And the last installment for the time being!
July!!
The 4th of July was kinda like a descending of every volunteer in the country to our regional house for a big ass party. I think in the end we ended up with like 90 odd folk there. It was a good time for sure! In the morning we had the race outside the community radio in the center of town. As was the case in the previous 2 years we had done the race, the military and the firefighters were the guys who were kicking ass and taking names! I had Ian and frank be the master of ceremony for the race, announcing the race start and handing out the awards at the end. I was the first volunteer to finish, but no where near the top 5! After the race we had to take down the tent, load up the speakers and chairs, and take everythign back to the regional house for the party.
I was helping organize everything from the tents to the pigs we cooked. The pigs were really good. There is a volunteer here that is from Hawaii and i guess that pig roasts are something that him and his buddies do quite frequently there. Now weve done pig roasts before but this was a new way to do it! Usually we just dig a big hole get a fire going and throw the pig on a metal sheet or some kind of prop and cover it with a sheet and keep it wet and cook it for hours on end. This way that CJ wanted to do was a little different. Same big hole for the pig, then pile it full of logs and then top it off with big rocks and light it on fire. The idea being the rocks get red hot and stay hot for a long time. Once its burned down theres coals and red hot rocks sitting in there. For the pigs, you take some of the smaller rocks that are now red hot and put them inside the stomach and sow up the pig so it starts to cook from the inside. Then you put the pig in banana leaves. wrap it up nice and tight and wrap it in chicken wire so that you can get the pig in and out of the hole. Put the pig in the hole on top of the red hot rocks and then burry it. Once the pit is almost all the way buried, you put a tarp down as the last insulation layer and finish burring. Then you let it cook for a day. By the next day the ground was hot above the pits where the pigs were! I was a little skeptical but it worked beautifully! The pigs we cooked were delicious, the meat literally was falling off the bones. And they were still piping hot when we undid the banana leaves and looked delicious. Lets just say I was happy i was one of the cooks and got to nibble on the meat as we were preparing ( i use that term loosely as we were just pulling the meat off the pigs!). The timing of the pigs getting done and the barbecue pork being done was a little off and i was running the show on the barbecue. Only bad part was the rain that decided to roll in right when we were about done with the barbecue, BUT not done! So it was trying frantically to get the pork done while rain is falling on the grill cover. everything got done, but it was a little ify there for a second if it had in fact kept on raining. Luckily for us, it didn't and our party kept rolling. there was a impromptu dance party in the middle of the rain storm though, that was pretty sweet to see. Patrick dancing away while waving a giant american flag over his head. What a beautiful site! Lucky for me cause i got a little too drunk and passed out pretty much right after that for about 4hrs! Yea so that last sentance pretty much sums up the theme of the party, i think we had something like 40 cases of beer, a case of gin, and a case of the finest Vin Rouge de Table that senegal can produce! A dance party that lasted till the wee hours of the morning and a shit ton of fireworks, even if CJ tried to blow himself up by holding onto a big rocket and getting showered in sparks. All in all I think we did America proud, good food, good friends, and a shit ton of booze! I had a great time!
After the 4th there was a great deal of things going on. We remeasured the plots for Beans and rice as some of the stakes that marked the plots had been knocked over and were a little lopsided. Once we had the plots reremasured, we got started actually plowing and seeding. I left to head out to Saraya then on a bike trip. I was going out to Missirah Dantila via Saraya and then coming back into Kédougou the next day via Dimboli. It was a nice trip, I had the beautiful new road that goes all the way to Saraya and then the ride to Dantila from there is really beautiful as well. I was delayed most of the morning I was going to head out, because it rained all morning. When I did finally take off around 1, I made good time and was in Saraya by 4:00. It had stayed overcast the whole day so i was able to make good time getting there. I stopped in and saw kates new place in Saraya. It was lucky that I stopped by as I was able to meet her host brother that was doing malinke rap! Real funny and kate had her computer with her and turned on garage band for him. It was so funny. After filling up my water and the little rap session i got to watch, i was back on the road by 4:45.
The next leg of the trip was to Nafadji and then heading further south and to the final destination for the day, Missirah Dantila. When I got to Nafadji I was quite hungry and feeling a little tired so decided to stop and get a biscrem and get recharged for the last leg of the day. I think at that point I was at 90km total for the day. That just left the the last 20km to Dantila. They didnt have biscrem, so i had to get these 100cfa (about 25cents) bags of cookies. They were great! Its amazing how just eating a little of food can recharge you for bike riding or running for a long distance! So after that I was feeling good and really enjoyed the last leg to Dantila. It is really pretty along the road. You start to see the mountains in guinea a lot clearer and the forest around that area is very green this time if year and very spectacular. I made it to Missirah Dantila right before dark and found Ian, the new volunteer there, waiting for me at the health post with his counterpart. Ian's from Georgia and went to Emory for his undergrad. Small world. I spent the night there and we both took off the next morning for kédougou via dimboli. The ride was fun, we both ended up getting lost at the beginning and found small children in the middle of the woods on peoples fields to take us back to the main road. It was funny that we both got lost at just about the same time really close to each other. Once we were back onto the main road it was smooth sailing from there. We made it to dimboli by late morning and got to watch the end of Ben and Eric's Neem lotion demonstration. As it was getting hot and because I really wanted to get back before it was scorching hot so took off with out them. Made good time getting in and was enjoying cold water sitting on the porch when they rolled in.
When I came back after the bike trip and made it out to Dindefelo next, Mumanie, Balla, and Djiby Sy (the guys helping me with the field out there) had run out of the seed I had given them and hadn't called me to tell me. I had just biked out there and had planed on continuing out to Franks site of Matacossi via the road to Eric's site Pelel. Since I had already packed my things for that trip and was planning on camping out at the waterfall inglee the next night while inbetween the two sites I decided to camp out there anyway and deal with the seed issue the next day. I figured that the best option was to head in the next day via Thiokoye (thats the road town that is like 3k from Matacossi) and then get the seeds on transport out to Dindefelo.
Inglee was fun. Eric and Frank actually decided to join me for the day, as they are only about 15km away and can easily make it a day trip. We had a good time, we went swimming in the falls and the multiple pools there. While we were all hanging out there we thought it would be a great place to have a party. We decided to organize a trip out there for the day after the house meeting, which is the 13th. It should be a really good time. Frank had bought a sleeping mat and stayed at the falls with me. Eric had to get back as we had had a meeting with the man in charge of eh case de santé in the next village over and decided eric would do a Neem leaf demonstration out there that afternoon. Frank and I made a fire and cooked up a nice dinner of pasta, and then crashed. Earlier before Frank had arrived, I made a little lean-to and covered it in the plastic that i had brought with me. Frank just had the mat that he brought. Of course it rained! We had to rush into the lean-to plastic tent to stay dry. It actually worked quite well surprisingly.
We woke up and ate the fonio we had cooked the night before only with milk and sugar and then took off for Thiokoye. The ride was nice, took a few pics and have the entire route saved on my GPS now as well. En route we stopped at a small village where my host sister lives. Ive known that she lives there but never had stopped to say hi when going to Inglee. She was happy to see us and wanted us to stay for lunch. Have to love senegalese hospitality. After crossing the river to get to Thiokoye, Frank and I went our separate ways. From the junction of the main road back into Kédougou is about 30km. I made it about 10km and my tire went flat. Of course my patch kit is empty and the glue that i had was all dried up! So I have to empty out my bag on the side of the road to get the spare tube that i had brought with me. This was a good reminder as to why you need to check your bike fixing materials BEFORE you take off on a bike trip! Luckily i did have the spare and got the flat fixed pretty quick. I did get some great pics of all my crap spread out on the side of the road. A guy also decided to come by and just stare at me trying to fix my bike. Not really in the mood to talk to this guy as i was busy i very briefly greet him. He stands around a while and then asks how i broke my bike as he knew that white peoples bikes dont break! I just kinda looked at him and said we'll what does it look like im doing right now! It was kinda funny. When i did get back i got those seeds on some transport for dindefelo.
Arfang came and visited the master farmer site again. This time he was helping mark out where the fruit trees were going to go in the field. There were Walking Tree kids there at the same time and they were able to assist in the digging of the holes for the fruit trees. some of the trees will be inside the demo plots for this year but it should be ok. The demo plots were coming along as well at this point. The conservation corn plots were growing quite nicely and just needed weeding and a little maintenance. The bean plots that had been planted with my high tech system of a rope with knots tied into it, looked beautiful! The seeds that i had sent out with transport though, looked awful. Mumine planted those and didn't know what the large scale organization of the demo plots was. So he just planted willy nilly and fucked up the layout and spacing for the rows and alleys. That was really frustrating seeing that sitting literally right next to a absolutely beautiful plot of beans that was done correctly. We just need to roll with the punches, its not like i didn't do everything to get them to understand what we are doing there! And the kicker is that the other two guys there completely understand what we are doing, so that makes it more frustrating! Oh well, the rice demo is coming along, just need more time to have the rice get large enough to weed and thin.
I was actually just out there a week or so ago for weeding and thinning of the plants in the bean and corn plots. They all looked good and will be doing a great deal better after the weeding they received. Hassana was in Dindefelo for that, making sure that everything was going well before he takes off for the States. When he went into Kédougou to take off to Dakar and then on to America, i went with him to finalize the details for the Grafting Trainings that we will be doing in the region this year. I had to meet with Demba Samoura who is the trainer that we have used for the past 3 or 4 years for these types of trainings. We were basically finalizing the dates and locations that we are doing this year. All of these trainings will be taking place over the next two weeks.
I think it was around this time that I decided to get a haircut and was talked into/thought it a good idea to get a mohawk. So Eric helped me cut off most of my hair and i now have a mohawk that people here in Senegal love! I've even gotten free beer out of it. Well that might have more to do with the fact that Blandine is usually drunk when i'm bringing back empties, and i'm the only one who brings back empties! Either way she said it was cause of the hair, so I'm happy with the results! Oh and people call me David Villa now, its great. I've gone from David Beckham to Messi to David Villa now, thats the progression i go through! More importantly, all white people look the same!
Right after this, a few folk were looking to go on a little two day trip up to Sokone and i decided that i would tag along. Great little trip, I got to see a bunch of guys i hadnt seen in a year or so. Solomon, Amadou, Moses, and Ibrihima. Great guys and really nice. We camped out on the beach and just chilled out for the two days. I got to go fishing with those guys and we caught a good amount of fish that we then ended up cooking and eating. This was just a drop of the hat decision to go back to kaolack region but was a great time! We only had slight trouble with the transport. We ended up broken down 30 km outside of kédougou at 6am and were stuck till 8 and then didn't get rolling till 930. After that it was smooth sailing though. coming back we just had a slow 7place but made decent time.
I also helped CJ make the radio then as well. We did a plug for the grafting trainings and then did a new segment called Joueugol ballon Juma, or for the non pulaars out there, football fridays. It was basically CJ and I bullshitting about all things soccer for about 20min in pulaar. It was great! We ragged on El Haji Diouf for a good chunk of it and then gave a little run down of who has signed who this offseason and all the goings on in the world of football. We think we have a decent blueprint for future segments as well. We put that radio show on at 1730 and then around 1930 i went to get some dinner. I sat down at the spaghetti shack that I go to a lot and greeted everyone only to have some of the guys there immediately ask me if i was guy who did the radio that day! They loved it! They were saying how important it was to have stuff like that on the radio. Great little confidence boost that! My pulaar sucks but the way that i learned it was bullshitting with my brothers about soccer so this was basically how i learned my pulaar!! I think the segment will be making a reappearance in the near future!
I think that that actually catches me up to August! Im going to try and write more for the last few months ive got here and take as many pictures as i can. Need to try and savour these last few months left in senegal, as writing this has reminded me of all the little things you forget about as time moves on. So hopefully more entries and pictures will follow.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
5 Months left.... part 3 (May and June)
And heres May and June.....
May
The month of May was quite nice, I got to watch Manchester United wrap up the Premiership surrounded by fervent supporters of both Manchester and Chelsea, who all spoke english! I got to meet Meg's mother and sister on their visit to the dark continent which was nice. I love meeting peoples parents, shows where people get their little quirks and peccadilloes. I met up with Meg and her family in Tamba and immediately got in a car for Meg's village. It was interesting to see Meg with her family and to see their interactions with Meg's host family in Madina. Overall they are very nice and i think that they left a very good impression on Meg's village. I left the day before they did for Kolda so that I could catch the Manchester United Champions league semi final vs Schakle. This was the day before cinco de mayo.
I spent Cinco de Mayo in Kolda where they were having a party and then took off for the coast to the north where they also speak english. There was a handful of us that went to stay at the timeshare that Ibu's dad had let him use. The place was really nice and run by brits. The local staff was great and really liked having some white people that weren't afraid of them stay there! I was there for a few days in which the gardener there befriended us and showed us around Serekunda. Took us to a party on the beach where it was basically all guys chillaxing. Really chill but at the same time seemed very sketch. We stayed a little bit then went to the bars. Bar hoping there was a great time and the people that we were with made it all the more fun. I could bullshit with anyone on the street about english football and everyone was really nice.
I met up with Meg and her family in Dakar right after this as they were getting ready to head back to the states. They were staying at the hotel Al Baraka, which is a very nice hotel that Kev introduced me too a year or two ago. We were able to go to Chez Lutcha while they were here. Always a good meal! Also were able to go to the Pointe Des Almadies for clams and oysters. That is my favourite place to eat in senegal! The furthest point west in Africa and beautiful with the sun setting over the ocean. It also is always delicious! They were only in Dakar for a short while and seemed to have a nice time in general for their whole trip. Coming to Africa for the first time is always an experience.
When I got back to Kédougou it was almost time for the new volunteers to instal at their sites! Its amazing how fast time flies here sometimes. Chris came down to officially instal this group and attended the Bassari initiations with his son JD as well. I was able to go with Chris to Dindefelo so as to greet his family there and to look at the master farmer site and the garden in Segou. We saw both of those and then went to the waterfall where we saw a snake swimming in the water which was fun. We talked about the master farmer program and how Hassana was doing and what he could do better in the future. Overall it was a good visit and gave me an outlet for several of the frustrations that I was having with the project.
It was shortly after this that Arfang came down to do his master farmer tour. We mapped out where the different demo plots were going to be in the field and planned for the next visit where we would map out where the grafted mangos and citrus's would go. We decided on three different demo plots, one of beans and peanuts, one of rice and one of corn. The corn i feel was the hardest to set up as each individual plant has its own hole that was dug and had soil amendments applied to. This is called conservation farming, or farming gods way as the people at ECHO called it. We learned about it when Steve, Jared, Arfang and myself were at their networking seminar in Burkina Faso. The corn was set up as follows. 4 plots, 2 with the holes for each individual plant and 2 where they farm as they normally would next to the conservation farming demo. The rice was a demonstration of appropriate spacing within a plot. All the demos have that aspect incorporated into their plots though as well as the thinning of plants. With rice i guess its a bigger deal though. Normally locals just broadcast their rice seed so deliberately planting them at the correct spacing will show how productive rice can be. The beans were set up as follows. There were 4plots of beans interspaced with plots of peanuts that acted as buffers between the bean plots. This demo was all about the affect of natural pesticides vs chemical pesticides on the beans. one plot is the control with nothing on it, the second is with neem leaf pesticide, the third is yellow sticky traps, and the 4th and final is with chemical pesticides.
The Champions League Final. A very fun evening, alas with a bad outcome for me, but all in all fun. Rooney scoring to make it level at the half was a hell of an accomplishment and Man U were just played off the field in the second, Barça were just too good. At least we scored a goal this time though! We watched the game at this nice Bassasri bar that is right next to a big mosque in town and it was a lot of fun. The crowd was def pro Barça but that didn't stop me from drinking a bunch and yelling at the TV! I stayed and watch the end and the presentation of the trophy and then peaced out afterwards. Funnily enough i left the next morning to go meet up with meg, as she was getting ready to leave for home, so i missed out on all the ridicule that ALL my senegalese friends were going to throw at me because they all know that I support Manchester United. So that at least worked out!
June
June was not a work heavy month, as i was hanging out with meg before she took off for the states. So the first half of the month i spent in Dakar and Palmarin and then the second half back in Kédougou. I basically hung out with Meg while she was getting all her paperwork and COS stuff in order. I was able to get certain things in order that required my presence at the office and Dakar. We went around Dakar looking for last minute gifts for meg's family back in the states. I think she ended up buying 13 jars of jam or something for assorted family members! In all fairness the jam is quite good and is all local fruit that you cant get in the states. I think that she ended up getting several cow horn cups and some jewelry as well. All very nice things. Once Meg was done with med clearance and basically was all COSd, we took off for Palmarin for a few days of tooling around on the beach and mangroves.
The drive down was one of the rides that I would like to forget about! instead of a 7-place, we basically were in a station wagon that had 2 seats put in the back. I was siting on the gas tank and when they filled her up, lucky me, the gas leaked out of the joint of the tank. So that with the shitty seat i was sitting in, I wasn't in the best of moods. It was a nice place and the mangroves were the best part of Palmarin in my opinion. We got to kayak around the mangroves with a really nice guy that had worked with Chris Murphy while he was in Palmarin. We had lunch out in the mangroves with fresh oysters and fish. We passed where the oysters had been grown. They were from a project that a local women's group was doing. It basically was thin planks that were attached to the mangroves and running 6 inches above the water. Strings were hanging off the planks and the oysters grow onto the strings. It was pretty interesting and very delicious!
The ride back to Dakar was much better than the ride down. We had a 7-place pick us up basically from the campament. We made decent time back to Dakar and just kicked it in and around dakar for a day or two till meg had to fly out. While we were waiting for megs flight, we got to meet one of the peace corps fellows that was attending Emory. John was a PCV from Niger and was doing research on polio here in Senegal. We had pizza close to the office and then went out for beer at the Pointe des Almadies which was fun. Late afternoon there is just a fun time. We also ended up going there the night before meg left, after minor financial issues with the ATM. After resolving that we had a good time at the pointe. That walk from the pointe to the office has had many interesting events, from being walked into a dirt mound to falling into large unmarked holes next to the new US embassy, i can honestly say ill never forget anything about the pointe. Seeing Meg off at the airport was the hardest thing that ive had to do in this country. Knowing that I wont be able to see her for at a minimum of 6 months sucks. It was even better when the guards at the door wouldn't let me in and we had to say our goodbyes at the front door of the airport. Meg was crying, i was trying to argue with the guards to let me in, all in all it could have gone alot better, even if saying goodbye is always going to hurt. I decided to walk back to the office after that and also decided to took off for kédougou the next morning.
Well I didnt make it out that next day, and I only made it as far as Klck when I did leave as I had to clear up some details for the master farmer demo plot in Dindefelo. i also was trying to get the fuck out of Dakar, as i had been there for a long time by then. The fact that it was my birthday was really neither here nor there. Birthdays are great and all but outside of getting older and your family and friends that know you well, i dont really like being around people. Its fake is the problem. Perfect example and really the kicker that got me out of dakar, someone i know who doesnt like me, its reciprocal believe me, feigned surprise and delight at hearing it was my birthday and immediately wished me a happy birthday. fuck that. Id rather no one wish me a happy birthday than have fake happy birthdays. Hence only the people i really care about know when my birthday is. So i spent my birthday in Klck getting drunk with some of the new volunteers there and had a good time.
Back in Kédougou it was time to get to work on the dindefelo demo site. We started off with the conservation farming demo. I think that that was as far as we got for that as Hassana had a group of american kids coming in for a trip run by Walking Tree and I had to head back in to Kédougou for the 4th of july prep. I had to get the material needed for the 4k on the 4th ready. Running around turning in invitations and making sure speakers, tents, and chairs were all reserved. Its always a little stressful getting all the different ducks all lined up, but is very rewarding when everything starts going smoothly. CJ was the master of ceremony for this year and therefore delegated all the responsibilities for the party to us Kédougou volunteers. I helped with the pigs and the tents and chairs. For the race i had to make the invitations for the governor, police, red cross, mayor and just about anyone who was mildly official in the local government.
While all this was going on, Zach Swank out in Segou was having a work day/opening of his campement there. A good number of volunteers all came out there to help out and have a good time with Zach. I went out as well, but had to bike back in right after i was done planting the sisal plants on the property line on the top of the campement. The only reason that i was required to head back to Kédougou was because the guy that was helping me with the invitations and getting in touch with all the local government folk needed an official stamp on one of the invitations. Kinda annoying but what can you do. Went back, signed and stamped the invitation and then decided to just spend the night in Kédougou. Then it was time to come in and start cooking and getting ready for the 4th!
May
The month of May was quite nice, I got to watch Manchester United wrap up the Premiership surrounded by fervent supporters of both Manchester and Chelsea, who all spoke english! I got to meet Meg's mother and sister on their visit to the dark continent which was nice. I love meeting peoples parents, shows where people get their little quirks and peccadilloes. I met up with Meg and her family in Tamba and immediately got in a car for Meg's village. It was interesting to see Meg with her family and to see their interactions with Meg's host family in Madina. Overall they are very nice and i think that they left a very good impression on Meg's village. I left the day before they did for Kolda so that I could catch the Manchester United Champions league semi final vs Schakle. This was the day before cinco de mayo.
I spent Cinco de Mayo in Kolda where they were having a party and then took off for the coast to the north where they also speak english. There was a handful of us that went to stay at the timeshare that Ibu's dad had let him use. The place was really nice and run by brits. The local staff was great and really liked having some white people that weren't afraid of them stay there! I was there for a few days in which the gardener there befriended us and showed us around Serekunda. Took us to a party on the beach where it was basically all guys chillaxing. Really chill but at the same time seemed very sketch. We stayed a little bit then went to the bars. Bar hoping there was a great time and the people that we were with made it all the more fun. I could bullshit with anyone on the street about english football and everyone was really nice.
I met up with Meg and her family in Dakar right after this as they were getting ready to head back to the states. They were staying at the hotel Al Baraka, which is a very nice hotel that Kev introduced me too a year or two ago. We were able to go to Chez Lutcha while they were here. Always a good meal! Also were able to go to the Pointe Des Almadies for clams and oysters. That is my favourite place to eat in senegal! The furthest point west in Africa and beautiful with the sun setting over the ocean. It also is always delicious! They were only in Dakar for a short while and seemed to have a nice time in general for their whole trip. Coming to Africa for the first time is always an experience.
When I got back to Kédougou it was almost time for the new volunteers to instal at their sites! Its amazing how fast time flies here sometimes. Chris came down to officially instal this group and attended the Bassari initiations with his son JD as well. I was able to go with Chris to Dindefelo so as to greet his family there and to look at the master farmer site and the garden in Segou. We saw both of those and then went to the waterfall where we saw a snake swimming in the water which was fun. We talked about the master farmer program and how Hassana was doing and what he could do better in the future. Overall it was a good visit and gave me an outlet for several of the frustrations that I was having with the project.
It was shortly after this that Arfang came down to do his master farmer tour. We mapped out where the different demo plots were going to be in the field and planned for the next visit where we would map out where the grafted mangos and citrus's would go. We decided on three different demo plots, one of beans and peanuts, one of rice and one of corn. The corn i feel was the hardest to set up as each individual plant has its own hole that was dug and had soil amendments applied to. This is called conservation farming, or farming gods way as the people at ECHO called it. We learned about it when Steve, Jared, Arfang and myself were at their networking seminar in Burkina Faso. The corn was set up as follows. 4 plots, 2 with the holes for each individual plant and 2 where they farm as they normally would next to the conservation farming demo. The rice was a demonstration of appropriate spacing within a plot. All the demos have that aspect incorporated into their plots though as well as the thinning of plants. With rice i guess its a bigger deal though. Normally locals just broadcast their rice seed so deliberately planting them at the correct spacing will show how productive rice can be. The beans were set up as follows. There were 4plots of beans interspaced with plots of peanuts that acted as buffers between the bean plots. This demo was all about the affect of natural pesticides vs chemical pesticides on the beans. one plot is the control with nothing on it, the second is with neem leaf pesticide, the third is yellow sticky traps, and the 4th and final is with chemical pesticides.
The Champions League Final. A very fun evening, alas with a bad outcome for me, but all in all fun. Rooney scoring to make it level at the half was a hell of an accomplishment and Man U were just played off the field in the second, Barça were just too good. At least we scored a goal this time though! We watched the game at this nice Bassasri bar that is right next to a big mosque in town and it was a lot of fun. The crowd was def pro Barça but that didn't stop me from drinking a bunch and yelling at the TV! I stayed and watch the end and the presentation of the trophy and then peaced out afterwards. Funnily enough i left the next morning to go meet up with meg, as she was getting ready to leave for home, so i missed out on all the ridicule that ALL my senegalese friends were going to throw at me because they all know that I support Manchester United. So that at least worked out!
June
June was not a work heavy month, as i was hanging out with meg before she took off for the states. So the first half of the month i spent in Dakar and Palmarin and then the second half back in Kédougou. I basically hung out with Meg while she was getting all her paperwork and COS stuff in order. I was able to get certain things in order that required my presence at the office and Dakar. We went around Dakar looking for last minute gifts for meg's family back in the states. I think she ended up buying 13 jars of jam or something for assorted family members! In all fairness the jam is quite good and is all local fruit that you cant get in the states. I think that she ended up getting several cow horn cups and some jewelry as well. All very nice things. Once Meg was done with med clearance and basically was all COSd, we took off for Palmarin for a few days of tooling around on the beach and mangroves.
The drive down was one of the rides that I would like to forget about! instead of a 7-place, we basically were in a station wagon that had 2 seats put in the back. I was siting on the gas tank and when they filled her up, lucky me, the gas leaked out of the joint of the tank. So that with the shitty seat i was sitting in, I wasn't in the best of moods. It was a nice place and the mangroves were the best part of Palmarin in my opinion. We got to kayak around the mangroves with a really nice guy that had worked with Chris Murphy while he was in Palmarin. We had lunch out in the mangroves with fresh oysters and fish. We passed where the oysters had been grown. They were from a project that a local women's group was doing. It basically was thin planks that were attached to the mangroves and running 6 inches above the water. Strings were hanging off the planks and the oysters grow onto the strings. It was pretty interesting and very delicious!
The ride back to Dakar was much better than the ride down. We had a 7-place pick us up basically from the campament. We made decent time back to Dakar and just kicked it in and around dakar for a day or two till meg had to fly out. While we were waiting for megs flight, we got to meet one of the peace corps fellows that was attending Emory. John was a PCV from Niger and was doing research on polio here in Senegal. We had pizza close to the office and then went out for beer at the Pointe des Almadies which was fun. Late afternoon there is just a fun time. We also ended up going there the night before meg left, after minor financial issues with the ATM. After resolving that we had a good time at the pointe. That walk from the pointe to the office has had many interesting events, from being walked into a dirt mound to falling into large unmarked holes next to the new US embassy, i can honestly say ill never forget anything about the pointe. Seeing Meg off at the airport was the hardest thing that ive had to do in this country. Knowing that I wont be able to see her for at a minimum of 6 months sucks. It was even better when the guards at the door wouldn't let me in and we had to say our goodbyes at the front door of the airport. Meg was crying, i was trying to argue with the guards to let me in, all in all it could have gone alot better, even if saying goodbye is always going to hurt. I decided to walk back to the office after that and also decided to took off for kédougou the next morning.
Well I didnt make it out that next day, and I only made it as far as Klck when I did leave as I had to clear up some details for the master farmer demo plot in Dindefelo. i also was trying to get the fuck out of Dakar, as i had been there for a long time by then. The fact that it was my birthday was really neither here nor there. Birthdays are great and all but outside of getting older and your family and friends that know you well, i dont really like being around people. Its fake is the problem. Perfect example and really the kicker that got me out of dakar, someone i know who doesnt like me, its reciprocal believe me, feigned surprise and delight at hearing it was my birthday and immediately wished me a happy birthday. fuck that. Id rather no one wish me a happy birthday than have fake happy birthdays. Hence only the people i really care about know when my birthday is. So i spent my birthday in Klck getting drunk with some of the new volunteers there and had a good time.
Back in Kédougou it was time to get to work on the dindefelo demo site. We started off with the conservation farming demo. I think that that was as far as we got for that as Hassana had a group of american kids coming in for a trip run by Walking Tree and I had to head back in to Kédougou for the 4th of july prep. I had to get the material needed for the 4k on the 4th ready. Running around turning in invitations and making sure speakers, tents, and chairs were all reserved. Its always a little stressful getting all the different ducks all lined up, but is very rewarding when everything starts going smoothly. CJ was the master of ceremony for this year and therefore delegated all the responsibilities for the party to us Kédougou volunteers. I helped with the pigs and the tents and chairs. For the race i had to make the invitations for the governor, police, red cross, mayor and just about anyone who was mildly official in the local government.
While all this was going on, Zach Swank out in Segou was having a work day/opening of his campement there. A good number of volunteers all came out there to help out and have a good time with Zach. I went out as well, but had to bike back in right after i was done planting the sisal plants on the property line on the top of the campement. The only reason that i was required to head back to Kédougou was because the guy that was helping me with the invitations and getting in touch with all the local government folk needed an official stamp on one of the invitations. Kinda annoying but what can you do. Went back, signed and stamped the invitation and then decided to just spend the night in Kédougou. Then it was time to come in and start cooking and getting ready for the 4th!
5 months left.... part 2 (March and April)
Ok March and April now...
March
So after WAIST we all return to our respective sites and get back to work, well kinda! I had to get back to the agfo regional plan that we were running all over the region with my counterpart karumba. We were still doing the 2nd technical training of the regional strategy and our piece de resistance was approaching. Zach Swank in Segou had just recently found one of the most complete gardens that i've ever seen in my time here in Senegal, just about a stones throw from where he was living! It is owned by the bakers that live in Segou and has been there for about 15yrs +. It sits at the base of the hills that form the border to Guinea and has a natural spring that flows out of hillside that runs year round. They can stick a hose end into the pool that has formed and run it down to where they garden and have their tree nursery and basically have running water! Its amazing! And more than just an amazing set up, the two guys who own it are so motivated to try new technologies and techniques. They understand progress and embrace change with open arms. The son, as its a father and son team that run the show there, can read french and is the driving force behind this quest for new techniques and knowledge. They do basically what ever we tell them in their garden and because they do it exactly as we tell them, they have the best demonstration garden in the region i would say.
That was some background on the field and that all led us to want to have a open field day there to show off all their good work to interested farmers in the region. A NGO in the area was able to let us use their pick up truck for transport, so we had people from all over the dindefelo area at the open field day. We showed off their composting, spacing of plants, hexagonal planting, and their tree nursery there. It was a great meeting and we were able to have lunch as apart of the regional agfo plan budget. I think all in all we had about 60 folk show up from all the surrounding villages and even some people from Ibel! Karumba was on the ticket as well for a tree nursery demo on how to make a tree nursery, what seeds you use and for what. He is getting better and better at doing these types of presentations to people. Hannah, Will, Lil Jess, Zach, Frank, and myself were all there and concurred that it was a very successful field day.
Also in March, Oliver and Ankiths finally COS'd and Steve and myself came up Dakar to see them off. We had a going away party for them and had a great time. We all went out to get Chinese food. It was a pretty large group of people, and a good time. We ended up singing karaoke after adn it basically turned into me Aaron and Emily Scott left closing the place. We head back to the regional house in Dakar to help oliver and ankith pack up and get ready to head to the airport. Always sad to see friends leave and even weirder as it leaves only the year extensioners left in country from my stage.
After getting back from dakar, my work was split between organizing Karumba, trying to get new sites set up for the new stage of volunteers coming in, and working on the demonstration site in Dindefelo. The site set up in bandafassi wasnt terribly hard as there had been volunteers there before and it was basically letting the family know that a new volunteer was going to be coming soon. Organizing Karumba wasnt too hard either as almost all of the villages we were looking to work in had already had the first two visits and trainings. Things in Dindefelo were a little slow as usual, but that was due more to Hassana having things to do in Dakar and the people left there not being terribly invested in the project.
Also in march Aaron came down for a last visit to the region before he left for Peace Corps China. I was also trying to finish up Kevins Case de Santé in Kafori so I didn't get to see him as much as i would have liked. We did go to the Africa Bar a couple times with Ian and other kgou folk. It reminded me of when Aaron came down before WAIST and took off to Guinea and Mali. Same type of an affair only we didn't have to worry about opening the safe this time to get his passport. Before Aaron went on that trip our safe jammed up and would not open! so we had to get Kanté over with a saw of some sort to cut the lock out. Seeing aaron getting ready to leave was a strange time as well. And then seeing pics of him back in NY before taking off for China with Kevin, Ben, Thomas and a few other RPCVs was also quite weird! As I mentioned above, I was trying to finally finish up Kevin's Case de Sante in Kafori around this time as well. Thankfully it is all done now! I had to run out there and give the key to the PCR and then in turn to the Chef de Village who then gave it to the Dr. All in all a very simple affair but necessary. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders and I was thankful for the removal to say the least!
I was able to do a little reading as well, which made for a nice change. Born to Run was the first book that i picked up while sick for a few days. Its a great read and if youre even remotely interested in sports i think you'll like this book. It is the story of a ultra marathon race in Mexico while also simultaneously discussing the evolution of people into being able to walk and then to being able to run. One of my all time favorite books now. I also finished up the Game of Thrones series and am patiently awaiting the next book in the series (which is out now!!). This series is a very good series and the author does a good job of keeping the many twisting and turning plot lines from getting to confusing. I highly recommend both this series and Born to Run for anyone looking for a couple good reads.
April
In April I had a very mixed month. It started out great with me helping the guys at the garden in Segou with their tree nursery and talking about what they wanted to see in a perma-garden there. Then there was the Kolda regional fair in Kolda ville. Very interesting time, i saw alot of the produce that there is in Kolda and learned alot about the appropriate technologies the volunteers down there are using. Martin was there and was getting ready to move to Dakar for his third year extension. We shot the shit about the best way to make moonshine from a still. Always the conversations I have with Martin are very interesting. While in Kolda one of the volunteers there, I think it was Will, had just downloaded the first HBO Game of Thrones episode and i immediately was addicted. It sticks quite well with the books and i'm excited to see what they will do with it.
Right after the regional fair, I went back to Tambacounda and Kédougou to get the tree sacs that had arrived to kgou and the farmers that are working with us. That was fun trying to organize all the drop offs of the tree sacs and getting people starting their tree nurseries. It turned out that we didn't get the tree sacs that we ordered, THere are two sizes, one for fruit trees and one for live fencing, and we didn't get enough large fruit tree sacs. This was right before the new volunteers came for their volunteer visits. The rest of the month was kinda a blur and saw me in Kolda for the Sus Ag summit and then in Dindefelo as well as Fungolimbi. Ill leave it at that.
March
So after WAIST we all return to our respective sites and get back to work, well kinda! I had to get back to the agfo regional plan that we were running all over the region with my counterpart karumba. We were still doing the 2nd technical training of the regional strategy and our piece de resistance was approaching. Zach Swank in Segou had just recently found one of the most complete gardens that i've ever seen in my time here in Senegal, just about a stones throw from where he was living! It is owned by the bakers that live in Segou and has been there for about 15yrs +. It sits at the base of the hills that form the border to Guinea and has a natural spring that flows out of hillside that runs year round. They can stick a hose end into the pool that has formed and run it down to where they garden and have their tree nursery and basically have running water! Its amazing! And more than just an amazing set up, the two guys who own it are so motivated to try new technologies and techniques. They understand progress and embrace change with open arms. The son, as its a father and son team that run the show there, can read french and is the driving force behind this quest for new techniques and knowledge. They do basically what ever we tell them in their garden and because they do it exactly as we tell them, they have the best demonstration garden in the region i would say.
That was some background on the field and that all led us to want to have a open field day there to show off all their good work to interested farmers in the region. A NGO in the area was able to let us use their pick up truck for transport, so we had people from all over the dindefelo area at the open field day. We showed off their composting, spacing of plants, hexagonal planting, and their tree nursery there. It was a great meeting and we were able to have lunch as apart of the regional agfo plan budget. I think all in all we had about 60 folk show up from all the surrounding villages and even some people from Ibel! Karumba was on the ticket as well for a tree nursery demo on how to make a tree nursery, what seeds you use and for what. He is getting better and better at doing these types of presentations to people. Hannah, Will, Lil Jess, Zach, Frank, and myself were all there and concurred that it was a very successful field day.
Also in March, Oliver and Ankiths finally COS'd and Steve and myself came up Dakar to see them off. We had a going away party for them and had a great time. We all went out to get Chinese food. It was a pretty large group of people, and a good time. We ended up singing karaoke after adn it basically turned into me Aaron and Emily Scott left closing the place. We head back to the regional house in Dakar to help oliver and ankith pack up and get ready to head to the airport. Always sad to see friends leave and even weirder as it leaves only the year extensioners left in country from my stage.
After getting back from dakar, my work was split between organizing Karumba, trying to get new sites set up for the new stage of volunteers coming in, and working on the demonstration site in Dindefelo. The site set up in bandafassi wasnt terribly hard as there had been volunteers there before and it was basically letting the family know that a new volunteer was going to be coming soon. Organizing Karumba wasnt too hard either as almost all of the villages we were looking to work in had already had the first two visits and trainings. Things in Dindefelo were a little slow as usual, but that was due more to Hassana having things to do in Dakar and the people left there not being terribly invested in the project.
Also in march Aaron came down for a last visit to the region before he left for Peace Corps China. I was also trying to finish up Kevins Case de Santé in Kafori so I didn't get to see him as much as i would have liked. We did go to the Africa Bar a couple times with Ian and other kgou folk. It reminded me of when Aaron came down before WAIST and took off to Guinea and Mali. Same type of an affair only we didn't have to worry about opening the safe this time to get his passport. Before Aaron went on that trip our safe jammed up and would not open! so we had to get Kanté over with a saw of some sort to cut the lock out. Seeing aaron getting ready to leave was a strange time as well. And then seeing pics of him back in NY before taking off for China with Kevin, Ben, Thomas and a few other RPCVs was also quite weird! As I mentioned above, I was trying to finally finish up Kevin's Case de Sante in Kafori around this time as well. Thankfully it is all done now! I had to run out there and give the key to the PCR and then in turn to the Chef de Village who then gave it to the Dr. All in all a very simple affair but necessary. It was a weight lifted off my shoulders and I was thankful for the removal to say the least!
I was able to do a little reading as well, which made for a nice change. Born to Run was the first book that i picked up while sick for a few days. Its a great read and if youre even remotely interested in sports i think you'll like this book. It is the story of a ultra marathon race in Mexico while also simultaneously discussing the evolution of people into being able to walk and then to being able to run. One of my all time favorite books now. I also finished up the Game of Thrones series and am patiently awaiting the next book in the series (which is out now!!). This series is a very good series and the author does a good job of keeping the many twisting and turning plot lines from getting to confusing. I highly recommend both this series and Born to Run for anyone looking for a couple good reads.
April
In April I had a very mixed month. It started out great with me helping the guys at the garden in Segou with their tree nursery and talking about what they wanted to see in a perma-garden there. Then there was the Kolda regional fair in Kolda ville. Very interesting time, i saw alot of the produce that there is in Kolda and learned alot about the appropriate technologies the volunteers down there are using. Martin was there and was getting ready to move to Dakar for his third year extension. We shot the shit about the best way to make moonshine from a still. Always the conversations I have with Martin are very interesting. While in Kolda one of the volunteers there, I think it was Will, had just downloaded the first HBO Game of Thrones episode and i immediately was addicted. It sticks quite well with the books and i'm excited to see what they will do with it.
Right after the regional fair, I went back to Tambacounda and Kédougou to get the tree sacs that had arrived to kgou and the farmers that are working with us. That was fun trying to organize all the drop offs of the tree sacs and getting people starting their tree nurseries. It turned out that we didn't get the tree sacs that we ordered, THere are two sizes, one for fruit trees and one for live fencing, and we didn't get enough large fruit tree sacs. This was right before the new volunteers came for their volunteer visits. The rest of the month was kinda a blur and saw me in Kolda for the Sus Ag summit and then in Dindefelo as well as Fungolimbi. Ill leave it at that.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
5 months left.... part 1 (January and February)
So while there are only 5 months left in my peace corps service, i havent updated in the last 7 or so months. Whoops. Oh well, not sure if i can really give a recap of what all has gone on in that time period but ill give it a try in installments of 2 months!
January
So lets start at January then. We had our regional retreat in mako at the beginning of the month where we talked about regional strategy and all the projects everyone had going on. I was able to present the idea that Ian Kate and myself had come up with regarding the regional agroforestry strategy. The basic idea is for a network of farmers throughout the region that act as relais for information sharing and demonstration fields. I think that it could have a interesting affect on the region in the cataloging of work partners and retention of institutional knowledge. We'll see how it has faired after this first pepinere season.
We also had the Ambasadpr visit the region during january to inspect some of the US government funded projects that are present here in the community. As it happened, Hassana was having a baptism for his baby girl at the same time as the ambassadors visit. With Hassanas father being the director of Peace Corps Senegal and a good friend of Mrs. Bernicats, Chris invited her to attend. It was an interesting affair, TV cameras filmed the whole event with Mrs. Bernicats entourage running her time meticulously, or at least trying to in the face of typical african delays. A few days later when she was about done with her trip, she invited a few of the volunteers to dinner with her at the Bedik, the nice hotel she was staying at. Dinner was nice, Mrs. Bernicat is a very down to earth person and very friendly. She even stopped by the night after that before she left to see the Peace Corps house and to attend one of the pizza nights that David threw at his house behind the CTC.
Megs came to visit toward the end of the month as well. We biked to Segou and Dindefelo, spending a few days out there. I was called back to Kédougou to meet with an Oromine guy (Oromine is one of the big gold mining companies that operates in the area around Sabodala in the north of the region). He has a interesting plan to reforest some of the areas that are going to be disturbed by the mining. It is an interesting plan and my counterpart from Trees for the Future was assisting them in the creation of a large scale tree nursery for their reforestation efforts.
February
In February, I was able to move around the region a little bit more than I usually do. I was able to go out to Salemata and kick it with steve, Ian, and tatiana for a day in Salemata. Ian and Steve were having a bunch of stuff delivered out to their sites via camion, so i decided to hop in and roll out with them. It was just Ian, myself, a guy from Ians village we picked up along the way and the driver al the way to Diarra Pont about 60 odd km away. We dropped off Ians stuff in Diarra Pont and met up with Steve there. From there we all rolled out to Steve's site of Kirkeressi to drop off Steve's stuff. We got into Kirkeressi after dark and we were all ready to go to bed. The next day we ended up drinking a lot, starting off with a bottle of gin in village before coming in to see the lummo (Senegalese market days). While sitting in one of the campament in town, Chez Gilberts, we enjoyed some lovely 'Le Pichet" wine. While there, two french tourists came in and had lunch. They showed up in this little Peugeot thing that looked way out of place in Salemata. They told us that they were going to Ethiolo and we all kinda looked at each other and then told them that they wouldnt be able to make it there in that car. They said they were going to try anyway. I remember driving out there for Tatiana's instal and how crazy the ride was! Sliding all over the place, really steep hills with not much of a road going up it. All that being in a Peace Corps land cruiser! No chance that thing was getting out there! We stayed there till evening time and Tatiana took off to go back to Ethiolo. Ian Steve and I had a very interesting but very delicious dinner at Chez Gilberts. I can now boast of having eaten porcupine! We had it with a nice onion sauce and spaghetti. Ian and I had a fun night time blast back to Diarra Pont after having drank all day and eaten a delicious dinner. It was a lot of fun if not really tiring!
Waking up in Diarra Pont and listening to Fac Alliance on Ians casset player as we made a avacado tree nursery in his back yard was pretty fun! Fac Alliance is a band from Guinea that sings in Pulaar, so all the vilages in Kédougou that speak Pulaar, love it. When we were heading to the edge of the village to head off for teh rest of out day, Ian stopped by to great one of his work partners. We arrive in the compound and say "As-Salamu Alaykum" to no response. The guys son also comes into the compound and tells us that his dad is in the back yard of his hut with his wife. We go back there and he is hunched over cutting something up. Ian and I greet him and his wife, seeing that he is cutting up some kind of goat. Ian and Momadou talk a little and then Momadou gives Ian a bunch of this meat. The description of the meat is as 'mbaywa ladde' which means sheep of the forest. So to us white people, that means bushbuck. We both kinda look at each other and then decide to go back to Ians hut. We cut up the meat and then marinate it in honey and cut up onions that Ian had in his hut. We then finally took off for the rest of our day.
After leaving Ian and I went to check out a site that the volunteers in the area thought might make a good new site for a volunteer. It was not too far from Ians site but it did look quite nice! Picturesque village sitting on the lower slope on the eat side of a beautiful little valley with a seasonal stream in the middle of the little valley.. Evidently there is a guy there that would make a great counterpart for a volunteer as well. Evidently the guy is a rockstar when it comes to learning new techniques and is really motivated to go forward. Only bad part is two fold, there was a problem with the water situation in that most of the wells in town went dry by the end of the dry season. Second part is that the rockstar counterpart has had some horrible luck with just about everything. Children getting sick, family members dying, just problem after problem. We went and checked out the gardening area next to the stream bed and saw the types of vegetables that they were growing. When we went to leave, the chef de village gave us a small bag of onions that the women's group had produced from the garden.
After checking out that site, Ian and I then went to Tatiana's site of Ethiolo. Ian was helping Tatiana and her village with a reforestation project for the community forest that sits on the hills next to the Basari's village. It was a fun morning. We ended up with several hundred tree sacs filled and two large bare root beds created. It was a very nice fenced in garden where we made the tree nurseries. It was the first time i had been to Ethiolo for a extended period of time in almost 2years! Its an interesting town because they are so used to white people. It makes for an interesting atmosphere. And then they are Basari and therefore christian and drink. It makes for a very fun time.
When I got back into Kédougou with Ian, I had to get in touch with my counterpart about the upcoming Trees for the Future/Peace Corps agroforestry informational tourney. Before we came in, Ian and I had planned on going out to check out a artisanal mining camp that isn't too far away from his site, but Ian hurt his hand and we had to go in to have that checked out. The tourney with Karumba was the first of three installments where Karumba came out and instructed. It was the start of the Kédougou regional agroforestry plan. The first was a informational meeting in villages where volunteers were located, where all the different agroforestry technologies are being explained. Overall the first part of the program was quite a success. A great deal of people were in attendance and many said they would come back for the technical installment later in the month
The second leg of the plan was for tree nursery creation. Karumba went around and held demonstrations on how to make a tree nursery and how to properly pretreat the seeds. Overall there were less people at this second meeting as the idea was to wean off the people that weren't really interested in the project. We even held a few seed collecting days in different areas of the region. I have a weird eye these days when it comes to IDing trees while i'm out and about on my bike. It only took 3 years to acquire but now im pretty good at IDing the trees that we use! I had been noticing some of the trees that we use the most in live fencing and other agroforestry technologies around and decided to start mapping them out and make a plan for seed collection. We ended up having two big seed collection days, one out by Franks site for Acacia nilotica and then one out near KC's site for Acacia senegal. Frank and bunch of the guys who were going to be creating pepineres this year came out and helped us collect the seeds in mbanding. It was a good time and we collected lots of seed pods at both the collection days.
Towards the end of the month, we had several things going on inside of Peace Corps Senegal. There was the Agroforestry summit in Thies plus WAIST and I believe also a all volunteer conference. The Ag/Fo summit was wonderfully placed to straddle my one year anniversary with meg and a agfo summit was really the last place i was looking to be for that! Alas I had to present the kédougou regional agroforesry plan to the assembled volunteers and then left for Dakar afterwards! Before leaving I had to sort out the tree sac order that the region of kédougou put together for the coming tree nursery season. There was a few issues with the collaboration with trees for the future and Peace Corps just buying them all the stuff they needed for their projects. While the trees for the future program here in senegal is very intertwined with the Peace Corps program, this still left a bad feeling in several peoples mouths. Everything was resolved though and all our tree sacs were ordered.
In Dakar Meg and I went out to the french cultural center for valentines day and all of our other usual haunts. Between nice cream, the point de almadies, and chez lucha, we ate very well and had a very good time. As WASIT was happening then as well we were able to stay at our home stay with two very nice friends of the PCMO Dr. Ullie. They were a Dutch and German couple that work for the german development agency. Very nice people and very hospitable. Now, what to say about WASIT. For those of you who dont know what WAIST is, it stands for West African Invitational Softball Tournament. Basically its a release valve for all volunteers to go up to dakar and have a good time with all the other volunteers in the country as well as the other neighboring Peace Corps countries. It turns into a big shit show and is an absolute blast! Kegougou always plays with the region to the north of us as we are both sparsely populated with volunteers. We always don a uniform/costume that is ridiculous and this year was no exception! We were Peace 'Cops and Robbers'. It was a blast. Meg and I went trawling through the fukiji for a costume for me and came up trumps! I found a cabbie hat that said fashion police on it and from there took the Cop angle to that of a Lt. Dangle fashion cop type person. It was alot of fun. Meg was Yoda as Kolda was Space Corps, anything to do with star wars and movies like that. Somehow i ended up being the captain for the team, i think because no one else wanted to do it! So i got to 'pick' our roster, which basically consisted of before the game starting, forfeiting and then yelling out random names for random positions on the field. It was a riotously good time. Cape Verde and Mali PCV's made the games we played against them a blast as well.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, of the tree days of WAIST, i think Meg and I only made it out in the evening once! I ended up drinking too much and passing out to recover and rally only to pass out for 4 hours! by that time we just stayed in! The one night that we did go out, we had dinner with our home stay family which was very nice and we learned a little about their family. After dinner we went to the american club where the event for the evening was being held. It was a good time and most of the guys from my stage ended up getting thrown into the pool. That sounds nice and all, but it was fucken cold! OK so not american cold, but senegal cold WITH a sea breeze. So i had to borrow mika's spare pants and shirt that he happened to have with him. Hes kinda a small guy and i was very surprised that I could wear his clothes!
So thats the update for January and February minus my x-mas and new years trip. Im holding the notes from that so i WILL write that up soon. Now onto March and April....
January
So lets start at January then. We had our regional retreat in mako at the beginning of the month where we talked about regional strategy and all the projects everyone had going on. I was able to present the idea that Ian Kate and myself had come up with regarding the regional agroforestry strategy. The basic idea is for a network of farmers throughout the region that act as relais for information sharing and demonstration fields. I think that it could have a interesting affect on the region in the cataloging of work partners and retention of institutional knowledge. We'll see how it has faired after this first pepinere season.
We also had the Ambasadpr visit the region during january to inspect some of the US government funded projects that are present here in the community. As it happened, Hassana was having a baptism for his baby girl at the same time as the ambassadors visit. With Hassanas father being the director of Peace Corps Senegal and a good friend of Mrs. Bernicats, Chris invited her to attend. It was an interesting affair, TV cameras filmed the whole event with Mrs. Bernicats entourage running her time meticulously, or at least trying to in the face of typical african delays. A few days later when she was about done with her trip, she invited a few of the volunteers to dinner with her at the Bedik, the nice hotel she was staying at. Dinner was nice, Mrs. Bernicat is a very down to earth person and very friendly. She even stopped by the night after that before she left to see the Peace Corps house and to attend one of the pizza nights that David threw at his house behind the CTC.
Megs came to visit toward the end of the month as well. We biked to Segou and Dindefelo, spending a few days out there. I was called back to Kédougou to meet with an Oromine guy (Oromine is one of the big gold mining companies that operates in the area around Sabodala in the north of the region). He has a interesting plan to reforest some of the areas that are going to be disturbed by the mining. It is an interesting plan and my counterpart from Trees for the Future was assisting them in the creation of a large scale tree nursery for their reforestation efforts.
February
In February, I was able to move around the region a little bit more than I usually do. I was able to go out to Salemata and kick it with steve, Ian, and tatiana for a day in Salemata. Ian and Steve were having a bunch of stuff delivered out to their sites via camion, so i decided to hop in and roll out with them. It was just Ian, myself, a guy from Ians village we picked up along the way and the driver al the way to Diarra Pont about 60 odd km away. We dropped off Ians stuff in Diarra Pont and met up with Steve there. From there we all rolled out to Steve's site of Kirkeressi to drop off Steve's stuff. We got into Kirkeressi after dark and we were all ready to go to bed. The next day we ended up drinking a lot, starting off with a bottle of gin in village before coming in to see the lummo (Senegalese market days). While sitting in one of the campament in town, Chez Gilberts, we enjoyed some lovely 'Le Pichet" wine. While there, two french tourists came in and had lunch. They showed up in this little Peugeot thing that looked way out of place in Salemata. They told us that they were going to Ethiolo and we all kinda looked at each other and then told them that they wouldnt be able to make it there in that car. They said they were going to try anyway. I remember driving out there for Tatiana's instal and how crazy the ride was! Sliding all over the place, really steep hills with not much of a road going up it. All that being in a Peace Corps land cruiser! No chance that thing was getting out there! We stayed there till evening time and Tatiana took off to go back to Ethiolo. Ian Steve and I had a very interesting but very delicious dinner at Chez Gilberts. I can now boast of having eaten porcupine! We had it with a nice onion sauce and spaghetti. Ian and I had a fun night time blast back to Diarra Pont after having drank all day and eaten a delicious dinner. It was a lot of fun if not really tiring!
Waking up in Diarra Pont and listening to Fac Alliance on Ians casset player as we made a avacado tree nursery in his back yard was pretty fun! Fac Alliance is a band from Guinea that sings in Pulaar, so all the vilages in Kédougou that speak Pulaar, love it. When we were heading to the edge of the village to head off for teh rest of out day, Ian stopped by to great one of his work partners. We arrive in the compound and say "As-Salamu Alaykum" to no response. The guys son also comes into the compound and tells us that his dad is in the back yard of his hut with his wife. We go back there and he is hunched over cutting something up. Ian and I greet him and his wife, seeing that he is cutting up some kind of goat. Ian and Momadou talk a little and then Momadou gives Ian a bunch of this meat. The description of the meat is as 'mbaywa ladde' which means sheep of the forest. So to us white people, that means bushbuck. We both kinda look at each other and then decide to go back to Ians hut. We cut up the meat and then marinate it in honey and cut up onions that Ian had in his hut. We then finally took off for the rest of our day.
After leaving Ian and I went to check out a site that the volunteers in the area thought might make a good new site for a volunteer. It was not too far from Ians site but it did look quite nice! Picturesque village sitting on the lower slope on the eat side of a beautiful little valley with a seasonal stream in the middle of the little valley.. Evidently there is a guy there that would make a great counterpart for a volunteer as well. Evidently the guy is a rockstar when it comes to learning new techniques and is really motivated to go forward. Only bad part is two fold, there was a problem with the water situation in that most of the wells in town went dry by the end of the dry season. Second part is that the rockstar counterpart has had some horrible luck with just about everything. Children getting sick, family members dying, just problem after problem. We went and checked out the gardening area next to the stream bed and saw the types of vegetables that they were growing. When we went to leave, the chef de village gave us a small bag of onions that the women's group had produced from the garden.
After checking out that site, Ian and I then went to Tatiana's site of Ethiolo. Ian was helping Tatiana and her village with a reforestation project for the community forest that sits on the hills next to the Basari's village. It was a fun morning. We ended up with several hundred tree sacs filled and two large bare root beds created. It was a very nice fenced in garden where we made the tree nurseries. It was the first time i had been to Ethiolo for a extended period of time in almost 2years! Its an interesting town because they are so used to white people. It makes for an interesting atmosphere. And then they are Basari and therefore christian and drink. It makes for a very fun time.
When I got back into Kédougou with Ian, I had to get in touch with my counterpart about the upcoming Trees for the Future/Peace Corps agroforestry informational tourney. Before we came in, Ian and I had planned on going out to check out a artisanal mining camp that isn't too far away from his site, but Ian hurt his hand and we had to go in to have that checked out. The tourney with Karumba was the first of three installments where Karumba came out and instructed. It was the start of the Kédougou regional agroforestry plan. The first was a informational meeting in villages where volunteers were located, where all the different agroforestry technologies are being explained. Overall the first part of the program was quite a success. A great deal of people were in attendance and many said they would come back for the technical installment later in the month
The second leg of the plan was for tree nursery creation. Karumba went around and held demonstrations on how to make a tree nursery and how to properly pretreat the seeds. Overall there were less people at this second meeting as the idea was to wean off the people that weren't really interested in the project. We even held a few seed collecting days in different areas of the region. I have a weird eye these days when it comes to IDing trees while i'm out and about on my bike. It only took 3 years to acquire but now im pretty good at IDing the trees that we use! I had been noticing some of the trees that we use the most in live fencing and other agroforestry technologies around and decided to start mapping them out and make a plan for seed collection. We ended up having two big seed collection days, one out by Franks site for Acacia nilotica and then one out near KC's site for Acacia senegal. Frank and bunch of the guys who were going to be creating pepineres this year came out and helped us collect the seeds in mbanding. It was a good time and we collected lots of seed pods at both the collection days.
Towards the end of the month, we had several things going on inside of Peace Corps Senegal. There was the Agroforestry summit in Thies plus WAIST and I believe also a all volunteer conference. The Ag/Fo summit was wonderfully placed to straddle my one year anniversary with meg and a agfo summit was really the last place i was looking to be for that! Alas I had to present the kédougou regional agroforesry plan to the assembled volunteers and then left for Dakar afterwards! Before leaving I had to sort out the tree sac order that the region of kédougou put together for the coming tree nursery season. There was a few issues with the collaboration with trees for the future and Peace Corps just buying them all the stuff they needed for their projects. While the trees for the future program here in senegal is very intertwined with the Peace Corps program, this still left a bad feeling in several peoples mouths. Everything was resolved though and all our tree sacs were ordered.
In Dakar Meg and I went out to the french cultural center for valentines day and all of our other usual haunts. Between nice cream, the point de almadies, and chez lucha, we ate very well and had a very good time. As WASIT was happening then as well we were able to stay at our home stay with two very nice friends of the PCMO Dr. Ullie. They were a Dutch and German couple that work for the german development agency. Very nice people and very hospitable. Now, what to say about WASIT. For those of you who dont know what WAIST is, it stands for West African Invitational Softball Tournament. Basically its a release valve for all volunteers to go up to dakar and have a good time with all the other volunteers in the country as well as the other neighboring Peace Corps countries. It turns into a big shit show and is an absolute blast! Kegougou always plays with the region to the north of us as we are both sparsely populated with volunteers. We always don a uniform/costume that is ridiculous and this year was no exception! We were Peace 'Cops and Robbers'. It was a blast. Meg and I went trawling through the fukiji for a costume for me and came up trumps! I found a cabbie hat that said fashion police on it and from there took the Cop angle to that of a Lt. Dangle fashion cop type person. It was alot of fun. Meg was Yoda as Kolda was Space Corps, anything to do with star wars and movies like that. Somehow i ended up being the captain for the team, i think because no one else wanted to do it! So i got to 'pick' our roster, which basically consisted of before the game starting, forfeiting and then yelling out random names for random positions on the field. It was a riotously good time. Cape Verde and Mali PCV's made the games we played against them a blast as well.
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, of the tree days of WAIST, i think Meg and I only made it out in the evening once! I ended up drinking too much and passing out to recover and rally only to pass out for 4 hours! by that time we just stayed in! The one night that we did go out, we had dinner with our home stay family which was very nice and we learned a little about their family. After dinner we went to the american club where the event for the evening was being held. It was a good time and most of the guys from my stage ended up getting thrown into the pool. That sounds nice and all, but it was fucken cold! OK so not american cold, but senegal cold WITH a sea breeze. So i had to borrow mika's spare pants and shirt that he happened to have with him. Hes kinda a small guy and i was very surprised that I could wear his clothes!
So thats the update for January and February minus my x-mas and new years trip. Im holding the notes from that so i WILL write that up soon. Now onto March and April....
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