Follow up

My recent worry : rain

This year, it rains really little...

My women are crying every day about it.

Nothing grows well, maize, millet...

I went to see the situation and the effects of their compost at several women's field.

Millet field

Can you see the difference between right and left ?

Right : without fertilizer

Left : with compost

Peanuts field

Apparently peanuts can grow in any type of soil so the difference is less visible usually but...

Without compost

With compost

When I went to another woman's field (one hour from my house and the half of the way was in sand... how many times I almost felt over...),

She started putting dead wood which was piled next to her field on her bicycle.

I said, "me too !"

She looked at me like saying "no, you aren't able to..."

I insisted "No problem !"

Here you go :)

Of course, I had only thin wood while she carried heavy one but without any problem I delivered it to her house.。

Note : we were in a classified forest but we didn't take wood cut illegally (I think...)

She got an encouraging promis from her neighbor :

"Next year I will buy your compost" (because he saw its effect at her field).

Great news :)

On the way to see another woman's field, she showed me repeating "this is not good !"

A farmer's field

Can you see them ?

So dark black soil...

This is not "fertilizer", but it is for him...

Next to the plant, there were medical bottles and batteries...

Many farmers bring the town wastes as fertilizer which were left at the border of the forest and residencial area to their field.

I didn't even touch them to show them clearly on the photos.

It seems like they were there on purpose...

She told me that some leaves of the plant were yellow, which is not good.

I was very shocked to see it.

At the same time, however I was happy.

Because she knows now that bringing wastes directly to fields is not good through discussions that we had during the workshop.

I hope that hygiene (solid waste management) promotion and compost production widespreads little by little like this among the women and even further...

But right now above all, rain is the matter !

Arrival of Japanese ambassador in Burkina

July 17th.

At Japanese embassy in Burkina which has been open since this January, the person, yes the ambassador finally came.

To celebrate that (?), a reception party was held at the embassy and all volunteers were invited.

Of course with formal or traditional clothes

There were about 100 people (most of them were Japanese).

The "person" of the day

Also at the party there were....!

SUSHI----- with huge shrimps !!! (should I call them "prawn" ?)

As it is very diffult to find fresh seafood in Burkina, all volunteers were sooo excited !

I took a photo because I was too happy...(typical Japanese :)

Then 3 volunteers presented their activites.

Volunteer for infectious disease measures @ Tenkogodo : central region

Volunteer for market gardening / truck farming @ Dori : North

Volunteer for rural (actually outskirts) development @ Bobo-Dioulasso : South-West

People there were talking between them while our presentation. So I thought that no one heard what I was saying even with microphone..

But after the presentation, a person spoke to me. He came to Burkina for pre research for a project from the end of this year in the domain of water and sanitation at a local university in collaboration with Hokkaido University. We had very constructive discussions.

From now on, there will be more and more projects as the official embassy has been working.

I hope that these will play positive role in the country's development...

Let's plant !

July 11th, at one of 4 classified (preserved) forests nearby Bobo,

with the presence of the mayor of Bobo city, the governor of Hauts-Bissins region, the minister of Environment and Living conditions,

The opening campaign of reforestation 2009 in this region.

After some official speeches,

Everyone started planting.

Men

Women too

The senior counsellor (Dutch) of a project too which works for protection of forests and natural resources in this region

French too

Japanese too

I don't know how many people participated that day...

About 1000? Anyway there were many people...

This year in Burkina, 11 million trees are planned to be planted in which 1 million will be in this region.

It is important to plant young trees when we cut old ones.

But aftercare (their protection) is more important.

I hope really that this region will become more green in 10 years...

Vacation

I went to France and a bit further for my vacation from June 3rd to 18th.

The beginning wasn’t easy…

My departure was supposed to be 4th.

But my travel agency called me and said that my flight was cancelled and asked me to choose one leaving on 3rd or another on 6th…

My mum was coming in Paris in 5th so I had in fact no choice.

So I had to leave one day earlier…

It is not good to be in hurry for trip preparation…

I forgot all cash at home that I was going to spend during my trip…

I noticed that only when I was at the airport while waiting for check-in and going to change the money in my wallet…

I can’t travel !!!

But fortunately I had my credit card in another wallet in my bag so I could withdraw some cash from machine as soon as I arrived in Paris.

Relieved…

As I arrived one day earlier, my friend with who I was going to travel wasn’t in Paris yet so her friend took care of me.

He took me to the areas where Parisians spend time, not ones with full of tourists by bike.

Musicians playing (practicing) at a bar

People reading and chatting at a park

Couple walking in a nice public garden

Market

It was different Paris than one I used to see.

I really like it.

Green curtain (an ecological solution to keep inside of the building cool)

There were also several problems like my French mobile phone that a friend sold me was invalid, my mum lost hers, we lost each other in a museum, my return flight was also cancelled etc…

Anyway, I spent very very touristic 2 days in Paris with her that I hadn’t seen for 15 months.

Then I headed toward west coastal side of France (until Bordeaux) by car with my friend who I met in Bobo and who returned to Europe 6 months ago.

As we were in Burkina where there is no sea, we missed so much sea, fish and seafood!

We took national roads as close as possible to ocean instead of highway for 6 days.

@St-Lazaire : Bretagne

Ocean!!!

Organic veggies and fresh seafood :D

Salt pan

@Rochelle

Let’s read books! (interesting art on the wall of medieval rampart.

@St-Emilion (my friend’s uncle produces wine there and I slept at his very nice old house.

The biggest dune in Europe

From the top,

My right was deep green forests

My left was sky blue ocean.

Taking the sun?!

The whole town of St-Emilion is registered in UNESCO. The medieval atmosphere is conserved with very old houses and churches.

The region was totally covered with wine fields like in Japan with rice fields.

Then I went to Barcelona by myself by train. (Unfortunately my friend couldn’t come with me…)

Barcelona was the town where I was 3 years ago and where my wallet was stolen…

But I really liked the atmosphere of the town and I wanted to come back.

Also this time, I wasn’t alone. A Portuguese friend who I met in Japan lives there and accepted me.

The first day, he told me several times to be careful with my bag…

I wasn’t paying attention with forgetting my bad experience 3 years ago…

But from the 2nd day, I started to get used to it and walked around the city with seeing interesting architectures and doing shopping at small original shops.

Paella and lobsters!!! (I ate too much at this lunch and didn’t have appétit until next morning…)

I went to beach too. There were already people enjoying summer (it was still mid-June though)

At his place, there were 2 Spanish roommates and one Italian. We tried to communicate in English, Spanish and Italian… It was funny.

Traditional Catalan dance competition (apparently)

I could meet 3 other friends in Paris too.

It was very very nice trip.

It refreshed me and gave me again motivation of one more year work in Burkina !