Trying Something New

Here is what we've been up to in  Gome Sota:

Crop Diversification Garden Beds

Carrots

Green Beans

Lettuce

Building A Cucumber Trellis

In The Middle

A general update:

Mid-Service, in reality, is not for another month or two.. but here in Benin we are already feeling it full force.

The old volunteers are buying their plane tickets home and we are questioning whether we really have the knowledge to guide in a new generation of Benin PCVs. Of course we will find that we do, but that doesn't mean that we know it yet.

Some of us are feeling overwhelmed that there is a whole year left.. overwhelmed that a whole year has already passed.. and overwhelmed by the amount of work we feel like we have yet to do.

A really great time travel to the middle of the country for some really productive conversation.

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This week I am up in Parakou for a gardening workshop. This workshop was organized by another volunteer -- in order to assist with network and communication between actors at all levels of the market gardening process. Seed production/distribution to garden production to markets and restaurants.

As most of you know I work with market gardeners in Akpro-Misserete (the Porto Novo region of Benin). Since I live close to the cities there is access to a good diversity of seeds in my area, as well as access to information, but this does not mean that the farmers know this, or have the means to access it. On the other hand.. there is often a problem with accessing markets willing to pay a good price for produce, especially when experimenting with something not previously grown at said farm in the past.

Benin has lots of resources but there is a lack when it comes to communicating and network, which is what I believe was the purpose of this workshop.

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Right now, in Misserete, I am working on a project to diversify the crops grown by my farming groups. For the past few months we have been working with seed samples of different varieties to grow crops such as tomatoes, hot peppers, cucumbers, okra, carrots and radishes – and this week I received a whole new batch of samples seeds from East-West Seeds . I am excited to try watermelon, onions, lettuce and beets with the farm ladies!!

All of these crops can easily be grown in my region of Benin, once the farmer knows the process, and most of them can be grown year round. Some of these crops (such as tomatoes and hot peppers) the farmers have tried in the past, but perhaps couldn't find an opening in the market, or just didn't succeed due to insects, or water access. All of these crops are sold in Benin, and the majority of them are imported from neighboring countries to be sold in our local markets. In the mean time the local farmers (all) grow fields and fields of the same African legumes, corn, and manioc. By teaching the farmers to grow these new crops we are increasing the local access, and potentially lowering their prices, making it so that vegetables that aren't bought by your average family because of the cost might be able to be more widely eaten enriching diets of families. Also, if farmers grow the crops that are currently imported, they should be able to make more money per area of land then they currently do.

The problem with this.. is that people are creatures of habit. People like to eat the foods that they are familiar with.. and they like to buy from sources that they know and are comfortable with. Its just little steps. So for now, we will continue working with these seed samples, raising the farmers confidence in the new crops and trying to build vending connections.

Earlier this week,  before I came up to Parakou, we had “a rose and a thorn” (as Erik's mom likes to put it) in this project...

One of the crops, that is definitely gaining popularity at least in my region of Benin, that we were hoping to have success with is cucumbers. Unfortunately, in the first farm where we planted our trial plots, all the cucumbers (3 different varieties!) have died. – Luckily (and completely unexpectedly) I received a second batch of cucumber samples today.. so we will try again. I just worry about people becoming discouraged or thinking a crop is too hard to grow. For this specific “harvest” of cucumbers I had been traveling a lot, so I will monitor our new batch more closely, hopefully they take this time... and I really hope we have better luck with cucumbers at the other farms where I work.

Radishes, on the other hand turned out to be a more positive, and very interesting experience. One of the seed samples was for large white daikon style radishes. Not a crop you normally see here in Benin, but we had the seeds so it couldn't hurt to try and see what happened. These radishes grew amazingly well.. and we had beautiful large radishes in just 3 weeks. The women were visibly very happy with them, they enjoyed growing them, they especially loved the large green leaves that they immediately removed and used as a sort of mulch for the tomatoes (not sure why but hey whatever). The problem, we thought, was not even the “exotic” vegetable vendors in Cotonou wanted to take them off their hand. - - That being said I made a show about calling a volunteer I know who works with some restaurants, and acted very confident that we could sell them. This apparently motivated the women, because they called the next morning to say that they found a vendor and sold the radishes. – And WE LEARNED that the reason we couldn't sell the radishes, is because they are considered a fete food, and are generally sold during the months of December and January. Its interesting to think that while in this country most things can be grown and potentially sold year round, people have preset ideas about when they will buy them.. and therefore the market is still “seasonal” in a sense.

It is really exciting to me that this project seems to be moving forward. I was also really happy that the radishes worked out, and hopefully counteracted the disappointment over the cucumbers.

This is what I've been up to recently.

I'd love to get some updates from home!

Love
Z

Expectations

I spent this week staying at the Songhai hotel (a whole 15 minutes from my house) with about 13 other volunteers and our selected counterparts for what we all thought was going to be a training on how to add nutritional information/aspects to our current projects. While it is obvious that there are ways to include nutrition when talking about say... a vegetable garden. Sometimes it is really hard for us as volunteers to combat language and cultural barriers especially when something is as culturally loaded as the topic of food can be.

To all of our surprise.. this “Nutrition Training” that we had been invited to was actually focused on how to give formations and negotiate with women pertaining to to the health of new born babies. The idea behind this being (and for good reason) that the most important step in combating global issues with malnutrition is to teach mothers how to properly feed their babies for the first two years of their lives. During early development nutritional deficiencies can end up being life long irreversible problems if they are not dealt with properly. This is lots of really great information.. but we have four sectors here in Benin and the only volunteer sector that ever works one on one with babies is the Health Sector.

So you can imagine all of our surprise when we showed up at this nutrition training expecting to talk about our gardens and food pyramids only to find that we were going to spend our entire first day and most of the second learning the in and outs of breast feeding. - -

A major part of what it means to be a Peace Corps Volunteer is that you need to be flexible and make the most of any situation even if it doesn't meet up with your original expectations. Unfortunately, this week I felt that the group of us – myself included – took a little longer than normal to remember this. By the end of the first day I think that most (if not all) of us were agitated and felt as though we were wasting our time. By the end of the second day we were completely checked out. It wasn't until the third day of our three day training that we (as a whole) remembered what we were doing here.

This specific maternal nutrition mini-training was a trial run for Benin Peace Corps and is one of the newer Peace Corps world wide standardized training – still in its early stages. Since this was a “trial run” of a standardized training (I'm not going to get into whether standardizing PC training world wide is a great idea or not) we were lucky enough to have some observers at the training from Peace Corps Washington.

After a long talk with our Washington buddy in the evening after day 2 of the training where he was able to better explain to us the reasoning/goal behind the training.. and we aired some grievances.. we all showed up Wednesday morning feeling refreshed. Even if we weren't exactly ecstatic with the training we had a better understanding of the situation.. and we had gotten some of the negative feelings that were keeping us from being the best volunteers we can be off our chest.

I think that on day 3 of our training we really pulled together to show what Peace Corps is all about. We went to a village and did some practice runs of working with women to negotiate/discuss better feeding practices for their infants. Showing that even the volunteers who may never do exactly this activity at post got something really important out of this training – culturally sensitive negotiating techniques. AND later in the day – because they heard what we wanted – we were given a session on how to tie nutrition into the projects we are already doing.

Sometimes it is no fun being the "guinea pig" for a new training were no one really knows what to expect. However, as Peace Corps volunteers there are some expectations. Peace Corps expects volunteers to be flexible and to provide thought and feedback. The volunteers expect that Peace Corps will take their feedback into consideration and not take advantage of the position of the volunteer. 

In my opinion.. even if the training itself didn't meet expectations (and was kind of bizarre) I think that the facilitators and the volunteers did a really great job of wrapping up the training and meeting each others expectations. We were all able to show that we were listening and that we are capable of making good out of an otherwise painful situation. 

Z

Just A Little Market Stand?

So what am I actually doing with my host organization?

The Maraichers and also my Bureau at CeCPA requested me here for two main reasons. They had irrigation problems, and they have a desire to diversify the crops that they are growing.

The volunteer who I replaced here in Misserete did a great job getting Irrigation Systems installed in two of the farms where I work. I might eventually work on getting Irrigation to one or two other groups.. but in the mean time we are focusing in on crop diversification.

The BIGGEST problem with crop diversification has not proven to be getting the seeds or teaching the farmers how to grow these new crops.. the biggest problem has been what to do with these crops once they are grown. People are creatures of habit, and the women who work in the farms are more interested in selling these new crops to the posh city people then actually eating them themselves. AND right now the vendors in the markets in Porto Novo get their carrots, cucumbers, eggplants, cabbages.... etc. imported in from Cotonou (and where ever they come from before that). Or you can go to Songhai to buy the more “exotic” vegetables. So how do we get people to know that the farmers in the area are now growing these things too?

Currently the women are known for growing almost entirely legumes (assorted African leafy greens) and the vendors in the market will send a zemi or another person out to the farm to pick up a plonch worth for them to sell that day.. that is the extent of communication between the farmers and the vendors. So last year.. when they tried some new crops.. they weren't able to sell them.

After throwing some various ideas around what it seems that the maricheres group really wants is a place to advertise and a place not too far from the farms (as in not in Porto Novo or in an actual market) where they can sell some of the new vegetables themselves. So we are talking about building a small market stand on the CeCPA office property.. right next to the ONASA (where people already come to buy (and store) their grains in bulk through out certain parts of the year).. where the women can advertise and vend some of their new produce. The agreement is that if we do this project for them than the office (because it is on CeCPA property) will be in charge of the security and upkeep of the “barrack” and the woman’s farming groupement organization will be in charge of keeping it manned.

I really hope that I am able to get the logistics of this project sorted out soon.. I am very hesitant to have the women start growing these crops again.. when they still don't have a plan for selling them. I don't want them to become overly discouraged and am worried about their capacity to want to try again if it fails.. when they could be using that same land to grow their legumes.

Aside from allowing the farmers to be able to diversity their goods.. in turn making them more marketable to the outside vendors.. and eventually more financially secure. This food stand will also help by providing more a more varied diet to the local communities. Right now the families who know how to cook these “newer” vegetables go to Porto Novo to buy them. It is my hope that with these vegetables available locally a greater variety of local Beninese people will start to eat them as well.

Like I said, the planning for this is still in the preliminary stages so it will be interesting to see how it progresses.. things move very slow in this country and the project keeps getting larger in ways that I don't completely understand (I just wish I actually felt like I was helping the women that I came here to work with).

I will be going to a training in March on Nutrition Education, and I have hope that [aside from Moringa] getting locals to eat a more varied diet will be something that we cover.

Z

Some Things Grow On Trees

Moringa.

Known to some as “The Miracle Tree”

Known to skeptics as “too good to be true” -- Time will be the judge. 

Moringa is a tree that grows easily in the tropics.. and surprisingly.. in all parts of the world where malnutrition is a real issue. AND the reason this tree is known as the miracle tree is that has the potential ability to combat and eventually rid the world of malnutrition. Native to the Himilayas.. Moringa Oleifera can now be found growing throughout most of the developing world. Trees for Life, a non-profit that works with Moringa has a map on their website (here) showing how closely the places where Moringa grows and the countries that are malnourished coincide.

The leaves, seeds, seed oil, and roots can all be eaten and all have high nutritional value. While the leaves can be eaten raw or lightly cooked, most often I see leaves sold in a powdered form here in Benin. Moringa is known to be rich in A, B, and C Vitamins, Calcium, Protein, and Potassium as well as providing other vitamins and minerals (depending on what part of the plant you are eating). 

image from treesforlife.org

Aside from just being a food source, the cultivation of Moringa can aid the economy, the trees are grow very fast, they have been noted to (however it is not yet proven) enrich the soil, and also show potential in water purification as well. They are not the greatest shade trees.. but they are great for making living fences (especially for protecting gardens from roaming goats and cows).

Most of the locals that I am currently working with are aware of, and have access to Moringa already. However, within the next few months I am looking forward to receiving training on both the cultivating of Moringa, and on how to teach the nutritional benefits more effectively (especially in a country where most leafy greens get cooked until there is no nutritional benefit at all). I am also looking forward to learning more about building living fences (I think that would be really great for a school garden where the Moringa leaves could then be used by the women who make lunch!).

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Completely Unrelated to Moringa :

While we are on the subject of things that grow in Africa.. there is this fruit. This strange orange fruit with big black seeds. That my close-mate and I have dubbed sticky fruit. I would love to tell you what it is called. BUT quite frankly I don't know.

A few weeks ago my close-mate showed up one afternoon on her way home from the market. With these weird fruits that we had been seeing everywhere and decided it was time for us to try them. (I had already tried them once and found them somewhat frightening but figured I would give it a second go) Anyway this fruit basically tastes like a warhead... if there was an apricot flavored warhead. By the way.. I mean the warheads from when I was a kid.. not the tamed downed ones that you buy in the candy stores these days. THE REALLY SOUR ONES. When you are finished eating said fruit, your lips feel like you just had a bubble gum mishap (there really is no other way to describe it). We joked over the way they made our mouth feel.. and compared our facial expressions to the babies eating lemons video that was big on youtube a few years back.

Yesterday, I was visiting the host fam, and my mama gave me one of these fruits to eat. Apparently if you know how to pick out a ripe one they are actually a little bit sweet. She showed me the proper way to eat them.. but she only knew what they were called in local language not in french. I now know however that the best part of the fruit is stuck to the seed (something we had previously been discarding). After eating the fruit she made a point to tell me that the final step in properly eating this weird African fruit -- is washing your lips.. since it makes your lips feel funny. Glad to know that wasn't just an American thing.

Later my close-mate informed me that the local language name for this fruit translates to “Hurt-Baby” – so basically we were spot on with our description -- and I have decided the local villagers would probably get a kick out of watching babies eat lemons.

Love and Sticky Lips

Z

What Is Food Security?

Food Security is a global issue AND along with Malaria prevention, it is one of the primary global issues that Peace Corps in currently focusing on. The projects that I am working on and the post that I was given are meant to be closely intertwined with the Benin Food Security program. I decided to make this month Food Security Month on my blog. This will give me a chance to talk about some of the projects I am trying to start up.. and explain to you what I am doing here (if I can figure that out myself...) ha..

What is Food Security?

In general terms, Food Security is the access and availability of balanced and nutritious food sources.

In the United States food security is often a concern in low income urban areas where we have what we call “Food Deserts” or areas where low income families have little to no access to acceptable healthy food.. (sometimes no grocery stores at all) and are in that sense forced to eat unhealthy foods (most often from fast food chains) in order to survive. In West Africa food security is different.

In West Africa it becomes an issue of not just where the food is coming from and if it is nutritious but really whether there is any food at all. For the people who live in small villages, if there is no food growing.. and no food in storage.. then there is no food. Plain and Simple. Many farmers can't farm year round because there isn't water available year round (which is an issue in and of itself)... and some seasons just aren't great for farming.. which is becoming an issue as we see the seasons shift due to climate change.

Peace Corps Benin has partnered with USAID West Africa and with a group of other West African countries (many of whom have or recently had very strong Peace Corps presence) in order to better West Africa's food security. This partnership has become known as the West African Food Security Partnership.

Our environment program here in Benin has an agricultural focus, making it easy to focus our work on food security -- we work on access and availability. However, volunteers in all sectors contribute to the food security project . Health volunteers often deal directly with nutrition by teaching mothers ways to enrich the food that children are eating, and teaching about the importance of a diverse diet – they work directly with food utilization. Any volunteer who works with a school can make a school garden, or teach lessons that contain nutritional information. Business volunteers are great for marketing fortified foods and also Moringa leaves which are highly nutritious.

The projects that volunteers area currently working on in Benin include; food diversification, food preservation (drying and/or bottling), fortified foods, irrigation, animal raising, school gardens, and nutritional education.

For the people in my commune, because of my proximity to the city, access to nutritional foods is not as big of an issue as it is in other parts of the country. However, much of the food is imported, when it could easily be grown right here. Often the local Beninese (even if they can afford it which they often can't) will not know how to cook or prepare the vegetables that are not traditionally in their diets, making their potential nutritional values irrelevant. A woman isn't going to spend the money, for example, on the expensive eggplant.. that she doesn't really know what to do with in the first place. However, if she learned to grow her own eggplant, or the eggplant didn't have to travel quite as far to the market (thus lowering the price) she might be more willing to experiment and add new additions to a diet based almost entirely around corn, fish, and tomatoes.

The current focus at the office where I work is how to market new vegetables so that it is cost effective for the women I work with to grow them AND (from my end) hopefully teach the women to eat their new products as well (baby steps). I am also working hard to start a school club and school gardens that will allow me a chance to work directly with youth and help them provide a greater variety of food to their school cafeterias. 

For most of you reading this at home, the access and availability aspects of food security are far from a problem. What does apply to you – is the utilization of these resources. Make sure you are using your knowledge, eating right, and preparing your foods with your health in mind. In the end food security falls on you, as the consumer, to feed yourself properly. Don't take for granted your ability to do so.

Z 

Muddy Muddy Mud Stove

There is something about making mud stoves (in my mind at least) that is just feels so very much a “Peace Corps Thing”

I seems like Peace Corps volunteers have been building stoves with mud.. well since the beginning of time. Peace Corps volunteers all around the world make mud stoves. It is one of those projects that kind of tie us all together... that and teaching kids.

Which is why I think it is very interesting that in Benin in the year 2012 only the environmental volunteers are trained in doing so --- YES I know the teachers don't really have the time... and maybe the health volunteers shouldn't be getting so dirty.. and we all know the business volunteers don't like to get dirty.. so in that sense maybe it is a good activity for the environment volunteers since no matter what we will be playing in the dirt. I am not complaining ... I enjoy being in the sector of the mud stove. 

This week I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the “near by” community of Djigbe to teach them how to build mud stoves. This is not my post it is a group that another volunteer works with. They process manioc. I have been having a rough time at post getting some of the people to seem even the slightest bit interested in the fact that I am here... and the people in Djigbe were a much needed dose of the exact opposite. They were excited to meet me... interested and attentive.. and they were friendly too!! [They also loved that I was using my limited Goun abilities with them]

We made 3 mud stoves... I made the first one with their help – they made the second with my help – and the third they made completely on their own. 

Confession: These stoves aren't "exactly" like the ones that we made during training :-/ so I am interested to see going into the future how well they hold up. They wanted them built into the wall.. and I had never worked with their style of marmite either (so the actual structure was a bit different).. most concerning to me however was that they kept widening the opening every time I tried to make it smaller (having a wider opening in the front will cut back on the fuel efficiency of the stove.. and I wasn't able to fully encase the marmite in mud :(... the mud SHOULD go all the way around the marmite leaving only an opening for the wood to enter... BUT I WON'T BORE YOU WITH ALL OF THAT) – here are some pictures!! 

If properly made the mud would
 wrap all the way around at the top.

Curious Kid

Working On Their OWN

These stoves could last up to three years if they keep them and good condition and keep them protected from the rain. Luckily if they need to build a new one.. I taught them how!

The reason that the Peace Corps builds these stoves is that they are considered more energy efficient... and MUCH safer than the traditional “3 stone method.” Since it is enclosed it is much harder to fall into the fire.. or have a child fall into the fire. Each stove is made specifically to fit the marmite that you made it with.. As long as you use the properly fitted marmite.. heat will be kept in the stove.. and the owner of the stove will begin use (up to 70%) less wood. Which is good both for the wallet and for the forest.

With Mud,

Z

What I've Been Doing

Wow. It's September... Just two more weeks and I am a real PCV!

For the last two weeks I have been working hard on the technical aspects of training which we are now immersed in. I know some people at home are interested in knowing what exactly I have been up to.. so here is the run down of what training has been like since I returned from my post visit.

For the Environmental Program we do all of our training at Songhai... I know I have mentioned Songhai a few times on here, but here is the official description:

Centre Songhai

“Created in 1985 by F. Godfrey NZAMUJO [google him]... Songhai's purpose is to draw Africa into a development mentality which consists in developing new strengths in spite of socioeconomic, cultural and environmental constraints.

The Songhai model is based on interrelationships between environmental resources, agriculture, technology, services and industry. It also includes a component of human capacity development. This is as an integrated set of management techniques, based on the values of leadership and development of entrepreneurial skills. In practice, the model encourages the use of local resources, the combination of traditional and modern agricultural practices, the adaptation of technologies and the diversification of activities. Through these practices, Songhai integrates concepts of “zero waste” and “total productivity” through the use of biological and ecological farming practices. Providing opportunities for rural communities to use and manage in a sustainable way their resources while promoting local economic development.” [description from my post assignment]

Basically.. it is a self sustainable eco-utopia created with the purpose of teaching the people of West Africa work ethic. It has been recognized by the UN as a “center of excellence” And it is a really.. really impressive place. They even recycle plastics.

We arrive at Songhai every morning early enough to water our planches (garden beds... but way more fun to say.. its pronounced plonches) before class commences at 8... Our various class sessions are over at 5.. and then we have an hour of tutoring in our local languages (I can now count to 10... saluate.. and tell you what I ate today). Usually I make it back home around 630.

The first week of tech training was mostly gardening and agriculture: I learned how to build a planch, Plant things... and also transplant things. All about soil structure, How to tell which disease/insect/deficiency a plant has, All about composting, How to prepare natural pesticides, How to collect and save seeds from various vegetables. We covered a lot of things I knew and a lot of things I didn't know... a crazy amount of stuff was packed into the first week. Early in the week we had a special session on the Food Security program here in PC Benin.. which I am very excited about.

This week (week two) was more of a melange of bigger projects. We spent one whole day learning about food processing and then canning tomatoes... it was a very long day.. but we had fun. Two days were spent with a local gardening group practicing PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action).. and then teaching them how to prepare a natural pesticide. Also.. it was tree week. We learned our local Tree IDs, grafting, how to plant a tree plantation, and how to collect seeds/plant seeds for said tree plantation. Most importantly we learned how to dig a hole with a machete. 

On a Funny Note: Starting this week, Mama is teaching me to cook [Rumor has it while we were gone PC told them all a story about a volunteer who never learned to cook.. and then got really sick and had to go home because they starved. Now all the host parents are convinced that none of us know how to cook].... today I learned how to make a salad.

Z 

Where I Will Be Living

Drum Roll Please: Missérété in Akpro- Missérété in Ouémé

Basically... I am going to be living in a small village about 10 minutes outside of Porto-Novo. I am in the region near the Atlantic Coast and near Nigeria. I am not far from Cotonou, so the main headquarters will also be my regional workstation. The village is called Missérété and I will be working closely with the communities of Blewan, Gome Sota, Sogbé Aledjo, and Vakon. I believe my house is in Vakon.

Leading up to Post Announcements I was hoping to get far away from the cities... but I think it will be OK. I will be living in a village so I won't have to see the city all the time (unless I have to go to Songhai) and since I am near the cities I will have easy access to most things I might need.

My village has electricity (don't know if that means I have electricity). My water close to (or in) my house. I might be first PCV to have a post at this site (the paperwork they gave me was vague). The local language is Goun. There is a health facility in my village. And it has been confirmed that there are no bats currently living in my house. Other than that I know very little about my village... some volunteers received a list with things like “population, religion, ect.” and some even got pictures of their house or supervisors. I did not receive any of that :(... if someone wants to google it for me...

Also, my job has evolved, I am now going to be a “Gardening Production Adviser.” From my current understanding that means I am going to continue to work with the practices of Songhai (where we do our training) even after training is over and with the “Centre Communal pour la Promotion Agricole.”

I am going to be working with local farmers/gardeners to promote new crops, composting, natural pesticides, irrigation systems and other sustainable gardening techniques as taught to me by the geniuses at Songhai. In addition, I am also going to be promoting and assisting with environmental education at the local schools.

We meet our supervisors on Friday, and then we go to see our posts on August 5^th. I promise to take some pictures. Then maybe I will figure out how to post them with the slow internets. 

Can't believe its been a month already!

Z