Peace Corps Senegal

I know I’m little late in getting a blog started for Peace Corps, but I figured better late than never. I’ve already been in Senegal as a Peace Corps Trainee for one month. It feels like I’ve been here so much longer. My lifestyle and knowledge is incomparable to where I was one month ago. I have favorite Senegalese dishes and know how to tell someone that I can’t marry him because he is too ugly in Wolof. My favorite soda is now Fanta and I crave homemade yogurt like it’s going out of style. I’ve gotten lost in a taxi and have also successfully navigated a taxi around Thiès. I’ve successfully made a mud stove, but still don’t know how cook.

For those that are unfamiliar with exactly what I’m doing in Senegal, here is a brief overview of Peace Corps in Senegal and the sector I’m working in of Environmental Education. For the next 27 months, I will be living, working, and training as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal. Peace Corps was started under the Kennedy administration in 1961. Since then, Peace Corps has served in 139 different countries. Peace Corps’ presence in Senegal dates back to 1963. The three primary goals of Peace Corps are:

1) To help the people of developing countries meet their basic needs

2) To promote a better understanding of the American people abroad

3) To promote a better understanding of other cultures to the American people

Peace Corps’ approach to development is at the grassroots level and involves complete immersion on the part of the Peace Corps Volunteer. Volunteers are expected to be proficient in the language of the population they are working with as well as knowledgeable in the culture and customs of the people they are serving. I’m required to learn Wolof in order to serve my population. Peace Corps work is divided into sectors that range from business development to education. I am serving the sector of Environmental Education and Preventative Health. The major goals for EE/Health Volunteers are:

1) To improve the environmental health of our community
Ex: trash management, health assessments, reforestation, clean water

2) To improve the nutritional status of community members
Ex: gardens and moringa leaves production, nutritional education, child nutrition

3) To Improve the health of vulnerable groups (Children, babies, and pregnant women)
Ex: Malaria control, diarrhea control, immunizations, maternal health, reproductive health

4) To improve environmental education
Ex: training of teachers and “Eco schools”

These all sound very vague right now, but we are receiving more specific technical training. Also, most of the work that PCVs do is completely contingent on the needs of the community they are serving. All projects should have ownership within the community in order to promote sustainability. Communities have varying needs, so the vast majority of the work of a PCV is determined after spending a couple months observing, discussing, and evaluating the needs of the community.

Even though I am an Environmental Education Volunteer, I am not restricted to working solely on projects within my project plan. Peace Corps Volunteers also do work outside their primary sector of development. These are called secondary projects and volunteers can get as creative with these projects as they want. Many secondary projects involve gender and development work, such as starting a girls’ club or incorporating gender and development work into their own projects and daily life. Volunteers are allowed to take any special skill or interest from back home and figure out a way to incorporate into their work. Like primary projects, secondary projects are determined by how receptive the community is to the project and if it is something the community desires. With secondary projects, the sky is the limit!

With that being said, I’d going to cover the general format of my Peace Corps service. For the first 2 ½ months, I am a Peace Corps Trainee, along with the 39 other trainees in my stage. During our training, we study language, culture, and technical skills that are necessary to serve as a PCV. Thiès is where our training center is located. However, we spent a lot of time in nearby villages (called Culture Based Training or CBT sites) staying with host families. This is in order to completely immerse ourselves in language and culture. My CBT site is a village called Tassette. It is about a half an hour outside of Thiès with a population of about 2,000. I speak Wolof and French with my host family, though I’m trying to just speak Wolof, since that is language I am learning. We will also have a “Volunteer Visit” during our training, in which, we visit and stay with a volunteer currently serving at or near our prospective sites, where we will be for two years after training. The swearing-in ceremony to become an official PCV for my stage is May 14^th in Dakar.

Learning how to make tree nurseries at the Peace Corps Training Center in Thies.