Making Shae

Shae trees are really prevalent where I live (more commonly known as a high quality skin moisturizer when processed, e.g. shae butter). Fortunately, villagers are good at processing the seeds to extract oil (for cooking or skin application once it cools). It is done mostly on a larger scale by women's group for sale, although sometimes people will do it individually. My host aunt, Halimatou Binta Ba, decided to do the latter. It was a really cool process to watch! She sent her seeds she collected to Salemata (5km away) where they have a grinder, and then did the following steps when she got them back:

Clean

Sort to boil down

Filter

Soocer/Football

So soccer is really big in Senegal. So big that a soccer match on television involving Senegal will make a television appear in my village and run off a generator that at least 50 people come to watch. Unfortunately, so big, that violence ensued at a game in Dakar for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match last month. Nevertheless, my village has a soccer team and it is soccer season! In the evenings, young men make it to the field for practices, and there are games multiple times a week. Honestly, it is kind of terrifying to watch because I can't say the players are particularly skillful...

Diara Pont Team

Watching the game against Kekeressi in Dar Salam

My host sister and her friends

Tabaski in Missirah

So after the Sphires, we parted ways to make it back in time for the Islamic holiday of Tabaski. Knowing I would not have time to make it back to my village, I coordinated to go to Ian's Jaxanke village, Missirah Dantala. I would have limited ability to communicate, but I hadn't made it out his direction yet, so thought it'd be fun. After hiking our bikes down a treacherous rocky path, we biked the 40km bush paths to his village in the heat of the day. We were welcomed warmly by his huge family. My compound consists of two families (brothers and their immediate families) totaling 15 people whereas Ian's family includes about 130 people. It was really interesting not only spending time in a Jaxanke village (a different ethnic group than the Pula Fuuta's I live with), but also with a man on the holiday. Rather than helping cook like I did on Korite, I walked around greeting many people with a large group of men. Also, his village is much larger than mine, so the greater scale was cool to experience. After walking to morning prayer (following a drum, men in front, women in back), listening to readings of the Koran, I watched his family slaughter 18 sheep (his family only! CRAZY, his father is also the chief of the village) and then rested. I ate a big lunch at the chief's house but was not allowed to go to the mosque for afternoon prayer. I enjoyed grilled meat throughout the day, and mango hard candies. The following day I ended up biking to Saraya (48km) since transportation I wanted to take out was not running because of the holiday.

Path

Walk to morning prayer

Koran reading under sheets

SLAUGHTERING

Ian & myself

Sphires Biking/Camping Trip

Locals say that the Sphires have gypsies. It may be suspicion, however, there is a legacy of eventful adventures of Peace Corps volunteers going. One trip someone went into shock while coming down due to a bee attack. Some people get lost on the way up and don't make it. Others have had storms and ran out of water. Our trip to the Sphires was successful (for the majority of the party... 3 out of 5) although nonetheless, eventful for all. After visiting a newly discovered waterfall near Ashleigh's village, we biked along the ridgeline to Fongolimbi, and then to our final destination, Maragou. However, the last 7km we rode by flashlight (talk about terrifying, my phone flashlight is very dim!). Upon arriving we were warmly welcomed by the chief's family, and they prepared food that we brought. In the morning we stopped to fill our waterbottles before the hike. Just over an hour in (after bushwhacking through tall grasses with scatter rocks/boulders and occasional forested breaks), Rob shouts out and grabs his leg while stepping over a log. Looking at the marks we decide it could be a snake bite and call our medical office--amazingly there was cell phone service. We wait an hour trying to figure out what to do since the bite does not appear to be severe, although there is the potential that it was a venomous, and we are in the middle of no where (nearest health post an hour hike away and then 15km road, then if more serious, it'd be another 30km to Kedougou). Rob insists on going down. Andrew accompanies him while the three of us, myself, Ashleigh, and Ian, continue on. On their walk back to Maragou they encounter a chimpanzee that stood up and beat its chest at them from a distance. Rob ends up going to Dakar via plane to receive anti venom and was fine. In just fifteen minutes after parting, we reach the top. It is GORGEOUS. We have troops of baboons on either side of us, with clear views into Senegal and Guinea. We also see an assortment of birds, as well as rock hyrexes. During the night we are kept up by the hooting of owls and howling of hyenas. It was my favorite trip so far in Senegal. Very reminiscent of a climbing trip! (Although minus the climbing).

View from hiking up to Ashleigh's village, Kewboye

Waterfall

Broken derailer on route

En route

SPHIRES

Baboons

Wall I'd like to climb but won't

Sunset

Fundraising for Youth Leadership Camp

I am helping coordinate a week long residential youth leadership camp for 20 adolescents of Kedougou in March. We are hoping to get a boy and girl from 10 surrounding villages. If you are interested in donating to help make this happen (transport, lodging, materials, etc), please find more detailed information below, along with a donation link.

Thank you!

For many Americans, summer camps are a fun and exciting part of growing up. Kids get to meet new friends, do arts and crafts, play sports, sing songs, act out skits – the list of possible activities is endless. Summer camps are enjoyable, but more often than not they also help young people develop independence, social skills, critical thinking, athleticism, and creativity.

In Senegal, most boys and girls not only miss out on the chance to go to summer camp, but they also don’t have places to go where creative thinking, problem-solving, and appreciation for the natural world are encouraged. Because of this, Peace Corps Volunteers have decided to coordinate a Youth Leadership Camp for middle school students from around the region this coming March. The camp will have classic team-building activities, life skills session, interactive environmental education activities, career talks, health education sessions, and time to just have fun with other kids during their spring break.

The volunteers of Kédougou are excited about the camp and are really looking forward to giving Senegalese kids from our local communities the chance to experience all the joys and growth experiences that a camp has to offer. Our camp is a Peace Corps Partnership Project, which means that it will be funded by a contribution from the community and by the financial support of donors from around the world. If you're interested in participating in this project or in making a donation in honor of a friend or loved one this holiday season, please take a minute to check out the link: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-224.

Mango Grafting

My job description has a season in which "work" is done. It started in March by preparing tree nurseries. Throughout that month, I encouraged people to make their own tree nurseries while I maintained my own. Once the rains come, then you can out plant the trees in the nursery and hope for good survival rates. However, with mangoes the process can be a little bit more involved if one wants to graft. Grafting is great because you can have the root stock of a variety that is adjusted to local conditions (soil, weather, etc), but fruit of a more preferred variety (sweeter, bigger fruit, smaller seeds, etc). In order to do this, you keep the mangoes in the nursery, ideally trench them, and then wait until the following year to graft.

Trenched mangoes to be grafted next year

In coordination with the NGO Trees for the Future, Peace Corps volunteers in Kedougou organized a regional tourney to teach people how to graft. For my area, we held the training in my town with villagers from Diara Pont, Dar Salam, Salemata, Epingue, Etchilo, and Nangar attending. The two day training went really well with translation done by Robert's host father, Weliba Dialla, and Karumba, coordinator for Trees for the Future. The first day we were fortunate to have Cherif Djitte come down from Peace Corps to train as well. The first day was primarily instruction [introduction (why graft, etc); scions (selection, storage, etc); rootstock (how to prep); cuts (different techniques); ties (how to protect the graft); follow up] and the second day the villagers demonstrated what they learned the previous day. Everyone also got to go home with two grafted mango trees! It was great too since three womens' group presidents came (yay for more equal gender representation)! My host mom did a great job cooking and we lucked out with weather (no rain). The attendees were so excited about the training they they formed a "group" and elected a board for Salemata Regional Mango Grafters.

Djitte and Weliba Training

Roots stalks and scions

Grafting

Villagers Presenting

Walking back from the Mango Orchard

Group Photo!

ECHO conference in Burkina Faso

In June I was notified that I was one of 8 selected volunteers (there are over 250 in country) to go to Burkina Faso and attend the second annual ECHO(Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization), a Christian organization committed to equipping people with resources and skills to reduce hunger and improve the lives of the poor, West Africa Networking Forum in Ouagadougou.

The trip overall was fun to go on, although the conference in itself offered limited new information. Nevertheless, the opportunity to go to Burkina was great, despite remaining within a 10 block radius (including the airport). I also met a few Peace Corps volunteers from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Guinea, and Benin, although the majority of the conference was made up of practitioners (200 attendees total from over 20 countries). Hotel Pacific was nice, although I didn't have time to enjoy the pool. The conference went from 9am-6:30pm each day (with a morning tea break and lunch), excluding the morning hour of dedications starting at 8am, with presentations being translated from English to French or vise versa (I was impressed with my comprehension). The last evening everyone was presented a certificate which I can add to my collection (receiving certificates here are a really big deal and "proof" of education/knowledge/skills/etc).

The subjects presented on included the following: Challenges in Agriculture; Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR); Foundations for Farming; Organizing and Mobilizing Communities for Produce Marketing;Maximizing Economic Benefit of Farming; Natural Medicine for People & the Environment; Improving Crop Yields & Food Security by Using Soil & Water Conservation Techniques; Recent Developments in Vegetable Breeding: Promoting Vegetable Varieties for Nutrition & Income; Exploring the Health & Economic Benefits of Moringa; Conservation Agriculture: An Opportunity to Improve the Sustainability of Family Farms; Ignored Crops that Can Change Sahelian Agriculture.

In the evenings with other volunteers, we went to dinner and Caitlin and I found a great leather worker at the artisinal village where we bought our souvenirs. I unfortunately cannot say much about the country besides the high prevalence of motos and great cafes.

Handwashing Station Project

In August, my women's group showed me a "tippy-tappy" they built in order to wash their hands (see a picture below for what they initially showed me) before and after meals and after the use of their household latrines.

I thought it was a great idea since we do not have running water, and the vast majority of villagers eat with their right hand at every meal. I wrote a grant to get the materials (a little updated in hopes that they will last longer rather than the already recycled, often hard to get a hold of containers) in order to have each woman be able to build one in their compound. The end of August the grant was approved and I was able to get all the materials in September. You can see the completion report here!

Initial Prototype

New & improved!