Girls' Camps

Come, my friends 'tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all western stars until I die. It may be the gulfs will wash us down. It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, and see the great Achilles whom we once knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts; made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses"

Greetings, dear readers! I have evolved from a frequent and enthusiastic blogger to an absentee one, which perhaps reflects how this ever-changing experience continues to...ever change. It becomes harder to focus a blog entry on just one subject or experience as I am busier than ever with work in village, preparing for the new training group that arrives in June, a visitor from home and, eventually, to go home for a month...and come back for another year! My third year details are not yet concrete and thus will constitute a blog to come.

Before I report on recent goings-on, however, an administrative note:

My address will change until I am settled in my new situation next fall, thus, mail should be sent to the Peace Corps office in Ouagadougou until further notice:

Chrissy Hart, PCV
Corps de la Paix Americain
01 BP 6031 Ouagadougou 01
Burkina Faso
West Africa

Also, since Google is LAME (ok, lame in regard to this particular gripe) and doesn't give loyal users more than a Gig of memory per photo page AND blog, I can no longer post pics on either my Picasa site or this blog. So, I have a new photo page and, upon returning to the BF for year three (yikes!), I will start a new blog, so that my entries will continue to be aesthetically AND intellectually stimulating.

Chrissy's Pics (Picasa Page # 2): http://picasaweb.google.com/chrissydhart

Now on to village news. This entry's topic is the recent smashing success of two girls' camps that occurred in my village, Diabo, and Diapangou, that of my PCV neighbor, Orelia (photos from the camp are posted on my new site, link above). With the aid of funding from PC Burkina's Gender And Development (GAD) program, members of the congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of East Aurora and many of Orelia's friends, we organized two three-day camps for female students (13-16 year-olds) in each village focusing on decision-making, confidence-building, thinking about the future, as well as a variety of health topics - female physiology, menstruation, reproduction, methods of birth control, STDs, etc.

We collaborated with our village high schools' administration and faculty, the staff of our local clinics and Action Sociale, a government ministry focused on social welfare, particularly issues pertaining to women and girls. We had a midwife, nurses, the director of my village clinic and the AS facilitators explaining menstruation, fertility, reproduction, birth control and STDs, while Orelia and I facilitated the "Life Skills" elements of the camps. We have a great Peace Corps-developed "Life Skills" manual with lots of culturally appropriate activities dealing with an array of issues facing school-age youth in the developing world. We used a few activities from the book to elaborate upon the importance of all the health information provided during the camps by providing strategies for positive behavior and responsible decision-making.

Overall, the camps surpassed our hopes and expectations. Ou collaborators were stellar - knowledgable, patient, and committed to providing as much information as possible - and the 50 schoolgirls who participated were more engaged than we had imagined possible. We had some really frank, productive dialogues which were enhanced by the presence of the Burkinabè women facilitators who were more capable of responding to questions and concerns regarding relationships and sexual behavior in Burkina.

The camps have been one of the most fulfilling projects of my service and a positive note on which to end my work in village. My service won't end until late July, but I'll be spending time up north for 6 of the 11 weeks of training for our soon-to-arrive newbies and well as travelling a bit with my first visitor from America! It's hard to believe that my time in village is up, I have no doubt that it will be incredibly sad to say goodbye. I am, however, ready and excited for the next phase of my West African adventure.

If it were customary to send little girls to school and to teach them the same subjects as are taught to boys, they would learn just and fully and would understand the subtleties of all arts and sciences. Indeed, maybe they would understand them better...for just as women's bodies are softer than men's, so their understanding is sharper.

La Cité des Dames [The City of Women] (1404)

by Christine de Pisan

Absent Without Leave

I have been remiss. I've had lots of exciting things to write about - interesting travels, work in village, future plans - but as the pace of life only continues to increase here (with the odd reprieve of a sweltry, lazy village day), I find it hard to sit down and blog when I have the opportunity. Thus, a quick recap of the past few months and the invitation to check out my goings-on via photos (the medium that I have managed to spend some time making public!).

Highlights include:

- 8 Mars: International Women's Day which we celebrated in village with a host of activities including a parade, speeches, an exposé on the feminization of HIV/AIDS (the theme of this year's IWD), soccer games, a relay race, a bike race and a soirée with dancing.

- an Easter trip to Arly National Park, in a somewhat remote corner of Burkina's southeast. Our group biked around the park (on some VERY rough trails) and saw an array of creatures: elephants, buffalo, koba, bush deer, warthogs, baboons, hippos, some neat birds, etc.

- a late March trip to Burkina's southwestern region for the Semaine Nationale de la Culture (Nat'l Week of Culture) which consisted of some amazing dance and musical performances from groups all over the country, including several from the eastern region and villages near mine.

- in early April, our group's Close of Service conference, where we processed some of our Peace Corps experiences, talked about leaving BF and life after Peace Corps, discussed career exploration - resume writing and informational sessions with local development workers and foreign service officers, and, finally, had a pretty sweet party celebrating our two years and the atypical fact that almost of all of our group actually made it to COS (Burkina has one of the highest "early termination" rates of Peace Corps countries). Our group's official COS date is in late August, though many volunteers will leave in June or July.

I have photo albums documenting all of the aforementioned on my Picasa page so please check 'em out if you're so inclined:

http://picasaweb.google.com/hart.christine


I hope that my next entry will include some exciting and definite news about my plans post-August, but I don't want to report anything before my plans are concrete (so mysterious! ok, not really, I just don't want to be presumptuous). I'll say this: my eagerness to return to "la vie americaine" may have been premature.

…at my worst, I have been a cacophony, a mass of human noises that did not add up to the symphony of an integrated self. At my best, however, the world sang out to me, and through me, like ringing crystal.

Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Int'l Conference of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa

In 2007, 1.6 million African adults and children died of AIDS, 1.7 million African adults and children were newly infected with HIV, and a total of 22.5 million Africans were reported as living with HIV.

12 million African children have been orphaned by AIDS since 1981.

Source: UNAIDS

Hello! As a member of PC Burkina's HIV/AIDS Task Force, I had the opportunity to participate in the 11th Int'l Conference of the Society For Women and AIDS in Africa/Association des Femmes Africaines Face Au Sida from February 4th to the 7th. Below is an article I wrote on the conference for the Zakramba, PC Burkina's monthly volunteer newsletter. It was a great experience and an informative and generally encouraging look into development both at and beyond the grassroots level. The conference consisted of SWAA/AFAFSI delegations from countries across the continent and representatives from a host of int'l organizations and NGOs.

News from the A-Team:

11th International Conference of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa

by ATF member Chrissy Hart, GEE

February saw the descent of a particularly impressive and mobilized group of individuals upon Ouagadougou. The 11th International Conference of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa convened on February 4th and consisted of a variety of lectures and round table discussions on themes including: epidemiology, prevention and public health, clinical care, gender and HIV/AIDS, stigmatization and discrimination facing people living with HIV, economic and socio-cultural issues, as well as politics, ethnicity and human rights. Conference participants included an array of stakeholders: SWAA delegations from countries spanning the continent, health care professionals, NGO workers, government representatives, United Nations and World Health Organization officials, and us, Peace Corps Burkina’s AIDS Task Force. The conference was sponsored by UNAIDS, Unicef, and PAMAC (Programme d’Appui au Monde Associatif & Communitaire de Lutte Contre le VIH/SIDA) and the theme was “HIV/AIDS, Gender, and Human Rights: It is time to act.”

The Society for Woman and AIDS in Africa was born when several key African women leaders predicted that HIV/AIDS would most severely impact African women and children at the 1998 4th International AIDS Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Today, SWAA consists of a network of 41 country offices and is the only pan-African HIV/AIDS organization working with and for women and their families based on locally determined needs and priorities. SWAA’s mission is to advocate on behalf of women, children and families in the fight against HIV/AIDS and to mobilize communities by strengthening capacity to prevent, control, and mitigate the impact of the epidemic. The international organization envisions a world free of HIV/AIDS where African women and children are empowered to claim equal rights, access to health care, education, and economic and socio-cultural opportunities.

Dr. Claude Millogo, PC Burkina’s Health APCD, is the President of SWAA Burkina and was one of the principal coordinators of this year’s international conference. The quality and professionalism of this year’s conference certainly made an impression on participants based on numerous comments made during the closing ceremonies, much to Dr. Claude’s credit. Members of the AIDS Task Force assisted in an organizational capacity and with translation for Anglophone participants and were able to attend a number of lectures and round table discussions.

Highlights of the conference included a lecture on various efforts toward universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment, a round table discussion on working with HIV+ youth and another on methods of prevention such as the female condom, microbicides, and male circumcision. Robbie Nelson (RPCV-Tanzania), a representative of The Female Health Company – the sole manufacturer of the female condom - presented on the development of the first and second generation female condoms and fielded a host of questions pertaining to marketing, use and accessibility. Another interesting presentation was put on by The Condom Project, a U.S.-based non-profit organization sponsored by the United Nations and Mtv. The presentation included a video documenting the successes and failures of promotion and training on use of the female condom among sex workers in Ethiopia. Perhaps most engaging was a presentation by a member of SWAA Ghana on the comprehensive educational campaign that they’ve undertaken to create awareness of and promote the female condom throughout the country. The scope and success of their efforts, from trainings of trainers to a multi-media advertising campaign, was truly impressive. Finally, another exciting aspect of the conference was a reception for participants hosted by Chantal Campaore, the first lady, at the Presidential palace. Attendees enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, good music and even got down and danced with Madame La Presidente.

The conference was a unique and illuminating experience for members of the ATF. We helped out a little and had the opportunity to learn and experience a lot. It was encouraging and inspiring to be exposed to such a dynamic group of men and women focused on change and progress in Africa, engaged in candid and frank discussions about reality and how to move forward from the status quo. I wish that every volunteer had the opportunity to participate in something like the SWAA conference and observe a pan-African effort that, though it faces significant obstacles, is making a real impact.

The AIDS Task Force would like to thank Dr. Claude for the opportunity to help with and participate in the 11^th International SWAA Conference and to congratulate her for all of her efforts and contributions as SWAA president. Targeting the HIV/AIDS epidemic is one of the most daunting undertakings one can imagine, but committed, mobilized individuals like Dr. Claude and the conference participants engender hope as progress continues.

Morocco

First things first. I’m posting two blogs at once so please check out the previous one about my trip home if you haven’t done so already. Also, I’ve changed my procrastinating ways and finally uploaded lots of current pictures on my new Picasa photo-sharing page (they‘re downloadable, for those who make an appearance), so see the sidebar/below for the link and check ‘em out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Hart.Christine

As I mentioned in my previous blog, fellow volunteer Joel and I made a stopover au Maroc on our way back to the land of sand. We arrived in Casablanca and hopped a train (a train! one that came on time! seriously!) to Fès, one of Morocco’s imperial cities and the hub of Moroccan culture and art (the city was founded by Romans in the 8th century B.C.). After a scenic 5 hour train ride through the Moroccan countryside, we disembarked and took a cab to Fès El-Bali, the medina or old city. Most Moroccan cities have a medina which is the ancient (and typically still current) city-center, made up of a maze-like network of stone streets and alleyways, medeival in feeling but quite modern in function.

We stayed at a modest but centrally-located hotel that a friend had recommended, enjoying the incredible views of the medina from the rooftop terrace. Though it was much colder than we expected (they actually have cold in North Africa), we bundled up and spent two days drinking Moroccan coffee, sampling tagine and other local fare, and trekking through the medina, getting lost and more lost, but always able to recover our orientation thanks to Joel’s actual geographical sensibilities and my bizarre, slightly inconsistent directional sixth sense. We saw Fès’s famous tanneries, the origin of some of the world’s most reputed leather goods, toured a few carpet shops, admired many of the 350 mosques that lie inside the medina, drank delicious mint tea, and chatted up several friendly shop owners, all impressively good-humored and persistent. I did end up buying some gorgeous Fès needlework and a pretty Berber bracelet, but was able to restrain myself for the most part.

The trip was a great transition on our way back to Burkina and la vie africaine. It was neat to see a small slice of North Africa and appreciate some of the cultural variation (not always so obvious here), that makes Africa such a rich and interesting continent. Morocco certainly whet my appetite for my post-service Africa exploration, I can't wait to see more of the continent!

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?

The World would split open.

Muriel Rukeyser

Christmas Cookies and Culture Shock

Bonne Année 2008!

I’m back in Burkina after a whirlwind trip home that involved several cities, holidays, a wedding, and much-needed quality time with friends and family. America was great but it’s good to be back here with a new appreciation for the 7 months I have left in Burkina.

I left Burkina in mid-December with several other homeward bound volunteers. After a layover in Casablanca and a day of travel, we arrived at JFK. My initial reaction? First, amazement at the diversity of the people I saw - nationality, skin color (an array beyond black and white, that is), style of dress, etc. Second, the enormity of, well, everything; the buildings, the parking lots, the roads, the crowds of people, the selection of items at the airport shops…it was at once slightly overwhelming and wonderfully familiar to be plunked down in the land of consumerism and comfort.

I grabbed dinner with a volunteer I’d traveled with and a Peace Corps friend who came to meet us at the airport, enjoyed my first beer aux Etats-Unis, and embarked on my final flight to Buffalo, eager to see my parents and sleep in my own, miraculously cloud-like (ok, what I’d imagine a cloud would be like) bed.

Home was good - lots of parental TLC, updating my iPod, Mom’s cooking, catching up with high school friends, snow, Christmas at home, seeing family, going to church. It was all easier and more familiar than I thought it would be…until I went shopping the day after Christmas (imagine a foreboding musical interlude here). I was scheduled to continue my journey to Annapolis for a wedding three days after Christmas so, armed with gift cards and a serious shopping list of items to bring back to Burkina (a garlic press, trail mix, shampoo not of European origin, etc.), I set out for the chaotic monstrosity that is a suburban strip mall the day after Christmas. The Subaru seemed to drive itself to Target and Borders (old habits die hard, apparently) and I suddenly found myself standing in front of the biggest building I’d seen in a year and a half (ok, not really, but it seemed that way). Target. Everything under the sun…and more. My memory starts to fail me here. I recall a feeling like horizontal vertigo, if that makes any sense, and experiencing a sort of out-of-body, I’m-here-but-not-really-here daze as I wandered through the aisles, seeking kitchen utensils and nylons. The long and short of it - it was a confusing and somewhat frightening experience, though I did emerge with a garlic press, nylons, trail mix and even managed to continue on to Borders for my East Africa guidebook and issues of The Nation and The Economist (yes! print media! IN ENGLISH!). Needless to say, I didn’t attempt the grocery store. That clearly would have been a disaster.

The shopping episode was followed by fervent packing, a manicure and pedicure (manicure # 2 of my life, pedicure # 1 - enjoyable, to say the least, though I apologized profusely for the state of my feet), dinner with summer camp friends (hello, nostalgia!) followed by an actual camp reunion (hello, former campers who are now in COLLEGE!). The 28th, I was off to Annapolis to see one of my best friends get married. Whew.

The wedding was…awesome. Love, the union of two souls, good friends, good food, dancing, hitting the streets (bars) of Annapolis after the reception - who could ask for more? Despite the wedding chaos, I got to catch up with two of my oldest friends (the bride and bridesmaid), who are both frighteningly adult but comfortingly still very much the girls I started going to camp with in the 6th grade. I gave one of the readings during the service and managed (I think) to speak clearly and slowly and to avoid tripping on the way to or from the podium. Good stuff.

Next, I continued up to Manhattan (the Jersey Turnpike - so familiar in its monotony and occassional stench) to visit college friends and celebrate New Year’s Eve. I enjoyed the excellent hospitality of friends and even a surprise visit from a friend all the way from Chicago. It was so good to fall into old routines, to fill my friends in on some of my Burkina experiences, share photos, and catch up on all the new elements of their lives. Though I definitely felt some disconnect (lack of cultural context, having no clue about movies, new technologies - holy crap, the cell phones! etc.), it was so good to actually be in the presence of the people I’ve been missing for 18 months.

The thing that struck me most about being home, beyond the contrast in quotidian existence - the ease and convenience and richness of American life , was how much more significant the things that are changing in everyone’s lives seem to be. While conversations with high school and college friends revolved around gossip relating to our fellow alums, the news was engagements, marriages, babies, law school acceptances, new jobs, moves to new cities…in other words, the non-trivial, significant, meaningful stuff of life - the lives of twenty-four and twenty-five year olds…adults. And while my life currently exists outside that realm in so many ways, it won’t for long.

After five days in the Big Apple, which included lots of excellent meals (sushi! Mexican! pizza!), and movies, television, the Met, the New York-ness of New York, I headed out to Brooklyn to meet up with Joel, another volunteer, with whom I continued on the Morocco for three days before heading back to the BF (that’ll be another blog altogether). After a brief subway experience and a ride to the airport with a Peace Corps friend, we were off. Back to Africa.

Traveling makes one modest – you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

Gustave Flaubert

Homeward Bound

The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.

Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"

Greetings and pre-holiday salutations!


It's December 17th and in T-37 hours I'll be HOME! Barring any snow-related delays, in a day and a half my feet will be firmly planted on Western New York....snow. After 18 months in Burkina Faso, I am so-beyond-ready-its-beyond-words-to-explain to be home, amongst my family and friends.

"What!? You're LEAVING?"

For the past year and a half, I've collected a lot of names. In village I'm Christine, Christini, Christina, Miss, Madamoiselle, NASARA! ("white person", screamed repeatedly by small children), la blanche, "fo" (you), but for three weeks, I'm going to be Chrissy. I have images of snow covered trees and drinking eggnog in front of the Christmas tree dancing in my head that are so wonderful, if I thought hard enough I could cry (les larmes de joie, bien sur). OK, I actually DID cry when I was in the bush taxi on my way to Ouaga two days ago.

"But you're coming back, right?"

It's impossible to comprehend being so far away from home for so long unless you've done it. And if you've done it, you know exactly what I mean. I'm glad that I'll probably never go this long without seeing family and friends again. It's certainly caused me to reach deep down into the depths of my strength and fortitude, and has no doubt made me a lot more self-assured, confident, and, well, tough. But, in a nutshell, it's been hard as hell. When I get back to Burkina, I'll have less than 7 months of service left, which will no doubt fly by. It was such a great feeling to leave village, America-bound, but a tad bit bittersweet knowing that soon enough I'll be leaving for good. Literally ever person I came across during my last few days in village told me "il faut saluer les parents et la famille" (to greet my parents and family) or "donnez nos salutations aux gens de l'Amerique" (say hello to the people in America). This experience continues to consist of such an array of ups and downs, despite the fact that I've come so far from the wide-eyed trainee who stepped off the plane into the humid Sahelian night a year and a half ago. I think part of me will stay in Burkina forever. This place is bewitching, simultaneously awful and heartbreakingly beautiful.

My father said that the natural world gave us explanations to compensate for the meanings we could not grasp. The slant of the cold sunlight on a winter pine, the music of water, an oar cutting the lake and the flight of birds, the mountains' nobility, the silence of the silence. We are given life but must accept that it is unattainable and rejoice in what can be held in the eye, the memory, the mind.


Salman Rushdie, "Shalimar the Clown"

Burkina and Millenium Challenge in the New York Times

U.S. Agency’s Slow Pace Endangers Foreign Aid

By CELIA W. DUGGER

Published: December 7, 2007

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency set up almost four years ago to reinvent foreign aid, has taken far longer to help poor, well-governed countries than its supporters expected or its critics say is reasonable.

The agency, a rare Bush administration proposal to be enacted with bipartisan support, has spent only $155 million of the $4.8 billion it has approved for ambitious projects in 15 countries in Africa, Central America and other regions.

And the agency’s slow pace is making it politically vulnerable at budget crunch time. Both the House and the Senate have slashed the Bush administration’s 2008 budget request for the agency, but the Senate has gone a step further, pushing for a change that African leaders say threatens the essence of the agency’s novel approach.

Eyeing the unspent billions, the Senate has proposed that Congress provide no more than half the money up front for future five-year projects, which typically come with a price tag of $250 million to $700 million. Such projects are now fully financed at the start to make sure countries have the wherewithal to finish what they start.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid, said that Congress could be counted on to come up with the rest of the money if the countries fulfilled their end of the bargain. But, he asked, where else should Congress look for savings in its foreign aid budget?

“Do we cut maternal health?” he asked. “AIDS? Malaria? Do we cut refugees? The only thing that’s got a blank check is the war in Iraq.”

Agency officials and the African leaders they assist said in recent interviews that the change would be a big step backward. American foreign aid often takes the form of modest, short-term projects that are planned in Washington and carried out by American contractors and charities. But under the agency’s approach, poor countries with sound economic policies and strong track records of helping their people are chosen to conceive and carry out big undertakings themselves.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s budget now makes up less than 10 percent of the United States foreign aid budget.

By changing how its projects are financed, “then M.C.C. becomes like the World Bank and all the other countries using overseas development aid in stop and go fashion,” said John A. Kufuor, the president of Ghana, who heads the African Union. “The aid is spread so thin that at the end of the day the necessary difference is not made.”

The Millennium Challenge Corporation’s chief problem has been its sluggish record in getting projects beyond the planning stage to the point where contractors can actually build the roads, irrigation canals, power plants and clean water systems that poor countries say they need.

Sheila Herrling, who follows the agency at the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit research group in Washington, says there are understandable reasons projects take time and suggests that the agency’s current five-year timeline for each one may be too short.

Poor countries, even relatively well-run ones, are not used to planning such complex developments and have needed more time than expected to get them off the ground, she said.

Also, the infrastructure projects poor countries need are prone to corruption, and putting stringent accountability systems in place has consumed more time than expected.

Development analysts have praised the agency for giving poor countries an incentive to make significant reforms to qualify for its big contracts, including improving education for girls, making it easier for individuals to operate on-the-books businesses.

But the agency itself must also shoulder some of the blame for the slow progress, Ms. Herrling said. Its decision-making has been too focused on putting together the projects, rather than on carrying them out.

“It shouldn’t have taken so long,” she said. “The agency needs to figure it out this year. They are part of the problem.”

John J. Danilovich, the businessman and former ambassador who has led the agency for two years, recently reorganized it to concentrate on results with what he called “laser focus.”

“We need to do better and we will do better,” he said in an interview.

Mr. Danilovich, a Bush appointee, has convinced Representative Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who heads the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, that he is serious. Mrs. Lowey said in an interview that the agency was still unproven. And she was disappointed on a visit to Ghana this year to find that its $547 million compact to develop a modern agricultural economy still was not very far along. But on the need for progress, she said, “I do believe that Danilovich gets it.”

One of many schools in Burkina Faso that had been paid for by a $13 million grant by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

The future of the Millennium Challenge Corporation is one of the many issues caught in the budgetary stalemate between the administration and Congress.

The administration asked for $3 billion for the agency. In their foreign aid appropriations bills, the House provided $1.8 billion, the Senate $1.2 billion. Mrs. Lowey said she strongly opposed the Senate’s proposal to provide no more than half the financing up front, an idea originally suggested by Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana. The House and Senate are expected to settle the issue by next week.

If the agency gets the lesser Senate amount, under the current rules requiring the money up front, Burkina Faso, a West African country that has spent more than two years qualifying for and drafting its $560 million to $620 million plan, will get nothing, agency officials said. Tanzania and Namibia are ahead of it in line.

Burkina Faso’s prime minister, Tertius Zongo, said his country would be deeply disappointed if the money was not available.

“We have done our part,” he said. “This is a partnership.”

Burkina Faso has gone to great lengths to meet the agency’s good governance standards. The agency gave it a $13 million grant to improve girls’ education, which the country used to build, among other things, schools with day care centers so school-age girls do not have to stay home to look after their younger siblings.

Identified by the International Finance Corporation as one of the most difficult places in the world to do business, Burkina Faso has also halved the number of days it takes to start a business, and reduced by a third the cost of registering property.

In small, poor countries like Burkina Faso, every burp and hiccup of an aid agency like the Millennium Challenge Corporation is news — and often front page news. David Weld, the agency’s country director for Burkina Faso, said he did not know how he could face people there if Congress did not come through with enough money to help them.

“What type of message does that send to Burkina Faso, a country that has spent a huge amount of political capital and money on this process?” he asked. “What does that tell the Togos, the Nigers that want to become eligible? It tells them: Do everything like Burkina Faso, make all these reforms, spend millions of your own money, and then maybe at the end we might be able to sign a compact with you — or maybe not.”

(Posting this surely violates some copyright regulation, please don't report me to the FCC!)

Africans, less esteemed than ever, seemed to me the most lied-to people on earth - manipulated by their governments, burned by foreign experts, befooled by charities, and cheated at every turn.

Paul Theroux, "Dark Star Safari"