Brick maker – These men wait until it is dry season and then chop and carve mud/dirt bricks out of the ground. They work all day long in the hot sun (and dry season also happens to be hot season!) chopping away at rocks with machetes. To top it all off, I don’t think bricks cost that much so all they get from this torturous work is back problems and heat stroke. *And most of them also cultivate during rainy season!
Summary: Loads of manual labor in the sun, little payoff
Farmer – Most people are farmers, even if they have another side job. As soon as rainy season begins, they set out to their field to plant their crops of corn, sorghum, millet, cotton, peanuts, or rice (usually some combination of these). In my village, some people have to walk to fields as far as 13 km away and sleep there during the height of things instead of trekking back and forth every day. However, in many other villages, the fields are planted all around the houses and village. In villages like this, one has to know where things are because you can not see houses or stores amidst the tall stalks of millet. Anyways, farmers work in their fields continuously through rainy season. My village was deserted from June until October (with some people working in fields as late as December). All of these crops are cultivated by hand so it is a very tedious and time consuming process.
Most crops like corn, millet, and sorghum, and rice are stored in storehouses and eaten throughout the year. Some might be sold but a large portion is eaten by the people who grow them. Other crops like cotton are sold, I assume to the Burkina Faso cotton company, Sofitex.
Summary: Lots of manual labor in the sun but you get food and a little money, so that’s a plus
Boutique/small shop owner – These people sit in their small, usually claustrophobically packed shack of a store selling random things all day long. Many people, especially if it’s mainly the woman of the family who holds down the fort, even cook meals next to their boutique.
Summary: Minimal manual labor, spending all day in the shade. The downfall of this job (according to the opinion of yours truly) is that you are in the same spot all day every day.
Marché lady – These women spend their days in the marché selling produce. Usually, all the ladies clumped together are selling basically the same products – tomatoes, onions, eggplants, etc. How do you pick who to buy from? I don’t know how Burkinabe do it, I just walk around awkwardly inspecting the produce of everyone in search of the prettiest looking veggies.
Summary: Similar to a boutique owner, these people have very minimal manual labor involved in their job and spend the day in the shade. The upside, though, is that even though they stay in the same spot all day, they are surrounded by their friends and get to chatter and gossip all day long.
Bush Taxi driver/loader/money taker – These people drive and ride back and forth between two destinations, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. The loader (who is also sometimes the money taker) throws any baggage or bicycles or anything else you can imagine travelling with (goats and chickens, for example) on top of the old creaky van and ties it there. Sometimes if the van is full, they ride on top with the bags et al. I think driver and money taker are pretty self-explanatory.
Summary: you get to drive around on the open road all day, constantly meeting and talking with new people, and feeling the wind on your face. Overall, I’d say a pretty sweet gig. I wouldn’t mind doing it, that’s for sure.
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Burkina Faso? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Burkina Faso in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez