Sometimes You Just Have to Fail

Clearly, not everything is Senegal (or any country for that matter) goes as planned. For years, volunteers have discovered that you can pour your heart and soul into a project only for it to collapse in a day. In less developed countries, there are even more factors to consider for the potential of failure than you would in a more developed country. Not only are there the infrastructure barriers to consider (lack of reliable electricity, access to clean water, deteriorating roads), but there are cultural barriers that exist as well (lack of privacy, fatalism, the elasticity of time). While I didn’t witness a project crash in burn, I definitely experienced a bit of a set-back this past week.

For the past month, Koumpentoum has held a sort of “American Ideal” festival between the various youth groups called les OSCAR des Vacances. It’s essentially a theatrical, dance, and misses competition between the ASCs (Association Sportif et Culturelle) which roughly breakdown among neighborhoods. It’s closest thing that Koumpentoum has to a talent show and a pep rally. The event is suppose to raise awareness about important health and youth issues in the community, like HIV/AIDS and gender equality, through the theatrical skits and on-stage questions and conversations.

For the finale, the JICA volunteer in Koumpentoum (Miki) and I had discussed about doing a small presentation about trash and how long it takes items to decompose. We had put together a small powerpoint questionnaire (in French) and a script, talked to hospital about loaning trash cans for the event, talked numerous times with the director of les OSCAR des Vacances, and made posters to put over the trash cans to signify the two types of trash – biodegradable and non-biodegradable. I had also put together a questionnaire about HIV/AIDS in Senegal. Both short programs were to be presented at the beginning of the evening of the finale.

I was in Dakar the day before the finale, so I rushed back to Koumpentoum in order to be present for the event. When I arrived, I learned that it had been postponed by a week. When the evening of the finale arrived, we waited for about four hours for the event to commence. I had set up everything on stage and waited patiently for our turn to do our little bit. By the time they were ready for us, I discovered that someone had messed with the projector while I was not looking and it would not work. By the time we finally got the projector working, we had missed our window of opportunity. We never got a chance to do our brief presentation. Since the event started four hours late (actually a week and four hours late), the night dragged on and I had to leave early, which was around midnight. I heard the night didn’t finish until around 3 a.m. The next morning, when I went back to the foyer de jeune (where the event was held), there was trash everywhere except in the trash cans we put out. Two of the trash cans were crushed from people trying to stand or sit on them and our posters that we put up had been stolen. My weeks’ preparations were a total waste. I was glad that I was going to Tambacounda that morning, because at that point, I really needed a little break from site. I know I can’t expect to serve two years here and not have any failures, but it still doesn’t make my experience any more pleasant when I do.