In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps, and 59 years later we take this week to celebrate all the ways Peace Corps has made a difference at home and abroad.  Since 1961, more than 240,000 Americans have served our country and the global community as Peace Corps Volunteers, living and working alongside local leaders to catalyze change. Under USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer Program, Winrock has partnered with the National Peace Corps Association to tap into this network of Peace Corps alums in order to field highly skilled and experienced volunteers to West Africa. In addition, Winrock has also created connections with the Peace Corps in Guinea and Senegal to facilitate training and technical assistance. Peace Corps Volunteers and their counterparts are then able to bring the knowledge and skills they learn back to their communities, increasing the spread and impact of Farmer-to-Farmer Volunteers. In honor of Peace Corps Week, we thank all volunteers, past and present, each time you give your expertise and time you help build the future! 

“We females eat what is left.” That was just one of the many tough issues discussed on ways to reduce malnutrition during the first Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) partnership assignment between Winrock and the Peace Corps/Guinea. By all accounts, this strategy of F2F volunteers working with Peace Corps Volunteers and their volunteer counterparts in a practical skills workshop was a success.

The objective of the trip, titled Training of Trainers (TOT) in Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture and Behavior Change, required integration between multiple disciplines. The assignment challenged me to put the experience I had gained on linking agricultural resources to solving nutritional problems for the past 40 years.  The undertaking necessitated using an approach which would be a dance between the art of communication and the science of agriculture, food and nutrition.

My main task was to facilitate a TOT workshop with Peace Corps Volunteers and local volunteer counterparts from their community on how to use behavioral change communications (BCC) to help households make their agricultural investments more nutrition-sensitive (NSA) as well as more specific in order to close their identified dietary gaps.

The challenge I faced was clear in the preparation stage. Unlike some other African countries, there is little written about Guinea, especially its agriculture and nutrition situation, and this made designing a quality program even more tricky as the trainees were not experienced outreach professionals in either agriculture, nutrition or behavioral change communications.  Moreover, for most of the local participants, this was their very first experience attending a workshop so far from home. These many challenges resulted in multiple emails with draft documents going back and forth between me and the Peace Corps staff (host) as well as with Winrock/ Guinea staff.

After arriving in Guinea and holding initial briefings with F2F Winrock and Peace Corps management staff in Conakry, I proceeded with 12 people in a single-vehicle for 125 miles — an 8-hour drive — to Mamou. The road, if one could call it that, was certainly one for the record books. I nicknamed it the “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” road adventure.

The venue for the workshop was Guinea’s forestry center, Ecole Nationale des Agents Techniques des Eaux et Forets (ENATEF), just outside of Mamou City. The site was wonderful as the center was surrounded by forest with all its diverse vegetation and sounds. Its magnificent diversity served as a living laboratory for the practicum exercises.

One of the big workshop communication challenges faced right off the bat was the need to work in five languages at the same time: English, French, Malinke, Pulaar and Soussou.  Fortunately, we had with us Peace Corps staff who spoke at least one of the three local languages. Having worked in similar multiple language situations throughout my career, the workshop was designed from the start to have lots of small group work so that the participants could carry on in their language group, thus reducing the time needed for multiple translations.

Since the term “Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture” is still evolving within the global community of practice, the group decided to operationalize NSA according to their local situation. They essentially agreed that it meant practical actions that could be taken throughout a crop’s cycle to enhance and or preserve the nutrient quality of that crop.

As the workshop took shape, a distinct trend was emerging.  Some Peace Corps Volunteers were keen to learn about the technical aspects of growing certain crops, especially the ones they were introducing to their community as part of their 2-year assignment: orange-fleshed sweet potato and moringa, while their Guinean counterparts seemed more interested in exploring effective way to communicate specific behavioral changes that need to be made so that home food systems are nutrient- and nutrition-sensitive.

It became clear that while technical improvements and solutions were identified by the group for improving crop production and post-production as well as dietary intake issues, culture seems to trump every technical subject — hence the importance of identifying strategic BCC messages for each issue.

Through group discussions, a few Peace Corps Volunteers began to understand that in order to have a few “quick wins” and build credibility with their community during their two-year assignment, they should look at ways to enhance post-harvest through improvements in existing practices. Their emphasis on the introduction and acceptance of new crops by subsistence households, while important, takes longer than their assignment time.

There were four key themes that came up continuously:

• Start with what households were doing right with their food system. The good news is that households already grow a wide variety of crops consisting of a large diversity of calorie- and nutrient-dense crops and their main meal is complete as it consists of a starch (usually rice) with a sauce (oil, legume and a dark green leafy vegetable). One of the key challenges mentioned by the participants was not so much technical issues but their cultural traditions around who eats what and in what order.
• Identify gaps in their cropping system, usually more vegetable protein (peas, beans, legumes) and in their household meals, especially for the most at risk nutritionally (mothers and young children)
• Identify local solutions based on existing knowledge, skills and resources. If it is not available at the local market, forget it as a “solution.”
• Identify a range of locally acceptable behavioral change methods that a household can do with minimal disruption to their existing food consumption pattern.

By the end of the five-day exercise, the workshop participants had designed their own location-specific illustrated communication materials for use with their community as well as a clear roadmap of activities for closing dietary gaps from existing crops. Clearly, they valued the experiential learning approach and could see that their malnutrition issues were solvable by tweaking the use of the resources they have now.

A bonus from the training was the Peace Corps staff indicated that their own capacity had been built as a result of this exercise, especially regarding behavioral change messaging. One long term outcome of this assignment is that the Peace Corps staff will be presenting this NSA/BCC workshop to its Peace Corps Volunteers going forward.

In sum, it was my pleasure to work with this group of volunteers who live in hardship conditions and yet showed so much dedicated to finding solutions together.

To read about a Peace Corps Volunteers experience you can go here:

https://winrock.org/volunteer_blog/voices-from-the-field/

PRAN/PABL (PRAN Agro Business Limited), a food processor and agribusiness company decided to grow cassava crop for its industrial expansion and needed a volunteer to train the young women entrepreneurs involved in this project. This sounded familiar me, as I was introduced to the production and processing of cassava tubers into gari and tapioca by my mother’s family as a teenager. The transformation of cassava tubers was my mom’s main business for more than sixty years and had enabled her to pay my tuitions. Cassava goods were once staple foods for more than eight hundred million people in Africa, where they were processed and sold by women to make a living till the early 1980s. Thereafter, the disease prone and low yield cassava varieties that had been introduced from South America and cultivated in Africa since the fourteen century were wiped out. Therefore, the improved, disease tolerant and high yield varieties needed to be reinstated in Africa, including Benin (my country of origin). As the Director of Crop Protection Service, I had assumed this task (using multisource funding), essential for the restoration of the agricultural food chain and specifically important to the participation of Beninese women in economic development.

The aim of this assignment was to train Bangladesh women and youths to grow cassava that will be purchased by PRAN/PABL. The tuber part of the plant will be used to make gluten-free starch designated to be transformed into either glucose or flour and used in making juice or in baking industries. Furthermore, starch was vital for the clothing industry that brings in twenty percent (20%) of Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). So far ninety percent (90%) of this needed starch is imported from Thailand and PRAN/PABL had decided to produce it in situ. Thus, the company installed a starch producing plant, is on its way to building the second one and is pushing to scale up the production of cassava tubers. Fallow and empty lands not suitable to grow other domestic crops, such as rice, are being gradually gradually with cassava crop.

Cassava is not a staple in Bangladesh and may not have been cultivated had not PRAN decided to use it as an industrial crop. PRAN funds the producers by providing the input (seedlings, fertilizer, pesticides and technical assistance) and thereafter purchases the cassava when the crop is mature. The tubers were transformed into starch, glucose and flour. The stems are cut and distributed to all potential producers under the control of PRAN technical staff. Waste derived from tuber peels, chaff from starch processing and leaves cut from the plant are recycled and used to either make organic fertilizer or chicken feed for their chicken farms. It could also further be used to make biogas for cooking and ethanol for cars and buses. All part of cassava plant is put to use in industrial development.

Training on Improved Cassava Production for Youth Entrepreneurship Development was held in Modhupur, Tangail from 11/17 to 11/25/2017 and for four hours on 11/28/2017, at PRAN Headquarter in Dhaka. The first training session involved 32 participants (with 3 women) made of PRAN field staffs and producers-head of cassava grower cooperatives. The Dhaka session was for PRAN/PABL personnel (forty in total) only and was part of their monthly meeting schedule. They were trained in Dhaka using one of the training modules designated to produce semi-mechanized cassava crop. Topics such as the need to use cover crops to lower the cost of weeding control and the introduction of new improved varieties of cassava had been debated after the training session.

Cassava is becoming the next best thing designated to change Bangladesh farmers’ lives by boosting their income under this special scheme implemented by PRAN. As for now, cassava farming is at low-cost and more profitable because it requires less irrigation, fertilizers and insecticides. It is also less affected by natural calamities. PRAN wants to keep it that way and had organized this training for both farmers-head of cooperative and its staff to avoid the mistake made by Thailand. Industrial production of cassava had become Thailand’s main export and domestic substance since 2009 until the invasion of cassava mealybug and spider mite in 2014. This country is actually losing more than twenty percent of tuber produced and has less suitable seedlings for subsequent production. Cassava production is so secured under PRAN watch that numerous women have decided to join the program.

My main activities were to:

1. Visit existing farms to assess the status of cassava production, agricultural practices, problems and potential pests

1. Train for four days PRAN staff involved in the cassava outreach program on improved cassava production techniques

1. Train for two days cassava producers-heads of cooperatives assisted by PRAN/PABL on improved method to produce cassava crop.

1. Underline production techniques aiming to increase the quantity and quality of tubers produced and increase the yield of extracted starch.

1. Develop training modules on improved cassava production to be used by PABL and its staff for further trainings

1. Emphasis the importance of cassava crop pests and diseases and set up a surveillance unit

I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and willingness to learn displayed by the trainees. Cassava is a cash crop that could be grown with no major problems and then easily purchased by PRAN. In addition, tuber collection from farms to the factory was ensured by PRAN. The producers take home more than 7000 Taka/acre. This earnings was predominantly used to acquire new land to increase cassava production. Their concerns about harvesting, weed control and flooding of the field were resolved by recommending: a) a semi-mechanized devise to uproot these tubers easily, b) installation of a suitable cover crop and c) plant cassava on ridges.

I am confident Bangladesh will produce the needed starch for its industry.

My last visit to Mali was in 2013, and there has been significant change since then. In Bamako, construction has progressed rapidly, and outside Bamako, roads are now in good shape and services, along those roads, are much more available.  Use of cell phones is ubiquitous and is one of the most important factors responsible for advancing social welfare.  Medical care is much more available with clinics and hospitals in all the towns.  In the south, trypanosomiasis [disease caused by the Tsetse Fly] is no longer the primary factor restricting livestock production, and has been replaced by nutrition and internal parasites as the primary constraints.

One purpose of this project is to lay the foundations for a future value chain analysis of the marketing of small ruminants, primarily sheep.  The goal of the analysis is to augment sale of small ruminants so poor farmers’ standard of living is raised.  By determining who the various actors affecting the production and marketing of small ruminants are and what they are doing, changes can be implemented to improve efficiency.

We visited villages around Bamako and Bougouni which are in the semi humid zone.  Briefly what we found is that a major problem is mortality of animals before they reach market age.  This is a problem in all the villages we visited, but different villages with slightly different management styles appeared to be losing animals for different reasons.  In one village their lambs and kids were dying young, probably because they were actively preventing them from nursing colostrum right after birth.  In other villages death loss occurred later soon after weaning and appeared to have been due to internal parasites, primarily Haemonchus and Fasciola, although Eimeria (coccidiosis) may also be involved.

In addition to disease, nutrition is also a constraint although not as much.  Suboptimal nutrition increases the time until they reach market weight.  Small ruminants during the dry season are allowed to wander free in the bush where there is still plenty of browse [woody plants, vines, brush] although little grass.  Since the digestive physiology of goats and to a lesser extent sheep is adapted to use browse rather than grass, this is not as problematic as for cattle.

Livestock owners in the villages also cut browse for their animals on a daily basis and there is a small economic component of villagers cutting browse, transporting it on motorcycles and selling it to livestock owners in towns.  They also feed kitchen waste – millet and rice – but this is more important for poultry than small ruminants.  Some places have rock salt for their livestock, but this practice plus the use of homemade salt/mineral blocks could be expanded.  There are several women’s cooperatives in the country making and selling these blocks.

During the growing season the flocks of small ruminants go into the bush to forage, but they are controlled by herders to keep them out of the crops.  This has implications for another program, planting improved forage trees, that has a lot of interest.  There are a number of species of legume trees that are being introduced worldwide as high protein fodder.  Two being used in Mali are Leucaena and Gliciridia.  In addition Moringa, a native of India that is claimed to have excellent nutritive properties, is being introduced.  The main problem is that they are very palatable, especially Leucaena, so during the dry season when sheep and goats wander unrestricted, they eat the saplings that are planted before they grow out of reach.  The villagers commonly ask for advice on how to protect the plants.  Leucaena has been used in Mali for decades.

Something that concerns me is that the training that the villagers received in the past was not as comprehensive as it should have been.  For example, the use of colostrum is the first principle of neonatal management for transfer of maternal antibodies, but none of the villagers we visited were aware of its importance.  They were aware that urea is part of nutritional supplementation, but they did not know why nor were they knowledgeable about its toxicity.  It seems that often they were given steps to follow, but without explanation of the reasons for the steps.

The other part of the assignment, study the functioning of the marketplace, raised some contradictions.  Before going into the field, we asked about how a farmer sells his animals.  We were told that usually the farmer sells them himself at the marketplace, but there are middlemen who will buy the animal for resale and if there are problems, the middleman assumes the risk.  In the field at the cattle market in Bougouni we were told that if there is a middleman, he contracts with the farmer as to a price and then sells the animal and gives the farmer the money.  The farmer pays a percentage of the price to the middleman.  If the middleman gets more for the cow, he keeps the difference plus his percentage.  If he cannot get the price, he returns the animal to the farmer.  Usually, however, the farmer sells directly to the trucker who takes the bull to Bamako to be butchered.

In a few cases if the bulls are not sold because they are too thin, the owners will trek them to Bamako, grazing along the way and hopefully putting on weight.  We did not determine how frequent that is, but it did not seem to be an option for small ruminants.

In Bamako we were told for that for international trade the farmer sells the animal on credit and is paid when the animal is sold to the end buyer.  In Bougouni we were told that the farmer is paid on the spot.

The small ruminant market in Bougouni is strictly local with farmers trying to sell only a few animals, fewer than a dozen apiece.  With small ruminants there is a marked difference between the local animals and the improved breeds from the north – Chad, Balibalia, Sahel, Sudan.  Improved breeds are often sold for breeding rather than slaughter.  The buyer pays on the spot or if known to the seller, may offer something as collateral with an agreement to pay the rest later.

Other actors are suppliers of veterinary drugs and nutritional supplements, often the same person.  Their use does not appear to be widespread in the villages, but people in towns do purchase them.  Vaccines are available for most of the major diseases except fiebre afteuse (FMD, foot and mouth disease).  These vaccines are produced at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (LCV) and include blackleg, anthrax, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, peste de petites ruminants, and pasteurellosis.  Programs to encourage farmers to vaccinate regularly have been implemented by various agencies, but have not been notably successful.  ILRI has a program that resulted in almost doubling the vaccination rate, but it was still less than half the animals.

As for FMD, at least one village reported that it is a frequent occurrence during the rainy season.  It does not occur every year, but often enough to be a major problem.  The vaccines come from Botswana where the FMD serotypes (SAT -1, 2, 3, O, A) are different from West Africa serotypes (SAT 2, O, A) and thus are almost useless in preventing Malian FMD.  The problems of vaccinating are analogous to influenza in humans in that the vaccine has to be matched to the viral strain causing the outbreak.  For future projects the suggestion is to reduce mortality through better education and implement additional channels of sale that would result in a stable marketplace.  There are two major markets for sheep and to a much lesser extent goats, Tabaski and daily.  Tabaski comes once a year and has important requirements as to ram color and conformation with some importance placed on weight.   The rest of the year is either for butchers who are concerned primarily with dressing percentage or baptisms, birthdays, weddings or other celebrations that may have a minor interest in the color, sex and appearance of the animal.  Informing the various requirements to the producers with rewards for meeting them would help.  While Tabaski requirements are well-known, the quotidian requirements are not regarded as equally important.

Fattening animals is becoming more frequent, especially for women.  We did not encounter it much, but the few people who were fattening animals did not seem to be aware of nutritional requirements, especially for protein, minerals and roughage.

The source of animals to fatten are either the market or the producer’s own herd.  Buying on the market is riskier because the fattener is unaware of any health problems that may reoccur and a producer is not normal going to sell his best animals for fattening.  To be financially successful, the fattener should also have their own source of feed.  Buying all inputs cuts margins too thin.  Supplements such as oil seed cake or bran, mineral salt, molasses/urea can be purchased, but the main dietary components for energy and protein are better produced by the fatteners themselves.

Suggestions to be studied for their feasibility are planted pastures with inter-seeded legumes (lablab and others) and forage trees such as Leucaena, Gliciridia.  and others adapted to Malian conditions.  Small ruminant fattening as a sideline to other agricultural processing enterprises producing by-products to be used as feed has been successful in other countries and can be successful here.

Mali is a contrast of tradition and modernism.  The farmers do things very traditionally, but when there is some new appropriate technology or procedure that is within their means, they jump on it with both feet.  They don’t hold onto the notion “this is the way we’ve always done it.”  It makes my work a lot easier.

Julie Albrecht was nominated by the Senegal Farmer to Farmer team because of her dedication to knowledge sharing and ability to adapt to local conditions. During her training, she was able to put the participants at ease and engage them with hands-on training. In addition, Julie also demonstrates great creativity in using local equipment and ingredients to come up with products that the women’s group likes.

Country Director, Mama Ndeye, said: “Julie is spending retirement sharing her years of experience and accumulated knowledge with the needy ones in our country to open ways for better lives.” Julie has worked with 2 groups of women (COFLEC and AMIDEF), teaching them how to preserve fruit and vegetable. The COFLEC group sold their products at an annual agriculture fair in Dakar demonstrating Julie’s training has helped them build their capacity and opportunity for income-generating activities. 

We asked Julie to reflect on her volunteer experiences. Read on to see what she had to say! 

Why did you want to volunteer?

I enjoyed my first volunteer experience in Senegal and I thought the new assignment would be just as rewarding. To me, volunteering helps me use my expertise to help others make a difference in their lives.

What was the highlight of your most recent volunteer assignment abroad?

I was able to meet the organization COEFLEC – that I worked with in 2016 and provide them with additional training. The new group – AMIDEF was very receptive to the training also.  I enjoyed making a picture recipe book of the food processes that we did during the training.

What made your Winrock volunteer trip distinctive?

I enjoy working with the Winrock Staff in Senegal. They are very helpful and select organizations that use the training to help improve the standard of living of women in Senegal.

How does your experience affect your worldview?

I have been to many countries throughout the world. For Africa, Senegal has a stable government which helps organizations such as Winrock International be effective in providing educational programs that are put to use (practice) by the organizations who receive the training.

What advice would you give a new volunteer?

Ndeye Mama Toure, the country director, is great to work with. She provides volunteers with the information needed to deliver a successful program.

Why should people consider volunteering?

These volunteer assignments are examples of citizen diplomacy. For world peace to occur, people to people (not government officials) need to happen to gain an understanding of our similarities and differences (of which there are not many).

When your friends/family find out that your volunteer assignment aboard, what do they say or ask?

Sometimes they worry about my safety. I feel that Winrock International is great to work with and assures me of my safety.

What do you do when you’re not volunteering?

I am a professor emerita at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and these experiences help me use my expertise.  I am retired and enjoying it!

Does anyone in your life play a role in supporting your involvement? In providing inspiration?

I wanted to volunteer for the Peace Corps ages ago and these short-term experiences help me fulfill my “Peace Corps” one assignment at a time!

What keeps you going back to volunteer?

The positive experiences!

In May of 2018, I was very fortunate to be selected by Winrock International to lead a GIS and GPS workshop in the Republic of Guinea in West Africa.  Below are excerpts from my journal I kept during the two weeks I was in-country:

Flying into Conakry

I flew into hot and steamy Conakry, the capital of Guinea, located on the Atlantic coast, and about 1000km (660miles) north of the equator.  Almost 2 million people live in Conakry, which is located on a peninsula, and there are apparently only a couple main highways so the traffic is unbelievable.  I only saw a few traffic lights – cars, motorcycles, and scooters navigate by constantly changing lanes, zipping in and out, cutting off other drivers, nearly continuously honking their horns.  There seems to be no limit as to how many people a moving vehicle can carry.  Cars and vans are packed full, usually with people standing on the back bumper or riding on top, casually holding on while they speed along, even at high speeds.  I saw as many as 5 adults on a single motorcycle, and many times I saw two women and their children taking a single motorcycle taxi.

The first day I have orientation at the Winrock Headquarters.  Everyone is very cordial and smiles kindly at my awkward, slow French (the national language).  Winrock staff spend time with me so that I am comfortable with what to expect for accommodations and cultural norms.  We had something like yogurt mixed with ground corn for lunch.  Add sugar to taste – it was quite good – then we had out of this world fresh pineapple.

Bailo, F2F Guinea’s driver

My assignment location is actually in the city of Mamou, about 250km inland from Conakry.  Winrock has provided a driver, Baillo, and a second escort, Souleymane.  Both are warm, wonderful people, who help me with my French and patiently answer my constant questions with smiles, and sometimes amusement.  I am very lucky to be accompanied by two fun, fabulous people.  (In retrospect, I cannot say enough about these two great guys.  Back in the States, I do miss them and their warm smiles and easy laughter).

Alpha Souleymane Balde, F2F Guinea’s Logistician

The only road to Mamou is a bit crowded with very slow moving, large trucks, and no real traffic rules or speed limits.  So we had an exciting ride and I took pictures of the landscape.  Parts of the drive showed me quite beautiful vistas, large trees (including huge mango trees), as we climbed in elevation.  Other areas were clear-cut of all trees and showed nothing but tree stumps and very little vegetation.  We also passed through villages and many dozens of people selling goods along the busy road.  Sheep, goats, cattle, and chickens roam freely along the roadside and in the towns.  Apparently, there are virtually no natural predators, and I think probably very little wildlife at all, in this part of Guinea.

The next day Baillo, Souley, and I head out to the forestry school, Ecole Nationale des Agents Techniques des Eaux et Forets (ENATEF).  I met my highly skilled and experienced interpreter, Damba -who helped me in so many ways besides simply translating my English into French.  Besides explaining Guinean culture and customs, Damba provided many useful suggestions throughout the workshop, as well as encouragement and always maintaining his sense of humor even after a long day in a hot classroom.  He was wonderful.

Teaching the class how to increase accuracy in GIS and GPS

ENATEF has a small campus surrounded by large trees, many of which were flowering or heavy with guava or mangos.  There are also many more birds than I had seen or heard anywhere else. One I think is a sunbird – a beautiful bright blue-green active individual drinking nectar from flowers, and another I later identified as a pied crow.  There are several buildings with classrooms and offices, a nursery with native plants, and houses (where I assume some staff lives with their families).

There were almost 20 workshop participants – students, instructors, and technicians.  The school wanted to train staff so that they, in turn, could train others and incorporate GIS and GPS into their classrooms.  (I have now learned that this Training of Trainers, or TOT, is a common, very efficient and successful strategy used by Winrock).

This first day of training passed in a blur.  Lots of time taken for introductions, speeches by the school and regional directors.  I could immediately tell that the participants are very, very serious about learning.  The participants set some ground rules, such as turning off cell phones – and people were teased good-naturedly the few times that a cell phone did go off.  Eventually, we launched into the actual workshop.  It was a bit chaotic because of the different languages, but we managed and had a few good laughs at the literal vs. figurative translations between English and French.

On the second day, the participants were given a GPS (lent by another organization) to use and they were like little kids with brand new toys – impatient and excited to get outside and start collecting GPS data.  Finally, they were allowed to go outside and collect data, then came back to download and process.

The other days passed quickly.  By the last day of the workshop, most of the students were no longer shy around me and there were lots of smiles and easy conversation.  The regional director of schools and the director of ENATEF both gave speeches and then we all handed out certificates of completion.  “Merci” was probably said 1000 times in just a few hours.  Each student wanted a picture with both directors and me (I was really quite honored).  The school wanted to give me a gift and requested that I choose something from a local vendor who would often sell his wares in the school parking lot.  I returned to my hotel with two beautiful clothes made in Guinea, completely overwhelmed and touched by the kindness and generosity of my gift from the school.

Then the next day it is back to Conakry, to complete a final report.  Also trying hard to find something uniquely “Guinean” for gifts, but at the markets, local products are almost entirely fruit (bananas, pineapple, mango, avocado), meat, or fresh-baked, delicious bread (my breakfast each day).  Most of the manufactured items in the markets are made in China.  Eventually, Souley triumphed and helped me locate a couple of gifts.  (My young nephews went crazy when I gave them football outfits that say “Guinean football”).  On Sunday I have to say goodbye to my new friends, Souley and Baillo, and then I fly back to the States.

This trip was a wonderful experience for me – besides learning a lot, it was so satisfying and fulfilling, and just a whole lot of fun.  I always smile when I think of Souley and Baillo and the people at ENATEF.  I hope I will have more opportunities like this, in the future.

Family Photo with the students of Ecole Nationale des Agents Techniques des Eaux et Forets (ENATEF)