So we are back in Burkina with Eugénie for a 3 weeks stay.
It is now the rainy season and we cannot say that rain is missing, at least until today. Since we arrived last weekend 2 heavy rains came down making it very difficult for everybody. Difficult for people to go to work in town or in the country side. Difficult for the people to travel to or from the villages. A lot of the work on building infrastructure is being delayed. We had 2 days of dry weather making it is easier on everybody.
When there is no rain we complain, when there is too much rain we complain!!!
It is vacation for teachers and children. We had positive and less positive results this last school year.
Let’s start with the positive results. We had 19 students finishing with the first step of the secondary studies (4 years) trying to get an exam called the BEPC. They need to have this exam in order to follow up with 3 years additional study to try to get the baccalaureate. Out of the 19, 16 passed the exam (3 girls failed). The next step for the successful children is to choose the right study program for what they want to do in the future. There is no real orientation for children here. Below their pictures with what they think they want to do later on.
Sorry for the deformed pictures.
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Millogo Lucie |
Millogo Sophie |
Millogo Issa |
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Millogo Hortence |
Millogo Gabin |
Millogo Bertin |
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Millogo Bibata |
Djelbeogo Oumarou |
Millogo Toussaints |
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Millogo Aboubacar |
Millogo Dié |
Porgo Soumaïla |
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Ouattara Sien |
Millogo Tolo |
Millogo Safiatou |
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Millogo Sibiri |
Millogo Adiara |
As you can see if they all succeed we can come to Burkina for health care!!!!
On the Agricultural school we opened last year, 60 of the 70 kids made it for the 2nd year and we will recruit a new group of 70 later in this trip. We are still looking for sponsors who wish to invest in the education of these children.
The children will start their second year early August to work in the fields of the LAP and to get an introduction to masonry.
In June they have started the bee keeping with 12 hives and the garden is still producing vegetables. They have harvested more than 400 kg of vegetables in 6 month time.
 Fuming the hives to attract bees |
 Each group of children has 2 hives to take care for |
Harvesting nice eggplants
For the primary schools the success rate is rather low.
Success rate varies a lot between schools.
Name of the villages
We have to analyze for each village the reasons of success or failure. Not very easy since the quality of the information we have to work with is very poor, often biased.
This week we did not go out to a village. We will catch up next week with 4 visits. Let’s hope that the road will be manageable.
Eugénie spend some time helping Lydie the daughter of my first contact in Burkina. She has lost her husband in February and it is time for school registration for 5 kids she supports (3 of hers and 2 from a dead brother). She wanted to put the 2 youngest ones in a protestant school with a good reputation nearby her house. Lydie knew that it would be difficult so she was in front of the school at 6 am on the day of registration. She found out that many people were in line in front of her and many had spent the night in front of the school. No chance the normal way, so we used the African way and ask the support of Emmanuel (our director in Burkina) who has some connection with the protestant church. It worked. Yes we are ashamed to have done something we fight against, but …….. as Hennie says, it is not how many people you know but whom you know.
In May a mother cat had 5 kittens in the yard of our office, unfortunately 2 died there. We took the 3 other kittens home. One died the next day and another one died last month. Only one is left, they called her “Mouche”. Let’s hope that Eugénie can also make miracle with cats. He is very skinny for a cat of more than 3 months.
Meet Mouche
- Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.
- Chaque matin en Afrique, une gazelle se réveille.
Elle sait qu’elle doit courir plus vite que le plus rapide des lions ou elle sera tuée.
Chaque matin, un lion se réveille.
Il sait qu’il doit courir plus vite que la plus lente des gazelles ou il mourra de faim.
Il n’y a pas d’importance si vous êtes un lion ou une gazelle.
Lorsque le soleil se lève, tu ferais mieux de commencer à courir.
Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat
Until next week. Take care of yourselves.
Hervé