All you ever
wanted to know about Burkina Faso
(and some other odds
and ends of information)
Below is some general information about
Burkina Faso and my Peace Corps experience, with links to other
parts of this website and to additional related websites.
Teachers and students:
notice the student activities scattered
throughout the sections below. These link to questions and activities on the Student
Burkina Faso, like many countries in
Africa, was colonized by a European nation, in this case, France. As a result, the
national language is French. However, before French colonization there were more than 50
languages spoken by the different ethnic groups living in the area. In establishing
boundaries of the French, British, Belgian, and other European colonies (countries) of
Africa, the existing geographic areas of the various ethnic groups were not taken into
consideration. So, many languages are spoken throughout West Africa, and many groups live
across a country's border from others in their same ethnic group. The 50+ local
languages in Burkina Faso continue to be
spoken by its citizens.
most unique aspect of life in Burkina Faso in relation to many other
countries in Africa is that Burkina Faso continues to live in relative
peace. In spite of incidents of revolutionary changes in government since
its independence from France, and in spite of social unrest from time to
time, today Burkina Faso exhibits a fair amount of political stability. It is a
relatively safe country in which to live and work, with kind, generous and
Faso is about the size of Colorado, but with a much larger population,
about 12 million people in 2002. (Look at a globe to compare the size of
Africa with the size of North America and the United States.)
Burkina Faso was known as Haute Volta
(Upper Volta) as a French Colony, named after the Volta River (which doesn't
seem to be much of a river). It was renamed Burkina Faso
(Land of Upright People, meaning people of integrity and responsibility) during the
presidency of Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary leader who was killed in 1987, but whose
is reflected in many aspects of life in Burkina Faso today.
The current president of
Burkina Faso is Blaise Compaore.
Economically, Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world.
But it is rich in terms of its people and their attitude
||In terms of religion, Burkina
Faso is primarily Muslim, with a Christian population of about 10%. Some
of the population continue to practice traditional (tribal) beliefs,
rather than either Muslim or Christian beliefs.
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I lived in Ouahigouya, the fourth-largest town in Burkina Faso, located in the north
central part of the country (see the map above). My living conditions were more comfortable than
many of my fellow volunteers who had no electricity or running water in their remote
villages. I had a large house with both electricity and running water, although no hot
water except during April and May when all the water was very hot. The electricity
and water worked most of the time, but were often shut off during the end of
the hot dry season. I rode my bike or walked to go anywhere. I
was fortunate in
many ways--my life was simpler than in the US, but not difficult.
can show you a lot about life in Burkina Faso. Take a look at the photos
of the towns of Burkina Faso for a better idea of life in Ouahigouya, Bobo-Dioulasso or
Ouagadougou, or the photos of villages or other parts of the
country. You can read one of my essays on the
page called Reflections in the Dust. You might also
enjoy looking at photos, menus, recipes, etc. from the holidays
spent in Burkina Faso with Burkinabé friends.
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in Burkina Faso seems to fall into three seasons: hot, rainy, or
dusty. (Some of the books say there are two seasons: dry and rainy.) No matter what season it is, it always seems to be hot at mid-day, although it gets
REALLY hot in about March or April (hotter than 45 degrees Celsius or well over 110 degrees
Fahrenheit every day, with little relief at night).
During the rainy season,
there are wonderful plants and flowers in most of the country and lots of mud, with some
villages inaccessible because of flooded roads for a month or two. During the kind-of-cool
(or less hot) season,
which is from
about December through February, there is a lot of wind and blowing dust. In December,
the weather often can be just beautiful except for the wind blowing the dust. The
winds that blow in from the Sahara desert and turn the sky brown are called harmattan
winds, and they really start blowing
dust in January and February. During the "cool" season, everyone goes around
with a hoarse throat and/or a runny nose because of all the dust.
By May the hot season has become oppressive simply because it goes on week after
week without relief, and the nights are almost as hot as the daytime. Most
people sleep outside during this time, but you really need a mosquito net.
During the hot season those of us not used to living here tend to get
a bit cranky and tired. When the rain finally starts in May or June, it can be in the
form of a bit of wind with a few drops of rain, all the way to a raging
wind/rain/lightning storm that can tear apart trees and roofs. However it
arrives, the rain is cause for celebration, and I would often find myself
standing outside enjoying getting wet.
These photos show the dramatic difference in weather
that can happen in Burkina Faso. On the left, a red dirt storm with
extremely high winds which turned into a brief heavy rain, as shown on the
right less than an hour later.
Photos from my front gate in Ouahigouya during
the fall of 2000
Click on a thumbnail to see the larger picture
Find out more
Burkina Faso Weather:
How hot is 30 degrees Celsius (and other weather questions)?
for an activity)
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Burkina Faso is part of French-speaking
West Africa. I taught mathematics in French to students whose first language
was one of
the many local languages
spoken in Burkina Faso. In addition to speaking French (which is their second or third
language), all of my students also speak their local language. Most of my students speak
Mooré, the language of the Mossi group. In my spare
time, I tried to learn to speak a little Mooré, but I didn't get too much
past everyday greetings. A fellow volunteer from my group, Jonathan Colman,
has developed an amazing website
where you can learn some basic Mooré.
If you come across words you need to
translate between French and English, you can use an online French/English
dictionary. And you can find French definitions of French words in an
7. Find out
For students of French:
(Pour les éléves et les étudiants de
Faso websites in French
(Click for an activity)
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I taught mathematics at the
LYCÉE YAMWAYA in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso. The
school is the third largest in the country, with about 2000 students. Even so, there is not
space for all the students who want to go to school, and there aren't enough
teachers even if there were enough space. In
the villages outside of Ouahigouya, there is an even greater shortage of teachers. Here in
Burkina Faso, only 11% of secondary-age students are in school. Most secondary students
are young men, since the young women are needed to work at home. Many people are trying to
find ways to increase the scholarisation (schooling) of students, especially
for girls. They recognize that education is a key to development and a strong future,
both for the country and for its people.
Between mid-November and the
Christmas holidays of 1999, our students went on strike for four weeks over a change in the
requirements for university entrance. The strike was led by upper-level students, who felt
that the system should continue to rely on the rigorous BAC examination as the primary
entrance requirement for university study. The government had adopted a change that would
have required students to take an additional test, thus diminishing the value of the BAC and
further limiting university enrollment. Furthermore, it would have caused students
to have to pay for, prepare for and take yet another test after the grueling BAC. However, in December 1999 the
government announced that it would return to the previous system. Thus, it appears that
the students were successful in non-violently communicating their concern. Meanwhile,
the strike gave me plenty of time to take pictures and develop my initial
Burkina Faso website.
Take a look at some photos of my
students and life at school. Also, visit the website
of Bernard OUEDRAOGO, an English teacher at the Lycée Yamwaya, including
the English Club's newsletter.
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As a mathematics teacher and educator for the past 30 years, I have studied a lot
about how children learn mathematics, and I have seen and used techniques that work and
some that don't. I have also been fortunate to work with talented teachers,
university mathematicians and mathematics educators, and others deeply interested in and
knowledgeable about helping children and young people understand and use mathematics in
powerful ways. The National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics has many resources to help teachers accomplish this goal.
Other good sites for mathematics resources for teachers or home educators are the Texas
Statewide Systemic Initiative's Mathematics
TEKS Toolkit, Swarthmore College's Math
Forum, and a nice site for students called Mathematics
|I think enabling students to solve a
wide range of mathematics problems should be our most important goal in mathematics
teaching. I believe all children can learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide if we
use what we have learned about how people develop mathematical proficiency, and I believe
they should learn these basic computations. I believe it is equally important, however,
that they know when to use which operation in real situations they will encounter. I
believe that technology is an important tool for doing lengthy calculations and for
allowing students to learn mathematics. Using tools such as
graphing calculators and
computers, students can see functional relationships, explore number patterns or organize data. I think mathematics
teaching should include much more than computation, so that students also can use geometry
to analyze the physical world (as many other countries emphasize), use statistical
processes to organize and understand information (of increasing importance with the amount
of information we receive every day), and use the symbolic tools of algebra to make
generalizations and deductions.
Sometimes schools, teachers, and students lack the kind of technology I think is
important. In my life as a teacher in Burkina Faso, most students
didn't have any textbooks, and those that did usually had to share
out-of-date books passed down in the family or donated from France.
Students certainly didn't have any technology, and there were so many students in every
class (60 to 100) that it was impossible for every student to receive individual attention.
Nevertheless, even here, teachers and the national ministry of education were working to improve their educational system
and their mathematics program by emphasizing
realistic, sometimes complex, problems in a direction similar to the direction I see in
the United States and in other countries around the world.
One major difference,
and something from which we can surely learn, is that in Burkina Faso, as in many other systems of education outside of the United States, students and
teachers are used to dealing with lengthy, complex problems, so that a
comprehensive test might include only one or two problems treated in great
depth. This is very much in line with recent recommendations in the U.S.
on how we can improve mathematics teaching and learning.
I would say that trying to
implement what I believed in
this environment was truly challenging and a wonderful learning experience!
This section written during the
2000-2001 school year.
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Peace Corps volunteers served in Upper Volta from 1966 until 1987, when the
government of Burkina Faso asked the United States to remove all its aid
programs while the country refocused its
development philosophy toward being more self-sufficient. During those 21 years, Peace
Corps volunteers worked in education, forestry, small enterprise development, water, and
agriculture, among other projects. Since returning to Burkina Faso in 1995, Peace Corps
volunteers have worked in education and in community health programs. About 80 volunteers
currently serve in Burkina, with roughly half in education and half in health. In the area
of education, Peace Corps volunteers teach mathematics, natural science,
physics/chemistry, and English.
Take a look at a few
photos of the
wonderful folks who run the Peace Corps volunteer office in Ouagadougou.
authorization by Congress in 1961, Peace
Corps around the world has focused on three goals: (1) To help the people of
interested countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained workers;
(2) To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the
peoples served; and (3) To help promote a better understanding of other
peoples on the part of Americans. This website, like other outreach
efforts of returned volunteers, is an effort to support the third goal. Find out about the United State's
program at their official website.
For other information about Peace Corps volunteers and programs around the world, visit the
Peace Corps Crossroads site
the National Peace Corps Association
website. There is also a site maintained by Friends
of Burkina Faso, an organization largely composed of former Peace
Corps volunteers and others interested in Burkina Faso today.
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As of 2002, there are approximately 80 Peace Corps volunteers serving as teachers and
community health volunteers in Burkina Faso. Friends and families of Burkina
Faso Peace Corps volunteers from the years 1999-2002 may want to check out
some of the photos in the 'PCVs' section of this
site. Be sure to see all the linked pages.
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All photos and essays are copyright
Cathy Seeley. All rights reserved. No photo
or text may be reproduced without
permission except for small group educational purposes (thanks for giving
For other uses, please contact Cathy