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| On our way to Senegal |
Part 2:
Senegal
In
early June, Mary (a fellow volunteer) and I traveled to Thies, Senegal for a
malaria boot camp. STOMP puts on a tri-yearly boot camp that volunteers
involved in malaria work can attend to learn more about the disease, to share
ideas with other volunteers, and to interface with those who are directly
working on malaria eradication.
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| Banjul's airport - not a fun place for a layover |
First
off, Senegal is paradise (when compared to Sierra Leone). While I’m sure it is
very different once you get outside of the major towns, Dakar is a world apart
from Freetown. The place is clean and much less chaotic than Sierra Leone’s
capital. There is artwork all over and we even found some working streetlights…
Needless to say, it was a bit of culture shock for Mary and I.
We had some trouble getting there however. Our trip there included a 10-hour layover in Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Peace Corps was supposed to set us up
with a hotel, but that never happened. Instead, Mary and I spent the entire
night hanging out in the airport lobby and were exhausted by the time we got to
Senegal. We weren’t allowed to sleep because Banjul’s airport makes you
recheck-in after you arrive. Unfortunately we had arrived too early to check in
for our next flight and had to wait until the morning when they would let us through
the gates. We asked around if there was somewhere we could get some sleep but
they all agreed that we would need to stay awake until we could check-in. Thankfully,
there was an awesome staff member on duty the entire night who hung out with us
and gave us some drinks.
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| Fishing outside of Dakar |
When we finally arrived, we didn’t get to spend too much time in Dakar as we were pretty quickly shuttled off to
Thies where the training was to be held. We stayed in a Peace Corps training
center in Thies which has untold amenities – running water, electricity,
internet – it was impressive. We didn’t
get to spend too much time to catch up on sleep as we jumped into our first day
of work the next day. Days lasted from 8am to about 7pm every day with the
exception of one day off (which was still packed with other activities).
While it was long and grueling at times, we covered a ton of information from the biology of malaria and
prevention, to the role of NGOs, to the application of technology towards the
end goal of eradication. In between this, we also took time to discuss best
practices within our respective Peace Corps programs to facilitate idea sharing
between countries. Throughout we were able to talk directly to experts in their
fields in person or through Skype. We heard from PMI, USAID, the CDC, and a
number of start-up NGOs just to name a few.
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| The slave trading port on Goree Island |
One negative aspect of the boot
camp (which really had nothing to do with the boot camp itself) was that very
few malaria actors seemed to be operating within Sierra Leone despite the
country’s extremely high rate of malaria. This significantly hinders our
possibilities of collaboration between partners, but on the bright side, it
means that Peace Corps can have a large impact here with respect to malaria.
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| Beach acrobatics on Goree Island |
We thankfully got our flight back changed (it included a 15 hour layover this time in Banjul…) and were able to
spend a few extra days hanging out in Dakar. On our last full day there, a few
volunteers and I traveled to Goree Island, a World Heritage Site known for its “Door
of No Return.” The island was a slave trading port and has been visited by both
Obama and Mandela which is pretty neat. It was definitely a bit surreal being
on the other side of the ocean to see where a large portion of slaves were
shipped through (though there is some contention as to whether Goree Island was
a final destination for slaves on the way to America).
Overall, the boot camp was an amazing experience. It was extremely motivating and gave us a ton of new ideas
that we hope to implement within the coming year. If you’re interested in a
more visual representation of the boot camp, Mary and I threw together a quick
video about the boot camp which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN8kNfHK7G0
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| Inquisitive child on Goree Island |
Maile’s Malaria
Program
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| A student group's skit |
After
getting back to Sierra Leone on the 16th, I hung out in Freetown for
a few days. On the 20th, Maile – the recently anointed head of STOMP
for Sierra Leone – held a desensitization on malaria in her community which I
was lucky enough to attend. The program lasted a few hours and involved a
short, visual demonstration on how malaria is transmitted followed by a skit
competition between two local schools and ended with the smashing of a piñata
in the shape of a mosquito. The program drew a large crowd who seemed
interested and who were active in learning the material. As mentioned before,
having school children create skits is wildly successful as both the kids
creating the skit and those watching it are much more engaged in the learning
process – those creating the skit learn through hands on application of malaria
knowledge and those watching learn though relating to their peers. The program
as a whole went really well and is something I hope to eventually implement
within my community at some point next year.
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| Smashing the pinata |
4th/GBV
After
Senegal and Maile’s program, I tried to spend as much time as possible at site
as I had been away for over three weeks. Sadly, this only lasted about two
weeks as I was asked to attend a gender based violence (GBV) workshop in
Freetown with a one of my community members. I believe I’ve mentioned his
project here before, but as a refresher I’ll outline it briefly here again.
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| Sunset at the western most point in Africa |
When I
first got to site, a community member who used to work for the NGO Concern
approached me about the possibility of doing a project centered on gender based
violence. He had been trained in creating workshops around the idea and wanted
to start a three-day training centered on the role men play in GBV. Instead of
just coming to me with the idea and expecting me to take on the project, he
typed out an extensive, nine page grant detailing all the specifics of the
program he hoped to implement. On top of this, he has been actively working
with the police over the past few months here in my village and the district
capital to modernize their records in order to provide up-to-date statistics on
how prevalent GBV is within our district and town. Because of all of his hard
work, I mentioned him to our training manager back during the BCC training and
he eventually was invited to the program this past week in Freetown. His GBV
program is currently looking for funds and while our post may be able to fund
it, I might have to put up a grant that you can all donate to (if you’re so
inclined) to get the project off the ground within the next few months.
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| Cute kids at the malaria program |
Anyway,
because my counterpart and I were invited to Freetown, I decided to get an
early jump and head to Bo for the annual 4th of July celebration
with the new volunteers. A large number of the Salone 3s (the group before
ours) and Salone 4s (our group) went and it was fun getting back together with
a large group of volunteers after not seeing some of them for quite some time.
The 4th celebration also served as sort of last-hurrah for the
Salone 3s as most are finishing their service this month or in early August. On
top of that, we got to meet some of the new group of volunteers which was fun
as well. It was interesting to see what we likely looked like to the Salone 3s
just a year ago. The new group is big (I think 57 volunteers?) but the few that
I got the chance to talk to seemed like they’ll get along just fine in Sierra Leone.
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| Goree Island's beautiful streets |
After
the 4th a group of us headed out to Freetown to prepare for the GBV
conference. I didn’t have too big of a role – in fact I was the only one
invited who isn’t on the gender equity committee (thanks counterpart!). I
helped out where I could but spent most of the few days in Freetown enjoying
the delicious food and occasionally fast internet. As for the program itself,
it went really well. Besides PCVs and three counterparts, a representative from
Concern, PLAN, and the Ministry of Education all attended and had great things
to add to our discussion. The program was much more of a conversation than a
lecture and it allowed the counterparts to really get involved and provide some
great input.
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| A window across the ocean |
After
the end of the program, we said our goodbyes to our guests and headed to the US
Embassy for a quick meet-and-greet with the 2nd lady – Dr. Jill
Biden. Apparently she has been traveling with the US ambassador of women’s
issues and the director of USAID to a few African countries to talk about GBV
and we were somehow invited to attend. Meeting them was rather anticlimactic as
we waited a good hour and a half just to take a picture with her, but it was an
interesting experience nonetheless. I also spent some time talking to a member
of USAID’s Guinea team who came for the visit and happened to be a RPCV who had
a lot of good advice on life after Peace Corps.
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| Last night in Dakar, Senegal |
Since
then I’ve been back at site hanging around for the closing of school (which
officially happens on the 18th). School is largely functionally
over, we’re just compiling grades, but 8th grade is still in
attendance due to the fact that their high school entrance exam has been pushed
back to sometime in August because of Ebola. In about two weeks we have our MST
(or MSC or whatever acronym they’re using now) and from there I’ll be headed
out to Paris, France to see my sister and eventually back to the States for the
majority of August. Definitely going to enjoy my site as much as possible
before heading back, but looking forward to seeing you all once I’m back in the
US. Again, thanks for reading! See you all soon!
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| Back at site |
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