Climate crisis harming world heritage painted houses in Burkina Faso, say residents | Climate crisis

A world heritage site which was once a famous tourist destination suffers from signs of disintegration, because climate change affects weather conditions.

Houses with wavy walls covered with singular geometric lines of the royal court of Tiébélé in Burkina Faso, established in the 16th century, are recognizable worldwide. Paintings represent the thoughts, culture and religion of the Kassena people, literally written on the walls.

Tiébélé in southern Burkina Faso is one of the four Burkinabé sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List. But he is now on the verge of extinction. “Nowadays, it is easier to build with metal roofs and cement,” explains Abdou Anè, a young resident in Tiébélé.

For many years, Tiébélé was an essential tourist destination in Burkina Faso. But the jihadist violence that scolds in the country and its neighbors, Mali and Niger, since 2015, dissuades visitors. To reach Tiébélé, for example, a visitor must cross a bridge known as the Nazinon, which was attacked some time ago. Drivers must keep 30 km / h and it is under heavy military control.

The failing coup of 2015 and subsequent disorders attenuated the tourism industry, the figures decreasing each year.

Meanwhile, the threat to the delicate structures of climate change increases. “To paint the walls, they must be completely dry, but now the rain is unpredictable, and it has already happened that it begins to rain while we are working on catering,” explains Anè. Plastic leaves are not enough to protect the paintings. “Even if we are very proud to be recognized as a World Heritage Site, we also need help to continue to preserve it.”

“Sometimes we receive rain during the periods when we haven’t done it before. Before, in March or April, we obtained a rain known as “Mango Rain”, but today we can get three to four rains, “explains Anè. “There are trees that no longer produce, and it is with those we used to build our houses. This worries the population, especially the elderly who remember what the climate expected. It is a phenomenon that people do not understand. worried.

In the culture of Kassena, found only in this region of the world, women are responsible for painting houses. For unique painted lines, they use pigments extracted from laterite stone, clay, basalt and even cow dung – materials from the region. To repair the marks on the walls, they boil the fruit of the Néré tree, also known as “flour”, to make a varnish that seals the painting. All this knowledge and skills reside in the head of the Kaye Tintama octogenarian, recognized as a “living human treasure” of UNESCO, a living library responsible for the transmission of decoration techniques and meanings behind the walls and forms of the Tiébélé houses to new generations.

The award -winning architect Francis Kéré was inspired by the way in which Kassena used natural materials to protect themselves from intense heat and heavy rains for hundreds of years. “”[The] Kassena transmitted its architecture to the present, to future generations, and this method is inspiring for me, ”Kéré told the Guardian.

The shape of the houses is important. Round houses like those of Ane are intended for unmarried men, but those who are in the form of a figure of eight are intended for older women and single girls, and rectangular houses are for young couples. “They inspired me to use locally available materials to create habitat, but also the way they create, they involve the whole community, which is very important to me,” explains Kéré.

Many houses have a small gateway to prevent animals from entering, but also to force visitors to kneel, a position of vulnerability which allows residents to neutralize a possible intruder.

The roofs are designed to dry the cereals after the harvest. On the walls, the reliefs of snakes symbolize the spirits of the grandmothers or the cultural guardian spirit of the Kassena people, which appears once a year during which the population must remain silent and avoid music as you go. It is a monument in an open sky which now coexists with concrete, sheet metal and iron windows. “It is very difficult to find straw to do the roofs,” explains Ane in point the hut of his house, destroyed by the wind.

Men are responsible for building the houses. It takes a month and a mixture of earth, straw and logs to build the structure. “The chemicals have weakened the soil,” explains Ane, shifting that the houses no longer last as they did before.

In this part of the world, the climate crisis is felt in an accelerated manner and without the resources to deal with it. Even if the Sahel countries contribute only 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, they are among those who suffer from its consequences: temperatures have increased 1.5 times faster than the global average. In addition, 80% of the population of Burkina Faso lives from agriculture and land works.