Monthly Archives: January 2016

Sorrowing for Burkina Faso

Things were looking hopeful for the West African country of Burkina Faso. Since gaining independence in 1960, the former French colony was ruled primarily by the military and experienced several coups. Last year, the 27-year rule of a former president ended after a mass uprising and protests, and a democratically elected president was inaugurated on December 29.

And then, on January 15, terrorists attacked a hotel and café, setting off explosions and targeting guests and employees. In all, 20 people were killed and dozens more wounded. The North African Branch of Al Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is the same group that held 170 people hostage and killed 22 at a hotel in Bamako, Mali in November.

Along with the rest of the world, I mourn the senseless loss of those lives, but I also feel such profound sadness for the people of those desperately poor countries trying to build lives for themselves. The New York Times explains that while tourists and business people who escaped last week’s carnage can hurry away on the first available plane, the workers who are lucky enough to hold such jobs can’t consider leaving no matter how frightening the situation becomes. “There aren’t many jobs here,” one employee observed.

Formerly known as Upper Volta, Burkina Faso’s name means Land of Incorruptible People. Since meeting some of those people during a 14-day visit to the country in 2004, I have been pulling for them from afar and rejoicing with each new development. And now this. So very sad.

African Tales, the compilation of stories from the six African countries I visited with my cousin, Dorothy Woodson, retired curator of African collections at Yale, is progressing distressingly slowly on this website. But with recent news events taking me back to those wonderful experiences, I was re-inspired to write more about the Land of Incorruptible People. The latest addition, about Burkina Faso, is “The Festival of the Masks.”

africa map

El Niño, Where Are You?

Californians have been eagerly, albeit somewhat nervously, awaiting El Niño, the weather pattern that brings winter rains to a state experiencing more than four years of drought. Here in Southern California, people early on got to work cleaning leaves and debris from their roof drains. Some purchased and installed rain barrels to capture and keep whatever drops eventually fall. They’ve stacked sandbags along low edges of their property. And they’ve turned off their outside sprinkler systems.

But where is the rain?

ladwp sprinklersEarlier this month there was a fairly decent downfall that got everyone’s hopes up. At our house, it told us that the leaking roof we had repaired a year ago had reopened in one spot and presented a new spot elsewhere. We called the roofer who offered to come before the next anticipated rainfall, and he did, coming hours before the storm was projected to get underway. We agreed to call him, one way or the other, to let him know whether his repairs had worked. But it didn’t rain that night. Nor since.

The forecast was revised to predict a heavy rain later in the week. Never happened. Now there’s no talk of rain anytime in the near future. There’s snow in the mountains that’s exciting skiers and water experts but nothing down here. It’s chilly, but the sun continues to shine.

Snow on the mountains

And the app on my smart phone continues to read:

“Chance of rain 0%.”