GABRIEL BOULET (20) (200 ENGLISH) I took exerpts that talk about Gabriel's experience in Africa and in Rome
In May, 1964, I was promoted to open the agricultural district office in Fairview. Living quarters were quite scarce at the time, we finally rented the old church rectory and the family moved end of July. We were barely settled when I received an inquiry from FAO Rome, regarding a field assignment in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) The letter arrived mid-afternoon and I was anxious for quitting time to hike over the the Fairview College library to look up which continent Upper Volta belonged. Prior to being granted independence in 1960, the territory was part of the French West Sudan, and was not identified as such in our grade school geography text.
I had an airfreight allowance for personal effects. I took the parcel, destination Ouagadougou, to CP Air at the Nisky airport. The agent asked....Where in the world does this tongue twister exist? My reply "West Africa....not far from Timbuku. Somewhat leery that I might be pulling his leg, he opened a World Atlas and located "Ouaga----" I pointed out Timbuktu nearby to the north. "I didn't know there was such a place. I thought it was just an expression" was his comment.
via Dakar and Accra (FAO regional office) arriving at Bobo Dioulasso toward the end of January.
Climate dictates the daily routine. Until end of April -- tail end of the dry season -- dryland cropping in on hold. Everyday is like yesterday except for a slight variation in the amount of dust suspended in the air. Suitable lodging was hard to come by, but finally after a month, I rented an apartment from a West African retail chain hardware store, -- the local Canadian Tire.
The FAO/UN project was primarily to train local field agents in rudimentary cropping techniques including using oxen for land preparation and row crop weeding. Under tradional manual techniques one's cropping land to be limited to an area the size of a modest home garden.Within three or four days one had to go back to check regrowth at the starting point.
In July/August '66 we travelled back to Alberta on home leave. Our return travel included a few days in Rome where I was offered a posting at FAO Headquarters. We returned to Bobo to pursue the mission and await the arrival of my replacement. In March 1967. we were on the move again. Within a week we were camping in our new residence waiting for our personal effects to catch up with us.
We had a most interesting stay in Rome for the next seven years. One facinating outing was our visit to Pompei, but we didn't make it to Venice. My work at FAO involved travelling back to Africa to monitor mostly training projects. I visited some 17 countries including Madagascar and Mauritus in that period. Working at headquarters with people from all continents was truly interesting. In Early July 1974, I rejoined the Alberta Department of Agriculture in the field of agricultural education until early retirement in 1987.
taken from Gabriel Boulet's story.
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