What exactly is the "work" I do here in Senegal?

So I'm home on a vacation in America and this is the number one question people seem to be asking me. If you're interested in things I've done up in this point in Senegal you'll have to read past entries, but looking into the future this is what I've got for ya.....


I wrote this a while ago when I had just been officially notified about having my Volunteer site and counterpart selected for this newly introduced joint project of Peace Corps and USAID, but never quite got around to posting it until now. Hopefully it gives the few of you still following my blog a good idea of the primary focus of my work in the year and a half remaining on my Peace Corps service. Take what I have written, as everything written in the blog for that which it is….ONLY MY OWN OPINIONS AND IN NO WAY REFLECTS THE OPINIONS OR OFFICIAL POLICIES OF THE U.S. PEACE CORPS. Glad I got that disclaimer out there, it was a mouthful.

I also want to be clear ahead of time that this is not, “my” project, but rather a large scale initiative that, if anything, is the project of my host brother and friend Toumani. I helped him with the initial budget proposal, but the actual work and trainings associated with the project will be a shared experience among Toumani, myself, Anna (closest PCV to my village) and a handful of other interested Volunteers in the region as well as possibly one or two Senegalese workers to be chosen by Toumani at a later date. We’re all going to work, sweat, and generally beat our heads into a figurative brick wall until this is made a complete success one way or another. Failure is not an option.

This Peace Corps/USAID project involves the selection of highly motivated and skilled farmers scattered across Senegal and seeks to bolster country wide advances in rural agriculture through the development of large scale demonstration plots. The prevailing mentality behind this slight shift in rural agricultural development is in part due to concrete data that has in recent years proven that cooperative farming is less efficient in promoting new farming practices in rural Senegal/West Africa than an individual based model. The policy of this project is therefore to promote the good work of a few hard working and highly respected locals in order to have their work copied through both basic mimicry and routinely held demonstrations/field classes.

In the first batch of selections, of which my host brother and I were fortunate enough to be a part of, 8-9 local farmers throughout all of Senegal were chosen as local ambassadors of agriculture but backed by the funds USAID and training support of Peace Corps staff here in Senegal. Titled the, “Pilot Farmer project,” or initiative, or something equally fancy, these 8 men and 1 woman were rewarded for their hard effort and community leadership with a three day initial training in Thies and access to serious cash on the part of USAID (disbursed via Peace Corps administration), in order to build and maintain a large demonstration site for the purpose of promoting --by both example and routinely held meetings various agricultural practices, techniques, and technologies. The long-term goal for these sites is to have them set up as de facto field schools whereby farmers of both sexes can travel to and live on (for upwards of a week at a time) in order to attend and participate in various demonstrations and classes to be led by the “Pilot Farmer” and assisted by Peace Corps Volunteers.

In my particular case, my host brother Toumani and I received approximately 6,250 USD in order to develop a site of 100x100 meters. Within the site’s newly purchased chain link fence we will demonstrate agricultural practices, both new to and already proven worthwhile throughout Senegal, in the areas of; field crops—millet, corn, sorghum, rice, sesame, and beans, large scale gardening---anything you could possibly think of growing efficiently for both nutrition of cash crop capabilities, and tree cultivation/maintenance---bananas, avocados, oranges, mangos, acacia, ziziphus, and an additional 5-10 varieties I can’t think of at the moment. Mixed within these three overarching categories the site will also act as a demonstration of such techniques and technological advances in areas such as wind breaks, live fencing, foot treadle pumps, drip irrigation systems, small scale perma-gardening, natural pest management, composting, manure teas, nitrogen fixing varieties, shade crops, etc. The approved initial budget of this project includes a line itemed list of somewhere around 30 items ranging from chain link fencing and well digging costs/materials to the more mundane costs associated with seed purchases, and materials such as rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows, watering cans, and a hammock. Just kidding on the hammock part, that was just a test to see if you were actually reading instead of just skimming my terrible writing :)

The bulk of the work related to field crops will take place in the rainy seasons from year to year and will involve the latest varieties of seeds developed by a Senegalese governmental agency by the name of ISRA. At planting we will promote via example improved spacing, weeding, and pest management practices. During harvest we will perform yield calculations in order to give feedback to the agency in order to further their mandate to constantly adapt and produce seeds with improved vigor, as well as hold routine demonstrations on seed selection and off season storage practices for nearby farmers.

The gardening work will be slightly less structured in the design of the project as gardening practices vary greatly from one region of Senegal to the next, but needless to say that as my site is located in Southern Senegal and my counterpart is the most motivated Senegalese I have yet met…we will have our hands full year round in attempting to plant anything we can get our hands in order to achieve the highest outputs possible for both consumption and sale. The techniques and technologies previously listed will all be demonstrated as part of this gardening component.

The tree work will be divided among fruit tree cultivation for consumption and sale as well as the promotion of thorny species, nitrogen fixers, and shade varieties throughout the interior of the demonstration site as well as all four 100 meter borders. Prior to joining the Peace Corps I knew very little about trees beyond the fruit trees of my house in Virginia. Although I will participate as much as possible in this component of the Pilot Farmer site, the vast majority of the Volunteer driven work and expertise will come from my closest site-mate Anna who serves as an Agro-forestry volunteer in a village approximately 6k away from the site. I wish Anna was the one who had written this past paragraph as she knows about 100 million times more information than I could profess about all things trees and shrubbish. Side note, if shrubbish isn’t a word, and spell-check is claiming this to be the case, it should be made into one asap.

Once again I’ve cranked out a blog entry in under 20 minutes, but I’m sure I forgotten a ton of pertinent information so if you have any questions just leave them on the comment section below. And lastly…….I checked the map thing located on the side of this blog and for the first time realized just how many places my blog is being accessed from. You all out there in such exotic places as Costa Rica and Alaska should feel free to chime in any time in the comment section.


Peace,

David S.