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Satiri has been pretty empty for the past couple of weeks since most of its population heads out to the fields each morning. A rainstorm or two finally came, but the last week has been dry and farmers are still complaining about the lack of rain.
I biked out into the bush one morning to see my neighbor’s fields. Tidiane’s family has about 15 hectares, mostly of cotton, corn, and peanuts. The cotton is sold each year to the huge monopoly Sofitex for ever more disappointing prices. The corn and peanuts will feed the family in my courtyard for the next year.
The fields are dotted with shea trees, the only trees not cut down when land is cleared. This time of year the trees produce lots of round green fruits the size of ping pong balls, with nuts inside. The fruit usually becomes a snack for people working in the fields, and the nuts can be processed to make different types of shea butter. Shea butter is in high demand in other parts of the world for products such as high-end cosmetics and fine chocolates. Shea products are said to be great for the skin, but are very
expensive as the trees grow only in West Africa. For this reason shea is a buzz topic among NGOs, business PCVs, and other development agencies as an economic opportunity for Burkinabe farmers. Projects involve training village women in how to collect and process the nuts so that they can be sold to western companies for a considerable profit.
Each day one or two women stay in the courtyard to cook and wash clothes, while all of the other men, women, children, and work animals head out to the fields. In her time at home, my neighbor, Karidja, has also been preparing soumbala to sell at nearby markets. Soumbala is a type of tree that produces long seed pods containing black seeds. The seeds, when prepared, have a strong taste and are used to flavor rice and sauces. Preparing them, however, is a long process that begins with someone climbing dangerously high in a tree to gather the seed pods. Next, the outer covering of the pod is removed by hand, revealing a yellow spongy substance with the seeds inside. This is pounded in a wooden mortar and pestle to separate the yellow spongy stuff from the black seeds. The
yellow stuff can be boiled and eaten like cous cous; it’s not bad. The seeds are then boiled overnight, drained, washed several times, and dried in the sun for two days. When spread out on rice sacks to dry, they smell strongly of rotting garbage. After drying, any bad seeds are picked out by hand. Then water is added, making the grains sticky so that they can be rolled into equally-sized balls, the unit of sale. They are then dried in the sun once more before being loaded into baskets to take to the market. Each week Karidja loads up a laundry-basket-sized load (heavy!) and carries it on her head 10 km to the market in Dorossiamasso, all for a profit of ten or twelve bucks.
What have I been up to? Besides cementing over the mouse holes in my house and making stinky soumbala balls with Karidja, I planted some moringa trees in my courtyard. I planted the seeds about three weeks ago and some are already a foot tall. Moringa is another buzz topic among development agencies, not necessarily for profit but for nutrition. As the local diet consists mainly of corn, malnutrition is common in the
village and kids wander around with large swollen bellies for lack of protein. Gram for gram, moringa leaves contain something like the twice the protein in milk, four times the calcium in milk, seven times vitamin C in oranges, four times the vitamin A in carrots, and three times the potassium in bananas, among other vitamins and minerals. The leaves can be prepared in local sauces or can be dried to form a powder that can be added to any dish.
Moringa seeds contain natural antibiotics and flocculating agents, and can be used to purify drinking water. The trees are easy to grow, non-invasive, and soil-regenerating. They are said to grow fast, so the family should be able to start harvesting leaves within a year. (See www.treesforlife.org for more info on moringa.)
I also went up to Ouaga for a weekend to attend a cross-sector health conference. Health PCVs put on the conference to train other PCVs in health education. They gave us lots of practical advice on how to successfully educate villagers about AIDS, nutrition, family planning, and common illnesses. We were taught about the Burkinabe health system and how to work with local health centers and
community groups. I got lots of ideas and a big bag of moringa seeds to plant at my school.
Now I am in Bobo, on my way to Ouaga for the Fourth, and then it’s on to Dogon Country, Mali for a few days of hiking around ancient villages. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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anonymous
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Sounds like the village that you are in is pretty empty during the day Rosie? What else have you been doing, other than planting trees and hiking? When does school start up? Do you have to go on all of your traveling adventures alone, or do you usually meet up with someone and go together? Other than the bugs, which I'm not too fond of also, are there any other nasty things like unusually large snakes or rats, etc there? I love all of your blog entries! They are really exciting to read about. Glad to hear that you got my package! Hope you enjoyed it! Glad it made it really! :) Miss you cuz.~Jaim