This post is going to be a very long,
detailed work update. It's been a while since I talked in depth
about work, so I'm going to give you a little description of each of
my current activities so you can start to get an idea of what I'm
doing over here on a daily basis. Hopefully, it won't be too long
and you can get to the end because there's some fun stuff down there.
Guediawaye
The women in Guediawaye had such
promise at the start. They were attentive and even added to the
lessons with their own creativity. They had the focus and foresight
to finish a business plan before I even taught them how to make their
product. After the first production, they were disappointed that the
soap didn't come out the way they wanted, but eager to try it again
and tweak the recipe. The most recent time I made the trip, though,
they couldn't tell me a single thing they had done at work over the
past 2 weeks. I was supposed to look at a new batch of soap and
critique their accounting practices. Instead, I traveled 2 and a
half hours for them to tell me that they had done no work. Now,
they're students and I know that, when I was a student, it was my
first priority. They're in a period of exams, so I can see why they
wouldn't want to work. The reason I'm still upset is that I brought
up this very problem three weeks ago. They told me school work was
going to pick back up and I asked them if they wanted to take a
break. They assured me that they could handle both and I just
reiterated that they would have to plan out their time in advance in
order to manage both school and work. This type of detailed
scheduling is a foreign concept to most senegalese and it looks like
they took none of it to heart. Despite them not taking my advice, I
can forgive them for that as I hope they will have learned their
lesson. What is more difficult to forgive is what happened next.
So, they told me that they had done no work, but I was there already
and wanted to do something productive. I had also been giving them
some private English lessons after we finish our stuff for the
business. I had a passage prepared that day, so I figured I could at
least teach some English before returning home. I passed out the
sheets and proceeded to try to lead the small group (only 5 women
today) to read the passage and discuss the meaning and vocabulary.
They would barely look at the page and seemed completely
disinterested. These are free, private English lessons from a native
speaker in a suburb of Dakar. Many, many people would beg for such
an opportunity, yet here they were, throwing it away. I wrapped up
class early and said that I would not come back until after my
vacation, which would mean we would take the entire month of December
off. I came home and attempted to call my family and talk with them
over their Thanksgiving meal to improve my mood, but the internet
seemed intent on not letting me do that either. I passed up a
Thanksgiving potluck at the US ambassador to Dakar's residence on
Thanksgiving day for all of this. Terrible.
School Garden
The garden is at an early enough stage
that it hasn't had a chance to really get messed up yet. The grant
proposal is submitted and I've selected the spaces we're going to
grow moringa and the school director has selected the vegetables she
wants to grow in the table beds. We've determined that the produce
will be sold in order to pay for next season's operating costs and
that educational opportunities in terms of plant biology and
container gardening will be offered. The school director has failed
to repair the broken tables thus far and, thusly, hasn't held up her
end of the deal, but I don't really care about that as long as she
properly cares for the garden. That's all the mandatory community
contribution is designed to do anyway; make sure the community
adequately cares for the project. Fortunately, I have a long time
left here, so I can monitor the garden personally and make sure that
happens. In any case, I'll hopefully have seeds in the ground by the
time I come home for Christmas and we'll see how things go from
there.
ELI
I've been volunteering once or twice a
week at a place called the English Language Institute (ELI). It was
originally a branch of Suffolk University designed to act as a bridge
to help African students transition to the new expectations and
culture of American schools. When that experiment failed, the
members of the English department formed their own group and now
cater to students, professionals, and businesses alike, providing
high quality English education for school or the workplace as well as
TOEFL preparation. Whenever I go there, I work with the teacher and
they either give me a block of time in their lesson plan or work me
into their lesson plan to, not only give their students a chance to
interact with a native speaker, but also to hear about American
culture and views. It's not the typical Peace Corps target market as
a lot of the customers are fairly wealthy, but I enjoy the work and
it's a good group of people, so I'll continue to devote a few hours
each week to ELI.
Baker
I've mentioned the artisanal baker
here before, so I don't need to introduce the team in detail here.
It's a man and his neice and I really enjoy their breads and think
that they're really dedicated, hard-working, and organized(!!!).
They're a pretty professionalized business already, so again, they
aren't really in the prototypical Peace Corps target , but I like to
think of them as being one level up from that on the supply chain as
they buy from local grain producers that Peace Corps Volunteers would
potentially work with. They're a business that uses almost
exclusively local ingredients and I think helping a business like
that is helping many Senegalese producers along the supply chain.
Anyway, I recently got them into an exposition at the US Embassy that
allowed them to showcase their breads to embassy workers. There's no
clear plan on what I can do for them after that, but I'm always on
the lookout and always available to help them if something comes up.
Grand Yoff Women
The “Grand Yoff Women” were the
ones that the previous volunteer worked a lot with and, technically,
my primary work partner here in Dakar. Due to some major
communication breakdowns, however, I've barely seen them over my
first 6 months here and have only recently gotten back in touch with
them and cleared the air. If you remember, I expressed confusion
about their work schedule which was one of the major reasons why I
wasn't able to meet up with them as much as I would have liked. It
turns out that they expected me to call once or twice a week to see
if they were working instead of them calling me whenever they were
working. They were upset for a moment, but I've seen them several
times over the last 2 weeks and brought them up to speed on
everything the previous volunteer left me and we're talking about
solar drying now, so I think that I'll look at that period as a minor
hiccup when I get to the end of my service.
I have a couple more things that are
just on the back burner waiting for somebody to get back to me. If
either of these projects were my primary focus, I would have followed
up ages ago, but I simply don't have the time to handle everything.
In any case, there are two that I will follow up with eventually, but
that I'm not actually doing any work on right now. The first is the
chicken raiser/copy shop/money transfer lady that I've mentioned
before. After getting stood up in the middle of nowhere, she claimed
to be very sick and I told her to call me back when she was feeling
better so we can reschedule. It's been a couple weeks now with no
response, so I'm not sure how she's doing. There was a time when I
wanted to try to place one of the next group of CED volunteers in
that region so he/she could work, at least in part, with this lady,
but it seems to be too late now.
The other project that is on hold that
I'm going to follow up on is the entrepreneurship and accounting
classes at the youth prison. I spent a decent amount of time on that
proposal, so I'd at least like to know why things have slowed to a
halt. Chances are it has nothing to do with me. Anyway, it's an
interesting option, so I'll follow up on that as well probably after
vacation.
In addition to those two projects on
hold, I often get invitations to various events being held in the
city such as a Korean cultural day coming up or the International Day
of the Volunteer on the 5th. Sometimes, I'm simply
invited and sometimes I'm expected to attend to represent either
Peace Corps or the CED program. These events don't happen every week
(although I have 2 of them this week), but they are a part of my
schedule that's fairly unique to being a Dakar volunteer.
Frisbee
I'm not afraid to admit that this
activity is my pride and joy. It's not a 1st goal, or a
2nd goal, or even a 3rd goal activity in terms
of Peace Corps, but it's a personal 1st goal activity
because it makes me happy. Every Sunday, I go over to a nice grassy
field on the western coast of the peninsula and play ultimate with a
group of mostly Americans from either the Embassy or the American
school. Beforehand, I always go out to lunch and get food that I
don't get to eat at home. This could be American, Italian, or even
Lebanese food whatever I'm feeling that day. I also sometimes go to
some of the scenic areas of Dakar, some of which I've shown you in
previous posts, and just sit there for a while. It's a Sunday
tradition for me here and it really helps me get through the week
knowing that another game of ultimate is waiting for me at the end of
it.
Home Improvement
Breaking news on the home front.
Several months ago, I gave you a tour of my home here and pointed out
one particularly menacing set of spiraling metal stairs. In case
you've forgotten, you can see the picture again here.. I said that
my host father promised me that plans were in the works to remove
them and replace them with something slightly less likely to maim me.
Well, last weekend, it began. THE STAIRS ARE GONE!!!! O joyous
day!!! There are major home repairs going on upstairs and for the
first few days they didn't touch the stairs. I was worried that they
were going to be overlooked, but behold!!!. That last bit was removed
as well and they're currently putting a ceiling where the stairs
were. I suppose this means I'll have to leave the apartment and use
the general stairs, but still no more fearing for my life as I take
that first long lunge over that unforgiving metal deathtrap. No more
worrying that I'm going to trip and fall into the massive hole in the
floor. I'm so relieved that my rent money has been put to good use.
This truly is a joyous day.
Ok, so this post turned into a very
long one, so I'll have to wait to show you the next set of photos in
my “Eric's favorite spots in Dakar” album. Instead, I'll just
post a little teaser. So, the next spot I'm going to show you is
just around this corner. In my next post, I'll tell you where this
is and give you more pictures to look at. Thanks for reading.
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