24/12/2010

Dear Mr Simon and Class,

Hey Everyone, Merry Christmas! I’m currently in my village wrapping up some work , but will be heading into Kolda meme to celebrate the holiday with other volunteers soon.  There is a small population of Catholics in Senegal, but most volunteers live in Muslim villages (as I do!), so we like to plan holiday parties for volunteers to come to so we can celebrate together.  This year, volunteers from two regions near where I live will be coming in for the Christmas party… come to think of it, this may be a short letter because I want to get to the good food!

Anyway, things have been really busy lately, except this time I’ve been busy in my village, not traveling around for work.  We’ve been collecting information for this big food security project, and though asking for prices may seem simple, because Senegal is a bargaining culture, it is in fact not.

I have to admit, sometimes living in a place where people bargain for everything is fun, but other times it’s such a headache.  For example, for this project, I need to get prices for a fence we want to put up around our school garden and our health hut.  We called the mason over from a nearby village, showed him the land, and asked how much chain-link fencing is, how much cement and fence supports would be, etc.  The mason looked at me, looked at my villagers that were helping them, then gave us a price that was FOUR TIMES what we knew to be the actual price.  But there is the problem you’re in with bargaining – you know the correct price, the mason knows the correct price, but unless he says out loud that he agrees to that specific price, there’s no deal.  Even if you know, and he knows, and everyone around you knows he’s lying, the mason (or whoever is selling you something) will stick to his bloated price because he thinks eventually he can get you to pay. 

In these situations, people yell and scream and call each other names, but I’ve found that often your biggest bargaining chip is walking away.  Then, usually, the salesmen calls you back, saying something like, “ok ok, for you, my friend, I can give you this price.” This, you both know, is still the wrong price.  Commence again yelling and flailing and so on and so forth.  This can honestly go on for an hour, especially if you really need what the guy’s trying to sell.  The whole thing makes me miss being able to hop in the car and go to the hardware store; even if the hardware store is expensive, at least you know that what you see is what you get, and that prices are not changing because you look like you can pay more. 

Anyway. We did in fact, finally get our prices, so my next step is to type it all up in the form of a grant for the Peace Corps office to review.  If they give me the green light, they’ll fund the project and fence construction will begin.  This grant process usually takes between two to three months.

Why are we doing a  fencing g project anyway? Fencing in my village is commonly made out of bamboo.  While bamboo is indeed strong, it falls apart every year during the intense rains of the rainy season.  If the winds and water don’t knock the fencing down, our cows are very apt at doing so when the starving season is in full swing. (We go through  a starving season from April until harvest from late October through December.)  So, I’m writing a grant to fund chain/metal fencing four our big community garden oat our elementary school and for our nutritionelle demonstration garden at our health hut.  The volunteer who lived in my village two years before me put up fencing in both of these places, but the fencing was bamboo, and had fallen apart by my first rainy season.  Hopefully, with durable, metal fencing, the gardens will be able to run year-round.

I know, it’s not the most thrilling work , but it’s what my village has designated as important and is in fact necessary to continue good health/nutrition information and practices in my village.

With all this talk about money, I’ve included some Senegalese currency in this letter.  The prettiest bill is the 10,000 franc CFA bill, but that’s about $20.00 here, which is more than I can spare!  So, I put in instead: 1,000 (called 1mil), 2,000 (2mil), and some coins.  One 500franc CFA equals about $1.00, so you can figure out what all the money is worth. 

Currency here is called the West African Franc, and all the writing on the bills and coins are in French.  A lot of countries in West Africa use the Franc, but a few do not (like the Gambia). 

Time for me to bike into Kolda.  I hope you all have a wonderful new year and are enjoying the snow.

Amanda