Madiaso

Madiaso is a large village with about 3000 or 4000 inhabitants. It is a crossroads for various villages, two main roads connect it with the cities of Mangodara (45 km) and Banfora (70 km). None of the roads are concrete however. There is no eletricity but the village cinema - a television powered with a diesel engine - provides the whole village with the sounds of (mostly action) movies each night. That is if there's no football. If there is football on tv, you might get the impression that there's a stadium with at least 20 000 seats in town.

Most of the population live off agriculture but there are many traders, women selling food (though not a great variety of food) and several barbers. Moreover, we have a pharmacy and a few mechanics plus about a dozen small shops selling everything from bisquits to superglue.

Mousa had arranged for a small house made of concrete for us. It has two small rooms and a concrete platform on which we often sit in the evenings. In the night, it is very hot under our tin roof so I usually sleep outside on a straw matress.

It is in Madiaso that Mousa wants to build a future for himself. Here, his father worked as a lokal health councillor before the family moved to Banfora. He was the first person in the village to work his field with a plough pulled by bulls. Today, this is the standard and we, plowing with the daba bas (a large, flat hoe), the exception.

At the moment, our work is centred around three locations:

1. a small field around our house where we cultivate maize, beans and sweet potatos

2. a piece of land (approx. one and a half hectares) two km out of town that Mousa purchased from the village chief. Here, we have been planting trees

3. a small plot on the outskirts of the village where Mousa's family lived several years ago. Here, Mousa wants to build a compound for himself in the years to come and start a commercial garden. The latter has been our main occupation up to now. Just to create a good fence to keep off the goats, sheep etc. that roam freely through and around the town is a huge challenge! We have spent several days cutting branches and thorn trees for the protection.