out in the field

My first visit out on the field with work! I left early in the morning by local bus from Bobo to Toussiana, a mid sized village about 50km from Bobo. Getting off at Toussiana I was excited to meet up with a producer I had met two months ago at a mango value chain meeting. We had gotten along quite well during the 3 day meeting and I had wanted to visit him for a long time. Just by chance he was sitting beside the road where the bus dropped me off. We had a great conversation and it was wonderful to be greeted by a familiar face and by someone so happy to see me.

I then met up with a colleague, Mori and we headed out by motorbike to a neighbouring village to start our tour of mango orchards. Mori’s job is to go around different communities in the Banfora district and identify the different mango orchards. He takes note of the size of the orchards, age of the trees, variety of mangoes, what diseases and parasites the trees have, how well the area is maintained…all just by looking and asking questions. Mori is a wealth of information on mangoes! All this information is then gathered to help connected producers with women who sell in the local and export markets or with industries or cooperatives that transform the mangoes into other products for export (dried mangoes, mango pulp, jus…).

We started our day at a small house full of children who were very excited to see a tubabu, as it is rare to see a white person in this area. The youngest child of about 1 year old was really not sure what to make of me and burst into tears and screams. The grandmother was a beautiful woman with a weathered face with deep lines carved by age. She was thin and had a kind yet toothless grin. I tried my best to greet her in Dioula and through this gained her trust and appreciation. She sat with me the whole time we were with the family, talking through Mori as translator, and sharing mangoes with me.

The son of the family arrived after his morning work in their field ready to show us around. He was on a bike and we were on the motorbike and we headed off the different orchards around the area. We must have visited close to 9 before we stopped. Mori introduced me to the different mango varieties and how to tell them apart from the shape of their leaves to the way the tree grows. We spent the whole day out in the sun looking at trees before we returned for a small snack of bread (there are no restaurants in this part of the countryside). We sat at the local store eating our bread with condensed milk and talking to the group of young men who were playing a game that looked a little like checkers. One of the men flagged down a local minibus and I hoped in for the trip back to Bobo, leaving Mori behind as he had more visits planned for the next day. The mini bus was packed with people, piled high with luggage and coffee on the roof, with people sitting on top of that luggage. Two young guys stood hanging out the door and gripping the inside of the roof with their hands. Their job is to collect the money from the passengers that are getting on and off of the minibus. I was put in front with the driver and 2 other men in suits, even though I had said I could fit in the back. A little bit of unnecessary privilege. The ride back to Bobo was fast! I’m not sure how those on the roof stayed on, but they did. I arrived fully exhausted from a day in the sun with little food and water and with my brain trying to process all I had learned!