We promised ourselves we would never become those people who neglected our blog for extended periods of time...oops. But we have lots of fun exciting stuff to share now! We just returned from a week in Burkina Faso, the French speaking country about 15 minutes due north from where we are. Our trip was motivated by two factors: one, our visas expire after 60 days, so we had to get them renewed; and two, FAVL is actually based out of Burkina Faso, so we wanted to visit some of the more well-established libraries to get some ideas for their younger Ghanaian counterparts.
After a relatively hassle-free trip (minus needing to backtrack 15 km to withdraw more money for the absurdly expensive Burkina visas) we were met at the bus station by the Burkina Faso FAVL coordinator, Elisee. This is where the trip started to get surreal - we were picked up in a private vehicle by Elisee and FAVL's chauffeur, Francois, who would accompany us for the remainder of the week and drive us everywhere we wanted to go. So long, public transportation! We were taken to the FAVL office, a well-decorated space (lots of cool African masks) with couches, a kitchen, and high-speed internet! Attached to the office were the guest rooms, complete with running water and air-conditioning! A veritable palace! Made even nicer by the security of a night watchman, and the presence of two goats and chickens living in the patio area. For those interested, there is a video on the FAVL website of Lucas talking on the patio, while one of the goats mauls a chicken very loudly in the background - priceless!
We left at the crack of dawn for Bereba, a village about four hours away that is home to the 'mothership' of the FAVL libraries. There is a guesthouse there where we stayed, along with Francois, and had all our meals prepared for us by a wonderful woman Avara - tough life, right? Our itinerary for the week basically consisted of visiting two libraries every morning, sometimes staying to do activities with the children, resting until about 4:00, then going off to have cultural experiences with Dounko, the regional activities coordinator for the libraries. I'll start with the libraries - there are seven total, all very well-stocked with French books. We were surprised to find that there were a lot more adult books - a contrast to the Ghanaian libraries, which are very much oriented toward children. The libraries were very organized, with each librarian taking the time to show us their bulletin boards and various notebooks used to record everything. Their schedules were also drastically different from what we're used to - they are only open for about 20 hours a week, whereas in Ghana they are open for about 40, and often until 10:00 at night. The decorations in the libraries were also very cool, ranging from local masks to children's artwork to murals done by local artists. And Dounko was great fun to watch - he has an exuberant and energetic personality that allows him to excel at entertaining children with books, stories, songs, and dances. I just wish my French were a little better so I could understand what was going on...
The cultural experiences were another unexpected surprise. Dounko is used to playing tour guide because of the Reading West Africa program run through Santa Clara University, which has students spend six weeks in the villages assisting FAVL, and we greatly benefited from his expertise. Our first visit was to a potter, who produced beautiful large pots ('African refrigerators', as Dounko called them) in a matter of minutes on a manual potter's wheel. We learned how to play the balefon, an African xylophone in which different notes are produced according to the size of the gourd suspended underneath each key. We watched and participated in a dance to the music of the balefon and snare drum, though our 'dancing' was little more than rhythmic shuffling. We had 'arts and crafts hour', in which produced animal masks and elaborate 3D flowers. The biggest surprise was when we heard music one night, went to see what it was, and discovered a generator-powered discotheque! That was probably the last thing I expected to find in the middle of that village.
It was interesting that we spent a lot of time focusing on the differences between Burkina Faso and Ghana, yet when we came back, the first thing one of our Ghanaian friends asked us was, 'what are the similarities?' A different perspective from ours, that's for sure. To start with, Burkina Faso is visibly less developed - roofs are thatched instead of made of corrugated metal, and even walls are made of woven mats in some places. We saw a lot more 'stereotypical African' scenes, such as trucks loaded with people and buses with luggage strapped on up to twice it's height. The people are also very friendly, but they love to shake hands a lot more - I lost track of the number of hands I shook that week!
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