Walking a Mile in Their Shoes

(Sorry about the delay, but my computer has had problems with the display screen.)

 

written around June 20, 2014

With the rainy season having started, albeit slowly, planting season has arrived.   As I observe and participate in helping the communities get their crops in the ground, it is evident that I have much to learn, as well as to teach.  But when you are in Africa, you do as Africans do.

 

Most farming in Africa is small scale, subsistence farming.  Guineans, even if they do not consider themselves a farmer, sow a crop of some kind each rainy season.  The major cash crops that are typically planted in my region include peanuts, corn, and millet.  Also planted, but on a smaller scale, include okra, hibiscus, eggplant, and piment.  Because there is no electricity in my region, and (gasoline powered) machines are expensive, everything is done by hand.  This includes shelling the corn, pounding the millet, and shelling all the peanuts that are grown.  Some individuals or communities have been able to upgrade to a machine that processes the grain/nuts mechanically, but again, that requires money that not many people have right now.

 

Shelling peanuts with the ladies groupement in my village.

 

When the rainy season officially began back in May, most farmers began clearing their fields of weeds, saplings, and last year’s post harvest waste (typically corn and millet stalks.)  Unfortunately, they do this by burning the debris piles.  Ordinarily, these weeds and plant materials can be plowed into the soil, to slowly decompose over the next year.  But, when you are using a single blade plow pulled by a donkey or two young bulls, clearing the land of last year’s debris makes the work a lot easier.  Burning does add potassium and phosphorous to the soil.  But this generally is only short lived, and plants may not be able to completely access this sudden flush of nutrients.  Burning is detrimental to soil health for a number of reasons.  First, you lose precious nitrogen and carbon that are necessary for plant growth.  Second, you kill beneficial microbes that live in the soil and aid in a crop’s growth.  Lastly, you lose precious plant matter that creates humus and improves the soil’s overall health.  With sand being a primary component of the soil, the fields definitely could use some enrichment.

 

As for tilling the earth, using animals is the only option when you can’t afford to buy and maintain a tractor.  (I have seen tractors being used in Koundara, but they are rare.)  Initially, the young bulls must be trained to pull a plow and walk in a straight line (follow someone walking in front of them.)  Young bulls are used because they are much easier to handle.  Training involves a lot of whipping, which can lead to open sores on the bull’s back.  It is definitely an inconvenient truth about plowing with animals.   The animals endure suffering in order to be trained to do our work.  There is not an easy answer to this “problem,” except to help to develop the region so that people can afford to use tractors.  One option that I have thought about is to use a double blade plow with mature bulls which are accustomed to pulling a plow.  Once I’ve established some success, perhaps my community will be receptive to this idea.

My counterpart and his brother training 2 young bulls to plow.

My counterpart planting corn.

 

 

Another disadvantage to using the animals is that they can only be worked for 2-3 hours each day, so it is not possible to spend a couple of full days sowing your fields and be done.  At the moment, most crops in the region have not been planted due to the lack of consistent rain.  Yes, it is already well into the rainy season, and the rain is still inconsistent.  Villages here are getting a bit anxious, and just last night, my community spent several hours doing rain dances in an effort to affect a complex meteorological event.  Perhaps the lack of rain will remind the community of the pressing need to plant more trees,… many, many more trees. 

 

Because when you take, you must always replace!

 

 

In Service Training

I recently returned from a trip to Mamou where my group (G25) of fellow volunteers spent over 2 weeks in training and planning projects for our service.  In addition, many volunteers stayed an extra 4 days to attend a Youth Entreprenurship Training Program (YETP).

The training provided us with a chance to reconnect with one another, as we are all spread out all over Guinea.  Each volunteer gave a presentation on their village and what potential projects they had in mind.  The sectors in my class  (Public Health, Agroforestry) also had trainings with our program manager and staff to learn about new techniques and participate in field trips.  (Topics included: small scale irrigation, permaculture, apiculture, and nurseries.)  Of course, we all continued language training while in Mamou, and I chose to work on my Pular skills.

Our counterparts came towards the end of training, and we re-established our expectations we had for one another, listened to community assessments from a few volunteers, as well as heard from various NGOs (non-governmental organizations) who we might work with in our community.

Finally, the YETP program took place from May 17-May 21, and was attended by numerous PCVs and their counterparts from neighboring countries.  Entrepreneurship in Guinea is still a developing concept, as many people in Guinea choose to sell the same products (agricultural and basic necessities) as their neighbor at the local market.  Not that a roadside vegetable stand isn’t a business, but it is not a very sophisticated one.  If Guinea wants to grow in the future, its citizens need to learn how to innovate and to market their goods and services to someone other than the villager down the street.  Since I am so close to the Senegalese border, it is a focus of my efforts to improve the livelihood of people living in my region.  The training met my expectations and covered most basics of entrepreneurship and small business ownership.  However, most Guineans still lack basic math skills, so doing calculations with income and expenses was a bit challenging, and more complex calculations (like breakeven analysis) were not even covered.   As you can probably guess, many new business ideas fail in Guinea because of the lack of knowledge of running a business.  This YETP program aims to change that.

I am not sure when and if I will be returning to Mamou again.  In another year, our class has a mid service training, but I am not sure where that will be held.  Though the weather in Mamou was a nice respite from the hot weather I am used to at my site in northwestern Guinea, there are enough positives about my village and region to want to return.  I found this to be the case with the other volunteers, as everyone has embraced and taken ownership in their site.  I, as well as my other PCVS, also became quite fatigued of the rotation of meals we are served at the conference center.  Like I said before, creativity is not something that the Guineans do well yet. Guinea does have a variety of sauces that are part of their diet, but a tomato based sauce hasn’t seemed taken hold in Guinea. Yet Guinea is a very diverse country, and each region has its own charm, so it does offer some variety. Except for the commute back to and from my site, Mamou was a good spot to relax, reflect and get rejuvenated for the start of the rainy season, and the rest of the year.

Running Over Sheep with My Bicycle and Cannabalistic Chickens

Sometimes things happen in Guinea that are both frustrating and funny.

To start, I was coming home a few weeks ago from my Pular class in the neighboring village.  As I’ve mentioned before, livestock here in Guinea are free range, which means they don’t respect traffic laws very well.  Usually, when they see something bigger coming, the animal which is standing in the middle of the road or path moves.  It sometimes helps as well to give a shout (or a honk of your horn) in advance to alert the animal of your presence. 

On this particular day, there was a medium size sheep in my path, and I started shouting as I approached the animal.  Unfortunately, the animal just stood there.  As I realized the sheep wasn’t going to move, I had to make a quick decision, right, left, or straight ahead.  I chose left.  Unfortunately, the sheep also chose the same direction, and it was quickly prone with my front tire over its mid-section.  After a quick moment of, “What the heck just happened to me?”, the sheep got up and trotted off.  After verifying that the animal was okay, I got myself upright and started to move forward again. 

As I looked in the path ahead of me, what I saw this time wasn’t an animal, but a child.  She was staring right at me, and saw what had just happened.  I pointed to the sheep and tried to explain in my best French that the animal that I had just run over was okay.  As I pedaled off, the child quickly moved off to the side and didn’t respond when I said Bonjour.

Now on to the chickens.  My village, like all other villages in Guinea, allows their chickens to range free.  This includes the baby hatchlings.  However, in areas where the dry season is hot and long, the wild birds tend to supplement their diet with village chicklets.  So a hen may lay and hatch 10 chicks, but after 1 month or two, you would be lucky to be left with even one.  In the rainy season, the wild birds can easily find other things to eat, so the village chicklets are safe.  But between January to May, it is difficult to increase the size of your flock. 

One of my first suggestions to my counterpart when I was installed at site was to guard the hatchlings in a separate hut until they were 1-2 months old.  Once they had reached a certain size, they would be too big for the wild birds to steal, and thus continue to live and grow into adulthood.  After losing yet another clutch of chicklets in February, my counterpart decided to try my idea.  So in late march, 12 chicklets were born, and they stayed in a hut normally used for grain storage.  For the first 3 weeks, only 1 chicklet was lost.  Then, another hen had 5 chicklets, and they joined the hut with the others.   But then the rat (maybe) came back, as my counterpart found a headless chiklet one morning.  Over the next week, I think one other chicklet died as well.

But then one day after coming home from Pular class, I stepped on a chicklet while trying to get my bicycle in the grain hut where I usually kept it.  I left the dead chicklet aside while I dropped my things off at my hut.  After getting briefly sidetracked, I returned to the grain hut only to find a headless chicklet.  That certainly wasn’t a rat!  One of these hens had developed a taste for chickens.  A couple days later, 3 chicklets were killed by one of the hens.  Finally, the second hen (which originally had 5 chicklets) was left with only one chicklet, and was jettisoned from the hut.  (Yes, her remaining chicklet eventually got eaten by a bird.)  So we learned it doesn’t work to well to have two new mother hens share the same hut.

The other hen was also eventually jettisoned from the hut, which became guests sleeping quarters during Easter celebrations, (prematurely in my opinion.)  At last count, she had two chicklets remaining.  I will have another post dedicated to my project to solve this problem.

The Realities of Bush Life

I thought I would use this post to share a little about my daily living arrangements here in the African bush.  Simply put, I have NO modern conveniences (refrigerator, oven, television, running water).  The only modern pieces of electronic equipment I have are my laptop computer, my digital camera, and my Peace Corps issued cell phone, all of which I keep charged with my Voltaic solar charger.

My solar charger in action.  I am also taking advantage of the sun by drying mangos and cashews.

My House

I live in a round hut made of mud and cow manure.  My floor is a compacted dirt floor, though I have seen some houses in my village with a concrete floor.  I have one small window, and I’ve installed screens in both the front and back door.  Finally, my roof is made of bamboo and straw.  No, it doesn’t smell and it tends to be as cool as under a mango tree, so it is actually pretty comfortable. (Though I do miss having corners.)   My furniture consists of a “full size” bed made of straw, 2 chairs, and a table.  I am still working on getting shelves made, so most of my belongings are stored in my suitcases or packed in containers on the floor.

Regardless of whether I leave the doors open or closed, my hut gets dirty very quickly.  Thus, sweeping is one of the first things I do when I get up in the morning.   In addition, I get daily visits from mud wasps. (Remember, I live in a mud hut.)  Generally, they are not a problem, just a minor nuisance sometimes.  The free range livestock can also be a problem, as they often try to enter my hut in search of something to eat. (Which is why I am glad I had screens installed in my doors.  Without them, it would be dark and stuffy.)

Water

I, like everyone else in my village, has to pump their water from a well.  I have seen different versions of wells in Guinea, ranging from simple wells (using a rope and a bucket), to human operated mechanical pumps.  In my village, we use a foot pump.  In other villages I have seen hand operated pumps.   My village also has a simple well, but it dries up in March.  I have heard that there are solar powered pumps and wind powered pumps in use in Africa, but I have yet to see either here in Guinea.    I think once development in Guinea gains momentum, solar powered pumps are going to become more widely used.

Regardless of the how one is drawing their water, it takes more effort than turning on a faucet.  In addition, after drawing my water I have to walk a good distance to my hut, 475 feet to be exact.  Because I have chosen to grow a garden behind my house, my water demands are high – 2 bidons (20 liters) and 1 bucket (16 liters) a day.  I treat water as a precious commodity, always looking for ways to get the most from it.  This usually means using any dirty water (without soap) for watering my garden. 

One final note on the pump: everyone and everything comes to the pump for water.  Not only do the livestock come to drink, but also the many thousands of bees that live in the forest.  Because they can be a nuisance (I have been stung a couple of times), I try to pump my water during the evening, when it is both cooler and bee free!

Cooking

If I want to eat, I have two options: cook for myself or find someone else to cook for me.  Though it does take more time than grabbing my spoon after accepting an invitation to join my family for dinner, I do like to cook food that I am more familiar with, and also have the flexibility to create something new.  There are a few dishes here in Guinea that I am have trouble eating, most notably some of the leaf and dried fish sauces. 

Many volunteers choose to purchase a portable gas stove, but since I live so far from a refilling station, I chose to stick with the traditional 3 rock method.  (The idea of hauling a 20 Liter propane tank 20 km into town and back was not appealing!)  I do have to search for and carry my own wood, however.  It is not too difficult to find wood, and my counterpart owns an ax that I use occasionally.  At the moment, my wood pile is a bit disorganized.  With rainy season due to start next month, augmenting my woodpile and building a shelter for it is a top priority. 

The most perfect 3 rock cornbread you'll ever eat!

The biggest challenge with cooking with wood over three rocks is heat regulation.   However, I learned that by adding a couple smaller rocks to two sides of my rock stove created a more even heat, as heat can’t escape out the sides so easily.  (One side is left open for wood.)  Now, I can confidently make French fries or cornbread on a regular basis.

Gardening in Guinea

As I may have mentioned previously, living in a remote site in Africa can have its challenges.  Though I do have periodic progress reports to complete, I am very much on my own.  Most of us manage the independence by setting daily goals.  A goal could be as simple as learning five new words in our local language or even just doing the laundry.   Life is definitely slow here, and I am getting used to the routine and the heat.

One the first things I wanted to do in my first month was to start a garden.  (The selection of herbs anywhere in Guinea is limited, so if want herbs for cooking, you have to grow them yourself.) For the moment, that garden is around the interior perimeter of my backyard shower/latrine area.  It is a fairly decent size and I spent my first week preparing the beds with cow manure.  Since then, I have planted a variety of herbs and vegetables, as well as other vegetables in small plastic sachets/bags, for future transplantation into the church garden.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a success only journey.  The extremely low germination rates of the seeds I have sown is frustrating (but not entirely surprising… many of them are several years old.)  In addition, what had been sprouting was being quickly eaten by some insect or pest. For example, I would leave my hut and after returning, sometimes not even after an hour, a new sprout would be completely gone. At other times, a leaf would have several chunks missing from it.  After consulting with Abdoul, the PC Agroforestry program manager, I determined that the omnipresent lizards and toads that inhabited the area were responsible.  Normally, lizards and toads subsist on insects, but when times are lean (like in the height of the dry season), they often supplement their diets with young plants.  My garden was having problems because the local lizards and toads were eating my plants as fast as they were sprouting!  No bueno!!!

However, I did not come here to make the local reptile population fat and happy.  I need something to eat, so I decided to use some fishnet that I scavenged from Dubreka to cover my garden plots.   Although several lizards have gotten caught in the fishnet and have died, I have transplanted the toads to the somewhat nearby well for a life with copious amounts of water (and insects).   (The lizards are much too quick for me to catch, so I was unable to transplant them to a different part of the village.)  Once my plants have gotten a head start, I plan to remove the fishnet and allow the reptiles to eat a few leaves now and then.  And of courser, next year my garden will be well established, so I won’t have to worry about a few missing leaves.

But in the meantime, I have used up some of my valuable seeds.  If you care to send me a letter, please eat a vegetable first and include the seeds (dried of course, and preferably folded in a paper towel).  I could use some fresh stock.

Lizards and toads are not the only pests that have been giving me problems.  When I first arrived and was busy preparing my beds for planting, I was formally introduced to a desert insect that packs a punch when it stings you.  The receiving end of that sting was the end of my pinkie.  The contributor was a scorpion that was hiding in my gardening glove.   The pain was definitely much worse that a yellow jacket sting.  My counterpart was also recently stung by a scorpion and his finger was swollen for two days.  Thankfully in my case, 500 mg of ibuprofen and a 2-hour nap took care of most of the pain, but I will definitely be more careful in the future.

Lastly, I should mention that the church (school) garden is finally off the ground.  Part of my first month was helping to make the church fence livestock proof. (For example, all of the original wooden gates had fallen into disrepair and the livestock would regularly graze within the interior of the enclosure), lead the preparation of the beds, collect dried bush grass for use as mulch, sow the seeds, and now oversee the daily watering.

This garden is serving several purposes.  First, it is a place where I can multiply the quantity of seeds that I brought that have sprouted.  Come rainy season in June, I will have ample seeds to share with others.  Second, I hope to introduce my area to new vegetables that can be sold at the local market, and even more importantly, in the much richer country a stone’s throw north of me (Senegal).  Currently, the primary cash crops in the area are: rice, fonio, onions, peanuts, millet, eggplant, and corn.    Lastly, I plan to use the 10 garden beds as a teaching tool, not only for the students, but for the village elders as well.  (And I’ll probably learn a few things myself.)  Most people here are used to farming like they always have, and are hesitant to try different things to improve their harvest.  By varying the approach taken in each garden bed, I hope to give the children and village the evidence needed to make some improvements in their farming practices.  Incidentally, I plan to use this same scientific approach to spur changes in other areas of the village as well, such as in the benefits of not burning your fields, and how best to regenerate an aggressively cut forest.

Bush Life Begins

I have been living in my community for almost two weeks, and am still adjusting to life in the bush.  Everything is still so new, and my Basseri language skills are not much beyond the obligatory salutations.  Basseri is the language of my village, so if I want to communicate with my neighbors with something more than a smile and a wave of the hand, I don’t really have a choice.  I am also learning Pular, as it is the language of the neighboring villages.  Not only am I trying to establish my own routine, but I also am trying to observe what habits and customs the community will be most amenable to change or improve.  Some of these changes are as simple as teaching my village a more humane way to kill a chicken, or getting my counterpart to help me extend a well next to a (currently) fallow garden.

Though I am still very much a new arrival in my village, I have already had a meeting with the “president” of the local groupements (somewhat similar to the business cooperative concept in the United States) and with the superintendent of the region’s school system.  The three of us spent a recent afternoon reviewing activities I should be focusing on in my first month. (I am still trying to figure out why the superintendent of the school system is interested in working with an Agroforestry extension PCV, but as long as he can help me with my projects, I’m glad to have him.)  In addition, I am not sure if this level of support or expectation is typical of the Peace Corps experience, but it can be a bit overwhelming.  We came up with a list of EIGHT projects I need to start in the next month.  And I thought the typical PCV only worked on one or two projects! Generally, the communities seem pretty excited that I am here and eager to lend my expertise and knowledge.  I’ve told them that I don’t have all the answers and will likely make many mistakes, but they keep looking at me as if I am some sort of magician!  Usually, volunteers don’t start any projects until they’ve been living in their communities for a few months, but I guess you have to consider the needs and the work cycle of each village.

Finally, if this isn’t enough for me to think about so quickly, unforeseen incidents “happen” in my village.  For example, the other night my counterpart (I will call him Robert) comes home from a trip to Koundara where he sold a sack of peanuts and tells me that 4 of his chickens died today after eating rodent poison that was in the grain storage hut.  His wife had discovered them after he had already left for town.  All livestock animals are highly valued in Guinea, as they are a source of either food for the family, or money from their sale at the market.  Robert was really upset with himself, as he valued the loss as equal to one adult sheep, which for the family, was not insignificant.  After having been informed of the deaths while in Koundara, Robert decides to buy a 3 month old kitten from a friend, wisely thinking that the cat will be a safer alternative than poison to control the mice/rat population.  Unfortunately, Robert makes the decision to transport the kitten in a woven grain sack for the journey back to the village.  At some point in his journey back home, the cat starts getting really anxious (or angry) and bites Robert through the feedbag.  This prompts Robert to jettison the grain sack by the side of the road, losing both the bag and the kitten. 

Upon hearing that Robert has been bitten by a potentially rabid animal, I try to explain to him the potential seriousness of his situation.  Since my French still is at an intermediate low level, I also enlist the help of the  Peace Corps’ regional coordinator in Boké to explain what rabies is and why Robert needs to be on guard for the next 10 days, (in addition to seeing a doctor.)

If this wasn’t enough to think about, Robert (and the rest of the family), decide to eat the poisoned chickens!  He assures me that he has done this (eat poisoned chickens) several times before, and that I have nothing to worry about.  (Yet he still keeps using poison rodent bait and losing chickens!)  Robert, being the culturally sensitive Guinean that he is, respects my decision not to eat any of the poisoned chicken meat.  However, he is open to other forms of rodent control that are more effective and safer than poison or freaked out kittens!

So if someone could send me some mice and rat traps, it would greatly be appreciated!

Graduation and Installation

February 4, 2014

Finally the moment has arrived for us to graduate to Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs).  Not that any of us had any doubts, as G25 (the 25^th group of Guinean Peace Corps volunteers) is a very strong and cohesive group.  We all have been keeping our expectations reasonable as we have already seen the difficulties that the average Guinean faces on a daily basis. 

The festivities began at 11 am at the newly built (but not yet completed) Peace Corps training center in Dubreka.  Because we were inaugurating a new complex, some very important people were invited, including the Prime Minister of Guinea and the American ambassador to Guinea.  In addition, a (or THE) Guinean television station was present to record the ceremony and broadcast it later that day.  There were many introductions, speeches and some Guinean music and dancing, The festivities ended with a traditional lunch of rice and sauce.  (I was a bit disappointed that the fete did not include any American culinary specialties, but perhaps because so many people were invited, it wasn’t in the budget??)



Good music...



and dancing!



Graduation photo with my host mother, two brothers and Alex Laskaris, the U.S. Ambassador to Guinea

 

Then it was off to Conakry for final preparations for our sites.  This included receiving our settling in allowance and first payment as a volunteer. This allowance is comfortable enough to purchase a luxury or two, such as a portable propane stove, a smart phone, or even an American style mattress, but not too comfortable as to make us inaccessible to our villages.  Finally on Friday, we all said our goodbyes to each other as we headed off to our regional capitals and eventually to our individual sites.  (We will be rejoining one another again in three months for a two week training session.)  Soon, we will all be installed, learn a new language, and eventually, begin a project or two.  I for one am looking forward to permanently unpacking my suitcase and finding items that I forgot that I had brought!





Dinner at the Boke volunteer house with the regional support staff.