Beginner´s Guide: 4 life-hacks to survive hot season in Burkina Faso


On a good day, we have around 8 hours electricity. Uploading one photo for the blog takes around one and a half hours. It´s been a month without water. We use water twice: for showering and after for the toilet flush.


Arriving in Burikina in the hot season is a challenge: personally but also heath-wise. The good thing, there are absolutely no mosquitoes at the moment. We are even sleeping without mosquito-net so that wind can cool our skin. Nevertheless, I always wake up in a lake of sweat, with a thick throat and lips because my body has lost too much water during the night.


However, this is not forever, rainy-season is about to start (we already had the first rainy day) and the people of Burkina Faso waiting probably more desperately for it than I do.





Big water cans for each room



We are without water since one month. There is a water tank (1000 liter) on our roof but it´s empty. So we bought water cans to wash and shower with. The water comes from a nearby well. Last time I pumped 50 liter. Sometimes the landlord also gets the water for us. Tobias needs five little cans for a proper shower, I need eleven. We use dirty water (for instance from our clothes-wash) for the toilet-flush.





Charging everything at

any time


Electricity is rare. But its more reliable than water. At least one time a day there is current, but you never know when. So we always put ALL things into the sockets. We use a regulator for our fridge, because the current varies from 180 to 250 Volt, which is apparently not good for electronic devises. The regulator balances the current and tries to keep it on the same level. Also very handy: battery bank and solar-lamps!


The red finest dust enters the house by any way possible. After one day the dust covers all surfaces. Luckily, we have somebody helping us to clean the house every week. We also use covers, dry-packs and cases for all electronic devises. The easiest is to keep everything inside the wardrobe and not to buy any decoration :)


Dust, Dust everywhere



The heat: Sleeping on the ground




The only package of chocolate that we brought from Germany was melted after one hour in Burkina. We did not even reach the hotel and the entire thing became chocolate sauce. We go over 40° C almost every day. When you walk outside and there is a bit of wind, it hurts on your skin, because the wind is so hot. Just like walking through an oven. One day we placed the thermometer in the sun and it went up to 57° C. Our advice for the lunch break: Lying on the ground, where it is at least a bit cooler.