My apologies for the long absence of letters, emails, blog posts, etc. but maangy liggey rekk (I've been working). The harvest is coming in and the cold, dry season is starting so I've been busy finishing field crop projects and starting cool gardens.
THE FIELDS
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| Kani (hot pepper) fields. The women each have their own small plots on the sloping banks of monsoon season filled pools. |
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| My mom watering her pepper. Improvised watering cans! |
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| Look at the slope (a calf workout every evening) and water-saving earth works. |
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| Peanut fields: everyone in my region is currently pulling the plants out of the ground and letting them dry before pulling the nuts off. |
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| Me and my dog after a long morning in the peanut fields. |
MY TREES
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| After one rainy season my backyard went from brown to green. Look at the height on all those trees! |
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| Plants from rights to left: chia, papaya (above), Leucena, Moringa, Flamboyant. |
GRASSROOT SOCCER FEMALE EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM
I worked with several other volunteers and local counterparts to organize a Grassroot Soccer camp for over 30 girls in the Kaffrine region. We spent four days playing soccer, doing fun energizers, and having discussions on health-related topics.
Our curriculum focuses on a number of social and health issues that face female youth in Sub-Sahara Africa, such as gender biases, early marriage, sexual and reproductive health, and access to education.
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| Celebrating international "Day of the Girl" by laughing about our fun identities. |
MBOURE COMMUNITY GARDEN
The beautiful garden after two months of rain.
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| My host father is so proud of his rice, which normally doesn't grow in the area. |
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| Coffee plants. |
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| Coffee! |
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| Gigantic Pigeon Pea plants! |
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| After months of no vegetables, finally, finally, we have nutritious meals again! |
FIELD CROP SEED EXTENSION
Part of my work as a "Sustainable Agricultural" volunteer is to extend, and collect data on, improved seed varieties. I work with beans, corn, millet, sorghum, and rice.
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| Drying corn/ millet stalks to use for fencing. |
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| Drying corn, okra, and leaves. |
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| Millet stalks. The variety I extend grows to taller than my head. |
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| At harvest, the millet is knocked over and left to dry. Heads are cut off and stalks are drying for fencing material. |
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| Drying millet heads. |
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| Pounding corn. |
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| Roasting corn. The treat of the season! |
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| Our rice field. |
PAINTING TREES FOR THE FUTURE SIGNS
I helped paint signs for a NGO my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers work with.
WATER-FEEDING BASIN
Part of a grant I wrote for my community is a 'water feeding basin' that connects the well to the basin in the garden so women don't have to carry water into the garden.
MASTER FARM OPEN FIELD DAY
An educational 'open field day' opens the Master Farm to the local community to see new agricultural techniques promoted by Peace Corps. My Master Farmer, Omar Top, did an excellent job describing demonstrations, techniques, and facilitating discussions. We discussed field crops, vegetable gardening, nutrition, trees, live fencing, seed saving, and answered questions from the community. Over 60 members of the surrounding area came, curious about these techniques. Several volunteers and my boss came as well, so it was a big day for me.
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| Notice me in the blue! |
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| Our Agro-Forestry Volunteers loved the Master Farm's live fencing! |
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| My materials for a seed saving demonstration. |
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| Teaching about nutrition. The best method we PCVs use in Senegal is called the "complet model." Types of food are broken into protiens, carbs, and veggies/ fruits and put on correlating parts of Senegalese clothes. |
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| My lovely dog also attended. He was much admired by all. |
KEUR MANDOUMBE HOSPITAL GARDEN TRAINING
A women's group in my site-mate's village asked if I could connect them with knowledgeable farmers. My favorite aspect of being a volunteer is connecting people. I brought my host father and my Master Farmer to Keur Mandoumbe to teach basic gardening techniques.
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| Teaching amending the soil. |
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| Fielding questions under the mango tree. |
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Senegal? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Senegal in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely