Photos from World Environment Day

This past Saturday, June 22nd, I hosted World Environment Day with an NGO I work with, Green Hand Action.  We held a science conference in the morning about the diversity of fish in a nearby lake and then in the afternoon had some public skits performed by a theater group and a gang of neighborhood kids who helped us plant trees in 2012.  It was a really big success with over 100 people attending the conference.  People were talking about it all around town the next day and the young volunteers in the NGO were so happy and proud of themselves.

Here's some photos of it on my Google+ account:


https://plus.google.com/photos/109284563137945907097/albums/5894919859266836273?authkey=CKDKnJmcgbLeDg

My Dream Sensibilisations

One of the activities almost all PCVs do during their service is lead sensibilisations.  As many times as I’ve asked, no one knows what this really translates to in English, but it is basically when volunteers go out into the community and spread some sort of knowledge.  For example, going door to door with a picture book and explaining the causes and preventions of malaria.  Or leading a short skit about responsible life choices and condom use.  Basically, the goal of a sensibilisation is to give community members the knowledge necessary to make informed choices and incite behavior change.

Usually sensibilisations are similar to what I mentioned before, dealing with nutrition, malaria, environmental protection or conservation, or girls’ education (to name a few), but sometimes I really wish I could give a sensibilisation that would help improve my own life here.  Some of the ones I’ve dreamed up:

• how to make a pizza: Pizza making is really most limited by the lack of ingredients, but it never hurts to be prepared for when cheese finally makes its way to Kankan.
•  proper street crossing behavior: This would generally center around what I consider a golden rule: look both ways before crossing the street.  I would bet at least 65% of traffic accidents are caused by someone literally stepping into a moving motorcycle.
• arriving on time: One of the first things we were told in PST was how nothing ever starts on time in Guinea and to expect it and bring a book, but after hours of reading my kindle in waiting, it would be nice if people were a little more prompt.
• the joy of puns (plus a side sensibilisation on sarcasm): People aren’t much into wordplay here, which means I am approximately 50% less funny than in America.  Also no one ever laughs at the following joke:

An English and French cat, both named 1-2-3, have a race to cross 

the English Channel. The English cat won because un deux 

trois quatre cinq (that’s 1-2-3-4-5 in French, for you Anglophones, 

pronounced ‘un deux trois cat sank’).

• customer service: A favorite joke among volunteers is how hard it is to get people to sell you something.  You walk into their restaurant and no one is there, then search around and when you finally find the madame she looks really offended that you’ve asked to buy a bowl of her rice.  There has been many an occasion where I haven’t bought what I sought out to just because it was so difficult (and I am lazy).
•  line forming: In general, occasions that would normally call for lines in America (the bank, buying something at the corner boutique, mosquito net distributions), are dealt with in a somewhat orderly crowd.  Usually, at the bank, everyone puts their ID cards in a perfectly straight line in front of the teller and then stands in a jostling crowd just behind, straining to hear their name called.  The crowd thing tends to work because people get exasperated and demand service in about the same order in which they arrived, but sometimes I just don’t feel like pushing my way towards the front to shove my money into the rice lady’s hand.  Luckily, there is always a kind-hearted Guinean crowded next to me who is more than happy to do so for me.
• girl scouts: While the girls empowerment and training part of this would no doubt be great, I’m really just in it for the cookies.

SRI in the News

Last September, I attended a Peace Corps Training in Benin on a new method of rice cultivation, called System of Rice Intensification (SRI).  My counterpart Conde and I will be holding a big training this summer at a national agricultural school.  Over 40 students and professors will attend and most of the training will be hands-on, allowing us to set up a demonstration plot comparing SRI and current practices.  We will then invite other community members, researchers from the local agricultural center, Eaux et Forets officials, agricultural extension agents, average farmers, to visit our plot and talk to them about the benefits of SRI.

Transplanting rice at the training in Benin

Anyways, NPR recently posted something about SRI on their website and I thought I would share it with anyone who is interested.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/03/180821486/unraveling-the-mystery-of-a-rice-revolution?sc=17&f=1001

It's kind of cool when stuff we're doing over here in "no-one's-ever-heard-of-that-country" Guinea is also being talked about on NPR.

May Day!

Well after celebrating May Day (which apparently is an international holiday celebrated everywhere but America), it is now officially May, which means Malaria Month is over.  So what have I been doing to keep my mind off all those delicious mangoes I'm allergic to?

- teaching my university English classes about malaria and the parasite's life cycle.  Imagine trying to explain red blood cells to low level English speakers.  Luckily I had a biology major in my class who assured everyone that our blood is in fact made up of billions of tiny cells.  It was also great to see how many of my university students were already really knowledgable and passionate about malaria's impact on their community.

- painting a malaria mural at a local health center with my site mates.  Considering our complete lack of talent, it came out pretty good.

I only covered three of my five shirts with paint while doing this, so it was a success?

- having a public information stand to celebrate World Malaria Day.  We set up an info booth right outside the university with posters and music and invited people to come talk to us about malaria in their community.  An interesting mix of people came, from young girls on their way home from school who giggled and gave us flowers to put in our hair to health workers who wanted to give their 2-cents on the distribution campaign.  We even got a visit from Population Services International, who is funding the distribution campaign.

But just because it's May does not malaria is done.  In fact, since the rainy season has just begun, the disease is just gearing up for its onslaught again.  The bed net distribution campaign that I talked about in another blog post has gotten pushed back to later in May, so there are still a lot of 'sensibilizations' (basically public trainings and mass PSA type events) and preparation work to do for that.  

Some activities I have coming up in the future are:

- the start of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) course at the national agricultural school, funded by the Small Project Assistance fund, that Conde and I will be leading.  We will be teaching over 40 students and professors in a several month-long course in this new method of rice cultivation, working with them to create a demonstration plot that compares SRI with current cultivation practices.  Other PCVs have done this and seen over a 70% increase in yields! 

- a second year of cashew reforestation with Green Hand Action.  We will be working in collaboration with my Master Farmer to plant another 5 hectares of cashew and train some of the local cashew planter associations.  Both my Master Farmer and GHA members just attended a cashew training we hosted in Kankan, so they have lots of information to share.

- planning for Faso Demen's seed bank.  I'm currently in the process of applying for a grant to start a seed bank with my gardening groupement, Faso Demen.  This will provide them with cheaper seeds at more appropriate times of the year and encourage them to save their own seed.  Seed conservation is great because it means they don't have to buy new seed each year and, by choosing seed from the best plants each year, the bank's stock of seed will gradually become more and more adapted to our climate. This project involves a lot of trust between the groupement members as they will be sharing seeds with each other, so takes a lot of planning and politicking on my and Conde's part.

Faso Demen's fancy new logo

Now I'm off to go continue waiting and praying for the rains to come.  When its over 110 each day, every little gray cloud in the sky gives you hope.

Listening to Weezy and praying fo' drizzle

Happy Malaria Month!

No, we are not celebrating the disease, but the fight against it.  As part of PC Guinea’s celebration of malaria month, we have all been challenged to get involved in malaria projects at our sites.  Our malaria coordinator even made a competition out of it, and the region with the most points at the end of the month gets a prize!  I’ve taken this opportunity to get involved with the national bed net distribution campaign, a project that aims to get all Guineans sleeping under a mosquito net this year by distributing millions of them.  Since you can’t have malaria without mosquito bites, zero bites means zero malaria.   Here’s something I wrote a couple months ago, when I first started working with them:

As an agroforestry volunteer entering the Peace Corps, malaria was only on my radar as the reason I had to take that little pill each week.  Since then I’ve witnessed the detrimental impact this disease can have on my community, so I was especially excited when asked to participate in the national bed net distribution campaign. Specifically, I’ve partnered with a local NGO, Association pour la Promotion des Initiatives Feminin (APIF), who is charged with the distribution of nets for the prefecture of Kankan.

            Together, we attended a training organized by Catholic Relief Services on how to organize the census data that had been collected over the past several weeks.  The NGOs from the other prefectures were there as well, each paired with a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Two days later, the chefs de santé from our prefecture came into Kankan with all the data they had collected from their assigned localities.  We all went around the room introducing ourselves and when it came to me someone asked, “Why is the Peace Corps here? What is their involvement?”  You see, Peace Corps volunteers are usually involved in small community-based projects, not internationally funded nationwide campaigns.  Once we started working, however, it became apparent that I had a lot to contribute.  As someone who understands Excel and had attended the prior training, I was able to help input the census data into the spreadsheet, effectively cutting the time it took in half.  Because I understood the logistics of the whole campaign, I could also offer advice about which logistical issues might arise and how to prevent them at these early stages of planning.  At the end of a long day typing in names of remote villages (And just how do you spell Gbangkonkorokansin?) and strings of numbers, the staff of APIF and I decided to meet at their office the next day to go over what we had collected.

            The next morning, as we looked over all we had collected, we realized just how much work there was.  Not all the census takers had followed the standardized layout and others had omitted crucial information.  We would have to make sense of any errors and resolve questions with the chefs de santé.  For the next two days, Cabinet, Junior, and I poured over Excel spreadsheets and submitted data forms.  For someone obsessed with order, this was at first a very frustrating experience.  There was no perfect way to make sense of the information and each person had a specific way they wanted to do things.  It took a lot of discussion and trial-and-error, but eventually we worked out a system of how to map out the distribution routes and calculate how many and what type of vehicle we would need.  Seen as a kind of ‘outside party’, I was able to point out flaws and offer suggestions without ruffling too many feathers.  Whenever a computer or IT problem arose, I could step in and fix it before it caused too much damage.  We worked long into the afternoon both days, a feat considering Nigeria was playing in the African Cup of Nations, but eventually finished, the first prefecture to do so, if I’m not mistaken.

            It was a great experience working with everyone at APIF. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have experience planning and running projects and as a geeky American, I have an obsession for detail and logistics.  Because of this, my voice matters and I know how to help prevent any future logistical nightmares in this project.  In fact, I’m going to continue working with APIF several days a week until the distribution in April, consulting on each step of the project. 

Personally, knowing I’m working on a project that will make a noticeable difference in the malaria situation in Guinea gives me a huge sense of accomplishment.  When we finally finished, Cabinet looked at the numbers we had calculated. “Look,” he said, “we’re going to give over 500,000 people mosquito nets.” Helping prevent malaria in over half a million people? Not too bad for a stint in the Peace Corps.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this blog, I followed through on my word and have continued working with APIF a couple days per week.  They are a really motivated group of people who don’t mind working through the afternoon break and have put a lot of work into this project.  On April 25^th, we will finally get to distribute the bed nets we have been planning for all year!

NEW PHONE NUMBER

So the Guinean government has decided that it cannot provide enough phone numbers for everyone it keeps all the numbers at 8 digits, so it has decided to add an extra one on starting April 1st.  It’s unfortunately not simply adding a ‘0’ to the end of all the numbers or something easy to understand like that.  It adds a number in the second place depending on your service provider and current first and second numbers.  Watching the confusion that is bound to unfold over the next month will be no doubt hilarious, but hopefully it means all those random Guineans who somehow got my number will be confused and stop calling.

Without further ado, my new number is:

628 06 11 41

I.e. there is now a ‘2’ between the ‘68’ that used to start my number.

Here’s hoping the addition of that 2 will be give me better cell signal in the future!

How To Hold a Quintessential Guinean Meeting

All of these things have happened to me at least once, but never all in the same meeting, thank god.  But that level of hilarity is what makes a satire a satire. Ou bien?

So you want to hold a meeting? Maybe your groupement is starting a seed bank, your NGO is electing a new board, or a group of health workers is getting trained.  Somehow you need to get your group of people together to have a big talk.

You decide to have it Saturday afternoon, at 4 PM, after everyone is done with work and should, technically, be free.  Inevitably, some people will by Friday evening or Saturday morning, curious as to where everyone else is.  On the day of the meeting, around noon, it’s generally a good idea to call everyone again to reassure them that yes, the meeting is happening.

By 2 PM, it’s time to start collecting chairs.  No one has enough chairs at their house to properly supply the meeting, at least not the fancy plastic kind, so you go around to neighbors collecting chair until your compound looks like a Rainbow Brite moved in.  Oh, and don’t worry about returning the chairs afterwards.  Neighbors will send their petites (kids aged 3-12) to collect them.

Once that clock strikes 4 (or for those really au village, when the muezzin starts his call) it is time to get dressed for the meeting.  Remember, the brighter and ‘sparklier’ the better, and, as leader of the meeting, you should have Bejeweled infomercial levels of sparkles.  Now it’s just a waiting game.  If you’re lucky, people will start arriving by 4:30, but a better bet is 5.  As guests arrive, be sure to provide drinking water and a shower to splash off in (this only happened once, but was ridiculous enough I felt I had to include it).  By 5:45, you should have enough of a quorum to start your 4 PM start time meeting.  Have your local “more than averagely religious man let out a string of benedictions.  Don’t forget good health and plenty of offspring.

It’s now time for the meeting to start.  Choose a moderator and president for the meeting, whose roles are basically interchangeable, but who are both absolutely necessary.  Ask for a volunteer to take minutes.  Most likely no one will be aching to do this, so feel free to pick a victim at random (some advice: make sure they are literate first!).  Now write down the ‘Order of the Day’, a kind of schedule of the meeting ending with a ‘Miscellaneous’ category.  The president will say a few words worthy of their honorific and announce the meeting open.  The first topic can now be discussed, with the permission of the moderator, of course.

This is the real meat of the meeting, the back-and-forth.  Five minutes in, a baby should start wiling, prompting all the other infants to join in.  But have no fear, tops will come off, breasts will come out, and all the babies will be quietly nursing in the blink of an eye.  Any particularly strong personalities, and there’s always at least one, should have taken over by now.  Each will need to talk about each topic at least twice, so try to account for this in your timekeeping.  At about the halfway mark, you should have anywhere from 50-75% attendance, with stragglers continuing to arrive every couple minutes.  It is the perfect time for a group of vendors to enter your meeting space, selling candy, shoes, or cologne.  Half your meeting will most likely want to form a ‘commerce’ sub-group and will signal this by throwing off their shoes and running over to try on those bright pink flip-flops that are so popular nowadays.  You can continue in this divided state if you choose, but one of your previously mentioned strong personalities will probably take offense that he doesn’t have everyone’s full attention and commence a 10 minute lecture about the seriousness of the meeting.

Between all of this, you should have been able to at least touch on most of your topics and be ready to summarize and conclude.  If your meeting is outside, a herd of 5-20 sheep will walk through as you try to voice your final thoughts, drowning you out with their shockingly human-like screams (listen to this if you don’t understand what I’m talking about).  The most efficient and cute way to deal with this is to name your youngest petite head sheepherder and have him chase them away.  You can now signal your religious man again, who should have plenty of unused blessings left in his artillery.  Someone should start a round of thanks, thanking everyone from you tot heir mother to Obama that will spread to the rest of your attendees faster than the bird flu.  If it was an especially good meeting, this may even culminate in a song and dance in your honor.  With that, your meeting should be over.  Attendees will rush over to buy that last “Titanic: Jack and Rose” perfume before ht others and the neighboring petites will start to arrive.  Now you can relax and bask in the glory of your successful meeting, watching the rainbow parade of plastic chairs streaming from your compound.

Sidenote/background:  I remember having a session during Pre-Service Training about meetings in Guinea and thinking it was a waste of time to devote two hours to the topic, but, after attending my share of meetings, I can see why.  It is one of those instances where the Guinean culture mixed with French bureaucratic history makes for a very frustrated American.  Guineans are nothing if not verbose and meetings are the perfect soapbox for just about everyone.  That mixed with the never ending regulations and minute details of the French system make meetings seem slow and tedious to Americans.  This is not to say they are necessarily bad.  Because the meetings aren’t rushed, everyone gets a chance to talk and rarely gets cut off.  Also every detail about the meeting is recorded so you can look back at a later time.  In spite of this, I still have those days when I get so frustrated I just have to laugh out loud as we pass the fifteenth minute debating whether ‘Alpha broke his arm’ should come second of third in the Order of the Day program.