Tree Nursery Update

Bad news: So I am realizing that part of my failure to sell this idea is that people do seem understand that the point is to sell the trees. The capitalist mentality does not exist here as it does in the states. It could be one of the reasons that economic development is slow. It could also be one of the reasons that the culture is better in some ways. I realized that I was not getting through when Woni, the president of a women’s cooperative and one of the two people who have started tree nurseries, said that she started the nursery just because she knew that I wanted her to. It was a really nice thing to do and say, but it was pretty disheartening because made me realize that the probable reason why other people had not started nurseries is because they did not understand that there was something worthwhile in it for them. With everyone always asking me for things, I was happy to finally have something to be able to give, but I guess people did not understand.

Good news: There are now THREE people who have tree nurseries and the presentation on how to make and profit from them has been given to 25 people who work in cooperatives. Woni, who is awesome, now wants to sell the trees in the market and not only has 200 planted but is experimenting with different species and has asked for yet more tree nursery bags.

My Real Job

You would not know it from the most of the work that I have done and talked about so far, but the majority of my job here is supposed to be doing environmental education in the primary schools here. I was more interested in working in the community anyway and the slow start to the school year led to the schools not being a priority. However, I am finally getting to that part of my job.

I had mentioned that I finished repairing tables and benches at one of the primary schools and now I have finished at the other. Well that’s not exactly true, I did not actually repair most of the tables at Ecole 2, I sort of Tom Sawyered that out. When I went over there to look at what needed to be done, I realized that it was not making repairs but doing construction. At that point I said I needed someone to help me with it and the director knew a carpenter, that I had previously worked with, who was willing to help if he could have the left over wood (“left over” being used loosely). This was good news. What was better news is that the carpenter, Kaawi Ball, has a habit of not showing up when he says he will and when I am there, but then coming after I have left. Since he has the tools, this means that I waste a little time waiting for him, but he did almost all of the work by himself because he showed up when he felt like it. On the balance, I am more than alright with that. So that is done.

Since I am not repairing tables anymore I have had time to start integrating the environment into normal lessons, one of the three things we are supposed to do in the schools. The idea is that you take a normal rote lesson, could be math, grammar, or whatever, and make a small change so that part of the lesson talks about the environment. For example instead of calculating the benefit of selling a car you calculate the benefit of selling a tomato. The rest of the lesson stays the same and then at the very end the teacher spends a few minutes talking about what it takes to grow a tomato. That way the original objective of the lesson gets accomplished and the environment is also brought up. These integrations are very simple to do and since the school directors like me, I have their support for them. The problem is that with just a few minutes each time, it is hard to say much other than “trees are good.” One of the other things I am supposed to do is to create a school garden, but I do not see much point in creating a garden just to create a garden without an environmental education program that goes along with it. That leaves the third activity I am supposed to do which is also the one I am really excited about and I hope will bring all three of them together: Eco Clubs

The idea of the eco club is to do environmental games / science lessons with some students on the weekends. These could be coordinated with the integrated lessons and also be done at the same time as the garden. For those from home, it is sort of the same idea as the Selborne project that we did in middle school. Actually it is not sort of the same; it is the same because I will be using the same lessons. The reason that I have not started already is that to do these lessons, I need to translate them in French, something I am not very good at and something that did not really have me excited. At least that was the case until I realized that if I translated them well enough and put them into a book, that is the type of thing that I could give to teachers here and they could continue it after I am gone, not to mention that it would really help out all of the other EE volunteers here, and depending on copyright restrictions, in all French speaking countries that the Peace Corps works in. This is another one of those ideas that makes so much sense that I have to wonder if there is a good reason why it hasn’t been done before. So that will be by work immediately after Christmas, with the help of some friends translating 60+ environmental lessons into French.

Plug

This is a plug, but it is important.

Last year I had the amazing opportunity to go to the UN Climate Change Negotiations in Bali, Indonesia with a group of U.S. youth. What we were able to do there and the experience of it was nothing short of amazing and the most important two weeks of my life. It's killing me not to be at this year's negotiations in Poland but I am following the events online. I encourage you to do the same and to read the blogs of the youth there. We have the most at stake and I believe have the clearest view of what is happening. Check out the following blogs if you are interested:

http://www.sustainus.org/blog
http://dailyun.wordpress.com/
http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco/poznan-ecos

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all are well and passed the holiday with family and plenty of food. I am thankfull that you all are in my life!

And also because I forgot, happy election too! It is safe to say that my reputation here got better after the election and also I should mention that I know a few volunteers who cried when they finally heard the result at 4:30 in the morning, myself included. I hear there was a bit of that going on stateside as well. In the spirit of thanksgiving, I am also thankful to be able to share this moment in history with all of you.

Uprising

So there was a bit of an uprising in my village a number of weeks ago. However, before I tell the story though I need to give some background on the racial tensions here. Mauritania is comprised of three major ethnic groups; white Moor, black Moor, and black African, although the groups are not strictly restricted to the color of their name. White Moors are of Arab descent, are typically the most hard core Muslim, have the strictest culture, speak Hassanyia, a variation of Arab, and live in the more northern parts of the country. Black Moors are of African descent but have adopted the culture of the Moors, they speak Hassanyia and are generally slightly more liberal Muslims. Black Africans here speak either Pulaar, Sonike, or Wolof, are generally the most liberal Muslims, and live predominantly in the south. Although most everyone here speaks a number of local languages as well as French and Arabic because those are the only languages taught in school.

There have been racial tensions between the white Moors and black Africans for a long time and that came to a head in 1989. The trouble actually started between some Pulaar Mauritanian herders and some Pulaar Senegalese farmers over a land dispute, keeping in mind that the border between Mauritania and Senegal, formed by the river, was a product of colonization and not actual cultural differences. A Mauritanian was shot leading to further violence between the Mauritanian herders and Senegalese farmers over tensions that had been building for years. Neither of the governments of the two countries took actions to end the violence. In fact, the white Moor controlled Mauritanian government used the violence as an opportunity to try to expel all of the black Africans from Mauritania under the pretense that they were damaging the country and that was when the real violence started. Not unlike McCarthyism, being suspected of being black African was enough to warrant discrimination; only in this case that discrimination took the form of murder and forced expulsion. Whole towns were forced to leave the country. The town where I had my training was one of those. For years the Mauritanian government did not recognize the Mauritanian black Africans living Senegal as refugees and denied their existence. However, in 2007 the president, the same one who was ousted by a coup earlier this year, started a program to bring them back that fortunately is still continuing with the military government. Relations have greatly improved between the ethnic groups since 1989, but it is safe to say that there are still some lingering tensions. Those tensions were very much a factor when a Moor from the village immediately next to mine erected a fence on a piece of land that was typically used by the mostly Pulaar speaking people of my town.

I need to emphasize here that my understanding of the history and actual events of the situation is incomplete and is inaccurate. I can say that it is inaccurate with confidence because I have talked to the officials in my town and the one thing that they agree on is that they don’t all agree with the details. However, the basics are that the official above the mayor but below the governor, a white Moor, was asked to order the fence removed. He chose not to do that, potentially for legitimate reasons I don’t know. The next night 400 youth from my town got together and tore down the fence and a small building that was there. Hugely out numbered the police chose not to take any action until the next morning when reinforcements arrived. Riot police came, rocks were and tear gas were exchanged and arrests were made. I hadn’t heard of any of this until a friend stopped by and told me not to go into the market because there was a confrontation. Of course, I immediately went to the market to see what was going on. By the time I got there all of the action was over but a good portion of the village was just milling around. I wish I could tell you how it all was resolved, but it hasn’t been yet. It was actually a fairly controlled and level headed uprising, no other property was damaged and no one was hurt. I should also mention that while race was a factor, this had more to do with a protest against the inaction of the government than race. Things quickly settled down and are resolving themselves in their own Mauritanian fashion. Lets just say it is reminding me how lucky I am to live in a country with a strong, independent, and transparent judicial system.

Something Else

One of the aspects of my job that I like the most is the amount of freedom that I have. For example, I saw my boss for the first time in three months the other day. Yet, it should be no surprise that I am working just as much as if I was in the typical U.S. 9-5 job, and perhaps more depending on what you count as work. The point is that I can take hobbies and turn them into my job without much concern as long as they pass the test of my own conscience. For example, while visiting one of the primary schools I am assigned to I noticed that there were a lot of broken tables and benches (all the students here share tables and use benches not chairs). In passing I mentioned that I could probably repair them all. The director of the school happened to like that idea very much and long story short, two weeks, one black and blue thumb, two tubs of glue, one broken hammer, five cuts on my left hand, 60 rounds of tea, 3 kilos of nails, and 2,500 UM (~$13) from the parents association for materials later, 15 tables and 16 benches are now repaired. That’s enough seating for over 100 students which means there are no longer kids sitting on the floor at that school. Again, not exactly environmental education work, but its hard not to feel good about it. Plus, the school director and the inspector are pretty happy with me now and that should make my other projects go more smoothly.

While I was spending the two weeks repairing tables I felt bad that I was only at the one school and not doing environmental work because the director of the other school is really into it. About half way through I saw the other director and apologized for not being around to do environmental projects. When I explained what I was spending my time doing, he said “Really? That’s great! We have a whole bunch of broken tables at my school too!” I went over to check them out the other day, and let’s just say that there wasn’t the space to store all of the broken tables in one room so they had to split them up between three. There are more students sitting on the floor than there are at tables but there are enough tables for everyone if they all were repaired. I could easily spend two months just fixing tables there, which I will eventually do, but just one day a week at a time. Of course this project fails under the category of aid and not development by my previous definition, but when it costs next to nothing to give desks to hundreds of students, it’s hard to let the broken tables just sit there. However, I am looking for a parent who knows carpentry to help me out though.

Pictures of the two schools in which I work here: http://picasaweb.google.com/z.swank/PrimarySchools#

Success

Winston Churchill once said, “Success is the ability to move from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” I think given the nature of my work here, that’s as good as a measure as any. In the case of my tree nursery project, it is not only a good measure but also sage advice. I have given the presentation a few more times and I am very proud to say that I have sold a few hundred nursery bags and people have started planting trees. While I am nervous until the trees sprout (some already have) and will not be completely satisfied until I see them being sold in the market (four months from now), I consider the act of making the investment of buying the bags to be the biggest success. People here are highly risk adverse and skeptical of new ideas, so that they are willing to risk some (even very little) money is a good indication of the worth of the project and my ability to express it. It’s been said better by more knowledgeable people before, but there is value in taking risks; Americans are typically risk takers and that has been citied as a reason of our rise to prominence in the world. I strongly believe that one of the most significant blockages to development in this country is people’s willingness to take risks and initiative. It’s certainly true that when you have less in general your safety net is smaller, but that still doesn’t mean that you should require everything to be a sure deal to attempt it. It is also true that from the perspective of Mauritanians, NGOs come in with big promises that they don’t always deliver on so it is good to be skeptical, but again, that doesn’t mean that everything should be anticipated negatively.

At any rate, the values of the tree nurseries appear to be proving themselves and I retain very high hopes for the overall success of the project. Ideally I envision the cheaply available trees meeting the demand that I already believe exists resulting in hundreds of trees being planted in the village and all of this happening with not much more work than I have already put in. I have chosen to partly evaluate the success of my projects here by how little work I have to do to get them going. My idea is that if it is a good project I ought to be able to get people to pretty much do it for themselves. If they are not willing to do that from the beginning, then it has little chance of being sustainable. Tom Sawyer is my idol. I strongly believe that all development work should operate in this manner and if it doesn’t then it is just aid, which is good for starving people but can actually have negative impacts for people who don’t really need it. I see the impacts of years of aid daily when people routinely ask me to give them just about everything I own when often much of what they want is within their reach, yet I know that they will not likely take the initiative needed to realize it. I want to be clear that I am not trying to say that people are lazy, just that a culture of dependency has developed here and it is embarrassing and depressing. Although I should also add that there is a strong gift giving as well as gift asking culture here, but I feel that the level requests that I personally receive and is expected from the outside world in general is unreasonable and detrimental.

I went off on a tangent there and I want to reiterate that I am extremely pleased with how the project is going and so are the Mauritanians who are involved in it. If this project lives up to its full potential, I will be satisfied with my service here, even if I accomplish nothing else.