ele, 8 Apr 2008 17:20 hours
 Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou

leaving Piéla

March, 10
Yesterday I started packing my stuff, I have realized that has been a while since I didn’t manage to live in one place for one whole year (last year I moved from one flat to another almost each 3 months!). I have accumulated things of course, still it’s little compare to what I used to have back in Europe.
Leaving after one year is not easy, because, somehow I have settled down… All the kids in the neighborhood know me and call me by name and greet me each day. Sometime I give them a lift by bike or motorbike. When I go wandering through the market I often end up meeting somebody that I know. When I feel like chit-chatting I walk to the secretary’s house, I play with her beautiful one year old son while talking about what is going on in the world, in Burkina in our lives. She is the only person I get a bit closer to…
She will leave as well following the husband to Bobo. I guess that we are going to miss each other.
My dog follow me everywhere, whether I am on foot, by bike or by motorbike.

On the other hand, men are becoming tougher to handle. It seems like once I have announced my departure, they suddenly wake up and decide to court me and declare their deep love!

The problem is that on top of the waterproof stereotype white skin equal to money, I have to add the fact that I am a women (and without a man nearby), this mean that for many men here I represent (me as many other single white women) not only a possible finance resource but also (and even better) a possible way out from Africa, it doesn’t matter where, what matters is anywhere in the West (Europe, US, Oceania…). As soon as I arrived in Piéla, after a couple of weeks, a couple of men, the so-called “bayabe” (so well described by the reporter Kapuscinski in his books), came to visit me. One of them was very funny: after the formal introduction he went straight to the point: “Well – he said- you know in Africa there are two kinds of friendships: the simple friendship (l’amitie simple) and the close-friendship”. He paused, me : “…and??!?”. Him: “well I would like to have a close-friendship with you”.
The most gentle and original approach instead was from the vet. He took him a while to approach me, probably the news about my sudden departure harried him up. He started by a simple statement as: “you are beautiful”, which a couple of days later became “you have a beautiful body-shape” which a week later became “you have a beautiful body-shape as a coca-cola bottle”! I wanted to see how far he dares to go, then I used the two magic words “amitie simple” telling him that that’s all what I can offer him. He has accepted it, I mean he didn’t have other choice than that, however, after few minutes he asked “but… at least can I kiss you?”, … GOSH!!!!!!

Just for your curiosity, “bayabe” is a term used to described the young men unemployed, or to lazy to find a job that spend the days under the makeshift thatch shelters, or hanging around on the side of the streets, living out of occasional jobs, like loading things on the mini-bus. The rest of the time is spend drinking coffee or tea and smoking!

March, 26
The heat has begun! March begins as well as the suffocating tropical heat, that will rise up to 45-47 degree in April until the first rain in late May beginning of June. During this period, the sun is so strong especially between 11 and 15 hours that it sucks all your energy out. Not only you do not have anymore energy to move any single muscles of your body, even your brain slows down… it is like you fall into a “limbo” that I call “tropical limbo”, a kind of floating world. Everything stops during this frame time, all the activities, the village/town turns into a silent and desert place. Everything is quite and still, nobody is around, everybody looks for a shadow place where to lay down and doze off. This tropical laziness and slowness is quite tricky, the heat wears your nerves down you risk to loose your temper for nothing, and to be trapped in this vortex of slowness and laziness, getting more and more used to do nothing, to think about nothing…

April, 8
Yesterday I arrived in Ouaga, hopefully it would be one of the last trip by bus from – to Piéla. The condition of the two busses owned by the “STKK company” is getting worse and worse, last time it took me more than 6 hours and it is not rainy season yet! But, in ten days I will move to my new post in Réo which is 120 km west to Ouaga. I was supposed to move there at the beginning of March, but housing in some places of Burkina is an issue so I had to wait a bit longer. Réo is not only closer to Ouaga and only 15 km from Koudougou (the third city of Burkina), but also greener, therefore it should be a bit more fresh than Piéla and I should be able to find more vegetables and fruits. Plus there is electricity I am want to install a phone in the new house as well.
I am actually looking forward to it. I want to start working with the new association that seems to be more dynamic and feeling more productive and efficient. The new association works mainly with/for women and has two main targets: literacy and women rights on one side and income generating activities on the other. There, I will cover new tasks beside the project management one, I will be en charged of capacity building on finance and accounting and marketing, since the association produce sheabutter (Karité) and dry mangos as I.G.A, plus few others. I am not an expert in marketing, which means that I have to learn about a new subject, and I like this new challenge. … and I should received a better bike!

General news: life in Burkina became quite expensive for the majority of the population. At the end of February a couple of riots took place in Bobo, in Ouaga and in Ouahigouya. Those in Bobo and in Ouga were quite violent burning tires, breaking down traffic lights throwing stones at windows… In Bobo 2 people died, in Ouaga police has arrested one politician belonging to one of the opposition party. I commented the violence with a couple of burkinabé in Piéla, asking them what you can achieve by destroying everything, they replied me that this is the only way to be heard by the government, any peaceful march will bring nothing. I disagreed, but eventually recognized that after those events, the government decreased a bit the prices of basic alimonies, even if by a ridiculous amount and only for 6 months. Today, the unions announced a strike… but so far, beside shops being closed and more policemen than usual around, everything seems to be under control!

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