Visit

My friends came to Burkina and they stayed in Bobo from September 10 to 16.

3 girls came although I had known only one of them who I met in Osaka just after I came back from Canada. She told her trip plan to her friends then 2 other girls decided to discover Africa.

Although it was 1st time to meet them, they were very nice and open to anything new.
What we did for the week…

・Eat

Soumbala (Néré’s grains) Chicken

Rice Sauce

Restaurant style

Daily style (bring a pot from home to buy it then share with other people by hand)

Tô made with maize (by my collegue)

Florence didn’t like Tô made with millet that she had in the North of Burkina but she loved this Tô. (I was glad that she didn’t bring back a bad memory of Tô to France !)

・ Make

Buy clothes at central market

Order original costume

・Move　

By bike in the town

By bus for distance

Waiting for the bus to leave to a village close to Mali border to stay there for 2 nights

We waited for 3 and half hours but enough number of passengers didn’t come finally the bus was canceled. We had really hard time to get total amount of our bus tickets refund…

・Visit

Roam in Guinguette (forest) only 30min (by bike) far from Bobo

YANTA

Excursion to Banfora (Southern area, 1h30min from Bobo by bus)

Sugar canes fields

Sugar factory

Dome & Waterfall(I was sick so while they were there, I was at my friend’s house, took rest)

Thank you so much Laure, Segolène, Florence for lots of Japanese and French food from France and a great week !

Take an action !

The biggest enemy to clean the city : Plastic bags

A very important policy when we think about environment:
3R (Refuse – Reuse – Recycle)

This policy is in practice by little and little in Japan while in Burkina, it’s not yet recognized well. But there are always some people who have a good conscience anywhere.

Union YANTA is one of them.

Women and girls of this union used to cut down trees in quasi-national forests and sell the branches or charcoal to gain a small amount of money, which is illegal. Then if they are found, they have to pay a fine which is more than their income. Furthermore, as they didn’t plant new trees, the deforestation proceeded.

So Luxembourg project introduced to them cashew nuts processing, soap or karite butter production etc to give them alternative ways for income to selling branches and charcoal.

One of the ways is sewing. Some girls of Union took sewing training and now they can make clothes. Also as one of the Union’s activitie, they sew eco bags and sell them to encourage people not to use anymore plastic bags.

It’s nice design, isn’t it ?
The message says that “protect nature with sustainable rapping/bags”

But it’s not easy not to use at all plastic bags.

In that case, we can recycle them !

Another female association called GAFREH recycle plastic bags that they collect from streets or from informal deposit sites of household waste in the city.

These bags get a new life !

Coin purse

Pouches

Even dolls!

Or, they weave plastic bags like cotton.

The outcome...

Bag

Cosmetic pouch

We can’t recognize easily/quickly the material of these goods.

They are so well done.

But the sale is not easy.

Their quality is so good although the price is too high for local people even for me for certain goods. So the target is foreigners (tourists).

So I am going to work with them in marketing as a way to clean the city, to let more people know their great work and initiative and also to give them more opportunities to gain money.

Here the web site of GAFREH (it’s in French but you can see photos at least)
www.gafreh.ouvaton.org

The season !

In Japan, Europe, North America, everywhere it’s summer right now!
In Burkina, we are in the middle of rainy season! although in French, this season means also “hivernation” (hivernage)

The temperature is about 28-33℃. It is more comfortable than last couple of months.
However it is also the “mosquito” season. We have to be very careful with malaria.

People are on vacation. Many French people who work in Burkina go back to France.
But it is the busiest time for people who work in environment domain.

Why?

It is the only once a year (2-3 months) when we get an abundance of free water (rain) for planting trees.

So I took also this occasion.

This is not just planting trees but plantation with compost that I have been making at home!

I asked 2 members of YANTA for the plantation at their home because I can’t test my compost in my yard totally concreted.

Digging holes with instructions of my boss, forester

Brief explanation of compost production

About 1 week after mixing soil and compost, plantation !
By request of the women, we planted trees which fruit.

Guava tree

Mango tree

Besides, to show a good effect of new green space at home, which is nice, we planted lawn.

In fact, everyone can plant trees but what is important is after plantation. You see on photos, there is no wall to separate streets and home yard. There are also many enemies against young trees (chickens, cows, goats, kids etc)
I asked the women to protect the trees well with blocks, iron fence or branches with thorns

I hope in the future these trees give lots of fruits for children of the families!

YANTA !

I’m supposed to work with female associations for environment protection and cleaning up the city.

There are so many female associations existed in Burkina.

Their domain or interests vary from one association to another ;
HIV/AIDS, activities for women’s income generation and their social statue improvement, literate education, environment protection, orphan support etc…

Today, I present one of these associations and the one which I am going to work with :
“ Union YANTA ”

This union organizes several female associations for national forests protection (agroforestry), activities for income generation, improvement in living situation etc.

Some examples of their activities ↓

1. Cashew nuts processing

Do you know that the nut of cashew nut is like that ? I didn’t…

Boil them

Clack the nuts with this machine one by one. There you go, now inside we see the “nuts” that we know !

Take out the nuts

Dry them out under the sun

Peel the skin

Sort them by their size

At the end fry them then sift salt or sugar on them
You see how much work it is to make these nuts ?

By the way, there is another product which is now my favorite sweets ;

☆Caramel cashew nuts☆

Today, exceptionally I show the recipe here !
At first, crush nuts which became in small piece during the processing

Put sugar in a pan then mix it until it becomes brown.

Add the nuts’ flour there

After mix them well, put on the board (from here, speed is important!)

Make it flat. They don’t use a roller but a bottle with lots of oil on it!

Cut it in lozenge

Twist them to make them look nice☆(I had hard time twisting because the caramel was so hot that my fingers got burnt! Other women were laughing at me. Their finger skin is much thicker than mine…)

Hummm yam yam…

I know I shouldn’t eat it too much…
The caramel is made of just sugar and nuts which are in the category of high, high calories!
But you know, my small contribution (purchase) becomes a part of their income…
I choose sacrificing myself !


2. Karité butter
Have you ever heard of Burkina Karité butter ? You must or you should ! It is now pretty well known in Europe and some in Japan among ladies who care their skin.

At first, eat the pulp of Karité (delicious!)

The nut is the raw material.

Smash them in this mortar that all burkinabe families possess.

Boil them then put them in these huge bowl.
Then in pair, women start mixing and tapping the liquid with hand at a great tempo although their style must be one of the causes of their lumbago…

With this tempo, some start singing songs and flapping hands. Others start dancing. These are all for encouraging women working hard at the moment !

Then add water a couple of times until it becomes gradually clear white.

Finally heat them up and separate the oil and butter then done !

The butter is great to keep lady’s skin smooth&young☆

If there are L’Occitane or Body Shop at your city/town, go there and check out the label of body soap or cream! It might say « Karite from Burkina Faso »☆

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.