Final (and long overdue) Burkina Update

Happy New Year!

I hope you are all doing well and 2011 is off to a wonderful start! I wish you a year full of prosperity, longevity, health, success and lots of money! (This is the typical New Year greeting/blessing you would wish someone the first time you see them in the New Year, but it should be accompanied by tapping foreheads four times, alternating side to side.)

It has been brought to my attention by multiple people that I left everyone hanging and haven’t written about Burkina in a very long time. (And blogspot claims I haven't posted anything in 1 year!!) I blame that partly on being busy, partly on prioritizing computer time differently, but mainly on a lack of desire to write anything. Not because there wasn’t anything worth writing-this was far from the situation-, but because termites devoured my journal. Nothing was left, except for 1 square inch that I had taped because it had torn; this killed my motivation to write during the rest of my time in BF.

I am now back in America, but wanted to let you know a bit about how the last few months played out in Burkina. In case you are interested, I’ve also attached a short story I wrote a year ago that gives a more personal look at starting out in the village. (Sorry all this is so long. when I started writing, I didn’t intend to write this much! When it rains, it pours. J Also, I posted a few new photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28276984@N03/ I’ll try to post more in the next few days.)

Sesame Farmers!

Working with the sesame farmers was by far the best part of my Peace Corps experience. They were very motivated and excited about the collaboration because it targeted what they saw as their primary problem--too little money.

Working with Soria, a government agriculture agent, and the farmers we created Paamiraal, a cooperative of sesame farmers and collectors. We were also collaborating with an export company to develop a collection, documentation and financial process that allowed the farmers to sell directly to the exporter and avoid the 2-3 intermediaries that previously stood between them and export markets. The exporter worked with them to access better quality seed (with sesame, multi-colored seeds are used for oil, white generally for tahini, and really white for pastries, hamburger buns, etc.) and pre-financed their collection. It was essential that we developed a system that allowed us to effectively keep records to present to the exporter along with the sesame they collected/purchased from themselves and other farmers in their village. This is quite challenging with semi-literate and illiterate farmers! (photo: me conducting the original training in November

We piloted this initiative with groups from four villages so we could work out the kinks and build the cooperative during the year so that more groups could collect the following year. Of all the farmers in our pilot group, only one had been to formal school and spoke/read French fairly well. However, in each of our groups, there were a couple people who had been to government sponsored literacy courses. These are 6 week courses where people are taught basic reading/writing skills in their local language. Unfortunately, while a few people could read/write in Fulfulde, other than their textbooks, there was nothing to read in their villages, especially not in Fulfulde. The government’s implementation and follow through on these literacy programs cause me to think that the government’s objective is to increase their literacy rate statistics to impress potential donors (Burkina ranks in the bottom 10 in adult literacy. A couple years ago, Burkina was last) rather than increase the number of people who are functionally literate.

The agriculture agent and I created all our documents (collection and accounting sheets, technical manuals, contracts with the exporter, etc.) in French and Fulfulde. Of course there were hiccups; we were asking people who had attended a literacy course at some point in their life, but never used the skills they developed, to keep records. One group was super successful; others needed lots of coaching and follow up. It was hard and really frustrating for everyone on certain days, but the farmers loved it! The sense of pride that came through the personal transition from being someone who had attended a literacy course to someone who needed to and could read and write in their daily life was incredible!

All of this culminated in an April training for the other members of our sesame cooperative who hadn’t participated in the pilot. Representatives from the record keeping superstar group trained other members on how to keep good records. We also we read through and discussed a sesame technical guide that was in Fulfulde with large, clear pictures intended to communicate the necessary information to semi-literate and illiterate populations. The superstars were young unemployed men who had spent some time as butchers in Cote d’Ivoire-- a neighboring, more developed country. They devoted a lot of energy to making this all work, because they wanted to stay in their village in Burkina, but had no other opportunities for income in their remote village. (As Cote d’Ivoire looks to be possibly on the brink of civil war, I assume their desire to stay in Burkina is even stronger now than when I left).

This was one of the hottest days of the year, easily over 115 degrees in the shade. Between the training and lunch, I rested in a chair for a few minutes, sleepy from the heat. I overheard Asimaou, my favorite old lady and the treasurer of our cooperative who often said little in front of men, was talking to an old man who was a new member of the cooperative and had not participated in the pilot. She proudly informed him that “to do their work, you’ve really gotta know how to read.” If you haven’t spent time with Fulani in rural Burkina, it’s hard to truly grasp the importance of this statement. But for me, this moment made all of my time in Burkina worth it.

In the first year, the four pilot groups collected over 4 tons of sesame; the exporter said our group provided him with the most consistent high-quality white sesame. This year the cooperative has 12 groups (about 300 members) and is expected to collect much more than last year. Because they proved themselves last year, the exporter was willing to provide seed on loan so that more people could participate. In a recent conversation, the exporter said that these farmers are bringing in great quality sesame and are the most diligent about repaying the loan when compared with other groups the exporter sources sesame from across Burkina.



Kids School

The original Kids School of Amsia (the village style pre-school that was run by 5th and 6th graders) was unfortunately not as successful as desired. When I arrived in Amsia to promote girls education, I found that the parents who weren’t against their children going to school (some were, as this meant a loss of someone to help with household chores or watch the animals) were ambivalent. Very few encouraged their children to attend or succeed in school, but didn’t necessarily mind if the kids went. Therefore, it was basically up to the child to motivate him/herself to attend and do well in school. (I’ve written about this a lot in previous emails, so won’t go into it too much). So I felt that the biggest opportunity was to work with the children directly and not count on being able to convince any parents that school was valuable. (If I could, this would be considered an added bonus). The first year in Amsia went so well!The 5th and 6th graders who were leading it were awesome; the children attending were really excited; and the following year the first grade teacher said she could point out which children had participated in our activities because they understood the concept of school so much better and were the quickest learners.

Where I was very unsuccessful was in convincing an adult from the village to co-lead the activities with me. The 5th and 6th graders took care of content, but needed a bit of guidance and definitely a lot of supervision (I can’t imagine any context where 10 12-year olds could manage 40-70 children aged 2 to 8 without some supervision). I spoke to so many adults and multiple times thought I had convinced someone to work with me (it took me quite a while to learn when “yes” means yes and when “yes” just means that person didn’t want to upset you by saying no).

After the first year I had moved to the village of Bani (5 km from Amsia) and couldn’t be in Amsia every weekend. We started things off on a good note, but the adults backed out and the activities stopped.

Due to the success of the first year, I had wanted to replicate the “kids school” idea in other villages. Someone sent me a check to buy more books, so the second year I worked with more motivated adults. The neighboring village of Bolaré didn’t have a school, so students from this village walked 2km to go to school in Amsia or 1.5km to go to school in the village of Ouro Noma. Bolaré lacked a school, but did have Bah, a man who truly understood the importance of education and sent all his kids to school and encouraged his extended family and neighbors to do the same (In a previous Facebook post, I mentioned his daughter who was the first girl to finish middle school. She was offered a job as a secretary, but it was unclear if she would be allowed to take the job because her husband’s family wanted her at home) Two of Bah’s sons were in the original ten kids who ran the kids school the first year in Amsia. So I worked with Bah and his children to start a “kids school” in their village. This version is smaller, but I think it will continue longer.

Scholarship program

The last project I will talk about is a scholarship program for secondary school students that I started with the financial support of the organization For Granted. We supported 5 students from villages that were more than 10km from the secondary school in Bani. Secondary school poses so many difficulties for rural families (both financial and social), but for the children from the selected villages, distance proved to be an additional problem. The village was too far to commute, so very few students from these villages have ever attended secondary school (actually now that I think about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were the first from their village to attend secondary school). These children were able to find host families in Bani that could allow them to live in their courtyard, but couldn’t afford to feed them. Family resources were already stretched too thin. For Granted provided funding so that the scholarship recipients could purchase food in Bani. Now the students could eat, had a place to sleep and commuting was no longer an issue.

The first year, I communicated with For Granted on behalf of the scholarship committee. The second year, I repeatedly reminded the committee that I was leaving the following year and that they needed to start communicating directly with For Granted. Bani lacks computers, internet and banks, so reporting to For Granted and transferring funds was difficult. Due to a variety of obstacles and frustrating conversations with the scholarship committee, I didn’t think the committee would communicate with For Granted after I left. No reporting/no communication would kill the scholarship program; however, I recently had dinner with a couple members of the For Granted board in DC who informed me that the Bani Scholarship Committee had recently contacted them by email! I was stunned and so pleasantly surprised that I think I just gushed like an idiot about how happy with them I was.

So it looks like the scholarship program will continue to support these students in their next year of secondary school! If you would like to contribute you can do so at http://forgranted.org/current_projects/bani-scholarship



Ouagadougou!

I completed my service as a volunteer at the end of July and was hired by Peace Corps to develop sites for incoming volunteers and improve the site development process. This was such an awesome job! I traveled around the country in a Peace Corps car, not a bus that frequently brokedown! I met with agricultural associations, women’s groups, artisan groups to determine how/if they could work with PC. It was also great to work on the site development process and work in an effective role for Peace Corps volunteers. Writing the manuals was not as fun, and hosting the 3 hour trainings for the office in French was a bit daunting, but I made it through. I even was awarded the “Etalon” Employee of the Month award (not because of site development, but because I held down the fort while the entire office of permanent staff left on a 3 day retreat)

During this period, I first lived with my boss’s wonderful family for a month (he has the sweetest 2 year old daughter who made me grin every time I saw her). Then I lived in a small 2 bedroom house with David, my best friend from Peace Corps who was also working in Ouaga. Finding a place in Ouagadougou was a nightmare. We ended up with a landlord who was high up in the customs department and was a powerful chief. But let’s just say he was not the most honest and upstanding chief I’ve ever met. He decided he really didn’t like me either! In any case I was thrilled to have electricity and running water!! (Unfortunately there was a cooking gas shortage most of my time in Ouaga, so we didn’t really get to cook much. But we had a working coffee machine, so the most essential thing was coveredJ)

I left with a bang as David and I hosted a goodbye/holiday party we referred to as the “Holiday Throwdown Extravaganza” All our friends joined a holiday team to see who could best represent their holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Tabaski, Festivus, etc.) with food, drink, games, music and costumes. It was a blast, a great way to say goodbye to some wonderful friends who I miss already.



What’s Now/Next for Me?

I arrived in America days before Thanksgiving. I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with extended family and friends in Ohio and the time in between in New Jersey. NYC for New Year’s (but very far from Times Square)

I’m currently living in DC again for the next couple months. My previous boss at Ashoka asked me to come back until April while I’m job hunting. Finding this temporary job and a temporary place to stay in DC worked out quickly and incredibly well. I couldn’t have planned this better! I’m not sure if I will stay in DC, but it’s great to be here for a while to catch up with old friends and colleagues (but I already miss my evening glasses of wine with my parents!)

Living in America seems so easy after living in Burkina. If I want to go somewhere, I hop on the metro. I know where I can find most things I would want to purchase. Customer service exists! (I know many of you may disagree with me, but compared to Burkina, I’ve had great customer service almost everywhere!) However, readjusting is sometimes hard and there are many things I miss about Burkina (I can’t stop myself from saying hello to everyone I pass in the hallway of my apartment building. It feels so odd not to know my neighbors.)



“So what’s next?” many of you have asked. I want to build upon the work I did with the sesame farmers and continue to positively connect small-scale producers (farmers, artisans, fishermen, etc.) to global markets. Perhaps this will be from the private sector or working for an NGO. I’d love to find a way to work with rural communities, but no longer live in one permanently. I’m wrestling with whether I want to remain in the US or move abroad again. I’m in the process of reorienting myself, doing some research, and hopefully having lots of conversations. If you have any suggestions of companies or organizations to look into, I’d love to hear them J



Living and working in rural Burkina was overall a great experience, but almost never a piece of cake. Thanks for all your support during my time in Burkina and for appreciating my stories. Thanks for all the letters and care packages for me and for the stuff you sent for my favorite children in the village. Thanks to those of you who asked me challenging questions. Thanks to those who laughed with me, and especially to those who were there when I needed a shoulder to cry on and someone to vent to.



Best wishes for an incredible 2011! Love and Hugs (now from this side of the ocean!)
Kait

PS. I talked to many Returned Peace Corps Volunteers before deciding to join PC. If you know anyone who is considering Peace Corps and wants to speak with a returned volunteer, feel free to give them my contact info.