A sustainable agriculture RPCV brings those basic practices home to Montana to upend Big Ag, sequester carbon, and improve health. Started as my life as a Sustainable Agriculture Extension Agent in the Peace Corps (8/13/09-10/03/2011) in Senegal, West Africa.
I moved home to Montana. Met a boy. Fell in love. And here we are. With a 6, 4, and 2 year old. Inheriting the ranch my grandmother was born on. (My Great Granddad started managing this ranch in 1916).
And. Here I sit. Being continually reminded of the basics of sustainable agriculture that we extended to host-country counterparts in Senegal. Companion planting. Mulching. Sustainable practices. Agroforestry.
About a year and half ago, I followed up on what another Senegal RPCV kept talking about. Regenerative agriculture. Garrison had a small urban garden at his apartment building in NYC. And he kept talking about how "Dirt to Soil" by Gabe Brown was informing his work.
So. I read it. And I had the fortune to be able to see Gabe speak just 90 miles away. And I was shook. Here I had come back home and continued to think conventionally. But everything Gabe was talking about was touching on the sustainable ag outreach we (under USAID) were extending to Senegal during my service. Building soil. Taking depleted soil and adding organic matter. Utilizing animals and trees.
And here I was, back on the family ranch.
My Great Granddad started managing this ranch over 100 years ago. (My great aunt, who died at 105 last year, was born on this ranch...techincally now the next ranch over as it has divided). My Great Granddad was a visionary. He was a blacksmith. He was a mathematician and engineer. He was a farmer. Born to missionaries in Kansas, he primarily walked to Montana. He got a job because someone saw a pencil in his pocket and assumed he therefore was educated (he was). He had foresight and vision. He used that foresight and vision to (erroneously) dig up Central Montana with steam engines. He then reaped the consequences by going to the bank at the beginning of the Great Depression and withdrawing his money...a pencil for every $100 he had in the bank. But my Granddad had the misfortune to go from the Great Depression into WWII. His youngest daughter, born with developmental disabilities, died at the age of 20 in 1945. He second youngest child, the golden child, John, was supposed to inherit the ranch. John died of influenza on his way home from WWII almost exactly a year later. This ranch fell into a tailspin on grief and despair. My great-uncle George abandoned his engineering studies to take over the ranch. My Grandmother and her two sisters had been "Rosie Riveters". They all moved away from the ranch and married. My Great Uncle George enjoyed ranching, though it wasn't his passion. All the neighbors who remember him remember him as "larger than life", someone who worked hard and inspired others. My Great Granddad died in 1979 (after years in the nursing home with dementia), Uncle George died in 1980. My grandmother had moved back to her childhood home to care for her parents after being widowed in 1976. She enjoyed a few years of joyously working hand-in-hand with her brother before his untimely death. A neighbor told me last year how nice it was to see those siblings having fun and planting windbreak, etc. The ranch had been shrouded in grief for almost 40 years. And then. Following the deaths, my uncle unexpectedly inherited the ranch at a young age. It was never his dream. He treaded water and was able to keep the land in the family for almost 40 years. But, as a single (neurodivergent) person, he wasn't able to implement the grand plans and changes he imagined.
So. We walked onto this ranch, unexpectedly, to see an overgrazed chunk of land. The ranch had been leased out to 4 different people over the past 10-20 years. Leasers seldom treat lease land like they would their own. The land was overgrazed. Depleted. But, it was the money from leasers which had kept my uncle afloat.
But now here we are. 6 years later. Looking at how to make the future of this ranch such that our children will benefit. Streamline. Crunch numbers. Gabe Brown.
This year we were able to graze on pasture until the beginning of February. We sold 1/2 our herd in the beginning of 2022. 3+ years of cumulative drought forces a person to start making different decisions. Thankfully, we found that by selling half our herd, we didn't have to put up as much hay--much less buy hay.
This winter, without feeding, we realize how much money we're saving in fuel costs. We noticed we had happier cows. Happier cows who were fleshy, but not fat. Cows who are now in good condition for calving. Our first calf was born at -15 F...92#, unassisted. Mama had him licked off and up nursing right away. We brought him inside, but only to dry off his ears to hopefully save them from frostbite.
These first changes are inspiring. To keep changing and evolving.
Next up: butcher chickens, apple orchard, maybe a cattle-breed switch-up, a different way to market our cattle...and rebuilding soil.
American agriculture has been an extractive industry. Farmers and ranchers have mined the earth at the detriment of the future. Our grandparents farmed/ranched more productive soil than we do today. When land is first plowed, it releases a glut of nutrients, making those first harvests very productive. However, with continued plowing, continued artificial fertilizers, continued over grazing, we've taken all the strength and benefits from the soil. Our food today is less nutrient dense than it was 100 years ago...our soil is less nutrient dense than it was 100 years ago. We need to rebuild soil. We need to consume foods grown close to us. We need to eat fruits that are in season.
We need to reclaim our agricultural system from big-Ag. We need to shorten our food chain.
Join me to see how we go about doing it. It will be a challenge. But people have forged ahead of us. We need to widen the path so that more people will shift away from modern main-stream conventional agriculture and embrace growing with nature instead.
I have procrastinated writing the end to my Peace Corps story. Perhaps because I was hoping to live in a little bit of denial. I feel like putting it in words makes it all that more real. However, it has almost been a year; that makes it pretty darn real.
The last week in village was bittersweet. Ndeye Penda was born the week after I arrived in Dioly. Baaye Niass was only 3 months old when I arrived. Baaye Niass had become a great friend, in the wonderful way special to two-year-olds.
Baaye Niass
On September 15, 2011, I went to visit my Master Farmer, Ousmane Willane, in Keur Lahine Lobe. The other volunteers and I discussed hosting a demonstration field day later that month. I crossed my fingers that I'd be able to return for it. When I said goodbye to Ousmane's family, his first wife pretended to cry and tied me to her with her headwrap. I shook hands good-bye with my left hand. Shaking with the left hand is a way to say "I'll be back" because I have to right that wrong of shaking left handed. I biked back in to Kaffrine and got a ride back to Lage from my favorite Nganda "alham" drivers. While crammed on to the alham like normal, one of the other passengers informed me that I wasn't American anymore. I was Senegalese.
The next day I biked down to Kayfara. Kayfara is a village about 7 kilometers south of Dioly. It hosted two generations of volunteers, its last volunteer departed in 2010. The volunteer's host family had called my host family and asked for me to come visit to identify some tree seeds for them. Ian's host mother was very sweet and I explained which seeds were which to her. She gushed about her volunteers and how much she missed them. And then something embarrassing happened. Now, I precede this with the facts that I had 1) biked that road a maximum of 5 times and 2) everything looks different in the rainy season. You guessed it. It was hot and getting late and I realized that I was seeing different fields than I'd seen on the way down to Kayfara. I was 99% sure I was on a different road. But I was still biking north-ish, so I continued on my way. Sure enough, I biked in to an unfamiliar town. Swallowing my pride (after being proclaimed Senegalese the day before), I stopped under a tree and asked the elderly gentlemen drinking tea what town I was in. Gui! I'd always heard of Gui, and knew that it was only the second stop after Dioly on my local alham. So I felt pretty reassured. I looked around and "ta-da!" I saw my local alham! And the driver! So I biked over and greeted Abdu,
Driver, Abdu in his patchwork boubou
told him I was leaving Dioly in only three days. He told me to wait for just a minute and he would pack his bags. :) I then sheepishly asked him which road to Dioly. I got back on the road and biked back home. I then had to explain to everyone why I biked in from Ndanke/Gui instead of Kayfara. I guess two years isn't long enough.
I visited a few more fields so that I was prepared for what to show Massaly, my Agriculture APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director), when he arrived on September 18th, my last full day in village. Fields didn't germinate well, farmers didn't fertilize, rain was inconsistent. It felt like the rainy season had been a waste.
I sorted through all of my stuff and gave away everything I could. Made children's days by giving them pens and empty water bottles. But I held back my family's "seriche" (gifts). I had bought some fancy head scarves for the women and soccer balls for the children.
Me and Samba
Baaye Niass followed me around constantly, knowing I was leaving soon. His big brother Samba tried to ignore me, knowing I was leaving soon.
I woke up early in the morning on September 18th and packed up all the last pieces of my room. When I opened my door, I told my toma (namesake and my host mother) that I didn't need any more water. I called her and the other women over and gave them their "seriche". I explained to them that in America, we give gifts of gratitude. I called Omar over a little later in the day and gave him his seriche, a nice messenger bag and my old foam mattress. When I explained thank-you gifts, Omar's eyes overflowed. Little Samba called a truce and visited with me all day. Women stopped by throughout the day, once they heard it was my last day. I had an uneventful, normal village lunch of maafe with eggplant and kaani (hot pepper). I sat outside all afternoon, enjoying watching the village bustle around me. Ouly and Fanne pounded millet and kept the children busy running errands.
Massaly and his crew showed up just before prayer-time at 5 pm. I showed them Omar's garden, Sambel's corn, Samba's beans and his field of millet (from millet seed he'd saved from his field the year before), and Matar's corn and sesame. It didn't go as badly as I thought it would. I was reassured by Massaly's low expectations. Perhaps I had already started judging with an American attitude instead of a Senegalese attitude. I opportunistically sent the last of my baggage in the Peace Corps car back to Kaolack.
I ended the day by walking alone with my host father deep into the bush. One of my farmers wanted pictures of herself in her bean field. We walked back in to the village as the sun set. I was served my "favorite" of cere mboom for supper. I'd told everyone cere mboom was my favorite meal because it is very healthy. In truth, cere noungati neibi was my favorite meal; I don't think I fooled anyone. I stayed outside until almost midnight. We mixed "pop drink" and drank hot milk with mint. The men filtered by, saying their goodbyes. I finally got up to go to bed, and got teary saying good night.
Me, Fanne, Fatou Mbaye, Ndeye Penda and cousins
I woke at 5:30 on the 19th. I packed up the very last of my essentials onto the back of my bike and locked my hut for the last time. Ouly and Fanne were just starting to prepare for the day. I openly cried as I gave my key to Ouly and asked her to hold it for my replacement. Samba stood next to her, biting his lip. I put on my helmet and slowly started biking out of Dioly.
I biked down the dirt path, bright orange sun rising before me, millet fields lining my road. I said a little prayer for my home of Dioly and all the people who live in it. But then I stopped myself. What exactly was I praying for?
Was I praying for their prosperity? If they were prosperous, would they be so content? Would people move outside the village if they had more money? Would they just start buying televisions and car batteries if they were prosperous?
Was I praying just for their health?
I decided that I was praying that they would preserve all their positive virtues of contentment and community while improving their health and crops. But only improving their crops and health enough that they don't lose those qualities that make them special.
God, is that too many addenda to my prayer?
I cried the whole way to the gravel road. I reached the gravel road just as the Nganda alham pulled up. I waved it by. I had another stop to make. I biked two miles up the road to Katakel. I pulled in to Fatou Willane's compound. And the tears started again. I told Fatou that I came to say goodbye. She gave me one of her big, mothering hugs and told me to go wash my face and drink some water. She invited me to breakfast. I told her that I needed to get on the road and get to Kaffrine. Fatou told me she had some errands to run in Kaffrine today, too. I would wait, and she would come with me. We waited hours for another alham to drive by.
Fatou Willane and me the morning I departed
Some young men on the side of the road started mocking Fatou. "What are you waiting for? Don't you know all the alhams are gone for the day? You're just a silly woman." I turned my back to them. One of the men noticed and taunted me for it. I turned around and (as Senegal PCVs say) "went Wolof" on them. "She is your grandmother, you need to respect her! You have no respect, you are rude! I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to hear you! You are rude and disgraceful!" Fatou smiled, took my arm, and we walked across the road to wait on the other side. On the other side of the road, a tall Pulaar man came by, herding his cows in front of him. He stopped and greeted me in English. Turns out he had lived in Nigeria for a number of years. He was a highly educated man who had been forced to return to the Senegalese bush because of rough circumstances. He had been jailed in Nigeria simply for being a foreigner, "And then they took all my fucking money!"
An alham finally showed up and Fatou and I got on. I paid Fatou's pass, she protested, and I said, "You are my mother, I will pay your pass." A few stops down the road a young man got on the bus. He sat a few rows back from me. After a few kilometers, I hear, "Eh, noir! Noir!" (french for black) I noticed this because the tone of it sounded like "Eh, toubab! Toubab!" (Wolof for white person). I ignored him because he obviously wasn't talking to me. After all, my skin isn't black. Finally, the man touched my shoulder and says, "Yow, do noir?" (You, you're not black?) So I turned to him and said, "You can see, I'm not black." He responded, "No, you're black. No white person would be on this bus. You are black."
I had to switch buses three times in Kaffrine. I traveled from Kaolack to Dakar the next day. I made the mistake of drinking a liter of water before the car pulled out of the garage. It was hot. The car was (of course) crowded. And there was traffic. An hour into the drive I realized I had to go to the bathroom. An hour and a half into the drive, I had to go to the bathroom badly. Two hours into the drive, I couldn't hold it. We were on the outskirts of Dakar and we stopped to unload some luggage. The driver was taking down the luggage from the top of the car. I leaned forward and told one of the ladies, "Wait until I return, I have to go to the bathroom!" I ran into the street, hearing the women in the car saying, "What? She knows Wolof! She said she had to go pee!" I asked the first woman I found to point me to a bathroom. I ran into an empty compound. There was no one in sight. "Hello! Hello! How are you? Where's the bathroom?" After a couple minutes a girl finally came out of the house. Only to discover she didn't have the key to the bathroom (because a bathroom must be locked?). After another few minutes she tracked down the key and I thankfully relieved myself. As I was finally able to relax, I realized something scary. I had just left ALL my worldly belongings in the car. Including my phone, money, and passport. I didn't even remember any defining characteristics about my car. Thankfully, one of the other passengers spotted the white girl when I came out of the alley. "You were a long time!" "I know! Sorry! I had to go!" And, surprisingly, that was the only complaint about the wait I caused. And, thankfully, I hadn't made a mistake by abandoning my belongings.
I spent just over a week in Dakar, finishing up my paperwork and my medical evaluation. As darkness literally fell on my last day in Senegal, I called my host-uncle who is a taxi driver in Dakar and asked him to take me to the airport. I left the remainder of my money with him.
I called my host family in November (six weeks later), for Tabaski. Everyone very kindly told me about how quickly I had forgotten Wolof. I bitterly cursed myself for spending $10 and arguing with the computer to figure out how to call them, just to be told that I didn't remember anything.
I waited until July to call them again. Ramadan, the holy month of Islam, started. I texted my host father (since he can read Wolof) and told him I would call the next day, late. So I left work early on the first day of Ramadan and called my host family. It was 10 at night in Senegal. The phone was passed around the compound for twenty minutes. "Yes, my family is in peace. No, I miss you more! Thanks be to God! How is your family? No, I haven't sent the pictures yes. Yes, my family is in peace. No, I miss you more! Thanks be to God!"
And not once did anyone say that I'd forgotten Wolof. My toma even complimented me, "You haven't forgotten anything!" I congratulated Fatou Mbaye for her 5 month old daughter (She'd had so many miscarriages). I asked my toma if her parents' compound had burned in the fire (Theirs was the only compound that didn't!).
I said I miss you. I miss you and forgive me for not calling sooner. Forgive me.
Naam naa leen, baal ma aq. Dinaa fo dem, leen seetsi. Inshallah. Ci kanaam, ci kanaam tuuti rekk.
Me and Ablaye Seck, an extension worker in Katiot
Master Farmer, Ousmane Willane. Hilary Clinton has quoted his successes when talking about food security programs. He increased his corn yields by 200+% by incorporating peanut shells into the soil. He took the risk to try the experiment on a full hectare of corn. And it was his own idea. He is one helluva motivated farmer.
When I biked home to village the other afternoon, I went through 3 villages in 5 kilometers. In each village, the children came running out screaming, "Ouly! Ouly! Ouly! Ana waa ker? Ana waa ker?" (My local name, repetitively, and "How is the family" repetitively). The old men sitting underneath of the trees said, "Ouly! Cisse! Ana sa njatige? Kii, dafa bon!" (My local first and last name, "How is your boss? He's awful!") I arrived home with my cheeks hurting from smiling and laughing for so long. It is fun to be famous. The sun was setting and the green fields were reflecting golden. Life is good.
I got in to a sept-place (public transport for rich people between large cities) the other day. I greeted everyone in Wolof. No one seemed too impressed. It started to get a bit stuffy, so I pulled out my locally-made fan. As soon as I started fanning myself, the man sitting next to me asked where I learned Wolof. I told him in Thies. And he said, "Corps de la Paix!" and asked where I lived. I told him south of Kaffrine and the young man sitting in front of us whipped around and said, "Where?" I explained where I lived and that I had lived there for 2 years and that I was helping farmers. But the young man from Kaffrine couldn't grasp that I wasn't a tourist. So the man sitting next to me explained it to him, with my help, for the next 45 minutes. To sum up, "She is a volunteer, she doesn't get paid to be here. She doesn't give money, she gives knowledge. She is an American and Americans are curious. So she has come here to learn all about Senegalese people. She has studied the language and the culture. She lives in the village with a family. She eats what they eat and she does what they do. If they go pick peanuts, she goes and picks peanuts, if they go weed a field, she goes and weeds the field. She is part of a family here. When she goes back to America, she will tell everyone about Senegal." (Repeat 12 times with slight variations)
And then he says to me, in English, "It is the American way, no?"
All Peace Corps Volunteers hope and pray that something they do will last beyond their time. We don't necessarily hope that a structure we helped create still stands in 20 years. We typically hope that one single person uses some knowledge gained from us in 20 years.
We had a Sustainable Agriculture summit a few weeks ago. We have one of these every 6 months, typically in different areas around the country. This last summit, we were in Tambacounda, a far outpost in eastern Senegal. We had a field trip on the last day to visit the Master Farmer's farm not far out of town. The night before the field trip, Massaly, our director, called the volunteer living out there and asked if she had another garden we could tour. She said yes.
Massaly had never toured this garden, never heard of this man. We walked into his walled garden area and were completely blown away. He had an orchard of mangoes and citrus. There was heavy mulching under the trees and alley crops of cucumber and melon between the trees. He had conducted a small experiment for himself and discovered that the trees with vegetables grown between them in the off-season had a higher survival rate and more vigorous growth than the trees with no alley cropping of vegetables. He was using improved technologies, like a generator and pump at his well. He had also purchased a drip irrigation system to use for his vegetables in the dry season. Massaly couldn't get over how beautiful this field was. He kept asking questions. Come to find out this man has 3 other hectare-sized fields just like this one.
Finally, Massaly asked him where he first learned the mulching and alley cropping technologies.
Apparently there was a volunteer placed in a nearby village in 1993. She was the one who mentioned these techniques to the farmer and helped him out.
Massaly wrote down her years of service, her Senegalese name, and the village she was posted to.
He's going to try to contact her and let her know the difference she has made in this one man's life and his livelihood.
One person. And now he's a very successful farmer and well-respected and listened to in the community.
One person is all the PCV has to reach, that person can reach the rest.
Thirty thousand bowls of ceeb au jen (rice and fish)!
Five hundred thousand babies born to under-age mothers!
They do dishes, they'll collect firewood, and when you're not feeling up to the task, they'll do your work too!
Ten thousand girls?
Ten thousand plowed fields!
Millions of peanut crops harvested!
They can pound, they can pull, and if they're old enough to stand on their own two feet, they can work for you all day and night!
Just yell out your window for young Faatu or Khady to come today and see the difference that 10,000 girls can make!"
-- PCV-written entry to our country-wide newsletter, circa spring '09
There is a bit of a back-story here. Why "10,000 girls" was chosen as the demonstrative number, it is an NGO which works here in Kaolack.
It is true. This country couldn't run if not for the strong backs of women. Women who wake before sunrise, pound the millet for breakfast, do laundry while it is still cool, reheat last night's sauce over a wood fire, eat breakfast, iron and fold the clean laundry (with a charcoal-heated iron), go to the fields to weed or thin or water or harvest OR shell or roast or pound peanuts, make lunch over a wood fire, clean up after lunch, make tea (a 2 hour process), go to the fields to weed or thin or water or harvest, pull water at the well and carry it -- repeat at least 8 times, make supper, eat, fall asleep while contemplating making more tea. All of this with a child tied to your back and a few children running ragged around you. Bathing these kids at least once, if not twice, a day. Answering the beck and call of any man whose path may cross theirs. And many of these women have 5 children by the age of 24.
And they bear it all. Because it is their role. And I've been starting to wonder what it will take to for these women to have a feminist movement.
The situation here is a little different. Women are granted suffrage. However, they are not typically respected in other ways that we believe to be (in this day and age) within our basic human rights. Arranged marriages are forced on young girls (12-16); women have very little ownership over property; physical abuse is seldom followed up on by police; rape isn't seen as such a horrific crime; polygamy is the standard, etc. The usual situation here would be called "little woman"-ing at home. Men look down on women. A woman should always bring them water, a stool, or whatever they ask for. If a woman has a good idea, it is dismissed. Young girls are forced to drop out of school in order to help their mothers at home.
Then, the other day, I sat in my compound watching the "ndur naabe" (nomadic Pulaars) moving their wagons through town. It dawned on me that almost all of these carts were being driven by women.
Very few women drive cars here. Very few women ride bikes here. Very few women drive wagons here.
Then I did a little research and asking around. I found out that the rate of polygamy in the Pulaar ethnic group is much lower than that of the Wolof ethnic group.
And then I realized something else groundbreaking (well, it was groundbreaking in my mind).
The first state to allow women the vote was Wyoming.
The first woman elected to U.S. Congress was from Montana (Jeanette Rankin).
What do these two states have in common? The frontier/homestead history.
I came to the conclusion that pioneer women had to work just as hard as the men. The men came to rely on their wives as work partners. They were alone in this new world. They had no other support systems, no extended family, no neighbors down the way. They had to rely on each other. They learned to respect one another. Men and women in the west typically learned how to work together and learned that both sexes had their respective strengths and weaknesses.
Take Laura Ingalls-Wilder for instance. First of all, she hyphenated her last name! How progressive! Charles Ingalls knew that without the strength and fortitude of his wife, Caroline, they would never have survived. They typified the strong relationships that grew out of those stressful times.
So, as I watched those nomadic Pulaar women pull through town, whipping their donkeys, I couldn't help but feel a little hope. The Senegalese women are tough, they are strong, this nation has been built on their backs. The Pulaar women know it. The Pulaar men know it. They just need to help the others to see it.
What, you may ask, are the men doing while the women complete that arduous list of tasks? They are sitting in the shade under a tree, drinking tea, shooting the breeze.
One of the books that helped inspire me to submit my Peace Corps application was "Three Cups of Tea". Upon coming to Senegal, I have seen at least 3 copies of the book in every regional Peace Corps office. Now, it appears that "Three Cups of Tea", "Stones into Schools", and Greg Mortenson are not who/what they claimed to be.
See: New Yorker articleBozeman Daily Chronicle article Any other reputable news source you can find, including, the Byliners article written by Jon Krakauer, "Three Cups of Deceit" (a small payment is required).
EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS IS MY OWN OPINION AND MY OWN OPINION, ONLY. I am going to focus only on the development aspect of the issue at hand. Not on the financial indiscretions nor the apparent storyline fabrications.
Ethnocentrism: "judging other cultures by the standards of your own, which you believe to be superior".
Seeing a "developing" country is exceedingly difficult. And it is really easy to believe we, as Americans, have all the correct answers. Arriving in Senegal, it was easy to look at a situation, from a distance, and say, "I can fix that! If I get money for X or build Y, it will all be better!"
The glory of Peace Corps is that we have the same grandiose ideas as Greg Mortenson. However, we very seldom have any money to back our programs. And we also have to live in the country we're working in. We have to eat the food that is provided us. We have to acclimate ourselves to the cultural norms and mores of our host countries. We live here and see the errors of blind gift-giving. We live here and see the obstacles to development. We also get to figure out how to make development work and be sustainable when we are gone.
What "development" is, first and foremost, is behavior change. It is teachingpeople and challenging people. The best quote I've ever seen to describe development work is:
"Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders, when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say, 'We have done it ourselves.'" - Lao Tzu
Lessons learned:
The problems I perceive are not necessarily problems in the eyes of the people I serve.
The solutions that I feel are self-evident are often impractical.
Regardless of how strongly I feel for a project, I cannot inspire locals to adopt my project as their own. I need to adopt their projects for my own; since they care, it is 700 times more likely to work.
Typically, people will not turn down a gift. Whether they need it or not. They'll probably even take it even if they don't want it. Think about all the free stuff you've accumulated over the years. Did you really need it? Did you really want it? But it was free, and offered, so you took it.
One must remember all the relevant factors in a situation, and implement proper project planning.
However, when a well-intenioned soul tries to dabble in development, they don't typically have this experience to call upon. If Greg Mortenson had dropped his ethnocentric bias, if he had considered the entirety of the problem, if he had instituted follow-up plans and program monitoring, most of his problems wouldn't have occurred. (Well, except for the whole financial hoopla).
WITNESSED EVENT: Children studying in the wide outdoors, using sticks in the sand. SOLUTION: They need a school! Ready, set, go!
MORE PRAGMATIC APPROACH:
"Huh, I wonder why they're studying outside?" -- Do they have an existing building they simply aren't using? Is there an existing NGO in the area doing educational outreach? How about I ask lots of different people these questions, because I'm sure I'll hear lots of different answers. Do they need or want a building? What kind of building would work the best?
"They don't appear to have proper learning aides..." -- Why not? Did an NGO once give them books, paper, pens? Is there no where to buy such things? Is paper for some reason not practical or sustainable? What are the options? What about chalkboards? Those are reusable!
"This teacher seems to be dedicated..." -- Who pays the teacher? Where does he/she live? What is his/her education level? What subjects are taught? Once again, what learning aides are available? How can I help this teacher provide quality educational materials to his students?
"Look at these kids who are so dedicated to their education that they're drawing in the dirt!" -- How can I help keep these kids engaged in education? How can I encourage them to continue their educations? What does an educated kid around here do? What are their job prospects? How can their education help them in these goals?
Find out what times of the year the students are available to attend school. Why? What are the other duties that pull a child away from school? At what age do children typically quit attending school? Why?
What is the education level of the parents? Do the parents value education? Is there any drive to educate ones' children?
What if there are no children going to school, even though there is a teacher and a school building?
Is it hard to get to?
What are the other duties the children perform? Do they have to work in the fields? Do they have to care for other children?
Do the parents understand the value of education? Are the parents educated? What level are the parents educated to?
What if there is not a teacher, but there is a school building and interested children?
Is there a shortage of teachers in the country?
Who employs the teachers? Have they been paying the teachers?
How can a community member fill the role of teacher? How could he/she be paid? What training would they need?
What if there is a school building, and no teachers and no interested children?
Well, then it appears that perhaps someone got wrapped up in the glory of handing out money. As a fellow PCV said today, "A building doesn't make a school".
I believe that Greg Mortenson and CAI have built many schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan which were sustainable. There were villages that had teachers easily accessible, parents who understood the concept of formal education, students who had the means to go. These villages were able to take advantage of the great gift that was dropped in their laps.
However, from what I can tell, many other villages requested a school just because they could get one. There was something free, and they wanted in on it. A pragmatic NGO would have weeded these villages out. It would have been discovered that there wasn't a full-time population or that there weren't any teachers available or that the area floods in the spring or that another NGO is building a school 5 k away or that there isn't the student body to justify a school ....
Development is HARD. And large NGOs have a difficult time balancing donations, foreign-spent money, obtaining receipts, creating obtainable and measurable goals & objectives, achieving said goals and objectives, all while respecting cultural differences. I'm not saying that one person can't create a functional multi-national NGO and achieve great things. What I'm saying is that the learning curve is mighty steep. And said individual would need to be open to learning from each and every mistake.
I hope that CAI is able to pull themselves through this mess. There are some dedicated, competent people who work for CAI. People who are devoted to the mission. However, somewhere over the last 16 years, their figurehead lost his way. He got blinded by the limelight and never learned how to make his creation the better. He instead got distracted by the glory of gift-giving, without ever noticing if the gifts were well-received.
I'm going to stop my tirade now. If anyone wants to discuss this further with me, feel free to comment! I'm interested to find out what other people think about this situation, and development work as a whole. Because, ultimately, as corrupt a situation as this appears to be, I still feel like as long as just a few people changed their behavior in regards to education, or were able to access a functioning school then Mortenson didn't flub up entirely.
As most of the novelty of being immersed in a foreign culture has worn off, I will take this opportunity to talk about my work. (If you find it boring, please respond with topic requests!!)
It is the dry season. Well, it is the end of the cool-dry season. Senegal not-so-officially has a few seasons. 1) The HOT-dry season, April-May/June 2) The rainy season, June/July-September/October 3) The not-quite-so-hot-dry season, October/November 4) The cool-dry season, December/January and 5) The it-is-getting-hotter-dry season, Febrary/March.
The cool-dry season is the traditional gardening season. While garden beds must be watered daily, the temperatures are much more tolerable for most vegetables. So, I've been doing a fair bit of gardening recently.
The primary goal of Peace Corps' gardening outreach are to promote techniques which save water and maximize space. The first step is to improve the growing medium. Most of Senegal is sand. The soil is not conducive to nurturing plants. So, we add green leaves, dead leaves, ash, crushed charcoal, and manure/compost to our garden beds. These amendments are worked down to a depth of about 18". That's right, you need to use a pick to dig down through this hard-packed sand and clay. Fun.
Next, we emphasize the importance of appropriate plant spacing within the garden beds. By planting a bed hexagonally, one can fit more plants into the same area...keeping the appropriate between-plant spacings. We also encourage companion planting. Growing carrots, lettuce, and tomatoes together means that you can maintain close spacing...because each plant is using a different strata to grow in (root, leaf, fruit). A happy side-effect of companion planting is mutually beneficial relationships; ie, planting onions with cabbage helps to decrease the amount of pest damage on the cabbage (the smell of the onion repels some insects).
Finally, we encourage mulching. The main field crop in Senegal is peanuts. Which means we have an abundance of peanut shells everywhere. And peanut shells make great mulch! By topping a garden bed with 3" of deep mulch, one can retain enough water to only have to water every-other day, instead of up to twice a day. Mulch also has excellent other benefits: weed control, soil-erosion barrier, etc.
Peace Corps is also trying to encourage year-round gardening. A barrier to food security and good nutrition in the village is ACCESS. In the cities and larger towns, a variety of foods are always available. However, most villages are secluded and inaccessible because of poor roads. Which means the villagers only go shopping elsewhere once a week, if that. They are reliant on what they are growing for themselves. So besides seasonal gardening of carrot, cabbage, onion, melon, okra, beet, squash, etc., we push year-round maintenance of garden beds containing hot/bell pepper, tomato, eggplant, jaxatu, and sweet potato. A small bed with a plant or two of each variety can make a huge difference in the eating habits of a village family. (If only they can keep it watered and protected from goats.)
I saw the Southern Cross the other night. Or, at least I think it was the Southern Cross. I saw the Big Dipper. Did an about-face. And saw something that could be called a cross. I assume my astronomical skills are accurate and that was the Southern Cross. Cool!
A bat is living in my pit latrine. I saw him the other night and was worried that he was stuck and his wingspan was too wide to escape through the small opening. Two nights later those fears were resolved and replaced with the fear of a slightly damp bat flying up at me at 5 a.m. No. He was not stuck in my pit latrine. Positive side: perhaps he's eating lots of the bugs that are infesting it.
All of my kohlrabi germinated!! I'm going to eat kohlrabi until I'm sick in about a month and a half. :D heh heh
I have decided to teach the 1 1/2 year old boy in my compound English. This promises to be very easy. He loves me and "visits" with me alot. So I have decided to only speak to him in English. His mother thinks this is a great idea, especially since she already jokes that his jibberish is English and asks me to translate.
It is the season of gardens! I planted a 4 meter pepinere with my counterpart. We really didn't consider how much that means we'll have to transplant. We need to start digging ALOT more garden beds. We're going to have more lettuce, cabbage, and onion than we could ever imagine. Maybe I can "accidentally" let the goats eat some.... (horrors! I never said that!)
It is also the "cold" season. It gets down to the low 60s in my hut at night. Which means I put on socks and huddle under my flannel sheet. I drink hot beverages in the morning. So cold!
My village will be getting a fancy new peanut-sheller within the next week (hopefully). Which will be an interesting mechanical learning experience. As long as it works well, I will be hailed as a hero! My namesake is waiting to shell 4 50 kilo bags of peanuts until she has the new machine. :S That's a lot of pressure.
Inshallah I'll recieve the funding for a large community garden project (which included water development) within the next couple of weeks. This means that I will be insanely busy....soon....maybe.
I have nothing to blog about. Which is why I hadn't blogged since September. IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT MY LIFE, TIMES, EXPERIENCES, HORROR STORIES, SOB STORIES, SLIGHTLY UPLIFTING STORIES, etc THEN COMMENT ON THIS POST WITH YOUR IDEAS AND QUESTIONS!!!! Seriously! Especially since my brain is fried here and I really can't remember anything, including what stories I have shared with people and what ones I have not.
