Burkina Faso!



Daniel Ouedraogo Salifou



My first day in Burkina Faso was spent setting up my room and in Orientation.  I share a home with two other women, Susan and Joanna.  There are approximately 10 of us on the team and we met to talk about what to expect living here and getting to know each other.  This morning I started language training with Daniel.  He is very kind and patient - the later being the most important! 


 

I was going to include a picture of our street and house but it has been raining for over 3 hours now.  At times this morning it was hard to hear Daniel because the rain was coming down so hard.  Most of the streets are dirt, so you only imagine what that means for trying to get around. 

One of the things I had forgotten about was the number of people here and how noisy it is.  At 4:30 a.m. the rooster next door starts crowing and the prayers from the mosque down the street blare over a loud speaker.  There is constant activity (except when it rains).  Many of our neighbors cook outside and spend most of their day and evenings out on the street or in their yards.  Goats are everywhere - just roaming around!

Just before I left, Janet Ross visited Clay Church and gave me several books to use while I was here.  She is a nurse who has travelled with teams to majority world countries to provide health care.  One of the books she gave me is called Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment.  One of the suggestions in the book is a simple compost toliet for tree planting.  Basically it's a moveable shelter over a shallow pit.  When the pit is full, it is covered with dirt and a tree is planted.  The toliet makes fertilizer for the tree and helps to decompose the waste.  I'm anxious to see if this is something we can do in Sector 30 with the Moringa trees.