Pictures from Tora

After much laughter on the part of my colleagues at Afrique Verte, I convinced them that it was a good idea for me to spend a few days in a small village participating in daily activities and learning how to farm so that I could better understand rural life here in Burkina. Yes, the white girl wanted to farm.

On the second day of my three day stay in the village Tora, I pulled out my camera to get a picture of the family I was staying with. For better or worse, I immediately became the official town photographer and got dragged around to take pictures of everyone and everything in the village. Here some of the pictures.

The Coulibaly family, with whom I stayed.

Madame Coulibably in her family's cotton fields.

The village's church choir.

Madame Coulibaly Rachel preparing soupe.

The women of the Farmer Association which Afrique Verte supports in front of their store. These are the women I work for.

Three members of the association completing a sale.

Rosalie and me.

Samuel.

So many new sights, sounds, smells!

I’ve been in Burkina a month now. I had planned to start my blog a month ago, yet here I am writing my first post today. I’ve tried to do this before but every time I sat down to write I honestly didn’t know where to start. So many questions would race through my mind very time: What part of my experience is important to share? Who is going to read my blog? What do they want to hear about? What do I think they should know? Should I really be writing about MY experience or maybe I should be writing about the lives of the people here?

I eventually realised that I was over analysing the situation. Nevertheless, I would love to know what you would like to hear about and to answer any of your questions.

The following is best way I can think of to translate some of my first impressions and experiences.

The people : so strong

Transportation : crazily functional

The ground : red

The heat : doable

Amount of water I consume in a day : minimum 3 litres

Water : sold at every corner in sachets

The rains : awe inspiring and ear deafening

The food : yummy and very starchy

Losing weight in Africa : not gonna happen

Culture shock : like walking right into a wall

My office : just 2 of us, my counterpart and me

Work : learning patience

Ambiguity : gotta learn to embrace it

My family : all women

Need for an alarm clock : none

Time I get up : with the sun

Village visits : humbling

Getting sick : bound to happen

The details : I’ll spare you

My name : Toubabou (white person in Dioula)

Number of marriage proposals received : too many to count

Little kids : so cute but terrified of me

Working in an office : definitely not ‘feel-good’ development

Time : always at your disposal

What people tell me all the time : Y’a pas de problèmes! = No worries