My work

“Why I am in Burkina?”

It is possible that some of you might not know the answer to this question.
So today, I will write about my work here.

I have mainly 3 tasks ;

1. Clean up the city (garbage treatment, sensitization about people’s behavior)

2. Create more green space in the city and protect forests and trees in the suburbs and villages nearby (reforestation and support for local plant producers)

3. Make children aware of the importance of environment protection (education in environment)

Part 1 : Garbage problem

This is not an official dump.
In fact, there is neither dump site nor waste treatment center in Bobo although there are some centers constructed or under construction in a suburb but not yet ready to work.

So where does the garbage from households and factories ?

Answer ;
empty lots / ditch in front of house / own fields for maize or millet / burn it at home etc

Although there are associations which collect domestic garbage once or twice a week, only about 10% of citizens are under contract with them.

Anyway the garbage collected goes to empty lots…

Then at lots, there are some people waiting for it...

Children, women and men look for iron, plastic bottles and boxes, glass, etc which can make them a tiny amount of money for the day.

During the rainy season, all empty lots become field of some cereals.

You see the black spots on the photo. Like this, people burn waste then cultivate there (I can’t avoid thinking how harmful things are melted in the soil, which is no matter for them…)

Or there are some other people who put “all” waste to their field because there is “a little” good matter for soil fertility (ex. garbage from cooking) in the waste.

Can you guess what are these black things ?

They are so “un”durable plastic bags that we can get when we do shopping.They are everywhere in the city floating with wind. How great scenery it is !

Why does the city become more and more black ?

Answers are simple ;
1. like in Japan, each time you buy something, you get the bags for each object
2. As the bags easily tear, people double or triple them
3. As they easily tear, they are thrown away soon after 1st use

People haven’t changed their attitude from in the old days, however garbage has been changed In the past, all waste was biodegradable while nowadays there are more and more waste which is not easy to be decomposed like plastic products take 400 years and glass for 1million years !

As a result, the soil becomes gradually poor. Rain collects on these things which are the perfect place for mosquitoes to propagate and can cause bad smell and other illnesses.

The situation is very cruel. But the civil service has neither financial nor technical capacity to resolve it right now. Me neither… I am just a volunteer with no capacity to settle down and execute a garbage treatment system.

Besides, unless people become aware of the untreated garbage impacts (danger) not only for environment in general but also for their daily life, the situation won’t be changed even if a well structured system is settled…

Then what can I do?

I am thinking about it everyday… Compost ? Plastic recycle ?
When my ideas are ready to be incarnated, I will write them down here.

Today, it was just a report on the actual situation.

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…