Tag Archives: fieldwork

gifts and blessings (Written on November 21)

In every village where I have been, doing transect walks and interviews, they have offered me zumkum during the lunch break under the tree in the middle of the village. It is a drink traditionally given to guests, and it is made of small millet flour, sugar, water and sometimes spiced with some wild herbContinue reading “gifts and blessings (Written on November 21)”

the Ouaga break (Written on November 20)

After three days in a town called Gourcy, situated a little bit closer to Ouahigouya than Ouagadougou, we arrived back in the capital on Monday evening. Since then, I’ve been transcribing notes, going through photographs and making map sketches. Elli got sick the last night in Gourcy, and she’s just now starting to get better,Continue reading “the Ouaga break (Written on November 20)”

a re-awakened love for numbers (Written on November 20)

I’m a geographer, so the concept of projections and coordinate systems is nothing new to me. But working here, walking around with a GPS device and then having to produce map sketches of the places that I have just visited, connecting real-world experiences with points in a shapefile, well, it has made me realize justContinue reading “a re-awakened love for numbers (Written on November 20)”

so, what happened with the coup? (Written on November 19)

I did a lot of writing about the events that weren’t quite a military coup, but that had too much military involvement to only be a public uprising, back when there was a lot of action going on and Elli and I were put under house arrest for safety reasons. It had quite a tollContinue reading “so, what happened with the coup? (Written on November 19)”

the Summary – why we are here (written on November 19)

I’ve been writing a lot about certain aspects of my project here, but I’m actually not sure if I’ve ever written anything about the project as a whole. What it is all about. What are all these transect walks good for? Why has Elli dug up all this soil? What are we even here for?Continue reading “the Summary – why we are here (written on November 19)”

approaching premature nostalgia vol. 3

And the smells. In the morning, just when the sun is rising. The night leaving the dry shrubland soil. Something warm and soft, welcoming. Or when the sun is setting, the rich smell of the depressions. Wild herbs, something not quite like thyme, and sometimes the edge of a distant fire. I might be aContinue reading “approaching premature nostalgia vol. 3”

approaching premature nostalgia vol. II (November 12)

And later, for dinner: Vegetable stew on onions, pepper, garlic, tomatoes, cabbage, green peas and groundnut paste with rice, and deep fried tofu brochettes that we’ve started buying from a girl who sells them in the street. (They are all over the place here, the women selling different kinds of food from buckets – deepContinue reading “approaching premature nostalgia vol. II (November 12)”

approaching premature nostalgia (November 12)

While walking home from the market together with Elli, with bags full of tomatoes, onions and cabbage, I was struck by the feeling that I wasn’t done. We had just bought deep fried aloco with sauce (plantain in English, or food banana), a new favorite discovery of mine, and I got that nostalgic feeling thatContinue reading “approaching premature nostalgia (November 12)”