We kicked off my birthday month with a romantic getaway/r&r
midweek stay at “the nice hotel” in Kaolack,
The Relais. After almost 2 straight months
at site (we spent Christmas night at the Koalack regional house), we were ready
for a break, and for a reward.
The
Relais is situated away from the craziness of the center of the city, and it
serves breakfast, lunch and dinner at the poolside restaurant, so the beauty is
that you don’t actually ever have to go into Kaolack if you don’t want to.
I’ll remind you that Kaolack is one of
Senegal’s largest cities, and widely known as its dirtiest, so the separation
is important.
The Relais is also
located right on the Saloum River, which could be a pro or a con, considering
this means it’s also next to one of Senegal’s largest peanut processing
facilities. Fifty years ago this area was a lush inland delta full of mangroves
and migratory birds; now it is a salty wasteland with no mangroves and little
animal life.
Deforestation, the
resulting increase in salinity, and industrial pollution are named as the
culprits.
However, the view from
the Relais could still be considered an attractive river view, especially if
you didn’t know what you were missing.
We camped out (metaphorically; we did get a real room) at
the Relais for two days and two nights, before we began our weeklong Wolof
intensive language seminar at our friend
Austin Mueller’s house
in Kaolack city. Nevermind that I ended up with violent food poisoning
beginning on the second afternoon at the Relais, shortly after the below photos
were taken. It was still wonderful. We had many “firsts,” since arriving in
Senegal, at The Relais: first hot showers from a shower head, first time seeing
ourselves in a mirror extending lower than chest height (the Relais bathrooms
had mirrors that extended to just below the waist!), first time eating seafood
since September.
I could go on… It
didn’t hurt that we had the cutest stowaway in Senegal, Mr. Happy Cat, at our
side. He made the trip in his multipurpose plastic faux woven picnic basket (it
serves as cat carrier and cat box!), and was a trooper.
He wasn’t very happy in the car, and
his basket got pretty hot inside, but other than that he seemed to enjoy the
change in scenery.
We made sure to
ask several times, and to ask several people, to bypass our room on the
cleaning rounds. It worked; Happy Cat was never discovered!
Austin and his family graciously hosted us for 4 nights and
5 days at their Kaolack home. We asked endless questions of our Language and
Culture Facilitator (LCF) on Wolof vocabulary, grammar, proverbs, and some
culture too. We were served three fabulous meals a day, and had plenty of time
to rest and enjoy the finer things in Kaolack (restaurants with pizza and
beer). Happy Cat of course
provided constant entertainment for the family and visitors alike.
After our week of romance and food poisoning and Wolof, we
returned to Guinguineo for 2 days before heading back to Thies. We unfortunately
found Lady O riddled with mango flies (see video below). Despite looking like
she had been struck by a bunch of buckshot, she seemed happy as ever, and did
very well in our absence. We heavily amended the soil (just sand, really) in
her enclosure with wood ash, which cuts up the underbellies of soft-bodied
insects with its microscopic jagged edges (or its diatomaceous properties, for
the nerd audience), in hopes that the maggots would vacate her space. It seems
to have helped, so we’re hoping she’s fared better during our extended absence.
The next day, we were chatting with some new friends in our
house when Yaay came in, looking kind of stunned, and mumbled that Baay had
fallen off of his quad bike (a gift from his cousin and Peter’s namesake, the
current Mayor of Thies and a presidential hopeful) and hurt his arm. We rushed
to the car out front, where Baay sat, grinning and holding a very obviously
broken forearm. He hit a patch of
sand while driving on a bush path, and the quad flipped on its side. He broke
clean through both bones in his forearm during the fall. Thankfully they didn’t
break through his skin, but it looked like a very close call.
Peter accompanied Baay to the Guinguineo hospital, where his
arm was splinted. They then traveled to the Kaolack hospital, 20+ km away, by
ambulance. There, after an X-Ray, Baay’s arm was straightened out (which in
Wolof is waññi, which also means to reduce as in a number/price/etc, which is
pretty interesting in that it works that way in English too. To reduce meaning to reset a bone, I
mean), and fitted in a very tight cast. Since then, there have been subsequent hospital visits in
both Kaolack and Dakar, to give Baay’s arm the best chance of healing possible.
Please keep him in your thoughts
and prayers. It’s a serious injury, as he uses this arm to stabilize his “bad”
right leg, and he needs full function in both arms to work the dibi (bbq
restaurant). We’re hopeful that it will heal fully. Needless to say, it was a
really tough time to leave the family.
Despite it being a short few days, punctuated by the
craziness surrounding Baay’s injury, we spent a lot of quality time with the
family and the pets.
The All Volunteer Conference in Thies and the West African
International Softball Tournament (WAIST) in Dakar were a blur of a couple
hundred volunteers and expats and good food and new information and fun. We
learned a lot about what other volunteers are doing at the conference, and enjoyed
good company, good food, and bad beer at WAIST. Peace Corps arranges expat homestays during WAIST, and we
lucked out with a very generous family, with a very comfortable house. We had
delicious breakfasts every day, and perfectly seasoned homemade pizza with real
mozzarella one night (most restaurants in Senegal use swiss, since it’s more
readily available, so real mozz is a rare treat)!
Now we are in the midst of our final few weeks of technical
training. As of March 6, 2014, we will have fully completed all of our Peace
Corps training! Woohoo! In theory,
we will then have the base of information we need to be successful volunteers
in our respective communities. Peter and I feel well prepared, and grateful for
all of the time and effort that has gone into our training regime.
Why so much training? Because there is so much important
technical information to understand! Here’s a sampling of what we’ve learned
(and what I have good photos of!):
Grafting mango and citrus trees, to improve
production, and thus economic gain.
Transplanting fruit trees. Growing fruit trees in
pepineers, or nurseries, and then transplanting them into their permanent home
in the soil once they’re a few months old has many benefits, including reducing
water use, ability to select for stronger trees when thinning (yanking out the
weaker of the 2 seedlings in each tree sack, if both germinate), and more ease
in protecting the seedlings.
Propagating and pruning live fencing species. Live
fencing is one of the main interventions we extend; fencing with live thorny
species is more economical and more effective in the long-term than the poor
quality and expensive chain-link fencing available here, especially for large
fields and orchards.
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is a
methodology for regenerating degraded land by encouraging natural vegetative
growth. For example, instead of ripping up all of the small acacia seedlings
every year, prune them to grow vertically, and plant your crops around that
acacia. It will provide shade, help retain water, and stabilize the soil. Or,
you can do the same to create a large woodlot, and harvest the new tree growth
every year to fulfill your fuel wood needs. FMNR is an especially important
methodology considering how rampant deforestation for pole wood, fuel wood,
charcoal production and farmland has degraded much of Senegal.
We went to a FMNR demonstration site run by a Christian NGO
to see what a large-scare vegetation regeneration project can look like. At the
end of the video and in the photo collage, you see the contrast between the
unprotected and unregenerated land on the left (which is what Guinguineo looks
like), and the FMNR site on the right. Deforestation and the resulting loss of
topsoil and soil fertility is one of Senegal’s biggest environmental
challenges, so work like this is especially relevant and inspiring!
Plowing with minimal disturbance reduces erosion and
topsoil loss and takes much less work, a benefit for busy farmers. The soil we practiced on is
cement-hard; it’s the wrong season to be attempting such a feat!
Water Harvesting and Erosion Control Earthworks. Much of Senegal is located in the Sahel,
a ribbon of land extending from Mauritania and Senegal in the west, to the
Sudan and Eritrea in the east. The Sahel is the semi-arid transitional land
between the Sahara desert to the north and the savannah to the south. Water is precious, and is often the
limiting factor in agricultural production. As such, using earthworks to slow,
spread and sink water is essential for tree and plant survival. Senegal’s heavily
degraded and deforested topsoil plus heavy rains creates the perfect equation
for erosion issues. Simple earthworks that work with the contour of the land to
slow, spread and sink water in the landscape can mean the difference between agricultural
success and failure in certain areas.
We constructed and used a homemade A-frame to determine the
landscape slope for our earthworks, created several check dams and spillways in
a large erosion channel, built boomerang berms on the downhill side of mango trees
to slow and retain water, constructed contour berms progressing down the slope,
and even dug out some terraced garden beds.
It’s been a fun month full of socializing and learning and
indulging, but we’re looking forward to getting back to Guinguineo. It really
feels like home.
In February:
1) The biggest challenge we have faced: Being away
from our family for so long when we know they are having big challenges. Cell
phone technology is a great gift, though! We speak with Baay every 3 days or
so.
2) The most exciting/best experience: Having access
to real cheese at the grocery stores in Dakar and Thies for a whole month!
3) What we are most grateful for: Moments like
this:
Looking forward, March will bring…
-our final week of technical training in Thies, ending on
March 6.
-visiting our CBT host family in Tassette.
-returning to Guinguineo after being away for 4 long weeks!
-beginning our tree nursery work in Guinguineo and Nguick.
-Hosting a CIEE American study abroad student or 2 for a
week.
Kaitlin
