Blogs from Burkina Faso, Africa - page 18

Heya everyone! I hope you're all doing well and that the crappy weather Ottawa got on the weekend has improved somewhat. My mom told me it was something crazy like 10 degrees over the weekend.... I seriously think I would die at that temperature now. I'm getting very accustomed to the 37-40 degree heat here! :) So, funny story: I was out in the field on the weekend making another trip up to the villages where I was last time. I needed some details on their needs (how many books of how many pages for the school? What type of tools for the farmers? etc). Anyway, I was driving up through the fields in my truck toward one of the villages and I see an old man from the village working his crops. I recognize him ... read more

Hey everyone, I hope you're all well. Today's blog won't be a cheery one, so if you're not looking for a downer you may want to skip it. If you do, though, you'll be missing a big chance to get some insight into another place and way of life, and I think you'd be better off to check it out. Since my trip to the field, I've been chatting a lot with my mom and others who have never been to developing countries about the conditions here. People really can't believe the extent of the poverty, and I really can't describe it fully. At first I tried to steer away from discussing the intense poverty here, just because I didn't want to make it some kind of freak show and trivialize the suffering of people here. ... read more

Hey everybody I hope you're all doing well and that Ottawa weather has finally come to grips with the fact that it's June. Things here have been good. More eventful than I would normally like, but I guess that's what I get for heading out on some crazy African adventure! :) So, as my faithful readership will know from a previous post, I was sick in the field about 5 days ago. Well, I haven't posted much since then because I have continued to be sick and puke up my food within an hour or two of eating it. Not pretty. I tried eating tame things like plain rice and juice and stuff like that, but no dice. It all kept coming back up. So yesterday (after a sleepless night camped out on my bathroom floor ... read more

In addition to Belize, Bhutan, Brunei and Burundi any list of countries you don't know anything about should include Burkina Faso. In the centre of West Africa with close to no natural resources, annual famines and a corrupt pseudo-democracy jerking the rudder of this landlocked sinking country - it doesn't promote itself as paradise. On our initial itinerary, five days were set aside to transit the country, but after eight days in the anti-picturesque capital; Ouagadougou and eight more days in the second-largest city; Bobo-Dioulasso, we had made some small amendments to our schedule. In terms of sights or activity there's not much to neither see nor do. We rented motorbikes and went to the Kou forest park, swam in a waterfall and rented a canoe for a tranquil lake trip to see some hippos. Other ... read more

Heya everyone, I made it to the field very painfully this morning after a very late night. The party was a huge success and everyone loved the Sangria I made. I ended up tending to a very sick driller until the wee hours of the morning, but I also made a few new friends which is always good news. So the morning came early today and we headed out to the field to a region called Seguenega. I am touring 3 villages over the next 3 days in order to get a feel for what kind of projects need to be done here, and to give the local people a chance to communicate with us. We visited the first village this morning and it was a huge success. We are heading back out after lunch to ... read more