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For THE FREE LANCE-STAR
Last month, my companion, Suzanne Moe, and I had the privilege of visiting U.S. Ambassador Pamela Bridgewater in Benin, West Africa.
"Pamey" and I grew up in midtown Fredericksburg and have been friends since childhood. Ambassador Bridgewater has had previous tours of duty in Belgium, Jamaica, South Africa and the Bahamas. She has been in Benin almost two years.
In only a week, we had the experiences of a lifetime. We visited the "Door of No Return" in Ouidah--the historic point of departure of most slaves sold from West Africa. We visited the largest marketplace in Africa, purchased beautiful fabric and had outfits made. We were received by the King of Abomey and danced with his drummers and singers.
We dined on yam pile (pounded yam) with the ambassador from Ghana and other diplomats. The experiences were, in a word, incredible!
It was awe inspiring to see our "Pamey" at work in this country, halfway around the world. She speaks French fluently (Margaret Whylie of Walker-Grant High School laid that foundation) and communicates effortlessly.
She takes charge, yet remains personable. She is on a mission, as she put it, "to put Benin on the map."
We were also able to accompany her on a two-day business trip to the north-central part of Benin. She said her itinerary was "relatively light," for she only had six appointments in those two days.
We left Cotonou, Benin's largest city, where the ambassador resides, and headed for Parakou. Cotonou was a swirl of sound and color--everyone was busy--buying, selling, building, repairing, working. No one appeared idle.
Women walked balancing unbelievable bundles on their heads--firewood, bolts of cloth, jugs of water. Men and women wore West Africa's trademark colorful fabric of wildly printed waxed cotton.
Mopeds, called zemijans, zoomed about providing taxi service. It was Saturday morning and the streets were full.
As we headed north, the city's hustle slowed and we were in the country. Villages of thatch-roofed mud houses stood on brick red ground. Red dust hung in the air.
The heat was, indeed, equatorial. The poverty, obvious.
As we rode, the ambassador described the surroundings and the dire need for potable water.
It was a joy to see how warmly Ambassador Bridgewater was welcomed at every stop. Her first stop was a visit to a Catholic grotto where a 1,000-seat cathedral is being built. (Religious networking is very important. Benin is a democracy and has religious tolerance. Its people are 50 percent Animist, 30 percent Christian and 20 percent Muslim.)
The next stop was a village where the United States is helping develop a cashew project to provide work for women of the area.
We arrived in Parakou where a branch of the University of Benin was about to open. The main purpose of the ambassador's trip was to present a roomful of American books (translated into French) to the university.
Before leaving, she met with 20 Muslim clerics. Given the tenor of the times and Benin's global location, this meeting was very important. I was extremely proud of my "home girl."
But perhaps, for me, the most impressive experience happened Sunday when we visited the Songhai Center. This project was amazing. In this, one of the world's poorest countries, we found a model the entire world should and could emulate.
As I shared this impression with the ambassador, she asked me to share this story with others, starting with our hometown newspaper.
The Songhai Center is living testimony to the saying "give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime."
The center is living proof that one person can make a difference. It is proof that traditional and modern methods can work hand in hand.
Songhai (pronounced "song-high") takes its name from the Songhai civilization that prospered in West Africa between the 14th and 16th centuries.
The Songhai Center initially seems to be a modest organic farm. The crops are based on local resources--papayas, cashews, ginger, citronnelle, sunflowers, palms, corn, soy beans, mushrooms. Insect larvae and earthworms are grown to feed the animals--turkeys, chickens, quail, rabbits, goats and sheep. Catfish and talapia are cultivated in manmade ponds and lakes that grow specifically chosen plant life.
There are three components to the development: crop production, animal husbandry and aquaculture. Everything is organically grown and easily grown.
This model is based on minimal input and use of local resources, which make it accessible to the poor. It is also based on no soil degradation, no pesticides, no pollution and no waste.
Waste from one component becomes input for another component. For example: easy-to-grow larvae feed the fowl, fowl droppings produce bio-gas that is used by generators to create electricity for cooking and processing.
Mangos are dried and processed, and their peels are used for juice concentrate and for compost for other crops. Everything is used--broken egg shells for calcium, citronnelle tea for an anti-malarial, the red soil for making bricks for dormitories and classrooms, wastewater for irrigation.
Anaerobic bacteria from bio-gas is used to purify fish wastewater that, in turn, destroys water-borne diseases such as typhoid and dysentery. Tools, corn huskers and generators are all made from discarded machinery. Songhai, however, is much more than an agricultural model. In a country where only 23 percent of the cultivable land is used, where the illiteracy rate is 86 percent and school dropout rates are high, where the life expectancy is 52 years, it provides an integrated farm settlement for the training of poor farmers and school drop outs.
They learn to produce economically while enhancing the environment.
We were guided on a tour of the center by several of the young farmers.
We visited a mango-processing area, watched bricks being shaped, sat beside a peaceful fish-filled lake, saw students gather to hear a presentation on HIV-AIDS.
Agriculture is a point of departure for participatory development--without major financial investment. The agriculture must be linked with food processing and marketing. Trainees, during an 18-month stay, are taught these skills, hands on, and are also taught about building, electricity, communications and networking technology. Confidence in their own entrepreneurial skills grows on a technical and organizational level.
Upon program completion, trainees are expected to create extension spaces in their respective localities. Thus, Songhai grows.
Songhai now has associations in several locations in Benin as well as Nigeria, Togo, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Chad and other countries that have initiated similar programs.
Songhai has a nonprofit, charitable support group in California. Financial and technical support also is provided by the United States Agency for International Development. The Songhai proj-ect complements the USAID-funded primary education reform program whose purpose is to increase the access of children in Benin to quality basic education. Songhai's comprehensive educational program picks up where traditional education leaves off. Also, with USAID's assistance, Songhai has been able to put in place a comprehensive financial management system that enables the center to properly manage its funds.
American universities (Wake Forest and Colorado State to name two) have exchange programs with Songhai. Songhai seeks to develop more partnerships with other educational institutions that can provide resources in the areas of information technology, biodiversity and environmental studies.
All this grew from the vision of one man, Dominican priest Father Godfrey Nzamujo. Born in Nigeria, Father Nzamujo was educated at the University of California-Irvine and was a professor of engineering. In the mid-1980s, he saw a series of ads on TV to "help the starving children of Ethiopia." The ads struck him deeply and he continued to ask himself "What am I doing here? Why work in one of the world's best labs when children are starving?"
He returned to Africa, visited several countries and realized that Africa was created rich, but now was very poor because the wrong economic equation was written for Africa. An economy for Africa had to be based on its own realities--be they cultural, environmental, geographical.
He concluded that the only way to fight poverty is to transform the poor person into an active producer using local resources.
The Benin government gave him 2.5 acres in the Porto-Novo area of Benin in 1985. With six boys (some were former political prisoners) recommended by sisters and priests in the area, the work began.
The project grew and Father Nzamujo's vision grew. In Tokyo in 1993, at the United Nations' summit on African Development, he, with President Rawlings of Ghana, was awarded the U.N.'s Africa Prize for Leadership for the sustainable end of hunger.
Today, more than 3,600 young men and women have been educated at Songhai and it continues to provide education to more than 100 village groups.
The center also trains rural entrepreneurs and many developmental workers from government and nongovernmental organizations. At present, more than 100 young people are on the waiting list and many others would be happy to be on that list.
Today, the Songhai staff, which started with one individual, now numbers 450.
But there is still much work to be done, much poverty and illiteracy to combat. A small, but clear example of the need came to me as I visited the center's in-town location. In this location were a small shop, rooms for overnight visitors, a kitchen-dining area and an Internet station.
While information technology is growing at Songhai and while there is more hardware at the Songhai headquarters in Porto-Novo, at this station in Parakou was one--only one--outdated, but ever-so-precious computer. My own wastefulness and complacency hit me full-force. In this country, we take so much for granted--whether computers, for example, or even water.
So it is that I write--for Father Nzamujo, for Ambassador Bridgewater, for USAID, for the people of Benin, for the people of the world.
Whether diplomat or clergy, whether American or African, it is the energy and dedication of individuals that can transform lives. I am unable to fully share the scope, beauty and the promise of this project; therefore, I invite you to visit songhai.org on the Internet.
To make a contribution, contact Leonard Lepera, president of the California Songhai Support Group, at lenlep@aol.com or 949/852-0651.
As I conclude this story, I am sipping hibiscus tea with ginger concentrate. I am remembering the wonderful flavors of Benin. I am tasting Songhai.
GAYE ADEGBALOLA is a lifelong Fredericksburg resident and former Virginia Teacher of the Year. She is an award-winning blues musician who tours solo and with Saffire--the Uppity Blues Women.
