Learning Liquid Soap

As SED volunteers we need to be able to teach our villagers some basic income generating technologies. Therefore, during our training we have been learning some interesting ways Burkinabe women’s groups (Savings and Credit Clubs, Maison de la femme, etc.) can make more money. A normal day for Burkinabe women entails getting up early and preparing breakfast for her children and husband. The women of Burkinabe are the backbone of this country, and the gender differences are so despairing. Burkinabe women get up some time before 5am and begin their day by either pounding millet or cutting firewood. They then get their children ready for school. Some women in the city have jobs or boutiques to work at but most of the women stay at the house all day. From the time their children leave for school to lunch they are cleaning dishes, cleaning the house, or preparing food. All of these activities are done by hand and normally standing with their back bend over. There are no “modern technologies” like dishwashers, washing machines, or vacuums to help them. Everything is done by hand and with a smile. A highlight of a Burkinabe women’s day is going to the market to buy food, because it allows them to get out of the house and interact with other women in the community.

The kids and men return home for lunch and the women serve lunch and then clean up. Sometimes they can sneak in a nap if there is time. In the heat of the afternoon sun they prepare dinner and continue to work on household chores. Dinner preparation takes hours because they do everything from scratch and there is not much variety in the meals that are served. Burkinabe families are so large so to feed such a big family it is efficient and cost effective to serve massive amounts of carbohydrates (Tô, Rice, Benga) with the sauce of the day (Peanut, Okra, Tomato).

Men and women do not eat together for mealtime. Normally men are served first and the men of the compound or courtyard eat together. Children eat either with themselves or with the women of the family. After dinner and late into the night women clean up from dinner while the men sit around and relax. The women also prepare the children for bed by washing them and making sure they are well behaved. Normally this is all done in complete darkness or by kerosene lamps because there is no electricity in most households.

I will discuss male roles in a Burkinabe household in a future blog entry but I want to emphasize the importance of working with the women of Burkina Faso. It is the women who take care of the children and back sure they go to school. If a women is able to make some money, whatever profits are made from that money will go to the betterment of the family, normally the children in the form of education and health. Even though men are “in charge” of the household finances, many times they do not know how much things cost, because it is the women who go out and buy everything.

As Peace Corps volunteers it is our goal when we get to village to seek out motivated women of the community and try to increase their earning potential. During training we work with Savings and Credit clubs here in OHG to see how they are started and continued on a weekly basis. It is wonderful speaking to the women and reading their rules and regulations and being able to see their account logs. Besides working with existing women’s clubs we are also learning some basic technologies to tech the villagers. These are common sense technologies for Americans but technologies and knowledge that can be very beneficial to a common villager.

Besides gardening and composting the peace corps prepares us with a lot of simple projects we can do with women in our community. One of these is liquid soap making. Just by reading about a normal Burkinabe women’s day you can imagine how much soap they go through with washing dishes, clothes, and cleaning the house. Most of the time the women buy expensive bars of soap, which do not last long. In comes a volunteer with a new way to make money for a women’s group and a more efficient use of soap, liquid soap. The women love it because the profit margin is great than that of making and selling hard soap, and liquid soap goes a lot longer. The women also love the colors and the crazy pungent smell of the liquid soap. The only draw back to liquid soap is the sustainability of the project, because there is one ingredient that is ONLY available in Ouaga, the capital of BF. Normally volunteer picks up that ingredient, Tansagex, when they are in Ouaga and then have the women pay them for it when they get back to village. Enough talk lets make some soap:

Nov. 25, 2008: Chris begins making soap by dissolving 1 kg of salt into 7.5 litters of water and he stirs and stirs and stirs.

Nov. 25, 2008: In another plastic tub Dan and Kat take the bag of tansagex and empty it into the bowl. Tansagex is sadly only available in Ouaga therefore getting it to your village is an expense and could eat into your profit margins. As mentioned before in other blogs the idea of buying bulk and economies of scale has not be received by Bukinabe due to the cost of storing your current capital in products. Therefore, Peace Corps volunteers pick up some tansagex whenever they are in Ouaga and bring it to village. So when a volunteer leaves a village after two years the villagers need to find another way to get the tansagex to the village. A sustainability problem of this project.

Nov. 25, 2008: Kat is so excited to mix the tansagex!! The tansagex has to be mixed for 10 minutes until it becomes the consistency of shaving cream. The Burkinabe women love this process because it is similar to other chores they do around the house but in this case they are surrounded by other women in a social setting.

Nov. 25, 2008: I take a crack at mixing the tansagex, it is very tiring process.

Nov. 25, 2008: Daniel takes up the last leg of people stirring up the tansagex. Tansagex is really sticky and it makes the soapy soap aspect of liquid soap. Dan got some on his hands and spent 8 minutes getting it off his hands.

Nov. 25, 2008: After 10 minutes of stirring the tansagex and it is like shaving cream you alternate between the salt water mixture and regular water. It is key to add just a little bit of water as a time, even by the cup full. Dave pours in the salt water while Abby stirs the mixture.

Nov. 25, 2008: Dave is a true Burkinabe woman, look at his mixing abilities!!

Nov. 25, 2008: Our tansagex was a bit clumpy so the men had to step in and get their hands “dirty.” Matthew, Aaron following Jen (PCVF, the women of her village loved making liquid soap) in breaking up the clumpy tansagex. Chris continues to stir the mixture.

Nov. 25, 2008: A close up of Matthews’s hands and the gak-like consistency of the tansagex.

Nov. 25, 2008: I took over the stirring for Chris it is rather tiring. Aaron stands like a regular Burkina women as he breaks up the tansagex.

Nov. 25, 2008: Once all the water is added to the soap mixture and it is all mixed together, you let it sit overnight so it can settle and become soap. Chris and Mike (PCVF) carry our soap to a place it can sit overnight, covered.

Nov. 26, 2008: They next day it is now ready to added perfume and color. Addie and Kat use kettles to pour the soap into plastic bottles that can then be sold. Burkinabe love their old lady smelling perfumes and colors. You definitely cannot use this blue soap on your clothes!!