Working with Kids

In the past I have not been interested in working with kids.They are loud and dirty and hard to control. The kids here are all of those to the most extreme extent. However, I broke out of my shell and ended up having two amazing experiences.
The first was a day I gave my brothers and sisters puzzles from America and stuff to color with. They even got some American toys my mom had sent like a frisbee, squirt guns, and candy. They were initially very afraid of the pop rocks but after they realized they weren't going to get hurt they liked them. It was so much fun and an experience they never get to have. There were about 25 of them there and I never lost my cool :)

The next thing I did was a school garden. The kids were between the ages of 7-15 I think. It's really hard for me to tell. The teachers did a great job controlling the students and I think they all learned something from it. We had a lot of fun talking about how to make the soil strong and the teachers have the lessons plans from  my previous training so that they can use the garden to teach math, science, nutrition, and basic agricuture/ecology. I plan in the near future to help them make a tree nursery and a moringa intensive bed. A moringa intensive bed is a lot of trees grown really close together just for leaf use. The leaves are really nutritious and hopefully will improve the health of the students.

I am in hopes that by working with the kids ideas will start changing from the ground up. It might be 10 years but hopefully this generation has a better quality of life than their parents and grandparents. The school will sell the vegetables to buy more seeds for the next season as well as supplies for the students.

   

So like what do you do there?

I decided to write this blog as a generalization of what my days are like here. I travel a lot for work and a little for fun. When I am in village I wake up, water my garden, talk to my family, and then get on whatever activities I have that day. I might need to make some compost, plant a vegetable nursery, visit the school, or work with my master farmer. I like to take walks around my village in my spare time or play with my sisters. I go to the boutique a few times a week like you all go to Krogers or whatever. I need laundry soap, food, and sometimes candy for the little kids if they help me in the garden. I sit and talk with my moms a lot when I'm bored. I also always seem to have some meeting with either my dad, my counterpart, or some farmer. I like to do my laubdry in the mornings while its still cool. In the evenings we just sit around. There is no electric so no TV, no light, and really not much to do except wish it was below 100 degrees. When I travel out of site I help other volunteers with their projects, or go to meetings to meet people who can help my area. I go to the Peace Corps house in Kaolack a couple times a month to hang with volunteers and watch movies. Also to use the internet and free phone! It's the best time to have a long chat with your boss about a project, when you can be looking at all your materials and it's FREE! Soon I'm going to a jazz festival in the northern part of the country so yay! When I'm gone I am always worried about 2 things. The death/destruction of my garden and the death/destruction of my cat. So  I'm always glad to go home and clean up my hut and chill. While I'm gone so much dust gets in my hut it's so gross! I know I do lots of other stuff but I just can't think of any of it now....I have read like 10-15 books since I've been here development is slow work. You can't make crops grow any faster and you can't overload people with too much information at once. I guess my life here isn't all that exciting but TIA -- this is Africa.

Garden Work and Farmer trainings

Lot of work has been going down with my Ag duties as well. Below is my garden with Turnip, squash,cucumber, and okra.There are peanut shells on all the beds to help conserve water. Along the fence I had green pepper. While I was out of town for three days they mysteriously died. My family just really doesn't see the value of a variety of veggies in a garden. That just means I have more work to do.Next week Ill start a new nursery and should have all the beds and pepper border replanted. Sheep and chicken have become my mortal enemies.

This week we trained 4 new farmers in our techniques which they will use at their farms and share the knowledge with the locals. It is part of our master farmer program. This is them getting dirty and learning a zy hole like method. They seemed to be really promising guys. Hopefully we can get them set up before the rains come!

 Master Farmers aren't the only ones who have to do trainings. This is the sus ag sector reviewing the techniques we had learned earlier to refresh our memories, share our success and failures,and ask any questions that we have come up with. This took place in Kolda which is in the south of the country. There are a lot more trees there and big ol' termite mounds! I was able to give a talk about insecticide use and I was reminded how amazing bugs really are :)

This is one of the smaller termite mounds

Luma madness

Malaria kills 1 million kids each year. A main goal of PCVs is to educate individual communities on malaria transmission, and prevention. USAID, an NGO, works extensively on this goal as well. Working together we hope to decrease prevalence of the disease in Western Africa. Over the last two months USAID has donated bed nets to every household in Senegal. After net distribution was complete some of us volunteers got together and went around our region talking about malaria and demonstration how to make a cheap mosquito repellent lotion. We used local tree leaves with repellent properties, soap, and oil to make it.We rented speakers had American and Senegalese music. While we were cooking up the lotion, which we gave free samples of, we talked about how malaria is transmitted and how they can protect themselves. We also did a good bit of dancing! I think the people learned a lot. Initially answers to what transmits malaria brought answers like "the wind" and "god". By the end I think they got it! We did these at 5 different Lumas. A luma is a weekly flea market more or less. I feel like it was good work but I just wish there was a better way to educate them. It makes me so mad at the pathetic school system here and the lack of respect for education. 

Work that Works!

The last couple weeks have shown me that not all work I do here is in vain. It sometimes feels like that. I have been working with other volunteers the last couple of weeks on what are considered as my secondary goals. I am an ag volunteer so when I do health or business work it goes under that title. Ngoudiba is a village about 15K from me and I helped the health volunteer there paint murals on the "House of Health" there. There were three of us and it proved to be true that a picture says a thousand words.

We made murals depicting Malaria, AIDS, Pregnacy, and hand washing. While we were painting people asked a lot of questions and even stopped as driving by! After we were done we heard people talking about them and what they meant. People in my village over the next ccouple days were like I saw what you did in Ngoudiba why haven't you done that here? I will, next cold season, too hot to paint more now. After the mural madness ended I helped another couple volunteers with a training for teachers who want to have school gardens. We had 9 teachers show up. They were all teachers of the elementary level. One volunteer Susan had made manuals including a five week lesson plan. The lessons included math, nutrition, and agriculture as well as other subjects. Hopefully the teachers utilize their knowledge to create a school garden. This could not only provide a medium for valuable lessons in the school but generate a school lunch program or income for study materials through vegetable sales.

It feels good to have done work where I can see the direct benefits. Sometimes when I'm working with a farmer I don't know if he is listening or will use the technology again. Both of these activities left me felling like I had shared knowledge that could really help the development of the community.

My Uncle's Wedding

A wedding in Senegal even though I have now experienced it is still a bit of a mystery. One day my host dad told me he was going to go to a nearby village for the day. I was ok whatever, it's not like you do anything when your here (he's a little on the lazy side). Then I was talking to my 1st host mom and she told me was bargaining. For what? For his younger brother wife. My dad is 50-52 and my uncle can't be more than 5 years younger. The girl bargained for is 20. I am not sire how much of a choice she had in the decision. My uncle already had one wife and 6 kids at this point. After negotiations were done they set a date for her to move to our compound. For two days before this there were like 30 women in my house pounding and steaming millet. I was told Iwas not allowed to work for a week and had to have discussions only. I managed to keep my garden alive and even get some okra planted even though they mildly disapproved. The day of the wedding Adja (the bride) arrived at 630 before it was even light out. The car stopped right outside my room while women screamed and people beat on drums and danced. The bride usually sits with the mother of the groom during the ceremony but that one of my grandmas is dead so her little sister took her place. The groom wasn't even at the part where the spiritual leader (Maribout) prayed some prayers. I didn't understand a word of it unfortunately. Next the women of the compound went about getting breakfast together which was millet and sour milk with sugar. It tastes better than it sounds especially when you never get milk. It was like yogurt and granola. We had that at around 10. The bride was getting here hair and makeup done at the neighbors the whole time. For the previous two days and this days included all the men did was sit and drink tea. Well they did kill and dismember 2 goats. I really feel an animal knows the difference of when you want to catch it and when you want to catch and eat it. Around 430 the bride and the 1st wife walked through the compound on top of fabric like we would put in the aisle in church. When lunch was done my moms and grandmas,the bride and first wife, all put on clothes we had made from the same fabric. Then we pretty much just hung out and talked all night. The next day we ate another big goat lunch but no big breakfast. This day it was only the closer family and not many friends. By Sunday we were all exhausted and laid around all day. Monday though,just when I thought it was done, there was as ceremony of laundry washing. The newly wed was taken to a robinet and she knelt at all four corners to pray. Then they helped her fill pans with water and everyone brought some clothes. They washed clothes and danced. My family wore their matching clothes again. I didn't really understand the significance and I had to work so I only watched a little of this. So be thankful that in our culture we hire people to do all the cooking and a lot of the other prep stuff. I didn't see anyone else with a camera there so I am printing the ones I have off for them.

WAIST- West African Intramural Softball Tournament

This is a time for volunteers to relax and see people from other countries and regions. It started all business with an all volunteer conference to meet NGO contacts, and then it was to the pool! After a day of sunning most volunteers went to their home stays in the city. These are French or American people who volunteered to allow us to stay in their homes and feed us a few meals, all the while knowing what we were going to be doing all day and night. That would be having fun however you like! The first night we had a talent show and it showed that PCVs can do a lot more than play in the sand! There are some very talented singers/jokers here. The next morning it was bright and early to the American Club for softball games. Each team had their own uniforms. My region were all dressed as ballerinas as you can see I didn't exactly put as much work into mine as some others did, but I look at this years as practice. After this first day our region was taken out of the competitive league as we were more into having fun and goofing off than playing a real game and that really annoys competitive people. I am competitive when I'm good at something. I'm not good at softball. I told them to put me in a position where I could do the least damage. They gave me second base one inning. It was just sad. That night the US Marines in Dakar hosted a dance party for us. I was pretty tired from the day and didn't make it all night, it was pretty cold for Senegal since we were so close to the ocean. The next day was more softball! We did pretty good. I was so sunburned from the first day that I had to alter my costume to cover more of my body.

This was a fun filled day and I ate a philly cheese steak mmmm so good. I had forgotten food like that. Our host family made us amazing dinners as well. One night we had lasagna and another night we had smoked salmon. THey gave us cereal, eggs, bread and cheese each morning. All out of the goodness of their hearts. That night we had a dance party at Club Oceanium. It was fabulous...I think. I only made it until 2 that night, but they had prepared a nice "drunk tank" so I could sleep until my roomates for the weekend were ready to go. The last day we slept in and went to the pool. It was a day of relaxing and reminding each other of what we had done over the last two days. Then we had a nice dinner and I called it donesies and went to bed early so I could return to my village the next day. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait till next year!