*Bio note is written by Phil Carls* I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mboumba, Senegal, from 1979-81. This was a remarkable experience, and a tremendous education, for a young Iowa boy fresh out of college.

Mboumba is a small Toucouleur village along the Senegal River. It lies roughly half-way between the towns of Podor, the driest point in Senegal, and Matam, consistently the hottest point. (According to a New York Times database, in 1979 Sheffield, Iowa, had 14 days that reached 90 degrees or more; Phoenix had 153; and Mboumba had 317.) There was no electricity or running water, though both have since arrived.

I lived as the “adopted son” of the chef du village, Mamadou Amadou Wan, and his kind wife, Fatimata Racine Wan. I was, for the next two years, Ibrahima (Abraham) Wan—the first wan Wan, as my friend wryly observed.

It was my good fortune, and a great honor, to be placed in a prominent family in a historic village. Several Wans had served as the Almamy (chief of state) of the Fuuta Toro, a theocratic state stretching along the river which functioned from the late 18th century to the late 19th century when France successfully exerted full colonial control.

I once saw a family tree that traced the Wan family to a 12th-century Egyptian cleric. The Wans may well have converted to Islam before my Scandinavian ancestors converted to Christianity.

Everyone in Mboumba was an observant Moslem. When the call to prayer sounded, people stopped what they were doing and prayed. While I doubt my Senegalese family and friends would have objected, I didn’t take a single image of a person praying. I wish I had; their communal expression of faith was moving.

The villagers wondered why I was there. “Alaa liggey” (no work), they would say. “Alaa kaliise” (no money). “Alaa ñaamde, alaa haydera” (no food, no nothing). The Fuuta, suffering from decades of drought/deforestation/desertification, was a region of out-migration. Most young men left to find gainful employment elsewhere—and sent money home to their families.

I was in Mboumba, along with 6 other Peace Corps Volunteers in villages scattered along the river, to initiate a fish farming project jointly sponsored by the Senegalese Department des Eaux et Forêts, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Peace Corps. According to my carte d’identité, my profession was a pisciculturiste (fish farmer). We were to work with our villages’ rice growing cooperatives to add an “ngessa liddi” (field of fish) to their existing rice fields.

That sounded good in theory but proved difficult in practice. When the river dried up, the proposed pond site had to be moved. When a promised SAED (Société d'Aménagement et d'Exploitation des Terres du Delta du Fleuve Sénégal) bulldozer failed to materialize, we were fortunate to secure a Travaux Publics road grader. When the pump broke, we had to wait for a part to arrive from France. When the pond was filled, fingerlings were unavailable. When the pond was stocked (after I left), there simply wasn’t a good quality, locally available food source for the fish. A few years later the project quietly folded. Intensive fish farming worked, but, at that time under those conditions, only on a subsidized basis.

We tried. It was definitely worth a try. (Of course those two years were a treasure trove of experience for me, personally, even though the project didn’t pan out.)

Before I left Iowa, I invested in a Pentax ME 35mm camera and 15 rolls of film. I mailed the film home to be developed, roll by roll, and never saw a single image until after I returned home. My goal was to document village life in Senegal, and to share my singular Peace Corps experience.

I rarely carried my camera, however, since its appearance always changed the dynamics. (I stuck out enough as it was.) As a result, most of the pictures are formally posed rather than candid—a farmer standing in his rice field looking at the camera, for instance, and not the farmer bent over with his hands in the mud transplanting seedlings.

I am grateful to the University of Iowa Library for scanning my old collection of Peace Corps slides. They’d been buried in a box for 40 years. Brought back to digital life, I can finally return them to Mboumba.

Thanks to several of my fellow volunteers for supplying forgotten names. Special thanks to Sidy Wan for helping out with all the slides from Mboumba. An elementary student in Mboumba during my first year, Sidy now lives in Vienna, Austria.

Finally, my profound gratitude to all the Mboumbanaabe for the patience and generosity you showed me throughout my stay. Mom Wan most of all. I really was young & inexperienced, and needed your care and guidance. You were right to be quizzical of me & skeptical of the development project I was promoting. I wish I could have done more/done better/stayed longer…. Thank you for allowing me to photograph you. I hope you enjoy these images. I’ll always carry them, and all of you, in my heart. Once an Mboumbanaajo, always an Mboumbanaajo. Mi yeewni onon fof.

Jaam tan. Peace only. –Phil Carls / Ibra Wane



Note re spelling & pronunciation

Since Senegalese names are spelled according to French rules, I’ve Americanized some spellings to retain the correct pronunciation. The Wan family, for instance, is spelled “Wane” in Senegal, but it’s pronounced “wan,” not “wane,” in English.

Some consonant blends in Pulaar are rarely found in English. My village, Mboumba, starts with a “m” sound, not an “em” sound. (Think how you would pronounce “embark” without the “e”.)