With ousmane and manou

ousmane
Originally uploaded by parisdelhi

This is Ousmane. Ousmane, Manou, and the herd owner that they work for are Fulani from Nigeria. They have walked to Togo with their cattle in search of good forage for the herd. Ousmane and manou each recieve one cow for every five months that they work for the herd owner. The herd owner himself obtained his own herd by working for another herd owner for 9 years. The herd owner's family is in Nigeria where they will wait for his return when the rains and fresh vegetation arrive in June, July and August. Since he does not have boys old enough to herd with him he is forced to hire other young Fulani, in this case ousmane and manou, to help him. Majirou and I spent two nights and one full day in the bush with ousmane and manou. We had a great time and since they will be our the area for a few months we will surely spend more time with them, god willing.
See more photos of our time with ousmane and manou:
http://flickr.com/photos/thompsoncw/sets/72157603729921135/

And then you realize...

And then you realize that you cause your own suffering and frustration. There may be outside stimuli (and there are as many as we create) but in the end only you can decide to suffer or see through your emotional distractions. It takes a lot of learning how to be emotionally graceful to take jadedness and frustration, gain understanding and patience, and learn healthy ways of managing and transforming frustration and emotional distractions when they do rear their ugly, destructive, discouraging heads. The method to resolve suffering, as I understand it, is simple but very difficult to impliment well:
Observe your mind. As you observe your mind, observe your thought and emotion reactions to the world. Gain understanding of how and why your mind works, thinks and feels, the way it does. As you see and understand your mental pitfalls you can confront them one by one, knowing that you are on a sacred path. Be confident in that path.

I've read it in books before and tried to apply it but never had to learn to apply it in order to be an effective worker...

This is not managing and transforming emotional distractions just for the sake of it but seeing through the emotional distractions because it is the only way to be rational and rational is a synonym for not letting your emotions control you. Being rational is the most important thing one can do because it immediately gives your entire life meaning. It makes your life intentional and it is the only way you can be truly effective. And why be effective when we are just going to die and head into a black hole you may ask? Well, because as the Gita states or as Jodie Foster's character states at the end of the film "Contact" in front of a congressional committee: Life, existence, and matter are infinitely unique, beautiful, and precious but at the very same time, life, existence, and matter are meaningless, ephemeral, and of no importance whatsoever. So important is the universe, that we must devote our entire lives to serving it faithfully and so unimportant is the universe that we should not for a micro-second be attached or give importance to even the slightest part of it. In the end in attaching or not attaching importance to the universe we are or aren't attaching importance to ourselves as egos. In the end I am saying that our place in the universe is an ever so important one but that we are also so tiny and insignificant that we should not place our egos at the center of that universe by trying to control it and place our labels on importances within it. Being attached, which means letting your emotions control you, is the same as placing your self at the center of the universe. Being rational is seeing your true place in the universe, as a conglomeration of mere molecules so insignificant and unimportant, yet so beautiful and rare. See through your emotions, be rational, be intentional, find meaning. Those are all synonyms.

Quote from Jodie Foster's character in the Film "Contact":"I had an experience I can’t prove, I can’t even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real. I was part of something wonderful, something that changed me forever; a vision of the Universe that tells us undeniably how tiny, and insignificant, and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not, that none of us are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe, and humility, and the hope, but... that continues to be my wish." I feel the same way about my Peace Corps service.

between tradition and "modernity"

In response to my proposals of sustainable agriculture methods like natural pesticides, wood saving cookstoves, agroforestry, natural fertilizers like manure and compost, how many times have I heard this: "Ah, our grandparents used to do that, but with modern times we have left all that for chemical pesticides and chemical fertilizers and the like."
It is almost as if folks have put all their faith in the "modern" chemical ways and are so enamored by those ways that they are surprised to hear that non-chemical traditional-type ways can work effectively. One man said "my grandma always bugs me, telling me to save ashes and manure for the garden but our generation, we've forgotten all that."
In so many different domains, from medicine, to latrines, to water wells, to agriculture, one remarks that the traditional methods that had worked have been left behind but that there is not enough money in the system to fully adopt the "modern ways."
This puts a whiteman promoting traditional-type methods in an ironic position. "Oh sorry, we were wrong go back to doing it the old way." Africa has in her subconscious the ways and the means to develop herself but she is lost between tradition and "modernity." Just a small evolution in the traditional methods of latrines, medicine, wells, and agriculture could give birth to low cost highly effective techniques.
In a 2006 article entitled "OPEN THE BLINDS", PCV Dan Mueller tells us of a fictional African village that was developing at its own pace before the world started trying to develop Africa. It would seem that Mueller is saying that organic grassroots development is made impossible or improbable by the promise of the developed world driving up and magically developing the village with money. That promise drastically changes the rules of the game of getting ahead and tears apart the fabric of the developing society. I believe Mueller is also saying that the prospect of emigrating to the "developed" rich world and living the good life blinds Africans and makes them forget the organic development that their ancestors, like ancestors all over the world, we're engaged in. This state of affairs is really quite obvious to the observant development worker.