Update + Helping Senegal Connect 4 Style.

And. I’m. Back.

After an extended blog hiatus due in part to lots of travel and work in the village, but primarily because of extreme writers block……I have returned. In the following blog I’ll try to catch you all up on the random daily goings on of the village, my sister Catherine’s visit to Senegal, my work failures and successes while also interspersing the occasional anecdote to try and keep it all interesting. The following entry is less so one cohesive entry, but rather a series of shorter entries which do not necessarily follow one another in a particularly cohesive manner. Lastly, I am absolutely in love with Senegal. Well, okay, that is a huge exaggeration, but I am very happy here, and increasingly motivated by both ongoing and future projects in the village. It is my hope that such feelings are reflected throughout the following post.


1) My last blog entry left off with the construction of my demo garden and the eventual planting of my seed potatoes and assorted other vegetables. In retrospect my potato project was as much for my personal sanity as it was to benefit my village and those immediately surrounded it. I genuinely believed that potato extension could in effect double as both as cash crop as well as provide sorely needed vitamins particularly to the village’s youth population. While I still believe in the complete awesomeness of potatoes, my potatoes which initially had close to a 100 percent germination rate are now 100 percent dead. Partially this is due to the fact that I planted later than I wanted to and we experienced a couple weeks straight of 120+ degree heat (in the sun), and partially because when I left site for IST (In Service Training), the two younger guys I was working with accidently water shocked the plants by watering during the hottest part of the day instead of waiting until the afternoon.

Needless to say, when I got back to site after IST to discover my potato graveyard, I was feeling pretty down. When the project first began I had sworn to myself that if it was to end in complete and utter failure I would probably Early Terminate my service. Currently such thoughts could not be further from my mind. The potato project and demo site set up, when combined with several important external factors pertaining to the village’s shortage of cash from outright field crops, has caused the number of gardens in Saare Gagna to have jumped from 3 legitimate gardens (at the start of my service at site) to 8. People are starting to ask questions and seek answers both through myself and independently. The two young men I was working closely with throughout the potato project have successfully planted and maintained vegetable beds of carrots, onions, tomatoes, and eggplant. They now fully understand some of the inherent risks of gardening, but are quite adamant about how much they want to continue with such work.

As low as I was feeling upon first realizing the potatoes project was a “complete failure” I have never been as excited during my service in Senegal as the day both of these men approached me independently and asked if we could try again with potatoes this coming Fall. Not only will we give potatoes one more shot, we are going to do a much better job having gained a lot of useful experience from the first attempt. I feel like the potato project will always be a personal reminder of how the best intentioned development projects can fall flat, while also serving as a gauge of how much more mature I have become since my instillation in the village. There was a point when I was motivated to accomplish all sorts of new projects in the village at the expense of flexibility and catering to the actual wants of my villagers. As my language and patience have developed, however, I am now much more in tune with the expressed needs of the people with which I work with on a daily basis--which I believe in turn has made me a much better Volunteer.

Furthermore, in the past when I was still constantly nervous and unsure about my service in Senegal an event such as walking into the potato graveyard would have caused me to run for the hills (i.e. the USA), but now such setbacks only serve to make me grit my teeth, learn from my mistakes, and adapt accordingly. In summation—Senegal has been very good for me.

2) The often over quoted Robert Frost is probably best remembered for his famously penned stanzas about taking, “the road less traveled,” and how upon taking this literal and figurative road, “less traveled by,” it has, “made all the difference.” Well let me tell you……Robert Frost never traveled in Senegal. I’d go so far as to say that Frost never had the exhilarating, adrenaline pumping, stomach spasm inducing joy of suddenly finding himself on the wrong bush path, or been stuck several miles away from purified water, or being chased after by two angry Guinea Bissauans wielding machetes. No, I’m fairly certain he has never experienced any of these delights because if he had his poem would have been more along the lines of, “taking the road less traveled by is an amazingly thought provoking metaphor for person growth and attitudinal change, but this concept is entirely devoid of real life practicalities, especially when serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal.” Yes, I realize this doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as the original verse, but it is oh so much more fitting.

Only a couple of weeks after installation I was biking back from the regional house to catch up on protein intake and catch up on emails when I found myself headed down a bush path towards Guinea Bissau. This misadventure had all started when my closest Volunteer neighbor Anna and I were discussing how I had absolutely no clue which bush path extending out from the city of Kolda was the appropriate path to take directly to my village. I determined that rather than taking a wild guess and possibly biking 8k to my site, I would ride with Anna to her site 10k away from the regional house, then ask villagers to show me a supposed 6k trail that eventually would intersect my village. Things were going well early into the trip up until the point Anna and I took a wrong branch of her trail and ended up getting lost. Out of water and with what I thought was a totally busted bike chain I ended up walking about half of what turned out to be a more circuitous 13k route to her village. In no way to I blame Anna or myself for this mix-up. It was early in our service, all the roads were still unfamiliar to us, and frankly the Casamance region of Senegal goes from looking like something out of Jurassic Park during the wet season to National Geographic Africa (sans lions) once the rainy season ends which can throw off anyone, Senegalese included.

Upon reaching Anna’s site we said our goodbyes and I (bike chain now back in place) set off to my own village. Things were going well for about the first 2k into the trip when I reached an actual crossroads of donkey/horse cart paths. I was actually so stunned and fatigued I stopped by bike at the intersection and had a 10 minute internal monologue/crisis as to which of my three choices I should take. Had the villager I spoke with a Kilometer back said take the right at the intersection? Take a left? The path straight ahead more comparatively less overgrown….did that mean it led back to the city of Kolda rather than occasional villagers traveling back and forth from our two Volunteer sites? Due largely in part to exhaustion, lack of water, and the fact it was starting to rain I opted for the rightmost path…….that’s right, the road less traveled by.

Unfortunately, however, after another 5k down this path I ran across a very startled illegal charcoal burner who after initially trying to whip his donkey cart away from me, realized I was white (and therefore no real threat), and informed me I was heading into Guinea Bissau. The correct path to my village had actually been the path MOST traveled. Damn you Robert Frost. I backtracked to the original crossroads, proceeded to get lost yet a third time later in the day, but eventually made it back to my village whereby I proceeded to sleep for the next 10 hours. Looking back to that day I can barely remember how scared, frustrated, and dehydrated I was, but none of this really matters. What matters is that I now am absolutely, positively, 110% certain of which bush path will take me into Guinea Bissau, and am therefore 110% sure which path I will never take again during my service here in Senegal.

3) As an extension of my previous story about getting lost and almost accidently heading into a country plagued by political upheaval and daily violence, here are another three quick comments about general travel in Senegal.

A- I don’t’ recommend talking on the phone while trying to bike a bush path. Bad things usually happen. While talking to my friend Kevin from back in the states I actually crashed three times during the course of the conversation, the last crash was particularly bad and had my friend completely confused as I laid there next to my bike mumbling curses in the general direction of my cell laying in the dirt near my head.

B- Never travel during the middle of the day to my village. Over a month ago (sorry I didn’t tell any of you about this until way after the fact), I was recently back from Tambacounda for a general Ag sector meeting when my host brother and counterpart called me to ask where I was. The phone conversation was somewhat garbled because of the connection but I thought he was asking me to come home to the village right away rather than wait until the day cooled off and biking was more manageable. Turns out he was actually warning me not to come back right away and was encouraging me to cool me heels for 3-4 hours before getting back. Whoops. Long story short, what ended up happening was just after the halfway point from the Kolda regional house to my village I heard shouts and loud sounds of movement from the woods to my left.

Luckily I was going down the path a lot faster than I usually do because right as I passed a very slight curve in the road two men with machetes came tearing out of the woods hell bent on stopping me (or maybe they just wanted to have a friendly chat). I started biking faster and they very quickly slowed down to a jog and then a walk. I couldn’t understand what they were shouting at me, but it really doesn’t matter. What is most important is that 1- I set a new land speed record to Saare Gagna via bike, and 2- The safety and security coordinator in PC Dakar is an amazing guy who followed up on my situation and found out that several Bissauans had been arrested shortly after my encounter for robbery and attempted robbery along the same trail. I know feel totally safe biking to my village, but in the future I will only do so during the early morning and late afternoon hours when foot and bike travel is relatively heavy and therefore safety is guaranteed.

C- And lastly, never freak out while traveling in taxis or sept places in Senegal. My sister Catherine visited Senegal a little over a month ago and turned out to be a complete trooper the entire time in country. I think she realized without having to be told that freaking out or becoming anxious about travel arrangements in this country serves little purpose other than to make yourself less happy. In Dakar after picking up a taxi from the sept place garage, we got the joy of experiencing the wheel of our taxi flying off from under the car while on the interstate. Had this been America I might have blinked, but because it is Senegal nobody in the car even flinched. Amanda, another Volunteer from Kolda actually calmly said, “I think our wheel just came off” right before the wheel actually rolled in front of the taxi and our axle sparking against the road brought us to an abrupt stop.

4) So my sister Catherine visited Senegal in early January. To this day I’m still not exactly sure how much she enjoyed the experience, but my villagers at least will never forget her. I could write all about how awesome she was for bringing all sorts of delicious food products from America or spending 5/6 days in my village, but instead I’m going to write about her lasting legacy……Connect 4. Yes, you read that correctly, My sister single-handedly brought the game of Connect 4 to the Casamance of Senegal, and although initially hesitant, everyone in my village is now intensely in love with this game. I’m seriously considering writing to Hasbro for a possible donation because after my sister and I explained that Connect 4 was a “thinking” game that was good for mental development, adults and children alike got on board quickly.

Now that physical labor has evaporated with the oncoming hot season, men and women constantly drift in and out of my compound and take turns playing the game from 10am to 3pm every day. Sometimes the games get heated and words are exchanged, but more often than not two men or women will be playing with a crowd of 5-10 others loudly groaning, hissing, or clapping depending on their particular opinion of a previous player’s move.

Originally I was considered some sort of Connect 4 oracle in my village because I simply did not lose, but increasingly this reputation is becoming harder and harder to maintain. Although I shudder what will happen when they eventually start to routinely kick my butt, I still consider the game to be one of the greatest things that I could have introduced to my village during my service. It helps them think strategically and therefore to plan one move, two moves, or ten moves ahead, while it also provides a captured audience. As much as the men of my village want to strangle me when I casually (but repeatedly) bring up the topic of how bad mono cropping nothing but peanuts are for the village’s economy, when they are absorbed into a marathon session of Connect 4, they can’t very well get up and walk away, can they? 

This blog is now going to come to an abrupt halt because I have been feeling under the weather and writers block has struck once again. But I promise in the very near future I’ll post another entry completely catching you up to the current. Topics will include In Service Training, attending the new group of Volunteers’ Pre Service Training, The Pilot Farmer project, my impending vacation to America, and thoughts of possibly staying in Senegal beyond the 27 month mark.

Love you all. Keep the messages coming!