The Life of a Hippie Geographer

This blog is intended to document my life after graduation. It will be a way of letting my friends and family know what is going on with my life and in particular that I am still alive. All posts on my blog are my opinions, thoughts, and so forth. They in no way represent anyones elses values, views, etc. Disclaimer I feel that I am a terrible writer so I apologize in advance for any grammatical or spelling errors. Enjoy! Follow me on other social networks: Twitter: @19D90 Facebook: Daniella Santana Instagram: dsantana19 G+ : Daniella Cazares Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/livefortheinfinitemomentsinlife

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Probably The Best Scene From The West Wing

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Photos by Janet Currey - Via RSPB North West England

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The Mercator projection vs the true size of each country.

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i love speaking with people who are more intelligent in a certain field than i am, like it’s just great to sit back and listen to somebody educate you on shit they’re passionate about

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An Open Letter From 2,600 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Regarding The Future Of Our Country

We embrace our differences as strengths rather than weaknesses and urge our government and fellow citizens to join us in creating a robust, prosperous, d...

PEACE CORPS VALUES FOR LIFE!!!!

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A letter from my work partner full of hope.

Hi DANI I hope you got the pictures I sent you;          Before you left the Togo I told you that our association wants to organize a Camp that we are preparing to receive volunteers or trainees coming from other countries. Then as planned, this year we organized a camp location that will take place in the month of August in Kame a village of NOTSE for 21 DAYS in the area ENVIRONMENT FOOD SECURITY \ EQUITY TYPE. In this village there was a volunteer who had left the same year with you in 2015, after her departure Lauren the volunteer who was in KABOLI told me to continue working with the young leaders of Camp Eco Action. I have worked a lot with young people in Kame and they are very motivated that is why we chose to organize our Camp in this village. This camp is open to everyone. We would like to receive Western volunteers who want to exchange or put into practice their knowledge or to spend the holidays in Africa, this camp will also be an opportunity for them to know Africa because we also plan to visit some tourist sites around the camp. . We are in the process of collaberating camp regulations, activities, programs, conditions of participation, contracts so please inform your friends or family and give my Email or facebook to those who will be interested in this opportunity. They can contact me for more information.

Daniella with the years of experience I have gained with the Peace Corps by attending camp, training, conferences and especially with you I assure you that this camp will be 100% success. With this camp I want to show the participants and the volunteers who will come from California or other states that DANIELLA really planted a tree in Africa that has fruited. Daniella you helped me a lot and I will do anything to honor your name, our association thinks of creating one day a large agropastoral farm that will bear the name Daniella Cazares, again thank you and do not forget to spread the word of our work.

Photo: Me and two of my work partners the one in the matching shirt is Winner who wrote this letter.

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Jan 20,2017 and beyond

What will get this educated hippie through this presidential term?

- Faith in the governments systems of checks and balances.

- Faith in local and state government officials.

- Faith in humanity, “the people united will never be divided.”

- Lastly the arts, there will epic creations that I truly look forward to especially music and comedy.

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Every time I listen to this song it gets me right in the feels. Tigres del Norte are such an iconic band to all Mexicans. For the most I am not a huge fan of mexi type music but dang you can’t mess with the classics like the Tigers of the North ;). 

I know the difference between all types of immigration. I understand the views behind all facets of the whole “illegal vs legal” immigration. I know I have somewhat mentioned this stuff before in a different post and I still am now more patriotic after my Peace Corps service than before, including present circumstances (trusting that the whole system of checks and balances works to protect most terrible things from happening).

What I don’t understand is how people just forget history ( i’m talking about mostly you Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).I am torn here, I mean as an American (2nd generation and proud, shout out to my grandma who is a naturalized citizen) i’m like cool my country grew because of this but at the cost of disenfranchising the majority of the Mexican-American population within one generation. Then as a decedent from a fucking legit family (shout out to the Santana-Gomez’s and Garcia-Lopez’s). That I know of; my family hails from the great state of Jalisco, however I have no idea if they have always been from there or had moved from the former Alta California or come from somewhere completely different (as a geographer maybe I should get my genome sequenced so I know for sure). I digress, it is because of treaties like these and newer immigration agreements that were never really executed in a good way that I cannot fathom the racism from all sides that occur. There has to be something that works for both sides and really think about why people immigrate here in the first place (I am not talking about you “the southern border wall,” we all know how a certain Northern Wall will most likely fail real soon to protect a certain realm from the white walkers). I hope this can happen in my generation peacefully. In my fantasy world there wouldn’t be borders because natural resources would be protected and plentiful for all areas of the earth and there certainly wouldn’t be this whole issue of “race.”

I will always love this song and share it when I can because we can’t forget about history and the disenfranchisement of people because of failed policy. 

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Transitioning from Peace Corps to the “Real World”

I would call my Peace Corps service a success. I did my job and I improved my own quality of life as well as those around me. There were many ups and downs but they were all great learning experiences. It has been just about 7 months since I have been buck in ‘Murica. What I have noticed about myself is that my humor and outlook on life is extremely darker than it used to be (pre- Peace Corps service) but on the other hand I choose to see the positives and give people a lot more chanceS than I would have before serving in the Peace Corps. There are not many days that go by that I don’t think about the different people that I met in Togo and what their lives mean to me. It seems as though every day that I am reminded on how fortunate I am, to have had this experience and to see all of the different connections that I still have with Togo,

I questioned many times if I was having any sort of impact just about every day that I was in Togo. Now while trying to push through Grad School I use every opportunity that I have in the least annoying and least condescending tone to share my experience and what I have learned as being an EAFS Togo volunteer. Right now at this very moment for the first time ever I have a pretty good idea of what kind of career I want to pursue along with what kind of life I want to live. I am currently a teachers associate (T.A.) at Cal State East Bay which gives me the opportunity to teach and witness first hand what the younger constituents of the millennial generation have to offer. Every day I meet with them I feel as though as I learn something new and every class I meet as though I am so much older than these “kids,” but in reality there is only about a 6 year age gap. Then again my opinion is that Peace Corps ages  you quicker in a very small amount of time because you are able to experience so much more in just two short years than any other person not taking the opportunity to serve their country or witness firsthand the real struggles of the developing world.

This awesome experience has helped me get through these first 2 quarters as well as landing me a great internship with the Water Resource Initiative Program through the Department of Agriculture (its purpose is to attract more underrepresented students specifically Hispanics in the California State University System to pursue a career with the Department of Agriculture). I had the privilege of writing out a grant with one of my awesome mentors/ Professor Dr. Michael Lee and the help of Kimra the executive director of Friends of Sausal Creek to receive this internship. My internship title will be the Lower Sausal Creek Watershed Intern. Some of my responsibilities will include integrating the dominant Hispanic community to participate in a community based urban watershed management project. This position will allow me to continue my education in water resources, educating a community on the importance of the environment and help to combat environmental injustices. Which is the whole rational behind being an educated hippie.

P7�f

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Definition of #thatoneguy explained by a millennial:

That one guy: a “man” (can be easily interchanged with #thatonelady depending on the situation) that has done you, your family, or a friend dirty (or all of the above).

That one guy: an unreliable, deceitful, person who all of a sudden maneuvers themselves to become part of your life just because you share DNA.

In my short lifespan (almost 26 years of age); I have grown, experienced things, and learned from my family and my own pretty awesome knowledge that a conventional family is not always necessary to be a pretty amazing human being. My family knows and most of my friends know, that in the most cynical of ways been “fortunate” enough to have two instances of #thatoneguy occurred in my life. So there is a #thatoneguy and a #thatOTHERoneguy that happen to exist. Not by any choosing of my own but by BIOLOGY. Sure you theoretically can’t choose your family because of DNA but that really just depends on how you define the term family. It is no different than arguing between what your gender, ethnicity, or nationality is, because the way I see it those are all just social constructs. Gender (social) and sex (biological) are two very different things. Ethnicity is where your people originate from, but let’s get real, science proves that we all originated from Africa and over time EVOLUTION has created the different attributes in Homo sapiens.  Nationality is something that really just gives you different opportunities through citizenship and lets you have pride in the nation you “identify” with.

Sure many times I have seen the struggles that lets say the “victim(s) (for lack of a better word)” of the shady dealings inflicted upon by #that(other)oneguy.  I have learned reflecting back on real life experiences and narratives by people who knew them better than myself because they themselves have chosen to not be part of our lives. For the majority of my life  99.9% of the time I was better off without #that(other)oneguy. Just to give you an example one #thatoneguy asked other members of the family why is that his “grandchildren” had not made him a great grandfather. Here is my response, currently my view stems from my education, science, and statistics; why would I biologically have children when there are so many orphans out in the world. Secondly, there is no way in this or any earlier point in my life that I would even have the time or resources to devote to a small human, I mean come on we live in the 21st Century where there is more to life than just procreating at such a “young” age. Thirdly, if I ever had a child they most certainly would not be anything of yours. Not having #that(other)oneguy in my life allowed me to have closer relationships with my mom and my gma. I had awesome uncles and other male figures that I looked up to as father/grandfather figures. I have had much more opportunities in my life than I would have had with them in my life. Also my values greatly differ from others because I have had the opportunity to have amazing role models like my grandma, mom, and uncles (just to name a few Tio Mono, Chuy, Elias and Vilo), which I would attribute to the reason I am so awesome ;) .Now going into my 26th year of life the only things that I hold against #that(other)oneguy are two things: the fact that these “men” had negative affects at one point in the lives of the people that have always been there for me and the fact that I have family that I have never met.

I dedicate this to all those conflicted with this situation in any way. Biology does not have to determine your life, DNA does not make you a parent or grandparent; it is pure actions (for example, knowing names or ages of your “offspring” would be the first basic step). I would just like to add that technology and circumstance is not an excuse to have ever been absent. Before there was Facebook there was email, before that cell phones and phones, and before that there was the now rare art form of writing a letter. In conclusion #that(other)oneguy for whatever reason has chosen to be absent for most of my life and the rest of his “families” life which is his own prerogative but when this person does such things as obfuscating from facts, that really really GRINDS MY GEARS which is the reason behind this rant.

V�ؠ45�]HG

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better late than never

WAFSP= West Africa Food Security Partnership

Just a warning I wrote this for a success story submission to the program so sorry that is written in third person I was too lazy to change it.

“Think global, act local.”

Winner Adanou is a motivated community member whom is a leader of an association that benefits majority girls from the age of 13 to 18 who are endangered of being trafficked or put into a forced marriage. His association is funded by a NGO to provide resources for these individuals. The major resources are providing them with a tailoring apprenticeship and a mixed curriculum of French and life skills. These youth have not been given the opportunity to take part of the education system so these resources help them to improve their status and education level in their village. If not provided with these resources their socio-economic status would not provide them with adequate food security.

The animal husbandry project provided the youth of the association along with other community members the skills to improve and modernize the conditions of animal husbandry. Other skills acquired were implementation of income generating activities and composting to improve agriculture. The project included providing 200 chicks and 5 piglets, construction of a modernized chicken coop, a hybridization of a traditional and modern pig pen, and multiple information sessions in teaching the skills needed to have a successful project. The animals are cared for by 30 of the 42 participants that have been taught in WAFSP related skills. The 30 participants include 4 young men, 23 young ladies, and their 3 instructors who directly benefit from the chickens and pigs. The project will be sustained by the selling of eggs, surplus of animals, and using the waste to fertilize crops specifically planted to provide the animals with feed.

 The chickens, pigs, and eggs will also provide much needed protein to participant’s nutrition. Participants are advised by Winner and volunteer Daniella Cazares in how to inform other community members. After the first information session 6 participants with the help of Winner were able to lead their own information sessions to disperse information learned. Winner also lead his own formation in the city of Lomé showing that these kind of projects can be reciprocated in small villages or in large cities.  The information sessions lead by participants encouraged outside donations of resources as well as raising awareness to the association and the importance of improved animal husbandry. There have been donations of chickens by the NGO that funds the association and there have been media sources to share what the association, Winner, and Daniella have worked with the WAFSP project.  In the village where the project was implemented community development committee have already agreed to allocate land or other resources to expand the project in the future. Winner and Daniella started the project to help the youth of the association but are working hard to keep the project sustainable and at the same time developing it to meet the needs of more. Thinking globally would be to one day completely alleviate the problem of forced marriage and trafficking by acting first in one village with one group of people and building from there.

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Spot ON...words cannot describe how amazing this speech is.

Being here in Togo where I see the major inequalities makes it rough but knowing that in my own home country women still have so many struggles really pushes me more towards doing things I can do to help. Feminism all the way, which is why I have basically gone rogue and have been more focused on gender equality projects.

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CAMPS!!!

Camp Eco-Action was all about what kind of work I am supposed to be doing here in Togo, which is ecological preservation and conservation. It was a camp of about 40 young girls that lasted about a week. We had many different sessions on how they can basically “save” the environment around them. 

There were sessions like what is the environment, ecosystems, food webs, eating local, food security, reforestation, composting, food transformation, etc …ones that I lead were human impact on the environment, health of animals for improved animal husbandry, and moringa/nutrition. Most sessions also included activities so they would be more interactive and less like their school system. Our goal was to educate them in the different issues theoretically and in technique, so we had fun making a compost pile, transplanting some trees and showing them that how easy it is to eat local (example instead of buying rice that is imported just buy the locally grown rice).

Camp U.N.I.T.E. was all about Life Skills and how to live a healthy life. This camp was a two week long camp with one week being for the young ladies and the other being for the young men (about 50 each week).This was a truly aww inspiring camp to be a part of.  For the first time ever in the year that I had been here in Togo I saw a little bit of what could be Togo’s future.

 I regained hope after some of the disappointments I have encountered in my village. These were some of the smartest girls I have met here in Togo and very motivated to change not only their lives but those in their communities as well. There were a variety of informative sessions ranging from reproductive health, nutrition, citizenship, preventative measures against malaria and aids, how to be a young leader, etc.  Along with all the learning there was also a lot of singing and dancing, including a talent show that featured traditional dances and songs that was pretty amazing. The participants also had the chance to have a mini taste of what they can to do in their villages on how to inform their communities of what they learned.

I would like to give a brief shout out to all the Togolese organizers, fantastic Peace Corps volunteer organizers, Peace Corps volunteers, ngos, foundations, and donors that participated, contributed, and dedicated their time to make these camps work out amazingly. I am glad I was able to take part in both of these camps and see that there is hope for the future generations of Togo and to see motivated youth out their striving to make a difference in their lives and lives around them. Side note: my grant was approved and the money came in for my animal husbandry project so it is all coming together!

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It’s been a while…

What I have been up to lately. I have been working on a lot of things mostly out of my village because well different reasons that I do not really want to discuss at this moment. Needless to say I am still holding strong my village and just focusing on small projects like tree nurseries.

Projects outside of village: I am truly grateful to be posted up in the Savannes region because it seems to be we have it going on when it comes to regional projects. 

**After our bee keeping training we had a master farmers conference that was jammed pack with information about how farmers can improve their living by changing or bettering just a few things. This conference was organized with three awesome PCVs( Winter, Malcolm, and Chelsea) that invited host country nationals to demonstrate what it is to be a master farmer, if you do not know what a master farmer is just Google it because I am too lazy to write about it. The training was created to educate Peace Corps volunteers and their counterparts about different farming techniques and how to formulate and implement and action plan.

**Next, came and interesting training for Malaria prevention held by the Malaria Action committee that included all health volunteers and any other volunteers from the other two sectors that were interested. I must say it was pretty informative for me and I had no idea about some of the concepts that were presented. On the other hand it was not very informative for the health volunteers because they had already gone through this kind of training through our first two months of training. However we all learned about the upcoming malaria prevention campaign which will hopefully have a better success rate than the last one. The campaign is mostly the government handing out free bed nets to every household. Besides bureaucratic problems one of the hardest things here in Togo is convincing people to actually sleep under their bed nets instead of using them for things like fencing, sheets, cutting them up for materials, using them to make tofu (these are just some of the few problems that exist). The common mentality about malaria that it isn’t that big of a deal and that they can just become immune to it. With this mentality I do not see malaria being eradicated here so with this campaign and this training I attended I hope I could make some sort of change.

**My main project that I have been working on as a solo volunteer is my animal husbandry project with the youth center in the neighboring village. Things that I have done for that; held a training just to give the basics of improved animal raising, screened the film Food Inc. to show how badly we in the United States have, excuse my French FUCKED SHIT UP, so that here in Togo we could avoid those kind of problems, and lastly planned out the big funded project that I will be doing together with this youth center. At this moment I have finished writing and editing my grant all that is left is to wait for the money before starting our real work. My hopes for this project is to provide the youth center with an information center for improved animal raising and in turn they can take this information and teach their community with the resources that the grant will provide. I also hope that this will be a successful income generating activity for these youth as well as providing them with a good source of protein but overall just improving their lives in any way.

**Back to outside projects; FARN bike tour. FARN is an acronym in French that stand for rehabilitating moderately malnourished children through the training of selected community members that have the qualities of a mentor to promote the techniques that are used with the FARN program. The program is a 12 day program which consists of providing a liter of a nutritious porridge supplement along with regular feeding of the child, as well as teaching hygiene, food security, and other health issues. The FARN bike tour took place in three villages of fellow PCVs. Some PCVs that were involved with the project biked to the perspective villages to lead the trainings the consisted of two days of information. We also had a few counterparts that helped us out with the trainings and translating to local languages when needed. Biking was awesome but not so much when it came to having a one gear local shitty bike, but I powered through and did not quit at one point I biked on a flat tire making the hills that much tougher. Thankfully my fellow PCVs continued to encourage me. It was a very beautiful and rewarding bike ride.

**Last training for now was a market place training. The training was setup for mostly host country counter parts to inform producers how to transform and market their products more effectively. I and a fellow PCV took part in it so that we could see what the market is all about here and use the information to distribute to the different groups we work with. I brought along my counterpart that I am doing the animal husbandry project with so that we can have a better idea on how to effectively make a profit. This training has been exceptionally informative and has provided many successful examples of entrepreneurs and their products. I’m happy that I chose to take part of this training and hope that my counterpart and I can take full advantage of it and apply it to our project.

**I would like to give credit to myself because it is rewarding and self-gratifying (J) there were two projects that I had a very small role in. One was a world map project that a fellow PCV (winter) lead at her village. She funded the project and asked the help of fellow PCVs to help out with the drawing and the painting of the map at her local elementary school.  It turned out pretty awesome if I must say and now provides a map of the world to all those students. The second project that I played a small roll (literally just played a bit of soccer and helped out with transitions) was the more than a game project that 4 PCVs organized to combine the beautiful game with malaria prevention training through the grassrootz soccer program.

I guess for now that is all for now. Coming up is camp season I will be part of two camps (camp counselor) CAMP UNITE and CAMP ECO_ACTION. I will write about those later since once again I have basically written a novel.

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true story brah

#peacecorpsproblems

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“Race”, ethnicity, nationality… RANT!

The following is a rant that I feel is necessary especially since at this point in my life I am finally realizing my true identity and see the world as it truly is. Yes, this may sound super cliché but recent circumstances and conversations I feel that it is a good time to discuss this issue. This goes out to my young blood of a brother Thomas and all of our haters.

First let’s talk about what race, ethnicity and nationality are. Firstly if you look up the definition of race the first thing you will find that it is a verb it is not an adjective. In this situation I am talking about the social construct of race. Race isn’t the color of your skin it is a category and only one category. We all belong to one race or a better term species which is the Homo sapiens in layman’s terms we all belong to the human race. Ethnicity on the other hand is based on your ancestral roots that incudes your culture and common traits you share with your descendants. Nationality is simple it is belonging to one nation whether it means you were born in a country or you have become a naturalized citizen that accepts everything that is amazing about their country. Now I will continue on with my rant.

Growing up in a small rural town where the population is made up of mostly “white” had certainly white washed me (only choosing to speak English for most of the time even to relatives that don’t speak it but do understand it).  I knew that there was an outside world with more culture and diversity than my home town. One reason I chose to go away to school in Long Beach is because my Alma mater is known for its diversity out of all the Cal States it has the most diverse student population.  This would be my first time out in the real world where I would be surrounded by all kinds of ethnicities and cultures. This would be my first solo experience outside the little bubble I grew up in. My education and social activities showed me that there is much more than color of your skin. My family always emerged me in our Mexican culture but living in Long Beach helped me to experience it in my own way and to see how the kids from my ethnicity and similar one grew up in much more diverse towns and cities. Oh you went to a high school with thousands where “white” people were the minority and not to one where you were one of like the 7 of 60 in your class that wouldn’t be categorized as “white.”

My second hand experience brings me up to my most current point of my life. Firstly, it was not until I arrived in Togo is that I ever felt that I was white.  Here in Africa well at least in Togo is that there are only two different types of people le noir (blacks) or la blanche (white, everyone who happens not to have black skin). This would lump me into the white people category. This might seem sad but it is entirely true for me, I feel more like myself here in a foreign country and more “American” than any other time of my life. Not even in my own country of birth (the United FUCKING States of America) did I feel comfortable and acceptable of my heritage and tragically I must say skin color. Let me paraphrase my brother Luis, “You had to go all the way to Africa to finally realize you were Mexican.” Well yes, yes, I did. It is not until this moment in my life that I see what greatness comes from my country of birth and from my ethnic background. I am one of the lucky ones to belong to such an amazing culture which is the MEXICAN fucking American culture.

The following part is mostly for the haters which include the ignorant people, who also happen to be racists. Let me start with a scientific history lesson along with a bit of a geography lesson. Homo sapiens have evolved over a period of time from wait for it the continent of Africa. Also this may surprise you but the world is more than 4 billion years old in which Homo sapiens have not occupied that much time of its existence. People immigrated out of Africa to the continents of Europe and Asia where they settled and continued to develop civilizations. There were also a branch of people that eventually made their way to the Americas (North, Middle, and South). In this is the part in history where most of my Ancestors made it over to the “New World”. So here is where I talk to you haters directly, to the people who say they are more American than me because they have white skin or because they only speak English. Sorry not sorry, but the fact is that I am along with my family am more American than you are. History, politics, and wars have lead you to believe that you are more American than I am. No, my friend you are not, my ancestors actually arrived to the Americas first while yours hung out in Europe for a good while. They then didn’t make their way over to the New World until 1642 when even then they were still strangers and foreigners to the Americas. One last thing you may believe that you are superior to me because of the color of your skin or sadly your lack of culture but at least I can claim an ethnicity while you on the other hand claim a color which has no meaning outside of your small mindedness.  White is just a social contrast that has been played up for far too long and which is a sad situation. I hate that there is still racism and ignorance in the world. I especially hate that even in the United States where many claim it to be the best country in the world, the “land of opportunity,” and where many sacrifices have been made to try to reach the “American Dream.”  With that said I am proud to have been born in the United States and to be ethnically Mexican.

Also check out this awesome video while you are at it

http://www.upworthy.com/a-comedian-goes-on-late-night-tv-and-blows-up-our-idea-of-what-race-means?g=2&c=reccon1

muzetauno

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People let me tell you about my best friend

In my experience and observations it is sometimes hard to have a real friendship with a host country national. There are times when I think is this person trying to be me friend because I am “white” and will improve their social status, do they want money, or is there some other underline reason that they want to hang out with me. Don’t get me wrong there are also many genuine people that actually want to get to know me and help me in any way possible. During our training which seems like it just happened yesterday our trainers informed us of how we would find the most random friendships in our villages. This fact is very true with me. My best friend in village happens to be (I think) a 4 year old possibly 5 named Veronique. She is my host sister and my best friend. I will now let you in on a list of why she is my best friend.

She is hilarious.

We cannot understand each other at all, she speaks only local language since she hasn’t started school yet to learn French and I suck at French as it is.

She agrees with me about food choice.

She runs her family. For example at the beginning of the school year she decided she would not be going to kindergarten so that’s the way it went.

She enjoys a morning calabash…culturally acceptable to drink the local alcohol in the morning at any age. (just a day ago we went to a tchukpah [local alcohol] stand together)

We often battle each other with small fallen branches

She punks on her older siblings.

She reminds me of my favorite little punk cousins Oli, Erk, and Cadence

She always for the most part has a smile on her face and never gives me attitude.

Most of all she proclaimed me as her FRIEND from the very beginning and has never asked me for anything.