Cold Season Photo Essay, March 2015

The searing heat has begun: blistering, sand-filled wind whips across the landscape and barrages your eyes.  Sadly, just two weeks ago it was chilly enough that I woke up wrapped in a sleeping bag.  In an attempt to remember that ephemeral, miraculous phase of the year, I present a collection of photos from the cold season.

Sunset in the bayobab grove.

Finally, a photo of me in my natural habitat.  Me, biking, while
eating food, and making funny faces.

Pounding millet; the millet harvest is done, the heads have dried, and now
the entire female population of my village pounds the millet for our daily dinner. 

Millet heads, local variety.

Pounding the millet with the heavy wooden mortar and pestle.  

After the pounding, the chaf and millet grains are mixed together.
To separate them women pour it from one container to another, letting
the wind blow the lighter chaff away and allowing the heavier millet
grains to fall into the container underneath.

Mboure Community Garden; one of my main work projects.  In the cool season
it is in full swing with women from the local women's groups who
have their own plots of hibiscus, tomatoes, eggplant, moringa, casava, etc.  Trees in the
garden have been a constant debate between me and the community.  

Inter-cropping and amended garden beds are two of the technologies
that I have successfully extended in the garden.  Here's Saliou Ndiaye's
onion, tomato, and lettuce beds. 

More inter-cropped beds, not many people eat the lettuce we grow so many of them have bolted.

Not all the lettuce bolts though, here's my host mom preparing a head to sell at the local market.

Zai holes with 'baby' hibiscus. 

Moringa leaves (you may remember moringa the miracle tree from my moringa tour post from December).

Cashew trees are starting to fruit.

Flowering and young fruit 'n nut.

A mature fruit 'n nut.

My backyard, don't mind my 30 foot tall moringa tree.  In all honest, I am proud
of all the trees I've been able to grow this past year.  Last year, my backyard
was bare and in another year there will actually be SHADE!

Papayas!  My host brother peeling and cutting up a papaya from our family's trees. 

The newest addition to my host family, a baby donkey!

More attempts at attaching bulky, unwieldy packages to Peace Corps bikes.  

Mangos have arrived!  

I am now a mango cutting expert!

I hosted two American students studying abroad in Dakar for a semester.  They had a week of pulling water, banal Wolof greetings, and helping me with work projects.

Painting a mural of the Senegalese map with my visiting study abroad students. 

Fallow fields from the rainy season.  Above: a fallow peanut field.  Below: a fallow
millet field.  Notice the stark difference between the amount of crop cover
there is between the two.  The peanut field will suffer far more during the windy
hot season, with the top soil blowing away.  Peanut production is subsidized by the
Senegalese government, my job is to encourage growing cereals (i.e. millet, sorghum)
which are better for the Earth and the population actually consumes.   

It was lovely while it lasted, but unfortunately the sun has set on my final cold season in Mboure. 

Camp Koumbidia Calls!

As anyone who talked to me in the past year knows, my favorite experience of my Peace Corps service was last year's Kaolack Girl's Empowerment Camp.  I was so inspired by the excitement shown by the Senegalese girls and Peace Corps Volunteers who attended that  I decided to branch off the idea and start another youth camp at the high school near my village. 

Fatou, Umou, Nafy, and Safiatou, the girls I brought to the Kaolack Girls Camp, approached me and asked if we could do a similar camp in their community.They wanted to share the knowledge, support system, and enthusiasm for their futures with their peers- and they wanted to see if I could make that happen.  Seven months later, my co-director Erica and I have coordinated with the school, students, Peace Corps, and Senegalese National Board of Education to create the Koumbidia Youth Leadership and Empowerment Camp, or 'Kamp Koumbidia.'  

Starting a program like this from scratch has been both an exhausting and confidence-building experience.  Fortunately, one of my neighboring Peace Corps Volunteers, Erica (another MSU Spartan, Go Green!), is equally passionate about youth and gender empowerment and has been a driving force in making this happen.  We hope that the project continues after this year and Peace Corps Volunteers near Koumbidia will be able to hold future annual 'Kamp Koumbidias.' 

Koumbidia is home to a motivated group of students who already have organized several student groups within their school.  Many of them look forward to continuing their education but too often drop out to help on the farm, are brought out of school due to early marriages, or are obligated to get jobs to help support their families.  The importance of education is slowly gaining ground, but many families do not fully value education, limiting their children's career options.   

The camp will be three days packed with discussions and games about health, the environment, gender, and the students' future.  Local experts will explain how these topics can be applied to their community through youth leadership.  Students will learn about career opportunities from a local career panel.  Volunteers will lead groups of the students in daily volutneerism activities within the community.  The final evening, we'll host a movie, inviting the entire community to recognize the 40 Kamp Koumbidia participants and hold a discussion about the role of youth in the community. 

The camp is just over a month away and we are looking for donations.  

• $25 will pay for the cost of one student's supplies and lunch
• $40 will pay for the cost of one of our local expert's travel and expenses so they can expose the students to career and networking opportunities

We are eager to quickly meet our donation requirement and deeply appreciate your donation!

https://beta.peacecorps.gov/…/pr…/youth-leadership-camp1310/

P.S.  I'm pretty excited to see Fatou, Umou, Nafy, and Safiatou teach next month!

A drop in the bucket, Feb 2015

Splash.  Drip.  Swish.  Gurgle.  Slosh.  Plop.  Splatter. 

Water.  It surrounds us, making up to 60% of the human body and necessary for all life.

You wake up.  Flush the toilet.  Wash your hands.  Your face.  Brush your teeth.  Step into the shower...  and you've already used approximately 16 gallons of water.  Add your washing machine, dish washer, cooking, cleaning supplies, etc.  Look at your plate, even if you're just eating a meager salad there's 15 gallons of water that have gone into growing the lettuce alone! 

Water is ubiquitous in our lives.  But what if it wasn't?  What if you had the same needs but no faucet? 

Every morning and evening the girls and women of my village pull pan-after-pan of water 25 meters (approximately 82 feet) to the top of our well, place it on their heads, walk it back to their huts, and pour it into another pan waiting on the ground.  Since I too need water, I can be spotted every evening at the village well with three other women, our hands flying and clapping as we pull the heavy rope over the pulley.  A full pan of water is 24 liters, meaning that I carry 52 pounds of water 122-125 steps back to my hut. 

Beyond personal consumption, my agrarian community depends on water for crops.  That means our livelihood is reliant on rainfall (a meager 521 mm from July-September) and groundwater from the well.  In the long months between rainy seasons, my community works together to water their crops from well water.  In an incredible sense of community; all the women of my village pull water together for three hours or more, placing it on one another's heads, carrying each benoir into the garden, taking it off, and finally pouring the water into watering cans to use.  Every day.  For at least five months.  And then they pull water for the next day's drinking, washing, cooking, cleaning, etc. 

So I proposed a feeder basin project for my community.  A small basin next to the well connected to alarger basin inside the garden by pipe facilitates easier watering.  Women pour water into the small basin and it cuts out the work of lifting, carrying, and putting down the water in the garden.  It also encourages better watering practices since women are less likely to pour water from the top of their head directly onto their garden beds.  Unsurprisingly, my community was pretty enthusiastic.       

After writing the grant and the harvests were in, my community supplied horse drawn carts to carry supplies from our road town.  I explained construction requirements (thanks dad!) in French and Wolof (thanks to my many language teachers!), and we completed the project in less than a week

. 

 

My village took the project a step further, saving money from their early harvest to purchase an inner tube balloon that can pull up four times more water when pulled by a horse or donkey. 

 

Even though it was just a small project and the well is only 27 meters away from the center of the garden, the garden has grown exponentially since the water limitations have been reduced.  This year, every meter of the garden is being worked.  Even motivated women from neighboring communities have joined us with four of their own plots inside the garden. 

 

The easier access to water in the garden has meant higher yields.  Meaning more vegetables going into each family's lunch bowl.  More vegetables and cash crops being sold at the weekly market.  Meaning more financial autonomy for each of the ladies in the Mboure Community Women's Group.  Meaning increasing financial sway in the family.  Meaning more money going towards education and hospital bills.  Meaning a healthier and better educated next generation. 

So this wasn't an enormous project, it was just a drop in the bucket. 

A Moringa Christmas, December 2014

Between December 20 and 22, a trio of us Peace Corps Volunteers toured around the Koungheul region teaching about the agricultural, economic, and health benefits of Moringa oleifera.  By bush taxi, donkey cart, horse cart, and a 1950's era-esque station wagon, Min Cho, Erica Peery, and I traversed the Peanut Basin.  Our catchphrase was that Moringa is 'easy, important for your family, and an income-generating opportunity.' 

Moringa oleifera is a tree native to Africa and Asia that is easy to grow in Senegal and is high in nutrients.  Leaves, seeds, and powder from the tree are rich in Protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, and Zinc.  A handful of leaves per child per day can fill almost a third of their protein requirement alone.  In development work, Moringa is used to combat maternal and youth malnutrition.  Agriculturally, Moringa helps combat desertification (a problem the Sahel Desert poses for Senegal) and improves garden spaces.  Since Senegalese women are familiar with  cooking certain Moringa-based dishes and we decided there was a niche for us to fill!  Through small meetings targeting women who are mothers, cook for their families, and have small gardens we met with fifty one members in four communities.  We're taking a hiatus for the holidays, but will soon resume our Moringa-education tour.    

Erica, our Health PCV, explained the nutritional importance of Moringa for families.  The leaves are already used in rural Senegal's most common dinner dish, leaf sauce with millet couscous (mboum).  On fancy occasions, Moringa leaves are used for fish stuffing in the national dish of fish, vegetables, and rice (ceeb u jen).  Erica explained how to increase the amount of Moringa in a family's diet by mixing Moringa powder into two other favorite Senegalese dishes, a peanut-based sauce on rice (maffe) or ground peanuts with rice (mbaxal).  Overcooking the leaves is a common problem, so we discussed proper preparation techniques.  The women who attended were excited to learn that an ingredient they are familiar with and find delicious can be so beneficial for their children. 

Agriculturally, I emphasized the ease of Moringa. Needing little water, it is the perfect tree for your backyard or garden.  It can go next to your shower.  As part of your live fence.  Inside a vegetable bed.  In an alley row between crops.  It increases soil water retention.  Provides dappled shade.  On top of which it produces leaves, timber, and seeds that can be used for human or animal consumption. We provided small bags of Moringa seeds and our new volunteers will gain data collection experience in a couple months by checking how many trees each attendee planted and monitoring the cooking methods adoption rates.           

Finally, Min explained the economic aspect of Moringa.  This was unfamiliar to the women we spoke with.  We explained how the leaves, seeds, and powder can all also be sold.  The attendees agreed that fellow mothers would be the most likely clientele for Moringa leaves and powder, while farmers would most likely be interested in buying seeds.  Local markets, individual vendors within villages, and boutiques (small local stores) were designated as ideal locations for selling.  Perhaps the most fun part of each training was practicing marketing.  Min and I would act out a scenario as Moringa sellers in a market, then turn to the audience.  Women took turns practicing different marketing techniques (ie explaining the nutritional value or ease of cooking with the product) and men practiced advertising with seeds.  It was an excellent method to see how much material was retained!      

Beyond our own villages, we visited new volunteers' sites, providing them with an opportunity to practice mobilizing their community and teaching in their local languages.  Tina Verrilli, Abby Augarten, and Rita Argus reveled in spontaneous applause from their communities after each of their brief introductory speeches.  After a tough few months of cultural adjustments and language struggles, it was wonderful to see their smiles when their host communities recognized their linguistic achievements!  Those of us who traveled around from village to village enjoyed the variety of the Senegalese countryside and hospitality.  We learned about wooden peanut-cracking paddles, new dance moves, and where the best breakfast ladies are set up across the region.      

While the tourney was a resounding success, there were more than a couple of snags.  Though we planned the day for our visits months in advance, a last minute political rally required the attendance of my entire village.  So we cancelled the first stop in the tour.  More last minute local plans meant we had to cancel our third stop.  Halfway through day two, Min was curled up in pain from a terrible, undetermined illness.  Our horse-cart got a flat tire.  Our station wagon driver mutinied on us in a rural village, demanding extra payment because the women were taking "too long" to cook lunch.  We almost left Tina's cat in the wrong village.  All is well though!  We'll reschedule the canceled stops.  Min made it home and is healing.  The tire has been fixed.  And we made it to our regional house in one piece- including the cat. 

It's been a successful year.  As I start celebrating the holidays, I'm thankful for my host community, Peace Corps family, and support group from back home who have all championed me.  I've been able to integrate into a wonderful community and be a part of so many meaningful projects.  Thank you to all and happy holidays!         

Moringa leaves, seeds, or powder? You can sell or eat them all!

 

 Min and I sorting out Moringa seed bags - Our donkey cart

 Stop #1: Keur Samba

Stop #2: Koumbidia 

 Stop #3: Koungheul Soce, some good laughs and data collection going on!

 

Enjoying a brief break and cracking peanuts.

Stop #4: Tiaba Willane, look at the mature line of Moringa in the background 

 

Erica, our Health PCV, speaks Mandinka.  Since most of our audiences were Wolof-speakers, she used this opportunity to have local work partners translate for her.  It was an excellent, inadvertent, training of trainers. 

 

Min and I demonstrating how to sell Moringa - Women in Tiaba Willane practicing marketing Moringa products 

 

Peace Corps Volunteers on the move! Time to get out of the bush and start celebrating a successful tournee!

 Don't forget the cat!