together in a group that we named "INDEVOURS". As a team of 32 students we have been hosting various fundraising events to help offset the cost of our volunteer placements in September. We will be traveling to seven different countries including Nepal, Vietnam, Peru, Malawi, Botswana, Ghana, and of course Burkina Faso for eight months and returning to Waterloo in April 2013 to share our experiences.

I could go on for ages telling you about INDEVOURS and what we are aiming to do, but instead we put together a video to introduce ourselves and show you some of our thoughts and dreams. Enjoy!

Choosing Causes

For the past couple of months I've been making an effort to follow the blogs of many of my classmates. I'm finding their writing really interesting and I appreciate how they are choosing to write on issues about which they really care. Still, there are some times when I can't help but get frustrated that there are serious events happening in Canada right now to which there is no attention being given. Yes, a representative was banned from speaking in the House of Representatives for two days, but was she given a death sentence? Yes, Oreo came up with a new marketing platform that is somewhat controversial, but is this really the cause behind which we want to rally ourselves?

What is missing is the human rights issues that are happening within our own country. Why? I think that our blog topics reflect what is being advertised in the media. We chose to write about stories that grab our attention, and for something to grab our attention it needs to be mentioned somewhere.

To my fellow INDEVOURS: I'm not trying to say that the topics you are highlighting are not a good choice. I know that some of you really care about these issues and I think you are all writing amazing things, but I think that sometimes we need to stop and ask ourselves: is this important enough to merit my time and attention? I know that the answer to this question would be "no" for some of my past blog posts, but from this point forwards I will make a point to ask myself that question before I post anything.


What prompted this? Today I read an article about the health coverage cuts the Conservative government is imposing on refugees in Canada. It was written by a Canadian pediatrician and I urge you all to read it. Samir Shaheen-Hussain gives some scenarios to get people to understand how dire the passing of Bill C-31 really is. Refugees are some of the most vulnerable people in Canada and it is their health coverage that the government is cutting as of June 30. Diabetes is not a communicable disease so insulin will no longer be covered. Leukemia is also not communicable so coverage for chemotherapy is being cut. Refugees from certain countries will not even be eligible for care if they suffer a heart attack.

Refugees are not just immigrants. They don't have the resources to pay for unexpected costs like illnesses. The government has quietly tried to implement these health care cuts for refugees. It's coming under the banner of "saving money for Canadian taxpayers". The kicker? This program costs each Canadian about $3 per year.

Let's use our voices to stand up for something we truly believe deserves our attention. The choice of topic may be different for each of us. We each have different passions and thoughts. I suppose what I'm trying to say is: Think about the issues that are not staring us in the face, but are quietly strangling our society.

Food insecurity... in Canada?

Most people in Southern Ontario don't really think about the origins of our food. It's readily available in grocery stores, corner stores, markets... Basically we can get food for a reasonable price at any time of day or night. That's really what being food secure means: we don't have to worry about sufficient food being available or affordable. Food insecurity is generally associated with countries in the Global South, especially those experiencing drought or crop failures.

Recently a representative from the United Nations embarrassed the Canadian government by saying that many people in Canada are not able to eat decently because food prices are unaffordable. This is particularly a problem in Arctic Canada where food prices are a significantly higher than they are here. For the past few weeks, people in Nunavut have been demonstrating in front of grocery stores to protest the high food costs. Research has shown that almost 3/4 of Inuit preschoolers live in homes without a sure supply of food. In fact, two-thirds of Inuit parents find that they sometimes run out of food and are not able to purchase more.

Think about that for a minute. What would you do if you were not able to afford food for your family? How must these parents feel when they aren't able to provide for their kids? Do we, as fellow Canadians, have a responsibility to make sure that everyone in Canada has access to affordable food?

Families in some northern communities have a grocery bill of up to $1000 each week? What is your average grocery bill? Have you ever worried about where you would get your next meal or if you would be able to afford it? Have you ever paid $7 for a loaf of bread? $6 for a cucumber? $15 for four litres of milk? $20 for 2 kg of rice? $28 for a head of lettuce? Some food prices have decreased in the past few years, but there is still a long way to go before there is food security in Canada.

Organic realities

The phenomenon of organic food has been growing as people start to learn more about how their food is being grown. In Canada the organic regulations were created through collaboration between organic farmers who created the growing standards for a farmer to be organically certified. Currently only about 5% of Canadian consumers buy organically certified food. This brings up questions. People can praise organic food, but are they really ready for the product they are going to be getting? Organic produce does not look as big or as good as conventional produce, but are people willing to pay a premium for a product that is in some ways inferior? Is there something in-between organic and conventional?

Personally, I believe that there is an option between conventional and organic products. That option is the use of the Integrated Pest Management System. For a number of years, I worked at the Guelph Farmer's Market selling apples and apple products for Brantview Apples and Cider. At Brantview, Jay Howell and his family use the IPM system to control pests and diseases in the orchard. I've heard Jay describe this program to customers a few times and I find it quite interesting.

On a weekly basis a person, often a university student, will go into the orchards to look for problematic pests and diseases. If the population of a pest exceeds a threshold (which is unique to each type of pest), then measures will be put into place to control its population. As long as a pest remains below its threshold they will leave it as pests will often become beneficial predators by eating more problematic pests later in the season.

To deal with pests that have passed their threshold there are different options. One unique method of pest control is the use of twist ties that are impregnated with female fruit moth pheromone. The ties are attached to the trees and the male moths who are searching for a female with whom to mate will find only a twist tie and will either leave or die. IPM uses various natural pest control methods, but if it is necessary Brantview will use pesticides to control pests that have gotten out of control. The interesting thing is that Brantview Apples is in the bottom 5% of pesticide spraying in the province- including organic apple growers!

What are your thoughts on organic growing? Is the use of a pest management system like IPM a viable option for our current food systems? Did you know that organic farming is not always the most environmentally friendly way of growing food? Try going to a farmer's market sometime and ask the vendors about their pest management strategies. You might hear some interesting responses!

The Case of the Colourful Cauliflower

What do kale, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and brussels sprouts all have in common? Did you know that they all originally came from the same plant?

Today, our class of Special Topics for International Development went on a field trip to Garden Party. We learned about the Community Supported Agriculture program that they run, discussed food challenges and opportunities, and even had the chance to help out in one of the gardens. This trip inspired me to write a blog post about food systems in Canada, but there is so much information and ideas about food that trying to condense everything into one post would not let me do justice to the topic. Thus, I will be starting a mini-series on food. For now I will focus mostly on Canada, but we'll see where we go!

We are not eating the same foods that our parents and grandparents ate. Our food has continually been altered to grow bigger and look better. Take a look at how corn has evolved over time:

In the past, changes to our food have occurred slowly through the process of selective breeding. People would grow a crop and select individual plants that had traits that they wanted in future crops to produce the seeds for next year's crop. The wild mustard plant is an example of how selection for different traits can be used to create completely different products over time. Cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, and broccoli all originally came from the same plant! Someone decided that they wanted to grow plants with larger flower clusters and selected for that trait while another person decided they preferred eating the leaves and selected plants with larger leaves. Pretty neat isn't it?

This process of selective breeding in plants has been used for thousands of years. In fact, the domestication of wild plants to be grown for food was really what allowed people to live a stationary instead of a nomadic lifestyle

One example of selective breeding that I found particularly interesting is the case of the colourful cauliflower. You can now buy cauliflower in a variety of colours including green, orange, and purple. The first coloured cauliflower was a genetic mutant that was dwarf-sized and orange. It was found in Canada in 1970 and was cross-bred with a traditional white cauliflower over the following three decades to create a product that looks exactly like a typical white cauliflower except for its bright orange colour. The beta-carotine that gives the vegetable its orange pigment also increases its nutritional value to give it a vitamin A content that is about 25 times the white version.

Some of you might immediately be thinking about the unnaturalness of colouring our vegetables, but the truth is that this is nothing new. Until the 17th century, most of the carrots eaten by Europeans were either purple, white, or yellow, or even red or black. The Dutch were the ones who created orange carrots, probably by cross-breeding a red and a yellow carrot, in order to celebrate the royal family. (And yes, I am proud to be Dutch despite our disheartening Euro cup appearance). Only recently have purple, white, and yellow carrots been making a comeback in our diets.

Do you know of any interesting foods that has been created through selective breeding? Do you have fundamental problems with eating colourful cauliflower? What about eating colourful carrots? Are there any other food-related topics about which you would like to read?

Happy eating!

Malawi: Caught between two worlds

This year, the 19th African Union summit was to be held in Lilongwe, Malawi, a responsibility that typically rotates among states that are members of the AU. Instead, this summit will be moved to the AU headquarters in Ethiopia. Why? Malawi refused to host the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir who is wanted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide

 
President Omar al-Bashir has an outstanding arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. For this reason, Malawi had decided to ban him from attending the summit which is to start in July. The government then received a letter from the AU in which it was told that they had no right to dictate who could and could not attend the summit. Malawi was given the choice of allowing President Omar al-Bashir to attend or giving up their position as host country.

President Joyce Banda, the first female president of Malawi

In Malawi, the current President is Joyce Banda who came into power in April when the previous president died while in office. At a May press conference, President Banda said that a visit by the Sudanese President would not be acceptable to Malawi's international donors with whom she has worked to improve relations over the past couple of months. These international relationships had been strained by her predecessor, but she has been experiencing fairly significant success. Within the last month, President Banda has secured deals with the International Monetary Fund and the British government for various aid packages and has also established a relationship with the central bank of Britain to assist with currency devaluation challenges. This newly reacquired support would be lost if Malawi were to host President Omar al-Bashir.

President Banda has had some difficult decisions to make in her first couple of months in office. She has now found herself caught between the ideals of her donors and those of her fellow African Union countries, of whom only South Africa and Zambia have declared that they would arrest President al-Bashir if he were to enter their countries. I, and likely most of the people living in developed countries, would applaud President Banda in her decision. Nevertheless this leaves Malawi experiencing strained relationships with some of their neighbouring countries. This decision also poses huge business losses for Malawians who had invested in improving their hotel and transportation services in anticipation of the summit. Without an influx of people for the AU summit, these business people will have challenges repaying loans and other debts.

What are your thoughts on the African Union summit? Should Malawi still be allowed to ban individuals from attending or is the African Union right in its decision to relocate the summit to Ethiopia?

Changes and Challenges

 International development is a very volatile field. New organizations are constantly being started while others are unable to find the necessary funding to continue running and are closing. Even within an organization, people are always moving in and out, along with funding which can never really be predicted. Communication can be slow and misunderstandings are common. And these are only some of the challenges for people in the international development field. Overall, this is a very uncertain business.

This week Jeannette and I got a bit of a taste of what that is like. Yesterday morning we got our tickets to Ouagadougou. We will be flying out on September 9, having a layover in Paris, and landing in Burkina Faso on September 10 at 16:15 local time. This was pretty exciting news for us, as well as many of the other students in our class who also received their tickets yesterday.

Later in the day, we then received an email about the organization with which we were supposed to be working: AEAD. It turns out that they do not have the funding to get us out to visit the villages where we would be working with the farmers. For this reason, we are going to be working instead with l'Association Solidarite et Entraide Mutuelle au Sahel (SEMUS) which is also where Kevin will be working.

Jeannette and I will now be living in Yako instead of in Gourcy. These two towns are fairly similar in size and only about 30km apart so we will still be in the same region and dealing with similar environmental conditions. We will also have a different mandate. Because this is such a recent change, we are not yet sure what our mandate will be, but hopefully in the next couple of months we will be able to communicate with SEMUS about our work.

When you are getting excited about an opportunity and something changes, it's easy to be disappointed. I think both Jeannette and I are a bit uncertain and maybe a bit disappointed about our new placements. Nevertheless, I believe that any experience is only as good as you make it. Yes, it may take a week or two to become excited about my new placement organization, but I'll get there. Circumstances change and the way to make the best of these changes is to stay positive.

Birdsong

The GYS Chamber Choir

Saturday night I attended a concert for the Guelph Youth Singers. Now, anyone who knew me during grade 6-12 (and probably many of you who met me after I graduated) likely knows that I was a member of Guelph Youth Singers for about 7 years. One of my sisters is also an alumni of GYS, the youngest is still a member, and my mom has also been very involved. I just wanted to share one song that was sung on Saturday that is among my favourites, particularly because of how it was written.

Birdsong uses lyrics written by children living in the Terezin concentration camp. Very few of the children who went to Terezin survived the war, but listening to the lyrics of Birdsong it is hard not to be amazed by these children and how they were able to see such beauty and life in a place filled with death.

Birdsong

He doesn't know the world at all
Who stays in his nest and doesn't go out.
He doesn't know what birds know best
Nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness.

 When dewdrops sparkle in the grass
And earth's aflood with morning light,
A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the dawning after night.
Then I know how fine it is to live.

 Hey, try to open up your heart
To beauty; go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there.
Then if tears obscure your way
You'll know how wonderful it is
To be alive.

Impartiality

Different news agencies have reputations. Newspapers, news websites, and news TV stations are known for their liberal or conservative biases. Trying to write without a bias is one of the biggest challenges of journalism, especially when writing about a subject on which opinions are strong and polarized. Over the winter semester, one of my classes required that I write a paper on an ecological conflict in Canada. We had to write this paper from the perspective of a consultant with a completely neutral tone. While I enjoyed this assignment, I definitely found it a challenge to write neutrally when I generally agreed with the opinions of one party over the other. One thing that I found, however, was that being forced to write with a neutral tone forced me to better understand the opinion of the opposing group.

The reason I decided to write this was because of a fairly recent article in the University of Waterloo's student newspaper "Imprint" regarding the International Development program at the University of Waterloo. This article was titled "The Trials of International Development" and made an effort to highlight the benefits and challenges facing the program after the first graduating class had returned from their placements. Within a couple of days of being published, the article was read by almost all of the current International Development students in my cohort who will be leaving for our placements in September.

In my opinion, the most interesting result of this article was the variety of responses displayed by my fellow students. Some were angry that our program had be portrayed in a very negative way. They felt as though the failures of the program were overly stressed and that the article did not stress enough that this was only the first graduating class and there are challenges with any new program that must be overcome. Other students were excited about the publication of the article and felt that highlighting the problems in a public way would assist in the problems being fixed by the administration.

Personally, I found the article fairly balanced in its content. It mentioned the positive experiences had by many of the graduating students, but also highlighted the challenges faced by one of the students and lack of support that she received from the administration. My concerns with the article regarded the tone with which the author was writing. The personal opinions of the author were evident from the start of the article. Readers were informed of the facts, but this was done in a way that quickly made them critical of the International Development program.

I am perfectly willing to admit that there have been (and still are) challenges with the International Development program, but the responsibility of a newspaper article is to give an unbiased presentation of the essential facts.

Refugees in the Sahel

In January, the Tuareg people in northern Mali started a rebellion against the country's government. In late March, army officers overthrew the government and blamed it for failing to contain the rebellion. During this coup, the Tuareg took advantage of the disarray in the capital to take over a large area of northern Mali. Now the interim leader of the country has threatened to wage a "total war" against the rebels if they do not leave the cities that they now occupy. For the past month, there has been fighting and turmoil throughout the country and tens of thousands of people are fleeing as refugees to neighbouring countries including Burkina Faso and Niger. The UN refugee agency estimates that 130,000 people have been uprooted by this conflict.

At the best of times, caring for thousands of refugees is a challenge for towns in Niger and Burkina Faso where people look only to the present and lack the resources to worry about future needs. Now, after a year of drought there is an impending food crisis in the Sahel region which is being intensified by the refugee crisis and may threaten 10 million people this year. There are already food shortages in the Sahal and the refugees are concentrated in the areas which are already the hardest hit by the food crisis.

So far, people living in border towns have shown significant generosity towards the incoming refugees despite their own challenges, but what happens next? What will happen if this coming year brings another drought? Will the refugees ever be able to return to their homes? What responsibilities do we have in responding to this crisis?

Living in Canada we are lucky to not be faced with a decision between feeding our own family and preventing our neighbours from starving. But even though refugees from Mali do not live across the street, we still have a responsibility to treat them as our fellow human beings. It's easy to ignore the problem halfway across the world especially when there is very little media covering West African crises, but ignoring the problem will never solve it.

If you want to read more about the challenges in Mali and its neighbouring countries, you can check it out here:
Conflict in Mali Aggravates Sahel Food Crisis

School again...

As I mentioned from the start, I am not very good at keeping up with my goals. I'm going to try and post at least one or twice a week, but sometimes even the best intentions fail. Now that I'm back in school for the summer I'm hoping it will be easier to write more often. It's also easier to write once you have something interesting to mention.

Anyways, this past week I moved back into residence along with most of the other 30 people in my class who are going overseas in September. During the week, we had many chances to meet and talk with the class who had just returned from their placements. There were three students who had been in Burkina Faso for the past eight months so Jeannette, Kevin, and I spent a fair amount of time talking with them about their experiences. There was also a day where each of the returning students did a short presentation on their placement and experiences which gave our class an interesting glimpse of what our lives will be like in the coming year. It was really neat to hear about the different lessons people learned about the NGO world and the ways in which people work around the world. A common theme I noticed among the students was that almost every one wanted to return to their host country as soon as they could.

The week concluded on Thursday night with a gala to celebrate the graduation of the first International Development class of the University of Waterloo. It's pretty strange to think that one year from now I will be among the students presenting. Right now I'm looking forward with excitement to September when I leave for Burkina Faso, but in only 12 months I will be back in Canada and wishing I was going back.

International Conservation

As part of my Conservation Biology class, we were required to read a book by Robert Nash on Wilderness and the American Mind. The final chapter in this book focuses on wilderness in an international context. Historically, the United States has worked with a philosophy that wilderness is an evil that needed to be conquered by the pioneers. Throughout the development of the US, this perspective has shifted to recognize the importance of wilderness. Unfortunately, conservation efforts were mostly too late- there was nothing left to conserve. Now people in the developed world are looking at developing countries and seeing them do the same to their wilderness. Tropical rainforests are being cut down for agricultural land, lions and and tigers are being killed by trophy hunters, and elephants and rhinos are being poached for their tusks and horns.

The international community has been looking at ways to prevent the loss of wilderness throughout the world. One idea that has been proposed is the creation of International Parks where land is reserved for people around the world to enjoy the wildlife within. Other ideas include the creation of natural parks where only certified scientists are allowed to enter or the implementation of a quota system on indigenous hunters. Some people in the developed world have decided to act individually and will buy portions of tropical rainforest or other land in developing countries where they forbid human activities like logging. The challenge is that it is impossible to go to a sovereign state and say that they have to change what they are doing. It's also unfair to say to a country- we have destroyed all of our wilderness, but we won't let you do the same.

It's easy for conservationalists to say that poaching of animals like lions should be stopped, but they do not see the impact of these actions. In Tanzania there are an estimated 100 people killed by lions each year. Human survival depends on keeping a low lion population. Trophy hunters visiting this area view their actions as some of the most effective forms of lion conservation. The $30-40 thousand that they contribute to the local community for the right to kill a lion goes to indigenous people who put part of it towards efforts of conserving the remaining lions.

Regardless of what efforts the international community makes towards conservation of nature around the world, they require the support of indigenous people or their work will be futile. The local people depend on their natural resources to survive and preserving wilderness needs to be economically viable to be a possible alternative.

The same thing is true for development initiatives. You need buy-in from local people to have any tangible, positive impact.

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond

Many of my fellow International Development students know Jared Diamond as the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel or other popular science books I would guess that fewer people know about some of the work that he did before getting into this field. In my conservation biology class on Thursday, my professor told us about one of his studies from 1975 regarding bird species in New Guinea and its nearby islands.

Diamond looked at 141 species of birds found in the area. He then looked at which species of birds were present on each island. Comparing the makeup of species on each island he tried to determine if the subsets were always predictable with the more competitive species persisting on each island.

He found that competitive ability was important and there were "forbidden combinations" of bird species that were never able to exist together. The makeup of species also depended on abiotic factors like the size of the island. On the larger islands, the species that were less competitive were able to escape from the dominant species and there were fewer species on small islands.

It's interesting to look at the life of someone like Jared Diamond and see how many different things in which he's been involved. I would guess that there are more people who have read his recent work compared to his older studies, but I think that these older studies are also quite interesting and worth a look.

Why am I going?

Now that I'm leaving in about 5 months for Burkina Faso, I have plenty of things I have to do before going. There's paperwork to fill out, vaccinations to get, a passport to renew, and plenty of other things. Yesterday morning I finished another step in the process by having a French interview with one of the staff members at Students Without Borders, the organization coordinating my placement. This consisted of a few questions asking why I wanted to go on this placement, skills I would bring with me, how I would be able to adapt to the cultural changes, and what my plans were after returning to Canada. The purpose was so that the organization could get an idea of my French skill level and make sure I was ready to be immersed for eight months into a country where the working language is French and no one, besides my fellow students, speaks English.

Overall, I think the interview went well despite my being somewhat nervous. It's been a couple of years since my last French class, but luckily I have a sister who is always willing to practice French with me. The hardest part for me was actually thinking about my rationale for going on this placement. My immediate response was that it is required for my International Development program, but that's really not the reason I'm going. In fact, for me the required placement was the key attraction of the ID program at the University of Waterloo.

I went on to explain that I wanted to experience a completely different culture where I would experience being the outsider. I want to learn from the local people about their way of life and try to apply the ideas I've learned throughout my education in this specific context. Burkina Faso was my country of choice because of the importance of agriculture to the Burkinabé people and I hope to work with food security and agrictulture in the future. I also wanted to work in a Francophone country to try and improve my personal French skills.

It's hard to explain exactly why I want to go on this internship. There are many different factors that have influenced this decision, but in reality I'm not exactly sure about my motivations. Why do we make the decisions we do? Are our motivations based on helping others or are they more self-centred than we wish to admit?

Niagara buds

Despite warnings that this winter would be one of the coldest ever, it turned out to be the opposite. This past month especially has had its fair share of record high temperatures. While most people are enjoying the warm and sunny days, this could really be a challenge for some of Ontario's fruit growers.

Historically, Mother's Day weekend (the second weekend in May) has also been the time of year when Niagara Region fruit trees would bloom. If you've never seen rows upon rows of peach trees with thousands of flowers you are definitely missing out.

Anyways, this year because of the warm weather fruit trees are already starting to bud. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if the warm weather were consistent, but there is a problem as soon as the temperature goes below freezing which it did last night. This kind of a cold snap can easily kill the fragile buds. Last night, the buds on many of the apricot and plum trees were frozen which could mean that these crops will be lost. Grape growers will not know until much later (probably July) if this frost has destroyed their crop for the year.

Recently there have been lots of social movements promoting local food. In Canada the ability for people to consume only local food is a seasonal luxury and we hear little about it during the rest of the year. The reality is that while apricots and plums may only be in season for a month or two, early spring is just as important in their availability later in the summer. While this is not making headline news, I think that it is important for Canadians to know about the challenges facing their local farmers. I'm interested in this mostly because my extended family grows peaches and grapes in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but I'm also a fan of the movement promoting local food consumption.

This summer I hope to have plenty of Canadian fresh fruit, but this spring makes me wonder what other challenges farmers will be facing. While Canadian farmers have worries about frost, farmers in Burkina Faso are facing drought challenges. These dry climatic conditions have West Africa set up for a severe food crisis this year. Despite being on opposite sides of the world, both Canada and Burkina Faso share concerns over crop failures due to climatic challenges. Everyone is connected somehow!

Salut mes amis

  In just over five months I will be going to Burkina Faso for eight months as part of my undergraduate program at the University of Waterloo. I am an International Development student and in September will be starting the final year of my program. Of course, traveling half-way around the world means there are plenty of people that I'll be leaving behind. My hope for this blog is that it will help me to connect with people who are here in Canada for the coming year as well as with my classmates who will be spread across the world over the same eight months. I've got plenty of topics I want to cover eventually, but for now I'll just get started on the basics.

  Early September I will be leaving for Burkina Faso with two of my classmates: Jeannette and Kevin (you can read about their experiences and travels as well). Kevin will be working with an organization called SEMUS in the town of Yako (about 100km from the capital city). Jeannette and I will both be working in the town of Gourcy (only about 30km farther) with the Association Evangelique d'Appui du Developpement or AEAD.

  Gourcy is in the northern region of Burkina Faso, basically at the edge of the Sahara desert. The climate there is very hot and dry for most of the year with a wet season (which is still very hot) during our summer. The majority of people in Burkina Faso (about 90%) practice agriculture for their livelihood which is very challenging with the dry and hot climate. This past year has been even more dry than usual and as a result the region is expected to have a severe food crisis in 2012 because of low crop yields.

  AEAD has traditionally been working with adult literacy in Burkina Faso, but due to the significance of farming in the country they are trying to establish an agriculture program. This is the project that Jeannette and I will be trying to start while we are there. We will be focusing on different challenges including soil ecology and erosion problems and deforestation.

  I decided to call this blog "Ca fait deux jours". This is a common phrase in Burkina Faso translated literally as "It's been two days" but used by people to say that it has been a long time. Considering my track record for keeping up-to-date combined with intermittent internet connections in Burkina Faso, I have a feeling that this will be a common theme with my blog posts. Nevertheless, in the coming weeks and months I'll be posting more information on my travels and activities along with current events that I wish to share.

  A bientot!