Mr. President

May 16th, all JOCV in Burkina (about 60) were invited at the president residence
(let’s say White House :)

Everyone was so excited and it was like the meeting with Emperor’s son.

At first, it was very formal meeting. Mr. President (for 20 years…), Blaise Compaoré praised us for our will of volunteer and our contribution to Burkina.

He asked directly some questions to certain volunteers, not for me though…

At the end, he shook hands with each volunteer and then buffet was prepared at terrace next to a huge pool. It was delicious☆

1st lady (on pink suits)

He accepted very casually to take photos with us !

Everyone has very good smile☆

He was very calm and elegant.

It was very precious experience, for the 1st time and probably the last time...
Anyway, the lifestyle of any national leader is very different from the people…

Japan - Burkina Faso

Dear Yoko Hyodo,

The bike that you used to use came far from Japan, here in Africa, in Burkina Faso.
And now it is in hand of a JOVC and it has started a new life here.

Although bumpy road under severe environmental condition for 1-2 hours everyday is not very friendly to bike, it is the means of my daily transport so I will try to be nice to the bike and to maintain it well for next 2 years.

Here, I’d like to express my thanks to you.

Sincerely yours,

*****************************************************

Japanese bicycles are so expensive in Burkina although they are second hand.

In fact, it is much cheaper to buy a brand new one in Japan than the second hand of the same model in Burkina…

On the other hand, local or Chinese bicycles are much cheaper but they break down easily.

Thus, even though it was a big investment at once, it will be worth it in long view.

My house

I moved into my new house on Thursday.

It is located far away (isolated) from other volunteers’ house.
There are no small shops to get daily needs or some food: 30min by walk to the center of city.

Left half is my house (now there is a wall to separate two houses)

After my arrival, several problems came up…

1. Kitchen was under construction: it was done 3days after.

2. I couldn’t clean house for 3 days: people were inside of the house with shoes due to the kitchen construction & dust everywhere

Then I thought, yes finally I could start cooking at home!

3. I had a gas stove that Ministry of Finance lent us but the part to connect gas tube and the stove was rusted and broken.

→I had to go to another volunteer house by bike to get a spare gas stove. It took 40min…

Kitchen completed although tiles haven’t covered the water pipe

First 3 days I couldn’t really relax at home.
Even now, there is no table in the living room, no closet in my room and no curtain rails so it will still take time to really settle down here…

Desk and chair from Ministry of Finance

Air conditioner, sofa and armchairs owned by landlord

Bed that I bought

I started working this week.

The office is 1h far from my place by walk. I did this only the first day of work.
2nd day I took a taxi: 10-15min
3rd day I took bicycle: 20min

Working hour in Burkina: 7:00－12:30・15:00－17:30

Ministry of Foreign Affaires

May 6th, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affaires for official visit.

We all wore African traditional clothes made to order in Bobo.

We look like real burkinabè, don’t we ?

In fact, when my blouse was made, it was too fit to wear…

While other girls’ were fluffy…

I asked to make it looser although it was still very tight when it was redone…

So I wasn’t feeling great to wear it this morning.

But ・・・!?

The blouse wasn’t as tight as before!!!

Did I loose weight or the blouse became bigger?

Anyway, the visit was fun !

I can’t gain weight though…

Twins!

SONICA

I am preparing now for my new life in Bobo : shopping.

In Burkina, whatever you want to buy (except food), you have to negotiate price with sellers. There is neither fixed price nor price tag at market (except at big supermarkets run by foreigners).

“That’s too expensive !”
“I buy more than one so put lower price !”

Like this, for each object, we have to negotiate the price…with calculate in yen and comparing the price with it etc…Plus, toward white foreigners (I’m part of white people here), sellers set up the first price twice higher than normal price. It is always.

So, I went shopping with my home stay host in town (although it was only 1 night) to avoid buying stuff with abnormal price. She is 27 year-old student in agronomy, pretty nice, frank and big…:) But after 2hour shopping, I was exhausted. At the end, I wanted to just buy things quicker even though I could negotiate more the price…

But I got one thing which I am very happy with :

“ Radio ”

I had wanted it since I came here because listening to RFI (Radio France International) is the only way to keep connection with outside world from Burkina apart from internet.

The price was・・・1500FCFA ( = about ￥375 = $3.7 = €2.3）!

In fact, daily goods are not as cheap as people’s life level here, I believe so I was surprised with that price and I was so happy about it ☆ After all, the price was normal for a radio though…

The mark is “SONICA”. You see a sticker saying “USE SONY IC”. Yes, it is Chinese product.
But it is pretty small (hand size) and I can catch BBC World station as well so I am happy :) Besides, I brought rechargeable dry cells from Japan so that I don’t have to worry about how to treat used cells in a country where there is no recycle system for that.

Koro

Koro : village located about 10km from Bobo.

In the old days, Bobo and Dioula people built their village on a hill to protect themselves from enemies despite of inconvenience of daily goods’ transport (food, water, etc). Nowadays, there are construction sites nearby to get the material for concretewith dynamites.

From the top of the hill

Young/Adult villagers live next to their farms because they are usually 15km+ far from Koro or work in towns as trader.
They come back to the village only for the moments of traditional ceremonies like Masque or after harvest.

Many of the people are animists. But now they also believe in Islam or Christianity at the same time.

(although I didn’t hear exactly the explanation…) this is an animism altar. In this village, if twins are born, people believe that it is foreboding (ill-fated) or misfortune. So religious leader(s) sacrifice a rooster on the altar and put its blood on the pots. Furthermore, I am not sure but the one of the twin babies or both can be sacrificed…