Last week end, our guests (Yvonne, Sandra and Laura) left Burkina for the cold Netherlands. It was nice to have them with us. We were working on the projects every day, and an outside and fresh look is always useful.

Consultants, experts, advisors instead of entrepreneurs

blog 2015-03-26 1In a country like Burkina it is easier to find consultants than entrepreneurs. In order to have a project financed by large investors (World Bank for example) there is a need for a feasibility study, made by consultants who will use “experts” for there work. In the budget of the proposed business, you will also find costs for consultants for capacity building of the entrepreneur and his personnel.

Costs of the consultants is often based on European tariffs. A lot of projects are short of funding even before they start, the preliminary costs taking most of the funds available…….

LAP in pictures

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The amphitheater construction has restarted.

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The cabbage harvest has taken place. Since the students are going for a week vacation, the cabbage is dried (above picture) for conservation.

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The zucchini are coming out nicely.

A story from Odile about needs of the villagers

In last week’s blog we already mentioned that what we see as hard work (European eyes) and what we would like to alleviate with machines, could be that for the villagers it is not perceived as hard work because of the social content of the work. Now the story from Odile:

“A white man passing a village sees women coming from far away with water containers on their heads. After discussion with the women, he decides to help them with a water well in the village. The women even help in the setting up of the water well. A few months later passes by the same village again and sees the women still with water containers on their heads coming back from far away. He does not understand. The water well he financed is working but the women prefer to go far away to get the water. The women explained to him that at the water well, there is no time to chat between the women. Also, they do not have the possibilities to exchange information with women coming from other areas around the village.”

Visit of Fina

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Many women were at the meeting in the village. They had informed us that they wanted to reimburse their micro credit. There are 367 women which had a total amount of € 11.000 (an average of € 30 / per woman). It took Odile and myself more than 2 hours to count all the banknotes and coins for a total of 7.700.000 FCFA.

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Nursery school of Fina

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The school opened in 2013 with 80 children. In 2014 we have only 62. Most of the 5 year old children of the village are at the school. There are several large hamlets which are between 5 and 8 km away, making it difficult for the parents to have the 5 year old in school. The leaders have proposed to give land inside the village so that the habitants of the hamlets can build a house for the small children.

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Bird of the week

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Nice red beak Callao

The most interesting thing of the Callao is their nesting mode. These birds nest in natural cavities (trees, rocks). Once the eggs are there, the female immures herself in the nest. The male swallows mud and shapes dumplings which the female regurgitates to use them to seal the nest entrance. She still leaves a narrow slit for the male so he can nourish her throughout incubation. All this to protect her offspring. During the incubation she will have a change of feathers (molt). The ones she loses she will use to finish off the inside of the nest.

Proverb of the week

Le mariage, c’est quand l’homme et la femme décident de ne devenir plus qu’un. Les problèmes commencent quand ils décident de choisir lequel.
Marriage is when a man and woman decide to become one. The problems start when they decide to choose which one.

Les femmes préfèrent être belles plutôt qu’intelligentes parce que, chez les hommes, il y a beaucoup plus d’idiots que d’aveugles !
Women prefer to be beautiful rather than clever because a lot more men are idiots than blind!

Hervé

 

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