Burkina Faso is a small French-speaking West 
African country of 9 million people.  Located 
between Ghana and Mali, Burkina Faso is one of 
the poorest countries in the world.  Over 80% 
of the population relies on subsistence farming, 
even though the country is plagued by drought, poor 
soil conditions, and rudimentary technology.
	Bruno Bamabara lives just outside of the 
capital, Ouagadougou, where he has single 
handedly built a school to teach children basic 
skills such as spelling their names, addition and 
subtraction, and French.  Though Bruno, a college
graduate who speaks English and French fluently, 
could easily get a comfortable government job, he 
has given all that up to teach the children in
the Bush who would otherwise get no education.  We 
visited Bruno's school, made hats for all his students, 
and then spoke to him about the history and future 
of his school.

        When did you get the idea to start this school?

        I was living in town and at the same time I was at the University I found
this piece of land where you see the school now, and I said to myself, "What
can I do with this?"  
        It costs money to go to private school.  It doesn't cost money to go to
public school, but in the public school there can be 140 kids per class
because the government doesn't have any money.
        So every night I left the town and came here and built a little room out of
thatch grass.

        You built a little hut with dried grass as a classroom?

 
	Wala.  When it rains you are afraid.  With 
enough water maybe the house will fall.
        I began with youth of 15-17 years old in 1992.  
Every evening I come from the city to here, from 7 
to 9pm.  I teach them French because of financial 
means the parents can't pay for them to continue their 
classes, so they stay at home and do nothing.  This 
is no good. Maybe they become gangster or pusher.  So 
I come down every night...
        So the first year I get 7 boys, young people 
in the village here.  The second year I get 19 youths.  
After the 2 years I saw that the young men go to the 
city and try to get a job because I taught them how to 
calculate, how to speak French, how to write their names.  
And 2 of them bring me to their workplace.

        The third year I get more students, 30.  Then 
the young youth of the surrounding areas come every 
night to see what is happening here.
        But I thought, What can we do with the small 
children?  So in the 3rd year we begin with the small 
children in the morning and the older children at night.
        So I continue my work, I went to the market and 
bought cement to make bricks and I try to build the 
house you see today.  It's very very hard.  Everybody
here know I begin small, small and build up like that.  
You have to go far away for water, 3km.  So I continue 
my work.

	How did you support yourself and the school?

        At the same time, I go to the town and teach Europeans who are working here 
in Ouagadougou.  There is a school for the children of the white men.  So I tutor 
the white children.

        So you take the money you make teaching the white kids in the day time and 
        build this school and teach the children here for free...

        Wala.  I left the town every evening and came to teach.  After one and a half 
years I thought that it takes too much time to go back and forth, so I moved here.  And 
I knew that since there was no water here and no electricity I would suffer terribly.  
Life here is very hard.  But I say if I want to help that population, it is a duty for me 
to come.  So I make some more bricks and make a small room 
for me to live in.

        
        How did the community react when you first 
built the school?

        The beginning is not too easy.  People don't 
understand what I would like to do with them.  There 
are men who don't want to send their children to school
because they have no money and they want to send their 
children to the Bush to work.
        That's why  I try to help them.  They can do 
something better for the population if they have some 
schooling. Because if you know how to write your name, 
how to read - these are good things.
        I met many youth who say, "I am very discouraged 
because my father doesn't send me to school because he doesn't 
have money and I am already old - What can I do?" It is a very, 
very big problem.  So I try to do small, small thing to help.

        With your college degree, and the fact that you speak French and English
fluently, you can get a high paying job in the government.

        I can get a job in the government, like my colleagues in school, and get a
nice, nice house and a nice car, but I live here, and I don't have anything,
because I want to do something.  This is the contrast, the sacrifice.  In a
good house, life is very easier, but here it's very dirty.  But when you love
something, there is a will, a kind of destiny.  You must do it, do it.  So I
don't look at what my colleagues have - nice cars, nice clothes, good job and
so on.  But when you love, you can volunteer.
        When I get some visit, like you today, it is a kind of encouragement to go
ahead.  When you do something and somebody's interested in what you do, it is
a kind of encouraging to continue in spite of difficulties in the job.
        What's important for me is that maybe in 10 years, people of the population
become workers.  Maybe in the government, maybe in the town.  They can do
something by themselves and from that they can help their parents who are in
poverty and disease.