Work updates: I recently held an agricultural training of trainers seminar in my village which went really well! I really enjoyed having the seminar, and yes it was the first time I’ve had a seminar so others can definitely learn from my mistakes, and I learned from my mistakes as well. It seems everyone who attended really enjoyed the seminar, and I even had some PCVs come help out too. Youssoupha a PC trainer came to train the participants, he covered tons of topics including zai holes, mulching, double digging, companion planting, compost, proper tree care, pesticides, proper watering techniques when using water pumps, etc. It was an outrageous amount of information and knowledge he shared with all of us. We created our own sense of a schedule which helped the PCVs know what was going on and the trainer Youssoupha to help people stay focused. We attempted to have lecture for about 1-2, then have a hands on demonstration; this was really helpful for the people to see how the concepts are applicable in their fields and Youssoupha was able to better explain the procedures. We held all of the demonstrations at the school, which is located right next to the venue we had the seminar at, the school is at the edge of the village but people frequent that area when leaving the village making it a perfect place for passer bys to witness the techniques. We did 2 seeded Moringa beds, one was double dug, the other was done by a participant using their traditional techniques, we then forced a stick into the beds to show the difference in depths. We added the soil amenities needed such as manure, Neem leaves, and ash; then assigned someone to water the beds. Ivra, a man from my village was selected because he lives right next to the school. It seems everyone took away something from the seminar, and will hopefully share the knowledge, I’d like to hold a meeting in a few weeks with the attendees and invite other people from the village just for a short 2 hour seminar for the new trainers to train others- just a simple round table seminar. Photo by: Madeline Tiee
The participants that attended were scattered between those involved in various groups including microlending, rice fields, hygiene committees, gardeners, and the Tostan alphabetization teacher (who invited his regional representative), and the regional representative from the local NGO Counterpart International. The seminar was semi-formal, it was held in my village giving it a more laid back atmosphere, but the attendees were all given notebooks, and pens, including certificates after the seminar. I think they all took a lot from this seminar, many people keep telling me that Youssoupha promised them seeds, which he didn’t but I’m gonna try to find out if I can set up a seed distributor in the village. I want to find a tree seeds distributor somewhere near by purchase some seeds and sell them to the people who want them so I can continue this with someone from the village; also if the people buy the seeds they’re more than likely to take care of the trees- just saying. It’s the same with my personal items, if I purchased it I know how hard I worked for that money and I’m willing to take better care of my stuff.
So after the Ag Seminar I was exhausted and trying to round up all the little things I had borrowed, just wrap everything up before it gets dark. A teacher comes up to me and says, I need you to draw me something for my lesson tomorrow, and I need it before I go to bed so I can write my lesson based on what you draw…. I look at Sarah Keyes who was a trooper and SOOO helpful through all of this, and I tell her our work isn’t over yet. So Sarah is given a little while to rest as I draw my picture of a little boy peeing in a toilet and another one of a little boy peeing on the wall, as I finish up Sarah starts on a picture of the river and all the activities people use it for – ultimately to later drink the water… It was a hygiene lesson, so Sarah and I start coloring, working under candle light and cell phone flashlights, exhausted, hysterical, hungry, and I’m not artistic. Sarah suggests I should make the cool designs in the little boys head that the Senegalese men sometimes get shaved into their heads, such as zig zags… I think it’s a great idea and now my man has what looks like thunder bolts going down the back of his head- professional Hadiel, it gathers others attention. I deliver the pictures to the teacher who wasn’t asleep yet, I made my deadline, he looks at it and I point to the little boy and goes, “he’s cool, check out his head” then laughed at my own stupid humor, and you know that laugh of exhaustion- it sounds a little crazy, that was my laugh. The teacher just looked at it and goes, thanks this looks really good.
Sarah and I pass out, I wake up early in the morning and allow Sarah to sleep in, then I get sucked into a meeting of a man just yelling at me because he wasn’t at a meeting about the Cas de Sante and he’s the treasurer, and it was my fault that I haven’t been in contact with him about the Cas de Sante. You can’t yell at me, I don’t care what language but I have to defend myself, and so that’s what happened. My father laughed hysterical at all the things I said (he probably apologized for the crazy American’s ways after I left), but I think people understood where I was coming from and I think I had a large enough audience to know that they can’t blame me for their mistakes. I do realize I made a mistake and I will change that for the future, which I told him, but he has to realize his mistake as well and be aware that he can’t rely on others if he wants to get things done. Thankfully Sarah was at my site still so I could get that venting off my chest ASAP rather than calling a volunteer to explain, so I go back in my room and have verbal throw up. Amber arrives at my site a little while later and we get prepared because that was the first day of CAS DE SANTE Project!! We purchased some paint a few weeks before and I postponed the painting process until the Ag Seminar was over, and I mean literally the day after the Ag Seminar we painted the entire Cas de Sante, it was also exhausting! It went really well though, and my brother was really helpful. Our group of painters, Sarah, Amber, Usman, his friend- dunno his name, and me. Why did we paint the Cas de Sante and not hire someone? Because I’m cheap, have 2 hands, free labor (thanks Sarah and Amber), and if the village doesn’t sweat for it, they won’t take care of it. It looked awesome, you can see pictures. I thought our room was going to be red, no they wanted it pink. I thought the color was hideous, like bubble gum throw up, but the Senegalese LOVED it. Usman and I had a competition who ever room was better didn’t have to paint the last room (totally my idea, obviously- I don’t think they set up competitions of this nature) everyone loved my room because of the color. Gross, but whatevs. So! Paint of the cas de santé, check. Now we’re waiting to get benches made (also free because I’m making people in the village do this as part of their community contribution) we haven’t been able to find good wood to get the benches made with though, so we’re waiting for those to arrive. Then we’ve got a shade structure to put up and then hopefully the last thing is just the medication. NEAT! Hopefully everything goes smoothly, which it probably won’t but that’s fine I’m ready for a few bumps in the road.
The new stage has arrived, they came into country I believe March 9th, it’s exciting to have some clean people fresh off the plane. The Podor department was suppose to get a new volunteer but because of some unforeseen challenges we will not be receiving a new volunteer. The Matam region (to the east) and the walo (west) will be getting new volunteers but the volunteers right in the middle will not. It’s still just volunteers from my stage and one older volunteer from the Urban Ag sector.
The Podor Department, aka Team Podor is planning a Girls Camp hopefully held during July 10-July 16th, this is a leadership camp, with many different activites/lessons each day including cultural exchange, arts and crafts, environmental, business skills etc. The planning of this camp started about 2 months ago and has been going really well, kind of slow just because we’re dealing with everyone’s schedules and a few volunteers (including myself) will be taking vacation soon. We will be working with girls who are in the oldest class at the primary school (equiv to 6th grade), and the youngest class at the college (7th grade). We’ll also be working with the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship winners Jonno worked with last year, they’ll act as the Jr. Camp Leaders. The amazing language instructor Sakhir will hopefully help us, coming on the last day (the same day the participants fathers come) having a discussion with the fathers about the girls’ education. FOLLOWED by, the girls presenting their dream job, future goals, and how they’ll obtain it, etc; to their fathers. It’s going to be an amazing Camp and we’ve got great ideas flowing for it all, and it’s been really great working on this! I’m really enjoying doing group projects such as this, and Team Podor works really well together.
Still doing the English classes, we haven’t had too many classes though because I normally come to Ndioum on the weekends, not always of course but I feel guilty leaving them. Not many students still attend the lessons though and we’re just teaching random stuff at this point because of the stagnation of attendees. I have 3 students who could fool you into thinking they’re fluent. They’re amazing! Boys group and Girls group haven’t been happening either, just been super busy.
I recently hosted a CIEE student March 20th (Sunday), I don’t know if I wrote about the last one Kat- she came during the month of November, this student’s name is Shaina and she was really cool. It was a great experience, but sadly I got really sick the day she came to my site. Vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pains, light headedness, this lasted for the whole time she was there; but there was one day I was able to get up and do stuff so I took her to see the monkeys, and take an adventure on my nature walk out to Peru (where the gardens are). The day after that we were leaving to come to Ndioum she would spend the night in Ndioum then continue to Dakar, and I’ve just been hanging out in Ndioum. Feeling much better, and procrastinating work. I’ll be returning to site tomorrow, to do random work that I needed help with and thought the CIEE student would be a perfect form of free labor, but I was way too sick to do anything.
A about 3 weeks ago I did an art project with the 4th grade class at the Primary School, we drew pictures that represented Aram, and wrote about why we drew each of the things this was for the International Art Exchange program, it went really well. The pictures are amazing, they're also posted on my picasa web album. The kids didn't really describe why each thing was used/drawn, it was hard to explain to them that other people don't see charrettes, what are charrettes used for. They just responded "well we see it, so we drew it" yes ... but why?! I'm gonna go ahead and translate what they wrote in french into Pulaar and English and submit it. It sucks they didn't describe the things correctly but I think I can just write a letter. It'll be interesting to get the other schools pictures. This exchange program works by submitting 25+ pictures by 2 deadlines (jan or may) from the address you send it they'll send the pictures to another school that's participating with the same grade level and I'll receive pictures from another part of the world but the same grade level and we'll read over the children's art and discuss the differences, tying in a cross cultural lesson. Fun! I hope when I send 'em they'll be received before May 3rd (the deadline).
My boss will be coming up to my site soon to have a meeting with my village about their expectations, I’m having some difficulty getting people to take responsibility for the projects/ just working with me. I a lot of the work I’m doing is going great don’t get me wrong, and obviously I’m busy but the work I’m doing isn’t working with Senegalese people if you’ve noticed, I’m independently doing a lot of this work. I want the village to be motivated enough to want to work with me and we can do projects together, but it’s just not happening that way. I’ve been keeping myself busy, obviously with all this other work and I’m heading up the Girls Camp so that’s been really good, not saying I’m in charge because this is very much so a team effort, I’m the Girls Camp party planner, keeping us organized and delegating responsibilities you could say. I’m excited my boss is taking the time to come to my site and talk to the village, I hope that the teachers will also be present because that’s been a frustrating group to work with. I think this will be good that he comes and understands the complications and can advice me. The thing is I love my village, and the people, it’s amazing! It’s a great place to live, honestly it’s beautiful, but it’s hard to do the work.
There are a few other trainings for the new stage I might be involved with one of them, I’m not positive yet, I received a text saying I was signed up for it already- miscommunication I believe. So I’m not sure if I’ll be a part of it or not, we’ll soon find out. If so, that means I’ll be in Thies April 18th. Like I said nothing is known yet, so I’m not holding my breath. The training is about “Behavior Change”.
My SeneGAD (Senegal Gender and Development) position is --- well its there. I don’t really know what my position is and that’s because of the lack of communication, the person I’m replacing is incredibly busy so I’m just waiting to hear about what’s expected of me, or what I need to do. I will attend the new stages training May 10th to do a presentation about SeneGAD activities, which will exciting once again I don’t really know what I’m doing so I need to try to go over the top rather than just settle for a half ass job. May 13th is the new stages swear in, when they become actual volunteers and not trainees; I’ll also attend that hopefully and eat some amazing food, then May 14th I’ll leave to go to Thailand!! What what! I’m super excited, nervous, and scared because of my A) lack of planning (I know the places, kind of, that I’ll be visiting) B) lack of language skills C) I’m doing this on my own. But all of those reasons make it sooo exciting, this is something completely new and I need a switch of pace. That sounds weird seeing as I’m living in Senegal, but everything in Senegal has become part of my life, it’s not new anymore, things don’t shock me, and I’ve got a ritual here. I’m “integrated” you could say. So this vacation will be a great way for my adrenaline to rush, and a boost of motivation. I guess what I’m saying is, I need a vacation. So I’ll be in Thailand May 14th- May 30th; the places I’m looking at visiting include: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pai, Chiang Rai, and somewhere down south. I don’t really know where yet, but I’m taking the slow pace of transportation (rather than intercountry flights) so I need to schedule days for travel. I’m more exciting to go up North and see mountains, and go on treks; I love the beach and the pictures are beautiful but I need some mountains in my life right now. So my first stop is to go up North, and Insh’allah visit the beach sites.
Shout out to my amazing mother who always sends me packages, this last one was amazing!! I love all the packages you send me and thanks for not forgetting about me. For the rest of you, I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.
Loves and bear hugs
Hadiel Mohamed
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