Djibo

Thursday it took us just over 5 hours to drive from Ouagadougou to Djibo. Kongoussi (where Liz and I stayed for operation Christian child) was about our half way way point and the town name means ‘end of the road’, after seeing the road after Kongoussi I began to see why: the road after Kongoussi isn`t paved. We were constantly avoiding potholes (as well as goats and cows that seem to flock to the road as soon as a vehicle approaches) and driving over road that felt more like a washboard than anything else. However we were blessed with an overcast day and that in conjunction with a little AC kept the temperatures inside the car cool and the drive was pleasant.

When we were in Djibo we stayed with a missionary family that is working with the Fulani. They were wonderful and planned a full weekend for us. It was a perfect combination of out visiting villages and hanging out doing movie nights, or sitting and chatting learning more about the work in Djibo and people there. One night we even all cooked a curry which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Thursday afternoon we went out to a Touareg camp. The Touareg are not native to Burkina Faso they are a nomadic tribe but here in Burkina for the most part they are refugees from Mali. We drank tea with them and then rode camels. I enjoyed the camel ride; it was short but sweet. Camels are so much bigger than I thought they would be, and make the strangest noise (almost a cross between a growl and a purr- it’s a very guttural noise). After the camel ride we drank another cup of tea and then went down to the well. The well there is a very shallow well (only 30m deep) but it looked plenty deep to me: most of the wells are closed wells so I don’t get a chance to look down in them but this one I could look right down as they dropped the bucket (an old petrol container) down. They used a pulley and a camel to draw the water from the well which was fascinating to watch. After our visit to the well we had dinner with our Touareg “guide" Mohammed.

Above: A Touareg man, an behind him one of their homes. The refugees that have been in Burkina for a long time have built mud brick homes, but the ones that have come more recently have a shelter like you see in the picture there.

The Touareg were a fascinating group. I didn’t have the opportunity to interact much with the women but I saw a little of the difference in how the male/female relationships work in the work as opposed to other people groups in Burkina. The Touareg men will serve the women food first, the men will do work like drawing water, the men and women eat together- I like it a lot! For dinner we had rice and sauce and a small amount of guinea fowl. We ate with traditional wooden spoons and out of a communal bowl and of course when it started getting dark it just got dark because out in the village there is no electricity to speak of. After more tea Mohammed offered us camel milk. It was still warm but the warmth didn’t bother me (I thought it would). It was a creamy milk, I thought fairly comparable to cows milk and I thought it was very delicious.

Friday morning a few of us went on a tour of the hospital. There are 3 hospitals or clinics in Djibo but the one we visited is run by a missionary who has been in Burkina Faso since before it was Burkina Faso (Upper Volta then). I was amazed to discover people travel from the Ivory Coast to seek medical care at his clinic and during the dry season and does 100-200 surgeries a month (he is the only doctor at the hospital). Later on as a group we also visited the churches Fulani pastor. He told us some of his testimony and gave me insight to the severity of the persecution people here can suffer when they abandon their religion for the Christian faith.

Saturday morning we visited the Djibo hill. A short walk brought us to the top of the hills but gave us a beautiful view of Djibo and the surrounding areas. At the bottom of the hill is an ancient burial ground. It’s estimated the remains are between 500-1000 years old. The bodies were buried with clay pots and facing mecca. It’s been unearthed by rain and so we were able to see skulls and pots in the ground as we walked. It was interesting to see a little part of history.
Above: Our group at the top of Djibo hill

Next we visited a Fulani village. The village was 24km out of Djibo but it took us 45 minutes to get there because of bad road conditions. There is a man that attends the Fulani church that rides his bike in every Sunday to church from the village. He says it’s not so bad because he used to have to walk.The Fulani village looked tiny, but since they raise cattle mostly they live very spread out from each other and so we didn’t see everyone from the village. They had no shade to speak of in the village except for a few hangars they had constructed and one small tree. The village has two wells, one they dug themselves and one that was done for them by a group called Friends in Action. They took us to visit their well, showed us a newborn cow (an hour old!) and served us tea, niery (Fulani to) and bouille. The niery was made from millet as opposed to the to I’m accustomed to that is made from corn and so it tasted very different. I think I prefer the corn to, but the niery was fun to try and had a very funky colour (it was a little like eating playdo texture wise and colour wise, but the taste was something totally different althogether). Bouilee is a little like cream of wheat with sugar cooked into it. We drank it from large spoons out of a communal bowl and it was tasty although sometimes I wasn’t nuts over getting the lumps in the Bouille. We spent most of the time at the Fulani village chatting and sitting in a little mud hut they’d constructed. I was shocked to discover how cool the huts stay in the heat- the walls don’t radiate heat like concrete walls!The Fulani language and culture is very different from that of the Mossi and I enjoyed the opportunity to learn a little more about one of Burkina’s other people groups.

Above: The Fulani at their well. The previous picture was a typical Fulani home.

How can you pray?Pray for the Fulani. I learned of an upcoming meeting with some Fulani leaders in Burkina Faso. They plan to discuss pulling all Fulani children out of school. There are social facets to this but mostly this is a religious move. They fear that if the Fulani children are educated they will abandon their faith.Pray for those who are ministering to the Fulani. It is a true labour of love for the lord. It is a difficult job and the missionaries often see little fruits from their labour. Pray they will be encouraged.Pray that God will raise up people to work with the Touareg in Burkina Faso. Currently they are a large population here and there is no one working with them and ministering to them in Burkina.
Djibo was hot but I didn’t suffer from the heat like I expected I would. It was hot during the day but certainly bearable and at night since I slept outside it was cool and I slept wonderfully! Most nights I even needed a sheet because it got so cool (around 27C or so.) We drove back to Ouagadougou Sunday afternoon and today (Monday) Liz and I will take the bus back to Yako. Thank the Lord for safe travels on the road and for good health while travelling.