An Incredibly Long and Very Earnest Critique

With my time left in Senegal ticking steadily away, I’ve been constantly contemplating everything I’ve learned here, trying to organize it in my brain. It never ceases to amaze me just how much these past six months have taught me about Senegalese culture and life. On a grander scale, I’ve been learning about how to integrate yourself into any other culture different from your own. The lessons and experiences of my total cross-cultural immersion have been pulsating in my mind all the time.

For quite a while now, I’ve known I want to live and work in a developing country, working with women and/or youth – probably in Africa and probably with a developmental NGO. I knew all along that this GCY bridge year will have been helpful when that dream becomes a reality, but after meeting some American NGO folks, I fully appreciate that the experience is absolutely invaluable.

My apprenticeship is not just with a preschool – it’s with an entire “community center” of sorts, who run the preschool, health initiatives and other things geared towards childhood development. The whole thing is funded by a foreign NGO. A little over a month ago, some Americans from this NGO stopped by my apprenticeship to check out the preschool, among other things. The Senegalese man who runs the center had forewarned me and asked me to translate – being sure to tell the Americans all the good things I am doing at the preschool, how wonderful the teachers are, etc. The way he explained it, if they got a good impression, they would give him more money for the center. I slightly uncomfortably agreed to do what I could.

The day arrived and in they came, surrounded by every single personnel member from the center, two translators from Dakar, and a cameraman with a mic. Every Senegalese person was in their element, speaking rapidly and trying their darndest to be charming and be heard. I really did not want to enter that throng, so I kept trying to keep the kids’ focus on their workbooks, not the loud, excitable horde that had stampeded into their formerly peaceful classroom.

The ones whom I gathered were the education experts had asked me a few questions about the curriculum, etc., and discussed my answers between themselves. They didn’t seem too impressed, one of them saying something along the lines of: “There are other schools in Africa with more students and more learning.” Standing there listening to them, I again found myself in a situation where I resented the need to bite my tongue, only this time I wasn’t even talking to Senegalese people. The Americans were gone in less than 10 minutes.

That whole encounter left a bad taste in my mouth and I went home immediately after they left to think about it. A very friendly email I later got from the “health specialist,” with a draft of his field report attached, gave rise to two emotions: 1) it made me very uncomfortable with the idea of writing this post, and 2) it made me want to write the post even more because I found some discrepancies within the report. It was just so obvious to me that they could have avoided those by hanging around a little longer, actually visiting for more than 10 minutes, or maybe even putting someone in the field instead of trying to run things from afar. I understand that they have Senegalese people working with them, and I am 100% for putting local people on local projects, but this project just isn’t working in the best way. › Continue reading

Tags: apprenticeship, cross-cultural communication, development, immersion, takeaways

Petit par Petit, or Lessons from Pate Diop

I work on a on a small-scale farm in Gorom 2. The owner of the farm is named Pate Diop. He was a policemen for 32 years and began cultivating his father’s farm in. Pate has a huge family. Polygamy exists in Senegal, so Pate supports two wives and I don’t know how many kids all by what gets produced at the farm. There is no other form of income. There is an African tradition of family farming, and one day Pate wants his entire family to work on the farm. Pate told me he saw a lot of things while he was a policemen and he wants in particular young people in his family to use agriculture to stay out of trouble. He wants to use his family land as a community center of sorts.

I have been using urban gardening for young people in my community in the same way for the last four years, so when he said that it really resonated with me. Pate always talks about his hopes and dreams and goals and sometimes I forget he is 57. Not everyday do you meet people that age talk about their hope and dream. Let alone someone who is 57 and working in the developing world. That is one thing that I really admire about Pate.

That’s why I have no problem waking up every Wednesday and Thursday morning (sometimes everyday of the week) at 7am while even the sun is still asleep to go watering 500 tomatoes 200 peppers, onions, mint, and bissap (indigenous fruit) all by hand. The equipment we use to water are constructed from: the tops and bottom of plastic gasoline containers to hold water and a stick in the middle nailed to the container to carry it. Each one filled with water weight about under 7 kilos which is around 15 pounds. After two weeks my shoulders got huge! I work with pate’s family and we’ve all become close. Daouda, Moussa, Manjaay: without this them I wouldn’t have perfected my plant watering skills. A lot of things run through my head while I lug around 30 pounds water over and over. I think a lot about development. I think about how much more we could grow if pate had the an irrigation system instead of gas containers. And how agriculture is the base for development in not only Senegal but most of Africa. › Continue reading

Tags: agriculture, apprenticeship, development, family, farming