With Eugénie, we are back in Burkina. My last trip was 6 months ago and Eugénie more than 3 1/2 years.
The trip is rather long to Bobo Dioulasso: Amsterdam to Brussels, Brussels to Ouagadougou the first day, then Ouagadougou Bobo Dioulasso the second day. We were supposed to fly between Ouaga and Bobo, but Brussels Airlines cancelled our flight planned on a Wednesday and put us on a flight of Friday. Then no connection by plane to Bobo on Saturday. Annoying since the bus drive is 6,5 hours.
Anyway we are in Bobo since a week and we have found back our house in good order and all the familiar faces who are gravitating around us.
Situation in Burkina
There is a major improvement in the safety situation in the area were we work. We can go to all the villages without difficulty.
Also you can notice buildings being renovated, streets being more clean.
he new toll station on the way to Ouagadougou. It saves at least 15 minutes on the way to the LAP.
A lot of emphasis has been put in civic-mindedness education. Slowly you can see the impact for example in the way people drive.
The population seems to be positive with the changes. There is also a lot of new laws regarding businesses and associations in order to control what is happening in the country. For us it is a lot of administration which needs to be done to comply with the new rules.
Visit of the village of Sidi 2
With the better safety situation I was able to go to Sidi 2. Very tiring trip, a large part of the road is under repair.
This was my first trip to a village since over 3 years. It was very nice to be in front of the villagers again. The meeting was first at the “maison de la femme”, then we went to the nursery school and the primary school.
A “marigot”(river) separates the village in 2. During the raining months it is difficult and dangerous to cross it, specially for children. They need a bridge to help communication: access to the school and to the medical centre.
The women also asked us about a gardening project and a grinding mill for their shea nuts transformation.
We have helped the village of Sipigui not too far from Sidi for both projects. We have asked them to visit Sipigui and then come back to us.
There are 40 children at the nursery school. The head of the school has to stay in a house in the village. We have found funds to build a house on the grounds of the nursery school.
There are 215 children at the primary school. We took this occasion to distribute water bottles to the children. Those bottles are given to us by Join the Pipe from the Netherlands.
They had 100% success in June at the final exam of primary school.
The director thanked us for the gift of books which helped a lot to achieve this result.
The Lycée Agricole Privé (LAP)
This school year we have 313 students (151 girls and 162 boys). This year we have new uniform using the local cloth Faso Danfani.
School started 1 week later than planned due to heavy rains closing the access to the school.
We have 3 students coming from orphan families on top of the 5 students coming from refugees families. We had the visit of our contact at the Police with 3 other colleagues. The 3 students seem to be well integrated even so they come from the cities.
The delegation from the Burkina police with the 3 students
Income generating activities ( La Ferme de Léna)
In order to make the LAP more sustainable we have started in 2024 to develop Income Generating Activities which will bring revenue for the school and help to train the students.
For marketing purpose we gathered those activities under the name “La Ferme de Léna”.
Today we have 5 fish tanks with between 2.500 and 3.500 fish per tank and 2 chicken coops with 500 chicks per coop.
The start up of the activities has been slow due mainly to our contractors. The major challenge will be the sale of the production of fish. The chicken production will be easier to sell.
Short video about the activities.
Saying of the week
“Where some people are very wealthy and others have nothing, the result will be either extreme democracy or absolute oligarchy, or despotism will come from either of those excesses.”
“What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.” – George Washington
Hope that you are in good health.
Until next week,
Hervé