NEW PROJECTS IN AFRICA 
APPUNTI DI VIAGGIO DAL BURKINA FASO di Nella Vilardi Siamo tornati da qualche settimana reduci della seconda esperienza in Burkina Faso.
Cosa raccontare! Appena arrivati , alle legittime domande di amici e parenti , non sapevamo cosa rispondere per paura di svilire ciò che ci eravamo portati dentro.
La paura è che le parole spoken or written does not pass through the heart and the head of the listener.
Each experience has in fact a load of emotions, feelings, memories, intentions, plans arising from what we have seen with your eyes, breathe with lungs, the people encountered.
will try to communicate some of the feelings experienced.
We already knew the environment to be there already in 2007, people who hosted us or with whom we have collaborated in the implementation of micro projects financed by Marineo Solidarity, but surprises are not lacking. A
closer to the reality of street in the capital and the towns and villages where we have leads me to dispel a prejudice, namely that Africans are hard workers, but rather a mass of sfatigati.
What we saw is a different reality, we took some photos that confirm this: we all work for a living, men, women and children, many children. Everyone has something to sell, some peanuts, three tomatoes, a bunch of bananas, micro portions of food: it is their way of combating rising prices and to balance the limited financial resources gained from their families every day. On average, families earn about one euro per day.
Only an 'old begged us (Pour manger!) To eat, in fact.
The others do not. They go, they come, each intent in its small affairs in the hope of picking up (ramasser) the money for a plate of rice or polenta to eat too many families.
Since our arrival we met the group of disabled women (some of Donsé) who began sewing course funded by the association Marineo Solidarity. The course was held in Ouaga by Giuliana, near the San Camillo hospital. Juliana is our hook in the capital Ouagoudoguou in the same house where we ourselves were guests. Disabled girls were very timid, almost frightened: they were not never came to town, they had never seen so much traffic and so many extraordinary things, and accustomed to the slow pace of their isolated village surrounded by bush.
In these women every day we have seen growing interest in learning a new job, and, for every novelty, we saw their eyes light buy, wonder, the joy of looking out from the terrace on the first floor and admire what c ' was around (the huts and houses are all on the ground floor, and six feet seems to be on a skyscraper) to participate in the concert of a famous singer in Burkina such Floby, eat with pleasure and surprise, the pineapple cake that we have prepared for them, the delicious pizza appeared despite a lack of seasoning. We saw the last day to get the hair to the hair to return the most beautiful in the village, as renewed.
Their joy has reached its climax when they loaded the last day on the bike or the van that took them home equipment that we bought in the Course, including bench seating (there are polio), the table on anatomical which cut the fabric (specially made by the carpenter-made) clothes made during the course with the fabrics that we have provided, but also a sewing machine along with models made by the tailor Moussa, A equipment all for them to continue their activities in short once back home.
Donsé One day we went to visit the group of disabled men in 2009 we dedicated a course for the construction of buckets. Now carry on with their difficult task because there is just where their laboratory will be built the new airport in the city of Ougouagadoguou, that a lot of them bewildered and confused about their fate. Would like to achieve a French course, which could offer them a chance in services in the near future the new mega structure will provide.
The trip to Burkina was also dictated by the need to ensure the success of our monetary aid to certain bodies such as the Caritas di Dori.
Dori è un grosso villaggio ai margini del Sahara. A tre km già vi sono le prime dune di sabbia che anno dopo anno rosicchia spazio alla già magra agricoltura e allevamento di cui vivono nella zona. Ma è stata stupefacente la visita all’Ocades (Caritas) di Dorì dove l’associazione Marineo Solidale ha finanziato l’ arredo (Lettino e armadio) e banchi per le ragazze frequentanti la scuola che provenendo da villaggi molto lontani e che sono costrette a pernottare a Dori .
Ciò che ai nostri occhi è stato stupefacente è di constatare come l’Ocades , voluta dal Vescovo insediatosi in diocesi nel 2005, e diretta da padre Bertand in pochi anni, è riuscita a realizzare grazie all’aiuto various charities so many things. He also built a home where about ten people, mostly dedicated to aid children to foster their education. The Ocades uses of design engineers that allows them to participate, including international calls to find resources for development; form of agriculture experts who send in the villages to educate farmers by giving them a set of agricultural tools, and implement the wells water to allow irrigation of pieces of land to fight the advancing desert and to give a perspective of income to thousands of families.
They built a primary and secondary schools, which have been used by of our resources are going to build a nursery school that we are supporting with an initial funding to purchase the furniture.
E 'schooling even more crucial in Burkina where half the population is under 20 years. Still too many children do not attend school or because there are not enough of school facilities or because they are intent on small businesses help the family to get some CFA franc to secure the only meal that day with difficulty and not always able to obtain. Li
to Dori we verified that the financing of Marineo Solidarity for the decoration of the foyer for about 42 girls attending secondary school and higher education is a better reality.
Bertrand told us: we try to train people who can be masters of their and others' development, leveraging on the different skills and resources. It does so without prejudice. Have formed an NGO involving Christians and Muslims. An example of how to do the things you can find synergies in the copresence of their respective faiths. Other than a clash of civilizations. The trial as you can build a future for all in peace.
Ouaga is a big city, where you can meet people with the reality that we have changed the course of time and things to do, although it is marked in advance by the limited time available for brevity, less than two weeks of our stay in Bukin. A writer, known in Italy, Josiane Reine Toe, has asked us to bring the greetings to his old mother, the wife of a diplomat from Burkina Faso and the grandson of a former government minister pre Sankara. Just
Mrs. Toe, a lovely lady who lives with dignity the new poverty of the family for the loss due to the sudden change of government Burkinabè, having known that the activity we are developing in favor of the disabled, the husband had been in recent years , has put us in contact with Marie Cecile who lives 200km from Ouagadoguou Toma. It came to us to tell us who runs a rehabilitation center for disabled people of his Diocesi ( lei è suora di un ordine locale), a cui mancano quasi tutto essendo le attrezzature in dotazione ormai obsolete dato che non riceve aiuto da nessuno.
Incontri pieni di umanità, di speranze riposte nella generosità di chi vive nell’abbondanza dato che lo Stato, poverissimo ( il Burkina è agli ultimi posti nella classifica dei paesi più poveri al mondo) non da nessun aiuto.
Ci siamo lasciati riproponendoci di sentirci, di non perderci di vista, di tenerci in contatto, dicendo che avremmo parlato del loro problema in associazione, con gli amici, che tenteremo di fare qualcosa, perché di fronte a queste situazioni non si può stare inerti.
E come restare indifferenti faced with certain realities that are terrible to tell if they are more to be remembered for having torn the patterns that we have built in our minds. Something else is still just be there next hour. The meeting that is completely destabilized us with brother Vincenzo, a Camillian of Neapolitan origin who lives in Burkina forty years taking care of poorest of the poor: the lepers, AIDS patients, the elderly, abandoned and driven out of villages (as deemed witches). For his way of life and of its activities has been called the Camorra of God. "
Aided by about twenty young people aged sixteen to twenty-five and two ladies, due volte la settimana si reca nel lebbrosario a curare le piaghe dei lebbrosi, a portare cibo e quant’altro necessita per dare ristoro e conforto alla loro vita (ad alcuni infatti ha comprato la bicicletta, ad altri il motorino per consentire loro di raggiungere il lebbrosario). In quel lebbrosario abbiamo tentato timidamente di fare esperienza della durezza della vita per centinaia di persone, aiutando il frate e i volontari nella pulizia e medicazioni delle piaghe infette e purulente o nella distribuzione di qualche ciotola di mais a chi la malattia invalidante non consente più di essere autosufficiente e senza il quale la morte sarebbe dietro l’angolo.
Vincenzo ha intrapreso il grosso progetto di dare una casa ad ogni famiglia dei lebbrosi, così da avere un tetto dove ripararsi: povere casette di tre metri per quattro sotto un tetto di lamiera, giusto per contenere le povere cose di cui dispongono e ripararsi dalla pioggia. Ne ha già costruite più di trenta, ma altre ne necessitano. Il costo complessivo di una casa è di € 1.500,00. I lebbrosi necessitano di tutto per vivere come necessitano di medicine per la cura , garze per la medicazione. Abbiamo lasciato una offerta per iniziare a costruire una nuova casa, il resto lo manderemo a breve consapevoli che come dice fra Vincenzo, noi doniamo qualche cosa di materiale, loro ci danno l’opportunità di sperimentare nel concreto la solidarietà e l’amore che Gesù ci ha testimoniato e invitato a praticare. Come si fa a pass by pretending nothing?
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