The Story of David, His Friends, and Their Splendiferous Garden

The Story of David, His Friends, and Their Splendiferous Garden

Real names of anyone mentioned in this blog have been altered as I lacked the Pulaar to ask their respective permission.

I came into Kolda this morning with the intent of sending off a work related email to my boss in Dakar and then immediately biking back to my village when I realized my gmail inbox was semi cluttered with several requests to “stop being lame, and update your blog more regularly…you’re only 5ish miles away from a computer.” The following blog is therefore a tribute to the kind-hearted souls behind such malicious attacks. You remind me, and I will update. You forget, and I will forget. I recommend leaving such encouragement on the comment section of the blog itself, however.

Over the past 5 weeks or so my garden has morphed from a place of solitude and relaxing/mind-numbing physical labor to a two-a-day wrestling-match-fueled garden arms race. About three weeks ago I was plugging along in the garden, increasingly convinced that I wouldn’t have anything in the ground in time for the winter gardening season, and that even if I did somehow pull off the impossible, nobody in my village would give a damn if anything short of a magical money tree sprouted from the soil. I was staring at one clogged well, one dry well, villager apathy, an unfinished fence, and an increasingly annoying monkey situation. My compound’s horse had recently died (taking use of a plow out of the equation), my highly motivated counterpart was swamped with peanut harvesting, and my younger brother Cy was plugging away with his studies 6k away in order to pass his current level and attend the high school in Kolda next year. Both my counterpart Tom, and Cy had repeatedly expressed sympathy in my overall situation/garden project, but there was no viable answer to my woes in sight (cue violins). My garden had become my own worst enemy….a half-finished, ugly looking money pit of Senegalese development. I was humbled. Dead on my feet from perpetual stomach bugs and down a total of 67lbs from arrival in country, I was more than ready to throw in the towel….(cue “Eye of the Tiger”)

Fast forwarding to the present --I’m still in shock that after roughly 40 days from this lowest of lows, more than sixty villagers have stopped by to see the finished product (raised beds, seed beds, demo plots for new varieties, re-dug well, semi-finished water cistern), composting system, over 1,500 potatoes, green peppers, tomatoes, carrots, onions, bell peppers, eggplants, cabbage, lettuce plants in the ground, cow-proofed fence etc.

The following is the story of David, his two Senegalese friends, and their Splendiferous Garden. It is told in an overly dramatic fashion not only because I’ve had a sh*t- eating grin on my face the entire time I’ve been typing this up—not only because I’ve regained 7lbs in country (you read that correctly, GAINED)—not only because I’m floating on a sugar high of a liter of genuine Coca-Cola while listening to Eye of the Tiger on youtube repeat—not only because while biking in this morning I set what I consider to be an unprecedented land speed record from my village of S.G. to Kolda (31 minutes)….but mostly because I’m damn proud of my village and am relishing drawing out what I consider to be a sure sign that my village wants to continue working with the PC. This is a village that wants to continue having the sh*t developed out of it, and I’m stoked to be here and in a position to help in my own all-or-nothing, no-such-color-as grey-way.

The back story has already been listed above. For the reasons mentioned, and some more personal ones I have chosen to omit….the beginning of my story involves coming back from the garden one day totally exhausted, frustrated, bitter, and overall angry at the world. To escape from reality for a little while, I filled up a water bottle from my filter, purchased a pack of 75 cents cigarettes and climbed the village water tower. In the past I had used the water tower as my own personal tree house. Nobody in the village ever seems interested in climbing up there, so I’ve always been able to just sit alone and reflect against the background of my country music-loaded ipod. This particular day, while Johnny Cash was doing his thing with Rings of Fire, a soccer game developed on one of the fields near the tower. As the music transitioned into an even more depressing Eric Church single, I stubbed out my cigarette and climbed down the tower to get a closer look at the game. Somewhere between guitar rifts and stale tobacco fumes, I reached the conclusion that I was going to pawn my last remaining soccer ball in Senegal to the local soccer team in order to try and pay someone in my village the exorbitant fee associated with re-digging a dry well. This depressed me on multiple levels, not only because I knew the fee was outrageous only because of the color of my skin, but because I knew paying the fee myself would leave me dead broke.

And then…….drum roll……something miraculous happened.

Just as I reached the field, the team’s soccer ball performed some sort of spontaneous combustion. It literally seemed to blow up in the midst of a penalty kick. This act, accompanied by my presence on the field that day, represented a catalyst of bizarre and entirely fulfilling acts to come. First, the soccer team held a meeting right there on the field and determined they would rather help dig the well themselves in exchange for the new soccer ball (rather than pay my asking price). In my mental state at the time, I was 99 percent sure they were full of it, and headed back to my hut wondering if maybe, just maybe I was wrong.

Usually I hate being wrong. Hell, I almost always hate being wrong. But the next morning I was thrilled to be wrong. Almost 20 younger men in my village made the trek over to the garden, and after about 5 hours of brutal physical labor in the field, we all chipped in to re-dig the well another 2 meters. This might not seem like much work, but digging 2 meters down, a meter/meter and a half wide in already saturated clay is extremely difficult. The entire morning as we worked, I preached the word of gardens. They were a captive audience, wooed by the promise of not only the soccer ball sitting in my hut, but promises of more soccer balls to come if they didn’t give up. While we worked, I railed on the injustices of peanut harvesting in Senegal. I spoke the word of peanuts as pure evil, weakening the soil at the expense of very little cash profit and months of sore bodies. I talked of unhappy wives, mothers, and children who depended on the mens’ peanut fields as a once a year influx of cash for everything from food to schooling and medicine. I spoke of diversification of gardens, of vegetables, of different cash crops with lower labor inputs and much higher potential gains. I was in my element, and sensed blood in the water.

With the well dug, I was then approached by my younger brother Cy (age 18) who had come up with a very creative proposal involving a micro loan in order to buy a bike. Cy and I hammered out the details over 4 cups of attaya whereby I would float him half the money for a new bike in Kolda as a loan, and present the other half in exchange for one-on-one Pulaar tutoring sessions to be held in the garden every afternoon. The bike would give Cy the ability to return home each afternoon from school, rather than spending the weekdays in a village 6k away, which was something both of us really wanted. Cy wanted to be closer to home, and I wanted someone to help me with the garden. We agreed to split the future profits of the garden 50/50 up until the point I had been reimbursed for what I had purchased as inputs, with anything remaining going towards his future high school expenses.

A couple of days go by and Cy mentions a friend of his in the village who is interested in working in the garden. I am still extremely skeptical, but the two of us are fighting an uphill battle to get the land cleared, fence up, and seeds in the ground in a timely fashion, so I agree to hold a meeting with the newest character of this agricultural saga. Stage Left, enter Funny Man.

Funny Man is Cy’s best friend in the village. They both have a million brothers, but their connection is one forged by countless hours hanging out in the village since they were both old enough to walk, mutual girlfriends/exes, attending the same soirees in nearby villages, and the occasional trip to Kolda to loaf about and try to impress girls. Funny Man is 20 years old, and at this point in Senegal, I trust him more than anyone I’ve met. His mother has been blind for almost his entire life, and the two of them live in a nearby compound with extended family. This past growing season Funny Man worked 6 months and will make a projected 80 dollars for the year. This is his only source of income. While other men in the village will travel to cities like Dakar and Thies to find work in the hot season months, Funny Man decided it would be better if he stayed in S.G to take care of his mother. I liked Funny Man immediately upon being introduced. I like him even more as I write this.

Funny Man, Cy, and I became equal part owners of the new garden. Cy continued to tutor and work in the afternoons on weekdays, while FM and I worked both mornings and afternoons. Future profits were discussed, and the same deal as previously organized between Cy and myself was agreed upon by all three parties. Failure to show up to work would result in a verbal tongue lashing, with repeated offences being followed by a threatened ass kicking, and eventual dismissal (these are Funny Man’s terms, not mine). Our rules were/are simple, and in my opinion something all Fortune 500 companies would find beneficial if adopted accordingly.

We started by breaking the soil with picks and shovels, then making mounds for the potatoes 40 cms in height. It was a lot of hard work, but we somehow developed the tradition of breaking up the monotony of it all by having two-a-day wrestling tournaments. Win or lose, all of us would grin, slap hands, and get back to work as soon as the 5 minute battle was over. The third party/ref would usually replay the skirmishes out loud for the remaining part of the morning or afternoon, but the loser and winner alike never took it personally. My Pulaar went from being extremely stilted in mixed/older company to conversational trash-talk. I can now say socially useful things like, “I’m going to hit you so hard you have to change your pants,” and “maybe you are too tired to work and wrestle today because you are an idiot and decided to go to the dance with your girlfriend last night.” Functionally limited Pulaar, but emotionally satisfying, as far as I am concerned.

We finished planting absolutely everything in the garden a couple of days ago, and word quickly spread around the village. A side benefit of working with these two very colorful guys is that they are both extremely popular in the village among the younger crowd (4-34). They like to talk a lot, and have spread the word of our hard work. Yesterday when our last seeds were in the ground, several men from the village and a handful of women drifted over to chat with us and compliment us on the progress. Many expressed interest in building their own gardens if ours was found to be successful, and even more spoke with me about working under similar group arrangements the following year. There were old men, young men, and children who came to look at our progress. To each, Funny Man and Cy had spread the word about the evils of mono cropping, and the wasted time and effort on peanuts.

I’m not sure how much, if any, will actually sink in over my next two years, but at this point I’m more than content to wait it out. I consider the new garden to be the first of my projects in S.G., and as I build upon my technical and language skills, I imagine in the long run it will prove to be one of the least impressive. With that said however, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the last couple of the months at site, and the sometimes painful, sometimes funny, and always challenging creation of the Splendiferous Garden.