2004-10-31 - 6:08 p.m.

My activity level increased 20 fold last week due to my own ambition. Previously, things at school had been going swimmingly. My director had assigned me a group of boys to work with each morning from 8 to 9. He chose them because they were doing the worst in their course work, and would most likely not make it to middle school. This way they would at least gain some form of trade prior to quitting education forever. Together we established 3 garden plots and one tree nursery. Each day, after working in the garden, I would sit in on classes to get an idea of how each teacher operated and what the Mauritanian teaching style was like. This was done in hope of creating lesson plans with each teacher that involved environmental topics.

Well, I started to get restless. I had too much free time, and felt I wasn’t doing enough. I knew that I wanted to do a Moringa project of some sort, but what. If you will remember, Moringa is the tree that Jeff, Molly and I did a presentation in M’Bedia. It was imported from India several years ago, but is still only present in a handful of Mauritanian households. It does well in sandy soils, and with some amount of care, it can survive here in the Sahara. More importantly, its leaves contain almost all of the essential vitamins that children in this country are lacking in there diet. The leaves can be crushed into a powder and placed into anything that is eaten. It has almost no flavor, so it does not change the meal, only enhances the amount of vitamins.

I started looking through an old Moringa manual left by a former volunteer. It spoke of a project that Caroline had done in her kindergarten and first grade classes. She had presented Moringa lessons to the two classes together, and then given the children seeds to take home and plant themselves. Although the children retained the song they learned and some of the information, nearly all of the seeds were thrown away. I thought about this problem and asked myself why the seeds had not been kept. The answer was simple. The children had no attachment. The seed itself meant nothing, and possibly many of them did not even realize that it would become a tree if planted. Even if they did, it was a lot of work to be done on their own. How could I solve this? If I were to work with the children to plant the seeds correctly in the school garden, they could germinate there and get big enough for transplant. The children could take turns watering their trees, and thus gain an attachment. I would do a lesson in each class teaching the importance of the Moringa tree, and then announce we would be planting the trees the next day. What more, I could do this with all of the classes. Every student in the school would have a tree to take home.

I came up with the idea lying in my bed one evening. The next morning I awoke with a new vigour and was nearly floating all the way to school. After sending the boys off to class I found my director in his office. Asking for a minute of his time, I began to explain the importance of the Moringa tree. As I started to read off the RDA value for three tablespoons of Moringa powder a grin began to come across his face.
“This is some sort of miracle tree. We need to have these in every house!” It was then that I told him my idea: a Moringa lesson in each class, a Moringa tree for each student. His grin widened and he responded with a resounding “Wa la hey (absolutely)!” The next day was our first teachers meeting. I had planned with the director to present my project to the teachers at that time. At the beginning of the meeting the director introduced me to those teachers I had not met. I then began my presentation in French; recounting the same things I had previously told the director. All of the faculty nodded their heads in agreement, all except Nyoung. After finishing, with other subjects of protocol, the director let each teacher bring up any point they felt needed addressed. When it came to Nyoung he rolled down through 4 points. The last was about Peace Corps. He began to tell the same story he had told me about missing his vacation due to not being informed about being replaced as my counterpart (see entry First Day of School). He said that it was for this reason that he refused to work with me. I was surprised. Although I heard all of this before, in the previous few weeks I had spoke to Nyoung about projects I wanted to do and he seemed receptive.

The director addressed each of Nyoung’s points in turn. When it came to the last he began to recount the story of replacing Nyoung. This was all in Hassanyan, so I didn’t understand everything, but what I got was this. We had arrived for site visit earlier than expected, so they knew Nyoung would not be able to go to the counterpart workshop in Kaedi. Mariam, my current counterpart, was there, so they asked her to accompany me. The director failed, however, to inform Nyoung of the change. It was at this point that Nyoung bust into the conversation yelling that he had enough of this story and had not been respected. The director tried to argue back, but Nyoung yelled louder. He was almost in tears, he was so angry about it. I bit my tongue through the entire thing, although I’m sure my face was bright red. After things had almost settled down I said, “I would like to make a point. Nyoung I understand that you are angry and were not given the respect that you deserved. However, your retaliation is not directed at the director, who you are angry at, but at me and the children. If you feel you can’t work with me, that is your decision, and I can’t force you. All I came here to do was help people. I am far from my family and have been sick half of the three months I’ve been here, but I am still willing to stay and work with whomever wishes to work with me.” I wanted to say more, but I stopped myself short. The director just said that I would continue to work with the school excluding Nyoung.

The next Tuesday I started my first Moringa lesson with the 5th years. With the help of the instructor, Touree, it couldn’t have gone better. When I announced we would be planting a tree for every student, the kids went wild. They asked me to repeat what I had said 4 times to make sure they had heard correctly. The day after my claims were verified when each 5th grade student planted a Moringa. The day after I presented the same lesson to the 4th year class. It didn’t go as well as the 5th; the level of French was above them and presenting it took almost twice as long. In the end they got the basic idea, however, and today we all planted trees together. Now aware of the French language barrier, for the 3rd though 1rst years I will work with the teachers to adapt the lessons into Hassanyan, and have them do the presentation themselves.

All of that through, currently I am still faced with a dilemma. I need to present my lesson to the 6th grade class, but that’s Nyoung’s. The only solution is to present it when the Arabic teacher has them, but he doesn’t speak French, so I will not have the same level of support I had with Touree. I am slated to go tomorrow, so hopefully the more advanced level of French the students are supposed to hold will assist me in maintaining order. I only pray that the Arabic teacher will stay in class to keep the children in line. I refuse to hit students. Once they figure it out, what control I hold over a class will be lost. Although there are alternatives, I have been told by other volunteers that pain is the only thing the children respond to. I guess after a lifetime of being beaten, any lighter form of punishment is a cakewalk. I stick by my resolve, and hope to be inspired with some form of punishment that will be as effective as 20 blows to the head with a plastic rod.

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