Bobo Dioulasso

Sudanese style, mud-brick Grande Mosque of Bobo

The last several days I've spent in Bobo Dioulasso - the second largest city in Burkina - have been full of discoveries.

Firstly, I had the chance to glimpse into Burkinabe reality interviewing around 15 women politicians about their involvement, the situation in the country and the most difficult part - solutions to some of its urgent problems. Whereas technically speaking there is not always a reason for optimism, there is something reassuring about seeing women from such diverse cultures, religions, ethnic groups that in recent months have learned to work together after a long period when they thought that being in diffrent parties implies not saying hello to each other. The opposition parties in Burkina are very divided. Whereas the strongest party holds 73 seats out of 111 in the General Assembly, around 70% of local elected positions and its members seem to benefit from its strong network, the opposition parties spring up (and disappear) like mushrooms given that there are hardly any formal prerequisites and that basically everybody can found a new party tomorrow. Similar constellations can be found in other African countries (and probably not only African), where the rulling party can benefit from the lack of hurdles for opposition parties to emerge. (Ever complained about 5% hurdle to enter the parliament or the prerequisite of having a few thousand signatures to found a poltical party?) This does not make it easier for women to get involved. Apart from the usual obstacles they are facing (household duties - which for many means as much as the necesity of ORGANIZING food for their kids every day, lower education levels, including analphabetism, husbands not wanting a wife politician, some of them consequently enough to demand divorce), they have a high chance of being in a party opposite to their fathers, uncles, brothers etc. if they decide to chose their party freely.

Just a village and Looking for hippos

The Domes of Fabedougou - about 1.8 bln years old

Karfiguela Falls close to Banfora

Village of Koro

Second, I had a chance to be just a tourist, travelling with a friendly, knowledgable guide (great unwanted-attention repellent) and visiting beautiful and interesting places, benefiting from the fact that many of Burkina's touristic attractions are so far attracting far too little tourist.

Apart from wonderfull landscapes, the life music omnipresent in Bobo is certainly one of the attractions. Watching lively, fun concerts, great dancers, whether from the band or clients getting up to give an occasional show of their incredible dancing talents, I was asking myself why I did think of Burkina mainly in terms of the poor socioeconomic situation of its people.

So what is Burkina? Kids begging for money and some 12% literacy rate or the concerts full of talent, dignity and power? Or: how to grasp both sides of the reality?

About boys (and passion for traveling in Africa)

In contrast, a number of kids running after you in a village feels very relieving compared to men usually following you in Ouaga, some interested in selling things, some seemingly convinced that every white women must be interested in Burkinabe male company, (including for life time which is to be spent preferably in Europe or US.) (I’m sure it’s not a representative sample for Burkinabe population)
Arrived in Tiebele, a small picturesque village close to the Ghanaen border, it feels great to see smiling, friendly, genuinely and childlike interested faces around you. Of course the kids know where the “auberge” I’m heading to is, they even live next door and will accompany me explaining details of their school life, presenting the newly acquired vocabulary in Spanish, introducing me to cousins, uncles and friends. Beautiful landscape, pictursque red road with enormous baobabs on both sides strengthen the impression of being in a better, different part of Burkina, in the Africa that travelers love.
Due to distraction by other activities, the crowd of kids around me gets smaller and I reach my auberge in a company of Jhone and Micareme, who will stay a very loyal company for the rest of my stay. They look younger than they really are, maybe because they are really skinny, they know a lot about their village, are extremely clever (proud of being the first and second student in their classes of more than 80 students) and funny. They have tons of ideas about what we can do in the village, enormous patience and enough fantasy to interpret my French.

We walk around the fields and watery meadows to the pond, where local kids try to catch some fish – I hope they will be lucky to catch enough for themselves as - similarly to my little guides - they seem so much in need of protein. I ask them what they like to eat – they look surprised and explain that here people eat what they can grow (and if they can grow). Close to their home it’s too dry to grow rice so they eat millet. I made a similar mistake again when they were showing me names of different fruit in the local language and I asked what fruits they eat. “Here we don’t eat such things” was the answer followed by a shy grin.

We pass through the colorful market hidden in the shadow of old trees and head towards the “royal court”. Doesn’t it sound unusually in the context of this African village? It may be a clear sign of my ignorance, as I was so used to imagining something like a castle of European kings behind “royal court” that it takes me some time to get used to the fact that the geometrically painted huts surrounded by similarly painted wall, next to a big hill on which the wombs are thrown right after birth to secure protection, is a royal court. But it is one, and a very charming one. That’s where the family of the “chief” lives. With its 300 people it’s really intergenerational. Apart from grannies who look like 90, peel nuts and don’t like being taken on pictures, there are youths listening to some kind of noisy modern music, right beside the sacred symbols on the wall and tiny but autonomous kids, part of them decides to follow me making their own bizarre show the other completely ignoring the stranger. The huts are lovely and sophisticated – different shapes of huts are for different phases of life. Unmarried men live in round houses, young married couples in rectangular and kids with old women in houses in 8-shape.

Leaving Tiebele took me ages… I got up early and turned down all opportunities of an afternoon ride back to Ouaga because I wanted to be back early to pick up a friend at the airport. I spent about 2 hours waiting for a “bush taxi” to come, although it was a market day and they were supposed to arrive and leave “all the time”. I waited another hour on the bush taxi (that finally arrived) to get full enough to leave but before I was given a chance to see this awaited moment I realized I would get out faster if I waited for a bus leaving in the afternoon (which I didn’t want to take originally because it was definitely too late). When, instead of the awaited big bus, a small minibus arrived, I thought nostalgically about the option of the big bus that once seemed so much too late. Squeezing passengers that would fill a big bus and luggage that would fill a truck into a small bus seems firstly completely undoable to an European, in Africa only somewhat lengthy and uncomfortable enough to count tickets and go through the list of passengers’ names 1000 times, hoping that someone will disappear. But no one would disappear, everybody would fit in (or rather “out” when on the roof) and I would feel so happy that as a foreigner I was given the place next to the driver and not even a child to keep on my lap but just a plastic bag with eggs. After half an hour ride, I saw the car of the travelers passing by whose offer of a ride I turned down last evening as “definitely too late and hence complitely impossible”. We joked that if I will not succeed to get out they will pick up the “losers of the race on the road”. And they finally did pick me up, which allowed the man squeezed between the wall and an overcrowded bank in an area that can hardly be defined as space for anything could have a proper seat.

During the trip to Tiebele I finally stated sharing the passion of many of traveling in Africa. For:
1. Wonderful landscapes and the sky full of stars. “Showers” without running water or doors but with the most wonderful view and flowers all around you.
2. Joy about simple things. Whether it’s the fact that the bush taxi does leave after 1,5 hours of waiting in the hottest sun, an exchange of addresses with kids, their smiles when you give them something small – this simple happiness about a moment is so refreshing…

I shall dedicate this blog to Jhone and Micareme - let it be my first letter to you even if given no internet connection in your village, you will be the last ones to read it. But we agreed that the connection will come soon and that you will go to college and learn English, haven’t we?

redefining rain

It's rain season in Burkina, which means that from time to time life at the normally extremly busy streets of Ouaga stops giving place to the most intense rain I've ever seen. It is often accompanied by extremly strong wind so that sometimes you get an impression that the rain is "falling" parallel to the street instead of the usual perpendicular direction...

These pictures are not an adequate documention if these events cause so far in the most dramatic moments my instinct has been to hide the camera and stare.

About a woman

My first field trip came in handy, when I felt tired enough to happily leave the smoggy air, omniscent smell of gasoline and crazy traffic of Ouaga in the direction of WHEREVER. Nouna was the place. A town of about 50 000 inhabitants, a new born capital of an administrative region consisting of 100 villages connected through shabby roads that our guestkeeper crossed in a small ford fiesta campaigning for the office of the mayor.

Leaving the center of Ouaga throws you into a landscape full of small, lively, but extremely poor villages where whole families, including small children, work in the field with hardly any equipment. Malnutrition and more generally lack of food are as visible as it gets, on the big bellies of children and overall skinniness of people and cattle.

250 km distance to Nouna consists of one half with high quality road with a toll, and the rest is an extremely bumpy sandy road where 20 kmh is often as fast as it gets. The good news is that the further you go and the bumpier the road gets, the more fertile the land. It gets greener and richer. Villages have more sophisticated architecture, with beautiful mud-brick granaries, the women and kids sell not only eggs but also pottery along the road.

After 6 hours of dancing on the roads between villages we end up in the arms of Madame la Maire who in 2005 surprisingly and against a quite established personal planning of the biggest party won the run-off for the office in Nouna in the first local elections in Burkina. A strong African women, proudly wearing the traditional outfit and presenting her gender balanced team in the humble, but own town hall of Nouna. Was I the first Polish person in that village? It felt like that, so the surprise was even bigger when Madame la maire mentioned not only the Polish Pope (I am really sorry for the Germans, but I was reassured 100 times by Burkinabes that in their eyes the Pope remains the Polish John Paul II. So, although in the field of football Germany might dominate from time to time, Catholicism will remain a Polish domain.), but also Lech Walesa. Here the familiarity ended, and the door to an insight to African culture opened. An indescribable, fascinating and challenging experience from which I can offer only some dry pieces of information.

Some of the interesting issues:
- Hierarchy and formalities count a lot. That's why I believe there is a “chef-de-protocol” in the office of Mdm la maire.
- Hospitality and building informal relationships are the key. That's why I feel received as a friend with the tones of cordial interest directed towards the exotic newcomer.
- The meals are eaten together with hands from one big bowl or plate which, including the whole ceremony of hands cleaning around, it is quite an adventure for an Africa newcomer or even for the advanced who still doesn't master the technique of rolling the food into bullets with one hand without letting half of it fall.
- Dancing may be a part of your job contract if you have a boss that energetic and fond of dancing like Madame la maire.
- To the session of the region council, the representatives of villages walk for hours to get to Nouna and represent the whole variety of cultures present in the region, most recognizable for me – Christian and Moslem. The women, around 20 out of 100 village representatives, organize themselves in a mysterious way to sit all together in the back of the room and tend to be silent, with one exception and of course the gender balanced staff of Madame la maire.

Very hospitable, lively and talkative, Mdm la maire is a people's person. I can immediately imagine her driving through her villages and campaigning with little money and support but loads of energy and concern for her people. After the elections, she ended up with vast responsibilities, an incredible amount of passion and energy and extremely low budget which must suffice for the enormous needs of 100 villages. She still travels from village to village to explain to her voters why they should not hide children in fear of vaccinations, why to pay local taxes and why to build a non-koranic school in a Moslem village.

Madame la maire lives in a "big family" – a humble, small house with always lively courtyard where maybe 20 inhabitants share days and nights. She could rent a flat in Nouna, but nowhere she seems to be so much at home as in this big multiple generations household where her 95 year old mum, mother of 15, awaits her dozing, where her niece has a meal ready for unexpected guests, children sleeping in the

courtyard don't even move their head hearing 5 strangers coming, older kids coming along to keep the cats from guests and food.

Landed in Burkina

“Are we going to land in the desert?” - Asked my Burkinabe neigbour on the plane looking anxiously from the window. “We are approaching the international airport in Niamay, temperature on the ground 38°”. The view from the window was perfect for the first landing in Sub-Saharan Africa – desert, with enormous river splitting nowhere from nowhere, few little village houses. The view notwithstanding, Niamey must be a dynamic city, because 90% of the black and white passengers with boss bags, DG jackets, Samsonite suitcases and tones of Belgian luxury chocolates left here before the plane set off to Ouaga, where I haven’t seen much of the landing because of the dazzling sun. The posh outfits of the predominantly African airplane passengers were a smooth transition from Brussels to Ouaga. There I will see less of posh, more of African and certainly more of poor.

I can hardly imagine a greater contrast than between Brussels and Ouaga. Brussels with its center-of-the-world-feeling, top end restaurants, fancy people with expensive gadgets, and cars, rainy and chilly summer, and Ouaga – have you ever head of it? I haven’t, till I started my research for an internship in Africa. In terms of food, in Burkina its predominant function is still to feed and not provide you with a culinary ecstasy in a stylish setting. Ouaga’s women substitute expensive gadgets for colorful African clothes, but most of the people don’t seem to have spare resources to invest in outfits.

Burkina is really poor. I can quote one of the “impressive” statistics, according to which it’s the second poorest country with GDP per capita of 1300$, 77% unemployment rate, 46% of population below the poverty line. Being in Burkina, these numbers turn into people and their fates. These are people on the streets, friendly and smiling, young and old, pushy and annoying who can expect to live no more than 47 years, who have a very big chance of staying analphabets throughout their lives (estimated literacy rate for men is 29%, for women 15%), who have hardly any access to health care not mentioning other luxuries we consider essentials. This is hard to look at, even harder to do something about it. I’m happy about the sunglasses I can hide behind while walking around as the only white who seems to be using feet for transportation and I cannot spare myself an “on the other hand”.

So on the other hand, it’s cheerful. People drive around on their motorbikes and scooters, like in Rome, they look friendly, smile and shake your hand offering another lovely telephone card. The women do carry on their heads colorful mangos. Internationals, or nationals working in international organizations are proud drivers of good cars and hopefully employ a lot of cooks, maids and drivers to let the others participate in the fruits of Burkina going international.

No equal representation of women on the way from B to B

What does Brussels, Belgium and Burkina Faso have in common? They start with a B. They are basically officially frenchspeaking (which poses some problems to me). And they have serious problems with underrepresentation of women in public and/or elected offices ( and I consider Brussel in the quality of being a capital city of Europe).

In the European Parliament only 1 in 3 parliament members are female. Only twice has a woman been elected the President of the Parliament - men have been elected 10 times. 9 out of 27 Commissioners in the European Commission are women. In 50 years a woman has never been the President of the Commission. And according to all plans prepared for the case of coming to live of Lisabon Treaty*, 4 major positions within EU that are to exist ( a Council President (permanent President of the European Council), a High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a Commission President and a President of European Parliament) are going to be occupied by men. "250 million women in the EU. Not a single one good enough?" asks MEP Mrs. Ch. Schaldemose in the newly launched petition. (to see and sign the petition, visit: http://www.femalesinfront.eu/ ). In this dimension of participation of women, single member states are on avarage rather worse than EU than better.

[People were shocked by the prevalence of women at the meeting with Mdme Commissioner Huebner, why is nobody shocked by the gender balance at the European Council meeting??? Contrary to the inofficial meeting with Mdme Hubner, the European Council is a body that takes major decisions for all citizens, both men and women.]

In Burkina, women have also been underrepresented, both in local and central offices. In the Parliament 17 in 111 seats are occupied by women (15,33%). This percentage of women has been twice as high in recent local elections thanks to organised support (trainings etc.) to female candidates. Currently there are attempts to introduce 25% quotas in all political parties. Still, there will be a long way to go to catch up with the international leader - Rwanda where percentage of women in the lower house reached 48,8%, 1,8% higher than in Sweden. This result in Rwanda would not have been possible without quotas. But is it possible to change centuries of "tradition" or laws that forced women to occupy certain positions in society and keep away from politics by waiting and hoping really hard? Empiric observation confirms the need for quotas: at least in 15 top countries in terms of women participation in politics, there are some kind of quotas involved: or by state law or by voluntary committment of political parties.

Apart from the huge diffrences in GDP and economic and human development in general and although Europe has longer experience with democracy and with feminism, at least how we in the West define it, we still share the common problem, which shows that each country is a developing country.

As a woman from the country and from region where women are still underrepresented, I am very excited to explore the perspective of Burkinabe women on their participation in power in July and August.