First of all I wanted to start this post by apologizing for how long
it has been since I have written anything. I am a slacker. I usually try to
wait to write posts until I feel like I have something incredibly witty or fascinating
to say. Sometimes I forget that just the day to day things that I am doing are
probably interesting to at least someone, right?
I thought I’d begin this entry by talking about what I have been doing during
this hiatus since I last posted anything. This past week has been the beginning
of our IST (in-service training, I don’t have to reiterate Peace Corps’ love of
acronyms). This means that I have been out of my site and participating in
various sessions that are supposed to help easier facilitate projects in my
village. This also means that I have officially been sworn in as a Peace Corps
volunteer for 3 months now! For those of you that don’t know, I am living in
Ngallou which is a small village located in the community of Palmarin, Senegal.
My village is situated right between the coast and the Sine-Saloum Delta.
The program that I am a volunteer under is Community Economic
Development and my focus is on the eco-tourism industry. This is largely
because I live in a beautiful place that has a lot of potential for touristic
activities (come visit me!!) but it’s also my job to make sure that this
tourism is sustainable, environmentally friendly and benefits the local
population (those are the main components of eco-tourism in case you didn’t
know). See said beautiful place below.
The past few weeks have consisted of me making my way around my village
trying to assess how I can help. I have already decided to implement an English
class for interested eco-guides to better communicate with their clientele. I
am also working with a local hotel in basic business principles such as marketing,
accounting, customer service, etc. Along with the eco-tourism jazz I am also
working on several secondary projects that include a school garden, compost/waste
management projects, coastal erosion evasion work, a carbon offsets program and
also collaboration with the local artists on expanding their product lines. Each
day involves a new set of challenges and slowly but surely I am finding my
place where I can be of use here in Senegal.
Well. Now that you’re caught up on most of the lengthy work-related
information I have some of my more typical words of wisdom (ranting) that I
would like to share. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the development of a
society, namely of the United States. Because of our incredible wastefulness
during our industrialization period, other countries are suffering the consequences
out of the mess that we’ve made. We were able to progress and develop in a way that most
other countries cannot copy due to the environmental detriment that we created
along the way. I think that now, more than ever, we owe it to not only ourselves
but to the rest of the world to try and live a more simplistic lifestyle.
I personally think everyone should have to do a few things in order to
understand how many people in this world live. At least once in their lives, I
believe everyone should have to take a bucket bath. I think we should have to
experience washing our clothes by hand. Furthermore, we should have to walk
down the street or possibly to the next town over to wait in line and then pull
water from a well in order to take care of ourselves and our families. As a
society we are so incredibly wasteful with our resources. We leave the water
running while we shave, take incredibly long showers and use a washing machine
to clean 3 or 4 articles of clothing. I feel like I had other examples that
were related to issues besides water consumption but I will have to save those
for another day (as I can’t remember them and I REALLY want to get a post out
today).
Wrapping things up I’d like to say that my posts are never trying to
get political or drastically change anyone’s views in life but if I can caution
you to simply think twice about things then I would say it’s worth it.
I will try and make my next post sooner rather than later but in the
meantime thank you for reading and trying to be the best person you can be!
xx
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