Fish Pond Modifications, Maintenance, and the First Annual Harvest

Last month, a team of engineers from Engineers without Borders, University of Pittsburgh, came to my village for a little over two weeks to collect information and discuss potential solutions to current issues regarding the fish pond with myself and the villagers.

The villagers' primary concern is the flooding which occurs during the rainy season. Water within the pond rises to such a level that it overflows the banks and discharges into the adjacent roads and concessions. Although the inconvenience this presents to the villagers is an issue, the larger problem is that the fish then escape from the pond and are eaten by animals, taken by passersby, or die.

The villagers were also adamant about maintaining water in the pond year-round, but based upon conversations we had with local experts, this is not advisable. The pond must go dry, either naturally or by the use of pumps, in order to disinfect the clay lining and prevent disease.

Now, back in America, the engineers are now working with the information they collected to determine what type of construction can be done to improve the pond.

While they were here, we also discussed with the villagers several ongoing maintenance issues that they must account for on their own, such as cleaning the pond of trash, repairing the perimeter fencing, constructing a fish feeding area, and curbing the growth of grass within the pond. Since none of us have raised fish before, it has been a learning process for us all.

This was the first season during which the fish pond was on-line. Generally, the pond will be stocked during the rainy season and harvested prior to going dry in the hot season. This first harvest took place shortly after the Engineers without Borders crew left. Since the fish were not fed, along with the above-noted ongoing maintenance issue, this harvest was not as successful as it should be in subsequent years. Below is a series of pictures depicting how this was accomplished:

The fish pond was overgrown with grass. This grass should generally grow within only 10% of the surface area, located around the perimeter. This is one improvement to be made for next year. Since the grass was not controlled during this harvest, the men and young boys had to first hack away at the grass and haul it away to harvest the fish hiding beneath.

Call me an American-African. I think I am becoming Malian...

Dancing with the villagers during Daouda's wedding 'dunun' (traditional drumming). (Thanks to Dan with Engineers without Borders for the picture.)

Since the time I was last in Ségou for regional in-service training and Easter, it has been a busy and incredibly enjoyable time for me socially in village. I have always felt that I have been well-integrated into the community, but during this time I have made it to a level I never thought possible, to a point where this village truly feels like home, as I have made many friends that will remain with me long after I leave Mali.

During this period, I have hardly opened a book to read, which is a stark departure from the blistering rate at which I had been reading previously. I have spent all my time either working on projects or, primarily, socializing with members of the community. My language has improved to a level where I now feel fluent, which has allowed me to have conversations with the villagers on a similar level as I can with Americans.

Over the past several months, I have gotten particularly close to the young men of about my age in the quartier (region) of the village I live in. Daouda, one of these young men who is also a member of the Water and Sanitation Committee we just formed, as well as one of the men on the village's Pump Team, has become one of my best friends. His uncle had arranged a marriage with a girl from another nearby village, Sarata, approximately three years ago.

In the Bamanan culture, marriage is traditionally arranged by the young man's father, who must make a payment to the father of the wife-to-be. Daouda's father had died when he was very young, so that responsibility shifted to his uncle, who made the payment over three annual installments. The full price was paid off last year, opening the way for the wedding this season.

Prior to holding the wedding, the groom must build his new wife a house. I helped Daouda in doing this, by assisting in building the mud walls, compacting the dirt base for the floor with a wooden paddle, and mixing/laying concrete for the floor. His house was completed last Friday, May 6th, allowing him to hold his 'kɔnyɔn' (wedding ceremony) beginning the following Sunday night, lasting through late Monday afternoon.

I have previously provided a detailed post about how weddings are traditionally held in my village, so I will stick with providing only the details of my specific role in the proceedings.

Water and Sanitation Committee - Potential Future Projects

I have previously described the PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation) series of formations I began with my village's Water and Sanitation Committee February 11th. Since that time, over the course of fifteen meetings, we completed the series on May 2nd.

The formations resulted in the village Water and Sanitation Committee members identifying needs in their community and potential projects to alleviate these needs. My intention at this stage is to build further capacity in the community by assisting them in raising all required funds in-village, not through funding proposals. The following is a list of the potential projects, of varying difficulty, that we have begun planning:

• Construction of Trash Collection Areas
• The intent is to hold a village-wide meeting to inform the villagers of the importance of their construction, as at the moment trash is simply thrown in piles, in the fields, or along the road. The wind, therefore, blows trash all throughout the village, posing a major sanitation concern. We intend on showing them how to construct simple bins made of walls about four feet high with mud bricks. This is the type of construction that is used for all of the houses in the village, so the knowledge is already there. Each concession/ section of the village would be responsible for constructing their own.
• Construction of Water and Sanitation Facilities at the School
• This project includes the construction of separate 'ɲɛgɛnw' (latrines) for men and women, hand-washing stations, and a drinking water well. Currently, there are no such facilities whatsoever near the site, and kids must use the surrounding millet fields as a bathroom.
• Construction of Well Covers for Existing Village Drinking Water Wells
• All of the existing drinking water wells within the village are uncovered. Although we now have two functioning pumps which the majority of the village now uses for their drinking water, wells are still frequently used. This is due to some concessions being located too far from a pump, or at certain times of the day the pump is locked to prevent damage from kids or the wait at the pump is too long. Because the wells are uncovered, food scraps, animal feathers/hair, faeces, insects, and other filth easily contaminate the water.
• Construction of New Wells within the Village and the Women's Garden
• Water is still scarce in certain regions of the village, and women constantly complain of water shortages within the garden. Constructing additional wells can help to alleviate this issue.

Women's Garden Committee and Pépinières

Mama, my 'jatigi muso' (host-mother) and now the 'muso nakɔ ɲɛmɔgɔ' (women's garden committee president), handing out tomato seedlings to village women in the garden.

When I first decided to assist the women in obtaining a selection of garden seeds from the Peace Corps Mali Food Security program to try for the year, I did not foresee it becoming a major, long-range project. But since that time, the need to teach the women how to manage an effective pépinière (nursery) to grow most of the types of seeds obtained and the need to better organize the women to allow them to develop projects for themselves into the future the became apparent.

On March 9th, we held a meeting with the village women's committee (which consists of all of the women) about setting up a 'muso nakɔ jɛkulu' (Women's Garden Committee) and about pépinière preperation using seeds I had procured. During this time, the ten women were selected for the committee, which provided representation from all of the regions of the village. Women from each village also volunteered to people the pépinières to grow the seedlings to later be distributed amongst all of the women. They also decided during this meeting to collect monthly dues from each of the 150 women with a plot in the garden, which will be used to establish a ‘kesu,’ or savings fund, for use in garden maintenance/ improvement/ seed procurement in the future.

Mama instructing women on how to prepare the planting bed and broadcast the seeds.

On March 12th, I spent the day in the garden with the newly formed committee assisting and educating the women on how to prepare a pépinière, and I assisted Mama, my host-mother and the president of the Women's Garden Committee, in seed distribution to the volunteers. The seeds distributed were tomato, lettuce, carrot, cabbage, eggplant, hot pepper, and papaya.

Village women building the 'gwa' (shelter) over their pépinière. The 'gwa' is meant to shield the soil from the sun, retaining moisture in the soil prior to seed germination. Once the seeds germinate, the 'gwa' is removed to allow the plants to receive sunlight.

A Bamanan Wedding...

Village women performing a traditional dance around three traditional drummers during the ‘kɔnyɔn.’ Note the brown/red/yellow fabric many of the villagers are wearing. This was the fabric chosen for the ‘kɔnyɔn' and many villagers got clothing made out of this fabric for just this occasion. 

This past week, a young tailor, Omaru, in my village married his first wife. The actual wedding itself, the ‘furusiri,’ took place Sunday afternoon within the village mosque. As per tradition, the bride and groom did not attend. Only men were present, and the groom was represented by his best friend.

The marriage ceremony began shortly thereafter, and is called a ‘kɔnyɔn.’ In preperation, a cow was slaughtered by the groom’s family early Sunday afternoon, and meat was handed out to other men in the village as a gift. I was given the meat from the cow’s head, which my host-mother cooked for me.

People gathered that afternoon to chat, and a dinner of rice, peanut sauce, and beef was served communally.

That night, the real festivities began. The village ‘dɛnmisɛnw jɛkulu’ (children’s committee, which includes ‘children’ of approximate ages 5 to 30) had recently raised money to purchase a stereo system. For the occasion, they brought out this equipment in the open area near one of the pumps and arranged chairs in a circle, forming a dance area in the middle.

Beginning around 9PM, the villagers began blasting African dance hall-style music, which for the most part was similar to reggaeton with its repetitive beat and yeling, but with Malian style synth instrumentation thrown in. They only had one disc of music, through which they manually skipped between about five three-minute songs, each being played more than ten times, until they mercifully stopped around 2AM.

I was rather disappointed when I first arrived in my village to find that after their traditional drums broke several years ago, they have ceased to have traditional music at any of their ceremonies. For this wedding, however, a ‘jɛli’ (griot/singer) and a band of traditional drummers, consisting of a large circular drum called a ‘dunun’ played bare-handed, and two smaller djembés played with a stick in one hand and the bare palm of the other, were hired from another village.

The three traditional drummers: the 'dunun' is in the center, flanked by the two smaller drums.

Pump Replacement Project

The village Pump Team and I standing behind one of the newly installed India-Mali pumps. (From left to right: Aliwata, Lassana, Dramani, Daouda, and myself)

As I had previously mentioned, at the beginning of last month I travelled to Bamako to hand deliver money to S.E.TRA., the pump manufacturer/installer. We had scheduled a March 20th start to the pump installation and training formation, during which three of our villagers, Lassana, Dramani, and Daouda, would be trained on pump maintenance, installation, and repair.

I called their office the Friday before to confirm what time they would be coming, but was told that the pump crew was still working on a project in Gao, so they would not be coming on time.

Delays continued, not only due to the work in Gao, but also due to their vehicle breaking down twice. Never once did I receive notification from S.E.TRA. on a change of plans, so I got into the habit of calling every morning to check the status. Unfortunately, this is just par for the course in this country, where people never want to tell you anything you don’t want to hear.

On Thursday, April 7th, the pump crew finally arrived, and finished their installation of the two pumps and the training formation the following evening. After giving the crew a bit of a tounge-lashing, my frustrations were quickly forgotten as I watched Omaru and his team do an incredible job of educating our pump team.

Daouda, Dramani, and Lassana assembling the Katilɛla pump cylinder.

Daouda and Dramani installing the Katilɛla pump as Omaru of S.E.TRA. looks on.

The first task completed was installation of the Katilɛla pump. Omaru put our team to work right away to perform the entire operation as Omaru briefly explained the parts and procedures. 

Omaru teaching Daouda, Dramani, and Lassana about the different parts of the pump.

On the role of a development aid worker…

The people of Africa face enormous challenges in their daily lives, and the roots of their problems are certainly complicated. Now living in Mali, it is amazing for me to realize that this country has only had it’s independence from France for 50 years, as the days of empirical conquest had seemed to be ancient history.

The causes of Africa’s lack of development have frequently been debated, but there is little doubt that the period of invasion and exploitation from the west was the most damning. And unfortunately, this exploitation continues today, with foreign companies gobbling up the continent’s vast natural resources whilst its’ people see not a dime of it. The widespread political upheaval we continue to see in the region today is also of grave concern and many of the region’s leaders are corrupted by the money from foreign entities, as their people, seemingly centuries apart, continue to suffer.

So where does this all leave us today, as development workers in Africa? It is well regarded that most of the development work taking place today is heavily flawed and counter-productive. The emphasis continues to be on providing for the people of Africa, as opposed to helping the people of Africa learn the skills to provide for themselves.

Many of the NGOs of today spend all kinds of money to build schools, pumps, health care facilities – but where will the education on how to utilize these facilities come from? Who will train the future generations of educators and doctors? When a pump breaks, will it simply sit unused, as a play-thing for the local children? When the funding runs out, who will feed the hungry or build the new wells required for a growing population?

I subscribe wholeheartedly to the theory that only through educating the African population to provide these facilities and services for themselves can we ever manage to reverse the continued trend of dependency.

I bring all of this up because of my recent experiences in village. During the fourteen Water and Sanitation Committee meetings we’ve held the past couple of months, I have found myself facing the decision of what direction my two years of service will go.