Flying Solo

As I mentioned in a previous post, the SED PCVs in the Kaolack region do a business-related radio show every first Monday of the month. Usually, Lindsay and Daniel, who are both in their second year of service, handle the programming. However, when the January show rolled around, they were both unavailable, which meant either the show wouldn’t get done or some first years would have to take charge. So Kenny, Mollie (two other PCVs from my stage) and I decided to put our awesome language skills to the test and give flying solo a try.

The show was January 4, so once we all got back to Kaolack from New Year’s we got started on preparing for the show. First, Kenny took a section from one of our training manuals, specifically related to finding a business idea, and turned it into a script. Then the three of us got together and worked on perfecting the script and translating it into French for the show.

So what does teaching a Senegalese person how to find a business idea entail? Well, things like this may seem intuitive to most of you, but here, one can never assume. We started with Kenny (who was the program host) and myself (the “business expert”) discussing some basic principles, such as what to do before opening a business, steps to follow, etc. Then, Mollie joined the mix, playing a Senegalese woman wishing to open a business and seeking my advice on how to go about finding a good idea. Through the role-play we demonstrated that first you need to look at what already exists in your area and what there might be a need for. Then compare these observations with your own personal skills and…voila! You are on your way to a solid business idea. Again, I know this sounds incredibly basic, but you’d be shocked by the number of women you find sitting in a one block radius selling the EXACT same thing everyday. So, with all of this in mind, we headed over to the radio station in Kaolack and gave it our best shot…

Verdict: moderate success. For our first time on our own, it went reasonably smoothly and I think we covered an important concept. With radio, its hard to know if anyone even tuned in, let alone took anything away from what you said. Still, I think we gave it a solid a try. So, why call it a “moderate” successs? Well, the show didn’t exactly go off without a hitch… funny moments:

1) We show up, feeling a bit nervous, but determined and sit down in the booth to wait for the show before ours to finish. We were patiently waiting, when the guy running the board tells us he’s going to play one more song and then he’ll play “the music.” “The music” is what he puts on every time immediately before the Peace Corps show. Apparently, as soon as this music is played, all the listeners know that the Americans are up next! So what is the “alert-the-world-the-Americans-are-next” music? Why, Michael Jackson, of course! Awesome!

2) Let me preface this next moment by saying that pretty much everyone in our region is obsessed with the show Glee. I mean, how could you not be? It is SO GREAT! Well, I had brought my iPod along to play some music during breaks in our radio show. Obviously, said iPod has both Glee soundtracks on it. So, with the full support of Mollie and Kenny, we decided to use our musical breaks to introduce Senegal to a magical mix of all things Glee. Amazing idea, right? Right! What wasn’t so brilliant of me though was when “Bust a Move” was playing and, in trying to queue up the next song, I accidentally started it over when the song was already about a minute in. Whoops. Clearly, I was not meant for a career as a DJ…

3) Another stellar moment in our show? The first part of the show went reasonably well minus the music snafoo. But, when it was time for Mollie to come in playing the Senegalese entrepreneur seeking advice, things went a bit down hill. We came back from a music break and Kenny and I made a few quick comments before he introduced Mollie. Well, Mollie got a couple of words into her first line and started to giggle. Which of course led me to start giggling and then Kenny too. So there we were, in the midst of claiming to be serious business people and we all end up dissolving into laughter in the middle of our show. Amateur hour for sure.

4) And the final funny/awesome moment…just our super cool music playlist. As I already mentioned, we featured numerous selections from Glee, received with varying degrees of love from the two Senegalese women running the board for our show. And to round out our educational show on both business and awesome music, we ended with a couple of all-time greats. First, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. And finally, it was only appropriate (especially in light of funny moment #1) to end with a little “Thriller” by the late, great Michael Jackson. Which was made all the more awesome by the fact that our time ended immediately following one of the creepy voiceovers in the song. Senegal, your welcome.

So…now you probably see why we categorized the effort as a “moderate success.” But we had a good time and hopefully a few people were listening. Maybe they even took something away from our “lesson.”