Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! Issallahmu Allahkoum!

That’s mixing religions, but it means “may peace be upon you.” That is the standard greeting in the Muslim world which takes the place of “hello” and I think in this season it is especially appropriate. Being out of my culture, I am getting an interesting perspective of Christmas. It’s safe to say that none of the commercialism of Christmas exists here; the only people who are not Muslim are the foreigners. As such, I have had not only the time to reflect on Christmas and the year but also have been able to do that without the usual distractions. It has also been the hardest time of year to be away from home. If there is any holiday that is about family, friends, and being together it is Christmas. Fortunately, I have plenty of happy memories of family and friends that keep you all close to me even though you may be far away. After all, it’s the sharing of memories that makes having friends and family so pleasant.

Reflecting as I am at this time, I realize that I often do not pay much attention to my memories. Often I live focused on the future and try to focus on the present but mostly forget the past. I think a better way to live is to treat all parts equally. Remembering your past reminds you what is important enough to be worth remembering, and helps to turn your attention to what really brings you happiness.

When I remember the events of this past year I find plenty of happiness. 2008 started with the end of my undergraduate days and what was my most enjoyable year at college. Thank you to my roommates in TH 48 and all of my friends at Clarkson for that. “The thesis” also figures prominently in my memories and fortunately ends up being a happy one. From my most serious academic challenge I launched into my most serious life challenge. Having been officially in the Peace Corps for four months now, I finally feel like I am settled in. I still do not understand everything people say to me, nor do they understand everything that I say, but I feel like I have hit a rhythm, and settled on a way of life that will serve me for the next year and a half. It is strange to think that almost a quarter of my service here is completed, I feel like I have done so little. Fortunately my memories reassure me otherwise. 

Though I have done much, I have learned far more. Some are lessons about myself, life, and culture that are immediately apparent, like the real value of having a stable and accountable democracy or how close connections to those around you are more valuable than any sum of money, others are more subtle and I feel will only be fully revealed when I return to the States. However, one that I would particularly like to share given the season is that while different peoples are more alike than we generally imagine, there are some cultural differences that do not translate no matter how hard you try. I encounter this on a daily basis and my reaction is often frustration coupled with anger that is unjustified and unhelpful. If peace is to exist on earth, we need to work to accept that there are differences across cultures that cannot be properly understood and that we need to fight the tendency to hate what we do not understand. Only then can true Christmas spirit of fraternity and sorority across the world exist.

Since I can not wish you all a merry Christmas in the usual present way, I am having a joyous holiday season with the warm memories you have left me. My Christmas wishes are of course peace on earth, particularly between cultures that do not understand each other, but also that you pay a tribute to your past and take some time to remember the good events and people that have made up your life.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years from Mauritania!

Travel!

Two good things are currently happening; I am finally starting to really get my work going and I am leaving site for a while. Unfortunately these two things do not go well together, but it is nice to not want to leave site because things are working and it is even better to leave for a while anyway, haha. I will be going to the capital to celebrate Christmas with the other volunteers, all 120+ of us. Following that I will be visiting my training site host family for a bit before going to spend New Years on an island off of the coast of Senegal. After that I will have another training that will last until the 10th. Then its back to my site for a little bit before going to attend an environmental conference in Ghana, which will be followed by WAIST (the West African Invitational Softball Tournament) in Senegal, which is the most anticipated event for all the volunteers here each year. After that it will be mid February, time passes fast when you are having fun!

Biogas Update

The biogas system that was in the pictures that I previously posted was financed by an NGO here called AMAD. One of my friends from AMAD said that they have been working on the biogas system for ten years. I do not think this is true and I also hope that it’s not because I was able to find a system that had several improvements online in just a couple of hours. One of the most exciting is what one of my friends calls a “cow shit bong.”

My research tells me that biogas is made up of CO2, H2S, and CH4, with the last of those, methane, being the usable part of the gas. One of the problems with the current biogas system is that there is a low concentration of methane. However, I read that you can reduce the CO2 and H2S content by passing the gas :) through water. So with the help of Dia, an AMAD technician, and Brian, another Volunteer, I installed a “scrubber,” or “bong” if you will. The gas enters through one tube that is below the level of the water in the container, bubbles upwards, and leaves through the other which is above the level of the water.

 

Another idea found is to weld a couple of barrels together and put them on their side at an incline with an opening at each end so it is easy to take out a little digested slurry and add some fresh cow manure each day, thus always keeping the unit at maximum production. Links to the documents for both ideas are here: http://www.echotech.org/mambo/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=60&Itemid=68 and here: http://www.echotech.org/mambo/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_details&gid=59&Itemid=68

My ultimate goal is to help create a system that is relatively cheap that can produce enough gas for all of a families cooking needs. This is obviously a very high goal and I am fairly certain it is unreachable at this moment because there are people much more knowledgeable than me working on it and I feel like if it could be done we would know about it. However, I feel like the potential is there, and AMAD is already financing several pilot projects so do not feel like I am wasting resources by making improvements.

Again, if anyone has any more ideas or knows anyone who does I would love help.

A Day in School

Since I work in primary schools, they come up a lot in conversations with people from home. I think it will be useful to give a better picture of what they are like.

The school day starts at 8 am here, has recess from 10 to 10:30, or 10 to 11 if the director feels like it, then break for lunch from 12 to 3, and the afternoon session from 3 to 5. That’s 5:30 of teaching time each day. Class sizes range from 40 to 120 per teacher. About half of the students in the schools here don’t have desks to sit at. It has been officially forbidden to beat students, but I have not seen a classroom that did not have a belt in it. Mostly students get hit for misbehaving but I have seen them being hit for getting an answer wrong, which is just horrible on top of awful. Also awful is that up to 5th or 6th grade all the lessons are just repeat-after-me rote memorization. Later grades are a little better, but the trend continues. This leads to primary school students saying “Bonjour Mama, Bonjour Papa, comment tu t’appel?” (Hello mother, hello father, what is your name?) whenever they see someone who they think only speaks French (me). The same thing happens with high school students studying English, only it’s “HowAreYouFineThanksAndYou.” That is one reason why I am really excited about my environmental clubs; they will give the students a chance to participate in interactive lessons. Of course, it’s easy to criticize the schools but there are several factors that play into the situation: unmanageable class sizes, an unstable government, a governmental policy of moving teachers around to different villages without their consent, lack of materials, etc. I don’t think I would say that the kids here fit the stereotype of “all the kids in Africa who are desperate for an education,” but with a system like this I could see why. Certainly, I am thankful for the public education system we have in the U.S.

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