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.