After two years of real uneasiness, on the trip between December 5 and 11, it seemed to me Burkina Faso was as full of uncertainties as ever, yet more peaceful, joyful and vibrant.

Mercè, Eva, Koke and I left on the 5^th for an intense week of incessant work.  The weather was to be “mild” (between 20 and 35 degrees), very dry after the passing of the rains. The only threat was the harmattan (“a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind that blows from the Sahara Desert over the West African subcontinent”), which in the end was only an issue a few days.  The rest were pleasant and quite bearable – the best time of year to visit the Sahel.

With the two Marías (the director, whom you all know and a “Bacardit” from Terrassa who has joined the project) leading us by the hand, it was a trip full of joys and confidence in the future.

 

The trip

After a great trip Barcelona-Paris-Uagadugú, María and her husband, Patrick, picked us up at the airport and we grabbed a quick bite, as it was already late and we had to get to sleep.  We stayed in a hotel that is simple but “safe,” where next to the lovely pool that we never use there were a bunch of dogs eyeing us like treats…I’m not going to give a detailed account of everything we did.  I prefer to highlight what stood out at me this time, in particular some changes in the capital, though I don’t know if they are countrywide, and the most important decisions we arrived at.

 

The country

Burkina Faso continues to be among the five countries with the lowest Human Development Index.  Although it has grown from 17 to almost 20 million inhabitants in only 8 or 9 years, the last two years (fall 2014 to fall 2016) it has been subjected to a hard process of clean up and reconstruction.  And it’s still underway, because the basic institutions, including the Constitution, need a total hosing down, freshening up and modernization.  But they are working on it…

The darkest part of the scene is Boko Haram and AQMI lying in wait. Their periodic attacks cause quite a bit of anxiety even though they are in the border regions; social forces showing off their newfound liberty as a matter of conviction and to make themselves known; a population of some 4.5 million in the three main cities and the rest…; and an extreme and worsening climate, at least at the moment.

The increasing number of minarets, from which the muezzins make the five daily calls to prayer is notable – financed by those whom we would suspect.  In the Maternelle, there have never been so many girls wearing the “chador” (the veil that covers the head but not the face, and I’d never seen so many women on the street covered from head to toe. It seems some strife is beginning between the Muslim communities – the traditional one that is able to live with Christians and any other religion, and the new, radical, one.  This is not a good thing for a particularly peaceful country, as President Kaboré told Pope Francis a few weeks ago.

In any case, there’s a benevolent social climate more vibrant than ever before and a somewhat worried populace that naively fails to see the results of the reforms over the year that has passed.  The population wants to see the pending trials move forward against those who have done wrong in the past, and to live in peace, fed up with so much unrest.  Some of the unease is passive… unchecked corruption, unreformed carelessness, utter disdain for women – always a factor in human societies and more so in this one – and envy (as they themselves call it, “the national vice”)… Complicated.

 

The new government

For the time being, the new government (it’s only a year old) has managed a peaceful transition and peaceful municipal elections.  And it just achieved in Paris an important $16 billion loan – almost the annual GDP – over 5 years (you know, like how we Spaniards entered the EU… and we started to build roads and other big projects despite some of them having turned out to be real fiascos…).  If they don’t manage it too badly, and invest it in infrastructure, health and education, as they have promised to do, the country should pass from $1,700 per capita annually to $2,200 or $2,200 in a short time.  There’s a world of difference between an income of $1,700 and $2,200.

Nevertheless, the ‘rookie politicians’ in the new government have led it to take measures such as doubling judges’ salaries to reduce corruption, which, in addition to its foreseeable ineffectiveness, also angered other government employees.  There will be hell to pay!  But they have to learn by experience.

Uagadugú is dotted with cranes (the first I’ve seen in ten years), more roads are paved, and there are perhaps more cars and motorbikes than 15 months ago.  There are new shops.  There is appreciable movement, a feeling of vibrance.  It will have an international airport 25 kilometers away in two or three years, and the population has risen from 1.1 to 2 million in this period.  The traffic is just as chaotic, but you can see helmets on a few motorists’ heads.  Not many, but some.  Traffic signals have begun to be placed… Promising.

 

Rimkieta and Zongo

And Rimkieta, our beloved neighborhood (about 45 sq kms with 90,000 inhabitants, estimated at 70,000 10 years ago…) keeps filling up with those little houses they build there, though now they are more adobe-cement than pure adobe.  Some people complain that it’s dirty money being laundered by the previous regime’s front men and fiduciaries.  It seems to me it’s a lot better for dirty money to be laundered to feed some workers and enter into circulation than to be kept hidden or spent in Miami…But the adjacent neighborhood, Zongo, with more or less the same size and population, remains undeveloped – consequence of endless division into plots and the lack of water and electricity.

 

The Foundation

And FAR keeps up its work, which is aiding the poorest women and children in the two neighborhoods, giving direct, measurable attention to some 1,300 or 1,400 people and perhaps 15,000 more indirect beneficiaries. We aim to alleviate the scarcity of water, food, and medicine … educate people, promote social change for women and modify little by little some local practices…towards fulfilling a dream that in 2087, the country’s first female president will be a former FAR student J

 

Improvements and changes

Changes at FAR?  There are a few.  Not many, because it is working very well indeed.  But some: like mechanizing bringing the water up from the garden well.  Pulling 400 liters a day per woman up 40 meters is truly hard work in those temperatures; We’ve also introduced educational games as a teaching tool at the Maternelle; And ping pong and foosball to lure the street kids to some formative activities on the weekends; We hired a babysitter for the hours the mothers have literacy class, so that they can pay better attention; strengthened tutoring and chose the best from the twenty schools where we have 500 children on scholarship in order to strengthen the university scholarship program that’s in its second year; We’re trying to reestablish granting micro-credits to women, which the government made us suspend about 4 years ago – this time aided by a serious institution that has some 2 million Euros in assets and has helped more than 20,000 women around the country; Of the 8,000 trees that have been planted, we’re replanting more than 2,000 that have died for various reasons over the years; Speeding up training for the entire team of personnel both in urgent health care and in learning the new traffic signals that most people know nothing of….

 

The staff

But the key is the great team of workers there.  There are some 50 people on staff and 30 more external collaborators who make all of this possible, led by the “two Marías” with the wonderful Sylvie, Rihanata, Hema, Drissa, Jaques and Colette, who lead the teams, and take care of management, administration, accounting…everything having to do with that team.

 

Perserverence…

We persist in the strategy of centered focus, in the austerity of administrative spending and in the rigor, legality and transparency of everything that is done; in maintaining the excitement of the teams both here and there and the strength to say no that is so often necessary; and in insuring the continuity of a staff that are united and generous with their time.  That way, in 2087 J Burkina Faso can have a woman president who will be proud of her humble origins and of being a student of FAR – a small institution that some Spaniards started more than 80 years ago and that goes on helping who knows how and where…

After two anxious years, accepting that instability could return… let’s enjoy a more peaceful and optimistic today in which the efforts by all – founders, patrons, sponsors, employees and collaborators point to a highly promising future.

With my deepest appreciation and affection to everyone who makes this dream possible, JCVD