So, Now What?

I’m not going to lie, heading back to site after being gone for a while is very intimidating. In fact, part of the reason I stuck around Tambacounda for a while before I heading back to site was because I didn’t feel ready. It didn’t take long for life to start to feel back to normal. Since we are in the heart of the rainy season and Ramadan just started (Aug. 12^th – Sept. 11^th), my routine is a bit different. I’ve got a couple projects already underway back at site.

The first is completely transforming my personal garden. It was a complete and utter disaster when I got back from being gone for three weeks. What plants that were growing when I left were consumed by some sort of pests, my family managed to kill my Nebadye (the name is spin off of Never Die – as the plant that can’t die—though now I think that name is deceiving), my tree pépinière was taken over by weeds as was everything else. So far I’ve managed to weed the entire garden, reseed my vegetable pépinière, tear up the useless sacks of the tree pépinière, create a new raised bed, transplant tomatos, make an organic pesticide, create a new compost, and transplant a banana and guava tree (I took them from the training center in Thiès and hauled them all the way across Senegal to be planted in my garden).

My garden was a sad site to see when I got back from IST.

The second project is a universal bednet distribution that is taking place in my region right now. As part of USAIDs’ President’s Malaria Initiative, a collaboration of NGOs, Government Agencies, Health Centers, and Peace Corps are working to distribute mosquito nets to every uncovered bed in Senegal region by region. This gets to be a little tricky when you get out into the more rural areas – counting beds, transporting nets, distributing nets, and educating the populations. I cannot say that I’ve really done much to contribute to this grandiose endeavor but attend a couple planning meeting and trainings and go out to the bush to talk to a couple Poste de Santé. It’s given me a chance to ride my bike out in the bush, which is fun for me. This week, we are starting the actual distribution all over my region, so I suppose I’ll go where I’m needed.

A trash management pilot program is the third major project I’ve been keeping myself busy with. This is a much larger, more long-term project than most Peace Corps projects, but I’m happy to make some headway during my service. For anyone that has traveled to a less developed country, you most likely notice that trash is a massive problem. Most cities and villages do not have any system of waste and natural resource management. As a result, trash is thrown everywhere – on the roads, paths, forests, rivers, lakes, etc. Koumpentoum is no different. Few have tried to address the trash problem in Koumpentoum for many years, but have always taken it from large-scale approach. What I would like to do is try to tackle the trash problem by one quartier at a time.

I’m modeling my project proposal off of a recent trash management project that was implemented in Joal (a city of about 40,000 on the coast of Senegal) by Peace Corps Volunteers in 2007. The Joal Project started in just two quartiers. It gave each household two trash receptacles – one for biodegradable products and one for non-biodegradable products. The biodegradable products were picked up once a day and brought to a center for composting. The non-biodegradable products were picked up once a week and taken to a landfill. The Joal Project found that about 85% of waste in Joal / Senegal was biodegradable. As a result, the biodegradable products were decomposed and sold as organic fertilizer, which was proven to be a better quality than chemical fertilizer and cheaper.

I’ve been working with one of the JICA volunteers in Koumpentoum, Mikki, as well as the Mayor’s office to attempt replicate the project in Koumpentoum. I want to make sure that the demand and that work for the project comes from the community, so I held a meeting with all the chefs des quartiers (chiefs of the neighborhoods) and the appropriate authority figures / those concerned with the matter at the mayor’s office to show the documentary of the Joal Project and facilitate a discussion about tackling the trash problem in Koumpentoum. Everyone was on board to start with one quartier, but the challenge becomes choosing the quartier for the pilot program. I suggested that every quartier do a survey in their quartier about general environmental education issues, organize set-setals (trash pick-ups), and express why their quartier would be good for the program. It seemed to be well-received, though some chefs expressed concern about doing the survey, so we are going to work with the ASC, an active group of youth who would be interested in helping out, to conduct the surveys all around Koumpentoum. I put together a fairly comprehensive Environmental Education Survey and with the help of my APCD, the JICA volunteer (Mikki), and my counterpart in the mayor’s office, Balla, got it translated into French and Wolof.

Mikki is heading to Dakar for some work related purposed and will be able to print off the surverys. The next steps are to hold a training session for the youth that are interested in helping out with the survey and then have another meeting with everyone to kick-off the survey before we select a quartier. At this point, the project seems very daunting. I’m trying to think of it with a step-by-step basis. It requires a lot of leg-work and education, but can hopefully turn out to be a very effective project in the end.

The final thing that has been going on in Koumpentoum since I’ve been back is Ramadan. Even though this isn’t a project of any sort, it still very much involves me and my work. Ramadan is the month in which all Muslims (that are able to) fast during the day and focus on Allah. Being it that Senegal is 95% Muslim; this means that practically everyone (including my family)are up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and are not eating or drinking (not even water) until dusk (around 7:45 p.m.). This also means that people are much more tired, cranky, and even more unproductive than they were before Ramadan. Many of them are going through caffeine withdrawal as well from not drinking attaaya (Senegalese tea) all day, which usually serves as their pastime. This just means I need to plan my days’ activities accordingly. So far, I’ve fasted for two days of Ramadan (primarily to see what it is like and for people to shut up about asking me about it). It’s definitely not something that I’d like to make a habit of. I especially will not fast if I am doing any sizable amount of physical activity like working in my garden or riding my bike into the bush. Even though it’s not the “hot season”, it’s still really hot. And yet, some here still do both and end up dehydrated and sick. I do have to admit though; there is something magnificent when you have that first cup of water and a little bread when you break fast for the day. Also, my family eats even better than were before for Ramadan.