Rose early today and went to Ida's at a normal time. Class was hard as F as always but we were teasing/joking with each other which makes it more bearable. Lunch was delicious and we went home soon after. I sun-dried my clothes again, took a quick shower, and went back to Ida's for another training session. While we were waiting forever, since waiting forever is a part of the culture here it seems, I re-copied notes while Ida and the women chatted away and picked corn.
Once the Peace Corps training group finally arrived, we had our first PACA session which stands for Participatory Analysis for Community Action. We learned about how to go about an action plan the grassroots PC-encouraged way which focuses on sustainability. Ida gathered community members from Jalanbereh of both sexes to participate in a couple of activities that PACA suggests. One activity involved mapping the places in their community that were most salient to them. We divided the community members into groups by sex and reconvened after they completed the assignment. This way, neither group would feel intimidated to speak up if they are with peers that are similar to them. The act of reconvening afterward enables both groups to analyze their products together, recognizing what is important to the other group, initiate conversation, and draw conclusions for themselves rather than an outsider doing it for them.
In this mapping activity, community members are able to see what is important to each group (especially since gender development is a big thing here in The Gambia) and paint a more inclusive picture of the neighborhood map from both sources. SOOO what I mean by that is the women drew a map of what was most important to them: the fields of gardens, the house, the water pump, the kitchens, market place, etc. while the men drew where the soccer court was, the mosque, and the Africell (telephone) tower. Clearly, you can see the difference - and when the men and women saw the difference it causes an outrage. They were laughing and in disbelief, and it generated so much conversation. It was incredible to see the scene unfold.
Then, we talked about seasonal calendars - another tool from PACA. In The Gambia, there's ONE key time a year to do volunteer-ish things ... which is during the dry season. By the way, The Gambia only has two seasons - dry and rainy. Otherwise, everyone is in the rice fields harvesting food for the next year during the rainy season (May/June-October) and they would be all, AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT in the Peace Corp Volunteer's face if we tried. Because really - they don't have time for that, they have to use everyone who's capable's time and energy in the fields otherwise they don't have food for the months to come. To sum it up - May/June-October people are in the bush farming, dry season - November-March/April ish is a good time to do things. Especially January.
The last activity called for the groups to be split up again. This time, they were tasked to write down their daily activities. Not surprised, the women's epic-long list QUADRUPLED what was on the men's list. The women here work hard as fuck every day and it's exhausting just thinking about what they do. Once the results were revealed and compared, the demonstration ignited a huge uproar again and conversation was all over the place. Hopefully through this, the exercise will be talked about and somewhere down the line, the men will start doing some of the women's work. In the past Peace Corps training villages, there has been a change in behavior over time of men doing more of the women's work because they finally saw what their wives/moms/daughters had to do every day.
I came home to garden (trying to teach my sister in the process) which consists of hauling water from an open well in my compound with the help of my 12 year old sister, showered, studied/recopied notes yet again. They told me they wanted me to teach them English so tomorrow... we're learning about health mwahahahaha sneaky public health volunteer is sneaky.
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