Fun with Trainees

It starts with confusion. Then it gradually moves on to a sense of purpose. Then you begin to realize that purpose is more or less a group hallucination. Then you see how this is actually for the better and it will, at some point, come to helping people. Then you wonder how you ever thought that. Then, just when you start to think things are looking up, you realize it only ever was confusion, and will probably continue to be more of the same.

Anyway. So the past couple days I have been in Thies helping with the new training group. I was invited to talk on one of the most fun, and most delicious, topics ever- moringa uses and also neem lotion!

Ok, so when I first heard about moringa, here it is called nebedaye, sometimes I hear it called the miracle tree, I was amazed. Then my excitement gradually dulled and i have tried to get it thriving in my back yard and not really thinking much more of it. Then recently my family and neighbors have been all over me for it to make sauces out of and i realized how important this is for me to push and how great it would be if there were moringa in everyones garden and in everyones compound.

Moringa is a tree that i believe origianlly comes from south central Asia. It is pushed in developing countries around the world as a tree to battle malnutrition. The tree is fast growing, germinates easily and doesnt even need much water. While there are numerous uses for the wood, seed pods, seeds, and even flowers, I think the best part are the leaves. The leaves are hugely nutritious and since it is a fast growing tree, not too hard to get at. They have huge amounts of nutrients. More vitamin A than carrots, more c than oranges, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas, more iron than spinach and more protein than milk and close to the amount in eggs too.

The leaves can be prepared in sauces, boiled or steamed, or dried and made into powder that can be added to other recipes or juices.

Neem is the other topic we discussed. Neem is a kind of tree that grows readily here in Senegal but it too is from India/south Asia areas. The oil from the tree is a decent insect repellent that can be used on the skin for mosquitoes or in gardening to protect plants. The leaves can be boiled and the leaf water is then mixed with soap and oil to make a simple lotion that people can even sell here if they are so motivated, and so is a great thing for a developing country with high malaria incidence.

Our schedule got mixed around, a lot, and so I ended up doing demos to two big groups of trainees, one on thursday afternoon and one on saturday morning. They both went well but had different vibes and different things going on at each one. My good friend and fellow EE volunteer Jamie was on this tournee with me and we were assisted by the new PC Senegal Health tech trainer Adji.

For the first session we prepared some treats before we left. We gathered ingredients and cooked a sauce all morning that was made from fresh moringa leaves. We also made a juice from the powder that was not too bad. We brought stuff to prepare doughnuts and more juice on site and brought samples of the sauce with us. That day we went to a Seereer compound and had 10 Wolof and 2 Seereer volunteers with us and a beautiful afternoon to have good food and stir lotion.

On Saturday morning we left to present to a group of Pular volunteers off in a different direction away from Thies. There we were a bit more crowded together, but lots of pepole, well kids, from the neighborhood were interested in what we were doing. We didnt have the sauce for them to sample but improved on our juice making and made some good doughnuts again and lotion that everyone seemed to like.

I took a ton of pictures and posted most of them, so check it out!