Dossier, Volume 13 #5, Development: Small Steps

Grain Banks and Edible Tomatoes

Lanza del Vasto once remarked to us, "Each time I come to see you, I find you living in conditions that are more picturesquely rustic. Where will I find you on my next visit?" Well, here we are--in Ti'n Akoff in the Sahel, near where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso all meet.

For many years we had been associates of the Arche movement--Lanza del Vasto's Arche, with its inspiration derived from Gandhi. We became convinced that Gandhi's thought and way of life are admirably suited to the Third World--not that they would not also offer solutions to many difficulties in the First! We were given the chance to test our intuitions in 1986, when we were invited to Ti'n Akoff by its préfet.

Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries on earth. About 80 per cent of the people live on the land, mostly using traditional farming methods. The remaiming 20 per cent--businesspeople and government employees--control 75 per cent of the country's financial resources. Ti'n Akoff, 100 kilometres long by 50 kilometres wide, is cut off from the rest of the country to the south of it by lines of sand dunes. The Beli, a watercourse created by flooding from the Niger River, crosses the territory.

Although the Tuareg claim Ti'n Akoff as theirs by traditional right, most people who live there now were slaves until recently, ex-nomads who have been forced to settle because of enforced national boundaries and because the desert has engulfed their pasturelands. They depend for a livelihood--when there is enough water--on selling their animals to buyers who come from as far away as the Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin. Most of the young men work in the Ivory Coast, leaving their wives at home and returning only for brief visits, so that Ti'n Akoff's population is almost entirely made up of women, old men and children.

When we arrived, there was one male nurse without medical supplies, and a school that was almost exclusively for boys and lacked furniture, books and equipment. People regularly starved to death. Many were dying of malaria, dysentery and water-borne infections.

We decided to start by learning: we had no intention of "dropping in" and then leaving. This was a society that had received "aid," minimal as it was, but the achievements made had always been short-term and provisional. Why? Perhaps noise, the sudden magic of fancy technology and the agitation of abrupt change were not what these people really needed. We found that the essential thing is to be present to them.

We decided to live intensely the values that the Arche is based on: nonviolence, living with the utmost material simplicity, respect for the religion of others (the people here are Muslims), and appreciation for the beauty of their culture and ways.

So we listened. We helped people realize what their abilities were. Solidarity and social stability were key. We encouraged and suggested solutions, things that could be done simply, sensibly, without disruption, with no hint of financial gain for outsiders. We learned immeasurably from the people--from their gift for community, their resourcefulness, their readiness to pick up ideas, their simple acceptance of suffering and death.

This was a nomadic, cattle-pasturing culture that was having to face a brutally sudden change of identity. It had never been introduced to the rules and methods of farming, of keeping seed, even of putting aside a surplus for times when there was likely to be nothing to eat. We taught the principles of simple irrigation and the water hygiene required by sedentary peoples. We made sure supplies of medicines were provided for. We slowly introduced the idea that tomatoes, spinach, eggplant and potatoes are edible. The men helped with clearing the fields and constructing buildings. But it was the managerial and cooperative skills of the women that ensured the success of all our enterprises.

Today the society is divided into three thriving groups. The women organize and manage the grain banks into which the people have learned to put aside some of the millet crop each harvest, to draw it out later when needed. Girls attend school with the boys. The women have real power. They farm together, growing grains and vegetables on compost using the Pierre Rabhi method, devised especially for use in the Sahel. They have created an experimental orchard and their own bank for lending money for special projects.

The men have an experimental flock of sheep and their own fields and gardens. The third group consists of the artisans, who do superb wood and silver work, using traditional designs but turning out objects for new needs--such as salad-servers for the lettuces and other greens now grown in the settlement.

We leave Ti'n Akoff for six months every year. When we return, we meet with people to discuss progress and modify strategies where things have not worked out as planned. It is essential that the people take charge of their own lives and learn to do everything themselves. Each year our presence--apart from the very real friendship that now exists--becomes less and less necessary.

Jacqueline and Roger Cousin are members of Alliés de l'Arche, a "new community" founded by Lanza del Vasto and devoted to nonviolence and ecological issues. They divide their time between Burkina Faso and France.