My Mega Month

What a whirlwind the past month has been.  After spending a lovely Christmas at the beach with a group of friends, I came back to site and started preparing for a busy month.  Since then, I’ve been on-the-go and changing direction almost every day.  It seems that all of my project work has converged at once over the past few weeks.  I won’t bore you with blow-by-blow details, but here are some of my January highlights:

• Held a T-shirt making class with my Girls Club (shout outs to my mom and sister for the supplies)
• Led another round of Safe Zone Training, this time for Volunteers during their in-service training
• Participated in a 2-day Junior Achievement preparatory training session (this is a worldwide program that “empowers young people to own their economic success”---see http://www.ja.org/ for the US version.)  I’ll be teaching both the high school and elementary school levels of JA classes this year.
• Attended a 2-day Small Enterprise Development Summit which included sessions on Handicrafts management and Agribusiness, as well as field trips to an Eco-Village, a Food Technology Institute, and a small business administration office in Dakar.
• Helped coordinate a day-long SeneGAD (Gender & Development) Summit which included talks on HIV/AIDS, working with kids through sports, and presentations from GAD groups visiting from Mali, Guinea, and The Gambia. Also, attended my last SeneGAD Board Meeting and turned over my Communications Coordinator position to two new gals who will now share the title.
• Participated in two Work Zone Coordinator Meetings to discuss the management of information and project coordination for volunteers in my sub-region.
• Attended a 2-day All Volunteer Conference where I:
• participated on a Diversity Panel sharing my experiences being a “Female Volunteer in Senegal” (more specifically, sharing the story of how the police treated me after I was mugged last year);
• presented a case study on the Gardens of Moringa training I organized with  my friend Andrew last month;
• demonstrated my Paper Briquette Press during an Appropriate Technology Fair
•  attended an assortment of interesting sessions on an environmental education club, a school correspondence program, and a beekeeping association in Guinea.
• Played in the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (affectionately known as WAIST) where Peace Corps regional teams play those from the Marine Corps, the Embassy, USAID, and a number of other ex-pat groups.  By tradition, the Peace Corps teams wear themed costumes which makes it a lot of fun for us. The other teams don’t which makes it less fun for them.
• Met with the founder of Swahili Imports (http://swahili-imports.com/), a small African arts and handicrafts importer from the lovely Eugene, Oregon, to learn more about the import/export process.  To my delight, not only did I learn a lot, but she was interested in some of Mamadou’s work, so I sent her home with a couple of his wooden plates to show her team.  She’ll be back in a couple of months and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll place an order.
• Welcomed Jerry McGahan, a beekeeper from Montana, who came to Senegal on a Farmer-to-Farmer grant funded by USAID.  Together, we:
• met with the president of the Senegalese beekeeping union and with regional representatives of a  Senegalese NGO organization who are working on a localized honey consolidation project;
• visited with several beekeepers in the Thiès and Fatick regions and inspected their hives;
• visited with potential beekeepers in the Diourbel region and advised them on how to get started;
• taught young school kids about the importance of pollination and how bees fit into this process;
• coordinated a craft project with my Girls Club making and decorating bee sculptures;
• worked on a training presentation that I will later give to Peace Corps Volunteers interested in supporting beekeepers in their regions.
• Held my first Junior Achievement class with 35 students and 5 teacher assistants at the local technical high school.
• Coordinated an Eco-Ecole exposition for a delegation of visiting Scout leaders from Finland and Senegal.

Whew!  ALL of that took place over a three week period. I’m exhausted.  Maybe I should just submit this blog entry as my resume when I return to the states.  "If I'm capable of accomplishing that much in just three weeks (in a foreign language), just think what I can do for you!"


Sunday was my first down day since early January.  There was nothing on my calendar and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  I made a big pot of vegetable barley soup, started a new knitting project, and lost myself in Pinterst for a couple of hours.  It was just what I needed.

Here are some snapshots of events from the last month.

Newly painted t-shirts!

A rockin' solar powered water pump at an Eco-Village

This light and gas stove are fueled by a methane gas
tank which is fueled by this couple's sheep and cows--so cool!

A pedal-powered machine at the food technology institute

Making paper pulp to show the briquette press
at the Appropriate Technology Fair

Panel discussion on Diversity

Les Francais aka Les Dakarois
(Yes, I'm the Eiffel Tower in the middle)

The lovely ladies who replaced me as SeneGAD Communications Coordinator;
yes, it takes two to fill my shoes ;-)

Abdou Seck's honey stand

The Three Amigos - Me, Abdou, and Jerry in Bandia

Meeting up with some more beekeepers down in the delta region

Inspecting hives in the mangroves

Busy little bees.  Aren't they pretty?

Jerry consulting about honey extraction

Mamadou's hopes of selling his products in the U.S.
just may come to fruition.

Beekeeping lesson at our Eco-Ecole

Making bee sculptures with my Girls Club

Soudou and Ibou planning out a future training garden and apiary.

Now that this crazy month has come to an end, it's got me thinking about how I reacted to it.  One of the benefits of living out in the middle of nowhere on my own is that my experiences often shines a light on my idiosyncrasies.  In my little bubble, it's hard not to notice slight behavior changes and quirks. Lately, because I've had too many things on my plate, my office has become littered with piles of project paperwork and supplies and the bags from my last couple of trips still lay unpacked on my bedroom floor.  Thinking back on my life at home, this rang true there, as well.  The busier and more stressed my work life became the more out of control my living space got and the weaker my coping skills became.  Take for example the mouse that recently died in my office. For days, I smelled it, knew it was there, but couldn't deal with digging through the piles of stuff in my office to find it.  Instead, I lit incense and said I'd get to it later.  This is not just laziness, this is not being able to take on one more thing.  My body also tends to shut down when I'm overloaded.  During the midst of this busy period I had to decide whether or not to make an unplanned trip to Dakar to deal with an inner ear problem I was having.  Making the trip meant cancelling some project plans and inconveniencing other people, so I opted not to go. Luckily, with lots of fluids and decongestants the the problem cleared up on its own.


These glimpses into my personality are a good reminder for me to pay attention to them.  My reactions to stress may not change much, but I can probably do a better job of recognizing the signs and using them as a reminder to stop and take a time-out every once in a while.  Ibou and his friends often comment to me that I work too much.  I used to think that my work habits were just exaggerated in contrast to the many rest periods and breaks they take throughout the day, but maybe there's something more innate to it.  I have to remember that there's nothing wrong with closing the laptop, putting down the reference book, and doing something completely recreational for a bit.  This weekend's date with my knitting needles and soup pot were a good reminder of that.  Self-reflection; it's a good thing.


If you're interested in seeing more recent photos, I've added a few new ones to the Photos tab (see tab at top of blog page).  The most recent ones are Christmas in Popenguine v2.011 and  Highlights from WAIST 2012.  I also added some new photos to the albums entitled: Keur Cheikh Girls Club , Skype Snapshots, and the Tangibly Marking the Passage of Time.

P.S. - I did finally look high and low for the dead mouse and, although I didn't find it (I fear it's in the wall, but thankfully, the smell has faded), this new one was waiting for me under my desk the next time I entered my office.  A sacrificial lamb, of sorts.

Thanks for sending the d-CON, Mom.

Wait...This Is Beginning To Feel Like a Real Job

It’s been 2 months since my last blog entry and I've been on-the-go the entire time.  They say that your project work picks up after the first year of Peace Corps service, and apparently “they” know what they’re talking about.  This is beginning to feel like a real job all of a sudden!

Before the rush began, I took my second vacation of the year and spent 3 weeks back in the states visiting with friends and family and enjoying the splendors of autumn in Virginia.  Although I wasn’t able to catch up with everyone I’d hoped to, I did see quite a few people and many a four-legged friend.  Being home wasn’t as overwhelming as my trip to Europe this past summer.  I’d already experienced the shock of the modern world and my mind was no longer making comparisons with everything I saw.  In fact, it was more like I’d landed on a different planet, Planet America, and therefore I didn’t expect for things to be the same.  I did have a few first impressions, though.  It seems I’ve spent the better part of a year telling Senegalese folks who are enthralled with the idea of the U.S. that America is not really like it appears on T.V.  After having been back just a day, I realized that, well, it actually kind of is--clean, pretty, organized, and filled with things that cost a lot of money.  I guess I’ll have to change my tune on this and just accept it for what it is.  The other things that caught my eye were the little trends that had popped up since I’ve been gone.  Everywhere I looked there was Greek yogurt, scan squares, Angry Birds, and eyebrow threading.  Odd, what catches on so quickly.  Other than that, home was pretty much like I left it.  I filled my days sightseeing, walking in the woods, enjoying the company of friends and family, hanging with my dog, attending a film festival, eating good food, sipping tea, drinking good coffee, and appreciating fine libations.  I overextended myself a bit with all of the socializing I tried to fit in, so by the time I left I was fighting a cold and cough, but it was totally worth it.  How often to you get to be a vacationing visitor in your own home-town?  Click on this photo to open an album with pictures from my trip.

My Love Affair with America

Special thanks go out to the many friends and family who hosted me while I was back.  It was a bit strange not to have a home to return to, but the hospitality extended to me was grand and I was happy to see that my renters are taking great care of my house in Batesville.  Also, a big “merci” goes out to The Peabody School for holding an assembly so I could tell them all about my adventures in the Peace Corps.  After the assembly, I spent an hour with the kids from the French classes with whom I’ve been corresponding and it was really great to meet them in person.  Then there are folks who came to the Cider Dinner at my friend Kevin’s house, who were gracious enough to donate almost $800 to my “Bringing Books to Senegal” campaign.  This is a project I was working on with a group of volunteers in Senegal.  We were teaming up with the non-profit organization, Books for Africa,to raise funds to bring over 22,000 local language books and text books to local libraries and schools Senegal.  Unfortunately, I just found out this week, that the campaign has been cancelled, as the request for funds has exceeded the time limit allotted.  Never fear, the $4,400 already donated to this project will be diverted to the Peace Corps Marathon fundraiser whose proceeds will be going to a scholarship program for middle school girls.  I’ve been involved with this scholarship program for some time and, in fact, some of the recipients of this year’s scholarships are the ones who attended our Girls Leadership Camp in September.  Click here for a clever video clip promoting the Peace Corps Race for Education Marathon.   Although I'm not planning to train for this race (are you kidding me?!?!--I struggled to train for a 5K while I was home and this is taking place in Sub-Saharan Africa!), I do plan to go down to cheer on those brave souls who will be running and make sure everyone stays hydrated.

On 11-11-11, just a couple of days after returning to Senegal, I organized a World Hoop Day celebration to spread my joy of wiggling and giggling (aka hoop dancing) with the people in my community.  World Hoop Day is a non-profitorganization based in the U.S. that granted me funds to make a slew of hoops for the kids of Diourbel.  I teamed up with my friend Nar Dieng, who heads a roller-blading association, to put on a grand spectacle for the kids.  A local youth center donated the space and Nar and his friends helped me make and decorate 50 new hoops for this event.  A couple of Peace Corps Volunteers from neighboring villages came in for the day to help me out and several school officials came to partake in the festivities.  We had well over 70 kids join us for an afternoon of hooping and roller-blading.  The local radio station even covered the event in their evening broadcast.  Aside from the usual annoyances, like having to transport chairs and hoops on the back of a horse-drawn cart, people showing up late, and a sound system that was many decibels too loud, everything came together and it was a fun-filled afternoon. Click on the picture below to open an album of photos from the event.

World Hoop Day

The following week, I gathered a training group in Dakar to conduct another round of Safe Zone Training to discuss gay awareness and sensitivity with our local Peace Corps staff.  This was our third round of training and was, again, well-received.  This always provokes lots of discussion and controversy, but that’s why we put it together in the first place. We give the staff a safe place to talk about these issues and to better understand how to support homosexual volunteers who are serving in a country where homosexual acts are treated as both immoral and illegal.  During this session, one of the staff members shared with us her concerns about an Islamic belief that if you touch a homosexual, even a casual touch upon the arm, then your prayers will not count for 40 days.  Since Muslims pray 5 times a day, that’s 200 prayers down the drain.  She understood that she has a professional obligation to interact with homosexual volunteers, but wanted to make it clear to us that she was uncomfortable with this.  Fair enough—we weren’t there to change their opinions, just broaden their understanding and hopefully identify some folks who could step up to provide support.  Regardless, it was hard to hear.  Soon after this discussion, however, one of our openly gay volunteers returned a pen to another participant and to thank him for remembering to give it back, she hugged him.  Yes, right there in front of Allah and everybody, with 200 prayers in jeopardy, she hugged him. It was beautiful.

The next week I returned to Dakar to attend a Thanksgiving feast at the home of the new Ambassador and his wife, Lewis and Lucy Lukens.  They arrived in Senegal in August and were brave enough to follow in the tradition of previous ambassadors and invite the Peace Corps Volunteers over to their house to celebrate the holiday. I say brave, because letting a group of mostly 20-somethings who’ve been living meager lives subsisting on rice and millet for many months around unlimited amounts of good food and wine can be a scary sight.  Many volunteers chose to stay in their respective regions, hosting smaller gatherings at regional houses, but there were still over 100 volunteers who signed up for the pot luck in Dakar.  In addition, 30 or so embassy employees joined us, so it was quite an impressive gathering (that’s a lot of toubabs) and the food was amazing.

Stanzi rolling out pie dough with a beer bottle--classic Peace Corps ingenuity!

An impressive variety of foods at the pot luck

One of the MANY long tables set up for the event.

So I over-indulged a little!

The Tivaouane gang had a Thanksgiving reunion of sorts.
Phil, Kelsey, April, and Chris

The following day, a small group of volunteers hosted a Black Friday Art Expo in Dakar.  I brought two artisans from Diourbel: Mamadou, who I’ve introduced before, and Dibor, a new tailor with whom I’m working.  She and I designed some satchels and bags made from recycled rice sacks and these sold really well.  I also worked with her to create some other new items that we thought would interest the ex-pat community of Dakar.  She made placemat and napkin sets, adjustable aprons, and wrap-pants.  Dibor sold so many things the first day of the Expo that she stayed up late at her sewing machine that night to replenish her stocks.  In the first two days of the sale, she netted well over $200, which in an economy where people survive on less than $1/day, is pretty substantial.  Her husband called me later that week to thank me personally.

Dibor at the Art Expo

Dibor's rice sack bags

Mamadou and his friend Matar

Hanging with my artisans

Khady returned to France at the end of November and won’t return to Senegal until after my service has ended.  I’m going to miss having her around, although it will be nice for Ibou and me to have the compound back to ourselves.  This time around we’re not exactly alone though.  We now have a young French volunteer named Anna who has just started working with us.  She arrived in Senegal a few weeks ago and will likely stay for the three months that her visa will allow.  So far, she’s settling in and getting used to the heat, culture, and language.  That’s a lot to come at you at once, I know.  Soon, she’ll be helping us with our Eco-Ecole program and our village garden projects.  Although she doesn’t speak a lick of English and my ears strain to understand her accent (so different for the African French accent), it’s nice to have another toubab around.  Her arrival was also a good excuse not to return to eating lunches with the family across the street.  As much as I enjoyed their company, I’m happy not to be forced to eat my weight in rice every day.

Another welcome change that’s occurred since my return from the States is that we’ve had over 2 straight months without any electricity outages to speak of.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had two straight days prior to this.  Not sure what’s afoot, but the upcoming election surely plays a part in this.  Unfortunately, now that I have reliable power, my internet service has been on the fritz, working only periodically. This has been annoying and disruptive for me, but knowing that the majority of Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal (or around the world) don’t have the luxury of WiFi, I really shouldn’t complain.

The first weekend in December, a reporter from Voice of America came out to Diourbel to do a story on our paper briquette press project.  She attended our Saturday morning Eco-Ecole and interviewed some of the kids and school directors.  She was impressed with our little compound oasis and the projects that we’re working on. Here is a link to the radio transcript. 

Last week, my friends Andrew and CJ came up from Kaolack to conduct a training seminar about the wonders of the Moringa tree.  My neighbor Stanzi came from Bambey, as well.  The first day we brought several people in from neighboring villages for a train-the-trainer session, teaching them how to best grow and cultivate it, the nutritional value of its leaves, and how to incorporate them into their diet.  The next two days were spent in the villages repeating these same lessons, but with the help of the participants from the first day.  The information was well-received and each village now has a small Moringa nursery to tend to.  I’ll be following up with them in late January to see how things are going.  Click on the photo below to open an album of our Gardens of Moringa Training.

Gardens of Moringa Training

Here's a special bonus--a short video of the women of Khokhe who broke out into song and dance while pounding moringa leaves.

Moringa Powder Song & Dance

And finally, last week marked another milestone for me; I turned 44.  To celebrate, I traveled to Thiès to join a few friends for lunch and then went on a little shopping spree to replenish my cupboards.  As a special treat, I bought myself a bottle of Scotch, a frying pan, a can of artichoke hearts, a hand-blender for making soups and smoothies. That alone equaled half of my monthly living allowance—but, heh, I’m worth it, right?!  All in all it was a good day and it was so nice to hear from so many of you.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.  May Santa's sleigh be filled with sacks of rice and boxes of live chickens!

I shared my ride into Thies with a box full of chickens

Ice Cream - Yum!

Joyeux Noel

The Queer Quiz

One of my proudest achievements in service, thus far, did not include attempts to end malaria, to promote nutrition for small children, or even to introduce an alternative fuel source.  No, instead, my moment of glory came in the administration of a quiz---a "queer quiz", to be exact.


At the tail end June, Gay Pride Month in America, five other volunteers joined me at the Thiès Training Center to deliver a day-long seminar on sexual orientation and alternative lifestyles.  Our target audience was a group of local staff members whose job it is to provide language training and cultural support to Peace Corps Trainees.  Also in attendance were other key members of the Peace Corps Senegal staff, including the Training Director, Safety and Security Coordinator, and the Medical Officers.   This training (called Safe Zone Training) was originally put together by volunteers in The Gambia, the small country that cuts through the middle of Senegal, and was shared at our Gender and Development Summit back in February.   It focuses on increasing the staff’s awareness of different sexual identities and instructs them on how to support volunteers that come to them with personal issues.  Homosexual acts are not only considered immoral by the religious leaders here, but they are also punishable by law.  In 2007, 96% of the Senegalese population surveyed said that homosexuality should be rejected by society and, in the past 3 years, 14 Senegalese men have been arrested and 5 imprisoned for illicit homosexual behavior. Just two months ago, several of my friends and I were stunned upon reading a front page news article declaring a “jihad” on  homosexuality, wherein one of the most prestigious religious leaders suggested that those found guilty of this heinous crime be stoned on the streets.

They say that serving in the Peace Corps is the “toughest job you’ll ever love”, but when that job comes with the challenge of masking your true identity for fear of personal harm or imprisonment, as it did for 14% of the volunteers who swore in last year, that makes the job even tougher and, frankly, this just didn’t sit well with me.  I was raised to be open-minded and accepting of people’s differences and I include in my “circle of love” many people whose lifestyles differ from my own.  My mother recalls a phone call she received from me in college after I’d witnessed a KKK march where little kids stood next to their parents holding signs with anti-gay slogans.  I was livid at them; she was proud of me; and yes, I said KKK, as in Ku Klux Klan.  I’m not blind to the fact that discrimination is still alive and well in our great nation, but I’ve never been one to tolerate it.  When I arrived in Senegal, and realized that many of my friends who had been “out” at home had to go back into the closet here in order not to offend their host families or, worse, subject themselves to possible danger or arrest, it made me feel as uncomfortable as they did.  Living in this this foreign culture is hard enough without the added burden of trying to change who you are.  So, I took matters into my own hands and pushed to have this training.

The SeneGAD (Senegal Gender and Development) Board met at the beginning of May and approved my proposal.  Shortly thereafter, we had full support from our Country Director, and we formed a Safe Zone Committee of interested volunteers from around the country to review and modify the training materials we’d gathered.  In less than 2 months, we conducted our first day-long session to 12 attendees.  We covered basic vocabulary, issues faced by homosexual volunteers, current gay rights around the world, the stages and difficulties of coming out, testimonials shared by current volunteers, and anti-gay behavior.   We spent the last hour of the session discussing the definition and role of an “ally” and how our staff can be supportive of volunteers who have issues related to their sexual orientation.  At the end, we passed out the “queer quiz”, which was really just an evaluation form, asking attendees about how their perceptions may have changed from the beginning of the class.   Across the board, the participants demonstrated an increase in understanding and a willingness to discuss these issues.  We had lively and open discussion throughout the day and everyone agreed that this was an topic that no one had felt comfortable broaching before and that this training was long overdue. 

The SeneGAD Safe Zone Team

Our Country Director opened the session to show his support.

It was an interactive training day.

We even had role-play scenarios.

We may not have changed a nation’s attitude, last month, but we connected with a room full of people who provide daily support in the lives of future Peace Corps Volunteers as they struggle to understand a new language and acclimate to a new culture. We “helped promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served”, which is the second goal John F. Kennedy defined for the Peace Corps.  Even though most of our participants still hold strong to their religious/legal beliefs regarding these matters, they're open to accepting and supporting others whose beliefs are different from theirs. Like all countries where Peace Corps is present, Senegal is a developing country with a young democracy, so, of course, there is room for improvement when it comes to many rights and the concept of equality.  

Even we, in America, don't quite have this right yet, as we were reminded by the late Coretta Scott King--but we're trying.  “We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination.  I say ‘common struggle’ because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere.  Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination.”