Hut Improvements!

I’ve talked about how good my hut is before, but over the past few months I have had some changes/additions made to my hut to make it even better. Though I don’t know what every rural PCV’s hut looks like, I think I can confidently say that my hut is the best, nicest hut of all the rural PCVs in Senegal – possible West Africa. :)

The first change was a new cement floor. The original floor had several holes in it when I moved in last October and they gradually started growing and spreading. Also, ants began to take over in a few spots, so I actually began joking with a few friends that one day ants would destroy the floor so badly in one part of my hut that the wall would fall down and my whole hut would collapse around me. I’m pretty sure that day would have been years away, but I still thought it was a good idea to get a new floor. A floor without holes is not only nicer looking, it is also easier to keep clean – and that is a constant battle with all the dust and dirt that I – and the kids! – drag in, as well as what the wind blows in. Getting this new floor obviously involved moving everything out of my hut, which was a process, but since we PCVs are minimalists by necessity (though nothing compared to most people here) it wasn’t nearly as difficult as other moving processes I’ve been involved with, most prominently moving in and out of my dorm rooms in college (as my parents and brother can attest to). I moved everything (except for a few clothes and toiletries) to my “backyard”, which is fenced in so I didn’t think I’d be able to get to my stuff for the few days while the floor dried, but part of the fence was so bad that I actually just pulled it open and went in the back way to get to my stuff. I slept on the floor with my host mom in my host father’s room (they have separate bedrooms as is standard here) because my host mom had a guest for those days so she was sleeping in her bed. As it turns out, both my parents snore, and, being a light sleeper (though not nearly as light a sleeper as I used to be before coming here to Senegal), I didn’t get much sleep to the least. Needless to say, I was happy to move my bed in after 2 nights and be able to sleep in my room again (even if I didn’t move all my other stuff in until the next day).

The next improvement also involved 2 sacs of cement: a cement “bed” behind my hut to lay/sleep on when my hut is super hot (which is essentially all the time, though the rains have helped cool things down a bit). This type of bed is pretty common in Senegal (where people can afford cement – though where they can’t afford much cement, they just mix a bunch of soil with the cement) because it is a nice way to be able to sit or lay down and on a cool-ish surface. This bed (in my mind) should have been done before I redid my floor (so the guy making it wouldn’t have to haul all the cement blocks and other stuff through my hut, but luckily my fence was even more destroyed by this point, so the guy could go through the fence (rather than over my new floor) with his wheel barrow full of cement bricks, bag of cement, and sand.

When the bed was done I bought another mattress pad in Kaolack so I could have one on my bed inside for guests to sit on and one outside for me to sleep on. I also moved my mosquito net outside and tied one side of it to the end of the poles holding up my roof and then clip the other end to my clothes line every night. It works out really well considering I didn’t plan that part of the bed. This is by far the best improvement I’ve made to my hut. I absolutely love sleeping outside. Before the rains came (and it was always really hot), I was able to sleep just fine outside, and usually would pull my sheet over me by morning. Now that it is cooler after a rain, I’ve ended up crawling in my sleeping bag a few nights – yes. 75 degrees F is really cool to me after being here for just over 10 months. :) I’ve been caught sleeping outside a few times when it’s started raining, but I am really efficient at bringing in my stuff and tying up my mosquito net so it doesn’t blow around in the wind. I don’t have another mosquito net inside yet because it wasn’t until the last week or so that the mosquitoes had come back, but I can get one for pretty cheap from our health post, so I’ll do that very soon. Getting malaria is pretty high on my list of things not to get while I’m here. :)

Before:

After: (you can see my pillow, water bottle, books, sheet, and sleeping bag on top of my mattress)


The construction process:

Like I mentioned above, about half my fence (that fences in my backyard from the inside of the compound) is quite old/run down, so I got that all replaced plus I got a shade structure (made of the same material as the fence: millet stalks) put up in front of my hut (to help shade my hut from the sun in the afternoon).

Before:

After:

I also got a new roof! I’ve gradually been noticing over the past few months small patches where the sun shines through my roof, which (putting together two facts: where light can shine through a grass roof, water can go through, too, and when it rains here, it pours, so anything that isn’t very well protected from the rain will get wet, possibly really wet) meant that, unless I wanted to, come the end of June, sleep on a damp bed to the sound of water dripping into pots placed strategically around my room, I should get my roof replaced. So that is exactly what I did.

Before:

After:

Some guys went out into the bush and collected a bunch of dry weeds and then stored them behind my host dad’s small chicken coop. A few mornings over a few weeks they tied the weeds together and then put it all up on my roof. They took some of the old roof material down (which I am now using as mulch for my garden), but left the majority of it up there, so now I have an extra strong roof.

The construction process:

The last big addition (which I guess isn’t that big…) is a screen for each of my 2 doors. Almost all Peace Corps huts have screen doors (though I don’t think I’ve seen any Senegalese huts with screen doors), but mine didn’t. I’m not really sure how useful/important it will be to have screens on my doors since there is a gap between my roof and the top of the walls of my hut and there are small gaps between the floor and screen as well as the top of the door and screen, so mosquitoes and flies (and other bugs obviously) can still get in my room, but maybe this will help keep some of them out – and it will help slow the kids down when they want to come into my room (I got extra strong screen material so the kids wouldn’t punch holes in it by accident). Only time will tell how useful they are…

Looking out my backdoor:

Looking into my hut from just outside my backdoor:

Finally, as a finishing touch to beautify my hut, I got fabric to drape over my bookshelf and on my table/desk. (The fabric over my bookshelf is also to help keep my books from getting so dusty.) My host mom really wanted me to make a Senegalese outfit with the fabric, but I stuck to my original plan and had the fabric cut and hemmed so it would fit over my bookshelf and table, and then with the extra fabric I had a “pagña” (i.e., wrap skirt) made.

My table with my computer and books on it:

Fabric covering my bookshelf:

Bookshelf with the fabric pulled up: (The top shelf has personal books, the second shelf is all work-related stuff, and the bottom shelf has English books for the people I teach English to plus toys and games for the kids. To the right of the bookshelf are the containers I used to store seed in until I gave it all to the farmers. To the left is a table I use for storing cooking stuff, like my big container of peanut butter. On the bottom left corner of the photo are two bottles: one that has hot pepper, garlic, mint leaves, Neem leaves, and soap in water, which I will use as an organic pesticide for my garden; the other one has manure and water, which I will use as a “manure tea” to quickly provide nutrients to the plants in my garden.)

Our first RAIN in 8 months

Maybe not all of you know that when I’ve been talking about the dry season, I really mean the DRY season. We have not had rain since the end of September/beginning of October 2009. Before this first rain (which occurred on June 6), I had not experienced rain in Kayemor since being “installed” in there as an official PCV in late October (it rained once when I was there with Kate for my “demyst” in late September). There was quite a nice build-up for this rain. It had been very hot and humid (it has always been hot, but the humid piece was new) for a few days prior to June 6 and then that evening we had a spell of strong winds. It was so hot in my hut that I decided to chance it and still sleep outside. Sometime around midnight I woke to a few sprinkles. It was barely noticeable so I went back to sleep, but just a few minutes later those sprinkles became much heavier and I decided it was time to move inside. By the time I had gathered my pillow, watch, and book and was climbing out of my mosquito net, it was down-pouring. I quickly grabbed my stuff off my bed, threw it on my bed inside, went back outside and pushed my “mattress” up against the wall of my hut in the hope that that would keep it from getting wet. (I little later I heard it fall down from the wind…so it was soaked by morning, but luckily the sun is hot enough here to dry just about anything.) Then I promptly dug my camera out of my bag and snapped a few pictures to document this momentous experience: the first rain of my first rainy season in Kayemor. These pictures are looking out the back door of my hut. In the first one you can see part of my clothes line and my towel hanging up on it (through the crack in my millet stalk fence), as well as the corner of my cement bed out behind my hut. The second picture is just a little to the left of the first one – you can see my papaya tree, the plastic pans that I have eucalyptus trees growing in it, and the old tomato can that I use as a watering can. After those pictures is a video I took while lying on my bed inside – the sound of falling rain was such a foreign concept to me I had to capture it. It was wonderful. :)

Improved Seed Extension Training

I hosted a training for all the farmers I’m extending seed to this year back at the end of May (yeah, I’m a little behind on my blog…sorry, but we’re all really busy now that the rains have come). Here is a (slightly edited) summary that I wrote for my boss.

Sustainable Rural Agriculture and Urban Agriculture Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in Senegal extend improved varieties of field crop seed that are developed by Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA) to farmers all across Senegal. For this seed extension program, PCVs typically give each farmer 2 kilos of seed at the beginning of the rainy season and then work with the farmer throughout the rainy season to make sure he/she uses the practices applicable to that variety to ensure he/she will have as high a yield as possible. At the end of the rainy season, the farmer is expected to give the PCV 4 kilos of seed, which is then used to extend improved seed to twice as many farmers the next year. These improved varieties are designed to have better yields than traditional varieties because they are disease, pest, or drought resistant, grow better in depleted soils, and/or reach maturity faster and thus allow for multiple harvests in one season. Thus, by planting these improved varieties rather than traditional varieties, farmers and their families are able to increase their food security. In order to maximize the potential of these improved crop varieties, certain practices should be followed. For example, each variety does better in certain soil types, with a certain plant spacing and density, and with certain soil amendments. Thus, each farmer receiving seed for the improved varieties needs to be trained so they know about and are able to carry out all of these practices. Most PCVs extend seed to about 10-25 farmers each year and are, therefore, able to personally train all the farmers they are extending seed to, either in small groups or individually. However, this is not the case in Kayemor, a village located in the department of Nioro du Rip in the Kaolack region, for the 2010 rainy season.

Kate Ballentine (2007-2009), the first PCV in Kayemor, extended seed to 25 farmers her first rainy season in Kayemor and, because of a near perfect seed return record and the addition of an improved variety of sorghum, 50 farmers her second year. When the second PCV in Kayemor, Danielle Stoermer (2009-2011), began planning for her first rainy season, she quickly realized she would be extending seed to 100 farmers throughout the 23 villages in the Communauté Rurale de Kayemor and decided a formal training for all of these 100 farmers would be the most effective and efficient way to ensure they had the necessary information to maximize the potential of their improved seeds. She also decided that a “village relay” system should be set up so that one farmer in each village would act as the relay between the PCV and all the farmers in his/her village, relaying information between the farmers and the PCV and showing the PCV around to all the fields when she visits the relay’s village.

Danielle worked with Peace Corps Agricultural Technology Trainer Youssoupha Boye to plan the training. They decided that splitting the training into two days, so one group of 50 farmers would be trained one day and the other 50 farmers would be trained the next day, would be most effective. Since the training would last all day both days, Danielle applied for a small Peace Corps grant to cover the cost of making lunch for all the farmers. During the morning of the first day that Youssoupha arrived in Kayemor, Youssoupha and Danielle discussed the various materials that they thought should be covered during the training. They designed the training to make it as participatory as possible, so that the farmers would be more engaged during the training, share their knowledge with each other, and gain confidence in themselves and their fellow farmers. They wanted to cover all the practices that should be followed to maximize the potential of the improved crop varieties plus 2x2 m plots of yield calculations, seed saving techniques, and the village relay system.

According to everyone involved, the training was a huge success. Each day, Danielle opened up the training with a formal greeting and introductions, and then Youssoupha facilitated the bulk of the meeting. He made sure to cover all the practices that should be followed to maximize the potential of the improved seeds but kept the training flexible and open enough to allow farmers to chime in with comments or questions. Danielle’s counterpart and the Wula Nafaa representative in Kayemor were particularly vocal, sharing information that they had learned at other trainings and through their numerous years of agriculture experience. Youssoupha also discussed 2x2 m plots, seed saving techniques, and the village relay system.

During the training, Youssoupha also gave a brief explanation of what the Peace Corps is, what PCVs, specifically agriculture PCVs, do, and in what ways villagers can work with PCVs. While this was not originally part of the plan, this was particularly helpful because most of farmers at the training have never worked with a PCV before and, therefore, did not know that much about the Peace Corps. The president of the Communauté Rurale de Kayemor even came for part of the training and talked briefly about the importance of such capacity-building trainings and programs as the seed extension training and program we are doing.

After lunch each day, the farmers were given their 2 kilos of seed. We had plenty of seed so that most farmers were able to get their first choice of which kind of seed (cowpea, rice, corn, millet, or sorghum), and if they could not get their first choice, then they were able to get their second choice. Overall, the farmers were very engaged during the training, learned a lot, and really enjoyed it.


Here I am giving a brief introduction – yes in Wolof, yes with notes, yes in my nicest Senegalese outfit. :)


Youssoupha is just getting warmed up.

My friend Ari (an agroforestry PCV in a village around 25 km away from me) came for the training on the second day to help out with stuff. She took all the pictures that have me in them – and here’s one with her.

Everyone is finishing up their lunch here. My host mom cooked lunch (with the help of several other women) – it was delicious!

Youssoupha and the sacks of seed:

I’m writing down all the farmer’s names, which village they live in, and what type of seed they got – hence the reason why I’m bent over in all these pictures.

Random Fun-ness

These pictures were taken a few months ago. If I remember correctly, they were all taken on the same day – very random day of random fun photo-taking. :)

The first set of pictures are of my youngest brother, Sekh Omar, wearing my sunglasses.

These pictures are of Sekh Omar and Moussa (my other young brother), who are looking at the two photo albums I made right before coming to Senegal – they (and everyone else) LOVE looking at them. And they (like most people I know) love trying to figure out who I am in the photos and who is my twin sister.

These are 2 of the 3 students that lived in my compound for the school year to go to school in Kayemor (Malick, far left, and Fatu Mata, holding a mango); with them is their friend Saxrit, who is over at our house a lot, and my cousin, Awa. They all love to joke around with me and with each other.