Thursday, March 18, 2010
Pilot Farmer Program Begins
I've been in Thies again since Tuesday, and will be until Saturday, for an orientation/training of Senegalese 'pilot farmers' for a new USAID/Peace Corps initiative. USAID has the money, the PC has us, to help train and support these farmers as they establish demonstration sites. Right now there are only 7 pilot farmers in Senegal, and one of them is Tumani Diamanka, Shames' counterpart and host brother in Sare Gagna. That's why I'm here, since I'm so close to Sare Gagna, and will have to work with Tumani and Shames on establishing the different agroforestry, gardening, and field crop technologies at the demo site. Then people in the area will have access to periodic trainings which Tumani will present there, a seed and seedling source, and just an idea of the possibilities. That's the plan, anyway.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Grudgingly Headed Back to Site
Well, I've got to head back to Sare Fode this morning/afternoon, as I have now been gone almost exactly a month, and my family kept anxiously calling me and asking when I was coming back. The did this all through training, even though I had told them before and every time they re-asked, 'I'm coming back when February's over, at the beginning of March.' I'm not looking forward to going back and hearing all the little guilt trips - 'You really spent a while there', 'you didn't call enough', etc. Oh well...after a week or so I'm sure I'll be back into the swing of things.
But that brings up another aspect that I'm not looking forward to - telling them that I have to leave again several times this month - this Friday I'll have to come back to Kolda for our house meeting; on the 15th I'll leave for Thies again for a USAID pilot farmer training (Shames' counterpart is one of these pilot farmers, and they are each supposed to have a network of nearby volunteers to help them set up their demonstration sites, etc.); then on the 20th I'll head back down here with all the Agroforestry volunteers in Senegal for our Ag. Fo. yearly summit, which will last a couple of days at the house here. I'm looking forward to that one, because we'll get seeds and stuff that I need. It feels like a lot of 'training' to me, even, and I can only imagine it is frustrating for my family and community to see me run off so much... I hope I come off as knowledgeable enough to justify all the training!
But that brings up another aspect that I'm not looking forward to - telling them that I have to leave again several times this month - this Friday I'll have to come back to Kolda for our house meeting; on the 15th I'll leave for Thies again for a USAID pilot farmer training (Shames' counterpart is one of these pilot farmers, and they are each supposed to have a network of nearby volunteers to help them set up their demonstration sites, etc.); then on the 20th I'll head back down here with all the Agroforestry volunteers in Senegal for our Ag. Fo. yearly summit, which will last a couple of days at the house here. I'm looking forward to that one, because we'll get seeds and stuff that I need. It feels like a lot of 'training' to me, even, and I can only imagine it is frustrating for my family and community to see me run off so much... I hope I come off as knowledgeable enough to justify all the training!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Trainings and Other Less Industrious Pursuits
Well, it's been a little while, because it seemed like nothing much was going on, but now that I look back, there's actually a lot to write about. Back in January, just about a week after I got back to site from my bout of diarrhea after New Year's, my household and I hosted Natalie, Shames, and Samba for a couple-day-long language re-training, which turned out to be mostly hanging-out and chatting in Pulaar. We also rode bikes over to Sare Gagna to see Shames' potato patch, which is doing quite well, and which he can talk about for hours if you let him.
With that out of the way, I just had a couple of weeks before leaving for IST (In-Service Training, where I am now), so I tried to do as much as possible. Daouda had fenced in the garden while I was sick, so I prepared a nursery bed of lettuce and three big outplanting beds, dug pits and started composting, and planted some tomato starts that had been raised in the Sare Bidji garden. My cabbages are starting to form heads in that garden now, and they're so pretty! I fertilized those, and my tomatoes in my backyard with homemade fertilizer ('manure tea' is what we call it here :) and of course, now that I'm gone, they're probably ripe. The tomatoes were producing like crazy when I left!
The other thing I wanted to get done before I headed off for a month was hold a meeting to give people a better idea of what I came to do, and what 'agroforestry' could potentially do. It was kind of an ordeal to hold such a big meeting, because I invited one person from each household in Sare Fode and Sare Bidji, plus a few other people who are acquaintances from other villages, and provided lunch afterwards (a must, according to my Nene). Daouda and I rode to Kolda and brought everything back for the cooks. But it turned out to be quite a success, in my opinion, with around 45 people in attendance. A couple of awesome, educated guys who happened to come were a huge help in translating my broken Pulaar into concepts that people ended up getting really excited about! I asked them to come find me at my hut to tell me what sorts of projects they were interested in before I left for IST, and about 20 individuals did come and gave me really specific project ideas. I was surprised to discover a widespread interest in palm trees, whether for oil, coconut, or dates. There were people interested in fodder trees, live fences, and interplanting trees in their field crops too. So I went away feeling very optimistic, and with specific information to ask for during training.
I left a couple of days early for IST with Shames, Maya, Natalie, and a few other Kolda folks who were going to take the SAT in Dakar. (By the way, Jason's been gone for a month in the States for health issues. Poor guy. But he's back as of a few days ago!) I hung out in Mbour, visiting my pre-service training host family, which was pretty fun, and they were so pleased. From there, I went to Dakar for a night, and got a ride back to Thies in the PC buses for two days of USAID food-security initiative training. This involved creating 'perma-gardens', for maximum cultivation of small, home garden plots that are enriched with a lot of organic matter, charcoal and ash, and dug very deeply with trenches and mounds for efficient use of water.
Next, we all went to Dakar for WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament), which is three days of debaucherous amateur softball, and is attended by volunteers from Mali, Senegal and the Gambia, as well as ex-pats and other Americans and Senegalese softball teams too. There's a pool at the club, hotdogs, beer, ice cream....and we were all assigned homestays at beautiful homes of Americans living in Dakar. Obviously it was a very pleasant couple of days, although mine was dampened by the fact that my giardia came back for a second round and I was really sick for a couple of days. But I'm all better again.
So, to bring you up to today, now we've got two more weeks of technical agroforestry training at the center in Thies, which has been very useful and interesting so far. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of questions answered and gaining a lot of knowledge. We have Senegalese homestay families here in Thies, and mine is a very wealthy family with a large house, running shower, electricity and television. We don't spend much time there, but they're very hospitable and kind.
Sorry for so much all at once, but I hope your curiosity is somewhat satisfied now!
With that out of the way, I just had a couple of weeks before leaving for IST (In-Service Training, where I am now), so I tried to do as much as possible. Daouda had fenced in the garden while I was sick, so I prepared a nursery bed of lettuce and three big outplanting beds, dug pits and started composting, and planted some tomato starts that had been raised in the Sare Bidji garden. My cabbages are starting to form heads in that garden now, and they're so pretty! I fertilized those, and my tomatoes in my backyard with homemade fertilizer ('manure tea' is what we call it here :) and of course, now that I'm gone, they're probably ripe. The tomatoes were producing like crazy when I left!
The other thing I wanted to get done before I headed off for a month was hold a meeting to give people a better idea of what I came to do, and what 'agroforestry' could potentially do. It was kind of an ordeal to hold such a big meeting, because I invited one person from each household in Sare Fode and Sare Bidji, plus a few other people who are acquaintances from other villages, and provided lunch afterwards (a must, according to my Nene). Daouda and I rode to Kolda and brought everything back for the cooks. But it turned out to be quite a success, in my opinion, with around 45 people in attendance. A couple of awesome, educated guys who happened to come were a huge help in translating my broken Pulaar into concepts that people ended up getting really excited about! I asked them to come find me at my hut to tell me what sorts of projects they were interested in before I left for IST, and about 20 individuals did come and gave me really specific project ideas. I was surprised to discover a widespread interest in palm trees, whether for oil, coconut, or dates. There were people interested in fodder trees, live fences, and interplanting trees in their field crops too. So I went away feeling very optimistic, and with specific information to ask for during training.
I left a couple of days early for IST with Shames, Maya, Natalie, and a few other Kolda folks who were going to take the SAT in Dakar. (By the way, Jason's been gone for a month in the States for health issues. Poor guy. But he's back as of a few days ago!) I hung out in Mbour, visiting my pre-service training host family, which was pretty fun, and they were so pleased. From there, I went to Dakar for a night, and got a ride back to Thies in the PC buses for two days of USAID food-security initiative training. This involved creating 'perma-gardens', for maximum cultivation of small, home garden plots that are enriched with a lot of organic matter, charcoal and ash, and dug very deeply with trenches and mounds for efficient use of water.
Next, we all went to Dakar for WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament), which is three days of debaucherous amateur softball, and is attended by volunteers from Mali, Senegal and the Gambia, as well as ex-pats and other Americans and Senegalese softball teams too. There's a pool at the club, hotdogs, beer, ice cream....and we were all assigned homestays at beautiful homes of Americans living in Dakar. Obviously it was a very pleasant couple of days, although mine was dampened by the fact that my giardia came back for a second round and I was really sick for a couple of days. But I'm all better again.
So, to bring you up to today, now we've got two more weeks of technical agroforestry training at the center in Thies, which has been very useful and interesting so far. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of questions answered and gaining a lot of knowledge. We have Senegalese homestay families here in Thies, and mine is a very wealthy family with a large house, running shower, electricity and television. We don't spend much time there, but they're very hospitable and kind.
Sorry for so much all at once, but I hope your curiosity is somewhat satisfied now!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Photo Site
Well, I'm finally going to head back to my village this afternoon. I've been at the Kolda regional house for a few days, waiting on my diarrhea to go away. I bought supplies today, and I'm going to try to fix spaghetti and salad for my family for dinner tonight (or tomorrow, depending on when I get back). Their previous volunteers made them spaghetti, and it was a big hit - they keep asking me when I'm going to fix it, and I figure now's a good time, since I need to ingratiate myself a little after being gone so long.
I finally got most of my pictures up on a site for you to see - the address is http://diatoudiamanka.shutterfly.com. Hope you like them! I don't pretend to be any sort of photographer.
Love you all! Until next time. (Hopefully I'll stay a while in the village this time.)
I finally got most of my pictures up on a site for you to see - the address is http://diatoudiamanka.shutterfly.com. Hope you like them! I don't pretend to be any sort of photographer.
Love you all! Until next time. (Hopefully I'll stay a while in the village this time.)
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
2010 Begins
And hopefully these first few days aren't indicative of what's to come. I've been really sick for the past three days or so with another GI ailment, complete with high fever, chills, and splitting headache at times (diarrhea's a given). Still haven't made it back to Kolda after travelling to St. Louis for New Year's Eve (I'm holed up in the Kaolack region's PC house, mid-way between St. Louis and Kolda), which was it's own sort of fiasco, but ultimately a very enjoyable one.
First of all I was borrowing money from friends most of the time because I failed to take into account that banks would be closed for New Year's, as well as the weekend that came directly after, and I haven't gotten my Senegalese ATM card yet.
Second, I made it to the New Year's Eve party my stage-mates had planned as it was underway, because my travel companion, Martin (quite a character), was mistaken about what day it was. He arrived at the Kolda house the evening of the 30th, thinking it was the 29th, and we didn't leave until the morning of the 31st. But we got there after all, and it was a thoroughly festive night, at a beachside inn with a pretty big group of us.
I just spent a couple of days there, but from what I saw, St. Louis is a lovely city (by Senegalese standards). Lots of tourism means there are plenty of decent restaurants and hotels, and stores with interesting crafts. We ate at a deliciuos Moroccan place one night. St. Louis is the art capital of Senegal, and has a yearly jazz festival and lots of art for sale. The city consists of the mainland, an island (the main tourist area), and a smaller island called the 'hydrobase', which is where our hotel was. Lots of fishing (really beautifully painted wooden boats!) and fishmongering takes place there.
So, after getting out at the Kaolack garage Sunday afternoon to transfer to a car to Kolda, but finding that they only have one at 5 am every day, I was lucky enough to find a cab driver who knew how to get me to the PC house here (because I sure don't know Kaolack at all). He then promised to have another driver come pick me up at 4:30 the next morning, but he never showed up. However, since I ended up getting too sick over the course of the night to go go home, that worked out just fine.
End of the story is - in between bouts of feeling absolutely dreadful these past few days, there have been a lot of people I know in and out of the house and it's been kind of fun. I sure feel guilty for being away from my site for so long, though... But it can't be helped. Hope they're still watering my tomatoes and cabbages, and maybe the demo-plot fence will be up when I get back.
Love you all, and I hope you've had a great start to your new year!
First of all I was borrowing money from friends most of the time because I failed to take into account that banks would be closed for New Year's, as well as the weekend that came directly after, and I haven't gotten my Senegalese ATM card yet.
Second, I made it to the New Year's Eve party my stage-mates had planned as it was underway, because my travel companion, Martin (quite a character), was mistaken about what day it was. He arrived at the Kolda house the evening of the 30th, thinking it was the 29th, and we didn't leave until the morning of the 31st. But we got there after all, and it was a thoroughly festive night, at a beachside inn with a pretty big group of us.
I just spent a couple of days there, but from what I saw, St. Louis is a lovely city (by Senegalese standards). Lots of tourism means there are plenty of decent restaurants and hotels, and stores with interesting crafts. We ate at a deliciuos Moroccan place one night. St. Louis is the art capital of Senegal, and has a yearly jazz festival and lots of art for sale. The city consists of the mainland, an island (the main tourist area), and a smaller island called the 'hydrobase', which is where our hotel was. Lots of fishing (really beautifully painted wooden boats!) and fishmongering takes place there.
So, after getting out at the Kaolack garage Sunday afternoon to transfer to a car to Kolda, but finding that they only have one at 5 am every day, I was lucky enough to find a cab driver who knew how to get me to the PC house here (because I sure don't know Kaolack at all). He then promised to have another driver come pick me up at 4:30 the next morning, but he never showed up. However, since I ended up getting too sick over the course of the night to go go home, that worked out just fine.
End of the story is - in between bouts of feeling absolutely dreadful these past few days, there have been a lot of people I know in and out of the house and it's been kind of fun. I sure feel guilty for being away from my site for so long, though... But it can't be helped. Hope they're still watering my tomatoes and cabbages, and maybe the demo-plot fence will be up when I get back.
Love you all, and I hope you've had a great start to your new year!
Friday, December 25, 2009
You gave me a laptop, I'll give you a blog.
Happy holidays, everybody! I miss you guys so much, although I am having fun here in Kolda and it is fairly festive. I hope you’re all well and have traveled safely to wherever you are today. I’m typing this on my new laptop, which just got here a week ago, yay! Hopefully this means I will be better about keeping in touch. It’s been a while since I wrote, I know. I’m trying to remember what I haven’t written about…
The rice and peanut harvests are about finished, finally. My Nene really can work - she’s spent most of the day every day the past month out in the rice ‘farrow’ cutting each individual stalk with a little knife and making them into bundles. I helped for the first week or two, but then got fairly sick with diarrhea and then a cold and some other stomach illness. Also, Sadio (one of Wurra’s wives) had her mother come help for a week or so, and Jeneba, an adoptive daughter of my Nene’s who lives in Sare Gagna (with David Shames) also came and helped.
The men are getting the peanuts all packed up for wholesale, in this manner: they let them dry, then beat them with sticks until the peanuts come off the plant, then wait for the wind to blow and pour the leaves and nuts into the wind to separate them. Then they bring the leaves to the house for the livestock and put the nuts in huge sacks. They don’t fetch a very good price, for the amount of work that goes into them. The rice isn’t sold at all, just saved and eaten. They pound the bundles to separate the rice from the stalks, then steam the grains to loosen the hulls, dry them in the sun and then pound them as they need rice, to remove the hulls.
I’m getting started on a demonstration garden with my host brother Daouda these days. Everyone around here wants to garden, because it’s a source of income, mostly for women. However, fencing is expensive and requires male labour (in their opinion) so gardens are usually only established, beyond tiny house gardens, by aid organizations. They also try to hold training sessions for the leaders of women’s groups. But obviously aid organizations don’t provide enough gardens for every village to have one, so I’m going to try out some live fencing species that could be used as a cheaper and more permanent means of fencing gardens.
The kids are out of school for three weeks around Christmas and the New Year, which is a bit odd, because that’s much longer than they got for the biggest Muslim holiday, and most of them are Muslim. But they do celebrate Christmas on the 24th, sort of, with food and wearing nice clothes, and they do fireworks on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Last night we had meat and potatoes and salad - and also rice, as always. Today the guys at the Peace Corps house are roasting a pig in a pit, as well as cooking chicken and beef! There are some volunteers from my training stage out visiting, and it’s nice to see them again. I’m heading up to St. Louis, a historically Catholic city to meet up with a lot of other people from our training stage for a few days for the New Year. Should be fun!
The rice and peanut harvests are about finished, finally. My Nene really can work - she’s spent most of the day every day the past month out in the rice ‘farrow’ cutting each individual stalk with a little knife and making them into bundles. I helped for the first week or two, but then got fairly sick with diarrhea and then a cold and some other stomach illness. Also, Sadio (one of Wurra’s wives) had her mother come help for a week or so, and Jeneba, an adoptive daughter of my Nene’s who lives in Sare Gagna (with David Shames) also came and helped.
The men are getting the peanuts all packed up for wholesale, in this manner: they let them dry, then beat them with sticks until the peanuts come off the plant, then wait for the wind to blow and pour the leaves and nuts into the wind to separate them. Then they bring the leaves to the house for the livestock and put the nuts in huge sacks. They don’t fetch a very good price, for the amount of work that goes into them. The rice isn’t sold at all, just saved and eaten. They pound the bundles to separate the rice from the stalks, then steam the grains to loosen the hulls, dry them in the sun and then pound them as they need rice, to remove the hulls.
I’m getting started on a demonstration garden with my host brother Daouda these days. Everyone around here wants to garden, because it’s a source of income, mostly for women. However, fencing is expensive and requires male labour (in their opinion) so gardens are usually only established, beyond tiny house gardens, by aid organizations. They also try to hold training sessions for the leaders of women’s groups. But obviously aid organizations don’t provide enough gardens for every village to have one, so I’m going to try out some live fencing species that could be used as a cheaper and more permanent means of fencing gardens.
The kids are out of school for three weeks around Christmas and the New Year, which is a bit odd, because that’s much longer than they got for the biggest Muslim holiday, and most of them are Muslim. But they do celebrate Christmas on the 24th, sort of, with food and wearing nice clothes, and they do fireworks on Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Last night we had meat and potatoes and salad - and also rice, as always. Today the guys at the Peace Corps house are roasting a pig in a pit, as well as cooking chicken and beef! There are some volunteers from my training stage out visiting, and it’s nice to see them again. I’m heading up to St. Louis, a historically Catholic city to meet up with a lot of other people from our training stage for a few days for the New Year. Should be fun!
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