Just Keep Heading West: How to Start a Riot! - An Unusual African Business Seminar

Around the World on Hold ... for just a bit ...

It's been a busy time here in Senegal, we are kind of taking some time out of our trip around the world and doing humanitarian work and helping people. We have been active in this country for many years with our non-profit organization Andando.

Since we've been here, we have:

been to a school grand opening (one that we built!),
surveyed a new major property project,
did a whole bunch of plumbing,
held a meeting with local officials and signed an agreement,
taught a business seminar, SEE BELOW
brought on a new staff member,
bought 50 chairs,
performed a complicated water analysis certification,
house repairs at our base here (caulking, gardening, etc),
met with Peace Corps volunteers, and
outlined plans for the future.

I'm not necessarily trying to impress here (maybe a little) but the fact is, we've been busy and we're tired! This is getting to be like real work! And it's really hot here, like 100 degrees.

We have been on a wonderful world tour, which will resume soon!

It's Not Everyday You Get to Teach a Business Seminar in Africa

I wanted to focus a bit on the business seminar. We have developed a pretty successful gardening project involving 120 ladies that started from scratch, like bare dirt in the desert.

A huge step forward was installing solar pumps to supply essentially all the water they need. Since it is hot and sunny here most of the time, and the soil is reasonably fertile, all you need to do is add water and presto! you have a productive garden.

At the current time, they have made tremendous progress raising vegetables - to the point where there is actually a surplus and we are trying to help them take this to the next level and make it into a viable business and source of income.

So, based on my "familiarity" with business, I had the chance to teach a class to the ladies about marketing, sales, customers, and other new concepts.

One Two Three, Let's have a Riot!

Things started out slow, this is Africa after all. Nothing starts on time. But bit by bit, the ladies began to arrive.

Senegal women have a talent to look elegant and colorful even in the middle of difficult and remote rural conditions. Some of them live in huts, for goodness sake, and yet often wear rather dazzling outfits!

The best way to convey business ideas in these situations is to tell stories. So I talked about some "hypothetical" situations involving imaginary people, and gave them some illustrations. Of course I had to use an interpreter, our staff representative BouBou Sy.

As things went along, some of this stuff began to resonate with the ladies. In fact, after about an hour and a half, things really heated up!

They ladies got pretty excited and inspired. They began to shout. I turned to BouBou, "I think we're gonna have a riot here soon!"

He laughed and said, "HAHAHA, sometimes they do this!" They are enthusiastic, he said. Are they upset? "no, they are happy!"

One lady stood up and shouted, "this seminar is a WAKE UP CALL!" and all the ladies shouted more!

Some of the ladies began to dance! Whoa! ... this is a different kind of business seminar! They were super excited when I talked about organic gardening ... they call it "bio", and they said "we have the best bio anywhere!" Everybody was clapping!
Then they started shouting some more and waving their fingers at each other. I began to lose control of my presentation ... and became a spectator. It got pretty loud.

I would like to think they learned something and got caught up in the possibilities of what could happen if they really got organized and marketed their vegetables effectively ... yeah, blah blah, they wanted to cut loose and have a glorius time with this business stuff!

Things were so out of control that we couldn't end the meeting! I thought they were gonna start throwing chairs! It was wild! A couple ladies almost became hysterical! These photos don't really give the full picture of how intense it was!