It’s a sunny warm morning as I write this blog post; one you might expect from Burkina Faso as it leaves its winter in late February. With clear skies and a temperature of 29 degrees and rising we’re settling in for a classic Burkina day. You may be thinking, ‘we get it flora, we’re in England where its cold and drizzly and you’re in Burkina where it’s warm and beautiful, stop showing off’. But my description of the warmth is merely a precursor to this blog, a set up you might say. For what is to come next is somewhat surprising. To set the scene: 2 o’clock on a Saturday morning and I wake with surprise and panic. My fan, which usually sends me a quiet breeze, has become incredibly loud. Embarrassingly so - I’m worried I’m waking up the whole house with my need for cold(er) air! Something’s gone into overdrive, the mechanism has flipped and it screams bloody murder as it wafts me. I jump up to turn it off. Even I, let alone anyone else, can’t sleep with this racket. Off it goes, but the noise continues. After a thorough examination, I blearily make my way out of my room and peer through the sitting room door. Shock fills me as I realise what’s making the noise: Yes, readers, you may have realised by now: it was raining! I am told in the morning this is utterly irregular, this never happens in February in Burkina Faso – and of course it had to happen on Saturday 24th February. It might not be a big day for you, friends, just like any other Saturday, but for us … the biggest event we have planned for Kabeela just so happens to be on Saturday 24th February. ‘Sanitation Day’ – 250 villagers are gathering to clean up Guilougou of it’s plastic waste, we are doing a collection, and afterwards have a feast with talks from the Mayors office, the Director of the Environment of Ziniare, and an awareness raising with the volunteers, to finish up we have a movie under the stars. As I peer out the door thoughts run through my mind: considering the likelihood of us cancelling or postponing, and damning our luck that this should happen today, because nobody is going to turn up to an event in the pouring rain. I make my way back to bed and bump into Benjamin, Kabeela’s project manager– we live in the same house. He’s getting his drying clothes out of the rain. ‘Just our luck’ I moan, he replies with a grin and I stumble back to bed somewhat confused. As the rain continues, I fall in and out of sleep, praying for a ceasefire and trying to plan for the next day: we could postpone, but we’ve bought mountains of food which will go off, we’ve organised equipment which we have to return, we’ve told everyone the date and time, it’s hard enough getting everyone together in the first place if we changed it now it would be mayhem, nobody would know what’s going on, we might have to cancel, all this planning will go to waste … bright and early I knock on Benjamin’s door – I need to clear my head and get some advice from a local. ‘What can we do Benjamin, ‘is it going to stop’, and I state my biggest worry: ‘Nobody is going to turn up.’ Because of course in England if you planned a ‘Sanitation Day’ in your village, and then it rained all night and morning no one would turn up. To my questions Benjamin steps outside into the rain, a minute goes by as I wait in confusion. He turns, the verdict: ‘This is perfect’. Surprise hits me for a second time in one night. And of course, it is perfect: the temperature has dropped from the high to low 30s, the clouds have created cover from the baking sun, and the water has weighed down the dust meaning no more sweeping dust clouds. This is in fact the best thing that could have happened. As the Burkinabes say, if it rains on the day of the event ‘God has blessed us.’ And what more could I ask for than to be blessed by God. Once more Burkina has taught me about perspective (and not worrying so much about the weather.) And people turn up, and the day goes to plan, and I sit under the stars and clouded moon listening to the unintelligible Moore comedy being projected and the giggles of the audience, calmly content as I’m reminded of an English summer evening.
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Planning, organising, working, leading, building Kabeela. That’s what kept me busy over the past two weeks. As I’m sure some of my readers will know, a great way to get to know a countries people is to work with them. So, while doing all of the above a month has passed by and I’ve learnt so much more about the Burkinabes. With a team composed of six nationals and five uk’s and a deadline to produce our team plan, we are thrown into work immediately, saving the get-to-know-you’s for breaks and birthday parties - there happens to be two within the space of a week. It’s safe to say that we work in different ways. As I mentioned in my last blog, here time is polychronic – deadlines are more ‘guidelines’, explanations become convoluted and thoughts are expanded despite a time restraint. While the UK team tend to give capsulated thoughts that can be digested without too much debate. Added to this is the restriction of language, most of the Burkinabe speak simple English and the UK’s speak no French. My counterpart, Patrick, and I take charge of translation – me with some broken French! Tensions grow in our group as we push forward, playing a tug-of-war in working styles. But with some language classes and the celebrations we ease the tension and recognise the strengths of both ways of working. As a group we identify the value of analysis and time keeping, and attempt to keep both in tandem (although sometimes in the heat, time reverts back to its natural polychronic state). Our task: A 3-month team plan consisting of S.M.A.R.T objectives*. Sounds simple enough. We have to plan every activity which we must achieve within the three months. Ok. We must plan every activity input and output. Hmmm. We must decide exactly how many people we will impact. And here’s the kicker, We have three days to do it. *Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound Right, here’s where my project manager brain clocks in. Because we have 11 people who only know so much about an organisation, and a limited time to make an impactful plan which works towards an achievable and sustainable goal. Let’s start from the beginning then – the beginning of Kabeela that is, we can’t talk to Mama Kabeela, the president, as she’s in Ouagadougou. Let’s go to the archive room. … There’s good news and there’s bad news: The good news is we definitely have one S.M.A.R.T objective for the plan. The bad news, the archive room is somewhat … disorganised, a major administration activity is in written in. Next plan, let’s talk to Benjamin, the project manager, financial officer and ‘yes-man’ for Kabeela. As an ex-ICS volunteer, he knows what we need, and explains Kabeela’s history. The short story is Mama Kabeela set up the organisation in 1997 after seeing the inequality in her village. It has supported women by empowering them to generate income through the manufacturing and selling of soaps and body butters. Great. Now for the future. What is Kabeela’s vision. Benjamin has that as well, ‘why didn’t we come to you before!’. For 2019: "The Kabeela Women's Association Guiloungou with dynamic members, educated in the sense of personal development and literacy, is fully autonomous and has as such an appropriate infrastructure and important sources of income that ensures its independence and visibility" Now that’s specific, and I hope achievable. As a group we break this vision into five categories: Members Development, Independence, Visibility and Awareness, Infrastructure, and Sources of Income. And from this foundation we spend three long days expanding this vision into objectives, into activities, into inputs, into outputs. Patrick, Benjamin and I work long into the nights reducing our many ideas into the essentials, the tasks that will be sustainable for Kabeela, the key point being its business plan. We finally put these into a calendar to see if its achievable and it’s complete. With positive feedback from the project partner and ICS, the group is excited to get started on our ambitious plan. As am I! |