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Worked with the family in the garden today. After grinding up a couple of handfuls of neem seeds, I let them soak over night in a couple of liters of water, and then I diluted them into 5 liters of water. I mixed in some soap, to emulsify it, and poured it through a filter into an insecticide sprayer. Bayfara sprayed the garden with it.
2/17/96
I've been busy with work and frustrated with these damned Africans. I'm doing everything I can to do good work here, but it is damned frustrating. I find that to get a job done right, I have to do it myself, or hold the hand of the person doing it which takes longer than doing it myself because I have to explain what and why several times over.
I think I've finally earned the respect of the PC Bureau. They are helping me when I ask them to, and are commending me on my work. Finally, some respect from someone here, other than myself, which I've had since August or so. I'll thank God when this Treadle Pump business is over, so I can go back to sitting in my village and doing nothing.
Actually, not nothing. I've still got a water filter to build, and for my next project, I really want to build a windmill to pump water. I think that could really be my biggest contribution here. Other than Internet access in this country, with which, we shall see.
I'm hoping Wayne will bring Kool-Aid and a decent raft/boat to go fishing with. If not, I'll try to make one. I would actually prefer to try to make one, but I just don't have the time and resources right now.
I'm hoping Wes will bring me a laptop. I'm probably going to pull about $4000 out of my CD for it . If/when I do it, I'll start calling and transferring E-mail with you guys on a weekly basis or more-I'm sick of this time lag in correspondence, and I want a computer. Until then, I'll do as much research as I can. They' re upgrading the phone systems here in Rosso and Mauritania, so I'll have a clear signal all the way to Tallahassee, Inshallah. Perhaps Wes can figure out a way to set up an E-mail address for me, so I can have my own, and friends, family and business people can stay in touch with me on a timely basis. I'll want (blah-blah-blah computer stuff!!!)
After I was extremely frustrated yesterday because the phone lines didn't work and I really needed to talk with the Peace Corps in Nouakchott, I filled up Betsy's moto with gas and took off out into the dunes for a few hours (and thirty miles worth of driving.) I didn't find much, but it was fun and I got mud all over the bike as I crossed through part of a pond (a small, shallow part!) I was thinking, well, if Betsy goes back to the states for some reason, then I can have her moto. Cool! Not so cool. Much as I talk about, "I don't know if she's the right one for me" she's been gone only four days now and it's been too damn lonely. Hopefully, she'll be back tomorrow. Why don't all the friends and family (that I really get along with) just pack up and move here?
Alright guys, I'm really doing okay. I've got two weeks of Treadle pump training coming up, starting the 26th of February, IST the end of March in Kaedi, Wayne coming March or April, and then you guys this summer. I can't wait!
Dieuk: (Chez Betsy)
I sit here eating Pringles and sipping Spanish table wine, in ice, (the wine smuggled in from Senegal.) Today has been one of my hardest days in the Peace Corps experience.
The children here in Betsy's village are always a pain in the ass. Today, after a long and stressful day in Rosso (more later) and a trip to my house where I shaved, bathed in the river, and brought my food and wine and ice from Rosso, along with Betsy's cat to Dieuk, I showed up here with cologne on that she likes, walked up to her porch, kids chanting my name in the background, and moved forward to kiss her as she sat in her chair on her porch. She pushed me away, and said "no, not in front of the kids!" I replied, "Well, if you don't I'll give you your cat and leave." I gave her the cat, and left. Of course, I didn't make it all the way out of the village before I turned around and came back, to be hugged and smooched in the kitchen. It was a hard day, and this was the only reward I could look forward to. Development in Africa is tough.
I've written here and there about my dealings with the metalworkers (forgerons) here in Rosso. I've also written about how my Treadle Pump training is to begin today. Well, after an impossibility of talking to the Peace Corps bureau in Nouakchott for two weeks, as our phones were out of order and I was unable to reach them on two radio calls, my trainer refused to sign the contract for the training before the Peace Corps Director contacted his director in Dakar, I was contacted by the director of a training center in Rosso that he would like to host the training center, giving us lots of space, free electricity for welding, use of all their equipment (they're very nicely equipped!) and in return he would like to get his shop teacher trained in how to build the pump. The place is like a Vo-Tech school, and they teach men in their teens how to work on engines with electricity, masonry, welding, and other stuff. The guy (director of the center) even said that he'd like to put out an exposition of locally available goods, and would display a Treadle Pump and with a sign that said it was available here in Rosso from ATMAR (my forgerons).) In all, it seemed like a heck of a deal for ATMAR. I excitedly told them about it, and their response was: "No way! Never!" Why not? "You don't know him. That guy is getting something out of this, and if you don't train the people at the Trade School, then they'll pay us twenty to thirty thousand ouguiyas a month to train them!" Bullshit. Theses Muslims may not have Christmas but they certainly do have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads! I didn't talk to them anymore about it, and instead waited to discuss it with Carla or Rob, my directors. The telephones didn't work, the radio calls didn't either, and I expected two vehicles from Peace Corps to stop by my village (they were in Dakar for an American softball tournament) so they could deliver my message to the office-it never happened. Betsy has been sick with these body aches and was worried that she had some insidious illness, and she didn't return until two days after she was supposed to. To sum it up: my girlfriend was possibly really sick and returned to the states or something, I needed badly to discuss my problems with Peace Corps, the Director was in Dakar with his family, and (I almost forgot!) my assistant director was leaving sometime for Ghana for two weeks-I wasn't sure when.
Wednesday night, (it is Monday now,) I packed up and headed for Nouakchott. No one was at the Maison when I showed up, I went to the office, not expecting to find anyone there (at 11pm) but hoped I might have a message in my box. None. Back to the house.
Finally, shortly after I got back several other volunteers, including my good friend Jim, showed up. Nothing was found with Betsy, and they had all missed their rides at 7am on Tuesday because they'd stayed out drinking the night before late. Rob still wasn't back, Carla was there, but she was sick, and leaving on Friday.
Thursday morning: I go to the office around 8:30 am, talk with Carla. She read the letter I left in her box the night before, agrees we will hold the training at the center, and will write a letter explaining all to ATMAR, will go pick up my materials from the guy with ATMAR in Nouakchott, and will Ibrahima Diaby with ATI in Dakar (they train the Senegalese forgerons to build and market the pump.) Carla writes the letter, we pick up the stuff, but the call to Dakar never goes through. Thursday night is spent drinking beer at the AERAN Club: good Dos Equis, at that.
Friday morning-leave for Rosso. Still no word on Betsy, Rob isn't back yet (to our knowledge,) I hope to pass them on the road to Rosso, but see no sign of them. I get to Pam's, and happily find Betsy in her salon. She's fine, but still a bit arthritic. C'est la vie! Anyway, she's happy to see me. I leave at 3pm to go to Richard Toll, to attempt once again to get Abdou Mbodj to sign the contracts. I show up, and once again he refuses. I ask him to call his director in Dakar. He tells me just to wait until next week, actually Tuesday the 27th, before I come back and we try again. I have already planned for the training to start on the 26th-he agreed to it, signed it into the contract with Peace Corps, we have people coming from two Mauritanian cities to learn along with the others here how to make the pump, and it's going to happen then. I tell him, "Where is the phone? We are going to call your director." I pray that Peace Corps has somehow gotten touch with him. Will miracles never cease? Rob had indeed gotten through, and we are all set to go. Monday morning at the center in Rosso, training will start. Of course, the director of the center doesn't know it, and ATMAR doesn't know it....
Note to home: Life is good: I'm in love, I ate cheeseburgers for lunch, and I'm a bit tipsy on Spanish wine-hence I'm writing all this stuff. I miss all of you more than I can write (even when tipsy.) I want all the people I love to come visit-and send computer magazines and my dogs. It's hot. Life sucks in general) and I may get some decent water pumps built soon-Inshallah. I'll let you know.
3/3/96 Dieuk
Well, my third moto has broken (engine!) and so is (possibly) my right big toe, in not altogether isolated incidents. Bad motos should be kicked, right?
I would like to make a movie of all of this damned pump training it really is a farce. The cast of characters is ridiculous: black African forgerons (metal craftsmen) whom we have given everything to and owe us money, yet still find a way to tell me I should give them more money at every opportunity, US Government sponsored organizations in neighboring countries designed to help people, yet they refuse to give us, the US Peace Corps the widely distributed information that might help us help people here, phone systems that don't work when you most need them, a Senegalese pump builder, who originally came to Mauritania looking to help me build the pumps, yet backed out of his contract on the first day of training in which he showed up at 11:30 am, and demanded that we train only from 8 'til noon, and then have a day off every three days; and then only rain two people as opposed to the six that we had scheduled, a hard working, industrious, honest? white moor (an oxymoron, for the most part,) the shop trainer at the vocational school who is a drunk in a country where I've only seen two other nationals drink, a city volunteer who locks up all of her rooms when she knows another volunteer is coming there to stay, and then yells at me for not taking care of him (those who are avid readers (of my letters) know who this person is,) a supportive girlfriend, and a volunteer whom is now in charge of the pump training and yet has never before built this type of pump. And me. Great, eh?
The Treadle Pump Saga:
It all started when I tired of eating the same old thing everyday, rice drenched in imported vegetable oil, and fish, which most Americans would seriously doubt as edible. "Yaye boy" was the most common fish served, and was a real favorite among the locals. At twenty ouguiyas a fish, it was cheap and said to taste good. I guess it did taste good, but they had an incredible amount of bones. These bones were like hairs packed in every morsel of meat. The villagers would either just chew the bones, or pull them out of their mouths as they ate. In the beginning of my village life, I was nauseated by the "special" dinner meal, fried fish, pronounced "fear-ear" (roll the r's.) The fish was fried to a crisp, such that for me, it was like eating crunchy rocks. They served it on lettuce purchased in town, once again, drenched in vegetable oil (poor man's dressing?) I eventually told my villagers that Americans don't eat dinner. The other volunteers got a real hoot out of this, though I just found it effective, not funny.
Anyway, I was starving for fruits and vegetables, and I got to thinking, "Why don't we have any?" Because hardly anyone was growing them. Why not? Because fruits and vegetables take a lot of hard work, good soil, and water. Despite being the old flood zone of the Senegal River, the soil was remarkably poor. In my opinion, this was a direct result of human and nature-induced desertification, for all of the trees were cut down and nothing could prevent the once-fertile topsoil from being sun-baked and blown away. In fact, any plants on the ground would have helped to prevent this. Instead, In Mauritania every living thing has to struggle to survive the onslaught of herbivorous animals and the stamping of human feet.
Though there is not much rain, it is amazing what will actually grow if left untrammeled and uneaten. Nature will always astound me! Near the village where my good friend Jim lived, a man has fenced in a large area of land, which is now extremely productive with trees and grasses making a small forest. Absolutely nothing was done other than protect the area from men and domestic predators.
The Treadle Pump: in Peace Corps training, we were exposed to various "appropriate technology" pumps. One of them particularly fascinated me was the treadle pump. The NGO World Vision had one and brought it down to the training site in Kaedi to demonstrate. We all took a field trip down to the river, where they had the pump set up such that it had about a four inch hose running from it to the river. We all took turns pumping, and the guy from World Vision ran another hose from the pump to wash his truck.
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