So then what happened?

So 2 years later I'm back in Yako, Burkina Faso and getting back to work, helping to develop a plan that will hopefully allow our partners here to bring effective, community-based palliative and end of life care to the people who are confronting a life-limiting illness. Last time you heard from me, it was January 2010 and I was still trying to make sense of what I was observing, hoping that I would be able to make a difference. I have to admit, it continued to be overwhelming on a daily basis for the rest of my 3 week term, and most days I ended up feeling very much the same way as I did that night. Meanwhile, my colleague Dr. Pierre Allard who is an Ottawa-based palliative physician was going through a very similar process in Bobo Dioulasso, which is Burkina Faso's second largest city. We had very little opportunity to communicate until I was able to travel by bus (another story) for 8 hours just to spend some time in Bobo comparing notes. Together, we were able to suggest a long-term strategy that would allow the two non-governmental organizations that we were working with (SEMUS in Yako and REVS+ in Bobo) to work together with other community-based organizations to develop a Center of Excellence in Palliative Care that would be a model for the development of palliative care competencies, and that would allow Burkina to provide leadership for the rest of francophone Africa. The center would be based in 2 sites. One, based in Bobo Dioulasso would develop, the capacity to train health professionals, while the program centered in Yako would develop the competencies required to provide support in rural areas (80% of Burkinabe live in rural areas) who are living with AIDS. As part of the continuing Medical Outreach Program undertaken by the Canadian Medical Association, Pierre and I have returned to Burkina Faso to continue working with these agencies with the support of Uniterra, a development program undertaken by World University Services Canada and CECI (Centre d'Étude et de Coopération Internationale) with support from the Canadian International Development Agency. On this trip we have acquired a new partner in the form of Sarah Lowden, a financial adviser working with the Canadian Medical Association and a dynamic young woman with expertise in finance. Her day job is as an advisor with MD Management, a financial services subsidiary of the Canadian Medical Association. Over several months prior to our departure from Canada Sarah (who is an avid single gear cyclist from Montreal) raised approximately $10,000CAN in order to purchase new bicycles and several bicycle ambulances (more later) for SEMUS. She will be helping SEMUS enhance their accounting procedures and will be very valuable in developing further funding for our project.

After the usual living nightmare of travelling to Burkina over 30 hours and three different flights, we were met at the airport in Ouagadougou (minus Pierre`s luggage that had decided it wanted to spend a night in Paris) by Simon who took us directly to the Hotel Yibi. Here we were able to get straight to the task of feeling sorry for ourselves, then heading to bed. Nice place all things considered, with one of the best restaurants that I have encountered in this city, at a very reasonable price. Sarah is one of those people who cannot resist taking photos of their food (my wife Jacqueline is another one). The one below gives you an idea of the pleasant but not overstated poolside atmosphere. This was of course an extra special experience as my home city of Calgary was just entering a dismal, dark cold spell when I left on January 15th. Ouagadougou is a typical capital city for a developing nation with terrible pollution, abject poverty and huge disparity between rich and poor. Burkina Faso remains in the bottom four nations on the UN development index, with only nations in conflict below them. Still, there are very pleasant spaces here, and this is one of them.

One day to recover from the trip and to deal with some details and we left Ouaga for Yako. I was surprised at how good it felt to leave the city for the rural area. Although the poverty becomes even more intense, the pace slows, and people are much more relaxed. Pierre had never seen the northern region of Burkina during our first visit here, and it was great to be able to show him around and have him see first hand how things were here. By that time Sarah had become the official photographer, thanks to her more advanced skills and her much better quality of camera. The two photos at the top of this blog are from Yako (my blogging skills are obviously rusty after two years).