Dad's Visit

From May 11^th to the 27^th I had to the pleasure to host my Dad here in Senegal. It was a really great (he would add hot) trip for both of us.

True to Swank family tradition, his first day in Senegal we visited five different hardware stores picking up parts that I needed for the campement. Our first photo together in Senegal was in a hardware store. You can take the Swanks to Senegal but you can’t take the swank out of them.

Leaving Dakar, we made it down to Kedougou in one day. This involves 12 hours of sitting in a busted “sept place” which is a station wagon that they fit seven grown adults into. Fortunately, the sept place did not almost lose a tire (like when Mom visited) or catch on fire (like when Groff visited). So I considered it a successful trip.

Once we reconnoitered in Kedougou, we headed out to Segou. Dad struggled with the heat, as any visitor young or old would. He accurately described the way I felt when I first got into Mauritania. Looking around, you can tell that everyone else is able to have coherent thoughts and process information but your brain is too overheated to do so and you have no idea how they are capable of it. It takes about three months of acclimation or the cool season to come to make that go away.

Out in Segou we took a trip out the waterfalls and cooled our brains for a day. At the campement he helped me install the solar panels, which was a huge accomplishment for the campement. The actual installation went smoothly but leading up to it we did a lot of hemming and hawing about how DC circuits work and whether or not they should be installed in parallel or they should absolutely NOT be installed in parallel. We were both relying on our fifth grade science classes and decided that call in a lifeline since getting it wrong would mean frying several thousand dollars worth of equipment. As always these days, the internet solved it. (In parallel is the answer.) It wasn’t until late in the day that we hooked all the wires up so we had to wait for the next day’s sunshine to fire up the freezer. By the evening we had bottles of ice. Having spent two years in Segou with no power or access to a refrigerator, sitting in my hut holding a liter and a half block of ice fairly blew my mind. If you stop and think about it, electricity is pretty miraculous. So are solar panels and refrigerators. However, it’s not till you install a solar energy system in a place where you are used to not having electricity that the fact that any of it works blows your mind. I kept staring at the system and tracing the path of the electrons in my mind: Sunlight hits the panels and knocks some electrons loose. The wires that crisscross the panels pick these electrons up. They then travel down the wire like all good electrons. The regulator packs them in the batteries for safe keeping and the transformer bumps up their voltage to 220 V AC. The freezer then performs its own magic of the flow of electrons to compress and release gas in order to make cold. Sunlight to cold in just a few “simple” steps! I still haven’t gotten over the magic of this system. Especially since another PCV came out and helped me wire up the lights. We made a control box for all of the outlets and lights in the bar so the campement owners can make sure that no power is being wasted. So far I have been using it like a little kid: flicking switches on and off and being amazed at the response. As if all of that wasn’t enough, we also have a bio-air-conditioner that runs off of the solar panels.

Back to my Dad’s trip though. After leaving Kedougou we stopped by the Niokolo Koba National Park to see what there was to see and to check up on a biogas digester I helped some German researchers install there. Fifty years ago the park used to be a huge tourist destination but all of the big, interesting wildlife has slowly disappeared over the years due to environmental factors and poaching. To me the fact that the park as been abandoned by wild animals and tourists alike gives it it’s own unusual appeal. After entering the park and driving for two hours down a typical rutted road you arrive at the Simenti Hotel. If Motel 6 had a chain of safari lodges then the Simenti hotel would fit right in. The weird thing is that it was build to house and dine hundreds of people, but my Dad and I were the only ones staying there and the nights preceding and following our visit it was empty. At the restaurant, a big open air affair that can seat a couple hundred people, we ate in amongst a sea of empty tables. The place is starting to fall into disrepair and will probably never be refurbished to its former glory, further adding to the ghost town atmosphere. Having already been to all of the other places we went, staying at the deserted hotel was oddly a highlight for me.

After the park we headed back to Dakar the remaining days of my Dad’s trip and so I could start to prep for a big tourism expo that happened at the end of last month. (More on that later.) Showing visitors around Senegal and showing off my work is something I really enjoy doing but the best part of having people over here is knowing that when I go back to the state’s we will share a mutual understanding of what “Senegal” means, who so and so is, and what my work looks like. For that and many other reasons I am very grateful of my Dad’s visit.

Random notes:

As usually happens when people encounter other races for the first time many Senegalese, particularly in small villages where they don’t get a lot of foreigners, think that all white people look alike. It’s common that another volunteer will visit me in Segou and my neighbors will remark, “Oh! You must be brothers!” Nope. “Cousins at least then?” Still nope. I’ve even thought about asking another volunteer with a similar hair cut to try passing as me in Segou. Just to see if it would work. However they got it right with my dad, which isn’t too hard to guess anyway. If there was no age difference I’m sure my Dad and I could pass as identical twins. Often people would not even finish the greetings before saying, “Hidon naandindiri!” (You look alike!) In fact we heard this phrase so often I think it might be the only Pulsar phrase my Dad picked up during his time here.

One of the unfortunate aspects of traveling in areas infested with PCVs is that locals expect that any person they see with a PCV to also be a PCV and therefore speak the local language. I’d say 90% of the time they are right. In my Dad’s case I had to do a lot of explaining to my neighbors that he doesn’t speak Pulaar. To which they responded “Well what about French?” Nope. “He doesn’t speak Pulaar or French??? How weird!” When we first went to visit the Paradise garden, Bassirrou started greeting him in Pulaar, saw that he didn’t understand, switched to French, which didn’t work either, and then switched to another local language, Mandinka, which definitely didn’t work. I had to laugh.

Status report

Captains log: May 5th, 2011

I've been busy. Most recently I spend two days at the hotel in the Niokolo Koba National Park helping install a biogas digester that will run off of kitchen scraps and produce cooking gas. The hotel is very much a hotel: multiple stories, outside walkways, a bar, a pool, etc. Being here as long as I have finding a "hotel" that so closely resembles a hotel is fairly amazing. Although that concept is probably not remarkable to you. Anyway, back in the day this hotel used to be full to capacity. Also back in the day there used to be sizable lion and elephant populations in the park. Not so much anymore for both cases. Nowadays it's mostly families looking to take their kids on a "safari" that visit the park.

The main motivation for the digester stems from the plight of all West African nature reserves: an infestation of baboons and monkeys. Throwing out kitchen scraps or composting them only attracts and encourages them even more. A few months ago a British researcher (whose research consists of "surprising monkeys to see what noises they make"), somehow heard that I had some experience with biogas digesters and asked if I would be interested in helping her build one there. This was welcome news because I had finally admitted to myself that the digester I made here in Kedougou was more about the actual building of it than a sustainable project that I intended on seeing through. With everything else I am trying to wrap up, the digester fell off the bottom of the list. So having the opportunity to put my experience into practice in a more sustainable way was very welcome.

The digester packed into the truck. (Some assembly required.)

Making some modifications to the tank.

Soaking some manure to start the digestion with.

Painting the inside of the drum to keep it from rusting.

We spent a lot of time inside barrels. :) In this case attaching the plumbing pieces for the gas reservoir.

Voilà! One biogas unit. The kitchen scraps will go into the grey tube sticking out the big white reservoir. They will then be broken down into CO2 and Methane by the microorganisms present in the manure. The gas leaves via the yellow hose and gets stored in the two blue barrels which rise up as they fill. The yellow tube leading away from the barrels gets attached to a special stove range and that is how you can cook with kitchen scraps!

The A team. Zach, Oumar, Laye, and Tabitha.

Power cuts

First, as always, my apologies for the long time between posts. There is so much going on right now that updating my blog keeps falling to the bottom of the list. Compounding that, Kedougou has started to experience the power cuts and irregularities that have been plaguing the rest of the country for some time now.

Senelec is THE power company and it is government owned. From just those two facts I'm sure you can surmise a lot of the problems they have here. Although before I start bashing the idea of government owned utilities I would like to point out a benefit that they do have: they don't have to be profitable. In theory this enables Senelec to bring power to places where a private company never would. In practice I'm not sure how much that happens. Also, while Senelec's services can fail, the company itself cannot. For example, if they are providing unreliable power and the people refuse to pay because of it, the company will not go bankrupt. In the short term this is fortunate because that's exactly what is happening. It all started right after the World Cup. As soon as it was over there were massive extended power cuts in the capital, Dakar. Naturally people were up in arms about this and demanded an explanation. Senelec's answer was that they bought some bad gas which could not be burned in the newer generators in Dakar. Knowing that there would be blood on their hands if they cut power during the world cup they used up all of there reserve gas to keep power on throughout the tournament. Since that time they have continued to have gas supply or other issues which have been slowly affecting the other cities and towns with power around Senegal. What the solution is I don't know but I do know that the president has said that the situation is not going to change for at least a year. So, on a hourly and daily basis power here will continue to be sporadic. A serious problem for anyone doing any sort of skilled trade and a less important but more personal problem for my ability to obtain ice cream bars in 110 degree heat.

From all of us

Happy Birthday to You...
From all of us
Love,
Yo Momma!

Rolling, rolling, rolling...

As you can see from the previous two posts, things are really moving along quite quickly. You'll have to excuse the lack of regular updates since the funding was received. It's just that there has been so much work to do and it's actually happening! On top of that we just had the social event of the year in Peace Corps Senegal: WAIST (the West African Invitational Softball Tournament). Not to mention that I'm starting to mentally feel like I'm really getting close to leaving (992 days in West Africa down, 117 more to go!). The mix of all of those things together has me feeling much more jazzed up than usual. It's a good feeling, sort of like a return to normalcy in some ways. Since work is happening of it's own accord and since I'm nearing the end, I've been relaxing the pressure I put on myself to stay busy and it feels great. Staying busy was the way I worked through most of my frustrations here, but it came at a cost of being much less relaxed than your average PCV, who are, let's face it, pretty damn relaxed. In my mind, I came over here primarily to do a job, not to travel or have a cultural experience and that has affected my general mental state. Given how hard it is to get anything accomplished over here, it's nice to not be so worried about it anymore. I regret that I haven't connected with people as much as I would have liked to and I'm getting the chance to make up for that now. It's funny how these pivotal moments in life can change your perspective in unexpected ways. You change a few priorities here and there and all the sudden you see that they have been blocking something really important.

The next few weeks will be full of supervising construction and keeping my counterparts a head of the masons. However, I really do think that we could be done with major construction by the end of April. That leaves just details left to take care of and fortunately, the details are going to be really fun. Mostly I'll work on tricking out the ecolodge to really bring it up to a professional level. This means bank accounts, accounting systems, a five year vision plan, packaging local goods for sale, putting the finishing touches on the huts and restaurant, and creating a monitoring and evaluation system that will allow me as an individual and the Peace Corps as an organization to stay involved in the ecolodge project for years to come. As each of these relatively quick tasks get accomplished, I'll pull the corresponding note off my hut wall:

I expect I'll make it down to the chalky white paint at a pace that will allow me to fully appreciate my last few months here and the people that I live and serve with. I couldn't ask for anything more than that.

Blam! Restaurant!

We're back in construction mode and I can't believe how fast things are happening compared to the slow months of the rainy season. My counterparts and the masons we hired say all the construction will be finished by the end of April. Unlike most of the predictions about timelines in West Africa, they just might be right this time.

The roof rafters are made from palm wood from the fan palm trees like the one in the left of the picture. The horizontal supports are bamboo. When we were putting of the roof we spent a lot of time just chilling there because it was such a pleasant place to be.

A line level is something I introduced to my counterparts and the masons. (A line level is a small bubble level that attaches to a string which allows one to level two points which a relatively far apart.) They exist here in Senegal, but very few people know of about them. Fortunately, we hired different masons this year and they are familiar with levels. When they started working and I saw that they brought their own levels I thanked them. They said, "Yeah, of course, how else would we know if something was level if we didn't have them." I argued for a week with last years masons over that very statement.

Setting the posts for the roof of the restaurant.

Thatching.

The view from the corner of the restaurant overlooking the ecolodge and the valley that leads to the waterfall.

Some of the 1,500 mud bricks we had made this year.

Samalé and I getting our exercise in!

Putting up the half-hut at one end of the restaurant that will serve as the reception, room for the solar power equipment and fridge, and sleeping quarters for the guard.

It's now Tuesday the 15th of May. When I come back into Kedougou in a week I'll have photos to show of the FINISHED restaurant!

Paradise Garden Photos

Finally, as promised, here are some photos of the "paradise garden." It has been a real pleasure to work with these guys the past few months.

Right to left: Bassirou, Amadou, Thierno Mamadou

Thierno Mamadou's father started the garden and Bassirou is now the third generation to be working the land.

Avocado and banana trees!

When I first showed up to check out what I thought was going to be a small garden with a few struggling beds, this is what I was greeted with.

One of two natural springs that sit uphill from the garden and make all the magic possible.

The other spring. To water they just put a hose in the pool and let gravity do the rest. It's possible that there could be another spring fed garden in Senegal, but given the topography not very likely.

When I first came to the garden they asked, "We made the garden beds the size it said to in the book you gave us, we also put in the amount of manure it recommended, and planted the cabbage with the spacing listed. Did we do it right?" I have never heard of any gardener that worked with a PCV in either of the countries I served in who was able to see the value of a technique just from reading about it and then try it out. What's more, when I suggested that they mulch their beds, the immediately started to do so. I've recommended mulching to a dozen other gardeners, but none of them were willing to try it. They only water the mulched beds half as much now.

I rigged up this "surveying level" so we could determine the elevation drop from the springs to the center of the garden. I'm working with another US funded NGO called Africare to design a system of reservoirs that will be able to store more water than the current dirt basins and could even support a drip irrigation system.

Measuring the quantity of water that comes out of the source. By timing how long it took to fill up a 1.5 L water bottle we were able to determine that in a 24 hour period the two sources release over 10,000 L of water. When we did the calculation, Thierno and Bassirou couldn't believe it. Bassirou said he didn't sleep that night because he was thinking about all of the possibilities of what they could do with that much water. For perspective, half of the wells in the village are already dry and in order to water the other garden in town the women carry buckets of water on their heads from their homes to the garden, which is over half a kilometer away. That's why I call this garden a paradise.

Fofana, an employee of Africare, setting up the sign for a gardening training that Peace Corps, Africare, and Trees for the Future collaborated on. Over 60 people attended from 4 villages.

Starting the training.

The really cool thing about this training was that it wasn't just theoretical. The Thierno and Bassirou were already practicing many of the techniques we wanted to teach. We started the training by taking a stroll through the garden and asking to explain what the had done. Pictured here is an intensive Moringa bed. Moringa is a tree that produces delicious leaves that are essentially multivitamins. This is a method of cultivating Moringa as if it were a vegetable and not a tree to get a maximum about of leaf production. Thierno saw that I had a bed like this behind my hut and started this one all on his own.

The cabbages liked the mulch!

Explaining the benefits of mulching. I asked the crowd what was the most difficult part about gardening in Senegal. They all immediately responded that watering was the hardest and most time consuming. I then asked Thierno how often he watered his beds with mulch and the ones without. He responded that where there was mulch he only watered half as much and the ground was still wetter than the beds without mulch. There we audible gasps from the crowd. The crazy thing is that you can talk yourself hoarse saying things like this, but until the people see it practiced by one of their neighbors, they just won't try it. Now mulching is catching on like wildfire in Segou.

Karumba (in the green tshirt), an employee of Trees for the Future, leading a training on tree nurseries. We are fortunate to have him as a work partner as he understands gardening like we do, but speaks much better Pulaar, and Mandinka, and Bassari, and French.

Last time I was at the garden we turned the stream running from the spring into an automatically watered nursery for bamboo cuttings. Ask anyone and they will say that bamboo is getting harder to find these days, but not everyone is willing to do something about it.

I love these guys.