Dirt and the Basic Economy

Aly and his friend reinforce a mud brick wall.



Pierre drawing water from a well.



Out of 177 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index, measuring life expectancy, literacy, education , and standard of living, Burkina Faso ranks fourth from the bottom. A visit to one of the smaller villages makes it easy to see why. The economy of the more remote, impoverished settlements can be broken down into five segments, satisfying only the most basic of human needs. The first segment is agriculture. During the rainy season, roughly June through September, nearly all the population works in the fields tending their millet and sorghum crops. Both are cereal grains which somehow manage to prosper in the red, rocky, and nearly infertile soil which covers much of the country. Both have stalks resembling corn but the grains grow in tassels from the top of the plant instead of in ears, and they can be up to fifteen feet tall.

After the cereal is harvested it is stored in the granaries and one season’s crop has to last for the entire year. To prepare a meal, the women pound the grains by hand into flour, which is used to make the national dish, tô (pronounced “toe” as in a digit on your foot). Tô can best be described as a kind of unbaked bread dough. Chunks of it are picked out of the pot by hand and dipped into a thick, gooey sauce comprised of various plant products, and consumed like that. Most Burkinabe eat tô for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, maybe switching to rice, beans, or spaghetti for holidays or special occasions.

The second segment of the basic village economy is water. Here the much maligned soil actually provides a benefit: it is soft enough to dig by hand the 20 to 50 feet necessary to reach the water table, yet hard enough that the well walls can usually support themselves without reinforcement. This means that villages are usually able to have one of more water sources nearby, although significant time is still spent waiting in line and hauling up enough water for the day’s cooking, cleaning, drinking and washing needs. One major problem with local wells is that the water drawn from them is not always fit for human consumption due to various diseases and parasites. Fortunately government and international aid money geared toward public health has paid for a growing number of pumps which draw water from deeper, enclosed wells and pose fewer health concerns.

The soil also gives another advantage to the village economy in the form of building material. When mixed with water it can be formed into relatively stable bricks. The means for the cost of nothing more than labor digging clay and carrying water a person can build a house that will stand for ten or twenty years before needing to be rebuilt. That may not seem like a long time but considering that cement, the more durable alternative, costs around ten dollars a bag the bricks aren’t a bad second choice.

The fourth segment of the economy is fuel. The only option for most people is wood so they spend a significant amount of time out in the brush gathering and carrying firewood back to the village. Deforestation is a major problem in Burkina, which not only threatens the main fuel source, but aggravates erosion, depleting the already marginal soil and threatening crop viability as well. The government has implemented various measures to combat the loss of trees, including taxing and limiting commercial wood harvest, and reforestation projects. The Sahara desert looms just over the border in Mali and Niger, two of the three countries below Burkina on the UN index, not coincidentally. Much of Burkina lies in the sahel zone that buffers the desert from the more lush and fertile south. Whether the Sahara stays put or advances south and destroys already meager lifestyles depends on whether deforestation can be stopped and erosion controlled.

The final segment of the basic economy is animal raising. Chickens, guinea fowls, pigs, goats, sheep, and cows are kept, and occasionally eaten during festivals and celebrations but are usually sold to markets in larger villages or cities. Sometimes fuel wood and excess cereal crops are also sold commercially but both suffer from supply problems—families can’t always secure enough for their own needs, let alone enough to sell. These sales are how villagers manage to scrape together money for clothes, school fees, medicine, and other expenses.

As the villagers get larger, economic opportunities increase. A community of a few thousand, for example, might have a market every few days where vendors hawk vegetables, spices, clothes, and hardware. There are small stores selling non-perishable food items like spaghetti, tea, sugar, and salt. There might be a bar, some street-side restaurants, and telecenters where people can make phone calls for a fee. You might even find a movie theater consisting of an old television hooked up to a car battery.

Larger cities are more developed still, with electricity, hotels, internet cafes, cell phone reception, and even running water. Some of these amenities like cell and internet service have arrived in the just past few years, and all are spreading slowly but gradually. A family in a community of a few hundred will have to wait a long time, perhaps forever, before their house has electricity and internet access, but most would be happy with just a few more opportunities to make some money.

An example of a development opportunity is gardening, a good money raising activity for a small village but one which requires a surprisingly large investment from a city or outside agency to purchase fencing, seedlings, and fertilizer for the ever troublesome soil. For one coming from a paved society where we buy our food in supermarkets and get fuel and water piped into our houses, it is remarkable to contemplate how much human life, at its basic level, revolves around dirt, which, to understate, leaves a lot to be desired in the sahel.

Nonetheless, development in Burkina marches on, maybe not surpassing other countries on the UN index, but at least forward, incrementally, to improve the quality of life for the people living in the most marginal ways imaginable.