...with my flippy floppies

Last week I made the trip up north, about twelve hours from my village by car, to attend Jazz Fest 2013 in St. Louis. This annual festival is opportunity for many volunteers to get out of site, hang out with those volunteers that they may not see too often and do those American things that we all so much miss; wear shorts (still long by American standards), drink beer and speak English. Since transportation logistics make it impossible for me to make the journey in one day I spent the night in Tambacounda at the regional house on my way up north. I got to see a few of the new volunteers that were just arriving in site and also a few friends from my region just happen to be at the house, it sure is great seeing people again. I forgot how long I had been at site, it was a much needed break. Eli, Jonathan and I had about an ten hour ride to get to St. Louis but the trip went about as smoothly as you could plan, which is always great. There was an incident of wrapping a tube that was in the engine with tape but I am sure we were not going to blow up or anything. Right? We arrived in time for me to meet up with Hattie at a local restaurant, she had just finished teaching a class and while waiting I had no problem taking pleasure in pizza and Wi-Fi, a real treat. We ended up meeting Marsha from our stage along with some other volunteers for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant on the north side of the island. I can’t even remember a time when I had such delicious cuisine, calamari with a spicy curry sauce over a bed of rice. To die for. We walked back to the center of town, each of us eating more than necessary requiring a walk for proper digestion, looking for music on the main stage but since there was an entrance fee we figured the festivities could wait until the weekend. I spent the night with Marsha in her room; she is always so welcoming to those of us who were homeless due to our reservation being for the next night. Again I was spoiled with Wi-Fi, a comfortable bed and the sound of the ocean breeze as I feel asleep (Marsha is serving as a volunteer after a successful career she has more money that the average just-out-of-college volunteer and can splurge on a room on the beach and there are a couple of us that reap the benefits). The next day, Friday, Marsha and I spent walking around “downtown” on the island, eating lunch at a wonderful local restaurant, admiring the merchandise in a cheese shop (we don’t even have cheese at my site let alone a whole store dedicated to the luxury item) and shopping around for an elusive Senegal patch to add to my collection. Julia, Jenn and Lisa from my stage arrived in town around 3pm so I stayed in town to meet up with them as Marsha went back to her room to prepare for the festivities that were to follow that evening. The girls grabbed a bite to eat at a local café and I sipped on a café au lait, which is also nonexistent at my site. If you have not already picked up on the pattern, time spent in the big city is consumed with eating and drinking things we don’t have at site, wasting countless hours online until you can repeat your newsfeed from Facebook or have memorized all the top stories on cnn.com and catching up with friends. We went back to our rooms to nap before heading out for the night that just ended up with Julia and I talking in our room until it was time to start getting ready. Alexx was supposed to also be in our room but flew back to America last minute to be with her family after the passing of her uncle. He was, in part, the reason why we shaved our heads, allowing us to raise money and awareness for Lymphoma. My thoughts go out to her and her family during this hard time. That night we headed to the “the boat” to listen to live music and drink wine like the classy people that we are not these days. The boat was about four levels and looked like it could be used as a river cruise, or somewhere with mild seas, and the whole time I could not help but sing random lyrics to the song "I'm on a boat". The music and bar were on the top deck, which provided chilly weather and a great view over the water and the bridge that was lit up for the festival. It was truly a beautiful site and I would have never thought I would have experienced something in my time here in Senegal. Saturday we indulged in a cheap breakfast, the usual but delicious pea sandwich, before heading into town to walk around. We ended up shopping at the “fukiji” which are basically tables or sheets sprawled out with used clothing from the west or Europe. Unless we want to walk around in traditional African ensembles we rely on this supply of cheap western clothing to supplement for the wear and tear that the cloths that we brought from America go through. And you can find name brand items for the equivalent of $2 or cheaper. After some more American type dishes for lunch we headed back to hotel for another nap before the night festivities, which ended with Julia and I watching Downton Abbey (great show if you have never seen it, I highly recommend, it is on BBC). While heading back into town we decided to stop and grab a glass of wine before heading to the boat and it may have ended up being one of the best choices we had made all weekend. We ended up at La Résidence, a hotel downtown that was in our budget for happy hour but not lodging. A band was warming up but there was a great wine list and free appetizers floating around so we decided to stay. The atmosphere was great, the service was the best that I have seen in all of Senegal and I was in great company, it was fabulous. Not surprisingly we went back to the boat for more music and wine after our hotel adventure and it was just as delightful from the night before. As the weekend progressed more and more volunteers were coming into town, it was great seeing people from other stages and sectors (health or agriculture) that I don’t see on a regular basis. We ended the night at a bar with buy one get one free Gazelle beers, horrible tasting by American standards but does the trick if you need something cold and beer like. Sunday morning Teni arrived in town and we took her downtown to show her around and, if ulterior motives must be known, have another café au lait. A few students from Howard University, DC were in town to perform in the festival, a couple of my friends are alumni of the university so they stayed and had a drink with

the band while Julia and I did what any other respectable Peace Corps Volunteer would do in a city, eat ice cream and sit along the water. It was great talking to her one on one, though we were in the same stage I don’t get to see her nearly enough and being that we both come from islands (myself Hawaii and her from St. Croix) we needed a little ocean breeze time. Our hostel is about a 20-minute walk from the center of downtown, and close to where the boat is located, so our walk back to nap gave us ample opportunity to walk off the ice cream and shop a little more. May I add all this shopping resulted in just looking, there were things that I would love to buy and there were things that were the same tourist crap that you can find anywhere but the thought of lugging it back to site makes one not want to buy anything. Our nap, also known as another episode of Downton Abbey, ended too soon as we were to get cleaned up for dinner with other volunteers for Lily’s birthday. A few of us thought it would be best to go back to La Résidence for drinks and live music and next thing you know there were a dozen of us drinking too many $10 bottles of their finest (cheapest) red and eating homemade banana bread, thanks for that Karen! Our waiter was the same from the night before and at this point we were on first name basis with him, Moussa. For a couple of hours I felt like I was in a European city with people that I have known for years, you would have never thought we had all just met a year ago. It makes me realize 1) how great the people are here that I am sharing this experience with 2) how much I do miss my friends and family back home and 3) how I do love a nation full of citizens with a disposable income. We had to be at the main stage by 9pm to listen to Howard University, to show our American support, and of course we were late and of course the show didn’t start until 10. They opened with some boys from the military school in Dakar, whom honestly looked like Boy Scouts in their hats and uniforms, and infused a slam poet and a local drummer in some of their later pieces. The performance was great and though I am not usually a jazz fan they put on a great performance and the music was a great change from what we normally hear. There was a Tunisian

Dhafer Youssef

band on as the final act and I was so impressed by him I bought some of his music on iTunes. His name is Dhafer Youssef, the combination of the instruments along with his voice made for a great sound. I am trying to get a video up of the above-mentioned acts but since internet speed is so slow it is proving to take forever. I will keep working on it; stay posted. We took the Howard boys out for some drinks and dancing after their performance and though the night ended too soon, the morning was proving to come too early for our trip back south. Jenn and I left St. Louis Monday morning, around 7am, to get a jump on our voyage back. I am 12 hours south and she is 10 so we often make a majority of the trip back together; we stopped half way in Kaolack since I would not have been able to finish the trip in a day. I know I mention this in probably just about every post but if anything this adventure has made me realize how great my life is back home. I have a great family, an amazing network of friends and endless opportunities for my career. I am thankful to be born and raised in such a great country. This post may have been a little staler than others, it is more of an message for update than a message inspired by something, but thank to for those following, it truly is an adventure.

Do Handouts Actually Help?

My counterpart Amadou asked me the other night why I had [student loan] debt when my country spends so much money on education in other countries. I must say I was more troubled that an uneducated man in Senegal made this realization on his own than the fact that we can’t even get our own politicians on board with the notion of affordable secondary education. This question, and the fact that Peace Corps Senegal is celebrating 50 years in country this year, made me think about how valuable our money and time is being spent here in Africa. We are one of the longest standing programs in all of Peace Corps and we have a lot to show for it. Thousands of people around the world can say that they have made Senegal their home for a small period in their life, worked to improve development in the country and were given the opportunity to better understand and integrate with local culture. With all the projects the Peace Corps has been involved with there has been those that required no funding (or funding from our own stipends) and there have been those that benefited from grants, from not only American organizations but those all around the world. With all the money that we are seeing being pumped into Africa we are left with the question, do handouts actually help?

Handouts may be a strong word, though it is a synonym of aid according to the dictionary on my computer, but after working in Velingara for around nine months I feel that it is more than suitable. Right after you install they always say that work is slow but projects will come and I would have to agree. The first few months that I was in Velingara I had a little more on my plate than the average Jo because I had the project that my predecessor started, but it was by no means enough to fill my time. I went from working 50 hours plus a week in Minneapolis to about five hours a week in Senegal, if I was lucky, and it was a difficult adjustment. Though it sounds like a great time to sleep in, catch up on the news or read the latest books, any normal person would go crazy after about a week of this schedule. But there comes a time at site that everything just seems to come together, language is better, you have some sort of a routine and the projects are seemingly endless. With these endless projects comes endless questions and headaches concerning how exactly you are going to get these great ideas off the ground, also known as who is going to pay for it?

The approach to aid is different depending on the organization but here is a bit of information based on my experience with the Peace Corps. There are many options for funding projects depending on the project, who the beneficiaries are and the time of year. It is almost too easy to write a grant and submit it to Peace Corps to get help in funding through a few different donors requiring very little on the side of the local population. Sure the grants require a community contribution, usually 25%, but these donations can be in-kind so it usually ends up being lodging (people staying with family) or training rooms (grab the nearest empty classroom). The community contribution was meant to make the community accountable and provide for some of the project but as you can see it doesn’t really prove to be demanding on their part, financially or otherwise.

Though I have personally written a grant for a project I don’t necessarily believe in handing out money for things that the community should be able to pay for, it is just that I am already asking money from the Mayor’s Office and didn’t want my youth project to affect the chances of funding for my other projects. I have worked with the Mayor’s Office a lot recently trying to secure funding for our waste management project (which is officially broke and I just found out that we were not a registered business though everyone told me we were- remind me to blog about lying later) and I have seen plenty of room within the city budget, if it were managed properly, to allocate money to these small scale projects that benefit the community. One major reason why the city does not have as much funding as they desire is a simple concept that is usually a hit or miss with the audience, taxes. Though they are not fun to pay, nobody complains when primary education is free, a road is repaired, a park is built or a homeless family is fed. We as Peace Corps Volunteers work with securing funding for projects similar to those listed, things that the community members and governing parties should be responsible for paying for but don’t. As a result of poor management and lack of country revenue generated from the population, countries from all over the world not only help these suffering communities with projects but straight up give cash to governments having faith that they will then allocate the funds rightfully. As we see right here in Senegal 1) mainly the capital city, along with a few other cities few and far between, have paved roads, 2) every household is required to pay dues for their children to go to school to cover institutional costs and if the family is poor don’t count on their children being educated, 3) parks are nothing more than shaded areas of sand to be kept clean by community groups who are sick of looking at the trash and 4) families who are unable to eat are left with begging, or starving, as there are not many other options.

This anniversary of Peace Corps Senegal has left me with questions of how much of an impact are we actually having here? If we are in fact doing as much good as we think we are why have we been here for 50 years and why are we still needed for years to come? Why have basic systems, education and tax comes to mind first, not developed in a way to improve and help society? Why have we not created enough leaders or sustainable projects that we are forced to have volunteers year after year in the same villages? Why do people continue to think and use us as a financial crutch without any desire to become independent?

I have been researching the impact that aid is having in Africa and I must stay that though the results vary there is a big consensus that we are doing more harm than good, and I can’t agree more. Daniel Hannan wrote a blog post, Stop giving us aid, say Africans, where he interviewed a Nigerian man, Thompson Ayodele, concerning aid in Africa. “It discourages enterprise, fosters dependency and bolsters corrupt regimes” he explains, later stating that, “never mind that aid shields recipient governments from the consequences of their policy failures: the key thing, for Lefties, is to show that you're a caring person.” Hannan replies with a tangible argument, “the trouble is that if conservatives announced that they were going to cut overseas aid budgets, not everyone would believe that they were doing so as a result of Thompson's cogent philosophy. They would be accused, rather, of doing it because they were selfish or because they didn't care about people whose skins were darker than theirs. Hence, perhaps, my party's determination, at a time of general economic retrenchment, explicitly to guarantee the international development budget against future cuts.” His points in the article are spot on and proves that though we all have it in our hearts to want to help we need to decide what is actually helping, no matter what the critics say. Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist, states in the article Stop giving aid to Africa. It’s just not working on nrc.nl that “development aid simply doesn’t work…it is supposed to lead to sustainable economic growth and a reduction in poverty. Name one African country where this has happened.” When asked what are the consequences of aid she states that “first and foremost the widespread corruption. The people in power plunder the treasury and the treasury is filled with development aid money. The corruption has contaminated the whole society. Aid leads to bureaucracy and inflation, to laziness and inertia. Aid hurts exports. Thanks to foreign aid the people in power can afford not to care about their people. But the worst part of it is: aid undermines growth. The economies of those countries that are the most dependent on foreign aid have shrunk by an average of 0.2 percent per year ever since the seventies.” Moyo’s approach to the problem is to pull aid all together stating that, “only the elite will feel the pain. The poor won’t even notice the difference. It’s not like they ever saw any of that money anyway.”

Development is much more complex than giving money to fund projects in small villages. There must be sustainability within projects, knowledge learned and kept in the community, a sense of ownership for the project and financial involvement by local authorities. The research that I have done lately made me believe in what we are doing here but maybe we should be giving less money to governments to do with as they please and spend more of it on our own citizens. There are many more articles just like these ones and I challenge you to go out and do your own research on the topic.

*Repost this blog, email it to a friend, or mention it in social media if you want to help keep some of the money we send overseas in our own country, specifically working towards making education affordable.

Soccer Tournament and Earth Day

My youth project has officially started, even though we have not received funding yet but that is another story, and I must say our soccer tournament last week was a success; the tournament was programmed for seven youth groups in Velingara to be held over a period of three days. The tournament started on Sunday, April 15th with a series of three games, six teams included for the day’s festivities. The program was intended to be simple and low budget, which I think we pulled off quite well. The first two days of games, the second being on Tuesday, April 16th, required no funding besides a soccer ball that was budgeted but had to be purchased early due to the ball splitting open when someone kicked it shortly after the game started, obviously hindering play. It was a lot of fun watching the soccer games and it was great to see some competition amongst the youth while letting loose and having fun. I would have loved to have music, beverages or something to make the tournament more tournament-like but I didn’t want to come across as the rich American throwing money around for things that aren’t needed. I already have a hard enough time convincing people that 1) I don’t have thousands of dollars in my bank account, 2) I can’t afford to fly you to America 3) I am not going to marry you so you can get a visa and live in America and 4) I had to work hard to have what I have and be where I am today. Even with the lack of showy things the first two days of the tournament it was still fun; we had a turnout of about 60 youth each day. The third day, Sunday, April 21st, was not only the day of the final match but also the day before Earth Day; we arranged a little city cleanup project amongst some of the youth organizations in celebration. Considering how last minute and how things-will-just-fall-into-place people are, things went pretty well. The plan for the clean up project was to have a youth association sweep a section of their part of town where we would then have a dump truck come around to the sites to pick up the waste and dispose of it at the site where our waste management project dumps our waste. The morning of, Abdoul, the guy who is the president of youth activities here who had helped me with writing the grant, called me to tell me that sweeping had begun at École 2 (a school in town) and that I should head over. Upon arriving at école 2 I was both surprised and excited that Abdoul had paid for a DJ and sound system with his own money (I think and hope) to build excitement amongst the youth and community for Earth Day. I spoke a little bit with everyone helping, expressing how much I appreciate them participating in both the tournament and the clean up and since this particular youth association was in the finals they were more than happy to help! After a few minutes I left to go to the center of town to check out the other sites where the youth organizations were sweeping. There were six sites in total; école 2, the garage (transportation hub), the main road through town, in front of the big mosque and the two other sites were random streets located in the sections of town where the youth groups lived. The group that was located on the main road is a truly amazing group, with a great organizational president, who actually do clean ups in their neighborhood every Sunday because they want to. There receive no money or recognition, they just appreciate the way their neighborhood looks after sweeping; a great example for the community, of sustainable development and what a community can and should do once they receive needed skills and tools. A dump truck was supposed to come around to each section of town but since we didn’t have any tools to put the garbage physically into the truck my work partner Amadou, as well as some

association leaders, thought it would be a better idea to just go with the usual approach to disposing of trash, burning it. While I suggested throwing the trash into the dump truck with hands, forks, shovels, well anything that we had access to, I was overruled and burning it was. This is about the point where I should have put my foot down because it was in fact a project in celebration of the earth and the fact that we are sending hazardous fumes into the atmosphere was not exactly sending an honorable example. I was already mildly overwhelmed running around town, in the hot sun, visiting each of the sites while also, by spending my own personal money, buying tea and sugar as a thank you to the teams that I did not have the energy to pick this fight about burning trash and to also come up with a better solution other than what I had already stated. I figured that next year I would have a better understanding of the situation and what exactly is needed to effectively do a clean up without actually doing more harm and I could make it up then. Inshallah. The final match, between the youth groups Boku Jam and Kamikaz, was scheduled for 4pm and when I arrived about a quarter after I was one of 8 people. Having faith that people would show up, at least the two teams would because they both wanted the bragging rights, it was a waiting game with me, the DJ and his crew who were apparently sticking around for the finale, which I was honestly a little excited about. Normally events that have speakers, the large ones that are usually as tall as I am, are always annoying because they either blast the music too loud to even hear ones own thoughts, play songs with crappy sound quality or play one of three artists on repeat (Rihanna and Akon of course are two of the three) but I was excited to have some sort of entertainment at my event since everyone not American seems to enjoy the speaker spectacle. The game stared around 5:15 with me kicking the first ball in the center of the field to signal the beginning of the match, about as much fun as it sounds. Wilma and Jordan arrived shortly after the game started to watch and honestly, I think they were just bored and this gave them something to do. With the music playing and someone clearing excited to be holding a microphone (commenting on everything from the game, who was in the audience, singing the song that was currently playing or, of course, trying to get the white

girls to say something) the game was off to a good start. I must say, I was proud of the work that Abdoul and I had put into the project; everyone was seemingly having a great time. As sort of a half-time show we decided to hand out the tea and sugar to the youth groups that helped out with the clean up earlier that morning. Abdoul was working with the DJ announcing the youth groups and as a representative would come up I would shake their hand and then hand them the tea and sugar. I am not sure if I have ever explained this but making tea is a large part of the Senegalese culture. It is an excuse for people, mostly men, to hang out, talk and debate while the tea brews- since the tea is prepared over coals it takes much longer to boil than if over a fire ensuring that both the men gather for longer periods of time and that the tea will have a better flavor. I myself don’t drink the tea since the Senegalese are incapable of drinking anything that does not have pounds of sugar in it, my teeth rot just thinking about it. And this is not a generalization, it is a fact! The game ended in a tie, 1-1, resulting in a shootout. Each team had five shots against the opposing teams goalie but I am pretty sure this went longer as well but I can’t say for sure. As nerve-racking and dramatic as it was watching the shoot out (people almost crying, screaming and jumping on those that made the shot and falling to the ground with those that missed) team Kamikaze proved victorious. They celebrated by rushing the field, running and chanting as a group and when I took a picture with them and the trophy I was greeted with a small stampede. It was great seeing how happy everyone was. The day was finally over and I was pleased that the entire soccer tournament and clean up event went smoothly, with only minor bumps in the road. Working on this project proved to me that I am capable on planning, organizing and managing a project and I really enjoyed it. I wish there were more things that I could be involved with that didn’t require money or portray me as only a dollar sign. My struggle with aid in Africa is still present but I am learning how to execute projects without loads of funding and how to have those conversations with people who just want funding. Sorry not going to happen. The training sessions with the youth leaders are the next step in the project and I don’t even know where to begin with the problems I am having with my waste management project but I will save those details for another date. Take care and talk to you soon. Cheers.

Health Fair in Sare Coly Sale

I tried really hard to think of an introduction that would be an eye catcher, something to really pull in an audience, but I was left stumped. It is not that it was a boring day, it was actually really fun, but how could I make handing out condoms and ORS (Oral Rehydrating Salts) to high school students alluring?

My two site mates (Jordan and Wilma) and myself started out the day heading out of Velingara around 8:15am, Sare Coly Sale bound. Jordan and I always talk about how we need to take more bike rides since we don’t get to ride nearly as much as we want to; there are no rains at the moment it is nearly impossible to bike since most of the roads are just sand pits. Back to the story- Sare Coly Sale is only 10k outside of Velingara making it less than an hour to bike allowing us plenty of time to get a bean sandwich once we arrived in Sarah’s ville. Along the way we would catch up, and usually pass, other bikers in the road while dodging cars and the occasional herd of cattle. There was one particular herd that was thinking about crossing the road and, while Wilma was way ahead of Jordan and I (we found out later that she was racing another biker, unnoticed by him), Jordan instinctively chimed the bell on her bike trying to signal to the herd that now would be a good time not to cross the road. I started laughing immediately thinking about what Jordan was going to do had the cattle decided to cross the road. Just then I hear a man snickering, a fellow biker right behind us if you will, who apparently thought it was just as funny as I did. I’m sure he was thinking, “I can’t believe these white girls think that bell is going to move or scare these cows that each weigh a ton.”

Once we arrived in town we got a quick bite to eat, bean sandwich and tea with milk and sugar, and headed to Sarah’s hut to find the rest of the gang; Jessica and Adrian were already in town gathering materials for the fair. Once we arrived at the school where the health fair was supposed to be held we were welcomed with a DJ booth accompanied by those impossibly loud speakers with the worst part about the speakers is that they blare music that is usually one of five songs (Akon is always on the list since he is “from” Senegal) and of poor quality at that. Do we really need to be listening to this crap music at such a strong decibel? When did I start sounding like my mom? Is that what 26 does to you? Regardless, Sarah had some sorting out to do since there were clearly two events booked in the same morning. Though they apparently had a larger budget than our event, seeing the sound system that accompanied them, we were not going to back down

because Sarah reserved the space long before the other event. Also, the problem didn’t lie with just the space it was also the audience, both the events required the attendance of the students making it difficult for them to be at two programs at the same time. We ended up working something out where the students would come to our fair first and then head across the courtyard to the other event. It worked out well.
Our health fair (and when I say “our” I mean Sarah’s event, we were strictly bodies helping to execute the project) consisted of four tables where the students would visit each table, learn about a topic, and receive a little prize/momentum before heading to the next table. Adrian and Jessica, where they were educating the students about diarrhea and the importance of washing your hands and using ORS, manned the first table. The students received homemade ORS (7 parts sugar to one part salt) for visiting the table and answering basic questions.
The second table was with Wilma and she spoke about family planning. Here she talked about all the forms of both female and male birth control that are available, how much they cost and how to use them. Here, we soon found out, was the main reason for half of the male population that attended the fair, condoms were being given away. Everyone got one condom but those who stuck around after the fair got a few more since they were persistent. At least they are being safe.The third booth was with Diane who was talking about Malaria and the importance of sleeping under a net. There is an initiative within the Peace Corps titled Stomp Out Malaria that, according to their website, “… was built on the vision that through strategic partnerships, targeted training and mobilization of Volunteers, intelligent use of information technology, and radically efficient use of seed funding, Peace Corps will focus the efforts of over 3,000 Volunteers in sub-Saharan Africa to make an immediate and measurable impact in the fight against malaria.” The three goals of the Stomp Out Malaria initiative is 1) Fighting Malaria in Our Communities 2) Partnering to Defeat Malaria in Target Countries and 3) Building an International Malaria Prevention Community. I encourage you to check out the website with the link that I have provided above, there are some interesting while shocking statistics concerning malaria and descriptions on projects that volunteers are executing throughout Africa as we speak. Great work to those who work closely with the initiative; it is truly a great project.The last booth was with Jordan and she spoke about lacerations and first aid. She, along with a local teacher, emphasized the importance of using soap to clean cuts and scrapes while avoiding some of the other local methods such as grease or tree bark. Makes sense.

After the fair we went to the boutique and bought entirely way too many bags of Crax (I think 19?), which are basically Cheetos with 1/8 of the cheese, imitation wafer cookies and Coca-Cola. Snacks of Senegal, know you understand why we request packages not only for nutritional purposes but also to get a taste of back home. We ended our day sitting in Sarah’s hut talking and her trying to get us to take some of the stuff that she was getting rid of. She has less than a week left at site so she is in the process of cleaning out all the random clutter that we somehow collect over the span of two years. Time sure does fly though; I have already been at site for eight months and around ten in Senegal, wowza! We sure are going to miss Sarah, she has such a great personality, always knows how to make you laugh and is from the great state of Wisconsin. The best of luck to her in good ol’ Amerik.

Our bike ride home was pretty uneventful other than the fact that my bike seat was feeling a little sassy and would not stay up so within five minutes of raising my seat I quickly became a BMX rider with my knees about touching the handlebars. As much fun as that was I was glad to finally be home around 6:30pm to shower and wait for Amadou who was supposed to come over to talk about a project, but never did. Weird.

Be sure to take care of yourselves folks, drink lots of water, exercise, wash your hands and always use protection.

Cheers.

Hot Weather and, Uh, Reading Material

Currently sitting in my room, drinking a Fanta, listening to Wham!, and sitting about as close to the fan as comfort allows. To say that Velingara is getting hot is a bit of an understatement. Now I am not going to say that things are unbearable because obviously people have seemed

Get To Work!

Now I know I left off with my last post about grants, writing them specifically, and I know I stated that I would not write a grant for my waste management project and as for now I am still sticking to that but I could not have guessed that it would be this soon there after that I would be researching writing grants for other projects.

Everyone always says that projects come with time and you don’t necessarily have to find them, they will find you. I always thought it was volunteers that had copious amounts of projects that said this, until now. I have always had my primary project but as a volunteer you are always looking for secondary projects to take on not only as a time filler, because I believe all projects are worth more than just filling time, but as another way for me to extend my resources and knowledge to my community. Well this is the week folks even though timing could have been a little better, though I am not going to get picky; of course my APCD, Amar, was here in Vélingara last week to check on my projects and I was left stumbling with “eh, yea I have projects, uh”. Ok it was not that bad but I did wish that I had more exciting things to talk about other than English Club and my work creating a Pen Pal system, it’s important work in terms of cultural exchange but I want to make a real difference, one that could be measured.

So what are these projects that have seemed to fall in my lap you may ask? Well for starters after Amar’s visit he forwarded me a link to an online article describing a women’s group in Senegal that USAID (United States Agency for International Development) awarded more than $80,000 to for income generating activities. Out of all of Senegal the group just so happens to be in Vélingara and since I am the only Community Economic Development volunteer for miles the project was all mine! Well of course they already had a budget and plan of action but I still wanted to get involved, I was more or less excited about the possibility of being able to work with such a high budget project, it will be fun to see how finances are being managed. So I had the name of the women’s group and the name of the president of the group and I was off to ask around, literally, Vélingara to see if anyone knew this women or group. It took a couple of stops but I ended up finding one of the key people involved in the project, of course it is a male, and I requested a meeting. Later that day I met with him and the Senegalese contact for USAID who is the accountant responsible for overseeing the entire project. I was able to find out more to this mystery project that ended up being a garden with a substantial area of 1 hectare (about 2.47 acres). A few Fantas later I managed to convince the project leads that I could help with trainings, marketing, and management of the produce that is cultivated from the garden. So excited!

While on my journey to find the above mentioned women’s group I ran into a gentleman who was telling me how he works with youth for the entire Vélingara Department (which I guess could be equivalent to a county). I told him I would be interested to hear more about what exactly his work entails and we exchanged numbers anticipating to meet in the near future. Well, the next morning he called me and said he could be at my house in a half an hour which was great because it took no effort on my part and I could then see how serious this guy was about working with me. Well 25 minutes later he is not only at my house but talking to my family like they are old friends, which they were; small world but my sister was calling him her son which just confused me because he was much older but I was relieved to know that I could, at the very least, trust this person not to be a fake or creep. There are apparently 17 ASC’s (Association Sportive et Cultural), which are zones within the mission of the organization who work with keeping youth involved and, well busy nonetheless, predominantly during school breaks but also occasionally during the school year. We would only have a couple representatives from each zone come to the trainings which they would then take the knowledge they learned to hold their own trainings to youth in their zone but we would try to get more youth involved for larger more entertaining events such as concerts or soccer games. His request for me to partner with his project is partly to secure funding, of course. Since some of the youth have to travel upwards to a couple of hours to attend trainings we try to cover transportation costs and lunch, this should be easy to secure since it’s a relatively small amount and there are always grants available that help women and youth. My first request from him was to see if we could arrange a cleanup event of sorts since Earth Day is coming up next month (April 22^nd) and I just so conveniently work in waste management. He loved the idea and I am so excited to kill two birds with one stone, cleanup Vélingara while getting youth and the community involved, genious. We also agreed to do some seminars or trainings to help youth with such skills as business, nutrition or environmental consciousness. Another very exciting project!

The last project that sort of appeared in front of me is working with a community of women in my area of town that want to become self-sustainable concerning rice. Here in Senegal a vast majority, I would estimate more than 70%, eat rice for lunch just about everyday. Considering that rice is a crop that can be grown in Senegal it is crazy to hear how much of it is imported, we are wasting so much money buying something that we are more than capable of supporting ourselves in.  I found out about this community of women through, none other than, the man that has Mogley the monkey that I have some pictures with. He told me he had a great project and, honestly, I used to think he was kind of crazy so I was skeptical. When I showed up to his house to hear about his project he had an Excel spreadsheet with information such as a listing of all the women with their identity and contact numbers, the number of mouths they have to feed, and the amount of land they currently use to cultivate rice. For an older (I would say mid 60’s) Senegalese man he is way ahead of the times concerning technology and I was so impressed to see how much of the information was actually documented and analyzed! I am going to try and help this community of women get a Food Security grant in order for them to expand the production quantity and if we can get a sure fire model maybe we can implement it in other parts of town.

So yes, life is good here in Senegal and I am already getting nervous about being successful in my projects with only about a year and a half left. I know this is entirely way too soon to be worrying about this but it is always in the back of the mind of a volunteer. Though I may not be able to help with every aspect of the above projects I hope that I can get my hands dirty with a few of them. I am here to help my community and I would love nothing more than to look back on my service and be able to honestly say, I really did all that I could and I am proud of my service. Now, GET TO WORK!

Xoxo

When Is Your Work Complete When You Work In Development?

Development Work       

1. work aimed at helping a country become more competitive across many overlapping sectors, from health, to education and many places in between with an end goal in creating sustainability

I have been thinking a lot about sustainability and development work while working in Senegal and each day I come up with a different conclusion. On good days, as you can just about imagine, I think development work is great and we really are making a difference, while on bad days I question what I am doing here and doubt that I am even making any difference at all. Of course I know I am making a difference at some point it’s just a question on if it was the difference that I intended on making.

Our project has been running as smoothly as one can ask but there are still bumps in the road that I want to sort out; they should have pretty easy and realistic solutions.

We submitted out 2013 budget and letter of intent to the Mayors office last week hoping to get funding from the 2013 Velingara budget since the budget has not yet been finalized, even though its March. Everyone at the Mayors office thinks our project is a great idea and that our city is in great need for this type of work; it’s just a matter of finding funds for it amongst all of the other expenses the city holds. We submitted a budget of all of our expenses but Amadou and I have both agreed that if we could even get them to pay for our personnel costs that would be a win in our books. And of course, I should have never looked at it after we submitted it, I found items that were rather important that we forgot to include such as food for the donkey. I guess he isn’t going to be eating this year.

As of late we have found a handful of customers to add to our ever growing list of clientele in hopes to start breaking even and one day begin to earn a profit. We are still working on getting all of the households to pay each month; right now we are at about 18% of households who are not paying on a regular basis and once we get that number down to zero we will have the numbers to be in the green and out of the red. At the moment Amadou, and a tiny bit of help from a couple of other people, goes around to each house each month to collect payments. This is a task in and of it self and takes almost a week to complete. He is constantly being told to come back later, and that is if the person who pays the bills is actually there which is usually never the case. We are hoping, fingers crossed, to open up an office space in the center of the market within the next month so that customers are able to come to us to pay. This would hopefully give Amadou more time to focus on the customers who don’t pay rather than those who do.

Sunday we had an appointment at the garage (transportation hub) in town to install trashcans. We were supposed to do a cleanup beforehand to help them start off on the right foot with keeping the garage clean but of course things did not go as planned. We arrived at 8:30am with trashcans and supplies in hand only to be met with questions regarding the security of the trashcans. I have never really thought about this before, I am not sure if it is a large issue in the states or not, but apparently trashcans are a high commodity here. They are used to store about anything imaginable with food and water for animals at the top of the list. We purposely puncture holes in the bottom of them for this very reason but its nothing a little cement can’t fix. On top of the questions about security we were also met with a debate on price. We have had a couple of prior meetings with the officials from the garage and I tried to bring up the issue on how much the service would cost them but the topic was always set aside and I was told it would be discussed later (I knew I was right and should have settled on a price before we showed up ready to work).

This setback makes me question how serious the garage really is about our project and left with the question, when exactly is your work complete when you work in development? If the garage officials actually want to change the appearance of the garage, and they say they think it’s a great project, then why won’t they take the appropriate actions to ensure that it’s successful? Are they waiting on me to get fed up with waiting on them so that I both fund the project and do all the work on my own? Peace Corps has been in Senegal for 50 years and at what point do we consider our work done and leave Senegal? I could easily write a grant for funding from some European or American NGO and be financially set for another year but that is not what I want my Peace Corps service to be, the American that came and gave us lots of money, which is what a lot of NGO’s become seen as. I want to convince the local government and population to believe in what I am doing and see the positive change that will come once their city is clean. With this I am officially declaring that I will not write a grant for this project during my service. If we want assistance it will be something that Amadou can do on his own and manage even after I am gone. Don’t worry I am sure there will be more posts in the future about my run in with the theory and practice of development.

As of right now I have put on my designer hat and came up with a few sketches on how to secure the trashcans so that Amadou and myself can bring them to a metal workers for quotes. A few initial thoughts were to have the trashcans become the responsibility of a few store owners at the garage to bring in and lock up each night until we come up with a more permanent solution, which would work but being that the officials are apparently more sayers rather than doers they want to not rush into anything and take more time to think about all the options. Poppycock that’s what I say.

So far a few of the ideas that I have are:

·      Incase the trash cans in a single or double wide storage shed (metal or wood) with front doors that lock and a hole on top directly over either one or two trashcans

·      Create a metal cage for either a single or multiple trashcans that can be then chained to a permanent object. The cage would have a front door that locks to empty the trashcan(s) and again a hole/holes on top

·      Fashion a metal ring that would go around the trashcan and another to go from one side up and over to the other side (to prevent lifting the trashcan up). A lock would secure the top bar and would be able to be released to empty the trashcan

·      Dig a hole, throw cement in it, and cement the trashcan in the hole to the ground (not my favorite idea but cities actually do this because its practically free)

I am thinking that these are all basically decent ideas it’s just a matter of determining which would be the cheapest to create yet last the longest, I don’t want Velingara to have to be replacing trashcans every five years.

On other news Amar, my APCD (Assistant Program Country Director) who is in charge of the whole CED (Community Economic Development) program in Peace Corps Senegal is coming to do a site visit tomorrow to see how my projects and living situation are going. I am sure this could be done in an hour but he has the whole day reserved for me to introduce and showcase work partners and projects. I am hoping to use him to influence both the garage and the Mayors office to get more serious about our requests and our services; I think he will be a little more persuasive than I have been in the past since he has the whole Senegalese male thing going on.

Until next time my fellow readers. Take care and thanks for reading. Cheers.

W.A.I.S.T.

A little known affair known as the West African International Softball Tournament, pretty random I agree. Teams from all over are invited to show off their softball skills, or lack there of, cough cough Peace Corps, during a weekend tourney in Dakar. Expats unite!

Another Flat?!

Dear Cruel Cruel World,

I am currently en route to Thies where all the volunteers of Senegal have a two day conference, referred to as All Vol (All Volunteers). The night bus is not exactly the preferred mode of transportation (also not exactly forbidden, yet) according to Peace Corps staff; they say that it is dangerous to drive at night and we are at risk of having drivers whom are over-worked and may fall asleep at the wheel. But if you ask a volunteer who lives 10 hours away from the training center or capital they will tell you otherwise; it is half the price and you don’t waste a whole day, or sometimes even two, just trying to get to your location.

Now if all goes right the night bus would conveniently pass through the town of Mbour which is just about an hour outside of Thies. Mbour is also the largest garage (transit depot) near Alexx, a girl who I talk about a lot and if you have not gotten the hint my now she is one of my closest friends in Senegal, so we were going to meet at the Mbour garage Wednesday morning. This would land us in the same garage around the same time. Perfect right? Well that is only if both of our transports go as planned which I must add about never happens in Senegal and I am sure most parts of Africa in general.

When I bought my ticket for the night bus I was told to be at the gas station, doubling as the bus depot, at 3pm. I assumed this meant around 5:30pm and when I asked to confirm I assumed right. Oh Senegal. Everything went as well as a bus departure could go and we were on the road around 6pm. This was after I thought I bought a very expensive bean sandwich that included the works (lettuce, onions, and vinegar) but come to find out she threw meat chunks on it, I have had worse I guess.

Everyone on the bus was very nice, including one boy in particular who I refer to as my “sugar daddy” to Alexx in a text because he bought me bananas, water, Red Bull, and a can of pineapple! Thanks buddy! (He must be looking for a wife, well he better keep looking). I should have known things were going too smoothly because around 10:30pm I hear a pop and the bus starts filling up with smoke smelling like rubber. Flat tire. Dumb. Since I was just talking to Alexx earlier in the night about the adventures of transportation and how I actually find them rather exciting I figured this was just another adventure so it did not get me too down. I can’t remember ever getting a flat tire, in any sort of vehicle in the states, so I also thought it would be kind of fun to see how exactly changing one of these things worked (such a girl). My dad made it sound a lot easier than what I had witnessed but then again my Corolla was a little smaller than a bus and I am pretty sure it was also about 15 years newer; I can only assume technology also advanced in that time and made changing a tire more streamline than simply banging metal parts together.   

A couple of hours later we were back on the road and considering how many kilometers we were from the next largest town (that is the one thing you can count on in Senegal, kilometer markers, they are everywhere) we were making good time and I would still be at the garage at a descent time to meet Alexx.

The next couple of hours following the flat are spent trying to fall asleep. I have what is normally considered a great seat, it’s a window seat, but apparently this bus has no insulation and it’s actually quite chilly; I also wake up frequently to the random swerve to miss a pothole or obvious increase in speed to pass another vehicle of equal size, real safe.

Right when we least expected it we hear it again, another bang, this time happening around 3:15am. This one is louder and was followed by a little more swerving than the last time. C’est pas possible! It’s not possible! Another flat and the most ironic part was that we were actually prepared and had a spare but we had already used it on the first flat. This time one of the plastic bins containing peanut butter exploded and spilt all down one of the doors to the bus and part of the side, I kind of feel sorry for whomever was expecting to sell the peanut butter. Well I can assume at minimum this means that I am not going to make it to the garage at a descent time to meet Alexx; I sent her a text to call me when he woke up because I was in a bit of a pinch. I asked if there was another spare and much not to my surprise there was not. Let the waiting game begin.

I jumped off the bus to take a look at the new spectacle that is slowly putting me more and more behind and what do you know, not only did we have a flat but the tire actually ripped off a part of the paneling. Not sure how that happens but that is what I was told. Since we were obviously not going anywhere anytime soon I decided to call my mom and dad to say hi. Since I am only mildly patron in this country it was a short conversation due to my lack of phone credit. The only thing left to do was blog, which brings us where we are now. Women and men who lay across benches and are hunkered up against windows snoring surround me. A few of my male peers on the bus have decided to build a fire just off the road, which was a great idea considering how cold it is tonight. When I say cold I want to clarify that I am sure it is 65°F but since its around 87°F everyday this is quite the temperature drop, and we are in the middle of nowhere and its always much cooler in the bush than the city. 5:05am over and out.

(MANY HOURS LATER)

I finally made it to Thies around 3:30pm. We ended up waiting for the second flat to get fixed until 9:30am, six hours on the side of the road is something that I wish to never repeat again. The worst part of that situation was that it was night and we were kind of in the middle of nowhere so there were especially no cars that were just passing by.

I was excited once we were on the road again because I was only about three hours out of my final destination and compared to what I had went through on the trip thus far it would be a piece of cake. Little did I realize that once a “night bus” is seen about during the day it becomes a taxi of sorts and will pick up and drop off just about anyone, anywhere. This can add a lot of extra time to a trip and in my specific circumstance a little more than two hours. I must say I was pretty cheerful the whole time considering the delays and misfortunes we were having but the second I could about taste how close I was I was getting very agitated at just about anything. It was clearly time for me to get off the bus.

Once I got off the bus I had one last leg in my adventure and that was to grab a taxi from the gas station near Mbour to get to Thies. There was a wait for the taxis to fill up (they are like minivans and hold a dozen people or so) and considering the lack of patience that I had I decided to find my own ride, after all it was only about a 45 minute car ride. I ended up finding two special education teachers willing to give me a ride. I got dropped off outside of their school in Thies, about two blocks from the training center where I was to report, for free. Perfect.

By the time I got to the training center there were already almost a hundred volunteers wondering around up to one thing or another and it felt good to finally put an end to my trip. I would not say that this experience jaded my perception of night transportation. I still believe that it is more affordable that the regular car transports that we normally take and if it is, especially not during rainy season, descent weather and your driver is well rested it can be a safe(ish) experience.

Take care all and talk to you soon.

Your Disgruntled Passenger

xoxo

Field trip with the International School of Dakar

I am finally back at site after spending a week with the kids from the International School of Dakar (ISD) and Trevon and Alexx. I have to admit I was more than a little nervous to be surrounded by teenagers again, knowing what I know of American teenagers, but these kids were different.