Back in Burkina for almost 9 weeks on Wednesday. Hope you will enjoy some of the stories in the coming blogs.
Some information about this trip
- Eugenie will be coming to Burkina end of next week for a stay of 3 weeks.
- Claire (daughter of Helene Michaud, volunteer at the galerie in Naarden) has arrived early February and will stay until beginning of April. She will be helping conducting and inputting the data of a survey we will do in the villages and participate in some of the activities of the nursery schools. Claire has just finished her secondary school and will start university in……
- Erik is 3rd year student from the university of Wageningen. He is studying water and soil management. He will be staying until beginning of May. He will work with Karim (agricultural social business SYS) looking at the erosion problem in the farm of SYS and in some villages. He will also look at the water harvesting possibilities at our secondary agricultural school (the LAP).
- In the past 2 weeks we had also the visit of Mr. Rijk. He is a retired expert sent to us by the PUM organization. The PUM is a Dutch organization supported by the government which send volunteer retired expert to help businesses in developing countries. Mechanization (tractors, shellers…) is a big part of SYS activities (SYS = agricultural social business). Mr. Rijk speciality is mechanization. His recommendations to improve efficiency and profitability of this activity will be very precious.
Mr. Rijk, Claire, Karim and Erik in our garden in Bobo.
Some informations about Burkina
Weather
We are in the dry season here. The rains have stopped in October last year and will not start before May this year. There are some occasional rains in between. They are good to clean the dust on the trees. The wind coming from the Sahara desert (Harmatan) is loaded with fine dust. It is the time when a lot of people cough and when the meningitis spread. Day are hot but it is dry (35 to 38 oC), the night are still a bit cool (25 to 28 oC).
Political situation
The president Blaise Compoare has already been elected twice for 7 years each time. Next election for president is in 2015. The constitution does not allow him to be candidate. He has been trying to change this, but so far he has not succeeded. The last attempt was by wanting to create a Senate (Burkina has only one lower chamber today), which could have taken the step to modify the constitution. The population and the donors do not understand, where will the money come from to support the Senate??
In January this year, a large group of important political people who were in the political party of the president went out officially and created a new opposition party.
Now everybody waits to see what the president will do or say. So far nothing. But the last event definitely changes the situation, let’s hope for the best for Burkina.
Activities
Yesterday we went to the LAP and below are some impressions.
Gardens of the 2nd year students
Garden of the 3rd year students
Piglets born on Friday last week
LAP students
Erik, Isan (math teacher) Gnoumou (director), Herve, Rodrigue (French teacher)
Proverbs on wisdom
The fool speaks, the wise man listens. ~ Ethiopian proverb
Le fou parle, le sage écoute. ~ Proverbe éthiopien
Knowledge without wisdom is like water in the sand. ~ Guinean proverb
La connaissance sans sagesse est comme de l’eau dans le sable. ~ Proverbe guinéen
In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and the foolish build dams. ~ Nigerian proverb
Au moment de la crise, le sage construit des ponts et le fou des barrages. ~ Proverbe nigérian
I wish you an excellent week.
Herve