Sahelian Adventures: A picture of San, Mali

Today I was driving in a Land Rover today over packed red roads through a rural area of Mali, West Africa. The sun streaming through the plumes of red dust being tossed up by the Helix truck in front of us gave the flat, dry landscape an almost dreamy quality as if I was looking at a sepia coloured photograph. The countryside is dotted by huge baobab trees, freshly plowed fields and scrawny bushes and donkeys, cows, horses, pigs, goats and sheep that give the impression that someone has randomly strewn about pieces from a child’s farm playset. The rainy season only has just started but there are already a few places where we had to drive through water and in a few weeks these places will be largely inaccessible.

Now I am sitting outside under a porch listening as the wind picks up and brushes through the leaves of the mango and moringa trees in the courtyard. You can tell the rain is coming because the wind picks up suddenly and there is a lot of dust in the air and the birds start to get very noisy right before the rain starts to fall. For now it is not raining very hard; for all the thunder and wind only a very few drops actually fall to the ground. It may be raining harder somewhere else, but for this area, so desperate for rain, the ground will have wait for a good drink for another few days. I have been told the rains are a bit late this year, and while no one expects another food crisis and most indications are that this year should be a good harvest, there is a still some anxiety in the voices of the people as they look at the mostly cloudless skies and then back at their still bare fields.

I wanted to have a few pictures to add to this post but the connection is not fast enough today. Hopefully sometime soon.

A la prochaine!

Saharan Adventures

I'm back! I have this horrible habit of just dropping my blog as soon as I set foot back on Canadian soil. I have this perception, true or not, that my life in Canada is not very interesting, especially compared to dinner with Hippos on Lake Tanganyika. Some interesting things have happened since my last post. I came home, got aclimatized to Canadian winter, watched lots of Hockey (the NHL lockout was just waiting for me to come home!), tried to work on my thesis (fail) and then got a new job. Now I am working for World Vision Canada as the Regional Program Officer for West Africa. It is a short term position while the real RPO is working for a different WV office for a year. But it is a job, and I really really like it, so I'll take it, even if it does mean more uncertainty and being unable to plan for more than a few months at a time. More on that another time maybe.

Which leads me to this post. As part of my job I help to support Canadian funded programs in Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Niger. Today I am leaving for a three week trip to Mali and then to Mauritania. I'm excited because this is an area of Africa I've never been. I have images of rolling sand dunes, nomads on camels and sweltering heat. We'll see how these images match up with the real thing.

These are very different contexts than those I've worked in before. Both countries are Muslim republics, both countries stradle the Sahel and the Sahara and struggle with producing enough food. the coup in Mali last year and the following conflict and security issues have added to challenges people face. I have always been facinated by Mali and Timbuktu has been on my list of places to see for a long time. Timbuktu was a center of trade and learning dating back to the 13th century. It holds a certain mystery and allure, with its secrets and insights into a different time and culture. Unfortunately I won't be able to see Timbuktu because of the precarious security situation in that area. It is sad because the rebels have destroyed large parts of the ancient city that has stood as an icon on the continent for hundreds of years. I will be staying in the South of Mali, well away from where the French army is working with Malian forces to weed out the islamist rebels who have been causing so much trouble. While there is always risk when you travel overseas I've been assured that the security situation in the areas where I'll be going is safe and calm. So those of you who tend to worry, I will be safe but maybe you shouldn't read the news about Mali for the next couple of weeks just for your own peace of mind!

After Mali I get to fly from Bamako to Nouakchott, Mauritania. I'm really looking forward to this as well. Mauritania is not exactly your typical beach destination, even if it is on the Atlantic Ocean. It does have plenty of sand though....

These are not pleasure trips or vacations. I'll be working a lot and it will be exhausting and probably uncomfortable. I know that I'm going to witness levels of poverty that I haven't seen before. I'm going to struggle with our work, the difficulties people face and trying to figure out how we can help. I'll also have to accept (again) that we can't do everything for everyone. Bathrooms and showers are going to be few and far between and I am leaving my ergonomic pillow behind.  Regardless, I'm looking forward to driving through the Sahara, sleeping under the stars in rural Mauritania, eating goat and couscous with my hands, seeing the laughing, smiling faces of the children World Vision works with and to meet the staff who work hard for the wellbeing of children, families and their communities where we work.
Allons-y!

A week in the field

I have been working for awhile now on putting together a proposal for a grant from the European Commission. We are working in a consortium with 4 other organizations and since my organization is the Lead, it means a lot of the responsibility and organization has fallen on me. I've been learning a lot and have really enjoyed working with the team we've put together. We just hired a consultant to help us put together the final product and after several months of work things are finally coming together. It is exciting and tiring and stressful but as we move forward I am pretty confident that the proposal we are putting together has a really good chance of winning. I think I have mentioned here before that the funding climate in Burundi is difficult and that there aren't many grant opportunities compared to other countries. There are several other consortium competing for this same grant so there is no guarantee we will win, but I am hopeful.

In order to make sure that our proposal reflects what is actually going on in the communities where we will be working we've had a lot of discussions with our partners and staff working on the ground, but it is important to see these things for ourselves so last week the consultant we hired and I spent four days in the field talking to community members and doing an informal assessment. This is something I have not gotten to do enough of in my position so far. So much of my job has been dealing with donors and emails and reports and I have not been able to get out of the office nearly enough, so I was thrilled to have this opportunity. The organization of our schedule was a little hectic and at the last minute we were given the crappy land cruiser with the back seats that face the side instead of the normal one with the seats that face forwards. This meant I spent 4 days being thrown around the back of a land cruiser and I have the bruises to show for it, but all in all it was a successful trip. We got the information we needed, confirmed some of our hypothesis and found some important things that we would have missed otherwise. I got to spend 4 days getting sunburned while standing in fields talking to farmers. I got to walk through fields of banana trees, I learned about the mozaique virus that has had a huge negative impact on the manioc (cassava) crops here, and I got to talk to moms about what they feed their kids and how they are trying to make sure their kids are getting enough nutritious food. I love to be able to look beyond the statistics and reports into the eyes of these mothers as they talk about their struggles and their dreams for their children.

Now I am back in Bujumbura, exhausted, slightly sunburned and bruised, but looking forward to the next two weeks as I finish up various projects and get ready to come home. Apparently it snowed this week at home so I'll be greeted by the white stuff when I land in Toronto. I'll spend as much time in the sun as work and the rain allow me to and take advantage of the rest of my time here.

For now, here are some pictures of my week in the field.

Fields of Banana trees

One of the 'improved species' of cows which give more milk than the local breed

Talking to a community about their food security and nutrition concerns and needs
(photo is the property of World Vision)

The view from my guest house in Rutana

New experiments with terracing to help stop erosion

Had dinner with the hippos again when I returned to Bujumbura. 

Rainy season in Bujumbura

As I have mentioned before, it is currently the rainy season here in Burundi. This usually means about an hour of rain most days, but not every day. It is the same as the rainy season in Rwanda so although this is my first time experiencing it in Burundi, it isn't really new to me. Even so, there are always differences. For one, it is amazing how clear the air is here after it rains. During the dry season it gets very dusty and hazy. I didn't really notice the impact of that until the other day after it rained I looked up at the horizon as I was driving to work and I noticed the mountains of the DRC in the distance. I have always known that the mountains were there - you can usually see their outline across the lake, but this was the first time that I could clearly see the ridges and valleys, even the trees and houses on the mountains. Things are more crisp and more green and everything seems more clean. Except for the mud of course.

This year it is raining a lot more than normal. Instead of an hour of rain 3 out of 4 days we have had several days in a row where it rained all day. And this isn't a nice spring shower, we're talking serious downpour complete with thunder and wind. Not very pleasant. There are more accidents when it rains, the traffic is worse and I am more dependent on taxis since I can't walk into town or from place to place within town. I wished I had my camera with me on my way to work this morning so I could have pictures with this post. It has rained quite a bit this week so the ground is already very wet and what little drainage systems there are in the city are pretty overwhelmed. On my way to work this morning the roads were literally flooded with a foot of swirling red water dyed by the dark red mud.  Vehicles inched along spraying up waves of muddy water. Most of the water was low enough that it did little more than slow everyone down, but in a few low lying areas the water was deep enough to go over the hoods of small cars and I saw one stall and get stuck because of the water. Soon after the rain stops most of the streets go back to normal with only a few maintaining large puddles. It is raining again now and I think the road to my apartment will be washed out by the time I get back there tonight. I live on a hill and the road is only paved part way. Where the pavement stops the rain water pools and washes away the road so there is now a large drop off from the pavement to the dirt road.

The rain is normally good for the people of Burundi - as much as it is inconvenient it is necessary for this country that depends heavily on subsistence agriculture. However, this much rain has the potential to cause problems. Burundi is a very hilly country with people cultivating steep inclines as well as low laying valleys. Too much rain is potentially a threat to both. The low laying marshes are especially at risk of flooding with the potential for whole crops to be destroyed. With families farming only an average of 0.3 hectares of land loosing that land to flood is devastating. Hopefully the rains calm down and we get some nice sunny weather to dry things out. Not only do the crops desperately need this, but so do I. I only have one month left here in Burundi before I head back to December in Canada - the land of ice and snow. I want to soak up as much of the African sun as I can while I have the chance!