Sleeping outside

People have been wondering about my daily life here. So I thought I’d share one of the biggest differences between my European and my African life with you. The past three months (april, may, june) have been tooooo hot for me to be able to sleep inside. My house is nice and cool during the day, but at night its an oven. Luckily, I have a roof terrace on my house, so for the past three months I have been going up there to sleep.

It took some time to get used to lying under a starry African sky, with the sounds of the neighbours turkeys (who appear to be night animals), my neighbours’ (who also sleep outside) snoring, their babys crying, the early roosters screams, and the mosques of Ouahigouya calling everyone to prayer at 4 in the morning. But at least it was cool and there was a breeze. And it feels good, to go to bed early and go up with the sun.

Digging for Gold

In some places not far from where I live someone found gold not so long ago. This has lead to a incredible inflow of hopefuls souls into these places, which were just nowheres in the dust before. The gold-fever has led to the creation of entire temporary villages, where houses are made of straw, but you can get everything you need, just as in a regular town: food, water, a spare tire for your bike, a radio, and even a haircut.

The circumstances in which gold is dug for are daunting and dangerous. Holes of up to 40-50 metres deep are dug straight down into the ground, with primitive manpowered tools. It can become incredibly hot in these holes and air to breath can be scarce, so makeshift airshafts are used to prevent suffocation. There are no ladders, people climb in and out by crevices in the walls of the holes. One person digs and sends up the loose gravel in bags to his companions outside. Sometimes a horizontal shaft is dug from this hole. These are very dangerous, and often collapse, as tools and material for preventing collapse are scarce.

The gravel hauled up can hold indications of gold or gold itself. It is brought to someone on the site who has a machine to grind to dust, and then it is washed to find the gold itself. You need to pay the person with the grinding machine, and you need to buy the water to wash it with, as there are no wells or other water sources nearby (thus this has led to the creation of a small industry of people fetching water and selling it). Thus the whole activity is seldom profitable and only very rarely does someone find his fortune. But those few who do keep the hopes of all the others alive. Imagine, find gold one afternoon and be able to buy your own motorcycle and your own house on the spot, and having the means of taking two wives at once!

Digging for gold is dangerous, and only estimates exist of how many people die in these holes. Some people say the only way to know is to count the pairs of slippers left at the sides of holes with no one to pick them up, or the number of bicycles gathering dust because the owner has disappeared....

Digging for gold is something which attracts young people, young men leaving their villages to try their luck in these dangerous sites. In some villages you will find only old people and children who are left. It undermines the social structure and the development of these villages, and it makes it difficult for our work as well. How to work with developing a village when the whole active population is absent?

A day in the life...

I thought I might describe a normal, regular day of life here in BF. In some aspects, it doesn’t differ so much from all of your lives. Then again, other aspects do :-)

5h50: alarm clock, my neighbours making noise, cocks crowing, and the sun warming up the land
6h00: I get up, water my plants, eat breakfast and get ready for work. I am especially pleased that I brought with me a little italian espresso-maker so I can get my necessary dose of caffein
6h50: I get on my bike and ride to work
7h05: I arrive, and spend some 15 minutes talking with my collegues who arrive one by one
7h20: work, sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, usually because of the virus-problems we have with our computers, grrr
12h30: I get on my bike and defy the blazing sun to ride either to a local restaurant or home to eat
13h30: siesta, I usually don’t sleep (I get in a bad mood when I wake up from sleeping in the day) so I read, watch a tv series on my computer, or just lounge about a bit
14h45: I take a quick shower, and ride back to work
15h00: work continues
17h30: end of the working day, chat with some collegues, ride home, or to town to pick up some groceries
evening: either spent at home alone, cooking, reading or watching a movie, or in town with friends (this activity usually involves drinking beer, which really tastes SO good after a hot day here!)
22h00: bedtime (except if the beers got too good ;-))

My job

I realise that I haven’t really described what I am doing here, in detail. In truth, it took a while to find out for myself. But I think after about half a year I have a clear idea.

My title is “chargé de mise en valeur”, which means responsible for the valorisation activities. The programme I am working in has activities in water availability (such as the provision of water wells), but also, once water is available, activities to capitalise this for the development of the area or village are possible. The most important examples of these activities are vegetable growing and rice production.

Vegetable and rice production are commercial agricultural activities, and not easy. First of all there are all the technical aspects: production techniques, the weather which we can’t control, and constraints on water and inputs availability. Giving villagers willing to produce vegetables or rice the knowledge how to do so is one of the main activities in this aspect. But once harvesting time comes around, another aspect appears: commercialisation. It is not enough to grow onions, to make a living you have to be able to sell them too! And this is an aspect with which we are struggling with right now.

It is a difficult subject, because the world of food production is becoming increasingly globalised and producers here have to compete with rice from taiwan and tomatoes from ghana. We are looking at ways to try and make these agricultural activities profitable and sustainable for these small farmers we are working with. Not an easy task, but interesting and challenging...

Sayings

In Burkina Faso, as in many parts of Africa, there are many colorful proverbs which are based on daily life situations, just as they are at home. However, as I come from a different cultural background, I don't always understand what they mean immediately. Here are two I tried to translate and share with you, and an attempt to explain them. I think they give a nice impression of the local way of thinking and speaking...


The mother is there, so is the child. Now all we need is the rain

There is knowledge, and there is strength. Wether the undertaking is a succes is now a matter of luck.



If they wash your back, you yourself should wash your stomach

Even if you receive help you should do your own best as well.

Finally, rain!!!

Since I got here in November I haven’t seen any rain. Well, ok, there was some kind of dropping activity two or three times, but nothing worth calling rain, really.
Coming from Belgium, a country using its extreme rainfall as a touristic attraction (t-shirts saying “in belgium it always rains”, yes, they exist!) I shouldn’t complain, right?
But I guess the grass is always greener.... because god I am waiting for rain right now! Sick and tired of sunsunsunsun, sun all day. I think now I understand more fully the meaning of a “dry season”.
Today, finally, we got our first decent rain. Still only about 10 minutes, but anyway, rain. And I am ready and waiting for more! Whoever would have thought?!

Different ways of looking at things

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a young woman here, about my age. We were listening to “zouk”, the local version of a slow romantic dance. I asked her if she liked zouk, and she said she did, but that right now she couldn’t enjoy it fully because she was not in love. She told me the love of her life had just left her. I said I was really sorry for her and that she must be sad. She looked at me and replied: “no, not really, because he gave me two beautiful baby girls, which is the best gift I could ever receive”... I thought about how my culture could make me look at the same situation: leaving a young mother alone with two kids... makes you think...