April
2014, Basic Gardening Workshop
At
the beginning of this month, I had 'mon grand debut' of large work projects. The majority of my work is small scale, such
talking one-on-one to farmers. And this
is usually more effective than cumbersome, problem-laden, large scale projects. However, after the past several months of
language, cultural, and on-the-job West African agriculture studies I was able
to gage the local gaps in gardening knowledge.
I coordinated with my neighboring volunteers to organize a large scale
workshop. It was a lot of work and
included quite a few nervous planning moments, but was a resounding success!
From
the beginning, my workshop was a joint effort between my site-mate, Sara, and
I. We jointly wrote a grant to cover
food costs and convinced our counterparts that the 'local community
contribution' should be transportation to the event. We identified gardening groups in five
communities and approached them about sending their group leaders to the
workshop. I wrote lesson plans and
wrangled enough volunteers to teach all the lessons. And perhaps most importantly, I spent several
evening with my counterpart, Saliou, discussing how, what, why we would be
teaching. The overarching goal of my
work here is capacity building. Increasing
agricultural capacity. Income-generating
capacity. Nutrition capacity. And, for my counterpart who is already such a
respected local sage, teaching capacity.
The
day of the workshop started by me helping unpack everything my village had
rented from the larger village nearby for the training. We unpacked plastic chairs (there are
normally a total of 6 chairs in my village), cutlery (just tablespoons to eat
with), and lots of big pots and bowls to serve lunch in. As we finished, charette after charette load
(horse and cartloads) of local gardening leaders showed up. We breakfasted on fresh bread and pigeon pea
(a mixture between a pea and a bean) from our own garden. It was a brilliant way to start the training
as everyone loved the peas and their production became a common talking point
throughout the day.
Us serving coffee, bread, and peas for breakfast.
Then
came the most terrifying moment for me.
I had to make the opening remarks...in Wolof... to over 50 people. Even though I've been here for six months and
am pretty decent at learning languages, this was daunting. But I quickly got through it and allowed my
local leaders to get some practice at teaching.
Saliou introduced himself and our garden. Omar, my master farmer, introduced the role
of Peace Corps volunteers. The president
of my women's group introduced the work of my village's women in the
garden. The most difficult part of the
day was splitting the fifty participants into five groups. I had already seen how difficult this is to
do at previous trainings, as it is an entirely foreign concept to
Senegalese. Thankfully, Saliou and Omar
were familiar with the concept and divided the groups- each to be led by a
woman from my village's women group.
Introducing the workshop.
Through
my past months of interacting with gardening groups, I learned that farmers
here have a great deal of knowledge but there are some gaps in the 'basic'
gardening techniques Peace Corps advocates for.
So I drew up lesson plans and the stations were as follows;
1. Garden Beds, taught by me
-amending
soil
-good
location for beds
-ideal
sizing for beds
-why
intensive garden beds are better than scattered planting
Activity:
double digging half of a bed
2.
Garden Bed maintenance, taught by Kait
-proper
watering techniques (homemade watering cans instead of throwing buckets of
water onto the soil, which hardens it)
-mulching
-weeding
(a practice rarely used here)
Activity:
mulching a bed
3. Intercropping, taught by Hanna
-why
intercrop
-creating
microclimates
-what
plants can be intercropped?
4. Composting, taught by Sara
-why
compost?
-how
to compost?
Activity:
making compost
5. Trees in the garden, taught by Allie
-shade
-erosion
control
-wind
break
-nitrogen
fixing
I
had been quite nervous about my ability to teach in Wolof. Especially teaching gardening techniques to
farmers... but it went so well. The
participants were engaged, discussed how they could take this new knowledge
back to their gardening groups, and were always willing to help me if I didn't
know the exact word for describing 'nitrogen fixing.'
The
workshop was a success on multiple levels.
First and foremost, we were able to educate and excite Senegalese
farmers about gardening techniques. We
know that we reached people because several groups gave me their phone numbers
and since then we have organized follow up visits by me to their gardens. Perhaps one of the most touching moments was
when the leaders of several gardening groups that had been hesitant or
unwilling to listen to my advice previously saw how successful the techniques
we advocate are, and asked us volunteers to come teach in their gardens next
garden season. I also gained a lot of
confidence in my ability to organize, teach, and be efficient in Senegal. Finally, my counterpart gained quite a bit of
organizational experience which will be useful for future teaching.
The
workshop was also a success in terms of Senegalese socialization! Let me rhapsodize about lunch. If a community is hosting a workshop like
this, it is customary to provide one or more meals. The grant we wrote covered both breakfast and
lunch, and what a lunch it was! The women
in my village demonstrated their "spicy hands" (translation= good
cooks) by cooking the most delicious meal I've had in Senegal yet. From the massive pots and bowls big enough to
hold toddlers came ceebu yapp (rice and meat).
A succulent layer of oily rice was topped by goat, an untold amount of vegetables,
onion sauce, and even hard boiled eggs! It was such an amazing meal that I even
caught one of our visitors filming it on her cell phone.
At
the end of lunch, we handed out certificates to the participants. These certificates are treated as we treat
our high school, college, and other major diplomas or certificates. In an area with limited education, I'm almost
daily pulled aside by some farmer to see the collection of certificates they
have from attending workshops. It was
such a success, with some of the participants (or should I say new friends?)
actually hugging me!
We
ended the workshop by hanging out with my friends and some Senegalese
dancing. The women of my village told me
that, while the workshop had been going well so far, the best way to ensure its
success was to bring out the recently washed lunch bowls, pound on them, and
engage in some high-kicking, quick-stepping dancing. So I did.
I flailed my arms. I kicked my
legs. I laughed with my community and
new friends. I was celebrating a day of
true success!
Not my best dancing, but you get the general idea!
