I am still alive and about to finish my Rotary World Peace Fellowship

Unfortunately, I did not keep up with the blog as much as I wanted to during my time in Senegal. Thus, true to form, I am going to give a brief overview of the last, oh, two and half months.

After writing my last posting about inspiration, I continued to push forward with rallying support for the Maids Project with some positive results. In the end, a new organization, 10,000 Girls, has agreed to take on the project and implement it as a pilot project of the self-sustainable model that it uses in its major programs in Fatick and Kaolack, Senegal. Basically, the idea is, in addition to providing literacy, basic education, and reproductive health education, to offer vocational skills training and micro-enterprise opportunities to the girls and young women in such a way that they gain the knowledge and abilities needed to manage the project themselves and earn at least some of the funds necessary to keep in running. 10,000 Girls has already done this in Fatick and Kaolack and is internationally recognized for this approach which genuinely engages the beneficiaries as partners.

Having this organization on-board as the managing agency is important to our chances of winning a nearly $260,000 grant from the Human Network Senegal, a partnership program of the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation (JICA). I spent a solid week adapting the general project plan that I devised to meet the criteria of the JICA Request for Proposal. I think that the final product is solid and that we have an excellent shot at receiving the funds. We will know by mid-October.

Besides work I have done some travelling within Senegal and in Mali with a wonderful friend from Portland, Donna. The Senegal travels include my trip to St. Louis, the previous capital of Senegal, and the National Park Langue de Barbarie. I also visited the "Pink Lake", which gets its name from the color that it takes on when the sun hits it due to the high salt content. The local Senegalese extract the salt from its bottom for sale.

Mali was amazing and a true adventure. Think amazing people who sincerely wanted to help us out and share a little bit of their lives with us. Think travelling up the Niger River for three days on a cargo boat to Tomboutou (Timbuktu) and risking our lives to climb out the side of the boat and traverse the 1 inch ledge to the back of the boat every time we wanted to go to the bathroom. Think sleeping on grain sacks and eating a strange gruel with an unsure source of its rather unpleasant taste. Think delicious street beignets, lamb kabobs, fried plantains, pounded millet with sauce made from the Baobab tree…hmmm. Think trekking up and down through the escarpment now inhabited by the Dogon people and seeing some the most beautiful scenery: vast plains, waterfalls, fields of millet, brilliant red rock formations. Thinking riding a camel into the Sahara to watch the sunset in Timboutou. In short, it was an unforgettable trip. This is fortunate given my camera quit working after the second day. :-(

I now have only a few days left in Senegal as an official Rotary World Peace Fellow. Earlier today I submitted my final Rotary report, signaling an end to this particular stage in my life. Today I will say my farewells to my host family and tomorrow my friends at the beach are having a little good-bye get-together for me. Believe it or not some cooler weather and non-beach weekend activities are welcome at this point (yes…even the “beach professional”, as my dear friend Scott has coined me, needs a break from the sand and surf once in a while). ha ha

Thursday night I am off to Europe to travel around Spain, France, Italy, Germany, and I don’t know where else until November 5. Then in November I will return to Argentina for about a month before returning to Oregon for the holidays in December. After that, my plans are somewhat up in the air. Music pursuit is a possibility, but a job with a steady salary also is appealing (and well frankly really necessary…let me know if you hear of anything of interest particularly in Portland! ;-)

That’s all for now….

P.S. Pictures are from my trip to St. Louis, the National Park Langue de Barbarie, and the "Pink Lake" in Senegal

Inspiration

I have received many kinds and inspiring words in response to my last blog post. In addition, writing my last blog post helped me to reflect on what I could do to change my approach and attitude towards the situation as opposed to the situation itself. Since this change in attitude, some positive things have occurred:



**We may have secured space for the program.

**I made contact with a woman who made a documentary about the program. She then in turn put me in contact with an organization that may want to fund us.

**I have taken a different approach to my communication with my work partners. Building on the wise words of my friend, Mary C., in Argentina, I am approaching the communication in terms of building a relationship and not searching for "results".



Anyhow, maybe this makes sense...maybe this doesn't. However, I do feel inspired and ready to be part of this multifaceted process that is carrying me along in Senegal.

Senegal

The time simultaneosly passes slow and fast in Senegal (at least for me). That may seem like a contradiction; but, it is true. While I am surprised at how fast my first month is passing me, the pace of life is slower than say that of Buenos Aires. Here is a little bit about my experience thus far:

I live with a wonderful family, the Sambas, who have named me Astou Samba in an act of accepting me into their family. We are mostly women--9 of us to be exact--in the house with only Papan Issa among all this female energy. We share all of our meals together while sitting on their floor around a huge platter of food. The family speaks Wolof (one of the indigenous languages of Senegal) amongst themselves and patiently speak French with me. While my focus is on learning French, I am also picking up Wolof. The truth of the matter is that I am finding it difficult to learn either one of them as I spend the largest part of my day at work writing, reading, etc. in English. Thus, it takes my own personal effort to find those opportunities to speak in French.

By the way, for those of you who are not familiar with Senegal, it is a predominately Islamic country. There seems to be a lot going on culturally underneath the surface that will take time for me to decipher and understand.

Picture of our house

Now you may be asking what it is that I am doing during the day. The project on which I am working is the "Maids Project". The overall goal of the project is to support young women who have been forced to leave their villages because of economic reasons and go to Dakar to work as domestic servants. For a large part of these estimated 150,000 young women, they find themselves in slave-like conditions. The majority of these women have not received any formal education and thus, are illiterate. The components of the program (or ideally would be) French language acquisition, literacy, health education, leadership, and other skill acquisition (i.e. cooking, hair braiding, etc.). I say "or ideally would be" because I have arrived to the aftermath of more than a year of neglect of the program. I would be lying if I did not say that I was not disappointed in the lack of monitoring and continued support of this program. As it stands, it appears that the organization for which I am interning no longer wants to continue the program. I find myself in a difficult and frustrating situation because I was brought here specifically to work on a program that they described to me before arriving as enjoying the support of the organization. The reality is that I am not even able to secure space for the evening classes from the organization. I understand that in difficult times (i.e. the "economic crisis") that difficult decisions must be made. I suppose my frustration stems from the fact that it appears that someone started this project without a sustainability plan in place. Ah, yes, all of my misgivings about "development" coming flying back to me and scream to me to find another way to contribute to equity and freedom in the world. Donor whims and personal fulfillment endeavors...this is not development.

However, I am not one to give up, especially on a project that supports human rights. These young women are people--they are girls and women named Nai Faye and Astou and Dior--just like all of us have the right to freedom. Freedom to educate themselves. Freedom from violence. Freedom to make decisions for themselves about their lives. With that said, I am searching for another organization to take on the project as the lead agency in addition to funding sources. If anyone has suggestions for funding or any other ideas, I would love to hear them.

In other projects, the organization for which I am working also hosts a Living Routes undergraduate study abroad progam in Sustainable Development. I have the last couple of weeks collaborating with the professor to update the course content and required readings.

And, of course, there is the sea! I can't really complain when I can walk ten minutes from my house and be on a beautiful beach right here in Yoff. This weekend I took a short trip to the Ile de Madeleine, which is a protected nature reserve. It was so wonderful because it has a little cover with calm, crystal clear sea water where I am swam and swam for hours.

Until next time, I will continue to observe and learn.

A bien tot o (legge legge),

Astou Samba

Sweet Graduation

It's official! I have turned in my thesis and graduated.
Here are some pictures. I also wrote a song with Andrés called "Qué Pasaría?" (What would happen?) which we performed during the ceremony. It was a very intimate and special graduation.












Here I am turning my thesis in officially. I have included a picture of the bound version of my thesis.
Now I am off to Senegal on Monday...more to come soon.

UPDATE!!!!

Oops..I guess that time got away from. Here is an abbreviated version of the last, oh five months or so:

Shortly after writing my last entry on December 14, I headed off to Rio de Janeiro for my big Christmas and New Year’s Eve adventure with Kent (my dear friend of more than ten years) and his mother. It was a great time lounging around Rio and enjoy the good life.

The next after arriving home on January, another wonderful friend, April from Portland, came to visit me for two weeks. We trekked up to the Iguazú falls and then to the province of Corrientes for a little R & R for a couple of days before heading back to the craziness of the capital.

Some of you may be asking at this point, does she work? Yes, in fact, I work…quite a bit…I tell you. In fact, as if writing a thesis weren’t hard enough, I decided to completely change the topic after having worked on the original topic for nearly three months. I never have been one to take the easy road. So by mid-January I was in full swing of reworking my thesis. Having worked for several years in Portland, as many of you know, with youth from a variety of backgrounds, I decided to focus my studies on a researching how plural social networks are constructed and how they impact the lives of second generation youth (typically defined as children of immigrants born in the U.S. or who arrived before the age of five years old). From January 15-March 5, I madly reviewed literature on a variety of different takes on the topic. During the process, I made up my mind that my thesis would not be complete without field researcher so I wrote up a plan and received funding from Rotary to conduct interviews with second generation students, their parents, community leaders with the various immigrant communities in Portland, and other folks that work within these communities. I won’t go into the details of the paper because frankly it would likely take me all of this entry and more just to explain the two theories, segmented assimilation theory and the “field theory” by Pierre Bourdieu, that I am utilizing to conduct my analysis.

During this time of writing my literature review, I had another dear friend, Cristela, visit. This time I stayed at home in front my computer while she headed off to explore Uruguay. Below is a picture of an "asado" or BBQ that we had on my rooftop.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I got a boyfriend somewhere in all of this time. His name is Andrés and he is wonderful. :-) To celebrate my turning in my literature review, he and I took a few days to visit Uruguay (such a paradise). It was also a perfect way to celebrate my "30th" birthday!!!

By mid-March I was in Portland running around from sun up to sun down and more conducting interviews and attending events as part of my thesis research.

Since arriving back to Argentina in April, I have been busily analyzing the data and writing my thesis. Two chapters down….three more to go.

I also have recorded three songs that I have co-written with Andrés who happens to be an excellent musician and composer. We are putting together a CD. I’ll keep you posted.

And yes, it’s a little bit crazy, but I started a little entrepreneurial endeavor: selling my baked goods. It’s called Postres Juanita Mayo (Jane May’s Desserts). Ha ha

Only a little over a month is left before I turn in my thesis, graduate, and then head off to my next big adventure for my applied field experience: SENEGAL! I will be living in Yoff outside of Dakar, the capital city of Senegal while working on a non-formal education project that supports young adolescent women who work as maids. I’ll be living with a family and learning to speak French! After finishing my time in Senegal, Andrés will come to travel with my throughout N. Africa and a little bit of Europe.

I’ll be better about writing once I am in Senegal (I promise…well I’ll try anyhow!)