I went to three construction sites in different parts of the country The first was near Ouaga and not large on the map. The second passed through both Dedougou and Nouna in the center-west. And the third part was in Banfora, quite near the border with Cote D'Ivoire.
This was a shot I snapped while driving outside of Ouaga - very dry and dusty terrain in this pic, but it was very cool to see the landscape change completely as we drove south and west towards Banfora, which is much more tropical. I put an artsy filter on it to try to mitigate the fact that it was taken while driving 100 km/h on a bumpy road.
I am going to experiment with jumps here, so... after the jump, there are more photos and exciting details about today's lunch.
As I said, I spent the day touring roads projects funded by MCC. This may not appeal to everyone, but it was honestly really fascinating to see roads in all stages of construction, and also provides an accurate depiction of how I spent most of the day: wearing a safety vest (un fluou, en français) and having someone explain to me what each stage of the road involves (here they're prefabricating cement blocks that will form the rain gutters on the side of the road). Almost all steps of the construction process take into account the intensity of the rainy season here, and the engineers all spoke about finishing crucial parts of the project before it started raining even more heavily and at a greater frequency.
Anyway, I was super into the whole road-building process, and probably have missed my calling as a civil engineer, though that involves a lot of math. Which brings me to my handful of anecdotes from my days on the road. It's probably important to note here that, since the other MCC rep had to leave us after the first stop to take meetings in Ouaga, I spent much of the time as the only female in sight on all these construction tours. As a result, I didn't open a single door for almost 72 hours.
Stories from the road:
1. At the first site, I was introduced to a bunch of the engineers working on the project. The head engineer quickly asked if I was also an engineer, and then was visibly disappointed when I said "financière."
2. There was a strike (une grève) at one of the sites we visited, and the labor negotiations had just started when we arrived for the tour. Our driver took pictures and talked to the striking construction workers while we walked around the engineer's headquarters. They told him that when they saw me get out of the car, several of the workers were under the impression that I had been sent in to fix the labor dispute and provide more money to the project. #intern (The strike was resolved this afternoon).
3. I stayed at a hotel that had both a rusty bidet AND soap branded with the name of a different hotel chain a different city.
And here's one more construction picture (in response to a tweet from lindsey: "MOAR PHOTOS"). This is pretty much how I spent this week:
This picture provides pretty stark contrast to the landscape above, and the two were not taken terribly far apart. Banfora is one of the more fertile agricultural regions of Burkina Faso. Some of the main products for export are cotton, sesame and sugar cane. Most of the farming in BF remains on a subsistence level, though there has been government emphasis on developing agricultural exports.
This is where I ate lunch. Lunch for 3 was less than 10 dollars, and they did not actually serve hamburgers. I promise that I was not the American who insisted upon going to the only English-sounding restaurant in town; this was recommended. Kudos to the owners though for throwing together a bunch of American stuff to see if it will stick.
And now I am done.
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