Wealth and Potential

25 Apr 12

It’s a beautiful quiet and slow day at the eco loft, just a bike ride away from the training village.  Here the grounds are calm and peaceful.  There’s a lush garden and plenty of shade offered by a cluster of cashew trees.  Otherwise there’s a diversity of trees throughout the lodge and the peaceful sense that nothing could be wrong in the world as the number of varying birds share their different calls and as the gentle breeze keeps the air cool, at least in the shade.

Less than a mile from here there are thousands of people getting ready to enter a very hungry year.  Crop production this year is expected to be down 62% from last year and down 50% over the last five year average.  Just to provide some examples, as well as data for those amongst the readers interested in such, in 2010 (sorry I don’t know how to do tables on blogger!) in the upland, swamp, and irrigated regions, there was 793, 973, and 853 kg of rice grown compared to 2011 of 167, 375, and 164 kg giving a percent difference of -79%, -61%, and -81%, respectively (to feed a population of 1.5 million and growing, fast where the average Gambian eats about 125 kg per year and a rice bag is 50 kg). 

Roughly 20% (1 in 5) of the population under age five are malnourished. 

I see this in my own family where reasons can extend beyond those accounting for the poor food production including drought, desertification, poor soil nutrients, soil salinity, poor agricultural practices, pests including insects, goats, and humans, etc.

I had come home from a full day of trekking through the desert experiencing the varying ecosystems of The Gambia over a 24 km distance.  We trekked through brush forests, gardens, desert, swamp and mangrove forests, and even 500 m or so of wading through The Gambian River (near the salty end where schistomiesis, hippos, and crocodiles aren’t an issue as they are up river). 

PC provides us lunch in our training villages to ensure we’re at least getting one decent meal a day, sympathizing for us for the other meals which include bread and butter in the morning, and cold white rice with left over fish and sauce in the evening (for me, but different for everyone-ish).  We call this our LCF food bowl as we eat with our LCF.

Anyway, our LCF food bowl was saved for us even though we got home well after dark.  We got some bread and peanut butter, an apple and a chewy bar and canned meat, for those interested in that, during the trek which was lovely as well as amazing baked streusel and chocolate banana muffins by our most wonderful PCVLs for breakfast.  But needless to say, after an entire day under the West African sun, over the 12 or so mile distance, it was wonderful to have that food bowl to come back to, even if it was cold.

I arrived to my house well after dark and after dinner time.  I went in to say hello and good night to my family when I suddenly feel as if I walked in on a funeral wake.  My mom asked me if I ate dinner and I replied that I did and ask if they did when she tells me about a goat and knowing that there was a ceremony going on in the village I figured that they had eaten some goat and exclaimed excitedly for them knowing that must be a nice treat.  The expression on my mom’s face informed me that my Wolof isn’t as great as maybe I’d like to think.  When she repeated the story I understood that the goat (or goats) ate their dinner, not that it was the dinner.

It was late, and they probably hadn’t eaten since 2pm, some seven hours ago.  My four year old brother was near to tears pleading for anything to put in his belly.  I didn’t know what to do or even what could be done.  I was completely out of my element.  They don’t train us about back up plans for pesky goats.

I literally had nothing that would have been substantial for a family of four, or nothing that they would have liked anyway.  I felt as if I was under a spot light all of a sudden (I suppose I should accept that I’m probably never not going to be under that light, at least for the next two years) expected to put on my magic toubab cape and save the day, rescuing them from their extremely unfortunate fortune. 

For that’s what a toubab or tourist, I should say, did that very next day.  She came from England, probably, into our village with her camera and took a photo of my family and the neighbors for goodness knows what reason, and then paid my mom roughly $8 or 250 Dalasi which is a LOT of money here.  Two hundred and fifty D is what we get for one week of walk-around money during PST. 

At first, especially after the goat thing, I was so excited for my mom that I celebrated with her for this miracle that just strolled through our compound… it didn’t take long for that initial elation to deflate to the realize the reality of what just happened.  In one fell swoop the woman (It’s probably poor form to call her toubab) undid all that we as PCV’s try to do by giving money like that, reinforcing the stereotype that all “toubabs” have and give money for charity). 

One thing is that charity is a part of the culture here.  It is believed that the more charity you give, the more you will see of that in the afterlife, as I understand (I am not however an expert by any means on Islamic faith). 

All of this led to the rather awkward conversation my mom and I had that night after the charity giving where I gathered that toubab’s always say we don’t have money when we do have it and that Gambia is very hard and thus bad, and that she is scared about providing a future for her children including education and food.

This was one of those valuable teaching moments, or would have been had I the language enough to communicate ideas that are already perhaps difficult or challenging when you both speak the same language fluently.

I tried to explain in my “Wolish” (Wolof and English) that this is why Peace Corps is here, to help with food security and education.  I wish I could have opened up a conversation about what good charity would provide for the long term.  The point of the matter is that yes, for all intensive purposes, I do have money.  I don’t have a ton of Dalasi to my name but I have property and family and the means to make it through my education and experience.

This is how my Gambian mom (from Training Village) helped me better understand the meaning of wealth.  The other point of the matter is that PC really makes it so that I can’t afford to give out much charity; I can barely make ends meet myself on our low PST earnings.  But even if I could, it would help her for a day, maybe two, depending on how wisely she used it.  But it wouldn’t provide her the same way education and training would.  I’m aware here, more-so than I’ve ever been before, the power of the skills to read and write.  I know I mentioned it before.  But with those two basic skills, you literally have access to a plethora of knowledge that can help provide you with information and training to ensure income depending on the choices you make as to the skills and trades you learn, etc. 

And this is where the potential part of the post comes in.  Below, if I can remember the link, I have another one of my favorite TED vids to emphasize these points, illustrating just how powerful the ability to read is from this boy’s adventure in learning how to harness the wind, on his own!  Let me also state that only the brightest and most impressive or talented known individuals are invited to give TED talks, it’s a huge honor.

To backtrack a bit, from our marathon march, we went through one of Gambia’s protected forests which is actually protected.  It was a legitimate forest.  There was dense foliage, ground cover, biodiversity, birds, and lots of shade.  The entire country has the potential to be a cashew and mango forest, or a baobab forest, or just a forest of lots of different types of trees spread out all throughout the country.

The people have the potential (and not just Gambian people) to manage those resources appropriately to both benefit from them while giving back to their environment which in turn continues to give back to them.  Meaning, more trees equals a higher water table, equals more an easier time for more vegetation, equals more transpiration, which can ultimately lead to, over time, more rain, and thus again more trees, and more products from those trees, be it cashews, mangos, honey (as bees rely on the flowering trees for pollen and nectar to produce honey to feed the queen and bees which the trees rely on too for reproduction), fuel wood, etc.

This is one of the most frustrating parts about being an environmentalist, which I hate that I am at times.  It would be so much easier not to care.  But I simply do, and don’t know how not to.  And what is difficult or a conundrum is being the species that is causing the very destruction that pains me.  It’s a constant moral and ethical internal battle.  But the other part to that, is knowing that it is quite possible to be a good steward to this planet, that we have, again, the potential to give back, perhaps even more than we take, given we follow the best and most gentle practices of living here.  But given the way of the world, the pace, the various and diverse and uncompromising cultures, it doesn’t seem like that potential will be met anytime soon.  Except, with the acceleration of population and the continued unpredictability of climate, we may have no other choice but to bend our cultures to adopt these better practices if we want to continue to be here.

Regardless, my village (at my permanent site, yay!) is completely on board with agriculture, so they say.  They are still very connected to and dependent on the land and thus care very much about achieving the appropriate practices and are very happy to have an “expert” in their midst (oh boy).  The enthusiasm is so different from that of the States that I’m a bit taken a back but am thrilled to do my best to help them help themselves plant trees and grow food, and turn it all into a research paper, somehow, inshallah.