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The following is another excerpt from the story of our travels to Burkina Faso.  Read along as we brave the Metro in Paris, become red with African Dust in Burkina Faso, and climb rickety ladders to reach rooftops.  Our intent?  To learn more about Earth Roofs in the Sahel and to see for ourselves the life-changing effect of this program. If you’re reading for the first time, you can see the other entries here.

When we leave Zati’s village, he comes with us, climbing into the back of the 4×4 with Djeliba and Moctar. Looking at the three grown men folded into the back, I am glad again that we cut down on our luggage before we left.

After driving again for a while, we come to a village called Zeikuy. As we step out of the vehicle, Djeliba begins his song of arrival, and an older woman with a baby held in a cloth on her back comes out to dance. After a minute, needing to dance more freely, she takes the baby off and hands her to a friend.

As she finishes her dance, we all applaud, and she holds up her hand triumphantly, laughing.

We are here to meet Minata, another woman who lives in this village who is an entrepreneur for AVN, and as Moctar tells us, a very powerful woman. She has markings that have been carved into her skin a long time ago. They designate her tribe, and are very striking. Although the markings are outlawed now, we meet many older people who still have them, having received them as children. We shake hands with Minata briefly, and then don’t see her again as we walk the rest of the way into the village, to meet the chief. (We find out later that Minata jumped on a bicycle, to tell as many people as possible that there were visitors.)

We all shake hands with the chief, who is sitting under a shaded structure in a sort of courtyard in the village. Many people make a small curtsy, almost, like a slight knee bend, as they shake the chief’s hand, and Djeliba and the chief exchange customary greetings. The greetings are a sort of back and forth blessing, with few pauses, one person speaking and the other agreeing, almost on top of the first person’s words.

It is beautiful to us, ritual-starved people that we are. There really is something about rituals of blessing or honor like this. To know what is necessary, to fill in the right blanks, to make a small knee bend to honor an older man who looks out for the good of his village… these things are simple and lovely.

This village is so remote. And yet it is here that Zati came and saw his first VN method house, with the vaulted, airy roofs, and decided that he would be an entrepreneur. The house is the chief’s house, and he takes us on a brief tour. Even being the chief, he has very few possessions. And I mean, very few. Fewer than you might think of, when you think, “few.”

On the wall in the front room is a collection of photos, and Cindy points our a photo of Thomas standing with a few Burkina men, near the top, in a place of honor. The chief loves AVN and Thomas, and the home that AVN has made possible for him.

Minata joins us again as we sit in the shade together. She is comfortable and confident- a woman in charge. The incredible thing about Minata is just herself, who she is and what she is doing with her life, here, in this remote village, far from many things, as a woman with many grandchildren, as a woman. When Jessie asks her what it is that she likes about the VN method homes, she repeats herself often. “She likes that they last a long time,” Moctar, the translator, tells us. The work that a family needs to do, upgrading their homes and fixing the leaks, putting the roofs back on when a gusty storm blows the corrugated metal off, all this work is time spent that could be spent on something else. It is things like this that make the difference between a people group merely existing and a people group thriving and advancing.

Minata now is contracting VN method buildings, hiring and overseeing young masons as they form the vaults, brick by brick. She tells us that she has permits for six building in the next building season. Six more homes built by this one woman in remote Burkina Faso, six more buildings that will withstand rain and heat without needing to be rebuilt. As we get to know Minata over the next few days, I can imagine that she simply saw something she liked, something of value, and made up her mind to help it spread. She is a strong woman.

Because, of course, when we leave Zeikuy, Minata comes with us. And the beauty of the culture and of our traveling companions is that they don’t tell her, “There is no more room, we are already full.” Instead, they say, “Sure! Hop in.” And the ten of us drive away.