Heartbreak

Last week, I witnessed a heartbreaking Pulaar custom. While I was out in the fields one morning, my host mothers lured my little host sisters and nieces (ages 4-6) into a hut with promises of kosam (home-made yogurt, a village treat) for breakfast. There, they were forcibly circumcised. It was supposed to be kept a secret from me, but the change of attitude was evident when I entered my compound. For starters, my sisters didn't come running to greet me like they always do and there were a bunch of women in my compound including the female elders, all of them with they're eyes following me but everyone avoiding me, real strange in a culture that loves to greet. My brother filled me in later over lunch and I couldn't help but start crying.  As I saw it, it was sexual abuse on little girls too young to have any idea what happened to them and I was overcome with guilt at not being home to protect the girls that have grown to be family in this past year. Their behavior towards me and the exclusive was also hurtful, as it showed they were both ashamed and distrustful of me. My host brother couldn't understand; for him it's just a tradition, plus he never have a clitoris.

The tradition turned taboo ten years ago in Senegalese law, but nothing much has changed in the remote villages. Instead, the practice went underground, arguably making it more dangerous. Meanwhile, male circumcisions have adopted an air of modernity; boys are often brought to health posts for circumcision, or at least a health worker is present at village circumcisions, with access to sanitary equipment, soap, and antibiotics in case of infection. Village women circumcise girls in the secrecy of their homes under unsanitary conditions: the cutting instrument is whatever knife or razor blade is available and I know that soap is in near constant shortage in my house. Furthermore, since female genital cutting (FGC) is illegal, parents fear prosecution if they seek medical treatment for a daughter with a botched circumcision, resulting in infection or severe blood loss. These girls are condemned to die in secret. I've heard of two such deaths in my commune the past 6 months, which leads be to the believe the death rate associated with the practice is pretty high, as these deaths are not openly discussed, and then only in secret, and certainly not with an outsider.

Host siblings playing with bubbles

Hearing about these deaths in the past was shocking, but now the practice was in my home - how can I deal with that? At first I was so angry, I wanted to report all the women involved to the police; fortunately, the cellphone reception in my village is horrible. I had time to reflect and realized that reporting the crime would put my ability to work (and possibly my safety) in village in jeopardy. Even worse, if my host parents were jailed or faced a fine, the girls' education would be the first expense sacrificed to pay the bail or fine, not to mention the trauma it might cause the kids seeing their parents in such a position. Ultimately, reporting the incident would only make my girls' lives even worse.

As usual, I turned to Sam, my closest neighbor, to get me through yet another crisis; she harbored me while I cooled off and brainstormed an action plan to end FGC in the area. We've meet a couple women in the Department of Velingara who speak out against the practice. One woman works with a local radio station; we approached her to see if she would like to help us air a question and answer about the risks and realities of genital cutting in the area. She agreed, and just setting a project in motion, doing something made me feel that much better.

I asked an older host sister for more information about the project when I caught her alone, a tricking task since all the women in the compound seemed on their guard towards me. She told me more detail about the process, but admitted that it happened to her so young she doesn't remember much. After the kosam to lure you into the hut, women hold the girls down and, before the girl knows whats happening, another one cuts, not sure what all is cut, but nothing is sewn at least, i.e. infibulation. She doesn't remember being in too much pain during the 3 day healing period, though it was painful to watch my host sisters limp around, unable to bend over to retrieve the bottle caps they'd dropped. Still, he went on to talk about the health consequences of FGC that she had learned about: pain during intercourse and/or increased problems of giving birth due to scar tissue, not to mention that it's illegal. She seemed upset that it had happened to her sisters; she had also gone out that morning.

I did some more research on my own, too. There's a chapter in Half the Sky (a great book on women's rights issues worldwide by Kristof and WuDunn) that gives an overview of the subject, but gives way to lather praise on a Senegalese based organization, Tostan. A recent article in the New York Times also cited the breakthrough work that Tostan is doing to end female genital cutting. Sadly, my village and the surrounding ones a a Tostan failure: they went through the 3 year alternative education program, but have since forgotten or disregarded the literacy, health, organization, and human rights lessons provided to them. FCG still has  a tenacious grip on the cultural collective of the community, with nearly 100% circumcision rates among local women. It is abysmal feeling to know the poster child in the fight to end this practice hadn't made an impact on my community. What is a measly Peace Corps volunteer like me to do? Is there any hope for the girls of the Department of Velingara?

Welcome to the compound

One midwife at the Kounkane Health Post believes that education about FGC consequences is the best way to get women to discontinue the practice. She spoke with the Kounkane High School Girls Club that Sam and I founded last spring when the members requested more information about genital cutting. At the end of the meeting, all the members agreed they will never submit their own daughters to this practice. Neither will the sister that gave me information about cuttings in our village, if she can help it. She is in her final year of CEM (middle school) this year and says that she learned about the horrible consequences of FGC out of village, attending school in Kounkane. Educating girls provides them with the information and economic value that empowers them to speak out against cutting. Hopefully, the next generation will end this practice as more and more Senegalese girls get access to schools. Peace Corps volunteers are working to keep girls in school by providing scholarships to the best female students in middle schools throughout the country through the Michele Sylvester Scholarship (more info here).

But Lord knows I'm impatient for change. Isn't there anything else I can do?

Open Field Day

After a summer of hard work in the field, also the reason I’ve been so bad at updating this blog, my counterpart and I finally got to show off the fruits of our labor. On October 6^th we invited 60 local government officials, development workers, and community members to tour our Master Farm, ask questions about the agricultural demonstrations, and share ideas for developing agriculture in the community.

The Mast Farmer Program is a Senegal-wide Peace Corps project in which local farmers work with Peace Corps volunteer(s) to set up field crop, gardening, and agroforestry demonstrations. The master farmers are expected to hold trainings and open field days to teach other farmers in the area the technologies on display. The Master Farm will also become a site for distributing improved seed varieties and scions for fruit tree grafting. This first open field day focused on the field crop demonstrations and agroforestry work that took place during the rainy season (June-September).

Over the summer, my counterpart, host brothers, and I planted nearly 1000 trees to establish the windbreak, live fence, alley cropping, and intercropped fruit trees. The windbreak is a stand of eucalyptus, cashew, and acacia trees designed to protect the field from wind; it is made up of three rows of short, medium, and tall trees to capture the wind at all levels. The live fence consists of a variety of thorny species (like Acacia) and Jatropha planted closely together to create a hedge to keep animals (and children!) out. Lines of Pigeon pea, Moringa, and Leucaena separate the garden beds and crop plots; all three species help fix nitrogen in the soil and the leaves that they drop also enrich the land.  Finally, there are guava, papaya, banana, mango and citrus trees dispersed throughout the gardening zone. Yeah, I know, it’s basically paradise… well, someday in the future.

Banana flower

As for the field crop demos, we concentrated on four experiments this year. A sorghum demo showed the importance of thinning and harvesting crops on time; unfortunately, the seed provided to us is an improved variety and most attendees were more interested in the seed than the experiment. The corn demonstration was more confusing because it compared two variables at once: zai hole conservation farming versus conventional farming, and NPK fertilizer and urea application versus manure. The community comprehended the bean and rice demos much better. Four plots of beans compared different methods of pest control: chemical insecticide, organic insect repellent made from Neem extract, sticky bug traps, and the control, i.e. no treatment. The plot treated with insecticide produced the most, but the organic methods were not far behind, offering a cheaper (and safer) alternative to farmers. The rice plots compared seeding on line versus thinning to one rice plant per intersection on a grid (Rice Intensification System). The individual rice plants have more space to produce more tillers, where the grains of rice form; the demonstration showed how to produce more rice from just a little bit of seed.

Overall, the attendees appreciated the Open Field Day and are especially eager to learn more and attend future trainings. Representatives from local government and development agencies were impressed with our work. The Open Field Day successfully advertised the intentions of the Master Farmer project and the opportunities available there in the future. It was motivating for me to see how my work and time invested in this project are (finally) starting to pay off!

Looking Back for a Better Future: Palm Reforestry in Kolda

What did this place look like fifty years ago? That’s what my fellow volunteer and friend, Anna Travers, was thinking as she looked out across the ephemeral river valley that floods each rainy season at her site in Saare Fode, just outside of the city of Kolda.

Today, the valley is mostly used for rice cultivation, but a scattering of oil palm trees hints at its past. Fifty years ago, before the rice fields extended the length of the floodplain, before the trees were cut or tapped for palm wine, oil palms, Elaeis guineensis, would have lined this valley. Discussions with community members about the former presence of oil palms in the area confirmed that the valley could support a greater number of palms. And the villagers were eager to bring them back. Anna’s imaginative back-tracking grew into the Kolda Palm Reforestation Project, spanning two kilometers of floodplain shared by Saare Badji, Saare Fode, Saare Mamacoly, and Saare Bocary Sellou..

Yet, any reforestation project will not succeed unless the community is willing to protect the planted trees. The oil extracted from the fruit pulp and kernel had to be lucrative enough to deter people from tapping for palm wine or removing the trees. Fortunately, Agroforesty APCD Demba Sidibe and Peace Corps Response Volunteer Hans Spalholz located a nursery in Ziguinchor stocked with improved varieties of E. guineensis. The improved seed originated from Togo and mature plants produce a kernel three times the size of palm kernels found in Senegal. More oil can be extracted from the improved palm kernel, making the tree more valuable for its fruit than its bark or fermented insides. Working closely with Demba and Hans, Anna purchased 520 these improved and hybrid varieties of oil palm starts using funds from a Small Project Assistance grant.

Meanwhile, Anna and her counterpart, Boca Balde, planned the project to suit the needs and demands of the community members of the four villages. They generated a list of over 60 households along the valley who were willing to outplant and protect the oil palms. To determine how many trees to distribute, Anna and Boca divided the households up by size: small households (less than 10 members) received six palm starts, medium households (10-20 members) received nine palm starts, and large households (more than 20 members) received eleven palm starts. In Saare Badji and Saare Fode, the community decided to plant trees own their personal plots. The smaller communitieis of Saare Mamacoly and Saare Bocary Sellou opted to plant their palms in a collective.

The destribution of the palm starts took place on July 14-15 at the primary school in Saare Badji. Demba had secured the transportation and delivery of the oil palm starts to the school. Representatives from each household gathered to watch Demba’s demonstration of outplanting and protecting the palm start. Then, Boca and Anna began distributing the trees to the waiting crowd with the help of seven Kolda PCVs.

The enthusiasm for the project motivated the community to show up in droves and plant most of the 520 palm starts in just one afternoon. Only one village could not transport the trees until the following day. After distribution, volunteers visited the sites along the valley to assist the community in outplanting and to ensure that all the palms were enclosed by protective fencing. The local Eaux et Forets (Senegalese Forestry Agency) agent, Momat Dianka, kept the remaining 26 palm starts to plant in the community on Senegalese National Tree Day, August 3.

The high level of motivation made the Kolda Palm Reforestation Project a success. It suggests that similar reforestation projects can succeed along other floodplains in the region. However, the cost and accessibility of improved varieties of palm starts remains a difficult obstacle. Importing improved seed and creating local palm nurseries would greatly reduce the cost and travel of the palm starts to outplanting sites. Sounds like a new project for me!

Allyson Wonderland

Once upon a time, there was a little girl name Allyson that did not know how to read yet and did not have a good command of the English language. Little Allyson was convinced that the movie Alice in Wonderland was based off of  her own adventures in her own wonderland, ahem... backyard, because the protaganist and her shared the same hair color, eye color, and name, Alice-in [ˈælɨsən/ al-i-sən]. Due to this confused self-allusion, Allyson grew up with a vague affection for this protaganist, only to be topped by one Ariel Little Mermaid. Until one day when she was "all grown up" and moved into a mud hut hidden in the wilderness of Africa. To comfort herself and brighten her village, she brought Alice-in to life on the walls of her hut.

"Urban" Legends

Living in Senegal as a rather obvious foreigner means receiving lots of advices (and sometimes out-righht commands) about a thousand little details of living here. Some of the suggestions, however, amount to nothing more than supersitions and "urban" legends, which are prehaps more persistent in villages than cities. Voila a sampling of Senegalese superstitions for your enjoyment!

Phone calls from anonymous numbers could kill you! According to a friend's brother, some people will not answer their cellphone if they do not recognize the number. Apparently, there was a scare a year or two ago when several people died shortly after receiving a call from the same unknown number. No one actually remembers the number, though it was from an Orange provider (77### ####), so all unknown callers are avoided. This story reminds me a bit of the videotape in The Ring, with the whole watch this video and you have 7(?) days to live. However, I find this story rather hard to believe, since people always seem to be borrowing other peoples phones when they run out of credit or battery life, and many don't oen their own personal phone.

Bury your hair or beware; witch doctors are lurking... Some people believe that witch doctors can provide spells and amulets (gris-gris) to promote their interest and welfare. And apparently, just a couple strands of hair are enough for a witch doctor to cast a spell on a person. So whenever you get your hair did, or cut, or a shave, make sure you bury the hair so that no one can find it and harm you. Sounds reall voodoo-like...

In case of a thunderstorm, turn off your cellphone and flashlight, and cover any mirrors. Last month, two local teenage boys were killed when lightning struck their hut and it caught fire. The cause? Their illuminated cellphone had attracted the lightning, according to local reports in the village. Villagers also caution that flashlights and shiny mirror surfaces will also attract lightning bolts, so turn off all electronics and cover up those mirrors! This isn't far off from many misconceptions people in America have about lightning and what causes it to strike either; there is a fair share of lightning bolts striking through telephone wires in American folklore as well.

Take off your shoes just so or a family member will die. Several times I have been reprimanded for hastily shedding my flipflops and letting them fall off my feet with one or both soles facing up. This is bad and people rush to correct my mistake. Apparently I am inadvertantly inviting death into the house if the soles are up.

Whistling at night will bring a famine. My host family in Mbour got particularly aggitated when I would whistle after sundown. I usually whistled unconsciously, out of habit and, therefore, I faced their anxious plea for me to stop a few times. Yet, they would never tell me what all the fuss was about. Finally, my language facilitator provdided the answer; some people in the Fuladu believe that whistling at night will ruin the harvest and lead to famine.

Accidental ingestion of cat hair gives you TB. Back when I still had a pet cat, my family was weary about me throwing the fish heads and fins for her to munch on. They did not want her anywhere near the family's food, which makes sense from a sanitary prospect. But the explanation they gave was slightly more snazzy: if you eat just one cat hair, you will cough and cough until you become very sick and die.

Tamarind trees are the home of the owl-form (ngirabandulu) of vampires (bu'a). My counterpart was apprihensive when I decided I seeded 64 tamarind tree in the nursery at our project site and suggested that he could sell the crop to juice makers when they matured. He was not comfortable with working with mature tamarind trees, as the belong in the forest far away from the village so that the bu'a, vampire-like creatures from the netherworld, will not find a home near people. We settled on keeping the tamarind trees in the nursery as long as I remove them before they mature.

Pink eye? More likely an attack from invisible elves... A couple months back, I came down with pink eye; I was taking medicine, but my eyes were taking a while to heal. My family was convinced that my "white-people" medicine was not working, because I didn't actually have an infection. Prehaps the small, invisible people (kudeni)who live in the forest had scratched my eyes on the way back from Kounkane one evening... They have long, sharp nails and just love to scratch at people's eyes. So my dad ran off in search of a working bicycle he could borrow to bring me to the witch doctor: I needed to have their poison licked out of my eyes by the witch doctor. Thankfully, a bicycle could not be found, so we had to settle with dangling a needle on a string in front of my face all afternoon. The needle would draw out the poison according to the thierno, religious healer.

This is just a short list of the thousands of little stories and superstitious that influence the everyday actions of my Senegalese friends and family. In addition, there are a host of amulets (gris-gris) that people wear on their arms, legs, necks, waist, and hair to protect them from snakes, frogs, sickness, drowning, thieves, fights, and devils. But then we've got our own rabbits feet and lucky charms... we've even got a cereal based off them! And in the end, it is the little querks that make life interesting.

Village Wedding

My friend, Bana, finally had her pera Thursday night, the end of a long marriage process. There are a whole bunch of ceremonies throughout the marriage, but I'm still learning and don't quite get the whole thing yet. This final celebration is when the bride is taken to live at her husband's house. Bana is only 17 with a two year old son, not sure where he went during the wedding come to think of it. Her husband's family lives in the neighboring village, but he works in Dakar. They've been engaged or married for a while now, but the marriage ceremonies involve a lot of gift exchanges between the families, which means a lot of looking for money.
The evening of the pera Bana met with her friends and bride's maids in our family's compound to chat and take out braids. Weddings here are the opposite of American weddings - the Pulaar bride tries to look as humble and simple as possible the night she is taken away. I asked Bana if she was scared. She said she was and that she would miss Goundaga very much. Even though the village she is going to isn't far, the majority of the workload falls on the youngest bride in the household, so she won't get much time to visit.
Later we went to eat dinner at her father's hut. During the meal, older female relatives kept coming in to give her advice as a new bride, but not her mom. Most of the advice was on good housekeeping and obeying your husband. When the meal was finished, a female griot (praise-singer) came in with a dark liquid in a gourd spoon. She gave it to Bana's mother to pour on the ground at the bride's feet while she chanted something. Bana burst out crying after that, but no one came to comfort her or said anything; they just watched - it was awkward. Finally, one of her friend's and future sister-in-law told her to stop, that was enough.
Afterwards, Bana wrapped herself in a dark pagne (length of cloth) and went outside to be washed. All the women and children gathered around the stool she was sitting on. The griot said some prayers over the gourd full of water, then washed her in front of everyone. Again Bana started to cry, but no one comforted her; the women started to clap and drum and dance and sing, but not in a happy way. Actually, the whole thing was rather sad.
When she was washed, the griot wrapped her in a white pagne and white veil covering her whole face. The elders and her male relatives came to give advice: more about obeying your husband, taking care of his family, representing our village, and a lot about not sleeping with her husband's friends. It seemed a strange point to bring up, but they kept reitterating that Bana was marrying Hothia and not his friends. Maybe that's an issue here...
Finally, the Toyota pick up came to pick up the bride and all her possessions (not a whole lot) to her husband's village. People were piling into the car and climbing on the back to accompany her. There was hardly any room for the bride herself. It was crazy. More clapping, dancing, and singing as the car left.
The next day, I biked to Bana's new home to see the second half of the pera, the 3 day celebration at the groom's house. She was sitting on her husband's bed with her bride's maids still covered in white, while her husband and his friends greeted guests outside of the hut. Then, her mother-in-law called us into her hut. All of Bana's stuff was piled in the middle of the room along with gifts from the groom. It was oppressively hot in the hut, but all the women relatives on both sides of the family had gathered inside and were lazily fanning themselves with their veils. Two women counted out all the possessions. Another women divided them into piles. There were angry shouts from the crowd when the women didn't count loud enough, or they felt the stuff had been put in th wrong pile; the possesses were being counted for distribution amongst the guest. When the counting was done, Bana's in-laws came to give her more advice and their expectations of her; she started to cry again. Finally, it was over and we returned to her husband's hut. The other guests ate lunch and danced outside, but Bana and her friends waited to eat until everyone else had been served. And this goes on for three days. Then, after a week, Bana will be allowed to go back to Goundaga for one day to say her final goodbyes.
Riding out of her new village, I realized just how much there was to be scared of: it's further removed from road and the river, deeper water table, no school, and her husband will leave for Dakar in a few weeks. There is plenty to worry about for her own future and her kid's future. Most depressing wedding... and this is only the beginning of wedding season.

Project Updates.... not a witty title

Projects are stacking up and I'm starting to feel that I actually have a purpose in my community. The real big success story of the month was the Girls Leadership Conference that my nieghbors, Sam and Jenae, and I organized. We invited 60 middle school girls to talk about their dreams and ambitions. They learned about sexual health, HIV/AIDS, and STDs. 

We discused the many obstacles to continuing school and attaining their dreams: forced marriages, teenage pregnancy, rape, violence, domestic responsibilities, finnancial constaints, distance/accessibility to education, and unequal treatment when living at a relatives (to be closer to school). The second day the girls brought a parent to discussion their ambitions and challenges openly - this does not happen in the Fuladu. Awa Traore is an amazing facilitater and made this event possible, as did the working women in the community who shared their experiences with the girls and the local volunteers behind the scenes. As a volunteer it was really moving to see so many eager girls invested in their futures. A lot of times, the people here seem so withdrawn or indifferent to change and all out of hope. But our girls conference was all fire!

The foreboding sense of the inevitable gave the tree nursery training that my counterpart and I organized at the Master Farmer site a much different vibe. The training went well in general: the first morning my counterpart facilitated a discussion about the importance of trees, their uses, their propagation, and dabbled in agroforestry technologies a bit as well. The second day was hands-on review and set up of a tree nursery at the Master Farmer site: over 2000 tree sacks filled, mango bare root beds, 3 fruit trees planted, and a lot of advertising for live fencing. The training just got off to a 2 hour late start in good Senegalese fashion and was punctuated by tea breaks, cola nut breaks, and an hour pause to visit a baptism happening in the village.

And of course there was the usual peppering of complaints: I should have served breakfast; I should have bought more cola nuts; I should have given everyone money for participating. The latter is my personal favorite. Unfortunately, many organizations in Senegal pay their participants (a lot by village standards) to show up to causeries, trainings, and public information sessions. I can understand travel reimbursements and a per diem if the training is long enough and the participants are actually traveling to the event. But ours was a small, local affair consisting of just two 4 hour morning sessions followed by a free lunch. Try explaining that to a crowd of Senegalese though... It seems no matter how much work volunteers put into their projects in our region, there is always someone there to put them down and tear our work to shreds. If the criticism was actually constructive, that'd be alright. However, "give me money" is not at all constructive for anyone in my mind.

Besides these big events, the rains have finally come and I am busy clearing fields, baling hay, digging zai holes, the works. And then I am working with other volunteers to wrap up the essay proctoring and interviews with girl students at local middle schools for the Michelle Sylvester scholarship that covers tuition and school supplies for next year. Check it out here! Bunch of little projects on the back burner too, but not going to jinx them all yet... stay posted!

Cooking chili and polenta for Teneng (far left) my best friend's birthday, village style over the fire.