Oh so that is how couscous is made!

Today I spent the day with Giselle and Claire, we went around visiting different female producers of cereals. It is fascinating seeing how they work, in family units all together to produce cereal products to sell in the market or at little stores. Giselle works with the different producers to increase the hygiene standards in the preparation for the products and to increase their productivity. She is so supportive of the women and encouraging of their creative ideas. We visited 2 sites, one which owns 3 machines (Multifunctional platforms) that are used to transform the cereals (maize, millet, sorghum, fonio) into flour, she rents out time on the machines for other women producers. The other site had developed a 3 level drying rack that she was trying to patent so that she could sell them at the market but not have the design copied ( a long process).
Today I learnt how to make couscous and the millet balls that are in “bouillon”. As like most consumers I have bought and ate couscous without ever really thinking about where it came from or how it was made. It is a long process!!! First you take the cereal (wheat, corn, millet…) and you grind it into flour, then you sift the flour till it is fine, afterwards you mix the flour with some water till it clumps together and makes a big ball, then you squish the big ball through a sieve till you have little balls, the you pass through another sieve and another sieve until you have the ball at the size that you want. Once all that is done you lay it out in the sun to dry and then you can cook it or sell it.
Later on in the day Claire took me around the “grand marché” to show me a little of downtown Bobo. We stopped at a restaurant for some “degue”, a yogurt with millet balls inside. Burkina has one of the best yogurts I have eaten in a while!
Unfortunately Boris was unable to arrive today as he was held up in Ouaga suffereing from something he ate that didn’t make him feel to good. I myself feel okay though my body is adjusting to eating so many starches and cereals.