Sunday Sun

It’s bright and sunny, beautiful really. It’s 7 am on a Sunday, we are all clean and awake, walking towards the church. Everyone is dressed in their best outfits and we all have smiles on our lips.
That is my typical Sunday, but last time it happened, I realized something. There is no way I can keep on going to church like this, without telling my sister Rosa, that I do not want to meet with the priest to talk about the bible. It was a tough decision to make, but it had to happen eventually.
(My family house + mango trees!!!)
I figured I’d be able to go through some religion this summer, in order to concentrate on my other work and to just make it easier to integrate…Never did I think to ask myself if I was able to sit through mass every week listening to a preacher. It was ok the first time, but when one of the older daughters of the family gave me a new testament I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This is very important to them, and there is no way I can fake being as religious as them. I finally admitted to myself and to one of my coworkers that I was a non believer in Canada, and that I will remain one. But I still make the effort to go to church. It is a good thing to go to. People have religion and it brings them together. There is music and laughter, a feeling of belonging that is special to religion. Now if only I could tell Rosa.
She has turned into my best friend, sister and inspiration. She likes learning about things and she likes telling me about things too. Today she managed to send me an email. I taught her how to use the internet to do researches (now that might take a bit more practice but it’s a good first step) and she started a gmail account. I’m trying to establish a means by which we will be able to communicate even when I leave. This way I can send her pictures and she can have access to them without me worrying that the mail might not get there. It’s really wonderful to have been so lucky in finding a girl my age to talk to. But I’ve been honest about everything except for religion. It’s making me feel guilty every day that I don’t tell her.
There is no other ending, I will simply have to be honest and tell her and hope she doesn’t mind too much. I will continue the Sunday mass but I hope she will understand that I do not wish to take part in any other activities.

I hope you all don’t mind that I have brought this up once again. It has been an important part of my learning in the last month. While others may have figured out their stance on religion a long time ago, I have never really explored it until recently. There are many things I enjoy about the idea of a religion. There are also many things I’m sure most will agree are sad and horrible. The only thing I have to say, is that I am glad I can stay open minded about it, and respect it. I do not need to believe in it or to agree with it to respect it.

Now, as for Dorothy, I have planned my summer in order to make sure I keep you in mind!
Next week, village stay number 1!!! I will be staying in a village named …. Oh darn I forgot my notebook… Ok so it’s in the commune of Imsagho, Koloweogo I think is the name but (oh I feel bad haha) don’t accept that as the truth, I might have to update that when I come back.
I plan on satying there 4 nights, 5 days. It’s without electricity, no running water, a few wells but at a far enough distance that I will actually get to live some of the reality. It’s all moore so I’m going to be without actual language communication for a bit. I plan on drawing a lot and on taking part in the food making in the cleaning and in the socializing. I want to learn as much as I possibly can. I think it will be interesting to that this is one of the villages that was picked for the CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) project I was talking about earlier. So I get to see what the reality is before hand and to see where I think the barriers will be. It’s something I’m really excited about.
One of the main problems we’ve had to face up to now is that well and pumps are being built and rehabilitated everywhere but as all things do some day, they break. For all engineers reading this actually… the wheel pump is especially despised for that… I don’t know if it’s because it wasn’t built properly at first but every village with them says this:
The water isn’t stopped anywhere so when it’s really low in the well it takes a long time to actually get to the top and then if you let go of the leaver (I have no idea what to call it, I think I’m a) losing my English and b)never knew technical terms because I’m just a bio student :P) then all the work is lost because there is no mechanism to clap it or to stop the rope from going all the way back to them bottom due to the weight of the water.
Well that was built a long time ago by an unknown organization, it's so bad that even my organization can't fix it. The well itself is not fit for use but it's still used because it never runs out.
Now I don’t know if this has been published yet, or if it’s something that happens everywhere or just in these two communes. I still have many more questions to ask and much more studying to do but it anyone back in Canada has an answer or a comment on that it would be greatly appreciated. It’s kinda hard to explain to people that I don’t have any training in that domain, but the people I work with understood as soon as I mentioned it.
This is an other well that is also of unknown sources and that is not fit for use but still used. Those rubber things on the side are the buckets used to bring the water back to the surface. So you can see how the water can be contaminated and the whole thing being unhealthy. Now the weird thing about this one is that it's right next to a pump, but because there is a market in this village the pump is always in use by market goers and villagers, so the people who have to come here from neighbouring villages have to use this well.

So I’ve gone to at least 5 villages, seen most of the models that have been built here in the last 30 years and most of the poorly planned projects that have failed too. One of the great best practices about the organization I work with is that whenever a well or pump is installed they start by creating a cogest, which is a comity in charge or keeping the well or pump working. They tell them they need to mobilize the community in order to get the money for any repairs and to assure that everyone follows the rules to assure that no repairs need to be mad for a long time. It’s a great idea, and when it works it’s amazing but… as all community led projects it’s really hard to get started.
The first wheel pump that I saw was broken, the rope had slipped 2 weeks prior and people had raised the cover off the well to use the bucket and rope method once again. Sanitation and hygiene out the window…
Picture of the only working pedal pump I saw. This type seems to be the best model, but depending on where it's built sometimes water pressure is so low it works really really slowly... This one was great though, rehabilitated last year by my organization.
Picture: Somewhere near the Kamsi village, man made lake/pond, not sanitairy what so ever but the first large water space I've seen here! It was gorgeous, and at that moment I really wanted to own a nice Kodak instead of my tiny sony camera. These pictures just don't relay the beauty o
I have a video and will probably post it on facebook sometime when I have a good connection or when I’m back in Canada. I’ve been taking pictures of these wells and such so I can better explain exactly what it is that has been built, what the problems with them are and what the solutions that were found have been.
A side from that cogest, my coworkers also have a bunch of extra stuff they try to get for each pump or well. There must be a wall like structure surrounding the water point in order to protect it from animals who could defecate near it. People need to be bare foot when entering the little four walled structure so that no dirt from their shoes gets near the water (I find this rule funny because it’s particularly useless in villages where people can’t afford shoes and therefore have dirty feet anyway…). There has to be a sort of path for the water spilt to go through and accumulate in a mini pond where it can evaporate, contaminated water like that shouldn’t be allowed to go back into the ground and eventually back into the water stock.
So you can see there is a lot of work that has to go with these projects, and often it is more expansive to rehabilitate one then to built it from scratch. Here are a few pictures of broken pumps or wells. Every time I felt sad because the ones that still have water in them are still used. One village had to walk 5 kilometers to reach a well, and then when they reach it it’s this dirty grey water that they get. This brings me to my other tough realization. I’ve been trying to stay critical about the organization with whom I’m working, well at the beginning of this week I saw something to mention.
They are truly trying to make sure their projects are sustainable, and that has made me so incredibly happy. They are also strong supporters of “l’Union fait la force” which means that everyone needs to participate in order to help build these projects. They check on what is needed in the communities and the villages and then ask for them to the organization with the financing… and this is where I got a bit curious… which then tells them what they can and can’t do. Now this is tricky. As anyone who works with NGO’s in Canada will already know it often works this way, you ask for 100 thousand for this specific project but you only get 50 thousand and are asked to do something extra with your project… But in this case it’s Dorothy’s water supply and health we are talking about. I’m not too sure these project are actually Dorothy led. This is probably what I will be working on for most of my summer.
I will be asking how they figure out what is needed and how it is then presented to the organization above us. I am also working with that organization so I will then ask them what they base their decisions on. This is a longer term project though, so I might not have updates on it every week. I also don’t have much connection to Ouaga (city where that organization is) right now and still have to learn more about the villages before I can start feeling like I do have an idea of what is truly needed by Dorothy. I hope this little snippet of my current work is interesting, and if anything isn’t clear or you just want more information on it let me know! I’ll be glad to explain more and get your comments on it too.
Okay, the power still hasn’t come back and I’m getting hungry. I hope I can post this tonight after supper because I don’t know when I’ll be back again, I’ve got quite a bit of paper work to do and then I’ll be in a hut… haha I’m excited and scared at the same time. I don’t know if it’s the same for all JFs but it’s been the strangest month. Emotional rollercoaster, learning so much, loving so much, everything is so different and yet similar… and oh funny, I figured Steph would enjoy this, I found whiskey! But the cool part is that it came in pouches like the water!!! I will have a picture next time, or maybe by the time I get to post this. Till then, farewell!!!
The youngest daughter in my family, Blandine is about 3 years old. She is trying to carry a baby in this picture, a friend of the family was there and she kept on asking so we had a bit of fun. She was too heavy though so about 2 seconds after this snap shot I had to help carry the baby back to his mommy. Look at her beautiful smile though, she is the little sunshine that wakes me up at 5:30 am every morning. Hehe, still love her.
P.S. I have blisters on my left hand from the motorcycle rides; I think I need to find a new way to hold on. Hehe. Oh and I am getting better at buying things at their right price, I will have a new outfit next week, pretty excited, this time I got to actually design something, hopefully it’ll turn out right… I found a rip in my last outfit, it made me very sad since they were the only pants I had, but I think I can fix it, yay for portable sowing kits!
Bilfu!
Pictures I want to share:
This was a bug I encountered while waiting for the village reps to show up for our meeting at the city hall this tuesday. My coworker couldn't name it, anyone got a guess? I'm curious.
This is part of this magnificent little plot of land where huge buldors just like this one defy the laws of gravity. From what the elders could tell me it's been this way since anyone can remember, one hypothesis that my coworker gave me was that is was from the period where they carved rocks to make tools and weapons. I thought it was interesting, and so so beautiful, great morning starter.
P.S.S
I got to talk to Rosa two nights ago (oh I've been holding this post on my computer for a while, 2 power outages have been in my way, sorry to people I was starting to talk to on msn... :()
She understood perfectly that I wasn't too religious and she said they weren't trying to convert me. It was so nice to hear but I felt like such an idiot for having been so worried. It's hard to know what will be important and what won't be what so ever. Like for instance... dancing with my friend's boyfriend's friend was a huge mistake haha, I have to tell her to tell him to stop messaging me know, my first awkward phone story. Hopefully it will be the only one.
My favorite goat picture up to now. This is the little fellow, or wait I think this is the girl one... anyway, it is the one who cries all night long and drives me up te wall, but how can you be mad at something so sweet looking?
Please ask me questions!!! I look forward to hearing from you and would love some updates on Canada!
Pictures by email are always welcome. :)