January 18th

Big day at the office - First we had a presentation on “gender and equality” given by 2 very well educated Burkinabè women – and the challenges are enormous to attain any sense of equality in this country. They have not only the usual challenges we (still) have in developed countries but they are confronted with their realities i.e. women are owned by men, literally; they have no rights to land; are not given the same opportunities to education and jobs; are often abused by their husbands or husbands family; have no real decisive power in the family or community – and if they are lucky enough to make some money it belongs to their father or brothers or husbands therefore they can never attain any financial autonomy - unless they are well educated and employed, and then they have a chance to become emancipated. But here all paid work is a mans world (contrary to us)so the government is putting in place some laws to help women in their battle of equal rights but due to ethnic cultures and the threat towards male authority these laws are not well enforced – they have huge challenges.
Second on the agenda was a visit to an HIV/AIDS day clinic which provides medical and psychological care to some 800 infected people with a staff of approx. 15 and limited financing – all of their services are free since the patients cannot afford the care or medication – but medication is not necessarily readily available especially if it is specialized. They also provide blood tests to assess if the person is HIV+ and all services are respectful of the patient’s privacy (albeit not guaranteed since clinic is fairly public). The staff seem super dedicated but confronted with the fact that their financial capabilities do not always permit adequate care.
Then in the afternoon we had a presentation of the National Volunteer Program of Burkina Faso which is put into place to help the youth and women find volunteer positions (paid a small subsistence allowance of 45 000 CFA/month = $100/month) to help them gain experience in their respective domain of education/expertise – financed by the government and the United Nations. This is a new program but its viability is still questionable due to uncertain sustained long term financing not yet put into place.
Today the weather has changed and it seems we are entering the “Harmattan“ - a season of high winds and sand storms coming from the Sahara. The sand clouds were fairly thick today – looks like heavy pollution – and we could hardly see the sun. The worst of it is supposed to be late February followed by extreme heat in March/April and the rainy season from May to August - should be interesting.