My Burkina Journal: Sunny and Hot

The weather is starting to heat up during the day—it was way too hot for January, and now February is even hotter—but at least the nights are still cool. A few mornings ago the temperature hit a low of 66 degrees F which was absolutely wonderful and refreshing. I am looking at the 10-day forecast, and it looks like it may cool off slightly the last few days, so I'm hoping it is accurate. I would love to see lower 90s rather than upper 90s as it has been. But even that is preferable to the upper 100s, I suppose. I must say, however, it has been pretty consistent. Every single day is "sunny and hot." It is still the season of the Harmattan, though, which can cause open doors to slam shut and the air to become so thick and dusty that it looks like fog, but there seems less of that than in the past. Still, many of the locals wear the little eye masks given on overnight flights as nose coverings, especially if they are riding their motorbikes. That red dust is everywhere.

Early morning haze nearby

All of the SIL Literacy workshop participants have left, except for two Dutch women living in Nigeria, so it has become somewhat quieter around the SIL Center as we await the next group. The two waited around a few days to get a more direct plane connection as traveling across Africa can be a quite complicated affair with fewer flight options available. I understand that the the new literacy coordinator here at SIL (she was formerly located in Togo) will be doing some workshops of her own with participants from three local language groups in the next few days, and there is also a small group here being hosted by nearby ANTBA (L’Association Nationale pour la Traduction de la Bible et l’Alphabétisation), which is a local Bible Translation and Literacy organization. I'm not sure who their guests are, but what this means is that there will be meals available for purchase at SIL in the dining hall, so I won't have to cook my own food, or eat out.


ANTBA - the "English Church" once met here in this building

L’Association Nationale pour la Traduction de la Bible et l’Alphabétisation

Today's frustrations included trying to find materials on the Kulere language (centered in the Côte d' Ivoire but it is also spoken in a small area in Burkina Faso and not to be confused with the unrelated language by the same name in Nigeria!) and on which there is almost nothing available anywhere, in any format; and tracking down an errant volume on the Gur languages which has been sitting in someone's office for almost two YEARS, so that it has become a fixture there. The loan period is 3 months, which is pretty generous. It helps when a colleague knows the person implicated...

hardly a best-seller but useful here

And speaking of libraries, I have subsequently emailed Michael Kevane of Friends of African Village Libraries about meeting Dounko Sanou at the FAVL Ouagadougou office and guest house, and he directed me to the FAVL blog for a photo remembrance of our recent visit. If you read French you might want to have a look. Not the greatest quality image, but better than none at all.

Michael also emailed me an attachment of a copy of the French language version of the FAVL librarian's manual intended for village libraries which I have forwarded to Anna Kinnaird, the literacy specialist living in Cameroon, who was particularly interested in starting a library there. Anna was absolutely estatic and wrote back "Wow! That is so interesting! I have never before managed to get any documents of this kind, it is good to know somebody has done it and [to]get the practical instructions of how they actually did it!"

I have linked a copy of the English language version used in Ghana here for those interested in having a look.

Marianne Hagg, the other literacy specialist based in Mali, was more interested in the actual materials they used, and included a write-up of her trip to FAVL in her report to her colleagues, along with background information on the organization.

Dounko shares with Anna Kinnaird, me, and Marianne Hagg at the FAVL office and guest house

Then Saturday night a couple of us went to a nice African restaurant called Le Nomade to hear my SIL colleague Mary Hendershott play the saxophone with a jazz ensemble. I've mentioned her before, and it was certainly a lovely way to spend an evening. The food is good--they are known for their pizza, but serve African, European, and Moroccan cuisine, and in this instance we didn't even mind the slow service.