Day by Day

This blog is a recap of my daily entries into it – so it may be very messy.


Monday June 7th: office staff is in Bobo so I decided to work from home – as few emails and some reading on how to facilitate Participation. I also started working on Issouf’s business project as we may partner in a business if it is “sustainable” – so far there is still a lot of information he needs to gather. Even if nothing materialises it will have been a good exercise for him to actually build a business plan.

Today I asked Issouf if he was happy and he said “yes” – that he was happy to be alive and healthy and capable, that he accepts the way it is for him. He hopes it will be better financially but that is not what will make him happy. He says that somebody “conscious” who accepts his place in life and is happy with himself cannot not be happy – so yes he is Happy – he is proud of who he is and how he has always provided for his wife and kid, does not chase after other women and does not have a second office, has well assumed his responsibilities towards his mother, is a good worker and an honest person.

Electricity cut again today for about 3 hours from 15h to 18h – but it is only 103F and no ventilator or air con ....

Started a puzzle today – it’s actually quite soothing and I can see myself investing quite a few hours into it and disconnecting from everything else. That’s the problem here – too much time to think.

Tuesday June 8th: Finished puzzle – could not work since no electricity and computer died from overheating so I finished the puzzle and the picture I had to base it on was about 2cm²

A scorcher of a day with no ventilator or air conditioning – 103F outside (in the shade and as I mentioned several times there is no shade) and probably 110F inside. Honestly I just do not know what to do with myself when it is so hot because a hot shower does not cool you down.

As Issouf and I are preparing his business plan he gave me a lesson on how taxes are managed here.

1) It seems that business taxes are not a function of revenues but on a very simple evaluation of what your shop looks like and then they assess you.

2) The assessment is of course negotiable and if you pay cash to the agent then you get a rebate of about 20%-25%.

3) Tax agents do their rounds twice a year (June & December) and when they do the word gets spread around quickly because it is only when you get caught that you can get assessed and even the rebated price is still too high for most of them. One way of not getting assessed (and therefore no taxes to pay) is to close your shop for a couple of days as the agent is doing his rounds in your neck of the woods. If he cannot see the shop he cannot assess.

4) You do not need to register a business here – you only need to register if you want to do business with the government. You just set up shop and if things go badly you just close up shop – within a day you can be in business or out of business.

Wednesday June 9th

Today did a little bit of work – mostly read on work related stuff – nothing very exciting.

Samiratou (Issouf’s daughter) finally went to the doctor and she has quite a few prescriptions to take – so hopefully she is on her way to felling healthier. Now why did it take Issouf so long to go see a modern medicine doctor? Because as I was giving him shit for not doing so he was getting another pressure from his mother to go the good old traditional way i.e. some charlatan selling herbs that cure all things. So he was in a bind and eventually after trying Traditional he went for Modern telling his mother that I was harassing him to do so. So it seems it is a matter of belief – they do not really trust modern medicine since they consider the hospital as a death sentence (at at times it is i.e. dying from haemorrhoids) and that doctors are not really competent – traditional medicine has been around forever and they trust it and if you die it is simply because it was God’s will. It is also a matter of money since modern medicine costs a lot more than traditional. So the infantile (kids under 5) death rate is very high here in Burkina Faso because of ignorance and/or lack of money.

Thursday June 10th

Issouf invited me to his place to see the final product of his labour – a new house for him and his family with an enclosed courtyard which is now totally fenced in and a gate – total privacy and intimacy for a family with approx. 12 people sharing space. He was so happy and proud to show me – even offered me a bite to eat (small plate thank you) which was actually quite good.

They are one happy extended family now.

From this

To this

During the evening, trying to find something to keep me entertained, I played Party Poker – yes yes Party Poker – I must be getting desperate.

Issouf went to also visit his future father in law with his Porte-Parole – to make his wedding date official and all went well. Now that he has a house of his own he can get married.

Friday June 11th

What a boring day burning CDs for work and reading The Economist.
Some days I want to quit more than others – this is one of them. I think that my particular problem is that I have not been able to put my teeth into anything here yet – a little bit here a little bit there (feeling at times like a “bouche trou”) but nothing that I feel that I am involved with and committed too. Maybe I am just to task oriented – action and result driven. Hopefully I will find something interesting real soon because me and boredom are not a good mix. I know I have to change my attitude and be more patient and celebrate the little victories – it’s just that they are so little I cannot see them... I probably need another pair of glasses.

That was my week – hopefully I will write something more interesting next time.

My blog is now a little too public

It would seem that not only family and friends are reading my blog so in the interest of protecting reputations and certain interests I will from now on not mention names of ONGs I may come in contact with – but since this is also a means for me to document my experience and indeed keep family and friends current I will however continue to write what I think and feel as I pursue my journey.


Here are a few things I learnt this week:

You can actually die from haemorrhoids – the accountant of an ONG was suffering from haemorrhoids, had a hard time walking and was visibly in a lot of pain so he took a few days off. I learnt this week that he passed away last Sunday as it would seem he had a surgical intervention that went terribly wrong – he was barely 30.

Issouf sometimes is Doctor Issouf – his daughter of 22 months was suffering from stomach aches, fever and losing weight. The Dr Issouf diagnostic was that her mother (his wife to be) stopped breast feeding too early – at 21 months instead of 24 months – and this was the reason why his daughter was feeling ill so no need to get any medical advice, which would have cost 200F CFA ($0.40). However, as this was unfolding, Issouf had a soar on his foot and had no problems spending 3 000F CFA on ointment and antibiotics for himself. As you can well imagine I gave him a little piece of my mind – calling him Dr Issouf and stating that he seems to want to play with fire not even consulting a real medical expert just because he, the man of the house, decided he knew better. The worse of it is that his wife nagged him about the kid seeing a doctor as she was worried – and she could nothing about it because he had refused. He admitted his wife was angry with him for taking that decision but as far as he was concerned she should have been more tactful, more diplomatic. I told him he had acted in a dumb way and actually irresponsible – you can’t expect diplomacy and tact when your only concern is the health and wellbeing of your kid, a kid of 22 months in a country were infantile deaths are high. He says he acknowledges his error – but his attitude is so ingrain and cultural that one has to doubt if he really understands – and he is actually intelligent and a good person.

Issouf is getting married on July 11th – a simple wedding but a double wedding with his brother Abdu in order to share expenses and thus cut overall costs. It would seem that a woman is not allowed to get married without the permission of her father, and in the absence of a father then permission has to come from a paternal uncle (le petit papa). The fact that the mother is still around has no value, she has nothing to say about the union. The husband to be has to hire the services of an intermediary/mediator (porte-parole) to discuss the possible upcoming wedding with the father in law – the future son in law cannot have this discussion directly – and the mediation part come to play when the future son in law is not in great terms with his future father in law. Things get quite complicated fairly easily here.

Electricity problems in the capital city Ouagadougou have been going on for 2 YEARS. It would seem that Burkina Faso paid a hefty sum (billions of F CFA) to have their electricity needs supplied through the Ivory Coast – but 2 dams have been damaged in the Ivory Coast who now are having themselves problems in supplying their own needs in electricity – so Burkina Faso has a huge problem in getting electricity because even if they can get it in Ghana they don’t have the money for the required infrastructure. A capital city of a country that shuts down productivity during at least 4 hours in various parts of the city DAILY for the past 2 years has some serious problems. But the same government can find money for roads and interchanges that lead to the presidential village- go figure.

What’s for dinner? Well there is couscous or rice or pasta with a “sauce arachide” (peanut butter sauce), or “sauce tomate” – you can have the sauce on the side or mixed with the starch of your choice in which case it is called “gras” as in “riz gras” would be rice and sauce mixed together. There is also TÔ with all sorts of sauces (gumbo, oseilles, etc,) but I really do not like tô so cannot really talk about it except that after 3 bites you feel totally bloated. There is the odd chicken recipe such as “poulet couscous” or grilled chicken (but you have to watch out because it may have been grilled for days and really tough – a whole chicken accounts for approx. 3 ounces of meat) or “poulet télévisé” (which is their version of St-Hubert BBQ) and called “télévisé” because the chickens on the skewers are in a glass casing which shows their cooking as in “televised” (again you do not know how many days it has been turning), and chicken Yassa for onion lovers because it probably has as many onions in the recipes as it does chicken – but the best is definitely “Pintade à l’ail” (guinea fowl with garlic) since it is the meatiest and most tender fowl. You also can make yourself a hamburger or beef brochette on a small charcoal fed BBQ (you can use the hot charcoal after eating to put into the iron when it is ironing night). And if you are in the mood for lamb you can get a whole leg for less the $4 and it is delicious. Fish is also found very easily and actually quite good but fish is also one of the reasons why the Burkinabè do not talk while they eat because there are sooooo many fish bones – and a delicacy seems to be the fish head which I never fight for. Vegetables: tomatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, avocado, green peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, potatoes, garlic. So every sauce you make or fish stuffing or salad or whatever you make will usually find the same ingredients in it – just add salt and oil. A litre of cooking oil will usually last me 6 months in Quebec – here 1litre lasts approx 3 weeks. Fruits: bananas, mangos, papaya, plantains, pineapples, apples, lemons.

Not sure what will be available at the market once the rainy season really sets in – I have a feeling whatever it is it will be slim pickings and expensive.

Another week has gone by with its usual frustrations and I hope to get used to them fast – I will need to accept the unacceptable.

That’s it for now folk. Hope all is well with everyone.