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.

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!