2012 – Site proposed for a secondary school. Some of the original class of the Primary School that was established 50 years ago have formed a committee to build a secondary school to further the education of today’s students of their old school. They wish it to be a Christian school and have drawn up the initial plans for approval by the government. They were told that no plans would be passed unless they provided a well to show that the building of the school was viable. The G5 villages from near Blandford decided to fund the necessary well; out in the bush, all alone, is the finished well, a symbol of determination on both sides of the globe.
2014 – Planning permission is now in place. A school will be able to be built when there are sufficient funds.
2015 – We met up with the man who was the leader of the committee and he told us that plans were still in place to build the school but everything in Burkina Faso takes so much time and ‘African time’ is a different concept. It can be frustrating to see such lack of progress but it is common I’m afraid. The well may be in the middle of nowhere but it is in constant use by the surrounding villages. When we visited the site it was being used and there was a queue! There are no dwellings in sight, not in any direction, so it was amazing to see people on bikes laden with plastic jerry cans just coming across the bush. Some more fortunate villagers had donkey carts and huge barrels. Many of the women were just walking with containers on their heads and more in their hands. The miracle of clean water is worth the walk. I am sure that the surrounding villages will all expand and grow and it will be in the direction of the well.
