Optimism for a change…

Thank you.

Your comments and reactions on the price of cereal and subsidies were much appreciated. You made me realize that my last message wasn’t really happy and encouraging. And since media has taken over the food price increase subject, I bet you’re feeling even worse now.

Yet the past two months have shown me that there are tremendous opportunities in Burkina. It’s some of that good spirit I would like to share with you. The march and april sun contributed largely to the mood, so I’ll make sure to share images with you. Let’s start with mangoes…

Mango flowers came out almost three months ago.

They progressively yielded tiny green balls.

Those grew steadily…

and changed color

Such that today, it’s harvest time.

Mango is the fruit Burkina exports the most. Have you ever bought a mango at your grocery store?

Did you get lucky enough to find a big one, just ripe, not too green, not to rotten?

Did you delicately slice it and tasted the sweet yellow flesh?

Then you have not even scratched the surface of how good a mango can be.

I recommend you make the trip to Burkina in late April. Tasting one mango will make flying worthwhile. Or you can go back to your grocery store and ask for West African mangoes. You can also ask Alanna more details about mangoes, she’s the expert in our team.

April is also the months when cashew nuts ripen. They take much less time, and the harvest is shorter. Maybe three weeks, maximum.

At that time, we start to see women walking into town with neatly arranged cashew apples on platters, on their heads. The apples are really juicy and sweet. They taste a bit like strawberry gum. One can process them into juice, wine or liquor. The nuts are collected and sold for export or for local processing (5 to 10% of total production).

Below I am in Banfora. I just bargained an 80kg bag for 10,000 Fcfa (~CDN25). It’s April 4^th, 2008. The date is important as the cashew price fluctuates very fast.

That’s why many of the small collectors are tempted to speculate with the nuts.

One of the major influences on the nut price is the arrival and departure of the major international purchasers from India. Once they get in the region, the nut price increases, as their collectors are searching for nuts quickly rather than cheaply. When they leave, the price drops, and small purchasers and local processors come into the game.

Since no one wants to get stuck with a bunch of bags at their farm gate, producers tend to sell fast, to the first client they get, whatever the price. This tendancy is changing with the recent creation of producers groups.

March and April are also the period for irrigated vegetable growing. Bobo is privileged to be served by many farmers with tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers all year round.

It is also the period for tree blossoms. Quite a sight.

Néré flowers are intense red balls. They yielded long beans late april. Those dried and their seeds are now pounded into a flour called soumbala. This is a spice flavoring a lot of dishes here. Yummy.

Bougainvilleas are also in full blossom

And we found tiny flowers which we don’t know the name of, but are nice anyways.

In April we also had the pleasure to welcome seven newcomers in our home. They don’t take much room. I can’t wait for the chicken soup…

This one just got out of its shell. Its eyes are still shut.

The two mothers help the chicks find stuff in the backyard’s gravel.

We also recently welcomed a guinea fowl (can’t wait for the soup either…) It’s a one-legged male. The thights are still there though, it’s just missing one foot so no worries for the soup. Its foot was lost as it stepped on a trapper’s trap. You’d think it won’t be hard to catch it on soup day. Well, Alanna and I have tried and failed. Two people outsmarted by a one-legged guinea fowl…

So there it is. Possibilities for enterprise here are enormous. It boggles my mind how much one could do with the land, the sun, the animals, the flowers here in Burkina. Not all is gloomy and desperate, quite the contrary. Yet I think you and I have a big role to play in making sure everyone lives a life of opportunities. Here is a small attempt at two steps:

- Make sure that people in the north and the west are more open to free trade. Subsidies at home kill entrepreneurialism everywhere else. It means that when our government assures you they will keep subsidizing our country’s cattle with hopes you’ll vote for them, remember that it means someone in Burkina will have to sell his cattle at a loss.

- Make sure that our government sticks up to the commitment it made in 1970 in front of all western heads of states but has yet to respect: to attribute 0.7% of GNP to bilateral aid.

Once again, I greatly appreciated your comments. I hope to have left you with a sense of optimism this time and that you won’t hesitate to comment again.

Talk to you soon.

Boris