Eureka! We did it!

Written by Mollie Cohen 

This week started off with some disappointing news regarding our awareness raising sessions. The training sessions that APIL had planned, due to run from the 21^st to the 24^th, have actually now been postponed till next week. Our whole team has found this quite frustrating as everyone worked extremely hard to prepare for our sessions to an extremely tight deadline, and now this has changed once more. However, the shining beacons of hope that we are, decided to see the positive in the situation – at least now we have more time to perfect our presentations😒💪😁

Excitingly this week we have begun to finalise our new partnership with Kabeela. Kabeela’s focus is on empowering rural women, and one of the ways that they are doing this is promoting income generating activities like weaving bags from recycled plastic, making moringa soap and shea butter. We hope that through this new partnership there will be an increase in the number of women in APIL’s sphere of influence, as many of their current beneficiaries are men. Mary and Dramane are going to be leading the partnership and the communication between APIL and Kabeela, and have started holding meeting to organise various events and activities that both projects can gain from.

Mary beaming after completing the first English lesson.

We are the first cohort to work at APIL, and this has presented us with a whole array of challenges to overcome. APIL are an already established NGO in Burkina Faso, with offices all over the country and staff members scattered between different locations. Trying to organise English and IT lessons for staff members has felt close to impossible thus far. However, this Friday morning Mary and Sonia achieved something momentous and completed our first English lesson to a member of staff at APIL. As they strutted back towards the office they were met with a round of applause, as Mary drew a big green cross in the first box of our checklist. Huzzah.

One small step for the secretary, one giant leap for our cohort.

The beautiful lake in Pabré.

On Thursday we travelled along the bumpy roads of Burkina Faso with Kabeela to visit team HSB in Pabré for our midterm meeting. Our visit began with a walk to the gorgeous lake that Pabré boasts, after which we made our way to the town hall to begin the presentations. Each team gave a presentation on what their cohorts have achieved so far, and what they hope to achieve before the end of the placement. Everyone enjoyed the chance to get out of the office for a day, to visit a different part of Burkina Faso, and to meet up with our fellow volunteer pals. Before we piled back on the sweaty bus we huddled together to take a group photo, when suddenly chaos erupted. Ruckus descended. A huge water sachet fight broke out. Everyone resembled drowned rats by the end, but happy rats – the temperature here in Burkina Faso is nearing 40 degrees, which means sweat.  

APIL, Kabeela, and HSB teams - pre water fight.

Bruce / Bruschetta in her favourite spot.

But our biggest and most exciting news this week relates to our little APIL kitten. Within our first week at APIL the tiny kitten adopted the slightly ironic name Bruce for the simple reason that he was such a beg for food at lunchtime – and any reference to Matilda is a good thing. However, this week one of our volunteers (not naming names) discovered that our dear Bruce is in fact... a girl. Since we have ceased our mislabelling, and some would even say discrimination of poor Bruce she has a new spring in her step, a new sass to her sashay, a new fluff to her coat, a new tinkle in her eye, and most importantly a new found strength to her ‘person’.