This is how we do it

I've had some requests for more of my daily life. Every PCV is different, but as a Sustainable Ag volunteer we all have some things in common. So this is how we do it :)

Wake up in the morning feelin' like P Diddy, grab my glasses I'm out the door, I'm 'bout to hit bush city, before I leave brush my teeth with a litre of salts 'cause the next time I'm in my hut there can't be no halts . OK thank you Ke$ha but really on to the story. (also that was a reference to diarrhea

PCV memory is like that of a person with Alzheimer's. There are those of us who manage without an agenda, and those of us who spend half our days looking for our keys. I'm somewhere in between. I have an agenda, but I also have 3 keys in random places to find at any time when I have lost (usually temporarily) my normal set. I write down everything from meetings to clean your room, to text Eric.

Generally, I am split between my village, my Master farmers village (not all PCVs have one, and some are in their own village), and the regional house. In village I wake up and greet my family as I get water. Then I go for a jog. Sometimes if I'm working at the Master Farm I'll just jog there, it's like 6-7 Km. If I stay in my village I will then either clean various things in my room, visit my counterparts, work in my garden, or like now write a blog which I will later post when I get to the city. I also take the hours of 12-3 for cooking my lunch, napping and listening to music with my brothers. Sometime I do non-sus ag stuff like go to the health post, or talk to families about malaria.

If I do go to the Master Farm I will help make vegetable and tree nurseries, survey for insect problems, and make future plans with my awesome site mates and Fatou. We spend a good deal of time there just talking and waiting for her delicious yet stomach breaking lunches.

This is us seeding her farm

After nap/music time, I will go back out to the fields. If I don't have field work I spend a lot of time chillin' with the ladies as they shell peanuts and gossip. Sometimes they gossip about me until I pick up on what's going on. I think it's there way of seeing if I am paying attention.

In the evening I enjoy holding Fatou my little sister or playing with her and Bussa my niece until one of my moms yells at us for too much giggling. Then I read until I am sleepy enough to pass out. As of late there has been a camel spider in my room. It will run up to the light crawl up my arms or legs and freak me out. They don't bite but they are fast and creepy looking. I killed one last night very gently so I could take pictures. I know I am an Entomologist after all right!

The regional house is where we go to use the internet, have meetings, get supplies in the surrounding city, and socialize. There is also an office in Kaffrine which is closer to me. I find that some visits to the house end with me getting a lot of work done while others end with having only done the socializing aspect. I write it off as necessary for mental health. It is so nice just to talk to other volunteers about what they are doing and brainstorm what we can do together. It's also been the location of some pretty sweet stress relief sessions that carry on to the wee hours of the morning.

This lady is the JAM! She is a bouncer/bartender and protects me from all of Kaffrine ;)

There are days when as a volunteer with more time on the clock I go to other volunteers villages and help them give trainings. I have done this with Lorraine in January which I wrote about and again just this week. I have a new site mate named Ann. She asked me to come and help her get a garden going. We showed her family some techniques and planted a nice vegetable nursery. As a health/ environmental education volunteer the garden should be very useful to her.

AND THAT'S HOW WE DO IT!

Senegal to Americ and back

I had not initially planned on a trip to America during my service. So many things were happening in my family in the month of May that I simply could not resist the use of my vacation time. Thanks again to mom and dad for fronting the travel costs! I was very excited to go as I made my reservations. I looked forward to my cousin Lea's wedding, Sara's 16^th birthday, my mother birthday and mother's day, as well as Memorial day weekend. Though as the time approached I got a little scared. I hadn't been home in over 600 days. Just under 2 years, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be the same person. Would I randomly talk in Wolof, eat with my hands, or make an off color comment? When I finally saw American soil though all my worries were gone and I was glad to be home.

Miss these guys every day!

While I was there I went to the above mentioned events as well as so much more. I talked to elementary, middle and high school classes, went 4-wheeling, canoeing, shooting, boating with dad, 2 concerts (one at which I crowd surfed to the stage!), and so much time with family and friends. It was so great to see my brothers and sisters and how much my nieces and nephews had grown up. I caught up with my cousins, and spent a lot of time with Sara. I also got to see my best friend Jess who flew in from Portland just for me :). The ease with which people can travel was refreshing.

I had some great days working with my dad and seeing wildlife. Everything was so green! My family vacation to Lake Cumberland was also a highlight of the trip I won't forget. We went out on the lake and saw Mammoth Caves. We also stayed out late to see a moon-bow over a waterfall. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen.

I relished as much meat and cheese as I could. I even took time to cook some Senegalese food for my family. I finally had Penn Station and Skyline, omg soooo good! I got to eat at some other great restaurants too, and was fully satisfied by the time I had to go. I was there for a whole month and it was just enough time to see almost everyone. I did miss my friends and family in Senegal though.

I knew my friends were waiting for me here and that my family was hoping I would actually come back lol! I had some trouble getting back home but I'm not even getting into that until it is resolved. There will either be a future posting of Peace Corps caring for its' volunteers, or how little they really care, we will see. When I finally got here I was so happy to see my friends and it was so great giving gifts to my family. It is so cute to see my little baby siblings in frilly American dresses. Kids are still coming to my hut this day asking for more toys. I have some hidden in my trunk that I'm waiting to hand out so they aren't too overloaded. I also stocked up on some goodies for my friends and I, so don't worry I'm not starving yet!

There were a lot of feelings I had in America that I hadn't expected to have. For example, I was really annoyed when people asked about the animals in my area. Yes, I live in Africa. No, there are not large animals like lions and elephants here. They are all being wiped out. Habitat loss and poaching are clearing the plant of these mega charismatic beasts. I was shocked to find that people had no idea that many of these animal aren't just endangered but some of them are down to less than 100 individuals in the wild. 100 individuals is considered to be the bare minimum of animals needed to continue a species due to the need for genetic recombination.

I was also disgusted by the wastefulness. Half full plates being thrown away, gigantic portions well beyond what is necessary to survive, or even to live healthily, and all of the plastic. There is so much excessive packaging on everything. Why do all the fruits and veggies need containers? I hope I find a nearby farmers market when I get home. The first and only trip I took to the mall I almost had a panic attack. The consumerism is disgusting and so many things are completely unnecessary. They seemed to me the perfect symbol of American laziness. Why is America obese? Maybe because we have machines to do everything for us so we have more time to watch TV. I'm sorry, but seriously after a week I wanted to throw the TV off the roof. There is so much out there and so many things to do. I don't understand watching a box for 4-6 hours a day. I didn't own a TV in college and now I'm glad I didn't or I may have become just as addicted.

I was also appalled by the excessive use of energy. Lights left on during the day, TV's an radios on that no one is listening to, car rides just out of boredom, and I know this is crazy but it seemed weird to me all the fuel used to keep the yard “pretty”. I don't mean to rip on my homeland, but I hope when I return I keep the ideals I have learned here and don't abuse the resources we have such easy access to at home just because I can. People in Senegal have a minimal trash system and no recycling. I recycled everything at home and see no excuse for people who don't. I want to enjoy a good quality of life while I am alive and I don't mind working a little to ensure that future generations can have that too.

Overall, I feel I must end with this; Despite the things I don't like about America I still can't wait to get back.

So you Think Monkeys are Cute

As you know if you have been reading my blog, one of my main projects is to work with a woman named Fatou Willane. We have had a very rocky relationship. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we did not choose to work with each other but were told to work with each other by Peace Corps. She is part of the Master Farmer Program. The objective is to give her everything she needs to have a beautiful and prosperous field that will serve to show other farmers in the area technologies that they may incorporate into their own farms to increase productivity. In some ways the program works. We have demonstrations in vegetable crops and open field days in the rainy season showing some of the best ways to take care of field crops. This includes things such as spacing, thinning, weeding, and pesticide application and alternatives.Although  no farmers could actually afford to do what she does on the large scale, just parts. 

It has also shown many volunteers that even with seemingly endless funds there are problems here that just cannot be solved. Farmers in Senegal have been burning their fields since their great grandparents time and before. It is nearly impossible to convince farmers that this is not the best practice. I cannot for the life of me get it into Fatou's head why this is bad. It removes the vegetation that could be reincorporated into the soil as nitrogen and each year villages or parts of them are burnt down due to out of control fires.

An unusual problem I had was a monkey. This is not unusual to the Senegalese these animals have always been pests. I had never seen one near my village but they appear to be coming back. My site mate saw a whole troop of them the other day. Fatou and I had a beautiful field going. We had inter-cropped eggplant with corn; as well as having cabbage, hot pepper, and jaxatu (Google it). This was all planted inside the drip irrigation system we had installed to preserve water. Then the monkey came. It would pull of ears of corn, squash tomato, takes bites out of the eggplant and then toss one and move on. It also chewed the water cans and the very expensive drip irrigation. I had no idea how to get rid of a monkey as I had no firearm.

We tried a scarecrow. Nothing the monkey was not that stupid. We tried putting poison in a bucket of water. We assumed it was there for water as much as food, but alas it was too smart for that too. Finally, one of her employees borrowed a rifle. He was a poor shot and I really wish I could have done it myself, bit PCV's are forbidden to handle firearms. If we could you see, all the taxi and moto drivers would be dead (they are the scum of Senegal). I thought though maybe the sound of being shot at would do something. It didn't the monkey just kept on coming.

While I was at home I thought maybe I could hang aluminum foil or pie pans to scare the monkey and was ready to try this upon my return. When I went to visit Fatou the first time I was shocked. Her field had nothing left but trees. I asked what had happened. She said the squirrels had come too and were chewing the drip irrigation and since everything was getting ruined she decided to stop everything till I came back.

Back to square one. We have made a new vegetable nursery and seeded our millet and sorghum crops. When things begin to fruit I honestly don't know what we'll do. I'm in favor of hiring one of the French men who frequent the nearby bush hotel for hunting and have them kill the little buggers. I'm open to any other suggestions anyone out there may have.

The Election and Associated Riots

When a developing country comes to a point where the constitution dictates the time has come to have an election all hell breaks loose. This is what happened from January through March of this year in Senegal. The people of Senegal were angry and willing to point fingers in any direction. I will say before I go on that no PCVs were seriously hurt due to the civil unrest. I experienced three events in this time which served as visuals of this unrest. The first was the riot in Kaolack when the late President Abdulaye Wade came for a visit. People were running like crazy throught he streets. The police came and fired gas at them. I got the shot below from the safety of the roof of the Kaolack regional house. When the presidential candidate left things immediately calmed down.

After this event I knew it would be better to stay in the bush, but I didn't. One day I decided to go to the market. I smelled smoke and saw policeman and knew I needed to get out of there. I called our security director and he told me to get back to the house. I followed his instructions almost exactly. I had to take a little peek as I found a taxi. It turns out either by "electrical failure" or malintent the front 1/3 of the market had been burnt down. This was a major blow to the cities economy. My favorite seed store happened to be in this area. Lucky for me they were able to relocate.

The last experience I had with the riots before I literally stayed in village only until it was over was a bad one. We were driving down the road one morning on the way to the market to get some veggies. A group of outraged teens started throwing bricks into the road just ahead of us while others started rollingin tires. This is what they use to start fires. Our cab hit it in reverse and we got out of there. Unfortunately on the next road was yet another fire. We turned down a third street and were almost back to our house when another driver waved to us. He told our driver there was another fire just ahead. We turned and took yet another street before finally getting back to our house. It was scary and I can't say I have ever experienced anything like it.

When it's all said and done, the good guy won, the old guy accepted it, and the country calmed down. I am now safe to travel, go to the market, and live the way I had the previous 15 months.

Trips to Gambia

Over the course of my service in Senegal I have done quite a bit of traveling. Before my site mate left she decided to introduce me to the country inside of Senegal, Gambia. After going with her I have been a couple of more times to enjoy the culture and scenic beauty the country has to offer. Kourtney and I just went for a night. It's about a 30K bike ride from my house, so we went out into the forest and camped. In the morning we biked out to the river for our breakfast.This was in the town of Kauur. Then we turned around and went home. It was a short sweet trip.

Me and Kourt by the Gambian River

After

The next time I went I was accompanied by two great friends. I met up with Jason in Koungel where we stayed with a friend. In the morning we took a bus down to Wassu. It was a luma day and the streets were busy. Spencer met us there and we embarked on our mission. It took us a little while but eventually we found Fatou Cisse. She may be old and a little blind, but she gives great Pulaar scars. These are ethnic scars created by cutting the skin and rubbing in ash.  We all got them on our chests and I also had them done behind my ears. It was a dirty process but the final product is like a tattoo.

Before

After our fun scarring experience we went to the local bar and drank cashew liquer. That night we took a horse cart back into Senegal and spent the night in Spencer's village. It was nice and they fed us a good dinner we were all hungry for. In the morning Jason and I returned to our respective regions of the country. It was this trip that made me realize how easy I could get from my site to Kolda. So, a month later I embarked on another adventure through the Gambia with three other girls and our friend Mike.





This turned out to be a long adventure. Amy and I left Kaolack and went to Kafffrine where my bike was. Yasmine, Emily, and Mike met us there. We then biked to my village to spend the night. We made ourselves some dinner hung out with my brother and got a good nights rest because we knew we had a few long days ahead of us. We woke up and got an early start biking south to Nganda. We stopped here for breakfast. From Nganda to Kauur we passed through a small national forest. The same one Kourtney and I had camped in. Mike had some bike troubles but was able to make it to the river town and get it fixed. I fell off my bike once. The road was sandy and rough. A real workout. We hung out in Kauur and went swimming in the river. Once we were cooled we continued on East. Although we had lost Mike somewhere we weren't really worried. He's a big guy and speaks like six languages. We figured he'd catch up. We set up camp under a tree in the bush. Passed around a bottle to congratulate ourselves on reaching our destination for the day. I thought from where we were at this point it was about 50K to Wassu. It was 50 miles. This made for a long morning. We were all exhausted by the time we got there. We scored free lunch at the bar, maffee (peanut sause on rice). Then we went to see ancient rock circles from 600 AD. I went in and touched the rocks, took pictures, and checked out the museum. These circles were made for religious beliefs. Often the are in some relation to astrology. There are stories that these circles were made for burials, and for human sacrifices. It was very cool. Then Yasmine and Emily got Pulaar scars. Mike finally caught up to us and we moved on South in the heat. Mike got a flat tire and we ended up stuck in a village waiting on him for a while. We had meant to make it to Pata in Senegal this night but we only got as far as the Gambian river. We crossed the river in a boat at sunset. It was amazing. An absolutely gorgeous site. We biked across some rice paddys which was something I had never seen before, and set up camp. In the morning we biked further South into Brikima Ba. The group stopped for breakfast but I moved on as I didn't like biking in the afternoon. I biked a long time by mysekf and in Soulabali. Here I ended up sitting with Pulaar children for five hours. I leaned a little Pulaar though! At this point The girls caught up with me, but Mike had jumped in a car and given up. Amy, Yasmine, and I finished the trip alone. It was at this point a monkey ran across the road! In all it was 240K. We were all sore but not too tired to eat lots of chicken, re-energize, and dance, for a friends passover party. We had made it!! We decided to take a car home after a few days of abusing a nearby hotels pool :)

This is the ferry we took on the way home.  They put on all the cars and people and cruise across.

IST- In service training

This year I was invited to teach the incoming trainees at their in service training (IST). Compared to the previous training, this time it was after they had been to and seen their sites. This changed things as they knew more about what they were doing here. My talks focused on pest identification and how to slove pest problems. It was great to see the newer volunteers and hear how they were liking their sites. It was also more challenging for me as they had a lot more questions. The days went too fast and I felt that I didn't get much time with some of the people from other regions, but overall it was a success. Trainings are structured so that the days are full of sessions on different topics. When I wasn't teaching, I went to sessions other volunteers were leading and gave any input I could. The evenings were free time for volunteers to network with each other and discuss what they had taken in. This was a great time for socializing both with the new volunteers and PCVs from my stage who I didn't see often. This fall I will leave country before the new stage arrives so I won't be involved with either PST or IST. It was a lot of fun and I have always enjoyed teaching. I hope my presentations helped the new stage and that the rest of their service is awesome!

Keep those Seeds!

My site mate and I decided to do a training in her village on seed storage. We did it in January. It was a little late to do give the talk, as they had all harvested between October and December. The need to keep their seed until next rainy season was none the less a very important topic to discuss. We discussed multiple technologies and pesticides that are generally used here. We also taught new and safer technologies that they can adapt if they so choose. Some of the methods we taught will not only be safer but are cheaper as well. This allows the farmers in the community to protect themselves and have a higher amount of usable seed for the next year. The village was very interested and asked a lot of questions. It felt great to be discussing  topic that the community felt was of importance. It went very well over all, and I think the community got a lot of information out of it. This is definately a training session that I would do again. I hope to do a pre-harvest talk in my own village next year before I head back to America.

It felt great to share our knowledge. It was particularly satisfying to correct misconceptions attendees had about pesticides. This was one of the few trainings where we combined community interest, a need for information, and we felt satisfied at the end of the day. Nothing is quite as nice as feeling like you're doing your job, and doing it well.