Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Trees Go in the Ground??

For the past 7 months I've been caring for a steadily growing pepineer that consists mostly of guava trees and now also includes cashew trees and a thorny live fencing species. Since the rains are finally starting to become more and more steady, I've started to outplant!

Recently I was approached by the abbott, Timothee, from the Catholic Mission in Pakour after we had discussed the potential of working together some months earlier. Timothee said that he wanted to work with me, but continually asked what I wanted to do on the grounds of the Mission. I had explain the fact that it wasn't up to me to decide what to work on; potential work partners come to me with ideas and then I help them start the projects. After a visit to my pepineer and a short discussion down at the Mission grounds we decided there was enough space in a fenced in area of the grounds to plant 5 guava trees and 3 cashew trees. For the trees that I have cared for and grown I have decided that selling them is a much better strategy than giving them away. If I give them away there's a chance they won't be cared for like their worth the time and effort that was put into them, and well I'm not selling them for very much at 100 CFA/tree (enough to buy a loaf of village bread in Senegal or about 20 cents USD).

I arrived on the arranged evening with the 5 guava trees and went to work demonstrating the techniques for outplanting a pepineered fruit tree. After completing the first outplanting, I stepped back and let the two resident abbotts, Timothee and Martin, along with my buddy, Moussa Diallo, and
Babacar, the grounds management worker at the Mission, do the rest. By the end of the evening we each had a tree named after its planter.
With a new seven-foot tall woven fence inside a wider area, shorter wire I was not the least bit concerned for the trees...as long as the doors were closed properly.

I had decided to put off completing their plantation for another week since my cashew trees were only just about 6 weeks old and the guidelines call for at least 6 but no more than 10 weeks in the pepineer before outplanting. Upon returning to the Mission only 6 days later I was greeted by bare twigs where leafy 2.5 foot guava trees once stood - GOATS!! I was upset to say the least. I made my irritation known in a roundabout fashion, as displaying frustration would not be culturally acceptable. Six and half months of care and work down the drain. Two ground-driven vertical logs braced the piece of fencing designed to slide open prohibited the fencing from sitting flush and had offered the perfect weakness. We finished outplanting the cashews and rearranged the fencing to sit more streamline.

I have since visited the Mission and I am happy to say the guava trees are all pushing out new leaves. Since the trees were old enough to have some hard wood, the goats were not interested in consuming them all the way to the ground. For now it looks like the trees will survive, but we all agreed that another attack like that would surely finish them off.

I hated goats before they attacked my guavas - constantly chasing them out of my compound with rocks following them close behind. Within a few nights of the attack, I was lying in bed and spied a goat that had gotten into the fenced-in area behind my hut consuming every last one of my trees. I arose with a start, banged my toe on the side of my bed, and, gasping for a breath, gazed out my back door. It was 2am, pitch black, and there wasn't a goat to be found...goat nightmares...Does Peace Corps health insurance cover PTSD?

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

English Club & Such at the CEM de Pakour

Throughout the dry season I spent most of my time on secondary projects not related to trees or reforestation, and one of my regular jobs became an English teacher at the CEM where the latrine project is underway.

Six teachers from town rent rooms in my compound teaching Arabic, Natural Science, elementary education, and of course English. Mr. Gaye, the English teacher, and I quickly got to know each other simply because of the ease that came with speaking my native tongue. He continuously wanted to improve his English and I wanted someone to have a conversation with as a break from French or Pulaar. One day Mr. Gaye proposed the idea of me giving a presentation in one of his classes to give his students a chance to listen to a native speaker, and so my teaching career began.

It started with just one of Mr. Gaye's classes and continued on until, to date, I've given around 7 presentations in not only Mr. Gaye's classes but also a second English teacher, Mr. Diop.
Almost all of the presentations have consisted of me starting off by explaining a little about myself, where I'm from in the U.S., and what I studied in college before segwaying into Peace Corps
information. I then give a background on what the Peace Corps is, its goals, its programs, and what my current and future efforts and aspirations are for Pakour. I finally move on to cultural differences between Senegal and the United States (blog post upcoming...I can't believe I haven't outlined this yet...maybe it just took me this long to be able to hash it out). During the presentation I try so hard to speak sloooowly and cleeeaaarly because "American English is so quick." After working with the English teachers for so long, I've even picked up on their pronunciation of certain words and try to use those to improve the students' understanding. Throughout the presentation Mr. Diop or Gaye will take notes, and we always conclude with a short quiz on what I said. Sometimes if they miss something I might repeat the answer amongst other information/names to make them sift through and find the correct response. Some of the classes have only been learning English for a couple years, so hearing a native speaker for the first time is extremely difficult, but when they do find the correct response, and there usually is at least a couple of students that were actually paying attention, it makes it all the more worth it. The other day I taught an English class on the problems of deforestation and the importance of the forest surrounding Pakour. Any of you that know me can probably guess what happened - I got a little carried away talking about the environment and before I knew it I had diagrams about Global Warming on the board, and the students eyes were glazed over...I'm sure they picked up some of it...

I'm now considered one of the teachers, and I even have some students calling me "Mr. Barry" (It takes some getting used to being called "Mr." anything, especially with your foreign last name) I attend all the teacher gatherings and spend most of my free time with them conversing in a mixture of French, Pulaar, Wolof, and English (in that order).

Additionally I have been a judge at the English Club's Master Game (Master Game Finals Pictured). The Master Game is a jeopardy-like trivia game with mostly simple
questions in categories including spelling, general knowledge, grammar, and vocabulary, but everything is in English. This is a great
opportunity for the students to practice their English by speaking and hearing only English. Unfortunately some of the other teachers are a little less than confident in their own English
and use a lot of French (the general academic language in Senegal) or
even some of the native native languages (Wolof/Pulaar) in their
lessons. So often many of the students, and even some of the English teachers, fear speaking English with me as they might make a mistake with the native speaker. With the way conversations almost always start, it seems that the first thing they must teach in English class is how to say "I don't speak English," so I spend the first couple minutes diffusing this and pushing them to try harder. Through my experiences with the Master Game I have gotten to know some of the best students in Pakour, and for all the stories I hear about female students getting married at 15 and dropping out or the prevalence of students not fulfilling the 50% average to successfully complete a grade and having to be held back, it is refreshing to meet the best of the best who will even seek me out at home on their own time just to practice their English. Pictured is Amadou, the president of the English Club, at the Master Game Finals singing a song about Africa's pain and struggle...in English. He's pretty good...


The CEM in Pakour, is struggling by with minimal funding and decrepit facilities, but with the
efforts of teachers like Mr. Gaye (Pictured Left) and Mr. Diop (Right) along with the freshman headmaster, Mr. Sabaly (Center),
things are moving in the right direction.



I was recently awarded a certificate of recognition by the teachers, students, and headmaster of the CEM for my continued work with them in English classes, the latrine project, and the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship Program (Blog Post Upcoming). Mr. Sabaly thanked me greatly for my help and stated that next year our work together will start earlier in the school year, and my opinion will be solicited and considered for every decision made at the school...wow, never thought I would find myself with this much input into the school...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

"That's the Reality of Poverty..."

The other day I was travelling from Velingara (larger city 60 km north of Pakour where I pick up my mail) to Kounkane (30 km north of Pakour where I get on the national highway) when we picked up an unusual passenger.

My mode of transport was what PCVs call an "Alhum," a short-distance city-to-city bus always packed to the brim with people (pictured). While travelling from large city to large city, the Alhum makes stops at smaller villages in between to drop people off and pick up people waiting on the side of the road. About 20 mins from my destination of Kounkane we stopped at a small village and a man approached the driver, they talked for a minute, and the man walked back to the nearby compound. At the compound he picked up a wrapped up plastic mat and sheet and approached the back of the Alhum accompanied by four other men. As he approached the Alhum I kept staring at the wrapped up bundle in his arms unable to come up with what possibly could be inside. As he climbed into the back I thought, "no, you've got to be kidding me...No...."

Women and children started bounding toward the front of the bus to fill in the seats further away from the new passengers. Some started sobbing, but everyone went quiet. The music that was playing from a stereo in the front of the bus was immediately cut out. After staring at the bundle for a few more seconds, I finally came to terms with what had just boarded the bus. There was a body wrapped up in that clothe and plastic mat lying across the lap of one of the new passengers....

I overheard their destination - Marawe - immediately after mine. For just over 20 minutes the bus would be riding with a body in the back of the seating area...

When I finally got home to Pakour, I recounted the story to the teachers that live in my compound with varying reactions. None of them had ever heard of this happening, and said it was very abnormal. One teacher, Mr. Seck, was angry that this was disrespectful to the dead person, and also that "women and children would be afraid of the body. Shouldn't they have had a special car to take the body?!" Mr. Gaye, an English teacher I hang around and work with quite a bit, was shocked but not surprised. Very solemnly he looked at me and said, "that's the reality of poverty..."