First some news about Burkina.
When you arrive in Bobo Dioulasso from Ouagadougou, the normal 2 ways road becomes a large 4 lanes road separated in the middle by a kind of railing. When they made the road they made it very high in reference to the houses on the side. A large gutter was built to protect the houses from flooding. A large portion of the road is going down. Cement plates with holes cover this gutter on one side of the road, but on the other side the gutter is open. This road is not lit and at night people drive at a crazy speed. The gutter can be up to 4 meters deep at some points.
On Wednesday last week, a car drove out of the road in the gutter: 3 people were killed!!! Many people lost their life along this road especially at night on bicycles, motorbikes, cars…. Lighting along the road was promised but nothing happens. These were 3 people too many. The habitants of this neighborhood decided to take action and early on Thursday morning they blocked this main road. Nobody could get in or come out of Bobo Dioulasso in the direction of the capital.
No negotiations possible, they would stop only if they see the electricity company working on the lighting. The mayor, the governor even the minister of interior came. They refuse to talk to them unless until they see the work in progress. Meanwhile buses, cars, trucks tried to find an alternative route via some back roads. These were blocked as well.
All those vehicles pilled on both side of the barricades. A nice mess. Finally the police freed the road in the evening. Ironically the protesters and the police keep at it until the electricity was cut off in most of Bobo.
This Sunday it seems that protesters tried again to block the road. I am not sure what happened since now the road is free again, but for how long?
We went only to one village this week. On Wednesday we had planned the test for the LAP (our secondary agricultural school). The test is for all children having gotten their primary school diploma in the villages we are supporting. Since the beginning of the year, we put 2 of the 10 villages on the side: Mogobassoa and Sissa. In the 8 villages remaining there were close to 170 potential candidates. The test is done in the villages. Only 60% of the potential candidates showed up. From those, only 56 had grades high enough to be selected. We will have a class of 56 instead of the 70 planned in the first year of the LAP.
Children during the test
The main reason the parents gave for not sending their children for the test is the cost of the school. Parents can have many kids and some might already be in our program. They do not realize, or do not want to realize that in the state secondary schools their kids have only a chance of 1 in a 100 to get a diploma after 4 years. For next year we might have to open the test to neighboring villages which we are not supporting.
While some children pass the test, others play outside.
The school of Sokourani
Alain (social business association manager) has come to the end of his contract with. Since we do not plan to replace him, this week was also a lot of work on the ongoing businesses and how to organize the work after he is gone.
Answer to the question in the blog dated 23 June 2013: the “drawing” was made by the lightning. What was controlling it??????
During the weekend I went with some of our African family to the city of Banfora. It was raining when we arrived there on Saturday. We decided to go to the pic of Sindou about 50km from Banfora. The rain stopped and we could walk around those amazing eroded rocks.
Looking closely at the rocks you can see some type of shape. I have put a few below. Do you agree with me with the interpretation?
Squirrel?
Turtle?
Scary person?
Mother and child right, man middle, cobra left?
On Sunday we went to the cascades. Nice cooling place very close to Banfora.
Palm tree colonized by weaving birds
Along the road. Granaries from the Turka ethnical group.
Chinese proverb:
«Si nous avons chacun un objet et que nous les échangeons, nous avons chacun un objet. Si nous avons chacun une idée et que nous les échangeons, nous avons chacun deux idées. »
“If we each have one object and we exchange them, we each still have an object. If we each have an idea and we exchange them, we each have two ideas. “
Take care and until next week.
Herve