Rambling

Today I would like to write about random stuff. Nothing big has happened yet I am definitely not bored. Ive been in my village for the most part but have been to Kedougou a couple of times. Work is still in progress, and I learn more every day. When I am in Kedougou I have been going with my friend Alan to different places that have different Agfo techniques. Alan has a super counterpart. I am going to now assume that you guys don't know what a counterpart is, so I guess I will explain it. Every volunteer is assigned a local "friend" who is supposed to help them with either integration into their village or city. There is also professional counterparts who work with the volunteer with work related things. Alan's counterpart has an amazing field that puts several Agfo techniques to use and I got to see that. I also went to Bandafasi, a neighboring village to meet my new counterpart. We discussed that importance and the difficulty of sensitizing the public to the problem of deforestation and the positives of introducing agroforestry techniques into their farms.
There is a mentality in my village and I think it is a mentality that is common in Senegalese villages. While many people are poor and struggling to eat and make a living, they often still have a hard time accepting or showing interest in ideas of improvement. If you tell a local that it is bad to cut down trees without planting some in return he will say, "why?" and point to all of the trees surrounding him. They seem to like the idea of some of the pros of planting trees, like getting fruit or keeping cows out, but it seems to me as though they don't understand the process it takes to get the trees to where we want them to be. That takes years of dedication. Young trees need to be protected and looked after. The best way to teach the people, according to my counterpart, is to show them. You find a dedicated farmer who wants to use our techniques to improve his crop yields, and then a few years later when he gets twice as many corn and peanuts,others will start asking and will have the desire to change as well. So for us volunteers its not the quantity of change we can do while we are here as much as the quanity. When we are done with our service the best outcome would be to have a few farmers that have successfully learned and have put to use trees in their field, and are willing to help others to improve as well.
Sorry, that was just a little work blab.
Oh, here is somethings cool I learned. Cashew trees are one of the fruit trees in Senegal. I never knew what they looked like. They have apples attached to the nut. They are edible and taste kinda like an apple but kinda not. I asked why I haven't seen the fruits sold and my friend's counterpart said that there is a problem with allergies to the fruit, and if you drink milk with the fruit you can get sick. Hmmm.

Ive been trying to stay active here in Senegal. Biking is by far the funnest thing to do here. I actually look forward to riding to or from Kedougou. Now that is the hot dry season I get up as the sun does and dont have much of a problem with the heat. I now know my road very well. I know every hill and every bump. I'm still getting to know the monkeys and birds and lizards and other little critters that cross the road. Ha. Last week I was leaving my village to go to town and I got stuck in a traffic jam of about 400 sheep. They were taking up the entire road and absolutely would not get out of the way. It took a few minutes of "acha"ing them until I actually got to pass. Man, and cows! The cows here are more tame than any cows I know. I think this is because during the dry season people have to water them by hand.
Water. Sorry, Im skipping from one subject to another. Bikes, heat, animals, now water, and cows and bees! Cows are a pain in the butt when I am pulling water. They stand there by the forage waiting to be watered and they just dont move. Here is a mental picture. The forage (I need to post a pic of this) is on a little hill, concrete. Youclimb it to pump the water and then you put the water on your head and walk down the hill. Its not super safe. It can be slippery. Cows like to stand right in the way. Once I was walking down the hill thing with 20 liters of water on my head and there was a cow that didn't move. I just walked into her, and she still didn't move, so I just kinda duked it out with her, using body weight. Eventually she moved. Oh, another fun forage story. Bees. Bees drink at the forage. Every day millions and billions of bees are swarming thee damn thing to get a drink. People get stung all the time. Ive been stung twice now. I think I got stung in one of the worst ways last time. I was walking down the hill with water on my head and a bee got stuck between the bottom of my foot and my flip flop and I stepped on him and of course he stung me. Of course he got stuck there too. So there I was with water on my head hopping around on one foot screaming, spilling water everywhere, surrounded by cows and people just staring at me. The bee was stuck in my foot and very unhappy and every time I put my foot down the stinger just went in deeper. I could do nothing to get the bee off cuz of the water on my head. A man came down and helped me get the water off my head, then he grabbed my foot and brushed the bee off. Everyone around me was laughing, including me. I was soaking wet. It hurt. Anyway, we got the water back on my head and I gimped home. So, I'm limping these days. I don't recommend getting stung on the bottom of the foot.
Our dog had puppies. I love animals, a lot. Well my brother said I could have a puppy and they would take care of it after I leave as long as I got a boy (boys dont have babies). So, I have a puppy.

The whole dog culture here is completely different than it is in the states. The first thing I did to my pup when I brought him into my yard was take about 20 ticks out of his ears, and bathed him to, not only get the filth off, but to drown the 50 something fleas living on him as well. I named the dog Hendu, which means wind in Pular. People dont really touch dogs here. The dogs kinda just hang around the compounds and eat food and protect the people at night. A common activity for kids in neighborhoods is throwing sticks and rocks at dogs. Personally, I prefer throwing sticks and rocks at ducks. When the puppies are ready we just kinda give word out to the people and people come and take them as they please. Of course everyone took only males and all of the females remained. Many people kept coming and asking but when I said that there were only girls left they left without a dog. Life is just hard for female puppies in Africa. If you want to look at it in a positive light, it is a way of controlling dog population. My brother took the female dogs into the "brush" where he thinks they will get eaten by jackals. I think they will starve. Anyway, if every female dog lived and gave birth to 10 puppies twice a year the dog population would boom. That just wouldn't do. there is no food for dogs. Everyone who has a dog gives them leftovers. I look at the dogs wandering the village and about 9 out of 10 dogs are male. I know why now.

So my neighbor slaughtered a goat a couple of weeks ago and I watched the meat harvesting. Meat here is interesting. Meat preservation is interesting. The way they eat meat is interesting. The meat is divided into handy little piles. Anyone can buy a pile for about 1000cfa, or two dollars. Because our neighbor eats with out family we always get some of the meat for free. I always eat the meat if it is cooked the same day it is killed. The second day, maybe. It depends on the smell. There is one point in which the meat starts to have that decayed smell, and while the locals still eat it up, I have a hard time stomaching it. Call me American I guess. My sis and brother were upset with me one day because I couldn't stomach the peanut sauce that tasted like rotten meat, so I didn't eat much of it. They thought I was upset and didn't believe me when I said I didn't like the meat part of it. Oh! And here they eat EVERY part of the animal. Stomach, intestines, liver, heart, you name it. This goat day kinda freaked me out. In the evening the family brought out a pot of food and there was a goats head in it. They took pieces out and chewed the meat off the bones of the skull. Then they each got a handful of the little squishy pieces of meat at the bottom of the pan. It was clearly goats brains. They kept telling me to come try some, how delicious it was. I politely declined. My brother then proceeded to grill the goats feet from the knee down, and then scrapped the hair off the split the hoofs and grilled it some more, then put it in a put of boiling water with some tree roots. He said it was medicine to help with stomach aches.

goat feet.

That is about all the nonsense I feel like writing about today. Hope its not too confusing.
Still loving Senegal.

The Wonderful Things About Growth...

Well I just spent three weeks away from my village to get trained. Now I have been back for about two weeks, and have been able to follow up on my gardens, and am continuing to find my place in my village. When I made those gardens I had no idea what would happen with them. I kinda of left it up to the people because I figured they had years of experience with growing things.

Well the gardens that came from the ones I made were all over the board. Several gardens started sprouting but were eaten by bugs. Some gardens never sprouted and some have sprouted amazingly and grown faster than weeds. For the gardens that haven't sprouted I have come up with several reasons why. Chickens and birds can get it and dig holes, scattering the seeds. This happened to me before. Bleh. Also, there was a one week period in which the forage was broken and there was a huge water shortage. Two gardens died because people didn't water them at all for three or four days. They told me this. Some of the gardens sprouted some things but not others. This were the strangest cases for me. I am replanting several of the gardens and taking pest control problems more into account.

The attitudes of the people whos gardens didn't succeed were surprisingly good. They were just a big sad and confused, and glad to hear of any suggestions I had and were excited about the idea to replant. Most of the gardens that failed grew a few things, like cucumbers, zuccini and green beans, so they were happy to have something. I swear, those things grew in every single garden, even the worst!

After all this time it's starting to sink in what the most important veggies are for my villagers. At first I just wanted to plant everything for them with the idea that any variety is great for their health. But there are veggies that every single person wants, and wants them bad. So, for anyone super interested in what Senegalese village people want to grow, I made a list of three categories.


Veggies they really, really, really want: Lettuce, Cabbage, Okra, Beans, Manioc, hot peppers, and Jaxatu (a local sort of bitter eggplant).

Veggies they know and love: Tomatoes, Carrots, a giant squash thing, watermelon.




Veggies they don't really know but plant if I have them: Chinese turnip (Nave), Cucumber, Zuccini (They love to eat the leaves of this, ever tried it?), Green/Red/Yellow pepper, and green beans.

Some interesting things that have been happening in my garden. First, a pic of my garden, taken yesterday ;) Oh and that is corn drying in the middle.Our plot was made on a piece of land just outside of our compound, where trash used to be thrown. Heck that may actually be why our garden is growing so well, because of all that compost. Well we had quite a few "mystery weeds" sprout so one day I went to weed and before picking everything that I hadn't planted, I opted to ask my sister what the weeds were. Well, We have about 10 baby baobab trees growing in my lettuce plot. Baobabs, in case you didn't know, is only the most amazing and beautiful tree in the world. We also eat it in our breakfast 'porridge' almost every day, so hundreds of seeds get thrown out every week or so. I wanted to raise some baobabs just to learn, and maybe plant them somewhere. I have lots of seeds for them. Who know they would grow themselves for me!


Anyway, here is a pic of my baby baobab weed.


Big baobab. happens to be the one I climbed in Oct.
Oh and just for fun, this is me and the biggest baobab in the region :) And a random guy who "protected me" the whole way.Another 'weed' that I was about to pick turned out to be Okra. Okra (or Takko in purlar) is the one plant everyone wanted but I didn't have seeds for. They eat it every single day in a common dish, Mafe Tiga. Mafe Tiga is a peanut butter sauce that put on rise or corn (specially prepared corn, crushed and either steamed or boiled.) In the Mafe sauce there is water, little tomatoes, peanut butter, salt, Jumbo (africa's seasoned salt) and okra. Crushed dried okra makes the peanut butter sauce thicker. I guess they throw some of those seeds out, or they just get blown around, because we have Okra sprouting in every plot. Oh, and corn! That just sprouts everywhere! We let that grow as well. All the rest of the things I pick.

So I've learned that you don't always have to go to the store to buy seeds. We eat a sauce with Couscous every day or two that has beans in it. They buy the dried beans in the store and add them to the boiling pot. The beans are seeds. Plant them and they grow. Same with dried Okra. And local fruit trees! Seeds are everywhere here. It's fun to learn how to find your own.
I've been asking my sis in the mornings to save the seeds from the fruit she adds to our breakfast. There are two kinds of fruit that goes in our breakfast porridge, called Mbuiri. One is Bwuey, or baobab fruit, and the other is tamarin. Its all a kind of dried fruit. Well she puts boiling water on the seeds to get the fruit off, which basically cleans them off for me. So I just take them and dry them.

There are lots and lots of fruits here in Senegal that I have never even heard of in the states. Maybe I'll post some pics. Or if you are really interested you can just look them up. One is Baobab fruit. It's great! You wait until it is dry and falls off the tree to eat it. It's covered by a hard shell that you break by hitting against something. Inside is a mess of dry white stuff. It dissolves in water, and if you add sugar to that it is a delicious juice, more delicious than any juice I have ever tasted in America. You can also just suck on it like candy, as it comes in bite sized pieces, and you just spit out the seeds. Another kind of fruit is tamarind. It's brown, kinda looks like tree pea pods. You generally dissolve them in water and they add flavor to food, and you can also make a sort of juice out of it, which tastes kind or like tea, a bit lemony as well. It's really good. Every month or two a new fruit comes into season and they are all over my village. Right now tomboros are in season. They are tiny little berry type things. They are yellowish orange. They don't taste good at all until they dry up and fall on the ground. Then you just pop them in your mouth and chew gently around the seed and it is sweet and really good! They are all over my village and every day old ladies go out and gather them for hours, hoping to send them to the city to sell. One lady passes by my house every day and gives me two big handfuls of tomboros. I love that. I kinda collect the seeds for those too.

There are also fruit here that everyone know.s Mangos here are huge. They come into season in April. They have several kinds of citrus fruits, like oranges, lemons and limes. There are papayas and bananas. Apples are hard to come by but they exist. I think papaya is my new favorite fruit. Those things are absolutely delicious.

Just some real quick village happenings update.

They found gold in my village on a hill about 2 kilometers outside of the village. Lots of mining is on it's way down. I went to see it one day and man is that a dangerous job. They are digging holes straight down into the hill, up to 100 or 150ft deep. They climb down by little handles carved in the rock. They dig with little hand held tools. I have seen some of the gold. Being the only white person around lets you pretty much do whatever you want. Everyone shows me their hole proudly and invites me to descend and do some digging. I politely decline each request, saying I don't feel like dying today. Them man everyone hired to oversee the whole project is a friend of my friend and he shows me all the findings, and tells me what to look at and where to look. Who would have known I'd learn about gold mining in Senegal. There are supposed to be a lot of people coming to my village start their own holes, in the hope of striking it rich. Hmmm.... There are already about 15 holes going on. They deeper ones are just starting to give gold. It's looking good, according to the boss man.

This is my friend leading me around to look at all the mines Each hole has a hand made shade structure above it. The hot season is starting to shade is crucial.

Some guys posing for a picture that I promised to print for them. They are sitting proudly over their hole, which is about 60 feet deep now.

The descent.

Not so exciting, I'm learning to cook. My sister is teaching me to cook so that eventually I'll be able to make a whole meal by myself, without people telling me what to do. We are starting with the peanut butter sauce and rice. There really are so many varieties of things to cook. We have this dish just about every day though, so it's a good one to start with. Considering that I don't really know how to cook in American, I find it interesting that I'mofficially learning in an African village, using African cookies supplies. We stir with a stick instead of a spoon. Everything is made on and ground in a kitchen hut over an open fire. Everything is made from absolute scratch. It really is beautiful if you think about it. There is never any measuring of anything, it's all done with eyes and judgment. I'm learning that as well. Oh and our 9 chickens live in the kitchen, and they sleep there at night. My sis is often making me pick bugs off her that get on her from the chickens and crawl around on her. I had always made fun of her for that. Now that I'm spending so much time in the kitchen, she has been picking them off me as well. I've started preaching the idea of making a miniature house just for the chickens.

Here is Mafe Tiga and rice. And yes, this is how people eat it, with their hands. I'm ust about to dig in as well. I use a spoon ;p

I have lots more to say but I'm going to end this for now because I think I am boring whoever is reading this. Questions and comments welcomed and appreciated.
Until next time.