Made in Burkina by relevant studies

Report document

REGIÃO AUTÓNOMA DA MADEIRA

UNIÃO EUROPEIA Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional - FEDER

Contents People and partners Introduction

4 6

Mapping the territory

Before going there

Batik-on-demand

Burkina Faso, some information Opening the source

The invisible elements Motivation matrix Focus: where the circle closes

Thinking of the unknown

Inputs for outputs Locals as service provider Just an e-store? Interacting via cloth :) and :( Payments and shippings Analyzing the product Prototyping: casting actors

Packagers

Batik Artist

Orders Manager

Customer

3,2,1... Action! I thought I said â&#x20AC;&#x153;Batikâ&#x20AC;? There it is. Finally Actor Network Map

Afro Tourism

Gold Mines

Barrage

Meet the mercenaries (and still think they are just musicians)

Remote villages and the graveyard of the Naabas

The Naaba is back

Be our guest Locals as service provider Our doors are open... A connection is made :) and :( While there Some examples of activities

The spectrum of tourism

Cultural Evidences

Small doses

Phone credit

Gas stations

Cigarettes

Fruit and vegetables

Emergency gas stations Pizza delivery (200 km apart) Share-a-chair Made in China, shot in Bollywood Beyond billboards On the social fabric

Teach and learn

Exchange knowledge for ideas Profiles

Ollé

Sidi

Agui

Abel

Screen-saver pedlar

Mr. Tambourine Man 2.0

Maps and cells

Alessane’s chair

Sidi’s caps

Simple-tech is so Hi-tech Skype!

The very low-cost travel agency Craft investigations

From Burkina to...

132

Takeaways

138

Next steps TV guru Found again

Conclusion 1. Think small 2. Don’t design everything 3. Don’t discriminate technology 4. Fixable = Eternal 5. Privacy never showed up 6. TV might be come your job 7. Be current 8. Examples are dogmas 9. Cash is something, credit is not

People and partners Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute

The Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (Madeira-ITI) is a not-for-profit innovation institute of the University of Madeira, founded by the University of Madeira, Madeira Tecnopolo, and Carnegie Mellon University. The institute was created in December 2009 in order to provide a home for the many collaborations between these partners, in both research and education. The work of the institute mainly concentrates on innovation in the areas of computer science and humancomputer interaction.

• Giovanni Innella

Industrial and conceptual designer. Senior researcher on service design at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute. He worked on the project while in Portugal and in Burkina Faso.

• Guilherme Gomes

Computer science engineer. Senior researcher on service engineering at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute. He worked on the project in the preparation and conception phase in Portugal.

• Valentina Nisi

Assistant Professor at the Unversity of Madeira with a background and focus on Location Aware Narrative, Service Design, Embodiment, Sustainability, Digital Culture and Media. In this project she supervised directly Giovanni’s work.

• Leonel Nóbrega

Vice-president of Academic Affairs and Infrastructure, Assistant Professor at Madeira-ITI. His focus is on Model-driven Software Engineering, Modeling Languages, Metamodeling. In the context of this project he supervised the interactions between the design and engineering parts and the languages developed.

• Nuno Nunes

President of M-ITI, Associate Professor, Vice-President of Madeira Tecnopolo. His expertise varies on different disciplines like Service design, Sostanability, Model-based UI design, agile software development methods, human-centered software engineering.

ZON Multimédia

ZON Multimédia is a Portuguese media holding company whose main assets include a satellite, cable operator and ISP (TVCabo), a movie distributor (Lusomundo) and a virtual carrier of mobile phone services. Its services include cable television, cable internet and VOIP. ZON Multimédia (formerly PT Multimédia) is the spun-off media arm of Portugal Telecom.

Co.Co.Pa. (5 Italian Municipalities)

Co.Co.Pa. (Coordinamento Comuni per la Pace) is a group of 36 municipalities of the Area of Torino - Italy - committed in activities and projects promoting development of third world and developing Countries and exchange of culture between Western society and local realities. In this specific project the municipalities directly involved are: Beinasco, Moncalieri, Nichelino, RIvoli, Settimo Torinese. With the support of Regione Piemonte - Programma Sahel.

ARCAN

Association based in Ouahigouya - Burkina Faso - expert in social theatre, and other activities raising awareness towards social, cultural and health issues.

Franco Papeschi

Franco holds degrees in Communication Sciences and Ergonomics and Human Factor. He currently works as User Experience Manager at Vodafone London and his expertise covers the areas of Analysis and design for enhancing user experience, through web sites, mobile devices, iTV, physical computing, distributed artifacts, organizational artifacts. He spontaneously took part into this project as volunteer, collaborating for two weeks with Giovanni Innella while in Burkina Faso.

Introduction Burkina Faso, some information Until the end of the 19th century, the history of Burkina Faso, once known as Alto Volta, was dominated by the empire-building Mossi. The French arrived and claimed the area in 1896, but Mossi resistance ended only with the capture of their capital Ouagadougou in 1901. The colony of Alto Volta was established in 1919, but it was dismembered and reconstituted several times until the present borders were recognized in 1947. The French administered the area indirectly through Mossi authorities until independence was achieved on August 5, 1960. After that the political life of the Country records a row of coups d’etat. In 1983 Thomas Sankara takes the power and starts its revolution fighting ancient tribal powers, defending women’s rights and improving public infrastructures. He also changes the name of Alto Volta in Burkina Faso, which means “Country of honorable people”. In 1987 Sankara is assassinated by a group commanded by current President Blaise Campaoré. In Burkina Faso are present many ethnic groups, often speaking different dialects, although French remains the official language. It is praiseworthy how different religions (Animist, Christian, Islamic) cohabit without problems. Burkina Faso has one of the lowest GDP per capita incomes in the world: $1,200. Agriculture represents 32% of its gross domestic product and occupies 80% of the working population. The crime rate is extremely low, especially if compared to industrialized countries. Unemployment causes a high rate of emigration. For example, three million citizens of Burkina Faso live in Côte d’Ivoire. A large part of the economic activity of the Country is funded by international aid. The currency of Burkina Faso is the CFA franc.

The Country hosts the International Art and Craft Fair of Ouagadougou, one of the most important African handicraft fairs. The largest African film festival known as FESPACO is biennially held in Ouagadougou.

Introduction Opening the source In Burkina Faso a little revolution is happening right now: for the first time faster internet connections are being available in the Country. This is a revolution which is for some aspects similar to what happened recently with GSM cellphones. Previous cooperation projects provided the town of Ouahigouya, in the north of Burkina Faso, of a centre with computers and now a reasonably fast internet satellite connection. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been in Ouahigouya during the whole months of November and December 2009. The task given by Co.Co.Pa consists of introducing a group of local people to the resources that internet provides and investigate with them on how to use those in an active way. This overlapped with multimedia and communication company ZON interests, in fact I could explore possibilities for the internet as a market in similar contexts. For example how to use Google and its tools, investigate on-line services for publishing and distributing books such as Lulu.com, how to use YouTube as a medium for communication, how to set up a blog or a simple web-site, etcâ&#x20AC;Ś The final goal is to let the locals understand the potential of the internet, gather information, invite them to think of some micro (and macro) business models or services that can eventually generate revenues and finally come with some conclusions. This project is developed at the Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute with the support of Zon MultimĂŠdia, Madeira Tecnopolo, Co.Co.Pa. and local organization ARCAN.

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Mapping the territory The invisible elements

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A Territory Map is a tool that shows the space for my research and design, encompassing different areas of expertise. I listed here all the actors involved in the project and the interactions among them. From the Territory Map it emerged that the project assumed very different values and peculiarities according to the point of view of each player. Analyzing the perspectives of each stakeholder and compromising the project itself according to each vision represents a difficulty, but it is also an element of richness. The goal of the project seems to be covering the whole spectrum of meanings for the term “benefit”. From commercial value, to pedagogy, from ethics to technical implementation, every single connotation of the term “benefit” has to be taken in consideration and explored in order to have each actor involved and finally satisfied. If on the one hand each actor demands something, it is also true that on the other hand everybody can contribute to the project offering something. This map tries to visualize all this.

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Research

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WHY: • Increase income • Provide better services

• Develop new services • Develop a modeling process

• Bring benefits to the locals • Encourage cooperation from Italian citizens

Supporting a research project

Creating and supervising a research project

Sponsoring learning activities on modern media

HOW:

PRIORITIES:

• Develop a process for modelling and implementing services • Prototype a modeling language • Generate concepts and prototypes for sustainable services in developing countries

• Set up a working service • Create prototypes for cooperation with locals • Transfer technical knowledge

ARCAN

Locals

Westerners

Giovanni

Develop

Income

Choice

Innovate

• Improve life conditions of local population • Raise our status as local organization

• Improve life conditions

• Have services that respond to the needs of a group of people • Cultural enrichment through direct contact with other cultures

• Because experimental service design can lead to major improvement for society

Supporting learning activities on modern media

Providing valuable goods and services

Giving feedbacks and engaging directly with locals

Observing the context, generate ideas, confronting myself with other professionals, working as a binding element between all the actors involved

• Be able to use an innovative working system • Explore prototypes • Be introduced and informed on new scenarios

• Create prototypes for cooperation with locals • Transfer technical knowledge • Introducing society to new scenarios and directions

• Set up a service able to produce income • See practical applications of technical skills • Learn useful skills

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To a certain extent the initial approach to this project has been the one of cutting off the intermediaries in the relation Africans/ Westerners. This operation is possible only by introducing new services that can put the two entities in direct contact. This, in reality, doesn’t mean erasing the actors facilitating the relation, I would rather say that the “facilitators” have the hard role of allowing users to establish among themselves the relation of buyers and sellers, givers and receivers, teachers and learners. There, it lays the opportunity for companies to create services and infrastructures that allows connection and communication between the two worlds. And yet capitalise all this.

Before going there Thinking of the unknown While preparing the field trip to Burkina Faso, I thought it would have been wise to go there with some ideas and concepts in mind. I knew that probably my ideas wouldn’t have worked and they would have revealed many failure points in their system; at the same time I was sure that by trying to prototype something many side discoveries would have came out. I’ve been to Burkina Faso already about 4 years ago. Therefore I had already some initial observations and experience I could base my thoughts on. The first observation is that anytime I use to mention the fact that I’m going to Burkina Faso my interlocutors ask me either to bring them something, or more simply to bring them with me. I assumed that the opportunities for Burkina Faso would lay in tourism and commerce, which applied to the access to fast internet connections could have originated new services and consequently income for the Burkinabés. Graphics on local bank-notes seem to confirm the confidence in considering internet development as a tool for economic growth (see image of a 10.000 CFA bill). Thinking of new services means also empowering the population with new tools and resources. This represents an opportunity for service providers to drastically grow into those markets. I also observed that European people under 40 often don’t consider charity as a way of helping people, but they are very much willing to pay for services and products, therefore I started considering them as possible users of these hypothetical new services.

Batik-on-demand Inputs for outputs This concept starts from the assumption (based on personal observations) that there is a typology of Western people that are fond for African craft. Through the years I noticed that any person going to Burkina Faso is often asked by friends and relatives to bring either musical instruments, karitĂŠ butter or a cloth of batik, which represents the main local craft. A batik is a cloth which traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique to obtain patterns or illustrations. I focused on this technique, because it seemed to me to leave more room for customization and interaction between customers and producers.

Batik-on-demand Locals as service provider Institutions involved in cooperation projects usually provide a series of physical infrastructures to local population. In this case I imagined these organizations providing the resources for setting up an intangible platform connecting Western and African people. This action will help to transform local population into a service provider, allowing people to start their activities onto this virtual space. The same system can be imagined by substituting institutions with companies, obviously considering a higher focus on profits

Batik-on-demand Just an e-store? On this on-line environment, local population should be able to trade their products. This is an activity that if well promoted and managed should provide some income. This model follows the example of some existing platforms such as etsy.com, in which users sell directly their products through the site.

Batik-on-demand Interacting via cloth At this point we try to make a step further, imagining the system to allow Western customers to give some inspiration or input to the Africans artists. The aim of implementing this interaction is to improve the final product by offering a service of customization, but also to start an exchange of information among the two cultures. This additional service would provide an added value to the experience of buying a batik on-line directly from Burkina Faso.

Batik-on-demand :) and :( Obviously this change presents some pros and cons which will have to be taken into consideration in designing the system. The system itself will need to be thought in an effective way and implemented for a simple usability without forgetting of keeping in high consideration the sense of authenticity and direct contact in experiencing the interaction.

Batik-on-demand Payments and shippings Before going to Burkina Faso the major concern for my colleague Guilherme Gomes and me regarded modalities of payments and shipment. We hypothesized to use existing services as Moneybookers to facilitate on-line payments and we identified ARCAN as the ones in charge of managing orders, checking quality of products, content of parcels, and finally ship the boxes. In reality, I realized only while being there, that for local population payments and shipping werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a concern at all since they are used to receive money from their relatives abroad and to send them things from home. Although they understood this would have required different methods, they werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t worried. The problems I would have to face were much less technical and much more related to culture, habits and to a different perception of batik artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; role.

Batik-on-demand Analyzing the product The upper part of this scheme is focused on the batik as a product, while the lower part tries to list positive and negative aspects of the service of customization.

Tradition Culture

Art

Local Authentic Tangible Resistant Aesthetics Exchange

Exotic

+ -

Craft

Satisfaction Interpretation

Batik on-demand

Not innovative

Imported

+ -

Interaction

Useless

Long process

Customization Chosen

Complex

Imposed

Surprise

Requested Expensive

Disappointed customer Frustrated artist

Uncertain outcome

Batik-on-demand Prototyping: Casting actors At this point I’m in Burkina Faso and I have the chance to experiment the system as it was imagined while in Portugal. Now it’s time to give roles and see how this very low-fi prototype of the service would work.

• Packagers Ouagalé and Sidi, offered to think of a functional packaging for sending one or two batiks. They also started working on a packaging for bigger orders (10-20 pieces), which they described as a wooden tube where you could insert rolled clothes. Ouagalé is a musician and theatre actor, his focus is on the identity and sense of value expressed by the packaging. Sidi is a taylor, therefore he firstly proposes to use the techniques and materials he knows better: fabric, sewing, buttons... As he tells me his intentions I’m excited and I find his early proposals quite appropriate. I decide not to be too intrusive in their design processes, but when I talk to them again I realize they decided to abandon the idea of a fabric wrap as packaging. They say that it would be hard to stick stamps on it and to write addresses and information, buttons would be lost during travel and also the fabric itself might rip. I have to say that I disagree with many of their doubts, but they tend to defend their point of view by mentioning past dramatic experiences when sending stuff to their relatives or friends in Europe or America. One of their biggest concerns lays in the check-in controls by post office employees. They claim that if the package isn’t easy to be opened they would break the package and even throw it away. They propose to use the cardboard boxes they can find for free from shops, paint them in white and stick or draw the symbol of local organization ARCAN on it. They definitely see ARCAN as the organization to 34

refer to, even though we never discussed its role in the Batik-on-demand system. For them, and later I would realize for any other affiliated member, ARCAN is a sort of institution that has to be credited and publicized as much as possible.

Batik-on-demand Casting Actors â&#x20AC;˘ Batik Artist Maurice is an artist, graphic designer, craft-man and designer. He makes batiks, paintings, graphics for signs and objects. He has been introduced to me by the group that attended my presentations about the internet and its possibilities. One day he decides to bring me to visit his studio. His atelier is composed of his courtyard and a smaller house where he mixes colors, cuts paper or shape materials of various genre. Here I see his tools and he shows me some of his works and pictures of previous projects, they are very diverse. His illustrations often refer to common notion of local tradition: scenes of hunting, birth, the forest and its creatures... all things that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem to be related to the actual context of Burkina Faso. He explains me that these are the works that most white people would be interested in. More interesting are instead the works done for local clients. Graphics for signs for example are done with the technique of painted stencils, the precision of the cut in the paper, the attention in the kerning and in drawing the fonts impressed me. His productions vary from decorative sculptures to functional objects such as lamps and tables. Burkina Faso is a country poor of raw materials, so locals often use dry pumpkins or clay mud from the soil mixed with fibers. Mauriceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s task is to produce one batik starting from one image proposed by the customer.

Batik-on-demand Casting Actors • Orders Manager Ollé will receive the order (for the moment via mail), process it and communicate it to the batik artist.

• Western Customer I’m covering the role of the customer in this role play. I act as if I’m located remotely, while the fact that in reality I’m on site allows me to observe processes and the “behind the scene” action. I will submit an image I want the batik artist to use as inspiration.

Batik-on-demand 3,2,1... Action! I send a mail with attached the file of the image that I would like the artist to use as inspiration to Ollé. He prints it in black and white, as that’s the only printer they have, and gives it to the batik artist Maurice. Here it’s the first critical point of the system: in order to make the price Maurice needs to know dimensions and amount of colors of the batik. I determine the required information and transmit those to Maurice through Ollé. Still, Maurice says that’s not enough, he really needs to meet me to start a negotiation. He says he is not able to make a price without meeting and talking with the customer. To speed up the process we meet up in person. He wants to know why I want this batik and how much freedom he has in elaborating the

input I gave. He has a positive impression of me, so the price drops from 15.000 CFA (=23 Euros) to 10.000 CFA (=15 Euros). Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m quite sure that being more patient and smarter might have allowed me to get the product for a lower price. He is very focused on the image and not too focused on my words, when I try to explain him what I expect and that he has complete freedom on using the image as a source of inspiration. In this meeting we also negotiate the time for him to make the batik. In four days the batik should be ready. He guarantees that there are no problems, he definitely can do the work and I will be impressed by his skills.

Batik-on-demand I thought I said “Batik”... Four days later Ollé let me know that Maurice finished his work and I can go with him to his atelier to pick it up. I’m quite excited, at the same time afraid that the outcome is not as nice as I expect. Surprisingly the outcome is not a batik, it’s a painting oil on canvas! This puzzles me: we talked since the beginning about batik, then he even wanted to meet me in person to make sure he understood everything right, and then, he comes up with a painting? Maurice is instead extremely satisfied with the outcome because it really resembles the image I gave him. Frustrated and disappointed I try to tell him that although I appreciate his painting, I really want a batik even if it won’t be as similar to the image I gave him as this canvas. Now he is more puzzled than me, but he accepts to make a batik and deliver within the next 4 days.

This incident made my mind wonder about the role of a batik artist and some general cultural aspect I faced here. Batik artist often make copies of original pieces they previously made. For instance when approaching Western visitors they show their portfolio so that the customer can point at what he wants and the artist would just re-make it. Although the technique of batik doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow a serial production, artists find easier to propose replicas of their own work instead of trying to understand what the customer wants with the risk that the outcome is not what expected. The other observation I could make is that in general when making an example, this is taken as the truth or as an order, I noticed this in several situations.

Batik-on-demand There it is. Finally. The batik looks good. It is more interesting than the previous painting, especially because it shows a higher re-elaboration from the artist, distancing itself from the photograph I gave. As a customer Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m satisfied of the final product, the artist is fine with the earning, but this very first try out didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t test remote payment, shipment and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t consider rewards for packagers and employees of any kind. On the other hand it revealed risks of proposing an image as input. Only at this point I paid Maurice, although he asked me for some extra-money since he has to do the piece twice.

Batik-on-demand Actor Network Map This map illustrates the relations between the actors involved in the Batik-on-demand system. It doesn’t analyze details yet, but it isolates and limits the relations of each actor, defining also its tasks. These actors not necessarily match with the ones of the Territory Map, since those belong to the bigger picture of the overall project “Made in Burkina”, while these ones operate on the smaller scale of the service Batik-on-demand. The conclusions that emerged from the prototype and involve relations between actors can be listed easily: • Importance of negotiation in the relation customer/author • Risks of proposing images as inspiration • Ability of adapting to limited resources (i.e. packaging) • Trust towards customers (getting paid after the work is done)

customers employees back-office authors workshop external services front-desk retail access provider general infrastructure

Afro Tourism Be our guest This concept started from an observation I made before going to Burkina for the second time: younger Western people is intrigued by the Country and would love to have an authentic experience there. The other consideration is that Burkina Faso, with a lower crime rate than Japan, is a very safe Country. People is very open and hospitable, so the ingredients for a sort of African farm holiday service seem to be there, if implemented by access to internet and easy to use web-tools. Currently, the only way to have an experience as close as possible to the one described above, is to approach NGOs and humanitarian organizations. These associations, however, are often difficult to approach and to interface with, demanding a complex process of selection and preparation. Beside this, they tend to add a philanthropic layer which often does not coincide with the interests of younger Western tourists.

Afro Tourism Locals as service provider Institutions and NGOs involved in cooperation projects could set up a direct line to connect Western and African people. This action will help to transform local population into a service provider, being able to offer accommodation and activities for their guests. The same system can be imagined by substituting institutions with companies, obviously considering a higher focus on profits and not forgetting to avoid creating imbalances in the local society.

Afro Tourism Our doors are open... Local population can organize itself for offering a variety of solutions and activities to host and entertain the Western visitors. This is a service similar to the European farm-holiday or agro-tourism. While there I noticed a genuine enthusiasm in receiving people from abroad and also a strong sense of community especially when a common goal is pictured. I think that a system in which customers can comment their experiences and locals can upload their information and services offered can work under the supervision of organizations or private companies. This platform, similarly to the ones existing for bed&breakfasts for example, can produce revenues for both the hosts and the managers of the service and activities.

Afro Tourism A connection is made The aim is to start a flow of Westerners to visit Burkina Faso and have the authentic experience they expect by living with the people of the region and being involved in their activities.

Afro Tourism :) and :( Compared to the existing system we can observe and list positive and negative aspects, but the overall intention is to offer a different service and experience rather than substituting the existing ones.

Afro Tourism While there This concept didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really go through benchmark test while I was there, but has been some episodes in which I had confirmation that a service like this desired by local and Western people.

a there the is

One day I was driving through some more remote villages with a group of Italians that came to check the evolution of the project and when passing next to the traditional houses one of the persons with me stated with a bit of sorrow that it was a pity not to have the possibility to live with the inhabitants for some days. The other confirmation I had when the group of people working with me would organize some trips or participation to feasts during week-ends. They would carefully take care of every detail in order to let me have a nice and safe experience, but still everything was so spontaneous that I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like a regular tourist, but rather as a local.

Afro Tourism Some examples of activities • Gold Mines I know that Burkina Faso isn’t rich of natural resources so to hear the word “gold” next to the name Burkina Faso or Ouahigouya definitely raised our interest. No doubt we have to go there to check out what is this untold story of the Burkinabe gold. In 5 minutes we organize the team for this expedition: Nufu is going to be our chauffeur, Ollé takes the role of intermediary and translator, Sylvie and Agui just decide to join us in the car and help documenting with pictures and videos. Saturday morning we meet and finally take off to the gold mines. In the car, my brain tries to imagine what a gold mine could be like, but the only result is too similar to the Welsh coal-mines to be true. Sure, there is no Thatcher here, at least. The result of my imagination is something like a gigantic hole, an en-plein-air mine with big wheeled carts and a rigid organization. I don’t reveal it to anyone, I keep my imagination in the back of my mind, and I don’t allow it to influence the opinion of what I’ll see. In the meanwhile, Nufu leaves the main road and starts driving apparently heading to nowhere; at a certain point he stops the car. We jump off and start walking towards some stacks of dirt. The sun is hitting hard our heads; the dust in the air becomes more and more thick. In this sort of fog we can see some silhouettes. After few meters we are in the middle of the gold mines. What you see is nothing but holes, stacks of dirt and stones. Here in Burkina Faso everything is kind of approximate and clumsy but these holes are quite impressive for their precision. Their shape is a square of one meter per side. You have to be careful not to step into one of those and fall in the complete darkness. The people working here are neither black nor white. They are beige. Completely covered by dust they first look at us with certain suspicion, but then they let themselves go to smiles and posing for pictures. They explain us that the rule here it’s quite simple: if you want to look for gold you can just choose a spot and start digging. I personally think that the whole thing can’t be as simple as they tell us, and that some sort of hierarchy has to be respected. Anyway, I don’t have elements supporting my 58

doubts therefore I tend to trust what they say. The holes are about 15 meters deep and then they proceed horizontally in a - I believe - intricate underground net. People dig with their hands and basic tools. There are no machines, apart from the machines for breaking the stones, but for those you have to pay and many people just break stones by hands. Somebody kindly invites me to go down in one of the holes and take a look down there, but although I consider God being a very powerful tool for safety I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel like going 15 meters underground protected only by my prayers. We keep taking pictures and talking to people, they come from anywhere looking for gold. Their lives consist of digging, breaking stones and breathing dust. Somebody told me that few weeks ago a dozen of people went down in one hole, but never came back. Sometimes they rescue some bodies down there; one of those men had 5.000.000 of CFA (about 750â&#x201A;Ź = a lot here) in his pockets. BurkinabĂŠ tales or real stories?

Honestly I saw everything of a mine there but the gold. At a certain point a guy insisted for me taking a picture of him with a small bag in his mouth, inside there is something yellowish. It has to be gold, I think! They are peanuts instead. The sun keeps cooking our heads while we keep shooting pictures, until an elegant man appears from this cloud of dust and dusty people (including us now). He is the only one dust-repellent, it seems. He says he represents the company that owns the rights of exploiting the site, and he says we can’t take pictures. But our animist (and suspected magician) friend Ollé uses all his diplomatic skills (or occulted powers) to convince the gentleman to let us document the experience. Surprisingly he succeeds. Ok, now that we have some sort of authorization from the un-dusted man, we can explore every single square centimeter of the mine, we can ask people and do much more. So we do and after half an hour we decide to leave and just take few pictures here and there That’s our gold, now we can go. (from my blog “Googling Burkina”, by Franco Papeschi and myself)

Afro Tourism Some examples of activities â&#x20AC;˘ Barrage The â&#x20AC;&#x153;barrageâ&#x20AC;? is an artificial basin where the water fell during the raining season is saved. The contrast with the dry surrounding is impressive and here there are a variety of animals that gather for their water supply. The thriving vegetation offer some very much appreciated shadow for recovering and relax. I really enjoyed my visit to this site where guided by the right people I could also receive information about the local agricultural techniques and the microeconomy of Ouahigouya.

Afro Tourism Some examples of activities • Meet the mercenaries (and still think they are just musicians) Yesterday it was the Independence Day here in Burkina Faso. Parades, talks and parties in sequence. But, who cares? I won’t post anything about that since it’s not that different from any similar feast in Europe. Nevertheless it was an extraordinary day because I met some interesting and quite controversial characters: the “Dossos”! So here it’s the tale. I was zipping around with my friend Ollé on his moped, when at a certain point we end up in a more remote courtyard out of the centre. As we step in we see some bizarre men singing with traditional instruments. Ollé’s eyes opens widely he turns towards me and says “Ils sont led Dossos, ils sont vraiment fort” (“They are the Dossos, they are really cool”) At first I imagined they were his favorite local music band, but then Ollé whispers in my ear: “They can make the kind of sorcery rituals you are looking for”. In fact it has been some weeks that I keep telling Ollé that I really need to meet a sourcier. So Ollé approaches the 5 guys (one older man, one sort of hunter with a -scaryworking hand made rifle, two young musicians and one dancing kid), and tells me to move closer to them. They start dancing and singing, touching my shoulder with their instrument and handing me their rifle. The guy sings in a unknown dialect, he repeats my name and mentions Italy a couple of time. He shouts at 3cm from my face. I keep looking straight into his eyes. Ollé tells me their are giving me their blessing. After 10 minutes the ritual is over. They sit with me and Ollé, I ask them some generic questions while Ollé translates. At a certain point the old man insists to show me some pictures. A picture of him with the president of Gambia. Cool. A picture of him posing next to the head of a dead hippopotamus. A bit shocking but still fine. A series of picture of dead people, probably shot or stabbed. !!! 64

I’m a bit puzzled, I don’t understand. I ask what is that, maybe this sweet harmless grandpa witnessed his family being killed? Mmmh... not really. He explains me that they are sourciers and musicians, but their other activity is working as mercenaries. So those were pictures of their job done in Ivory Coast. The guy was showing his portfolio. I’ve seen images of dead people on any kind of media in my life, but holding the photos printed straight from the film, having in front of me the -probable- author of that and having behind me a man with a rifle makes my throat burn like my saliva transformed in aged rum. Thinking back I wouldn’t now front the guy singing at 3 cm from my face and stare firmly into his eyes. Bravery is not my top quality. For Ollé it’s all normal. The old guy for some reasons thinks I’m cool so he gives me a ring that will protect me from any disgrace. I hold the ring behind my back and repeat the magic words he tells me. The only counter-indication is that I can’t in my life eat any animal killed while still in its mother’s womb

(therefore forget about the crab’s eggs I used to eat directly from the shell) I’m blessed. But I don’t know by whom. (from my blog “Googling Burkina”)

Afro Tourism Some examples of activities â&#x20AC;˘ Remote villages and the graveyard of the Naabas One day I was brought to visit the village of Kouba, which is about 1 hour drive from Ouahigouya. In that case I was with the group of Italians that came to check progresses of the project and we had been invited by the local chief for a courtesy visit. The experience was interesting because it opened up doors to the true rural life in Burkina Faso, with all the traditions and rituals annexes. Thus including exchange of chickens and peanuts as sign of respect. After theses formalities we had chance to visit the graveyard of Naabas which is nearby. Naaba is the word for the local chiefs, which have to be buried in a specific place. We were guided through this place by an old man who is the gatekeeper of the cemetery and the only one to allow foreigners to enter. His tales were translated by a local man and the all thing resulted to be interesting and entertaining for our group.

Afro Tourism Some examples of activities • The Naaba is back There are many feasts of any kind that is worth to witness in Burkina Faso. During one month of permanence in the African Country I took part to three interesting e celebrations that I think any Western tourist would like to see. These feasts are very diverse among each other because they have religious, national, and traditional connotations. Among the three the most unique it was surely the one that celebrated the tribal chief returning from his yearly meditation period up on the mountains. Following some words from my blog about that day. Last night I was chilling at Sidi’s place who lives in the central square of the town. We were eating a sweet watermelon which you can find in this period here because weather is very cold (30°C). In Europe you find them in August cause it’s very hot instead (30°C), When we could see in the darkness people doing some sort of rituals in the centre of the square. Sidi and his brother Alfan explained that later in the night the Naaba would have come to complete the ritual. The Naaba is the traditional leader of the region he doesn’t have any official role in society, but he is extremely influential and highly respected. Basically he is the real boss. So I asked if I could have watched the cerimony and they explained that if I showed up and some of his guards would have seen me they would have killed me. As I said in some of the previous posts courage is not my top quality so I skipped the night part in order to keep myself alive and be able to witness the public cerimony the day after. Naaba Kiba in this period of the year takes one week of exile in which he thinks. I mean he thinks a lot. People told me so and since I don’t want to have arguments I just report what they say. Then after he is done with thinking he goes back to town and people celebrates. Although in Burkina Faso the concept of rules is quite flexible (after having lived almost 3 years in Holland I think I understood what is a real strict rule), there are some rules that you really can’t breach. The first strict rule i experience is the “stop” sign in the streets, which 70

is quite interesting cause then you see four people on a scooter eventually on the wrong side of the road. Traffic lights for example aren’t thought of the same authority as the “stop” sign, since they have this habit of changing colour from red to green and this makes everything harder for a cop when demonstrating it was red when you passed. But, anyway, the other strict rule is the one about looking at the Naaba the night of the ritual. If you do so, they beat you up to death... Even today, terrified of being hit on the head with this huge bat I passed the camera to Salifou, who wasn’t scared of taking picures and shot some really nice ones. And finally I show them to you. Another interesting detail is that the Naaba is very irascible, therefore if he is tired and nervous he starts publicly insulting you and your parents, you can also insult him back but only in private meeting. Observing costumes, hand-made blank shots guns, characters and rituals amazes your senses and definitely entertain you for a full day.

(from my blog “Googling Burkina”)

Afro Tourism The spectrum of tourism During my permanence in Burkina Faso in 2009 and 2005 I took part to several excursions and experiences that might be part of a touristic programme according to visitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; preference. They are very diverse for typology, possibility of being planned and content. Here itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a visualization of their peculiarities.

Can be scheduled Happening on fixed dates

Cultural Evidences Small doses In Burkina Faso people buy 1.5 liter of gas, 6 cigarettes, 2 bananas and one orange... there is no kilo, no pack, no full tank... Every purchase is made thinking of an a extremely short term use. The first thing that stunned me is the amount of street sellers. Anytime while you are drinking, eating or just chatting with friends you are approached by somebody that sells something. And they are all extremely specialized in few items. So, for example, the kid who sells lottery tickets doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sell phone credits, while the vendor selling shirts doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sell hats... In the beginning I thought they would come at me because Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m European, instead I noticed and I had confirmation by people that it is the system here. Basically you hardly have to go to the shop, most of the time the shop comes to you.

• Phone credit For example during my investigations I noticed that most of the people didn’t have credit on their mobiles or had very few money on it, not enough for calling anyway. If they needed to make a phone call they would have bought the minimum credit needed for the call from one of the many street sellers on the street. The most common denomination for mobile credit is 1.000 CFA which is less than 1.5€. Fares for calling are leveled on European standards. The result is that at any time of the day or night, in towns or cities, you can find a kid ready to sell you phone credit for a calling. When I bought my SIM card I also got it from one of those kids, without having to give him any document of mine or sign any paper.

â&#x20AC;˘ Gas stations Also gas is purchased for the exact amount that you need to get to destination. The price of gas is about 1â&#x201A;Ź per liter and most of the time I saw people buying about 0.8 or 1.4 liter of gas for their scooters and cars. This specific system, I realized later, gave birth to a series of micro-services that remedy to eventual failures and miscalculations.

â&#x20AC;˘ Cigarettes Apart from the duty free shop at the airport Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen any shop where you could buy cigarettes. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure there are, but all the people I worked with used to buy single cigarettes from the pitchmen. They would buy up to 6 cigarettes (this is the maximum I could remember I witnessed) and some of them would have an empty box to put the cigarettes in. I wondered how they could have an empty cigarette box if they only buy spare cigarettes, but then I realized that those boxes are also given by the sellers.

• Fruits and vegetables The same system of small doses is adopted at the market, where women don’t sell kilos of fruit or vegetables, but rather small stacks. I always wondered why they would insist on grouping different fruits and sell them as inseparable items. So for examples I found very hard to explain that I only wanted 4 bananas and not 2 bananas and one orange. On this point I found myself in difficult situations in which I would unwittingly start some complex negotiations that most of the time I would solve by over-paying the goods and becoming the “funny white man with too little patience to make good deals”.

Cultural Evidences Emergency gas stations Both in Ouagadougou and Ouahigouya I noticed these booths displaying bottles apparently containing drinks. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pay too much attention to those bottles, but for the all first week I was really convinced those were small bars. I discovered their function only when Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been given of a scooter, and since I was ashamed to put too much gas (which anyway would have tripled the value of the scooter itself), I decided to adopt the local habit of small doses. Inevitably, I would run out of gas often presaging long walks with my scooter. Fortunately these off-the-cuff 24/7 gas stations literally saved my days and nights. God bless micro-services.

Cultural Evidences Pizza delivery (200 km apart) After one month of local food I really started feeling the need for something more palatable. Shamefully I tell somebody my desire for a pizza. “Pas de probléme” is the answer... no problem! I know that the only Pizzerias in the Country are located in the capital Ouagadougou which is 200 km away from here, I wonder how that is not a problem. The system suggested by local friend Sylvie might seem complicated, but I’m told that it’s just normal here.

1. Call a cousin living in Ouagadougou (any BurkinabĂŠ have at least one) 2. Transfer your cash to her/him via the public bus (they offer this service with very low fees) 3. The beloved cousin receives the cash within 3 hours and buys the pizzas 4. The same beloved cousin ships the pizzas via the same public bus going back to Ouahigouya (they offer the service of goods shipping too) 5. Make sure you are at the station when the bus arrives and collects the pizzas 6. Enjoy your (cold) pizzas The anecdote might sound funny or bizarre to most Westerners, but for the local people, used to ship scooter parts or chickens, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just normal. This experience revealed an optimization of public transportation embedding other micro-services, with surprising efficiency and reliability. The experience also showed how every individual in Burkina is part of a widespread network based on relationship of family and friendship.

Cultural evidences Share-a-chair While there I noticed the presence of some shops were you can rent chairs. This is not a service I actually used and also I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know if they provide also the transportation of the seats to your place. Apparently is a service very used for weddings and large community meetings. It is interesting because it shows already a proclivity towards share and a preference to use rather than own. If this might be true for functional commodities such as chairs, televisions or fridges, the same thought might not be applicable to objects representing a status, such as cell-phones, clothes, jewels and more recently means of transportation.

Cultural evidences Made in China, shot in Bollywood As I said I came for a project in Burkina already four years ago and I remember that at the time there were only old rickety scooters, mainly Japanese or French. Four years later I see hundreds and hundreds of brand new scooters. They do have different graphics, but they are all the same model. So I look closer and I see that it’s a nice scooter “Made in China”. Every owner I ask to, tells me that it works well and it’s cheap. Every mechanic i ask to, tells me that it’s easy to fix. Basically the product answers to people’s demand. You can observe the same invasion of Made in China products also for what concerns clothes. I read some articles on local newspapers, saying that recently public administrations in Burkina Faso tightened commercial agreements with Chinese government, this reflected in massive importations from the East. The biggest impact on local culture is that

the change from buying old Western scooter and having the possibility of buying a new scooter introduced the concept of status on a good that probably didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have before. There is a huge difference between driving something new and something old, and it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter if the old scooter is a Japanese Yamaha and the new one is a Chinese Kaizer (or whatever brand). Old vs. new is an unequal competition in which the second one always wins over here. If we move from the very tangible world of products to the intangible one of entertainment, and more specifically TV shows we would witness a similar change. I clearly remember the popularity of a French soap opera when I first came visit Burkina Faso, which would make everybody gather in front of TV. Now what I see is that nothing changed since then apart from the fact that TV series have been taken over by Indian productions. Interesting that the shows are followed equally by men and women.

Cultural evidences Beyond billboards The only strong commercial presence that you notice while in Burkina Faso (out of the capital), is given by portable telephone providers. Along the streets and the roads connecting towns, but also in small villages you see traditional cots painted in bright colors of the two main companies here: Telmob and Zain. I asked information to local people and they explained that the two companies offered to re-paint and slightly restore some buildings of small commercial and public activities. Apparently, behind this operation, there is no economic deal between the companies and the owners of the shops. Simply the companies get space and visibility for free in exchange of a cosmetic service of paint job and renovation.

This is quite interesting since it avoids the installation of new structures for billboards for example. The shops might not even sell phone credit and I saw some municipal offices receiving the same treatment.

Cultural evidences On the social fabric Observing carefully fabrics in Burkina Faso you realize that there arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t only decorations and abstract or random symbols, it exists also a typology of fabrics that contains icons from social or religious events, political campaigns or motto. This typology of fabrics are very sought by locals because they are considered beautiful and more unique than the regular ones. The perception people have of these fabrics is somehow similar to the perception we have of brands. The clothes made with these fabrics somehow represent a status. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been given of a shirt tailored with a fabric with the symbol of the national feast of this year. Also Fabrics not marked with logos belonging to institutions, companies or events, represent definitely an interesting universe. They are manufactured in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and other Countries of the Gulf of Guinea.

You can find any sort of pattern and decoration on them: geometric patterns, floral decorations, numbers and letters, abstract shapes, silhouettes of objects, animals... Everything ends up on the African fabrics. And everybody swears they all have a deep meaning, but when asked nobody knows what this meaning is. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m suspicious. Still if I had to chose a medium for advertising, marketing or communication in Africa I would surely keep in consideration fabrics.

Teach and learn Exchange knowledge for ideas After the satellite internet connection was installed (the all thing wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t easy at all, but to tell all the problems encountered it would take a whole book) I, together with collaborator Franco Papeschi, started to introduce a group of local people to the internet and its tools. This was very much demanded not only by the participants but the whole community that was sure that if some of their members would have learned how to use the internet, they would have spread the knowledge in a growing chain effect. Few days later also public administration decided to jump into the project, promising to pay the salary for one year to the best two participants so that they could teach local youngsters about their findings. Obviously, we had the inconvenient responsibility of suggesting those two names.

We knew that the teaching activity would have been very time and energy consuming, but we also understood that it could have been a precious tool for research and gather information. The method we adopted was very simple: we would have taught one tool at a time, in exchange participants would have imagined of some possible application for creating services or products able to give benefits to individuals or the whole society.

Teach and learn Profiles Before starting with the description of the activities it might be interesting to see some information I collected about some of the participants. The group was very numerous although many people were not constant in their presence at courses. Most participant were affiliated to the local organization ARCAN. These four participants showed up every day. I was particularly interested in their relation with cellphone, television, territory and in knowing how they would interact with their contacts.

• Ollé Name: Ollé Surname: Da Nickname: Le Sage Interests: Discover technologies Ethnic group: Lobi First approach to internet 1st Google research: “info sur cartes TV” (tr.: info on TV boards) 1st YouTube research: “Ouaga Rap”

Cellphone Model: Nokia Contacts: 100+ Current credit: 113 CFA (~0.17€) Recent calls: • Friend of his neighbor (his neighbor asked as a favour) • Friend for a lift to somewhere • Mother of his child • Guy for maintenance computers in the centre • Friend (girl)

TV Owner: Yes Last time: 2 nights before at home What: Documentary on sex tourism What he likes watching: News, Comic movies, Detective stories. How: At home, sometimes renting VHS With: Family

Territory Ollé lives with his family in the western part of Ouahigouya, not far from the place where he works as comedian. His general feeling about his place is positive, the only negative element he mentions is “mafia”. Asking further explanations he says that it’s not a dangerous place, and crime is not the issue, simply there are hierarchies to respect that he would like to cross. He would like to move to a new neighborhood in the East. He already owns a piece of land there. He is looking forward to meet the new neighbors and enjoy the quiet environment.

The main problem is that services like supply of water is not assured during the all year. If he could pick a place in the world for living he would like to go to Liguria, Italy. A place that he already visited during a cooperation project. He loves the seaside and his Italian friends. The main negative aspect of moving to Liguria is tourism that he sees as an element of instability. He wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t spend the rest of his life there, but only few years.

Communication Map This map made by OllĂŠ tries to visualize his relationship with others and the means he adopts for communicating with them. He uses pretty much any kind of tool for communicating. Recently he added Skype to his list. When I asked him why he would not use the phone with his parents he explained me that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have one and the only way to communicate with them is in person, which is not too difficult since they live with him.

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• Sidi Name: Sidi Surname: Traoré Nickname: --Interests: Theatre, couture Ethnic group: Peule First approach to internet 1st Google research: “Burkina” 1st YouTube research: “Couturier”

Cellphone Model: Nokia Contacts: 70 Current credit: 11.40 CFA (~0.018€) Recent calls: • Assetou (Sidi’s girlfriend) • Germain (greetings for Muslim feast) • Customer for a dress

TV Owner: No Last time: The day before by chance What: News What he likes watching: News, soccer How: In a social centre equipped with TV With: Friends Sidi usually is something the American others about

watches TV when he knows there important like the elections of President. He is informed by what’s on television.

Territory Sidi lives in the centre, where he also works as a couturier. He has his own house, but he shares the courtyard with other members of the family. Living in the centre means having a lot of services included public lighting, but sharing the space with the family is sometimes a burden. Sidi would like to move out of the town and have a big space for breeding animals. He loves his profession of couturier, but he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mention it in his ideal life out of the city. If he could go anywhere in the world he would love to go to Turin, Italy. But he is not really able to explain why, probably

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because thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my city and I mentioned it during classes, this might have stimulated his curiosity.

Communication Map Sidi usually uses his cellphone for SMS. When his phone rings often is some customer asking him informations or willing to meet him in person for negotiating prices for taylorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jobs. He sometimes uses e-mails for communicating to his contacts in Europe.

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• Agui Name: Agueratou Surname: Kindo Nickname: Agui Interests: Raggae music Ethnic group: Falga First approach to internet 1st Google research: “Musique Jamaique” 1st YouTube research: “Musique Jamaique”

Cellphone Model: LG Contacts: 60 Current credit: 205 CFA (~0.31€) Recent calls: • Sidi (to introduce him a possible customer) • Colleague and friend Job (greetings for Muslim feast) • Job (for work) • Assetou (greetings for Muslim feast) • Job

TV Owner: Yes Last time: Today at lunch What: Soap opera What she likes watching: Soap operas, sport programs, topical programs How: at home while resting With: Mother

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Territory Agui lives in the Western part of town, quite close to the dam (where the rain water is collected). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a calm place and living with family is regarded as a positive thing. On the other hand her husband left, the area is dirty and she complains for the cold in winter and the heat during the rain season. She would like to move a bit out of town on the way to the capital. She is looking for more quiet and privacy. She likes training her singing skills and where she lives now neighbors complains a lot. If she could go visit any place in the world, she definitely would go to Jamaica, where life is simple and people is more positive. She knows itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like that because thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what reggae singers say.

Communication Map Agui basically only uses her telephone for SMS. Her job is one of the main elements in the communication map. Out of the town she has some brothers and friends (few in France), she uses SMS to communicate with them too. With her family she communicates directly in person.

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• Abel Name: Abel Surname: Ouedraogo Nickname: Le Parrain (tr.: The Godfather) Interests: Theatre animation, hacking objects Ethnic group: Mossi First approach to internet 1st Google research: “Monstres Legendaires” (tr.: Legendary Monsters) 1st YouTube research: “Brian Adams”

Cellphone Model: Fake Nokia with double SIM card Contacts: 266 Current credit: 3 CFA (~0€) Recent calls: • Abrhima (for work) • Judith (his siter) • Fatu (friend - girl) • Augustine (his sister) • Tinta (his work)

TV Owner: Yes Last time: Last night What: News What she likes watching: News How: at home With: Friends

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Territory Abel loves the place where he lives. Friends, family and work are all in the same neighborhood and this makes his life easier. Unfortunately also one of the biggest clubs in town is in the same block and the centre is quite distant. Still, if possible, he would move even further away, looking for a place where he can do agriculture and breeding. Some place where there is no pollution and where you feel more in tune with nature. The only reason why he is not going there is the fear for isolation. For a trip, he would like to visit Vatican city, get to know the history of the place and maybe see the Pope in person.

Communication Map Abel uses e-mails for long distance communication with his sister and contacts in Europe. With his friends he uses phone calls, SMS and verbal communication in person. His family is spread in various towns of Burkina Faso, therefore he keeps in touch with his relatives through the phone.

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These profiles helped me to collect information and getting to have an insight into their lifestyle, habits and even ambitions.

Teach and learn Simple-tech is so hi-tech As I said installing the internet wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an easy task and it took several day to finally get the connection working. In the meanwhile I noticed participants had quite of a pressing need that was taking them their attention: getting greeting cards to wish happy 2010 to their remote and local contacts. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take care of this duty you are definitely not a good BurkinabĂŠ. People in Ouahigouya have normally two groups of remote contacts, the first one is composed by emigrated fellows, the second group are the Westerners that came to visit and eventually were kind enough to give their address. For the second typology to go for traditional solutions works very well, there are in fact postcards realized with the technique of batik which can be purchased and sent. Westerners love that. The first group, the one of emigrants, is

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instead more problematic: if you send them something traditional you give them the impression that you never progressed and many BurkinabĂŠs are ashamed of that. So they asked me if it was possible to make some graphics with the computer for greeting cards that looked up-to-date. I was hesitant about that because the risk was to finally have just me working on that, while I wanted to keep all the group engaged and be able to produce appealing results straight away. Fortunately during previous workshops I learned the simple technique of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pika Pikaâ&#x20AC;?, drawing with light. This technique is very analogical, yet it produces graphics with a hi-tech look. In this case it worked perfectly. And the group learned how to use a digital camera, download the pictures on the computer, adjust and re-size them.

• Screen’saver pedlar After having learned how to master the technique of pika-pika, participants started throwing ideas about possible applications. First ideas regarded the possibility of projecting those drawing and text in order to embellish the interior of clubs. The most interesting concept, which also revealed existing micro-services, was proposed by Abel. Apparently there are some peddlers of screen-savers for cell-phones: they have a laptop and any kind of cable to connect your mobile to their computer, they download images on your device and when the process is over you pay your purchase. I didn’t witness the existence of these pedlars, but one day visiting a kiosk that sells cell-phones and accessories I could verify the existence of the service described by Abel. Abel sees the technique of drawing with light as a tool for producing personalized screen-savers and sell them to these sellers, especially if animated GIFs can be made with the technique of stop motion. So here it’s Abel’s formula: 1. A customer goes to the screen-saver pedlar with a specific request 2. The pedlar commissions the pika-pika guy to make the image 3. The guy makes the graphics as requested 4. He delivers the work to the screen-saver seller 5. Few days later the seller upload the image on the customer’s phone and gets paid Obviously this system has some leaks in terms of efficiency and timing. Most likely if you want a new screen-saver you don’t want to wait 2 or 3 days before you actually receive it. Still some considerations can be done about the fact that people would like to have personalized screen-savers and that a local production of those can be started. During the course we tried to introduce those sites where you can sell stock images you took, but this didn’t produce relevant reactions. Here they imagine a much smaller system instead, where retail happens directly from person to person. 116

Probably this is due to a lack of knowledge about sales on-line, but also because cash is often the only way people transfer money. Beside that there is the factor “trust” and “negotiation”, suggesting that having to deal with a real person rather than an intangible system makes everything more reliable.

Teach and learn Skype! A tool that raised great interest was definitely Skype. For participants it was surprising to have the possibility to communicate remotely for free. Particularly useful seemed to be the possibility to search users to talk to by their name, although this function often fails generating “spontaneous” conversations and eventually new friends. Some of the participants re-connected with their contacts in Europe who normally are either Westerners brought in Ouahigouya by previous cooperation projects, or relatives who emigrated to Europe. In few days Abel and Ollé collected about a dozen of contacts and would communicate with them preferably by video-chat. Surprisingly, the functioning of Skype resulted to be extremely intuitive, probably

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for his similarity with a regular cellphone. In very little time everybody can use it very well. Chat, voice, video-call, everything is simple for everybody. Skype became quickly the most used tool for participants to communicate even within each other while they are sitting in the same room, causing violent reactions by other participants when they realized Skype “steels internet to the other users”. When I explained the functioning of Skype credit and the possibility of calling fixed phones for reasonably low costs or having a flat subscription they immediately thought of starting a phone centre for international calls. The only obstacle that prevented them from following up on that idea was the need for a credit card. None of the participants had a bank account and to open one you need the minimum amount of 25.000 CFA (~40€), definitely a lot.

• Mr. Tambourine Man 2.0 Our participant Ollé came out with an interesting idea based on Skype: “When a white man comes here, most likely he is going to buy a djambé (drum) to bring home. Unfortunately he might not be able to play with it, cause he lacks of technique. What I can do is selling him an instrument and my Skype contact for extra lessons”, he says. I think this simple concept leads to interesting conclusions. The first one is that the service after the product is a very considered factor in trading things here. Also the familiarity with a video-chat is an element that has to be taken in consideration. Ollé doesn’t know if the customer will finally contact him for private lessons, actually he doesn’t even think of charging for those, still he believes that this will beat competitors and he considers a new Skype contact in his account as an extra benefit for himself too.

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For local people to have European correspondents is extremely important. I don’t have clear why is that, at first I thought that they would have some economical interest, or that a certain point they would show up at your door in Europe asking for a shelter. In reality to have contacts in Europe is simply considered “very cool”.

Teach and learn The very low-cost travel agency Among all the classes me and Franco Papeschi gave, the one about Google Maps was definitely the most entertaining one. The first observation is about the ease for the participants to move on the map. Compared to regular web-pages this is a total different story. Participants have difficulties in consulting a web-page because of the variety and amount of informations that is showed: text, images, embedded, videos, hyper-links, animations... Everything is demanding attention and reacts differently when clicking over. More specifically, it has been hard to explain the action of scrolling down the page. They couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find it intuitive and they wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand the relation between the side bar indicating the scroll and the content on the page itself. Maps instead are a very well known medium.

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In Burkina you find maps everywhere, in schools, offices and also houses. I still wonder why there are so many maps and also so diverse and also fanciful in their aesthetics. Panning on a virtual map with a hand instead of an arrow is an action similar to what you do in the real world, out of the screen. An hand grabbing the page and dragging it is definitely more understandable than having to click with an arrow on a side bar. Particularly exciting was the Street View function, where you could have a more realistic experience of Western cities. Having as facilities a projector and a laptop connected to the internet allowed me and Franco to become tour guides. Around 10 PM our virtual sight seen bus left Ouahigouya heading to Torino - Italy, the group enjoyed then “walking” from Piazza Castello to the Gran Madre, passing by Mole Antonelliana and Piazza Vittorio, including a final visit to the Basilica of Superga where we spent a few minutes telling the tragedy of the Torino football team’s plane crash.

After that Franco guided the group for a tour in London, with the final aim of finding the Queen. Pop-corn were served during the tours. We noticed that the group was much more engaged and active if a the tour was conceived as a story, in that case people would take decisions about the route to follow and places to visit. Generally speaking, narration is a very powerful tool for teaching and transfer information, it also helps a lot for having participants play an active role. Otherwise, in regular classes, people would perceive us as teachers and this would create a hierarchical order with the consequence that participants wouldn’t ask questions, tell when they don’t understand or object. In this occasion we could also observe the tendency in attributing human behaviors to anthropomorphic elements of the interface. For example when connection wasn’t working and black screens where projected while exploring the cities with the Street View, one participant exclaimed: “Maybe the yellow

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man has closed his eyes!â&#x20AC;? Below a world map drawn by Abel

• Maps and cells One of the participants, Abel, decided to create a touristic map of Ouahigouya. At first it seemed a very conventional service, but later an innovative aspect emerged. On the map he marked the interesting places, and enriched the short description with an image. Then he added the cellphone number of a person that can guide you in the place. In fact he explained many sites are not interesting if you aren’t given of all the information. And to gather those information there is no other way than contacting some local wise old man who knows facts and myths. The guided tour can be given via phone or in person if the guide is available to join the visitors. In the system Abel imagined, he doesn’t say how hypothetical tourists will encounter the map, since it becomes useful especially for people once they are already in Ouahigouya. Maybe this centre with internet connection

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might cover also the role of an office for tourism and give to visitors a print out of the map. I think this concept reveals an interesting micro-service: cell-phone guides. This concept leads my thoughts toward two opposite scenarios, one very hi-tech and another one very low-tech. In the first case we can think of it as a development of Afro-Tourism, in which tourists are given of a GPS system that guides them to the sites and offer them the option of calling the local guide when in proximity of the place. In the second case we can instead transcend Google Maps and think of physically placing real tags on the sites with the telephone numbers of the guides. So when a visitor happens to be in the place, he can simply call the guide.

Teach and learn Craft investigations Activities not only investigated the potential of the internet, but also we worked on physical artefacts. Imagining of being able to sell products on-line, beside the batik-on-demand experiment, we tried to develop some products that would be desirable for a large audience of Westerners and Locals. The couturier Sidi and the “water-can maker” Alassane decided to apply their technical skills in order to explore new possibilities. Normally they don’t experiment, because they only work under commissions. They admitted that they never invest their time, materials or money for creating new products. This time, since I’m ensuring them the basic resources, they are very happy to dive into the dark waters of experimentation.

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â&#x20AC;˘ Alessaneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chair Alessane spent most of his working life converting old barrels into watering cans. There is quite a high request for this very functional object here, but probably this is not the kind of item that would be successful on an on-line store. The technique used and refined through time by Alessane is very interesting especially because all he needs is an hammer, shears and, obviously, old tin-cans. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t weld or nail anything, he simply folds and hammers the metal sheets creating solid and even water-proof connections. When working together I suggested him to try to make a chair with that technique, at first he was a bit puzzled since he never made such a thing, but soon he accepted the challenge and started working, showing me different kind of connections he is able to make with his skills. We initially tried to communicate through sketches, but, I have to admit, first results were not very encouraging as it seemed we were not able to understand each

other drawings. Therefore I decided to print the image of a chair that I thought would have worked as an inspiration for him. I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find anything better than the Lockheed chair by Marc Newson. Realizing the contrast between the local context and the meaning/value of that chair is something that happens only when you see the print of the image of the famous chair in his toolbox. But although its $1.6 million value, that chair seemed meaningless to Alessane and also â&#x20AC;&#x153;not very niceâ&#x20AC;? as he said. At that point we found out that the best way to communicate was to shape together a small block of plasticine, and finally things started to get better. Curiously enough Alessane, asked me precise measurements, although he admitted he never works with measures. He added, he never makes chairs neither. The craft-man made two scale models before working on a full-size prototype. Two days later the prototype was done. Result was appealing, but still it revealed many problems in the structure and aesthetics, so right the day after we worked on an improved version of the chair.

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The second attempt was definitely better: more solid, more stable, with better proportions. Beside the nice outcome I consider this as an interesting experience because it revealed how sketches and images are not a effective tools for describing shapes, while 3d models result to be much more successful in that sense. All this also confirmed that local craft can be applied to other products than traditional or strictly functional artefacts.

â&#x20AC;˘ Sidiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caps Sidi is a taylor sharing his activity and atelier with his brother. While his brother works mainly for female customers, he is in charge of making clothes for men. He makes traditional costumes or standard models that customers chose by pointing at illustrated posters. When we had to decide on which object we should have worked I asked him to think of something that I could wear daily. I explained him that in the context where I live I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wear African traditional clothes because it would be considered too extravagant by my colleagues and friends. Sidi observed me a bit and grabbed my baseball cap I use to wear. He asked me if he could borrow it for few days after I acquiesced, he took his bike and left. Few days later he showed up with a series of replicas of the original hat made with local fabric. The outcome might not stand out for originality and creative thinking, but the result is appreciable and an attention to small details emerges. I like these caps and

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I think they can be used also in Europe. I was impressed by the rapidity of execution, in 3-4 days I had about 6 different hats and he told me he could have worked faster if he could use his electric sewing machine. Unfortunately somebody in his block didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pay his share of the energy bill so the company had to cut electricity. Things went slower because he had to share the manual sewing machine with his brother.

From Burkina to... Next steps Having the chance of doing this research project in Burkina Faso gave me a lot of information that I’m confident can be applied to other similar contexts. I’m conscious of the fact that when venturing in other places than Burkina Faso very different situations occur, therefore specific research and field studies will have to be held. If I think of the Portuguese context and more specifically of the interests of Zon, I can’t ignore the possibility of applying my knowledge to contexts like Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde. These Countries are very different from each other and they also differ from Burkina Faso, but many are the similarities. Apart from the evident past as colonies and some morphologic or economic aspects they all present a lacking, but growing, tertiary sector. Culturally they also share many elements as well as a spread network of communities of emigrants that would be interesting to exploit in terms of creation of new services. In the next pages I describe some sketch ideas that serve as a trigger for imagination for new concepts or scenarios. I’m very confident that working on innovative services for the African context or aiming for an international range of action will lead to interesting results, both socially and economically.

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From Burkina to... TV guru When I think of very local opportunities I have in my mind this clear image of a lady owning a fridge and using it as the basic tool for her commercial activity. She would sell cold drinks or store in her fridge people’s food, and this activity generated enough income for her to contribute sensibly to her family’s economy. I imagine that Companies providing TV connection could offer some specific packages of products and services for anybody who wants to start a micro business. If you own a TV with a big enough screen you can offer some screening nights, if you combine this with a fridge, you can make more profits by selling cold drinks. Beside regular contracts, a Company can offer a set of products such as: • • • • •

a subscription to movies or sport channels, a bigger screen TV, a fridge, a dozen of inexpensive chairs, eventually weekly or monthly drinks supplies

This Company might tighten up relation with other commercial partners, for example the ones producing drinks in order to offer the best solutions for customers. This package would be meant as a start-up for anybody who wants to begin a commercial activity or it can be thought for a shared use of TV, therefore for bigger communities than just families.

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From Burkina to... Found again Here is an idea that tries to think of a broader context than the local one. The spark that started my thoughts is the fact that big communities of people with Angolan, Mozambiquean or Cape Verdean roots live outside their original Countries. Many of them still keep in direct touch with people in Africa, some others, who might be second or third generation emigrants, have loosened relationships with their roots. In Africa instead I witnessed a vivid interest in connecting with emigrated people and share information. I think itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legitimate to think of an on-line service that allows the local and emigrated communities to connect directly. This would be a sort of social network where you can find relatives, friends or people from your town. Sharing recipes and music as well as trading artefacts for example might become possible activities on this platform. In this sense the concepts of Batik-ondemand or Afro-Tourism might be part of a much bigger infrastructure that on one hand reinforces relations between emigrants and their community and on the other hand welcomes Westerners who have an interest in other cultures embedded in Portuguese society. This exchange of information might be somehow rewarded from the emigrants and Westerners by contributing to pay the connection to internet for the Africans. Of course this remains still a sketched concept and a lot of aspects of it have to be analyzed, but the idea reveals a lot of potential, especially for the service provider.

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Takeaways Conclusion The whole experience in Burkina Faso helped me and the participants to understand the potential of projects that try to bridge the distance between Western society and African Countries. This doesn’t mean to just throw technologies to Africa, but rather design systems and intangible tools that put the two realities in touch. In order to do so it’s important to identify who can offer what, how, and if there is a demand for that. In the beginning I identified a market niche in Western society composed of people who are keen to get in touch with African Countries in a different way than the conventional ones. Many African Countries are now in the process of accessing the web, this is a fact that can not be neglected and whose potential should be explored extensively. I found analogies of this change with the growing urbanization that goes on since more than two centuries now. In the same way people massively moved to cities to join the urban community, now people, from the periphery of the world is “migrating” into the virtual, but yet reality-embedded, realm of the internet. Urbanization, through time, has been interpreted in 3 different ways by architects, urbanists, and city planners: the first approach was functional and often uncontrolled. I’m referring to the first climax of the phenomenon, when, during industrial revolutions, workers moved to cities occupying areas close to factories. The second one is represented by the standardized approach adopted between the 30’s and 80’s in which work wasn’t the only need to be fulfilled, but other services were assured according to the specific social classes. These two lines of thought in reality created urban aberrations such as ghettos or, more simply, lead designers to design set of benches, next to trash bins, next to lamp posts. Without considering that although having bins next to seats might help hygiene, it is also true that nobody wants to sit next to a smelly trash can. 140

The last and more recent approach is the one that designs the urban fabric starting from integration and interaction between different realities. In the same way we do that with cities and neighborhoods, we can do it with on-line services and virtual communities. In fact I think the internet experienced the same development as cities and right now on-line services and platforms are very much focussed on creating communities of individuals that share same interests or belong to same social categories and express similar needs, the risk is that these become virtual ghettos with little interaction with other communities on the web. Few exceptions exist and are represented by systems like the ones of eBay or Craiglist, but in those cases the interaction is often limited to the mere commercial demand-offer relation.

I envision the real challenge as connecting the diversity rather than grouping homogenous “tribes”. This means designing the interactions among users and between users and their context. “Diversity” and “complementary goals” might be the key words that I want to set against “similarities” and “common interests”. When thinking of Africa accessing the internet the question I ask as a designer is not “What could we design for them”, but “What can they offer to the world”, in this way the final result will be a design for “Us”, where “Us” is intended as Western and African society and both would benefit of the outcome. The journey in Africa, not only was enriching and inspiring for new ideas, but most notably it made me think of some insights that can be taken in consideration when designing for this and similar contexts.

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1. Think small As observed in the report, in Burkina Faso nobody would subscribe for yearly or even monthly services. Most likely people would prefer daily fees or payments for just what is consumed. The same approach should be adopted by designers when working with local people. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t show the all brief or pay everything in advance, break the project into small parts with continuous checkpoints and payments. Any deadline that goes beyond a week hardly is taken in consideration.

2. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t design everything You can try as much as you want, but it is impossible to understand all the invisible mechanisms that make things work in Burkina Faso. There are invisible elements and relations that are more powerful than any design solution. The best way to proceed is to try to prototype systems revealing evident weaknesses and see how people solve those by themselves. Local people often find solutions using existing resources rather than designing new infrastructures. Let people know what you want to reach, instead of telling them how.

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3. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t discriminate technology The idea of progress In Burkina seems to follow a line that is orthogonal to the one of Western Countries. Simple and advanced technologies enter the system and are plugged-in without following Western chronological order. Portable phones arrived before land-line, fast internet has been accessible without passing through the 56K connection, payments on remote happen without computers... Designers are often afraid of adopting hitech solutions in theses contexts. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be! Your concern should only be about the benefits they would - or would not - give. Low and Hi-tech are both legitimate.

4. Fixable = Eternal If you want something to last for ever, you need to design it in a way that it can be fixed by local people. Here things are fixed again and again until they literally vanish in the environment. When something is broken people are not afraid of opening it and hack it. And continuous reparations are not too much of a problem for the user. I saw people getting their mopeds fixed every other day and not complaining at all. Patience is an endless resource here.

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5. Privacy never showed up Privacy is not public, if you reputation. To e-mail account When designing mind.

a matter for local people. Everything is have some secret that wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help your explain why you need a password for your wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an easy task as one could imagine. this is an important thing to keep in

6. Your TV might become your job One might think that in Burkina Faso people share everything, and this is partially right. What people often don’t realize is that borrowing something or using somebody’s resources always implies some earning for the owner. A TV, a cell-phone, access to Skype... having control over one commodity might become a source of income if seen as a community oriented business. Lending your portable to your old neighbor means receiving the credit back, plus a “cadeau”. Knowing how to use Skype means opening an international call center. Owning a TV means being able to organize TV nights and ask for fees.

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7. Be current BurkinabĂŠ government and people in general is surprisingly brave in labeling novelties as progress and usually enthusiast about new characters or new technologies. Although traditions are deep-seated in daily life, there is big attention for what goes on in the world, with a constant desire for updates, imagining positive changes for Burkina Faso. It might be useful to know that technology is often received as an improvement for peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life. I think Westerners are often more conservative than people in Burkina Faso.

8. Examples are dogmas If you are trying to get some proposals, ideas or simply inputs from local collaborators I suggest trying not to use examples. When an example is given this is taken as a decision, as the way to go, rather than a reference or a stimulus for thoughts. Creating fictional characters and roles play, instead, lead the group to a more active attitude. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Participatory fiction and narrationâ&#x20AC;? seemed to be a more effective tool to me.

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9. Cash is something, credit is not When thinking of designing services for Africa, many designers tend to find solutions that avoid or reduce the use of cash. Transfer through phone credit is one of the recurrent proposed solutions. In reality I noticed that in Burkina Faso nothing works as good as cash money. Credit is regarded with suspicion and transferring money on a distance is not too much of a problem as daily busses connecting towns offer an effective cash transfer service. In some cases it might be a good idea to consider these existing habits and resources.

For more tales and information about the journey in Burkina Faso, please check my blog “Googling Burkina”: www.sites.google.com/site/googlingburkina/ For more information about Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute: www.m-iti.org/ More on Co.Co.Pa. can be found in Italian at: www.comune.torino.it/cocopa/ The official website of ZON Multimédia is: www.zon.pt/ For any other question or comment you can contact me by e-mail giovanni.innella@m-iti.org Apart from all the people and Institutions involved in the project, which are mentioned in the beginning of this publication, I would like to thank Fabiana Brega and Emiliano Iannone, whose efforts and hard work during past years allowed this to be possible.