Work as Work Goes

                "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by  
                                going to that  place and making a case"- Ken Kesey


Another day, another dollar. Or in my case, another day, no dollars. As I am writing this, many of my fellow friends (and foes I am sure) are recovering from the various exploits of the Oregon Country Fair. As much a place in counterculture history as in my own, the fair marks the passing of another year, but lso a long tradition that was spearheaded by Kesey and his counterculture crew in the 1960's. Being in the Peace Corps used to be a part of that counterculture, and as it becomes more mainstream (and celebrates it's 50th year), it is apparent that we still  oppose most mainstream ideas of what a job really is...at least enough so that we can ignore the societal constraints put on recent  college grads for 2+ years. No longer is the Peace Corps family full of hippies or draft dodgers or bleeding heart activists who need to disappear off the map for a few years... right? Ok, so most of us fall left-of center, but we have more than our political views in common, but a passion and tenacity that seems to be born into the very thread of the Millenial Generation. 
If Ken Kesey were here today (RIP), he might be appalled by the shambled state of politics, Conservative attacks on women's health, and budget cuts for our international aid programs, but he would be proud that my generation is willing to go, and lead not by prose, but by example. So, here I am in Senegal, making my case.


My blogging has been thin of late, mostly because I have felt that what I had been up to was neither interesting nor extraordinary....but I have come to realize that is just my altered lens. What we do everyday, is indeed, rather un-ordinary, just by virtue of being here. It is also just my job, and few people in the US would blog about their every day job, because after a while all seems commonplace.
So my job over the last few months in brief:


Health Hut Murals: A productive way to educate a large number of people with limited resources over a long time. 

Baby Weighings: Monthly little gems....still no pictures, and I terrify the kids; the moms get a chart and bit of wisdom on taking care of their little ones! No pics from my weighing's yet, since I typically don't have any help.




Malaria boot camp and Neem Lotion tournee: Rainy season is here, so that means a spike in Malaria cases. I am working with a large organization, JHU, and other vols on prevention tactics. We did a large tournee to teach people about making Neem Lotion, a cream made of local ingredients to ward off mosquito bites.

Doing an art demo and contest 

cooking the leaves 

Women dancing at the bed net demo for Boot Camp

West Africa Boot Camp participants

Moringa Propagation Tournee: 7 days and about 24 villages in Kaolack were versed on the awesome properties of this nutritional powerouse plant. For this first phase we dug beds and displayed various ag techniques to amend the soil. Phase 2 comes in September when we will be going back out to do nutrition lessons with porridge and dried powder!

In the middle of it all, showing women and kids how to add amendments

Double Digging

Teaching about proper height for leaf propagation 

So that's about it for now. I will keep you posted on any new activities and pics of the new wall being built at my health hut!

Finding My Place

Well, I have been in my village about a month. My life here is very different than the somewhat hectic life of training. I spend a lot of time trying to create a routine, in order to salvage my sanity, a routine has proved key. The first couple of months in your new site, is simply for learning. I must learn a new dialect of the language I was taught during training, I am learning the names of all my neighbors, learning about my new town, surroundings, environment, directions...all of it new. 
The exciting news is that the first rain storm of the season came last night! It was WILD, hours of dry lightening and thunder before a torrential downpour... I realized that I am now living in a perpetual sauna.


I have a hut in a family compound, and behind it is what they describe in Senegal as a "yard", or a place where your toilet facility is and a fenced in area for showering. I created some raised garden beds in my yard area, and established a small compost pile. I also started to paint the front of my hut, and make some amendments to the inside, like adding a chalkboard and having a desk made. It was a series of ups and downs until I was settled, but now, I feel really good about the life I am establishing in this village. At night when I am sitting with my family watching a poorly dubbed movie, I think about how much I really like Africa, and that after this stint, I could see myself working here semi-permanently.

Pace of life is SLOW. I spend most parts of most days, sitting and talking to people, or trying to find people and materials for small projects. I am still unsure what my role will be in the health center, but intend to have an office there if possible.


I am really liking my family, and living situation. My host brother works for an NGO, and I am very close to other volunteers. I really didn't get into the swing of things until this last week, and started on a few little projects with other volunteers in my area.
The Peace Corps has an initiative to increase Food Security, and has started some pilot farmer initiatives in my area. I traveled down the road to see a pilot farmer training, and also to deliver tools and supplies for an irrigation project last week. I will likely be involved with this project as it is ongoing, and will be a good foundation for teaching nutrition lessons to women's groups, and farmer's and their families. I attended a meeting about a girl's leadership camp to be held the last week in June, and will be teaching personal hygiene and doing a Moringa doughnut demonstration! A perk is that the camp is being held on the beach in a campemant and we get to go on a ride through thee mangroves!!!


I also had my fortune told last week by a "see-er". Basically he is a dude who walks around and yells stuff in Arabic, but my sisters says that he can "See" things that Allah tells him, so they gave him some $ to tell me my fortune. He took is his finger and scribbled a half circle in the dirt, and then put 25 finger prints in it, he started talking to him self with his eyes rolled into his head, and writing stuff in Arabic in the ground. In poor French he said to me " Madame, you will have tri-colored children; they will have skin colored three ways". Okay.




Starting next week I have a language seminar in my village, for 4 days, before heading to my Leadership Camp, then it's the 4th of July, a huge celebration for PCV's. Check out my new pictures on my PICASA account!

“Jamono Dafa Sopeku”: Life Changes

*Please read the post’s below to catch up on my activities. I also now have a Picasa account linked to my blog so you can see more pictures and the pictures my friends take!

Mud stove creation- using clay, sand, and manure, we made an imporved mud stove that cuts the cost of wood in half. The family we made it for uses it for every meal, and decreased cooking time by one hour per meal. My language group also tested it out ourselves by baking a dutch oven coconut cake on it I the last night of our home stay, sooooo good (I wonder who’s idea that was ??). 

Here is the link to the mud stove info: http://www.thisisdiversity.com/articles/all/4280/mud-stoves-for-gender-equality/

Moringa Beignets- Basically doughnuts that are fortified with the highly nutritious Moringa leaf powder. I made these on my village visit with my hosts family. Many women sell these beignets in the markets, and by adding moringa powder, you increase the nutritional value without altering the flavor. I am thinking this could be a good area of research for my Master’s program. 

Link:http://www.treesforlife.org/documents/moringa/moringa_brochure_2up_a4.pdf

Neem lotion- The leaves of the neem tree are a natural pesticide, and when boiled then combined with basic soap and vegetable oil create a potent lotion that repells mosquitos that carry Malaria (the anopheles).  Half litre bag is enough for an entire family (5 ppl) for a mosquito season. Neem trees are prevalent throughout Senegal, so making the lotion is of little expense. We demonstrated this to a few women in my compound, and then one of the women showed her women’s group and introduced it as a income generating activity. (note that is women’s group is particularily motivated and has requested it’s own Peace Corps volunteer for next year). Neem info:http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/neem-tree.html

Funny Disney Video on malaria transmission:  

Baseline survey- Practiced collecting data using the household survey method in our local language. The survey, with the use of popular aid mehcnasim PACA tools, gives a way for volunteers to gauge community need and desires for projects. 

Nutritional Porridges and the Hearth Model- The Hearth model is a specific teaching tool to combat child malnutrition, usually for children under age 5. There is huge success in holding 12 day wokshops where women make nutrient dense porridge for their weaned children, particularly important during the starving season.  By combining bananas, peanut butter, sugar, and millet flour, you have a tasty meal addition or substitute high in calories (it mocks Plumpy Nut, a nourishment substitute given out by food aid organizations). The women already sell porridge in the markets, so selling the cheap nutrition dense porridges could be lucrative. I ran out of time to practice this in my homestay, but cannot wait to try turning this into an income generating activity in my new home town! Plumpy nut and Hearth model links: http://www.ccih.org/forum/0105-03.htm

Garden update- Our garden is thriving, and we have since convinced the school guard, where the garden is located, to take ownership over it, so we handed him extra seeds and tools and let him go to work. After we were gone for a week, there was 4 new beds of Bissap (Hibiscus) planted , a bed of mint, and 2 beds lined for Mango and Lemon trees!! Yay go school gardens!

I am officially finished with my home stay. I will miss my routine, and family here, but I am glad to be moving on as I have more exciting adventure ahead of me. Not to mention the day I have been waiting for is finally nearing arrival in the next week…Swear-In, where I become an official Peace Corps Volunteer. In the last 3 weeks, I  have been particularly busy, as I spent most weekends travelling and the weeks in-between practicing my technical skills and language. 

In mid-April, the group travelled to Dakar to visit the American Embassy and the Peace Corps HQ. We went over the beurocratic aspects of being a volunteer, such as travel restrictins, payment schedules,  and general rules and regulations.  You can definitely see the influence of Western aid organizations in Dakar…there is a place called the American Club that is basically a country club on the beach. Despite what I had heard, I actually enjoyed Dakar, it was a refreshing taste of metropolitan lifestyle…I ate Lebanese food and had Gelato!!

The pinnacle of stress as a trainee also occurred in the last week and a half: the Counter Part Workshop. There were 80+ Senegalese people staying at our training center for 3 days, and life was just generally hectic. However the workshop itself was farely productive, and I learned a lot more about my activites in the coming months.

My two counter parts (partners in my community I work with) are awesome men! They are so motivated to try projects, and plan on doing their best to help me determine the needs of Ngodiba. Arona is the secretary of the Communite Rurale (local gov’t structure) and as well he works with health and urban ag folks and my new host dad on collaborative projects, yay! Malick is the president of the health post, and he spends 3 days a week doing baby weighings and malaria surveys in Ngodiba and surrounding villages, and the rest of the time works at the hospital in Kaffrine as a Community Health Worker. We outlined some of our goals in my 2 months before my In-Serivice Training in July, and they mainly include my integration into the community and doing research on community needs. They also plan to secure me a Wolof tutor and a French teacher in Kaffrine.

I will give more details on my Month to Month Action Plan after I install on May 14^th.

We capped the week off with an amazingly hodge-podge soccer game, and then our entire training group rented a house on the beach in a French tourist town Popenguine. All I have to say is that the place was beautiful, and enough mayhem ensued among 41 people that most of it should not be shared on the web (In fact, I am the one who organized the weekend, I recognized a need of MY community, and that need was fun!).

Pic of the Beach!