Baax na, wante lan ngay DEF?

In recent letters from home, I have been asked what it is that I actually DO on a daily basis. This is a difficult question to answer, for several reasons, but I shall give as accurate an account as I possible can, at this point.

First, it should be noted that I don’t really have a “normal schedule” as it were, nothing like a 9-5 job - but then you probably already assumed as much, seeing as I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.
Second, I should note that I also have been here just over 6 months now - the first 2 months were training only, the second 2 ½ were an adjustment phase, the month following I was back in training, and this past month has been Ramadan. All of which is to say that my work here has not actually, technically begun yet. My technical work, that is.

Remember way back in February or March, when I posted the 3 goals of Peace Corps? The first goal involves providing countries in need with trained workers, and so on.
The second goal involves giving host country nationals a more educated idea of America and Americans, and the third goal involves giving Americans a better idea of what the host country and its people are like.

Since the night I stepped off the plane in Dakar, I have been accomplishing the second and third goals of Peace Corps, through interacting with Senegalese people and through my communications with my American friends and family back home. I concede that my “first goal” accomplishments are much fewer, but as an environmental education volunteer, that work is soon to start in earnest, once the school year opens in two weeks.

Once we get there, I’ll keep you updated on what my day-to-day work is like. As for now, I can give you not so much an average daily schedule, but a list of things that I have done (and continue to do) since being here in my site. My role here is to help the elementary level school teachers to implement more environmental education curriculum into their classes, and I am also helping with the implementation of a current pilot project to separate, collect and properly dispose of the city’s household trash. This project is currently being implemented in 4 of this city of 40,000’s 27 neighborhoods. So yes, there is work to be done.

Technical work-related things I may do on a daily basis therefore include:

Attend meetings with the pilot project management committee
Go to women’s group meetings to observe the explanation of trash separation
Talk with my school counterpart, the director of one of the elementary schools
- about how the project can be relayed into school curriculum
- about community sensibilization
- about Wolof vocabulary, grammar and usage
Study my Wolof notes
Participate in community clean-ups
Talk with school teachers on an informal, social basis
Attend meetings at the Mayor’s office to talk about funding for the project
Visit the local Marine Preserve office, talk with guys there about what they’re doing about resource conservation, and so on…

Up until now you could say I have been listening, watching, observing, absorbing, learning, asking questions, and processing information. So soon I hope to actually start “doing”.