This is important:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html?_r=2
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Happily the beat goes on...
Nothing has been quite as rewarding as seeing some of the work that I started in Mauritania be carried on even though I left in the middle of it. When doing development work the ideal is always to have it be sustainable and in some of my early blogs I talked about how I wanted my presence in Mauritania to be a catalyst for development, a sort of Jujitsu development. Turns out I was able to do that, at least a little. Here are some of the ways:
- Woni, the amazing mother of my counterpart with whom I started a tree nursery, has planted another tree nursery of several hundred trees to sell. Given that you all know the saga of trying to get this project going, you can understand how happy it makes me.
- Samba, my tireless counterpart, is finishing the tree planting campaign that we talked about and that I dug forty holes for.
- Taban Lo, a random person who I met that has a rototiller, has followed my suggestion to rent out his machine to cooperatives and farmers and made half of the purchase cost of the rototiller back in the first week. Now another individual has bought a brand new rototiller just to be able to rent it out. This is a huge success.
- Last but most, I did not manage to send a Mauritanian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Change Negotiations in Copenhagen, but I did get funding for one of them thanks to some volunteers and the Young Friends of the Earth in Germany. This is the success that really has me jumping out of my shorts. To this day, participating in the conference in 2007 was the most remarkable and life changing event I have experienced and I can only imagine it will be the same for a young Mauritanian. This is not a guaranteed deal yet, visas and other issues still need to be worked out, but the big problem, the money, is there. Still this is huge news and it is difficult for me to express the importance of this UN conference. It will be the most important event in the history of the fight against climate change as it will set the new international agreement until 2050, or not... It is imperative for the world that the negotiations go well. I encourage everyone to take a strong interest in following how the negotiations are going and supporting strong targets. A little sacrifice today is going to save the world a whole lot of trouble in the coming years.
- Woni, the amazing mother of my counterpart with whom I started a tree nursery, has planted another tree nursery of several hundred trees to sell. Given that you all know the saga of trying to get this project going, you can understand how happy it makes me.
- Samba, my tireless counterpart, is finishing the tree planting campaign that we talked about and that I dug forty holes for.
- Taban Lo, a random person who I met that has a rototiller, has followed my suggestion to rent out his machine to cooperatives and farmers and made half of the purchase cost of the rototiller back in the first week. Now another individual has bought a brand new rototiller just to be able to rent it out. This is a huge success.
- Last but most, I did not manage to send a Mauritanian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Change Negotiations in Copenhagen, but I did get funding for one of them thanks to some volunteers and the Young Friends of the Earth in Germany. This is the success that really has me jumping out of my shorts. To this day, participating in the conference in 2007 was the most remarkable and life changing event I have experienced and I can only imagine it will be the same for a young Mauritanian. This is not a guaranteed deal yet, visas and other issues still need to be worked out, but the big problem, the money, is there. Still this is huge news and it is difficult for me to express the importance of this UN conference. It will be the most important event in the history of the fight against climate change as it will set the new international agreement until 2050, or not... It is imperative for the world that the negotiations go well. I encourage everyone to take a strong interest in following how the negotiations are going and supporting strong targets. A little sacrifice today is going to save the world a whole lot of trouble in the coming years.
New and improved village
A while ago I mentioned that if anyone was looking for a vacation, or just had no work, they should come and spend some time in Mauritania. I can't say that I am surprised that no one took me up on that. It was not exactly a tourist destination; the town where we had our training was described by Lonely Planet as "a sleazy border town with a sinister feel" and the book recommended generally avoiding the whole country. I don't agree with any of that but I do have to admit it wasn't the hottest tourist destination. Senegal, however, is. So you should all come to visit especially since my work is about bringing more tourists. When you think about it, you coming to vacation in Senegal is going to help me with my development work, so do a good deed and come bum around Senegal. Seriously.
For more information check out the tourism section on www.pcsenegal.org
and http://www.lonelyplanet.com/senegal
Additionally, I just got back from visiting my site. Someone asked me to describe what it was like in a word: Perfect. Somewhere in between swimming at the base of 400 foot waterfalls, walking around the small paths between the corn rows in my village, planning hiking trips around the mountains, seeing my new excessively large hut, talking with my work partners who have already starting doing the work I am going to help them with, chasing around my host mother's monkey, shooting the shit with the elders, strolling through the forest, and hearing chimpanzees I compared what my new site is like and what my site in Mauritania was like and I nearly cried. I cannot complain about anything as long as I am here. I don't have photos yet, but the photos section on the region's website: www.pckedougou.org
For more information check out the tourism section on www.pcsenegal.org
and http://www.lonelyplanet.com/senegal
Additionally, I just got back from visiting my site. Someone asked me to describe what it was like in a word: Perfect. Somewhere in between swimming at the base of 400 foot waterfalls, walking around the small paths between the corn rows in my village, planning hiking trips around the mountains, seeing my new excessively large hut, talking with my work partners who have already starting doing the work I am going to help them with, chasing around my host mother's monkey, shooting the shit with the elders, strolling through the forest, and hearing chimpanzees I compared what my new site is like and what my site in Mauritania was like and I nearly cried. I cannot complain about anything as long as I am here. I don't have photos yet, but the photos section on the region's website: www.pckedougou.org
Easier the second time around
Yep, life this past few weeks has been pretty easy and relaxed, but not boring. I have to say the second time around, everything seems to be a bit easier. Of course it helps that the physical environment of Senegal is better in every way. Also, learning a different dialect of a language you already know is cake by comparison to learning a totally new language. Still, I am finding it very interesting to relearn a different Pulaar. It is helping me learn and understand grammatical structures that I wasn’t able to pick up the first time around. Additionally having already been through and gotten over most of the cultural differences makes a huge difference. I just a few weeks I am at the level of integration and comfort with host family number three (Therno, Therno Hamidou, Kajatu, Kajatu, Hawa, Hawa, Bilow, Aliou, Neene, and many other of course) that it took me several months to reach with my host family at site and I never reached with my first training family. It also helps that I feel more at ease in the, by comparison to Mauritania, liberal Senegalese society. Its sort of weird to be able to have physical contact like shaking hands with women again. Sort of like I can finally relax after a year of being on edge and always having to remember that any public contact could be offensive depending on who was around.
At the same time, starting over for the second time with a year still to go feels about as long as starting for the first time with two years ahead of me. Although I know this will be a fleeting feeling based on how quickly the last year went by. Actually I expect this year to go by even faster largely due to the fact that structure, staff, and direction of PC Senegal seems to be more conducive to more work achievements. I hold the staff of PC RIM in high regard, especially Obie, the country director, and Aw and Kane, my bosses, what they were able to accomplish and maintain up until the end in Mauritania was nothing short of remarkable. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Senegal is easier to operate in and therefore more is possible.
As of yet I have not had much technical training on what I will be doing as an eco-tourism volunteer but I will be going out to my site in a few weeks and should have a better idea after that. Most likely I will be working on improving a tourist lodge in my village, working on trails to the waterfalls, and promoting my site as a tourist destination. I am more excited about the physical work and the purpose it is trying to achieve than I was with my old position. Apparently when I get posted to the site I will be living with the village chief, and will be changing my last name for the fourth time. (Sow to Sall to Ba to Diallo for those who are keeping track.) As always, I will be keeping my first name of Amadou just for simplicity’s sake. Its sort of funny, at my old site everyone was trying to get me to change my last name to Ba because the name of my town literally meant “the place of Ba.” Now that it is finally my name I will soon be changing it to Diallo, which is currently the last name I am supposed to want because “Diallo’s only eat beans, leaves, and dirt” I have to say. This brings up the joking relationships between families and friends that exists here. I believe I have mentioned this before but it is work ruminating on again.
They love to pick on each other. At first this seemed crass and socially “undeveloped” to me, but I have come to appreciate it in the wider context of how the culture operates. Can you imagine going up to a Smith in the states that you didn’t know and saying “your last name is no good, you’re whole family is dirty and eats trash” just because your last name is Thomas and expect the person to not think twice about it? One of the great advantages of a culture that places high value on community is that it takes a lot to disrupt the social equilibrium. My old landlord and I used to get into vicious verbal fights about the rent every month because, and the whole village agreed with this, he was crazy. Still no matter how upset we were with each other that day he never held a drudge into the morning. Personally I believe that part of that was because he had to recognize that my position was pretty reasonable and he was just trying to extort money from me, despite the fact that he always ended every argument about trying to get me to pay more that we had agreed to with “in the end money does matter it is only God who judges us.” Which I thought was pretty ironic. Whatever the reasons were, the fact that he never was angry the next day is very typical for West African culture and that I hope has positively rubbed off on me.
At the same time, starting over for the second time with a year still to go feels about as long as starting for the first time with two years ahead of me. Although I know this will be a fleeting feeling based on how quickly the last year went by. Actually I expect this year to go by even faster largely due to the fact that structure, staff, and direction of PC Senegal seems to be more conducive to more work achievements. I hold the staff of PC RIM in high regard, especially Obie, the country director, and Aw and Kane, my bosses, what they were able to accomplish and maintain up until the end in Mauritania was nothing short of remarkable. Yet, for a variety of reasons, Senegal is easier to operate in and therefore more is possible.
As of yet I have not had much technical training on what I will be doing as an eco-tourism volunteer but I will be going out to my site in a few weeks and should have a better idea after that. Most likely I will be working on improving a tourist lodge in my village, working on trails to the waterfalls, and promoting my site as a tourist destination. I am more excited about the physical work and the purpose it is trying to achieve than I was with my old position. Apparently when I get posted to the site I will be living with the village chief, and will be changing my last name for the fourth time. (Sow to Sall to Ba to Diallo for those who are keeping track.) As always, I will be keeping my first name of Amadou just for simplicity’s sake. Its sort of funny, at my old site everyone was trying to get me to change my last name to Ba because the name of my town literally meant “the place of Ba.” Now that it is finally my name I will soon be changing it to Diallo, which is currently the last name I am supposed to want because “Diallo’s only eat beans, leaves, and dirt” I have to say. This brings up the joking relationships between families and friends that exists here. I believe I have mentioned this before but it is work ruminating on again.
They love to pick on each other. At first this seemed crass and socially “undeveloped” to me, but I have come to appreciate it in the wider context of how the culture operates. Can you imagine going up to a Smith in the states that you didn’t know and saying “your last name is no good, you’re whole family is dirty and eats trash” just because your last name is Thomas and expect the person to not think twice about it? One of the great advantages of a culture that places high value on community is that it takes a lot to disrupt the social equilibrium. My old landlord and I used to get into vicious verbal fights about the rent every month because, and the whole village agreed with this, he was crazy. Still no matter how upset we were with each other that day he never held a drudge into the morning. Personally I believe that part of that was because he had to recognize that my position was pretty reasonable and he was just trying to extort money from me, despite the fact that he always ended every argument about trying to get me to pay more that we had agreed to with “in the end money does matter it is only God who judges us.” Which I thought was pretty ironic. Whatever the reasons were, the fact that he never was angry the next day is very typical for West African culture and that I hope has positively rubbed off on me.
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