Working in "The Field"

 and I don't meet the peanut or millet fields!

A youth group in an old Serere village near Thies (that no longer speaks Serere...)

My life as a Response Volunteer here in Senegal is very different from that of a regular PCV in many ways, not the least because I have to use phrases like "sur le terrain" or "in the field" to refer to visits outside of the office, whether to other cities or small villages in what PCVs commonly refer to as "the bush" or "en brousse."



The Senegal RPCV, my counterpart,
and myself

A few weeks ago (ok, by now the end of April), I had my first major voyage sur le terrain, working as a translator for a few visiting NGO workers.  I translated for a Senegal RPCV (from the Casamance) in country with the NGO Freedom From Hunger to do a financial literacy needs assessment for the youth in Plan's Youth Economic Empowerment program.  Translating, ok, that's fine.  French or Serere I can usually explain what's going on.  Oh, you want word for word direct exactly what's being said in French AND Wolof?!  That's a different thing entirely...

I feel like this post should have a reference to Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like and I am sure there's a post, or several about working "in the field," or "sur le terrain."  Truth be told, being more of an NGO worker than a traditional PCV has been an unexpected adjustment in itself, especially during the months of April and May.

A group in the suburbs of Dakar
learning to be tailors

Anyways, the visiting NGO was doing this needs assessment in financial literacy (think saving and spending habits) with the youth currently involved in our Youth Economic Empowerment program, who will also be part of my Life Skills program.  The Senegal RPCV from Davis, California (Yea Hershbergers!) was leading the team with a Senegalese/Malian FFH worker who conducted the focus group discussions and questions with the youth in Wolof.  My job was to translate their responses into English for the RPCV (she served in the Casamance and thus speaks Diola instead of Wolof) who was tape recording and taking notes.  I tried to get what I could, but know that I missed a lot of finer details elaborated in Wolof that the Senegalese/Malian facilitator had to catch after the sessions.  It was a long  and difficult 4 of 5 days (8am-8pm usually), but always interesting to spend time in the field and getting to meet more Senegalese.  Not to mention I found myself at great ease the moment we arrived in a village setting instead of the urban settings we were in the first two days.

I also got to experience some new "perks" of being an NGO worker instead of just a regular PCV: namely being put up in a nice hotel in Dakar for a night, and having lunches (and a nice dinner) and transport paid for by the organization.  Pas mal.  Or at least an experience that I wasn't totally comfortable with, but appreciated and took as an interesting learning experience.

I think these girls thought it was
funny that I speak Serere or something

On a more serious note, there were several aspects of the Needs Assessment that I did not support/feel comfortable about because they are mostly against the Peace Corps way of doing development: namely not spending time getting to know a community before conducting interviews and basically "testing" them on certain things, then handing out money or boisons (soda) to the group for their time, and perhaps "wasting" copious amounts of money on various things a PCV would deem unnecessary (like the hotel and nice dinner).  We drove into a neighborhood, community center, or village, spent two to three hours with them, grilling them about their spending habits (getting some truthful answers and a lot of "correct but not true" answers), talked at them a lot, handed out money or soda, and sped off to the next meeting.  This is what many PCVs HATE about NGOs that don't spend time getting to know a group or community (the argument could be made that Plan already works with these groups so they kind of knew of us but didn't actually know us).

Whatever, it was a learning experience that served to educate and freak me out about the Needs Assessment I had to do just a few weeks later in life skills, but that will be the subject of a future blog post, Inchallah.