A wedding, a funeral, a memorial and a disaster!

It is Bob Marley Memorial Day in Diébougou, the anniversary of his death, and many people in town are holding a day of remembrance.  It is also the funérailles  of a very old and venerable lady mostly Lobi and partly Djan, who had a lot of children, grand-children and great-grand-children so the funeral square in town has been full and, as a particular mark of her great age, they were allowed to fire the powder-filled guns over the procession.   And finally, there has been a great wedding with a huge crowd and obviously an enormous party. 

Two of the above events involved at some stage or another gorgeously-clad folks driving around town on their scooters, honking their horns which I witnessed from the mechanic’s downtown.  I have been there twice today – the second time because he was not around for the first visit.   I have started mentally calling that end of town ‘downtown’ as it is the old part, with the lovely avenue of trees and where the official funeral square is, and where the oldest houses are …. I live in uptown where we are a bit short on cool trees and history and anthropologically important stuff, but we have the bus station and the market and the big town lycée.

The visit to the mechanic’s was necessitated by a little drama here this morning.  Farida has been bugging me to let her ride the moto in the courtyard, swearing she knows how – sadly, she does not - and she hit the gates (think garage doors in sheet iron and a steel frame) at about 5 miles an hour.  As Awa and I ran towards the crash site, Awa said – ‘She doesn’t know how to ride’ – thanks, Awa, very timely!

Farida, fine but shaken, the moto, fine but the handlebars needed to be realigned with the front wheel, and the gates – disaster!  Buckled and unlockable …. until one man, then two, then three who had been building a new sty for the pigs at the house next door set to work.  After about an hour, much effort, the application of a pick axe and buckets of encouragement, the gates close again – but may never open. … I shall have to replace them before I leave so I had better start saving.  I shall never, ever let anyone on my darling blue moto again either, unless they already have one of their own.  Liberal Tantie next door has just turned into mean Shona.

This week has been another odd one.  I attended an incredible village event;  the three day process of investigating, diagnosing, analysing and putting together a plan for economic improvement through entirely participative means.  The work involved was huge – and it all had to be organised through a translator – in crushing heat – incredible.  I am full of admiration for my colleagues who ran the three day workshop and then synthesised the findings each evening to present the following morning.  And most importantly, at the end of the process the village will have a three-year plan, costing about £6,800, for training, equipment and support which has the potential to move them from barely subsisting to surplus enough to pay for school fees and health care – a plan they will be in charge of implementing with support.  Pretty impressive stuff.  My own project kicks off next week;  I hope we can achieve something even vaguely similar.