February 21, Wednesday

It is a quarter past one at night, and I am at the St Clement’s bus stop waiting for my coach to the Airport.
When it arrives, half an hour later, I discover that it is pretty full.
Where are all these people going?
Silly question. They could ask me the same thing.
Where am I going?
My reply would be: Luton – Paris – Ouagadougou.

It is 4.30 a.m. when I arrive at Luton airport.
The check-in at easyJet is a bit chaotic. Restrictions and controls have multiplied in recent months.
Is England on the road to becoming a police state? I think so.
Under the tutelage of the Prime Moron, the national socialist Tony Blair, this country has gone down a path of state violence abroad and state suffocation at home.

At 8.30 a.m. I land at Paris Charles De Gaulle airport.
There seem to be fewer controls. Maybe this other police state has improved compared to England (or rather England has deteriorated tremendously with respect to France). Or, perhaps, mine is just a superficial impression that might be undermined by spending more time in France.
My check-in is at terminal 2C.
While I am queuing, a black person with a bulky bag enters the line just in front of me. I say nothing. I have plenty of time before my flight.
If the person had been a white man, I would have stopped him and sent him to the back of the queue. Perhaps I am incubating the “pod” virus ("pity of the downtrodden"). It is a terrible virus: it belittles the person who receives and elevates the person who gives. It manifests itself when the person who receives is equal to you (no handicaps, no special needs) but obtains a favour out of craftily engendered compassion or sympathy (the poor black, the smiling woman, etc.).

While waiting for my flight (I will leave in the afternoon) I start reading Fishing in Africa by Andrew Buckoke. The revealing subtitle is: A guide to war and corruption.

11.40 a.m. I have a snack - a dish of vegetables and a cup of tea. They call it tea: hot water and a tea bag in a plastic cup.
12.45 a.m. I fancy some yoghurt. The girl at the counter is one of the many Europeans who hasn’t got a clue how to provide a decent service. First, she doesn’t give me the right change. Then, when I ask for a plastic teaspoon, she goes to fetch one and throws it on the counter. Hygiene: zero. Politeness: double zero.

Leaving Europe for 4 week is not a bad idea at all!

5.20 p.m. Take off with twenty minutes delay.
8.55 p.m. Arrival in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

The first impression is the warmth of the evening air.
There is quite a bit of confusion at the airport. I notice the overwhelming police presence that reduces social life to an incredible slow pace. It seems that the true global reality is, nowadays, the ubiquitous presence of the police.

It takes a long time to get out of the airport.
My friend Marie is waiting outside to pick me up.
A not very long trip by car and we arrive at the place where I will be staying while in Ouagadougou.
I meet Marie’s husband and other people.
I am quite tired. I didn’t sleep properly the previous night.
After a short while they leave and allow me to go to bed.

March 1, Thursday

Today I am back at the Centre Culturel Français to check my mail. I find more than 250 message, most of them spam.

In and around the Centre Culturel there are always a lot of people. The Burkinabé, like many French-speaking Africans, have a love-hate relationship with the French. It is the same relationship one might have with a disliked but nevertheless envied master, one who repels and appeals at the same time.

For all the anti-capitalistic or anti-imperialistic jargon that intellectuals use when discussing Africa, here in Burkina Faso, or at least, as I can see for myself, in Ouagadougou, you find plenty of people who are money-oriented and very keen on trading with everybody. If they were left free to operate without the suffocating control and strictures of the state, they would transform Africa into the most capitalistic of the continents. Clearly by ‘capitalism’ should here be intended “free enterprise” and certainly not the rigged market we have in the West or the corrupt kleptocracy they currently have in Africa.

In Africa, much more than elsewhere, the state is a terrible scourge and the people seem unable to get rid of it. The desire to get rich quickly makes too many enterprising individuals accept the state as the surest and fastest road to riches, hoping only to be part of the profiteering clan.
It is a mixture of illusions, cynicism and sheer madness.

The state in Ouagadougou is visible everywhere. Even here, inside the Cultural Centre, there are quite a few soldiers and policemen. There is no need, in my view, for this sort of protection, other than, perhaps, to please the ex-colonizers. As a matter of fact, there is more reason to be afraid or just suspicious of these forces of ‘law and order’ than of the ordinary man in the street.

On leaving the Centre in order to reach a place known as “Cenasa” I have the silly idea of asking a person in uniform for directions. He sends me the wrong way. Probably he didn’t know where the “Cenasa” was, but still felt obliged to give me some kind of answer.

At the “Cenasa” they show two documentaries. One, “Requiem pour la revolution” by Jihan El-Tahri (Egypt) is about the intervention of the Cubans in Angola during the '70s and 80's. The other, “El ejido, la loi du profit” by Rhalib Jawad (Morocco) is about the pitiful conditions of Moroccan labourers in Andalusia (Spain), working in huge greenhouses to produce vegetables for export all over Europe.

The cinema is a modern building with many large air conditioners. Probably there was no need for them, because inside a building with decent insulation it is not hot. Nevertheless, a false sense of modernity, or alluring contracts and bribes, required them to be installed. It is madness Western-style, engineered by Africans in Africa. If anybody thinks that pollution and waste are just European or North American problems, he/she should think again.

March 2, Friday

The Film Festival is approaching its end.

Today there are two American films I am going to watch with M. They are not in the competition.
One is “Blood Diamond” by Edward Zwick, about the diamond trade in Sierra Leone and the terrible fight for its control. In one sequence from the film an old man living in a village says: We are lucky that there is no petrol here, otherwise we would all be lost.

This is the tragedy when one has material resources but not the moral and mental capability to use them to benefit humanity. Development requires wisdom and decency. In fact, we could say that development is wisdom and decency. Money is not at all the decisive factor that most economists want us to believe.

It is a pity that the existence of an economist revolves around money as the subject matter of his/her study and as a way of earning a living. Maybe it is because of this that they come to think that everything depends on money.
The political economist is the bane of our times as the rapacious priest was at the time of Church dominance.

March 8, Thursday

Today, International Women’s Day, is a national holiday here in Burkina Faso.

In the morning Marie and I board a coach and leave Ouagadougou with all its dust and noise. Direction: Bobo-Dioulasso and then a village near Banfora.
I am quite excited about going to the countryside.

I have the impression that the further we get from Ouagadougou, the more vegetation we encounter. So, it’s not all desert.
I am quite pleased about this. The greening of Africa should be one of the priorities of the Africans.

From time to time we reach toll barriers. They are a way of extracting revenues from the peasants who use the road to bring their products to the market.

Around 3.00 p.m. we reach Bobo-Dioulasso. The city, the second largest in Burkina Faso, seems at first sight better organized than Ouagadougou, and less parasitic.

At 3.30 p.m. we board another coach: direction Banfora. The coach is, as usual, full up, and I guess this might be a quite common occurrence. Some have to wait for the next departure. I don’t know why it is so difficult to organize a decent system of transport, especially when there is an unsatisfied demand, which means people are ready to pay for the service.

By the way, the fact that the railways don’t work effectively is, in my view, a scandal. A train could carry hundreds of passengers, at a regular speed, more comfortably seated, and with a reduced amount of pollution.

A bit before 5.00 p.m. we reach the village of Takaledougou. It is a nice place, with some stalls along the main road for selling goods and, behind them, the huts where people live.

Marie was worried about my staying in the village because there is no electricity, no running water, and no proper toilet. I reassured her by saying that this is not a problem; it would be like going camping.

Immediately after touring the village I can’t stop thinking about what needs to be improved. I suppose this has to do with the fact that the scientific method (of problem-finding and problem-solving) has been deeply implanted in the way of thinking of many westerners. So, if we see something that is not up to standard, that thing is taken as a problem to be solved by searching for a possible remedy in the nearest repository of data, in this case the brain.

Certainly the people who live here are so accustomed to this environment that they don’t see any problem and so do not look for a solution.

In the evening, accompanied by the children of the village, I go to see people dancing, celebrating International Women’s Day. The music is very loud, and the dancers are mostly men.

When I go to bed in my hut, the music follows me and I take quite a while before falling asleep.

March 9, Friday

In the morning I am woken by the cocks with their loud crowing, repeated over and over again. Mentally, I give myself permission to strangle each one of them.

Later on, I discover that people in the village are so used to it that they do not even notice. It is like the noise of motorcars in a city. We are not bothered by it because it has become part of our auditory environment.

I have my shower, consisting of a bucket of hot water to sprinkle and pour all over my body. The evening before, when I had my first shower, I was so anxious not to waste water that I left the bucket half full. So, at the end, my friend Marie asked if I had really washed myself. The fact is that it is incredible how little water is needed if only one is very careful with it.

What I can't do, at least not yet, is adapt to the toilet. The so-called toilet is an enclosed space with a corrugated roof and, inside, a hole in the ground; you cannot even stand up for a proper piss because there is not enough height to accommodate you.

Today the programme is to go to Banfora by motorbike to see the site where Marie and I hope to build a school if we can find the money to finance the project. I discover that it is in a lovely spot on the outskirts of the town, with a nice view of the river flanked by a row of trees. I sincerely hope that we will be able to transform our idea into reality.

[If you are interested in the development of the project and want to be kept informed about it, send me a message at gianpiero-debellis at(@) tiscali.co.uk and you will receive an update from time to time]

The road from the village to Banfora has sugar-cane fields on both sides. Nearby there is a factory producing sugar that employs around 3000 people. The daily wages to cut the cane, I am told, are 600 CFA (less than 1 euro). A bottle of beer here can cost from 350 CFA upwards.

I am also told that some of what the "independent" peasants produce goes to the state that then pays them. Here it seems that they are still waiting to receive the money for the last harvest.
So, the rural workers either receive a pittance or have to wait ages before being paid.

Peasants here, as in the rest of Africa, are the most exploited group. Ayittey, in his books, calls them the atingas. But absolute exploitation is endured by the women who work the fields. Most of them are, usually, doubly exploited: by the state rulers (the politicians) who belittle them and by their domestic rulers (their husbands) who rely on them for most of the work outside and inside the house.

That is why so-called progressive westerners, such as Bob Geldof or Bono, who channel money to African governments and associate themselves with western leaders, are misguided morons whose actions are in fact helping to maintain this disgraceful state of affairs.

In the afternoon we return to the village after having bought a ball in the market. I had promised it the day before to the children. Before evening we all play volleyball. The children emit loud cries every time someone hits the ball and keeps it in the air. It takes very little to make us joyful.

When I see Marie later on she tells me that, during our absence, in the afternoon, the old woman who is the mother of Jean (Marie's husband) and was the wife of the chef of the village has been sitting in front of the door of my hut because I didn't lock it and she was afraid somebody might enter and steal something. What a caring thought!
It makes you wonder if we really need the police always and everywhere.
As a matter of fact, there is no police in the village other than those, on the main road, who stop the peasants charging them for the right to move from one place to the other. More state bandits than providers of security.

When it is dark, after dinner under a mango tree, the children come again to sing and dance for Marie and me.
Then it is time to go to bed.

March 10, Saturday

Today, finally, I am ready to overcome my toilet-shyness (let's put it this way).
It is all a question of habit. Anyway, a civilized person should be flexible enough to adapt to all customs, apart from those which are inhuman and completely irrational.

The programme for the day is to go and visit "les cascades." Meanwhile, waiting for the car that will take us (Marie, two brothers of Marie's husband and me) there, we sit under the mango tree and we start chatting. The conversation centres mainly on relationships between the sexes. I discover that, in Burkina Faso also, there are more than a few sexual betrayals and affairs. Then the subject moves to witchcraft which, here, is taken very seriously and accepted as a matter of fact. I advance my doubts and that's all I can do.  We talk also about the local economy and one of J's brothers says he would like to set up a pig house (porcherie) if it were not for lack of resources. I ask him how much he would need to start the project. After a short pause, he answers: 1 million CFA. I do the calculations: it amounts to 1500 euro.
Then I ask: Will you be able to give this sum back within a certain number of years if somebody lends it to you? Almost immediately he replies: Yes.
In that case, I add, I will give you the money.
It is my first experience of micro-credit.

Soon afterwards, we start our short journey towards the cascades.
The area is unbelievably beautiful. It is a series of waterfalls, both big and small, all surrounded by magnificent natural scenery.
There are quite a few westerners camping or just visiting for the day. It is really a place worth coming to. I have never seen anything like it.

After that we drive to Lake Tengréla, our road running alongside well-cultivated, irrigated fields. There are plenty of rice and maize and sugar-cane fields, and mango trees everywhere. It could be mistaken for Europe at its best as far as agriculture is concerned. So, why those ridiculously low wages and the lack of basic utilities and facilities? Then you connect this situation with the palace that the president is building in Ouagadougou (and all the palaces and extravagances of his entourage) and you realize where the money goes.

The nature of the problem in Africa is not economic but political (too much of it) and ethical (too little of it).
The only answer: a peasants' revolution.

In the evening, while taking my shower, the idea occurs to me once again that the (metaphorical) suppression of all intellectuals and politicians is the indispensable condition for the Africans, especially those living in the countryside, to enjoy the fruits of their work.

After darkness falls, under the mango tree in front of my hut, the children come to sing as they had done the previous evening. It is a nice way to end the day.

March 11, Sunday

This is my last day in the village.
I have arranged with the children to go for a walk to a nearby pond.
We leave in a group at about 10.30 a.m.

The vegetation all around us is luxuriant. There is still the impression of extreme dryness because of the red colour of the soil, but then you start noticing small allotment gardens full of all sorts of vegetables and you realize how fertile the land is. If you add to it the ready availability of sun and water, you know that you are in the presence of an extraordinary combination.

Once we reach the pond some of the children jump into it. The water is a repulsive dark, uninviting colour, especially after reading stories of infected bathers in my Lonely Planet health booklet.

After a short break, we continue our walk to reach a high plateau from which we have a fine view of the village.
Remaining in the shadow of a tree, we start talking about the many things that could be done in the village. I suggest to one of them who is a mechanic that he should start a taxi service between the village and Banfora, the closest town. The service, in my view, should follow a regular timetable and the taxi should leave even if there are no passengers at one point because they could be waiting at the other end of the journey.
On the spur of the moment, I suggest to others careers such as agronomist or water engineer.

One of the boys in the group is perplexed by what I say. He has previously told me that he wants to be the chief of the village. Now it seems almost that he feels that, if everybody becomes independent and plays an active role, there will be no room left for the role of chief.

In the afternoon, while sitting having tea with my friend Marie and some of her brothers-in-law, it occurs to me that they could start a project of eco-tourism or discovery-tourism. Individuals from abroad could come to the village and be accommodated in one of the huts. Food could be prepared for them at a very reasonable price and the travellers (just a few in number) could be helped to discover the place (the stunning waterfalls, the lake, the rocks of Sindou) and to experience the life of a Burkinabé village: no electricity, no running water, no comfortable toilet but good simple food and plenty of sympathy and warmth.

For most westerners living in big towns it would be a salutary shock. For the people in the village too it would be a fruitful shock, especially if the "guests" pushed them and, perhaps, showed them how to provide increasingly better services. What Africans do not need are the charitable and politically correct white morons who justify bad conditions with the excuse of previous awful exploitation or present poor environment. 

Instead, what can make a valid contribution, at least in my opinion, are critical and rational human beings with whom to exchange interesting ideas and useful suggestions. It will then be up to the locals to use, modify, adapt or refuse what emerges from this cultural interchange.

The eco-tourist-adventure project for the village of TAKALEDOUGOU is, for the moment, only a work in progress. If you are interested and would like to be involved or would like to be one of the first to have that experience, please write to me at gianpiero-debellis at(@) tiscali.co.uk and I will provide you with the latest information.

March 12, Monday

Bobo-Dioulasso is the second largest town in terms of number of inhabitants but it is superior to Ouagadougou (or at least so it seems to me) in all the rest: less dusty, less chaotic, less noisy, less parasitic. It is, in fact, an agro-industrial centre with a colourful vibrant market.

My friend Marie has gone back to Ouagadougou for a few days so I remain in the house that belonged to her parents and where one of Marie's sisters now stays. She will look after me. The building has got an internal courtyard with entrances to other families’ accommodation and is the area where cooking and washing take place.

In the afternoon, after a brief rest, I start exploring the town. The road leading to the city centre is lined, on both sides, with shops and workshops.
I reach a roundabout with a statue honouring the peasants. Less celebration and more facts is my immediate mental reaction.
I continue walking and I arrive at a place where all sorts of vegetables are piled up for sale. The sheer quantity and the vivacity of colour of the goods are extraordinary.
I carry on until I reach a sign indicating the way to the market.

The Central Market of Bobo-Dioulasso is an amazing place. Forget Marrakesh or other celebrated markets that have become just tourist showcases or traps for tourists. It is time to discover new places and Bobo-Dioulasso Central Market might be one of them.
Here you can find almost everything produced on earth.

I enter by the side where rolls of cloth are displayed, and they are not only sold but also cut to size and sewn.
I am immediately so taken by the atmosphere that I decide that this market needs to be made known to a larger public. So I start collecting information from some of the vendors and I ask for their business cards. I list some of them here:

Nouroudine Diallo, vendeur de Basin (a ribbed damask cloth) Brodé (a rich embroidered cloth) de toute qualité – hangar 2334, Entrée Diaradougou

Kante Chekul, Batiques (checkkan at(@) yahoo.fr)

Sore Boukary – Secteur E, Hangar 317 (sorebouka at(@) yahoo.fr)

Papa Tranquille, vente des objects d'arts Bogolan, Batiques, Bronze – Hangar 1390, Secteur E4

I hope very soon each one of them will open a website showing their goods to the world.

After leaving the market I walk towards a large edifice which I discover to be the cathedral of Bobo, but it is closed. Then my curiosity is attracted by another big white building that is the railway station. A waste of a building, in my opinion, considering that the railway service is appallingly bad.

There I am approached by a young man and we start chatting. He is from Banfora and now lives in Bobo doing odd jobs, sometimes acting as a guide to tourists. Then it occurs to me that he should be involved in my publicity effort to bring curious tourists to this city. So here is his e-mail address (hemamanul at(@) yahoo.fr). You can get in touch with him if you are visiting the town and he could be of some assistance.

You can also contact, for info and assistance, a very nice woman, Mariam Koné, who wants to become a guide for tourists visiting the town. Her e-mail address is: konemariam2008 at(@) yahoo.fr

I decide to invite the young man for a beer and we start talking about the many opportunities that Africa offers, too many to count if it were not for the lack of self-confidence and the absence of will power of many locals. This is what I say to him and he is surprised by my words. He says that he has never heard such things said by a European. By now I know this well. To express critical ideas and to encourage people to take up entrepreneurial activities and improve their living conditions is now something well beyond the mindset of the average European, who has lived for decades under the nanny state.

In the evening, in front of another beer, I talk about all my casual meetings of that afternoon to the brother-in-law of my friend Marie.
It has been a long day.
I am really enjoying my time in Africa. 

March 13, Tuesday

Today, after my usual writing and reading in the morning, I did some keep fit exercises, outside under the porch, facing the outer wall. After a while I realized that, behind me, two children were copying my movements. It is amazing to see the process of learning by imitation in action.

For lunch Marie’s sister prepares couscous with fish, dressed with fish sauce. It is a delicious dish. Then I have French fries and I end the meal with an orange and a papaya. I bet that if I stayed here in Burkina Faso for a few months I would put on weight. As a matter of fact you don't see malnourished people here. They are just in the reports of journalists and as a result of civil wars.

(By the way, to call a war "civil" is a silly invention of silly historians who are more used to making up stories than researching deeply and presenting the real events critically).

In the afternoon I go out again to explore the town.
I reach a particular point and am rather unsure as to the direction for the Grand Mosque. A boy approaches me and very soon, in a timid manner, asks for money, 100 CFA, the equivalent of 10p in England. I explain that there is no reason for me to give him any money, not having received anything from him. It wouldn't be a proper exchange. Somebody (i.e. I) would be the net loser.

I then ask for directions to the Grand Mosque and he offers to take me there. We pass through the old town, along an almost dry river bed where, here and there, piles and piles of garbage have been and still continue to be dumped. People’s neglect of the environment where they live makes my heart bleed. A bit of care wouldn't cost very much and it would make a lot of difference.

While we are walking through the old town somebody approaches us demanding  payment. According to him we are supposed to buy a ticket to enter that area. He is just a thug, a bloody nuisance. Probably, in due time he will become a state official and he will charge and exploit people under cover of the law.
These sorts of things are the curse of Africa.

I will never become tired of repeating that it is not what the Europeans have taken away from Africa in terms of resources that has generated its backwardness, but what they have left, namely the apparatus of the state, the ideology of statism, the petty bureaucracy, the invented borders. Moreover, the financial assistance bestowed on the state rulers since independence has strengthened and enlarged the state structure and its rapacious power. The Mafia State dominates in most parts of Africa with the collusion and support of its godfathers and mentors, the European States.

It is an alliance made in hell and presented to the gullible public as "aid for development."
On the contrary, it has been, for decades, the road to permanent underdevelopment and backwardness.

March 15, Thursday

For today I have planned a visit to the Museum of Bobo-Dioulasso.
The museum consists of two large rooms displaying local crafts, with themes such as fertility or power.
There are also objects from daily life, such as chairs.
The collection is quite small, with explanations only in French, handwritten on old paper, and the ink has faded almost to invisibility. They could and should do much better.

Outside, within the compound, there are two full-size models of huts: one built of red mud and the other made of straw. To me, they are the best part of the exhibition.

Within the museum there is also a shop selling masks and musical instruments. The person running the shop is Kalifa Dembele.
He introduces himself as: fabricant d'instruments traditionels au Musée provincial du Houet (maker of traditional musical instruments at the Museum of Houet).
He also sells hand-dyed fabric (tablecloths and napkins).

From the list he photocopied for me at my request I see that he sells, in the way of musical instruments, Balafon (a wooden, keyed percussion idiophone like a xylophone) and Djembes (a skin-covered hand drum). The prices for the Balafon vary according to the number of wooden keys. The one with 11 keys is priced at 6000 CFA (less than10 euro or around 6 pounds) and the professional one with 25 keys is priced at 95000 CFA (around 150 euro or 100 pounds).
For the Djembes the price is related to the circumference. For the very small one, the price is 15000 CFA (25 euro) and it reaches 30000 CFA (50 euro) for the large one. 

If you want information about the current price of these musical instruments email him at: kalifa_dembele at(@)yahoo.fr

In the afternoon my friend Marie has organized a talk on AIDS (SIDA) on behalf of the IRD. It is held in a secondary school that here are most privately set up and run.

There are about 50 students in a large classroom and when the lecturer enters they all stand up. I am quite surprised by this. I am no longer used to this kind of respectful behaviour. Generally speaking I have the impression that youngsters in Europe don’t have the faintest idea that such politeness could exist anywhere.

The conference is very interesting, with plenty of questions from the audience. Here, access to information about AIDS and to free medical tests seems to be a matter of fact. Condoms are readily available in pharmacies and at a reasonable price (3 condoms for the equivalent of less than 1 euro). Also the medicines to fight the virus are available at a dramatically reduced cost (5000 CFA per month, which is the equivalent of 8 euro or around 5 pounds). For children up to 15 years of age medicine against AIDS is free.
The thoughtfulness and care of some organizations active in this area has produced good results.

When the talk is over I go outside to explore the school grounds. The school caters for more than 2000 students. The buildings have two storeys and are made of red brick. There is plenty of space for playing football and practising other sports. What is missing, from my point of view, is better organization of the different spaces and a touch of colour that could be provided by planting flowers.

March 16, Friday

Today there is another presentation to a different group of students. The topic is: eau douce, eau rare (fresh water, scarce water). Unfortunately the lecturer fell ill at the last moment. There will be a replacement, but the new person will only be able to comment on the large posters that introduce the subject. The rest will be left to the debate, hoping that the questions will not be too technical.

The talk is held in another secondary school and, to my surprise, here too participation is very high. The debate is a success. The number of questions is so overwhelming that, after 2 hours of very interesting and lively discussion, at 7.00 p.m., when it is getting dark, the moderator decides it is time to go home.

Here the students, from what I’ve seen of them, offer a totally different impression from those in Europe. In them there is not a hint of arrogance, boredom or disrespect. As a matter of fact they might perhaps appear too deferential.
I sincerely hope that none of them will enter la fonction publique; that is, become civil servants in the Mafia state.

Before the talk starts I ask a student sitting next to me how many years study he has before finishing secondary school and he replies that next year he will get his baccalaureate.

I then enquire what his future will be like after that.
He wants to go to the capital to study economics at university.

My first reaction is to say: forget the dusty, noisy, polluted Ouagadougou and stay in Bobo, a much more liveable city. And then I add, referring to his choice of studying economics: do you know that economics is marred by a terrible crisis? It is a so-called science that has no scientific foundations but is based only on the political exigencies of the ruling class. That is why it is also called political economy.

My stay in Africa has reinforced my conviction that the political economists of the Western world have done nothing other than promote dependency and corruption, ensconced in their air-conditioned hotels and driving through countries in their air-conditioned 4x4 cars, oblivious of local reality and only interested in being well paid for promoting gigantic, worthless projects, useful only to the ruling élites. They are one of the most despicable groups of charlatans that ever appeared on the face of the earth. I hope my interlocutor will not become one of them.

March 17, Saturday

Today my friend Marie and her two sisters, the eldest and the youngest, will meet to discuss the arrangements for the wedding of their little brother (the one who transports goods with his lorry). The wedding will take place at the end of May.

The three sisters have different characters, but all rather strong.
The eldest has got a lively personality; she is divorced, with 5 children.
The youngest has 4 children and, at the moment, is having problems with her husband.
In the middle there is my friend Marie, a mother of 4, she too with an independent personality.

The conversation starts, half in French and half in their native mother tongue, which is why I do not understand everything they are saying. I notice only that the tone of voice is rising to a high pitch in the exchanges between the eldest and the youngest sisters.
Nevertheless, I am not prepared for the small drama that unfolds in front of me when the eldest, in whose house we presently are, asks the youngest to leave.
I can't believe it. I can't believe what I hear.

Then the youngest stands up and moves away as if to go.
I have to act immediately I can't remain a passive spectator while this sort of thing happens. So I find myself, suddenly, in the difficult, unlooked-for, role of mediator.

 First I go to talk to the youngest and I beg her not to leave. Then I go to the hostess and I ask her to make peace with her sister. I say that it is the eldest that has to make the first move, whatever has happened.
The air is tense. No one wants to start the process of reconciliation.
Finally the eldest says that she will apologize for having told her sister to go.
But now it is the turn of the youngest to be stubborn and refuse to make up.

We could be in ancient Greece or in Chekhov’s Russia or, as happens in this case, in 21^st century Burkina Faso, with the eternal drama of family tensions coming out into the open from time to time.
Eventually, she also retreats from her position and we have a cathartic moment with gestures of mutual reconciliation.
Then the reunion can restart and it will be a good one, conducted in a calm atmosphere and fruitful, given the series of decisions they will take.

People here are not much different from the other billions of individuals that populate this small planet.
As remarked by Henry Murray and Clyde Kluckhohn towards the middle of last century, we are, in certain respects:

a. like all other people,

b. like some other people,

c. like no other person.

Anyway, if there are no substantial differences in human nature between the people of the earth, there is something that is typical of the places I have visited in Burkina Faso and it is like a scar on its face. Maybe, if I lived here long enough, I would in the end not notice it anymore.

You find piles of it everywhere, and now you also have the black plastic bags that people use for carrying goods, dumped everywhere, sometimes flying through the air.

My friend Marie and I go for a walk around her neighbourhood, we enter various courtyards and everywhere I see uncollected rubbish and stagnant water.

In a courtyard I am offered a glass of the local beer. The place is like an open-air brasserie with people sitting on one side drinking, while nearby pigs are rooting in a pig-sty surrounded by dung and mud.
Flies are circulating around my glass of beer, eager to share it with me.

How can people live like this? How can it be that all this disgusting rubbish doesn’t bother them? The fact is that it is part of human nature to get used to everything, the bad and awful as much as the good and beautiful.

March 18, Sunday

Today it is time to leave Bobo-Dioulasso and go back to Ouagadougou.

I will remember with a tinge of nostalgia the days spent in Bobo.
In the morning, breakfast with tea and local pancakes under the porch, then the walks around town and the casual encounters. In the evening we used to have green salad and tomatoes and avocadoes and sometimes couscous with fish and fried bananas. I have made everybody forget about red meat and become a bit vegetarian. People here are so kind that they do everything to please you, even changing their eating habits.
Almost all of the neighbours come to say good-bye to us when we get into the taxi to go to the coach station.

On the bus, during our journey, a casual remark from my friend Marie is like a bolt from the blue, as if, by chance, I had perhaps found an explanation to a problem that has been at the back of my mind for weeks.
I was telling her that, contrary to what I expected, there are not many mosquitoes in Burkina Faso. You can be bitten more severely in some places in Italy during the summer, with worse pain and itching. She replies that there are more mosquitoes during the rainy season. Then she adds a precious bit of information: the rain falling on piles of rubbish creates pools of standing water where insects and mosquitoes proliferate.

Bang! It is like an illumination. Rubbish favours the presence and multiplication of mosquitoes that bite humans, injecting the disease of malaria (paludisme). Dispose of the garbage and you would dramatically reduce, if not eradicate, malaria (a disease which should be called after its preferred bad habitat – malhabitat - rather than from bad air - malaria).
We are back to the problem of cleanliness of the environment.

If the above is true, then we do not need astronomically expensive anti-malaria tablets, we do not need a vaccine against malaria. In any case, who wants to be vaccinated in order to continue living safely amid excrement and garbage?
In Ouagadougou I have seen people having a drink sitting a few steps from an open-air drain full of rubbish. Imagine when it rains, and mosquitoes make their homes on top of all of that, and people crowd around it. It is like asking for the chance to have your injection of malaria every time you go and sit in such a bar.
To my knowledge, I have never read, clear and loud, of this connection between dirt and malaria. Perhaps it is politically incorrect to point it out.

We reach Ouagadougou, which is engulfed in a cloud of hot dusty air. Frankly, I do not like this city. Fortunately I only have to remain here a few more days.

In the evening I have an interesting discussion with two young people sent by Marie to bring me a lemon for my sore throat. As usual the conversation turns to the corruption of the state and the lack of freedom (liberalization in today's parlance).

Later on, after they have left, it dawns on me that there are three big "villains" in this third-world development business:

1. Political economists (the intellectuals: the manipulative mind)
2. Political rulers (the state: the voracious belly)
3. Providers of aid (the NGOs, non governmental organizations which are, quite often, simply not good organizations: the soporific soul). 

With these actors, each one justifying and covering up for the other, it is unlikely that the Africans will emerge as protagonists of their own lives. So we should put all three of them out of business as a way to begin anew the history of Africa.