life at ouaga1

Hi from Cristina to all euroafricain friends!!

Zaka ramba??!! Here time is great, the rains started to fall, the climate getting fresh and it’s very fine now.

Todays I wants to introduce you the place where I live, Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. It have a population of about 1 million, and it’s the ancient capital of the Mossi Kingdom, the most common group ethnic that reigned from the 15-19th centuries. The Mossi were one of the few tribes to effectively resist the Fulani armies and their call to become Muslims en masse. Today, Islam is increasingly strong there, but there are also many Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, and the religions generally live peacefully alongside each other. The centre town today is developed and there are of course the banks, hotels, restaurants, swimming pools, etc. But just a few meters of the centre town you can start to see the real suburb and way of life of burkinabè peole. I live in the sector 19, unplanned sprawls of mud-brick or cement houses. The yards (zaka in mossi language) are filled with communities of family members and friends, and this reflects the values of hospitality, respect, and community typical of the village. As Modeste says, Burkina Faso is one of the most poor country of the world, but solidarity and life in community are ordinary, unlike of our “occidental” and individualism way of life; this it’s been a very positive lesson of life to me. At 5h30 in the morning the little general shops of the road starts to open. Women at the board of the streets prepare the food in the large container to sell in little plastic bag for less than 1 euro (rice with tomatoes or peanuts’s sauce, beans, athieke, fish fries, etc.. ). There are also a bit of “restaurant”, the “maquis” where you can eat rice with meat or fish, spaghetti (!!) and the “sagbo”, the traditional plat made with mais or manioca’s flour. It’s easy to see also in the street woman’s crush grains in the typical big bowl to made flour and sell in in the street’s of Ouaga or at the street market of the sectors-town. Then the man travel often at the “boutique”, very little shops where there are all sort of things (soap, food, drink, phone card, radio and ironmonger, etc..). In the place where I live there are not a lot of car’s, but just “ancient” bike and motorbike of course, and as you can imagine, there are a lot of mechanic’s man in the streets..:) In the evening the men’s like to meets and join amongs them in their “zaka”, or in the street . They talk and pass the time drinking the traditional thè burkinabè, or card; it’s a sort of sacred ritual here.. This remind's me when I lived in my little town in Sardegna (Italy) when I was just a children..The young women’s like to meets to talk each other’s while making nice braids in fronts of their house. In the night at Ouaga joung people (that are affords to pay) goes to dance in the “maquis”, a sort of disco’s bar where you can drink “Brakina” the most common beer here, and have fun with ‘coupè de Calais", the musique dance burkinabè. But I really appreciate sure the Dolo (chapalo in mossi language), the traditional African beer made with “sumbalà grains”. It’s usually drank in calibass during the “kermesse”, the evening-party joined in the old streets and sector’s of Ouagadougou.

Then, the children’s goes to school very late in the morning, and then they help’s the family to clean dishes, houses and habits. They plays with poor’s materials (they love football of course), but a lot of them have to work hard to help the family (it’s easy to see them to hang hand-carts, to do mongering peddling or to manage caravan of cow or donkeys). It’s impossible fill up the blog with all photos that I would show you, but very soon I will publish other’s one of course. At least I want’s just to mention the orphans that walk in the street of Ouaga with a little tin. They stayed near the client’s table of restaurant’s and wait patiently to peak or “sweep up” residue of food to the plat’s of the clients. Also this is Ouaga, here poverty is very very developed, but thank’s at Association as Dunia la vie children’s can take care of them and find a place to start dream again…

In one of the photos you can see the future artist’s of Mjca, the childrens whom I'm preparing a musical to play in tournèe at Ouagadougou. They listens with attention the precious recommends of our mentor Yasmina Badolo, my tutor and President of Mjca..

Then, bill fu (see you soon), and take care!

Joy- Cristina