3 day madness

It has been rather quiet here. Sorry for that. I've just been a bit too busy, being on missions throughout Burkina - and ... and ... lots of stuff. 

This post is only about the 'Journée de la communauté Burkinabè', a yearly event, organized to gather all mayors of Burkina Faso and to discuss relevant topics in regard to the decentralization process. 3 Days, and every year a different city that hosts the event. This time the location was Gaoua, a city in the far west of Burkina Faso.  

In this post only the 'light' version of these days. A report on the contents - insights, challenges and problems regarding to decentralization in Burkina Faso - is still in progress and will be published - sometime. 

Assisting Nicole, secretary of the association in fidgeting some last details for a presentation. 

The mayor of Comin-Yanga

Don't know which municipality this major is from (picture taken while tag half out of frame), but he's definitely from the Sahel-region. Travelled about 600km to get to this convention.

Pretty filled up - university campus of Gaoua 

Everybody knows Simon. Mayor of the city of Ouagadougou, and president of the association I work for. 

Yep, there are female mayors in this country. But only 22 out of 351, so there's room for improvement.

Preparing for the procession and clearly happy. 3 Mayors posing.

Clarisse, protocol for the city of Ouagadougou. She works like 5 men! Made her happy by buying a beer.

Boniface, Sécretaire Executif of the AMBF. We share a desk and work well together. Note: look at his eyes. He's soooo tired.

Behind the scenes of an event like this. Trying to get a glimpse of what's happening.

Seeking shelter while waiting for start of procession - and rain pouring out of the sky. Which is a good omen in this country.

On the left the mayor of Koudougou and Secretaire General of the AMBF - nice guy.  On the right, the mayor of Banfora. Also nice guy.

The most pretty one. Looking round for mutinying soldiers.

The mayor of ... uhm ...

Don't know who that is, but I liked this shot. And the hat of course.

Aha ... the procession. Starts with music. 

Followed by soldiers marching. Never seen em so publicly while not using their firearms.

This image stands for the next 30 minutes of the procession. A sign for each province, followed by a sign for each region, listing the number of rural and urban municipalities - and a colored sign for every municipality in that region. Bonus on this picture: the village idiot marching aside. 

Never figured out what this should represent, but am afraid it is the white skinned folks amongst us. Everybody had a good laugh tho.

Every local association is also allowed to take place in the procession. Marching and marching. 

Luckily, nobody got hurt in this part of the procession. It came a bit as a surprise.

Mayor of Kindi - good friend. Wearing again his lucky hat. 

The prime minister of Burkina Faso. Ok. Time for a bit a confession. He just came round to express sympathy, making similar promises made at the meeting in may. Everybody was cheering again. Sigh.  

A bit of a group photo of people working for the association, taken at the ruins of Loropeni, Unesco world heritage. As you can see, not all noses are pointed in the same direction. There's still work to do.

Burkinabè art

Piece of Burkinabè art dressing up my living room wall

secret test ...

Hectic weeks - again. Spent a lot of days in Houndé working on management of allotments and accounting. Have learned muchos muchos (and somehow people didn't got upset with my remarks). Some more - in random order - remarks since my ability to invent a storyline appears to have gotten lost somewhere - where's that bottle of mojito -:

• rain season seems to have started somewhat a couple of days ago - finally. Barrages can be filled up again.
• Denise is now at the letter D. And still smiling & happy.
• the chicken population at Houndé decimated last week - I could choose between chips, rice or alloco (bananas) but every lunch and dinner ... there was roasted chicken. Must say tho the best chicken I've had in Burkina. To experience yourself, drive to Houndé, just after the mairie (on the left) turn right before the fuel station. A bit after the gun shop mind the potholes. They are enormous! Then turn left. There's a gate with something something 2000 on it. Enter & enjoy.
• for breakfast, the mayor's wife prepared some bad-ass bugs called 'chenies'. They were crusty, filled with proteins, and lacked a general sense of taste. Think it was a secret test ... 
• Next week is going to be spent in Po (near the border of Ghana) and Kindi (again). 

Nice scenery on a motorbike trip in the countryside. 

Some company during motorbike trip. Needles to say I left GPS at home and got completely lost.

last week ...

... I've:

• planned some missions to Houndé, Po and Kindi, eating up my planning for next month
• tried to sort out intern politics - and moving my way round them to solve a problem which has been lingering around for months. Succesfully! Yay!
• neglected my mid-week swim-session. 
• written a post for the Daidalos-blog here. 
• had my motorbike washed and cleaned for about 750 FCFA (1 euro) and enjoying driving it again. With temperatures not that hot it's fun again!
• tried to have a game of scrabble - sorry Martin, next time better !
• seen way too many goats on one motorbike. At least 10. 
• found out when the market in Saaba is. It appears to be every 3 days, so last tuesday, tomorrow, next monday, next thursday ... and so on.
• worked on staff guidelines and evaluation system for a municipality.
• seen the lemons grow and grow and grow.

goodbye my friend

Yesterday I got the sad news that a good friend, Randy, died suddenly the day before. Our age differs only 6 months. He leaves behind his wife Jose and 2 children, Thijmen and Mirthe, age 6 and 3.

We've met when I started to work for Daidalos where he arrived a while before me and we've spent 3 years working closely together on the workers committee. 

But more than that we've spent numerous evenings together discussing all sorts of topics, on how to set up business, market opportunities, philosophy, religion, having a beer. Or two. And it was always a struggle to end the evening. Time flies when it's good. 

I've decided to head back to Europe for 2 weeks, allowing me to be pay him my last respects and visit my relatives. 

Randy - on the right side. Helping to move my stuff before departure for this project. 

3000 words and a massacre

It's said that a picture is worth a 1000 words. So I thought let's make it easy today.

lightning during a night in Kindi. 

It is said that people who passed away at Dafra come back in this lake as a catfish. They can grant your wish in return for some chicken intestines. A secretary at work told me there's a really really really big one in this lake. If you happen to see that one, you are lucky and may be sure your wish will be granted. 

Here's where the real work is done: the slaughter and preparation of chickens. You'll have to pass this area in order to get to the lake. Barefoot.

first day at school

It might be nice for a start, to reflect back on the first day you went to school. And all the days after that you spent there. Learning the alphabet, counting to 20 at first, writing and grammar, then further on, the Roman era, all the rivers in Europe, why water boils and freezes, an endless list of things ...

This post is about my femme-de-menage, Denise. Someone who gets up at five o'clock, prepares a meal for her son Frederique and the rest of the family (mother, sister and her husband and their 4 kids). Then, at 8 o'clock, arrives at the villa to clean here, do the washing up, and leaves back here around 12. Goes back to her own place and continues work there. But happy that she has a job. Yet at the age of 25, she never had that first day at school. Never had the opportunity to learn how to read and write. Imagine how the world looks like ...

Denise

So in the time I've been here, I've had some reflexions on how to change that, which resulted last monday in going to a school nearby where she lives for a discussion on how education for adults works here.

And we've set a date. The first of august she'll start summer class, an intensive preparation course of a month. After that, she starts the normal school year in october with classes between 18h and 20h, specially for adults.

She's looking forward to her first day at school.