Plastic Plastic Everywhere and not a...

Hi Folks.  Your friendly neighborhood Peace Corps volunteer here with a little itty bitty tiny question about just a wee little problem with some plastic...

This is a dump.  In and of itself not so bad, there are lots of dumps in the world.  You see the problem lies in the dump's location... right next to the delta... on a slope... that drains into the mangroves in the rainy season.  In the dry season it does this:

The Sahel gets kind of... windy... and the trash blows oh so beautifully all over fields and then out into the delta.  This is when it isn't just burned that is.  The entire pile is periodically burned and then restarted.  There are small piles of burned plastic all over the area along with aluminum cans, broken glass, and plenty of rotting organic matter as well.  Sigh...

I wish I could say that this is unique, but this is a fairly small site.  The larger cities do the same thing, only they are more efficient at burning it in massive piles that create terrible toxins.  So plastic is kind of a problem here.

This situation is particularly unconscionable here though because the source of all this trash comes from the hotels in Toubacouta.  One hotel is willing to work with us on the problem, the other threw a group of 20 some odd PCV's out on New Years Eve because we weren't the "right" kind of people and didn't speak French.  Don't worry lonely planet has been contacted.  

You're probably thinking that my question is what should I do about this problem.  Sadly no.  There are so many cooks in that kitchen already.  No my question is what do you do when none of the ideal solutions are possible and leaving the problem alone is abhorrent (abhorrent, unconscionable my vocab is on fire today).  At this point in my service I just don't have time to start a massive behavior change program to reduce plastic consumption and the hotels and the population aren't enthusiastic anyways.  The previous volunteer in my site tried a waste management project and the village just stole her materials and used them for other things and then continued littering everywhere and burning everything.  The non ideal solution is plastic incinerators which I've recently been told by several people are in fact much worse then just leaving the plastic where it is.  I've been told the opposite as well.  Everyone has their point of view and their personal priorities and agendas, not least of which the Senegalese people who quite frankly don't give a damn when they aren't food secure or would rather be making tea.  I don't even know if it should be one of my priorities when I could be working on any number of things from pumps, to improved gardening, to health, to Female Genital Cutting, all of which are problems in my village.  I just don't know (someone should go back and count how many times I've said that in blog posts throughout my service).  

Then again if we could start a program that used a somewhat cleaner incinerator (cleaner than burning on the ground) and combined it with composting the organic material and then selling it, we could at least start the process of people putting waste into a system instead of throwing it on the ground and forgetting about it.  That's the first step.  That would be at least something, and something that didn't have plastic flowing into the ocean.  Sure it's a higher impact being put on the world at large to protect this one area, but maybe the delta is worth it.  Of course there are a million problems associated with it and its very possible that I'm just being lazy and I'm too scared to try to do the right thing becuase its hard and I've lost my idealism.  Who knows.  I feel like a trauma surgeon with my patient bleeding out and only a butter knife and a dirty oil rag to fix it.

Plastic plastic everywhere and not a thing to do about it...

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

Shakespeare is brilliant.  Let me explain… no there is too much let me sum up.  The title of this post is a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and is generally considered to be a nice proverb that makes lots of sense.   It is and it does but lets look at it in context.  There’s more there.

“My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .”

- Polonius, Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 86–92

Yes the quote is a lovely idea but in this context Polonius is being anything but brief in his simple task of telling the King and Queen that their son is mad.   Brevity is the soul of wit but in real life, or Shakespeare for that matter, things are more complicated.  Take Peace Corps for example.  Yes this post is still about Peace Corps.   There is something brilliant about the brevity of our services here.  Two years isn’t very much time in the great scheme of things and in a way that ensures that this remains an experience rather than just a job.  Its long enough to dig in and get our hands dirty but short enough that we still have to work quickly and value each holiday, birthday, rainy season, etc… 

Now about that getting our hands dirty thing.  My hands are filthy.   Yes in the end I’ll be able to look back on my service with cathartic nostalgia, mixed with inspirational quotes, remembering forever that short time I lived in West Africa.   In the thick of it though, much like Hamlet, I’m not quite sure what to do and I’m going a little mad… or I’m faking madness to avenge my father… that’s probably not likely though.  I mean for me not Hamlet, but that’s beside the point.  Anyways, I had a dream the other day, and by the other day I mean 6 weeks ago because that’s how often I blog lately, that my service was over and I had to find a way to adjust back to America.  I was terrified, I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t feel like I did enough, and I had no idea how to relate to my own country.  Thanks brain… Gotta love those moments when subconscious thoughts and fears are so blatantly easy to interpret.  Yes these are my thoughts and fears as of late.  I’m trying to set up the rest of my service, write grants, start projects, hang out with friends before they leave, and right in the thick of it have a Family Vacation!

My Mother, Father, Brother and Girlfriend just came for a whirlwind 12-day family vacation to Senegal.  How can you sum up Senegal in 12 days?  In spite of the obvious answer you can’t, I think we did a pretty good job.  There was pick pocketing and culture clash, sheep eating and dancing, gift giving and gratitude, and finally towards the end even some rest and relaxation at the beach.  12 days of every emotion under the sun and the inevitable bitterness of fresh separation once again.  Brevity is the soul of wit.  This trip really was brief, and it was book ended on my side by a lot of work.  It’s almost like it never even happened.  It provided some much needed perspective though and fresh eyes to remind me why all of this is so important.  We can get pretty cynical about helping people here so its nice to have guests come in and remind us that the village standard of living really is bad and they do need help.  The finer points of development theory are important but we can’t get so bogged down in them that we sabotage our potential to actually do the work.  Speaking of work, this vacation also showed me that even after all of my worrying about putting work aside and not getting things done, nothing bad really happened and all my projects are still there right where I left them.  We need vacations, not just to recharge but to break up the stream of events in our lives.  I talk a lot about narratives, did I ever mention that I’m an actor, and in the course of narratives the action can’t just go up and on in one direction forever.  There is an overall arc to my service and that will be what I remember in the end, but for now while I’m living it I need those little wins, those little rises and falls, climaxes and denouements.  It’s what makes the day to day bearable. 

Not that the day to day is ever that bad really.  I recently finished watching Band of Brothers and was reminded how easy my life is.  No one is trying to kill me, I have plenty of food, and ultimately I have control over my life and can leave whenever I want.  Perspective.  Sorry this post has been a long time coming so there are lots of random thoughts I’m trying to work in.  Compared to life in America things here are difficult, compared to wartime it’s easy.  Apples and Oranges really but these things are important to remember when trying to make up excuses to be unhappy. 

After the family left I went straight to the 2012 West African All Volunteer Conference for Peace Corps Volunteers and was given even more perspective.  This was held in Thies and I presented on two projects, rope pumps and mangrove reforestation.  I also had the pleasure of watching several other presentations, which got me thinking about new projects that I could be doing but for which, in reality, I have hardly the time to think.  Yes I’m trying to set up the end of my service and yet I still have no idea what I’m doing or on what I should really be focusing my time.  The only thing for certain is that there isn’t much time: Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .  But at least I’m enthusiastically mad.  Back to village my friends…

Personal Identity: Who am I, what and I doing here, and do I have to list Lamine Seydi on Government forms under “names I’ve used”?

Hello everyone.  I’m trying to get back into the blogging regularly habit so here’s another post!  This actually ties into what I talked about last time, but a little more me focused… because my blog usually isn’t all about me… Humility really is my best quality… humor me!

So last time I talked about rumors, and believe you me there are lots of rumors here.  What I didn’t really touch on though are the rumors that pertain to me.  Don’t get excited yet, I won’t be revealing any dark secrets today.  I’m talking about rumors of who I am and what I’m doing here.  There is an American narrative of what we think Peace Corps is and does, and just like other narratives it is somewhat… well… fake… Chris Hedrick don’t fire me yet, this is going somewhere I promise.   Fake isn’t necessarily bad; in many ways we do things a lot better than would be expected of a volunteer organization, and in some ways we’re worse.  It’s complicated.   That I believe is where the misconception lies.  Life, work, and personal identity here are so much more complicated than anyone realizes.  I talk with friends back home and the first thing they say is invariably, “What you’re doing is so amazing” or “You’re really making a difference in the world” or “You must be having such an amazing time”.  The list goes on.  This I suppose is the essence of the Garrison Harward Peace Corps Narrative.  It’s a rumor and well… its kind of false.  I have saved zero babies since arriving, most of my demos have either failed or fell on deaf ears, and in the long run my projects probably won’t be the tipping point of success and prosperity for my village.  On top of this, as much as I love my family and Senegalese culture… there have been times where I wanted to burn my village to the ground.  No not literally but you get the point. This is a rather cynical view of my role here, but lets face it denial isn’t healthy either.  I am under no pretense that I am saving anyone by being here.  It’s just not true.  

Now before I get a thousand comments boosting my ego and telling me my cynical views aren’t true, I will give myself some credit.  Yes this experience is hard and I’m proud that I’m getting through it and I understand why people identify with and support me.   The disconnect between the support and my own perceptions of my work here are just a little hard to reconcile. 

There’s actually a lot that’s hard to reconcile in terms of personal identity here.  I feel like a juggler, or maybe a master of disguises, or a con artist… In any case I wear a lot of different hats in Senegal and to a certain extent I’m not sure which one is the real me.  In village I’m Lamine Seydi: Peace Corps Volunteer, bringer of strange water pumps, tree sacs, and seed varieties, who kind of speaks Serere, but not quite as well as Adama Junko (the previous volunteer), and who doesn’t really like to sit around and talk, but who works pretty hard and wants to bring us latrines, which is generous, but they could be a lot better, which is just like most of his generousity which is a little stingy.  At least this is how I perceive their perceptions of me… Lamine Seydi is surely a part of my persona but he’s a pretty simplistic version.  I suppose this is why it so nice to be around other Americans.  It isn’t just about being able to speak English or eat American food, its about being able to just be without constantly thinking about forming your identity.  That being said though the Garrison with Peace Corps friends is different than the one around Peace Corps admin, which is different then the one around family etc… Who am I? 

Rumors boil down a lot of complex social dynamics into a sort of average truth.  I said that in the last post and I guess it holds true to me as well.  The rumors about me are true, but they’re simplistic and when so much of my life in Senegal is led with only the most basic transactional understanding of my identity on the part of those around me, its hard to really know who I am.  I believe in the theory of relativity: we (human beings, souls, bunches of molecules, whatever) are constantly changing in reaction to outside forces.  Yes there is a certain essence, which dictates some of how we interact, but essentially we are nothing in and of ourselves without the other.  Call it what you will: religion, philosophy, acting theory, natural law of the universe, the results are the same; being in a very different cultural setting where no one here or at home fully understands me is making me feel a little crazy.  Not that I’m going insane or anything… but my Myers Briggs scores are…

So last week I decided to take the test again, mostly because I was bored and a bunch of people were doing it at the house.  I was surprised to see that my scores had changed quite a bit.  I posted this on facebook and got a myriad of responses from some who have had this happen and others who feel that the core you doesn’t really change and the test may just be the wrong version or reflecting my reactions to stress here.  I don’t know what I believe about nature vs. nurture, or astrology or even Myers Briggs, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m just not convinced that people stay the same over time.  We create the narrative of our lives, I believe much more deliberately than we realize.  We tell ourselves who we are, what’s important, what we want to be, what’s right and wrong.  Think of it like a building of personal identity with the foundation firmly rooted in our assumptions of culture, family, god etc…  Take away the foundation though (by going to Senegal for example) and build on a couple of strange guest room additions for new personas and the overall structure looks a lot less certain and sturdy than it did before.   I found myself during the test being completely unsure of who I am and what I actually prefer.  So many of those preferences seem situational and completely different out of the context of the United States. 

As a species I am utterly convinced that we are fantastic liars, at least to ourselves.  We end up saying “this is who I am” and believing it when things are probably not so concrete.  Surely Myers Briggs has value, surely there is intrinsic personal identity, but more important, at least for me right now, is the transactional and situational realities of identity.  Who am I with, when, if, etc…

I don’t remember why we were talking about this.    Maybe the overall idea here is once again that the world is really complex and we need to be aware of those complexities rather than putting everything is neat little labeled boxes. 

So time to wrap up this post and put a bow on it… We all wear different hats, each revealing various facets of our being with varying levels of truth.  Youthful crises of identity are plentiful, but perhaps more so in Peace Corps where our foundations are shaken daily by cultural differences, hallucinogenic malaria drugs, and the most shocking thing of all, the naked truth of who we really are at our core.  Lies are quite a bit easier to swallow than that. 

Cheers,

Garrison Harward

P.S. I’ve been assured that in the future I do not have to list Lamine Seydi, as a former name.  The split personality syndrome will come to an end! :-P  

Rumors

Where do you get your information?  Is it fact, hearsay, rumor, blasphemy, primary sources, secondary sources, apparitions from biblical burning shrubbery, and do you even really know the difference?  Dismount!   Thank you I'll take that, here's your tag.  That was all of us getting off our high horses, and checking our assumptions at the door to really think about this.  Don't worry you can ride off into the sunset with any manner of ideological superiority complex you want once we're done.  Now onwards and upwards. 

Living in a small African village with hardly any regular primary sources of information has taught me the power of rumors in a pretty profound way.  Information often passes through many mouths before it reaches Dassilame Serere and as such its pretty hard to determine fact from personal opinion.  As in any other society in the world though this is no hindrance whatsoever to my village's ability to be absolutely certain of what it knows... and this can lead to problems...  For example my host brother Omar recently tried to convince me that Osama Bin Ladin is in fact not dead and is a great learned person... let's digest this a little bit.  On first hearing this I was pretty shocked and more than a little uncharacteristically nationalistic.  We argued back and forth for a while and I ended up getting somewhat frustrated so I stopped the conversation.  Surprisingly what was frustrating wasn't my brothers views.  It was his certainty.   All his arguments were wrong but it essentially boiled down to the fact that someone he trusted told him this so it was true.  In the history of human story telling this is perfectly normal and understandable, but in our modern context of complex world politics its down right scary.  The final straw that ended the conversation was when I asked my brother if he wants Americans to die, because Bin Ladin killed Americans.  He flipped this right back at me though and asked if I want Muslims to die, because George Bush killed lots of Muslims.  Touche Omar, Touche...

As much as I want to say Omar is dumb and I'm smart he's got a point, and maybe here is a positive aspect of rumors;  while they can perpetuate a lot of untruths, they also help to boil down a lot of complex information into a sort of average truth.  Omar's information about Osama Bin Ladin is factually wrong, but its part of a complex social narrative that gets at a lot of the truth of American/ Muslim political and social interactions.  It shows the mistrust many Muslims have for western governments, and their bitterness at what can often seem like a hatred on our part for their faith.  Think of rumors as a kind of social barometer for international/ interfaith/ inter-anything relations.  Listen to the rumors and you can probably tease out the nature of the relationship.  So what do we do about this?  I said earlier that this kind of a rumor is scary and it is.  It shows the true importance of our image as a nation and illustrates just how much of the moral high ground we've lost in this "War on Terror".   Now more than ever we need that moral high ground if we ever hope to rid the world of ignorance and hate.  Those little compromises we make, sacrificing human rights for strategic reasons, or not being as generous as a nation in our situation should be, aren't really little at all; they add to the ongoing narrative that the world creates about us and that narrative is far more pervasive then any "facts" we try to spread .  It's in my little village so there probably aren't many places it isn't. 

This is why Peace Corps is so successful.  I wish I could say that our greatest gift is the work we do, but it isn't.  Our gift to the American people (notice not the countries we serve) is a positive image of the caring, hard-working America that whether true or not is part of our national narrative that we value and want to perpetuate.  I say true or not because once you start thinking in  these terms its really hard to tell where to draw the line.  As a species we tell stories, we speak in metaphor and simile, and regardless of our actual knowledge level we create a certain certainty of the world around us.  It's just not in human nature to humbly step aside and say we don't know; when we don't know we make it up.  Yes how we see the world is story, not fact, and I argue that it probably isn't any more truthful then the stories told in my village.  

Whoooaaahh there buddy, no jumping back up on that high horse yet.   I know this is pretty cynical but its a much healthier view then claiming absolute certainty of the righteousness and moral superiority of our actions.  We simply can't afford to be that nation.  We need to be better than that.  Of course everything in the real world falls in between and things are far too complex to be speaking in these terms. On the other hand look at the political discourse in America and tell me if its more based on fact or narrative.  Most of the time the overall political landscape is far too complex for the average person to take the time to digest and understand, so our news networks tell stories.  They paint the characters as hero's or villains, and create conflicts, climaxes and catharses enough to keep us watching when the true arc of the story is much larger and harder to understand.  The world is complex.  I guess that is the moral of the story.   Many of my blog posts come to that conclusion so it must be true.  We need to be skeptical of the views we hold and the things we call "facts" because in the end most everything is just a rumor to a greater or lesser degree.   But don't take my word for it.  Remember too that I'm telling you a story.  We started out with my brother perpetuating something untrue and I extrapolated that we don't necessarily know any more then him.  Tell a different story and my conclusions could sound like total BS.  Just food for thought.  

Cheers,
Garrison

P.S. Did you guys here that Obama is planning on mining for gold on the moon to solve the economic crisis and the Republicans are against it because it will attract the martian labor unions and their socialist influence!  Just saying :-)

MANGROVES!!!

Every once in a while projects just work... This probably doesn't sound like a radical idea but trust me in Peace Corps it really is.  This past week we had the second annual Mangrove Reforestation Day just outside of Toubacouta.  We got together with 28 PCV's, 30 Senegalese volunteers and 30,000 seedlings and went to town.  Before we get to the details here's a little back story.  Toubacouta is situated in the delta region of Senegal and is surrounded by thousands of acres of mangroves.  In fact at first glance there doesn't really seem to be a shortage of them...  There are however large areas that have been deforested for fuel, building materials, and because of oyster harvesting.  Mangroves are crucial for the ecology of the delta.  They clean the water, prevent erosion and provide a habitat for countless species of birds, fish, and apparently, but very rarely, manatees.  They're just awesome trust me.

Now that you're thoroughly convinced of the value of the program here are the details.  As I said this is the second annual Mangrove day.  The first was put on by my former site-mate Cail Hegeman in conjunction with the NGO Oceanium.  Now Cail had told me how easy this project was with Oceanium's help, but I didn't quite believe him.  I was flabbergasted.  Essentially Jamie Whitehead, Robert Rivera, and I organized the volunteers and told Oceanium the date we wanted to do the program and they took care of the rest.  They brought the seedlings, they brought the womens' groups, they brought the boats, they chose the site, I brought the boisson (that was a surprise reward at the end).  This is not normal.  In all my other interactions with NGO's they are not this reliable.   Go Oceanium!  Anyways we got to Toubacouta the 16th, checked into our hotels and had some very important discussions and work meetings and... no not really, we went to the fancy hotels and drank beer and swam in the pool as thunderstorms approached.  Don't worry mom I got out when the thunder and lightning  were less than 5 seconds apart... most did not...

The next day we all got up early and headed out to the Mangrove site.  Here's where Oceanium could have been a little more... upfront...  In all of our discussions I was led to believe that we were doing the reforestation just three kilometers outside of Toubacouta.  We did indeed travel three kilometers outside of Toubacouta... and then piled into a boat and traveled another hour into the delta.  This was not part of the plan.   Apart from some extra sun exposure though it was fine.  When we got the the site we all met up and discussed the general importance of Mangroves and then got to work.  Some people started sorting mangrove seedlings (we had to throw away a lot of broken ones) while others started planting.  The site for the reforestation was huge, over 10 hectares (almost 25 acres).  I imagined we were only going to finish a tiny part of the beach, but once we started going and the kids got their hands on seedlings we were flying.  As a side-note all of the kids and women were Sereres!  Sooooo nice to be able to speak my own language outside of my village.  Also that's probably why we got so much work done; Sereres are awesome.  Anyways we worked our way down the beach planting lines of seedlings every two meters until suddenly we were at the end... Well almost.  It was an insanely hot day and the tide started coming up really fast so we stopped a few hundred meters short of the end of the beach.  Also when the tide comes up over sand that's been baking in the sun for the past 4 hours the water just about boils.  It was kind of unbearable to walk through.

All told we probably reforested a total of 5-8 hectares (we didn't plant on the upper beach).  I need to talk to the Oceanium representative to get a better estimate.  As we walked back to the boats I quizzed the kids on the importance of mangroves and they enthusiastically gave me all the right answers.  It was at this point that I revealed my secret surprise of ice cold boisson (strawberry cool-aid basically).  They loved it!  We parted ways with smiles and then quickly got lost in the mangroves and had to turn around.  We found our way eventually and made it back without losing a
single volunteer.  Success!

It really is odd to just have things work.  I've been here a year and this is the first project that was unequivocally a success.   It just isn't usually so clear cut.  I guess this isn't in the overall sense of development either, but its pretty good.  There are a lot of NGOs that work with Mangroves, but few bring together so many people as equal work partners for a day like this.  That's the Peace Corps way.  We don't always get the biggest projects done but the ones we do are quality.  Thanks to everyone who helped!  It was a great day.  Enjoy some extra picture :-)  Cheers!

Serere children with mangrove seedlings.

My new site-mate Rob with some of our helpers.

Hard at work.  Look at the pretty lines of seedlings :-)

Large deforested area.

Me planting a seedling. 

David getting some help cooling off :-)

Rob showing off his dance moves.

Me with some new friends.

The long walk back after planting.  We were all very tired.

Boisson!!!

Boat full of very tired Toubabs :-)

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

Don't bother trying to change anything, everything is always the same.  Don't bother trying to keep things the same, everything is always changing.  This is a paraphrasing from a book on acting called "Tips" and today I feel it is particularly poignant to my life.  One of my favorite things about theatre, and art in general, is its ability to hold conflicting truths as equally valid.  Nothing ever changes/ everything changes, yin/ yang, masculine/ feminine, light/ dark, sin/ virtue, matter/ anti-matter (for the Star Trek fans among us).  The essence of life is not in the thinning down of the Universe into one set of right answers, but rather in the conflict between opposing but equally valid forces.  Maybe conflict is even too loaded of a word.  The essence of life lies in interaction.  We are nothing in and of ourselves.  We only exist in relation to others and the world around us.  Mmmm big thoughts.  Theory of relativity perhaps?  Maybe even some dangerous moral relativism sneaking in.  What's the point?  I've been back in village for a week and a half and I'm struck by the conflicting truths that nothing ever changes while somehow at the same time everything is changing.  My life here can seem like groundhog's day so much of the time.  I get up, go through the same routine, have the same conflicts, admire the same things, eat the same food, go to bed and repeat.  At the same time though things are slowly changing.  The language is more solid every day, the failures, while frustrating, are less devastating, and the moments of peace are more appreciated.  Repeat the same routine enough times and things will evolve.  I'm struck once again by how the macro rules of the universe seem to filter down into everyday life...

Repetition:  Senegal, as with the rest of the world, seems destined to repeat its problems over and over again.  I've been back in village for a week and a half and I'm facing the same excuses for why the tree nursery wasn't out-planted, or why the field crops weren't weeded or fertilized and why in general none of my solutions seem feasible in the real world.  All the while I'm marveling at the repeated rituals; the archetypal football rivalries between neighboring villages, the births and baptisms, the deaths and funerals, and the constant march of the seasons with all that they bring.  The relentless repetition of life can make for a lot of frustration, but at the same time its what defines our humanity.  We, like all other animals, are irrevocably bound to cycles, even if in the west we like to define life in terms of seemingly linear progress. 

Repeat something enough times however and its bound to change and this applies to everything, the good the bad and the ugly.  I had a wonderful theatre teacher who loved repetition.  She would tell us, "Don't think, don't create, just repeat".  "Repeat what?" we would ask.  "You've already begun" she would reply.  We would start from nothing.  What happens if you repeat nothing?  Well life happens in all its marvelous chaotic beauty.  From nothing things would simply start to happen: someone would cough, a shoe would squeak, a door would slam.  With each new unexpected, unplanned event we had the choice whether to ignore it and blindly repeat the past, or accept it as the new truth of the moment and adopt it into our repetition.  I'm not saying we should always ditch the old for the new, but I can say one of these options creates a much more interesting spontaneous theatrical composition.  Theatre through evolution.  It really makes perfect sense.  What is evolution but a series of imperfect repetitions which respond to the new truth of the moment.  Think what life would be if those ancient amoebas just played it cool and denied the new tail they developed in favor of trying to be like mom and dad.  Think of the actor who would play the scene exactly the same even if the chandelier fell right in front of them.  It just wouldn't work.  

Amoebas? Actors? Evolution?  Have you lost the thread of this post?  Good I'm not alone.  We are doomed to repeat our failures, we are blessed to repeat out traditions.  No matter how hard we try some things will never change, no matter how hard we try some things will never stay the same.  Come on now keep up.  Roll with the punches.  Break!

Now this is a hard enough pill to swallow in everyday life but it's especially hard as a development worker whose underlying mandate is to fix the bad parts without messing up the good.  I think its important though to take a lesson from my two theatre examples and realize that first we are a whole lot less powerful then we think and second that some of the most elaborate solutions come out of the natural varience of repition.  Evolution's photocopier has solved a lot more difficult problems than helping Senegal.  Once again though this kind of Buddhist patience is difficult when you only get two years and thus two repetitions of most things to try to make an impact.  Trial and error, which is how we end up working anyways, is a slower process than this.  I'm at the one year mark of my service and thus things have started repeating a lot.  Let me take this opportunity then to repeat some ideas from a previous post and see if I can't tie this whole mess together and give you all the wondrous intellectual catharsis I know you crave from my lovely blog... ok probably not but I'll try not to leave you in muddled frustration... myself included.

Even for all of my doubts about my efficacy here, there is one area where I know I can make a difference, and it is something I will work at for the rest of my life.  I have come to know Islam a lot better than most Americans, and with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 fast approaching I feel it is my patriotic duty to once again reach out and defend this peaceful faith.  I wrote a post about Islam in more detail during PST so I won't be delving too deeply today, but I do want to say one important thing.  Every year around this time Islam comes into question once again.  Be it through 24hr network news reports or through word of mouth, the merits of this faith are unfairly scrutinized in a way that Christianity and Judaism simply aren't.  Beyond just the faith, Muslims are persecuted.  In America they are made to feel unpatriotic, or worse, as if they aren't real citizens.  I don't know a whole lot about Islam in America but I hear the slander and it needs to stop.  This is the 10th repetition of 9/11 and that gives it more symbolic power than usual.  Nostalgia would say for many to not let go of the passion and importance surrounding this date while the reality of the situation is that for better or for worse things have cooled down.  We don't hate the Japanese on Pearl Harbor day, we certainly don't have to hate Muslims on 9/11.  Now I realize I'm preaching to the choir here... probably... but nonetheless its time to let this day evolve and stomp out the ignorance which in inevitably invokes in much of the population.  If you hear someone making an anti-Islamic comment, say something.  If you see news coverage which is unfair, call in an say so.  I just participated in my second Korite (the end of Ramadan) and saw the beauty once again of a faith based on peace and compassion, and I see no reason why anyone should fear it or persecute its followers.  Reach out to your local Mosque and make this 9/11 about coming together and healing rather than perpetuating hate.  Some of the rifts between Muslims and Christians will probably never go away, but as we repeat these rituals year after year there's no reason that we need to deny that the world is evolving and we can coexist with peace and understanding. 

Sometimes I feel like I will never understand the world.  Sometimes I feel like I understand it better every day.  I guess I had better keep waking up to see what changes next. 

Down the Rabbit Hole

One of my favorite things about writing is its power to take my jumbled mind and order it into some sort of meaning, even if that meaning is really only valuable for myself.  People keep blogs during their services for a multitude of reasons.  Sometimes they're for staying connected back home, sometimes for educating Americans about the developing world, and sometimes just for personal reflection.  I suspect every blog touches each of these from time to time: today, if you will allow, I'll be diving headfirst into the latter of the three.  I am at a loss for words so that seams like the perfect place to start talking.  

What is the real world? Yep I get right to the tough questions.  How bout we just let that one simmer for a while and we'll get back to it.  

For the past year I have lived and worked in Senegal attempting to help my village with small scale sustainable development projects to improve food security, access to clean water, and sanitation.  Or at least that's what the development rhetoric says.  In a less euphemistic sense I have struggled to learn a native language, while adapting to a very foreign culture and trying to find appropriate solutions to serious problems without reducing my village's capacity for independence and individual initiative all while also balancing my family at home and a long distance relationship and trying to keep up the motivation to get out of bed every morning.  It's been a tough year.  It's difficult to see all of these complexities from the idyllic Peace Corps posters and advertisements but they're there.  Nothing is ever as it seems.  I think the most important thing that I've taken away from this experience so far is a very healthy respect for the complexities of the world.  I suppose that's pretty important in our modern world of simplistic categorical politics.  My feelings about Senegal and her people are so very complex as well.  In some ways Senegalese are absolutely amazing, incredible, generous people, and then someone tells me that I'm bad because I won't give them money, or build them a house or buy them fertilizer, or I watch them rip up their childrens' mosquito nets to use in the garden and I just want to give up.  

There are deep-rooted cultural and situational reasons for many of the things that drive Peace Corps Volunteers crazy and when you look at it from this birds eye view there isn't much reason to get angry.  When your brother has a seizure though because your host dad would rather buy tea then medicine it gets pretty personal.  I have been trying to organize a latrine project in my village for a very long time, its one of the first things they asked me to do.  I put it on hold though because my counterpart was trying to extort me for very elaborate and expensive latrines, which Peace Corps will not build.  Then I listened to a TED talk by Bill Clinton where he listed off standard statistics about the billions of people without access to sanitation and I suddenly felt silly that I was angry because my village wanted nice bathrooms.  Peace Corps Volunteers can seem really harsh when we talk about our villages, but that's often because people don't understand what we're here to do.  We are not placed in our villages to give them a bunch of free stuff, we're there to try to find ways that they can get what they need on their own.  Santa Claus development work simply isn't effective.  There's a fine balance between giving and teaching and too far in either direction doesn't work.  

Yes it’s been a hard year, which is why on August 4th I went on VACATION!!!  I met up with my family and girlfriend in the French Alps for two and a half weeks of quality relaxation in the first world.  Things immediately got off to a rocky start.  I come from a very intellectual family and thus every problem I brought up was met with theories, justifications, or possible solutions when all I really wanted was to vent.  I being a passionate person lost my temper.  We made up of course and the vast majority of the trip was lovely, but it was telling that even with my family I felt a disconnect between what I do in Senegal and their understanding of third world dynamics.  Development work is so complex.  You could study it for twenty years and know all the data and case studies, but until you're on the ground working and feeling those complexities, it's impossible to fully comprehend them. 

Lordy this has become such a whiny post.  Back to vacation.  Oh my god Europe is nice!  I had forgotten what it was like to walk through a city without garbage, where cars stop for you, and people don't call you "white guy" and where the food is as delicious as it is varied.  The first world feels like such a fairy tale compared to Senegal.  Well now has it boiled over or are we still just simmering?  Yes it's time for that question again.  What is the real world?  I honestly can't tell you.  Some would say the first world is an artificial construct built on intrinsic inequality and abuse of cheap third world labor.  That however would be just as false as saying the real world is the poor starving children of the bottom billion who live on less than a dollar a day.  I was flabbergasted by the amount of money we spent in Europe, and we weren't extravagant.  I went from a village where a $3 chicken is a treat eaten only once or twice a year to a land where people can spend upwards of $100 for just one bottle of wine.  How can these realities both exist on the same planet?  What is the moral implication of that?  In any case denying either is both unhelpful and absurd.  There is massive inequality in our world, that can’t be denied, but the only thing that seems to help bring people up is an intrinsic desire to improve ones life.  Shouldn't we thus then be able to enjoy the fruits of our labors since that motivates others to work harder as well?  Yes and no.  We have to be able to enjoy our success, that's what any person would do if given the opportunity, but we need to recognize that we are not intrinsically entitled to that success.  Each of us for better or for worse is the product of billions of little accidents that placed us in a position to either take advantage of opportunities or be constantly pushed to the side.  

So what to do?  I wish I knew.  Buddhists would say observe rather than judge or deny, so lets observe these conflicting truths about the world and hold them in our brains and hearts the next time we go to a voting booth or pass a homeless person, or buy a fancy car, or donate money to a charity.  The first world is not as fake as some might say, and the third world not as true and noble.  Both are real and more complex than any one person can comprehend.  I feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, only I’m not sure which side is wonderland. Who would have ever thought a nice vacation could make me even more confused about my life here.  Such is life.  Time to dive back into the work. 

Cheers!

Garrison