BAMM

12 Apr 12

I haven’t been feelin the blog buggie lately but I wanted to post a quick one about malaria as its Blog About Malaria Month. PST is draining and takes a lot out of you. I’m excited to have a month behind me with only one more to go. We swear in a month from yesterday on May 11 and go to our official sites on May 14. This is where we will live, all going well, for the next two years. I couldn’t be more stoked for my site placement!

In the meantime it’s important to stay healthy during PST, as much as possible since so much else is taxing. Taking anti-malarial meds and sleeping under a mosquito net and using insect repellent or wearing clothes that cover you well does well to reduce ones chance of getting malaria. Malaria claims over one million lives per year if I’m not mistaken. Pregnant women are the most vulnerable.

Peace Corps Africa has a campaign to stomp out malaria: http://stompoutmalaria.org/blog-about-malaria-month/. There are some 3,000 volunteers serving in countries in Africa where people are vulnerable to this disease accounting for 6,000 stomps (because we each have two feet…). Senegal has done well to provide mosquito nets to almost every community being served by volunteers. But again, it comes down to behavior change to get people to actually use the nets. Some volunteers from Senegal have also taken it upon themselves to help make the net more appealing by beautifying it with colorful pretty fabric along the border and in the center re-engineering the square net to be a circular net so that it can hang from one hook instead of from four posts. This makes it much easier to hang as well as provides aesthetically pleasing incentive. Local tailors can beautify these nets for us for at a fairly affordable price if we so desire where volunteers are creating patterns for tailors.

In other news, The Gambia is AMAZING. I don’t regret the friendships and connections we were able to make with the Senegal volunteers and trainees and staff but it feels wonderful to finally be home in The Gambia. The collaboration was great but short lived as it’s too expensive to call or text Senegal volunteers or trainees from Gambia. Hopefully we can work out some way to stay in touch so that the connections weren’t in vain. But honestly, if D.C. in particular is reading this, I would never ask another training group to go through what we went through. It wasn’t terrible by any means but after finally being able to be in The Gambia, it feels like we very much have to start over as Senegal and The Gambia, believe it or not, are very different countries. It’s more expensive financially, physically, and emotionally, as well to train during PST like this, in my opinion.

But it was their experiment, it’s done, and hopefully they’ll come up with the best way for all to work together in the future. It’s just amazing to be home, as I’ve said, which is probably hard to fathom stateside. Words can’t describe.

Water and Sanitation

7 Apr 12

One month in country today

I find it a bit comical that a lecture on clean water and sanitation can trigger such a strong emotional response. I feel like for that to maybe make sense there needs to be a bit of a back story:

Before flying (using jet fuel, I’m aware) to Africa, I watched and reviewed some twenty films regarding some aspect of sustainability to promote awareness at my University in Fairbanks Alaska for Sustainable Movie Night, featured at our school pub (please visit THIS WEBSITE for more information or HERE for a list of films).

I should also concede that I recognize the nature of documentaries as being biased and offering one side of the story even when they offer two perspectives. The purpose is typically to promote someone’s agenda. That being said, the information isn’t just coming out of thin air but should be considered objectively (when possible).

Add to all of that that I’m a person (nit laa, in Wolof) that’s going to take in all of the inputs and offer a different spin on an output.

What I find frustrating is this idea of promoting water sanitation and hygiene when our own country can’t even keep our own water clean. The cleanliness situation is vastly different in the two situations but the principle of the matter remains the same which is safe drinking water.

In West Africa, and much of the developing world, the problem is of sanitation and sickness from water borne illnesses. Death by diarrhea isn’t something we have to worry about in the states but it accounts for a significant amount of infant deaths here (roughly accounting for 30% or 1.5 million infant deaths, more than from HIV and Malaria combined, where 14% of those can be prevented by proper hand washing).

In the states, the problems I refer to are perhaps a bit more complicated, but are still issues of clean and safe drinking water. These problems are regarding the toxic chemicals entering our bodies of water from hydraulic fracturing (yes, I’m taking it there, and yes, please, offer the other side of the story because I would love to feel less freaked out by what I’ve heard). In the states too, we might not have the education system down to a perfect art, not by a long shot, but if we are going to compare these W. African countries with my home one I’d say the education level is a bit more prevalent back home where at least a good majority of citizens have a HS diploma which is not the case in The Gambia or Senegal.

We also have the legislation in place, and mostly, some awareness of the importance of clean drinking water and chemicals being bad, etc. As I understand it, that legislation is lifted for the purposes of natural gas drilling. A table of the most commonly used chemicals can be found from the site below:

Source: U.S. House of Reps Committee on Energy and Commerce. April 2011. Retrieved from: http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Hydraulic%20Fracturing%20Report%204.18.11.pdf

In addition;

The BTEX compounds – benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene – appeared in 60 of

the hydraulic fracturing products used between 2005 and 2009. Each BTEX compound is a

regulated contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act and a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Benzene also is a known human carcinogen. The hydraulic fracturing companies injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical over the five year period. –U.S. HofR Comm of Energy, 2011

For a complete list of chemicals and for a more thorough report, please refer to the abovementioned citation as well as explore for yourself the other cost of energy.

But we need energy…. I know. We do. And burning natural gas gives off almost half the amount of CO₂ as traditional fossil fuels. And for the most part we have the infrastructure as well as the abundant “free” resources, there for the taking.

Alternatives such as solar and wind are expensive and other excuses, and geothermal, well, also typically requires or involves fracturing.

So what? I mean hopefully by now, even if you’re not an environmentalist or big fan of nature, the above frightens you a bit solely because clean drinking water is an essential need for human life, (as are the fish and the birds and the trees as it’s all connected, etc. etc.).

So why write about this while serving as a PCV in W. Africa (not that I’m a PCV yet but almost!). As a PCV I represent the American people. And encouraging residents of W. Africa to adopt more sustainable practices makes me personally feel like a hypocrite knowing that “my own people” if you will, aren’t all doing the same thing. That my own people would actually come into my country of service and destroy or set back any good we try to do if there was a market for gas or oil or whatever. Because that’s what we’ve done. Chevron went into S. America and the Amazon and created a very oily mess (from the film, Crude, also you can check out: http://chevrontoxico.com/ for another biased opinion).

Despite that I promise to give my site and The Gambia my all to try to help them improve their environmental practices to ensure for the same to better quality of life for future generations of Gambians.

I just don’t want the work to be in vain by not practicing such clean practices simply because we can “afford” or rather, not afford (energy) to do them.

It’s difficult for any of us to not be hypocrites if we preach about sustainability. We all that we do is not necessarily necessary and it all comes at the cost of the environment. But we do it because this is the life we’ve established.

I guess I can only hope, especially since I’m not presently in the United States, that as thousands of U.S. citizens all over the world work towards a more sustainable future in developing countries, we can try to practice the same in our home country to help us feel at least supported out here by our nation, and not as if we are practicing the opposite of what we do back home. Because personally, regardless of how excited and successful we can get people out here to be sustainable, if they were to ever really find out how un-sustainable the states were, all of that work could be for not.

Picture break!

Rupert- our training kitty mascot

Three goals of PC

We painted a mural during our mural training tourney and using the grid system this is what Modu Fi and I came up with. Message being, sleep under a mosquito net with your baby. Yay.

My Senegal family (half of them!)



Turning back desert, starting with a sprout.

The bush.

Morning prayer awakens

2 Apr 12

It’s seven am and so many ideas are pouring in that I can no longer sleep. I haven’t a pen near me but a computer so I’m typing them. Writing them out at this hour with my penmanship would be somewhat futile anyway.

The main thought over and over again is about the children. There was a naming ceremony here yesterday which may still be going on as the praying and chanting goes on longer lately. And I just keep thinking about all the children here and the pregnant women and then what food is going to provide for them? Already food is difficult and prices continue to go up and the desert continues to come in. I don’t think the population rate and the current economic and environmental status of the world match up and there are going to be more unnecessary hardships if the pattern doesn’t change.

That word change again, it takes such a long time. But that’s no excuse to not give it every go. Earlier I wrote about brilliant marketing schemes lending to our way out of this crisis if you will regarding overpopulation and food shortages etc. and so forth. But that’s more of a catalyst to change than anything else. The real lasting or sustainable (that word is starting to lose meaning) change comes from education. My advisor reminded me of this recently which has put it on the forefront of thought.

Planting trees and starting gardens are great and those need to happen too but I think a main focus of my time and effort out here should be about educating the young population as much as possible. This includes the youngest of the young ones, providing them a safe place to learn as in a daycare, perhaps. I wonder if I started one if others would find time to continue staffing it so that busy moms could continue to have a safe place to bring children.

But this probably means constructing a structure or two or three. And then if you want it to be nice you’d want paint and floors and and and... And typically it isn’t wise to just try to pour money into a project you’ll barely be able to see through as two years isn’t that long when it comes down to it.

For now I can chalk it up on the wish list of things to do in a perfect world: build a daycare that has safe toys to play with and books for learning and inspiring learning and knowledge at an early age.

My mind also almost always go back to waste management as well. When I was thinking of building a school I was thinking of taking a leaf out of a past PCV’s book from South America who stuffed plastic bottles with garbage to build a school using those and maybe chicken wire. I’m not sure how well a structure like that would hold up in a storm but it’s a thought. Another thought is to build large holding receptacles out of garbage to hold… garbage. The Fairbanks transfer station inspires this idea: waste is just haphazardly thrown everywhere and anywhere. Some of it tends to get piled in various heaps that are later burned which pollute the lungs as well as the air. If four or so large receptacles could be constructed as to sort and store the waste, I wonder if that could do anything. But unless theses receptacles were huge, they’d fill up before you could do anything with the fill and we’d have the same problem all over again. Except, if we started to sort it, like the transfer station in Fairbanks (which isn’t as much sorted as it is just a somewhat organized holding station), more people might be able to find valuable materials to use putting a larger dent in the trash than if it’s just scattered about. This would also make the startup of a recycling project go more smoothly if we could get even some informal recycling started.

Two years is starting to seem like not enough time. Again though one needs to pace themselves, without the language and understanding of the culture, all of it could be for not if not carried out in a participatory and culturally sensitive manner.

Hope your mornings are just as full in the states even without the call to prayer and continuous chanting all throughout the morning from both people and birds (this is a birders paradise this time of year). It does wake me up, every morning, but I have to admit, I kind of like it and already think I’ll miss it if it’s not at my permanent site, and certainly when I go back home to the states. But there’s something to be said about the absolute peace and quiet that can be found atop that quiet hill in Fairbanks AK that I have some claim in.

Tip of the day: if you have a young kid in your life, read them a beautifully imaginative and colorful story. If you don’t and you have children’s books but no children, send them to me in Africa and I’ll find a good home for them!

As always, cheers for reading! I pose these ideas publically to A) just have a place to document them but also b) to get feedback and/or critique or expansion to solving some of the world’s largest problems. Another big one is providing an efficient way of heating food. Fuel wood is taken from the bush, dried, and then used often with bits of plastic as kindling which flame up quite well (as it’s essentially oil). Which begs another question smoldering on my own inefficient backburner: could all this plastic waste actually be utilized as an energy source in a clean way? Bernie Karl purchased Japanese technology to convert plastic waste into fuel to run vehicles. I don’t know what the exhaust is like for 1) breaking the plastic back down to oil and 2) if the exhaust from the vehicles is better or worse than from traditional fossil fuels. It would be brilliant if we could somehow use the plastic as energy to cook if it could be done in a clean way because I’ve never seen more plastic in my life than in the developing world. Or it would be brilliant to come up with an alternative cooking method that made life easier on these people that would utilize heat efficiently with minimal exhaust. This would require free to affordable fuel that is readily available. Volunteers in the past have tried to encourage and construct mud stoves but they never last. People have been cooking on wood fires now for as long as anyone knows. I’m not sure how habit or pattern or tradition can be broken.

But what better way to end a post than with another TED talk that provides one alternative. I think this is a lovely and inspiring video but may have too many steps in preparing the charcoal to really be utilized. All the brilliant ideas in the world don’t hold much of any flame if culture can’t be preserved in the technology transfer.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/amy_smith_shares_simple_lifesaving_design.html