My Work

There was a request for more information for more details on what I am doing in Senegal. As it turns out this is a fairly good time to talk about that, I’m just getting out of some issues at site leading to meetings with important people and a more defined role for me in Khossanto.

I’m going to take the Peace Corps mission right off of the website to make things easier for me to begin with:

Mission 

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship.  The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals: 

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. 

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. 

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. 

From my end this blog in and of itself is helping me reach that third goal (thanks!), and just living here takes care of the second goal. It’s that first goal that gets tricky. Peace Corps is run a little differently in each host country but in recent years the focus has been a lot more on development. It probably has a lot to do with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.

I think I’m getting a little off track now, so let’s get back to it… what am I doing in Khossanto. I guess I’m still working on what do I want to do there and that has to do with those issues I mentioned earlier. Whatever it is I do I want to make sure that it is sustainable in that once I leave the project will continue to be effective. A problem arises when you can’t find anyone in your community to work with. I was having problems with that for a while but quite recently we had a meeting in my village with my Senegalese supervisor and the important people of Khossanto. The meeting went very well and led to some fairly solid project ideas that I hope to get started in the next few months. I’ll highlight a few of my favorites.

SCHOOL CLUBS. I’ve wanted to form environmental clubs at the primary and middle schools in my village since before I even made it there. This will be a chance for me to really get the environmental message to the youth, which in my opinion is the most effective way to make a change happen. I’ve been uncertain how to really get these started until this meeting where a good stepping-stone was suggested at the middle school level - English Club. Some students have chosen to learn English… as a native speaker I think it is safe to say that my help would be appreciated. Get together once a week or so and chat, this gives me a chance to introduce certain environmental concepts as well as get some more work on my French and Malinké. Here’s a quick list of some topics I hope to work on in these clubs: littering is bad, all frogs won’t kill you, some insects are good for your garden, wash your hands with soap after going to the bathroom and before eating, go to the bathroom in the latrines, compost, and I’m sure more will pop up as time goes on.

WOMEN’S GROUP. My village already has a well-developed women’s’ group with a sizeable garden and previous volunteers have helped them to practice good gardening practices. Where I can help is by helping to update some of those gardening practices tailoring it to the land they are using (it happens to spend the rainy season underwater). Another more difficult thing I want to do with the women’s group is to try to help put them in contact with people who want to buy the vegetables they grow in their garden. I also want to work with them to get a tree nursery started so we can plant trees at the schools and in family compounds that will provide shade from the hot hot sun. Ideally they will also produce some kind of delicious and nutritious fruit for the village as well.

I would also like to help get latrines made throughout the village. Right now a lot of family compounds don’t have a place to go to the bathroom, kind of like if only one house in your neighborhood had a toilet. What winds up happening is that people will just do their business wherever, flies will land on it, when the flies are done there they will then land on your food. I think you can see the issue there.

The real key to everything I try to do here is working closely with people in my village.  As I mentioned before I want the projects I do to continue once I go and the only way to ensure that happens is to work with Senegalese counterparts every step of the way.  When I have pride and take ownership in my work I certainly try to keep in from falling apart, I'm hoping I can work with people like that here.  So there's a bit of an overview of my work here in Senegal.  I hope you have a better idea of what I'm doing here and, as always, keep asking questions!