A Week In My World - Day 8

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Ok, so I know technically a week ends with Day 7 but I figured I might as well wrap up the week-long journal with my last day in San.

This morning was the main reason for why the 3 of us had come into San at the same time – Saturday morning brunch! We figured with most people out of town it was a great time to get together and make a fabulous brunch. And fabulous it was. Chrissy made homemade Challah (unbelievably delicious Jewish bread) and made that into French Toast. Henry made homemade banana bread. And I made strawberry-banana smoothies and provided the syrup, courtesy of my dad. (Sadly no strawberries in Mali but we do have strawberry-flavored yogurt).

Oh. My. God. The Challah recipe makes 2 loaves and we were debating whether or not to make both loaves into French Toast. We decided to do just one at first, which made 3 slices for each of us, a task we figured would be effortless. False. After 2 pieces each, plus our banana bread and smoothies, we all immediately fell into a food coma and couldn’t move. We couldn’t even finish our last pieces! I literally dragged a mattress into the living room and collapsed on it and didn’t move. So. Good!

Challah french toast and Ameriki syrup. 

Unfortunately for him, Henry had to go back to site and needed to catch a noon bus. Sucker. His food coma was cut tragically short so he could get to the bus station on time. And unfortunately for me, I had too many errands to finish up to be a vegetable for very long. My errands were cut short when I went to the bank and the ATM wasn’t working (again) and my fabric shopping was eliminated. I did have to trek out to the market to buy food for village, and I was NOT happy about it. I hadn’t slept much the night before (catching up on Grey’s Anatomy) so I was tired, full, and it was well over 100°. Whine.

Luckily I didn’t have too much money to spend, and market was oddly dead, so I was in and out pretty quickly. The Veggie Lady for garlic, and green peppers: check! Random ladies for cabbage, dried fish (for Moose), peanut butter, cucumber, and beets: check! Potato Lady for potatoes: check! The Potato Lady is quite a character. I know many of the San PCVs don’t really like her because she’s a little too aggressive in her sales. But for some reason she really likes me, so I always go back to her. And because I always go back to her, she occasionally gives me gifts. Today I asked for 2 kilos of potatoes and she gave me an extra kilo for free! Good thing Moose likes potatoes a lot, because we have quite the collection now. I stopped off to say goodbye to Baco and Abu and tell them I was heading back to village, and then home again to finish up packing. Chrissy and I had talked about making Challah grilled cheese for lunch, but we were both still so full that we couldn’t even think about eating!

The carpenter told me to come at 4 to pick up my bookshelves. I was a little worried that 4pm would be pushing getting home on a bashé a little too much – the bashés run at least till sundown, but I needed to make sure I got home before the sun set and I also wasn’t sure if I’d have trouble getting Moose on again. And I often sit at the bashé station for several hours before one is ready to leave. But I really wanted those shelves! So Chrissy and I left with all of my stuff and were at the carpenter’s a few minutes after 4. The shelves looked great, except I quickly noticed that all three were evenly spaced. I had specifically written down and described that I wanted a taller bottom shelf for binders and manuals – taller books – and this was not what I wanted. I explained my concerns, which the carpenter understood perfectly because he remembered exactly the measurements I’d given him – he just hadn’t done it. Why, I don’t know. He said if we waited 30 minutes he would fix it. Again, I was worried about the time, but I really wanted those shelves! So we waited.

The carpenter has a great little apprentice named Bura, maybe 12 years old, so we talked with him a bit. It took awhile, but by 5:00 the shelves were done, and they were perfect! The carpenter even paid for a man to take the shelves to the bashé station in a push cart. Totally worth it. Even better, because a bashé was just getting ready to leave when we got there. And there were no complaints that I had 2 bags, a dog, and a big set of bookshelves, still wet with stain. I do know many of the men who work at the station, so maybe that’s why they were so much more easy going this time, I don’t know. But I was thankful for it! The bashé was full but not overcrowded, and Moose, perfect dog that he is, was so good the whole 40-minute ride home. He sat on my lap and shifted positions many times but never barked, never bothered anybody else, never peed on my lap (just more drool). He’s such a good dog! And of course, everyone gets a kick out of the white girl holding the conspicuously clean dog and doing weird things like talking to it and kissing its head. Man, white people are weird.

The bashé dropped me off in my village and Alima’s brother Yaya was waiting for me. He took my shoulder bag (pretty heavy for such a little kid!), I took my backpack, purse, and lifted the shelves on top of my head, and we let Moose run free beside us. The shelves were surprisingly light but unfortunately my backpack – stuffed full with my computer, potatoes, and vegetables – was not. I had to have both hands on the shelves to steady them, which meant the backpack pulled painfully at my shoulders. I had to stop by the well to rest for a minute, and by the time we passed the butiki I was done. I left the shelves in the middle of the road and continued on home to drop off my other bags. Yaya, my brother Sinali, and I went back for the shelves and carried them home together, and they are now sitting proudly in the corner of my kitchen – I’m so excited to fill them up with all of my books!!

The rest of the day passed quickly. There wasn’t much daylight left, so I sent Sinali on my bike to the pump for well and stopped over the greet my host family. And of course to play with Batoma and Terimuso for a little bit! Two of my 10 eggs had broken on the ride home, so I scrambled those for Moose’s dinner and ate the pb&j Challah sandwich I’d made for myself before leaving San. Exhausted, I dragged a mat outside and laid down on it, the kids crowding around me. I dozed off several times amidst their talking, giggling, and playing. Not to mention stroking my hair and pulling my toes. Sinali balled up his shirt to make me a pillow. Eventually I woke up when the kid next to me, who had also fallen asleep, shifted and smacked me in the face with his arm. Time to go! Time for bed. :D

My attempt to sleep was interrupted by the donkeys. All at once, every donkey in the neighborhood, on all sides of my house, started doing the crazy donkey seizure-bray, all at the same time. It was as if Donkey Armaggedon was happening. I was dɔɔni (a little) worried that the Donkeys were taking over my village.

And that, my loyal readers, is a week (+ a day) in My Life!

A few weeks later after painting my bookshelves and getting a curtain made:

A Week in My World - Day 7

Friday, February 17, 2012

I woke up early this morning, ready to get the show on the road! But of course, as always, I overestimated my abilities to get ready quickly. By the time I made breakfast for me and Moose, washed dishes from the farani extravaganza, and packed, I was about an hour and a half behind schedule. Luckily I live in Mali and I don’t really have a schedule, and luckily I’m used to my own lateness and don’t really worry about it anymore. My only concern was that I had a bunch of errands to get done in San, and since today is Friday – prayer day – I knew much of the city would shut down after lunch. So I did need to get a move on.

I picked up Alima at her house to wait at the road with me and we took Moose and my bags to sit and wait for a bashé . There’s no bashé schedule, so basically you just have to sit around and wait until a car comes. It can be frustrating at times. This time we hadn’t waited too long when a bashé came -- but the driver took one look at Moose and said we couldn’t go; they were too full. I protested that Moose could sit on my lap; he said Moose could ride on the top. I refused, sure he was joking. Apparently he wasn’t. But no way my baby was going up there! When I texted Chrissy about it she was indignant on my behalf: “Tell them they let chickens and sheep on, how are they not going to accept a dog? How do you say discrimination in Bambara?”

So we sat and waited. And waited. Three more vehicles passed us, none of them public transport, and none willing to stop for me. The wind started to pick up and then got worse and worse till the air was full of dust and it was hard to breathe. Alima had to go home to make toh for her family, but Djeneba came and sat with me, along with the fluid crowd that I attract, who come and go after finding out what I’m doing and where I’m going. Finally, a little after an hour of waiting, when I was really starting to worry, another bashé came, and this one only had 3 other people in it – that never happens! They charged me extra for Moose but that was no problem; I’d expected it now that he’s bigger.

We had an easy ride to San; Moose behaved himself very well and only drooled on my leg a lot. We did stop at the last village before San – it’s the turnoff to take the road up north, and 2 of our passengers were getting off there. Unfortunately, I’m apparently developing a bad habit of not recognizing the bashé money collectors (who ride in the bashé with us) and instead end up thinking that they’re kids begging for money, so then I yell at them. (That makes me sound like a terrible person – I’m not, it’s a complicated corrupt “Koranic” teaching system that I can’t explain now, but it totally exploits kids and they’re also super annoying so if you tell them no and they keep bugging you it’s normal to give them crap). Anyway, the money collector was apparently not pleased with my mistake, because I gave him too much money (I didn’t have the correct change on me) and when we got to San he wouldn’t give me the correct amount of change. I didn’t feel like fighting it too hard so I gave up and left – I had lots to do!

I took Moose to the house where he promptly barked his tail off at our guard (Moose is very wary of adult Malian men) and then ran inside where Henry was sitting on the couch, and he was so excited to see Henry (whom he’d never met before) that he peed all over Henry’s hat and book and then jumped into his lap. Good thing Henry likes dogs! Just like every other Malian, Moose must assume that since I’m white I know and am friends with any other white person he sees, because he loves all of the Peace Corps boys. (I'm not being racist. All the PC boys in my area are white ).

I left Moose with Henry and headed off to the bank where – thank Allah! – my ATM card actually worked, and then to the post office to pick up a bunch of packages from awesome people! (Thanks Mama, Alicia, and Chris & Ning!) I delivered those to the house, but my work wasn’t done – I had to hurry and take Moose to the vet to get his rabies shot before lunch, and I only had about 30 minutes. Henry gave me directions and I headed out, stopping along the way to greet my friend Saly who sells awesome sandwiches.

We found the vet – I have no idea why I was expecting an actual office. In my mind, I was picturing something like the vet back home, which is way nicer than the hospitals here. Needless to say, that was wrong. It was basically a butiki with a small counter with meds behind it, and a refrigerator for the vaccinations. And 2 men in white coats. Good thing they had a cow on their sign or I might’ve walked right past it. I was surprised just how easy it all went. I’d been worried that maybe I needed an appointment – again, I don’t know what I was thinking. The first doctor knew exactly what I wanted and spoke clearly to me so I could understand him. In a matter of 10 minutes he prepared the shot, gave it to Moose (who didn’t even cry, I was so proud!), and sat me down to fill out Moose’s vaccination card.

Technically this card means I could take Moose back to Ameriki without having to Quarantine him, but for anybody who’s been wondering, I do not plan to take Moose home. As much as I love him, and as much as I hate to leave him even for an afternoon, I’ll be in no position to have a dog when I go back; not to mention he spends his life here always outside, never on a leash, going where he pleases - Ameriki is no life for him. so I’ll leave him with Alima. She’s wonderful with him and he loves her too, so I’m not at all worried about what will happen to him when I'm gone.

Moose’s shot was done, but errands still weren’t over! I stopped at the seed store to pick up seeds for a potential future garden (tomatoes, eggplant, and green peppers), went to my favorite butiki to show the owner, my friend Baco, how much Moose had grown, and dropped Moose off at the house before going to the carpenter. I’ve been wanting a bookshelf for my house ever since I moved in 9 months ago, but I knew it would be a lot of money and I just never got around to it. But I've decided to suck it up and deal with the cost; I just have too many books and Peace Corps manuals cluttering up my table. I’d carefully measured just how big I wanted the shelves and drawn up a picture so I could explain exactly what I wanted. The carpenter is used to dealing with us PCVs so he was great at talking with me, and I left there satisfied with his understanding of I wanted. Not so satisfied with the price; I’m pretty sure I was overcharged (a common thing when you’re a walking ATM, aka white) but I did cut the price by 20% so I figured I’d deal. I wanted the shelves too badly to care.

Awesome chameleon-fabric outfits.

Errands over, I finally made it back to the house, proud of all my accomplishments! I got to sit down and eat lunch and open my packages. Chrissy arrived and the 3 of us devoured the bag of Bugles my mom had sent – tastes like Grandma’s house! After awhile Chrissy and I went to our tailor’s shop. His name is Abu and he’s actually originally from my village, and I really enjoy sitting and talking with him. He’s also used to PCVs and is great at talking to us and making our clothes so they fit the way we Americans want them to fit. In fact, Abu is known by PCVs all over Mali as being a particularly good tailor. I’d ordered a few dresses from him and Chrissy wanted to put in her orders. I’d forgotten to ask Abu to put pockets in the dress he’d finished, so we sat around while he ripped out the seams and put in pockets for me – talk about good service! My dress is totally awesome – it has chameleons all over it! A Mali gem for sure. :D

The rest of the day was relaxing. We’d decided to make pizza for dinner, so we got all the supplies and Chrissy made a homemade crust. My mom had sent me squeezy pizza sauce and Chrissy’s mom had sent her Gouda cheese so we (Chrissy) made one hell of a pizza. Probably the best I’ve had in the last year – so good! I was so sad when it was over. It was ok though, because we had homemade chocolate chip cookies from my dad and homemade oatmeal cookies from my mom. I’m pretty sure Henry and I ate at least 10 cookies each – no joke! A fabulous end to a productive day!

Delicious, delicious pizza. Mmm.

A Week in My World - Day 6

Thursday, February 16, 2012

I went to Alima’s house early this morning and we drank tea before we, along with another girl from her concession complex named Batoma (Remember what that means? She’s actually named after an older female relative and so goes by the nickname of Batoma), headed out into the bush to cut wood. Moose went with us and had probably one of the best days of his young life, since I set out a bowl of water and let him run wherever he wanted. We walked about 20 minutes outside of town to an area I’ve never been. I guess we call it “the bush” in Africa because aside from a few trees here and there it’s mostly just lots of dirt and lots of scrubby brush. That was our target: cutting limbs from the scrubby brush. Which, let me tell you, is way harder than it looks.

The Bush.

Alima chopping wood.

 Alima and Batoma each had a djeli, a sort of hatchet thingy, that they used to cut limbs. Malian tools aren’t the most stable equipment, and this particular tool is formed by wedging a piece of metal into a hole in a wooden club, so every now and then the metal part drops out of the wood handle and you have to pound it back into place. It pretty much doubles the work, so it’s not exactly a walk in the park. I was always slightly terrified that Alima would rear back to hatchet up some wood and the metal blade would go flying off and knock me in the head, but luckily it always seemed to fall out when the tool was near the ground, and the closest I came to injury was when I slung it over my back to carry it and the blade fell out, scraping my leg on the way down.

Alima also used the handle to run through the dead leaves collected around the bushes before she chopped: she was checking for snakes. I never would’ve thought to do that, but according to the Commune meeting I attended last Hot Season, we have cobras, pythons, and vipers in area, so it’s a good thing Alima had the presence of mind to check! Luckily we didn’t see anything.

The girls chopped for awhile while I stood around and watched, and eventually Alima called me over to chop. I’m so thankful that we’re well past the stage where I’m not allowed to do anything. Now she doesn’t protest when I do stuff that’s easy (like sweeping my yard) and she humors me and lets me try stuff that’s hard (like chopping wood) before taking over again. She watched and giggled as I huffed and puffed and grunted and chopped that tree (ok, one bush limb) down! All I could think about while trying to chop the same place over and over was the scene in Titanic when Rose has to use an ax to hack Jack’s handcuffs apart. Jack was one brave man! If I’d been there instead of Rose, there’s a good chance Jack would’ve walked out of that room with only one hand, or at the very least, missing a couple of fingers.

Dragging wood.

I don’t have any pictures of my awesome feat, but by the time I finished, sweating profusely and out of breath, I felt about the same as I did in this photo, when my dad made me chop down the whole Christmas tree the month before I left for Mali. He said since I wasn’t going to be able to help for the next few years, I had to do it all by myself this time instead of tag-teaming it. This is how I finished:

 (Just imagine dirt instead of snow, bushes instead of trees, and me without a coat).

After that, I figured I’d made my point. Alima took over again and my contribution was limited to helping drag the limbs around. The rest of the time I watched, played in the dirt with sticks, and borrowed the dieli long enough to hack a stick into a perfect baton so I could play with that, too. Occasionally I got smacked in the face from a flying sliver of wood. My presence was redeemed when it was time to go home: I got to help carry the wood! We divided it into 3 piles: a big one for Alima, a medium one for Batoma, and a little one for me. But still big enough to look respectable. No one has to know that out of the 40 or so branches, I only chopped one. That’s right, at least 40! And all of this in the heat (high 90s, if not low 100s), no shade, and the girls hadn’t even eaten breakfast, because for some reason there wasn’t any. And all without complaining or whining. My sister and I would NOT have done well in this childhood!

Carrying wood home.

I managed to make it back into the village without dropping my load, and Moose made it back after walking through only one mud puddle, so I’d say we Sogobas had a successful work day. We grabbed the deck of cards and some cashews from my house and headed back to Alima’s house to play until lunch was ready, and then again after lunch. For some reason after awhile all I could think about was how it’s been a year since I’ve gone to a movie theater, and how much I really wanted to go. It wasn’t even that I really wanted to see a show, or that I wanted to be away from the village, I just really wanted to be in a theater for some reason. The most random things come to your mind out here, when there’s so much time to think!

I went home alone and did some chores before my mom called for our weekly chat. I noticed while on the phone that my clock (which has a built-in thermometer) had ended up in the sun and was now reading 118° - Hot Season is a-coming! It’s not so bad yet though.

Alima came over to teach me how to cook farani, one of my favorite Malian foods, which is basically fried dough. You can put various things in it; we chose onion, garlic, and tomatoes – no hot pepper! Alima knows I have an unreasonably low tolerance for spice. I tell her it’s my dad’s fault, because he can’t eat spicy foods either.

Cooking farani turned out to be a way bigger task than I’d imagined. Almost right away Alima ran off, saying she’d be right back. When she didn’t come back soon, I washed all of my dishes and sifted the flour we’d need. I spilled a bunch of flour on the ground, which Alima’s 7-year-old brother Yaya pointed out to me. I knew if Alima came back and found flour all over the ground she’d lecture me, even though it’s my flour, so Yaya and I quickly found some dirt to spread over the top and hide it. Alima still didn’t come back so after 30 minutes I went out and found her doing a neighbor’s laundry.

I don’t get it either.

By the time we made the batter and waited for fire to arrive from Alima’s house, fried it all, refried it, and ate it, it was about 3 ½ hours later! It was a nice evening though, and lots of kids came over to hang out and watch. We had one scary moment when Alima accidentally tipped over the entire pot of boiling oil and it spilled on the ground mere inches or less from where all the kids were sitting, but thank Allah it didn’t land on anyone. I really enjoy hanging out with the kids at night, they have such personalities!

Conversation came around to the fact that I have 3 flashlights. Amadou, my little pistol, said, “Michelli, give me one of your flashlights!” When I asked why, he said, “So I can go walk around with a girl!” Everyone cracked up! Then his older brother Sidiki said, “Michelli, I have 2 girlfriends. Adjaratou and you!” I responded, “Who’s your first girlfriend?” He said it was me, so I accepted that. I’m not about to be a 2^nd girlfriend to anyone, not even an 11 year old! :D

A Week in My World - Day 5

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Sleeping outside was a great idea. As it got later and later it became deliciously cool, and Moose and I snuggled up under my blanket. Plus it was really easy to let him out when he had to pee at 2:30am AND 3:30am. The only bad thing was the stupid animals. I’d almost forgotten why I hate roosters so much. They woke me up at 4am when every rooster in the neighborhood decided it was gossip time. And the donkeys woke me at 6:30am with their crazy seizure donkey brays. But all in all, totally worth sleeping outside!

 

I’d been planning to go out into the bush with Alima to cut wood for the cooking fires (all the wood for the entire year is cut during these few months), but she came over to tell me we weren’t going until tomorrow. Something about the sous-préfets (gov’t official who lives in my vill) would find out and “hit us.” (There’s no way I correctly understood that). I think she was trying to get across that Malians aren’t technically allowed to cut down trees, in an attempt at environmental conservation. Which in reality is ridiculous, since every village family cooks every meal over a fire. What are they supposed to use, cow-fart methane? Just another example of how far removed Malian (Bamako) officials are from the majority of the Malian people.

 

So instead of going into the bush, I had a normal morning, reading for awhile and making breakfast, and then I headed over to my host family’s house to hang out for a bit. I love going over there because they’re all so ridiculous that I know all I have to do is be ridiculous to fit in and make them laugh. (These are all compliments!) So I play it up, and we find common ground in teasing and laughter. My host fam makes fun of me for everything from my dancing to my inability to cook toh, and I make fun of my mom for being a Coulibaly, and my dad for being a cekoroba (old man) and not doing anything but sitting under a tree with the other cekorobas and drinking tea. My mom in particular gets a kick out of that one!
 



My brother Seydou with Konia.

Moose also loves going over there so he can play with my fam’s puppy, Konia. And chase chickens (I secretly approve of this habit). I also got to hold Ma’s new baby for awhile. Her name is Worokia but since she’s named after the older Sinali’s mom (Ma’s aunt), she goes by the female version of “Junior”: Batoma. Or in my case, since I call Batoma’s older sister Terimuso (female friend), sometimes I call Batoma Terimuso Fitini (my little female friend).

 

Interesting note: in Mali you can (unfortunately) buy medicines like antibiotics in the butikis or from random people on the street. I often see yellow and red pills being sold, not quite sure what they are. While at my fam’s house I wandered around the tree to find my dad holding down one of his ducks, pouring the contents of a yellow and red pill down its throat, followed by a mouthful (beakful?) of water. Why? The duck was sick, of course.

 

It took awhile to get out of my house for good, after chores and playing cards with Alima (I also had to stop her from washing all of the black coating off of my frying pan because she thought it was dirty and scrubbed half of it off before I realized what was happening), but eventually I made it to the CSCOM, or rather, the doctor’s house next door. I hung out with the kids for awhile and we watched the daily episode of the French-dubbed, Spanish-language telenova, Frijolito. At the end of the previous episode, two men were just starting a duel. (Seriously, turning their backs, walking 10 steps and everything). They had just raised their guns when the heroine, Margarita, came running over and stepped between them. For today’s episode, I stayed awake long enough to make sure nobody died, and then I passed out for the rest of the episode. I also drooled a little bit on somebody’s pillow, but that’s a secret.

 

After lunch, everyone went off their own ways and I quickly grew bored so I headed over to the maternity to hang out with the women. Nothing was going on there so Djeneba took me for a walk out to the women’s garden behind Flawεrε, the Fulani sister-village to my village, on the other side of the road from my vill. The garden is about a 20-minute walk beyond the town, with a well, pump, and metal fence provided by World Vision. The community women have individual spots where they grow rice, tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and lots and lots of onions. My village also has a World Vision Women’s Garden, but it was apparently built in a place where there’s no water in the well for most of the year, so it just sits empty and unused. (Chrissy’s World Vision Women’s Garden was made in a place with a year-long dry well. This is exactly why Peace Corps’ development philosophy focuses on community-centered development – so dumb mistakes like this aren’t made). But the Flawεrε garden is big and beautiful, and the women and their kids clearly put a lot of work into it. I guess I would too, after hiking all that way to get out there!

 

Back at home I had a bit of a rest to myself. I also took a bath, and since my thermometer read 100° in the shade I figured it was warm enough outside not to heat my bath water on the stove before bathing – wrong!! I was freezing!! I was so cold that I had to forgo washing my hair and shaving my legs. I’m really starting to worry that I’ll never be able to enjoy an Amεriki waterpark again.

 

Sidiki and the banana tree

Later, the kids came over. Sidiki had asked me yesterday if I wanted a banana tree, and I said ok, so sure enough he came over today with a baby banana tree! I made a big deal out of it and took lots of photos of my brother Sinali digging the hole and planting it, and of my dad supervising and covering it up. I made sure to get Sidiki’s photo too: he’s shy and was embarrassed about all the attention, so I wanted to make sure he got his moment. And now I have a banana tree! I was given strict instructions to saturate it with water twice daily and not to let Moose eat it. The kids made a small brick barrier around it from discarded bricks in my yard, but it’s not completely Moose-proof. He and I are working on that.*

Sinali planting the tree.

My host dad helping us plant the tree.

Sidiki and me with my new banana tree!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, my house emptied out around dusk, so I made and ate dinner alone and then went to Alima’s house to hang out and chat for a little bit. I don’t usually go inside her house, but that’s where she and her brother Yaya had been hanging out so that’s where I went. In fact, it was my first time in the back room, and they were both so excited to show me everything from the box of broken flip flops to the big stuffed dolphin hanging from the ceiling rafters. Show and Tell with Michelli! :D

It’s much windier tonight but I’m going to sleep outside again. It’s too nice to pass up!

*Update on Moose and the banana tree. He did not agree to leaving it alone. After a mere 24 hours, it was down to 1 lonely little leaf from the original 3. So the kids and I built a legitimate brick wall around it. It was a lot of fun, we had about 15 kids running back and forth from the brick-making place (gathering more kids each time we passed) to pick up the broken, discarded pieces of brick to build me a wall – sometimes I really just LOVE Malian kids! (Ok, almost all of the time).

 

Photos from making the banana tree wall:

Amadou and Seydou

Yaya

Sinali

Seydou

Sinali laying the bricks.

Seydou "helping" Sinali!

I don't think I ever knew his name. He joined the party
as we passed him in the path with our bricks!

Sinali and Amadou

Seydou and Minata

The finished wall!!

 

A Week in My World - Day 4

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

 

Murphy’s Law still applies, even way over here in Mali. Today is Tuesday, which means it’s baby-weighing day at the CSCOM, so I had to get my act together reasonably early this morning. I decided not to bother with an alarm since Moose has been getting me up so early. But not only did both of us make it through the entire night without getting up, we also slept in an extra half an hour till 7:30! Luckily time isn’t too much of a concern in Mali: basically it meant I had less time to read before leaving.

 

It was a busy day for baby-weighing, and Bakary, Yacouba, and I worked till about 4, Yacou and I taking a quick lunch break. We had about 65 women come, plus 5 pregnant women. The mothers come to get their babies’ childhood vaccinations: tuberculosis and polio at birth, diptheria/typhoid/whooping cough 3 times in the first 5 months (plus polio each time), Vitamin A at 6 months, and yellow fever/measles at 9 months. The pregnant women come for tetanus shots. We also weigh the babies before they get their vaccinations - technically for purposes of growth monitoring, but unfortunately my CSCOM doesn’t seem to do a whole lot with the information, which is something I’d like to change eventually.

 

I like baby-weighing days because it gives me a sense of purpose, a legitimate job to do. I help weigh the babies and I record all the demographic, weight, and vaccination info on various documents. I don’t like baby-weighing days because it can be a harsh reality check, one that makes me feel really useless in the big picture. Compared against their age, the babies’ weight are categorized into three zones: healthy (green), somewhat malnourished (yellow), and severely malnourished (red). The trend tends to be most in the middle range, then the good range, with the fewest being in the bad range. But those in the bad range can be heartbreakingly bad. We had very few red zoners today, but one near the end of the day really got me down. I weighed a 13-month old baby who was the minimum weight for a healthy 3-month old. I pointed this out to my co-workers, but they sort of just made a joke to the mom and brushed it off. I don’t like giving mothers advice myself because I know they don’t take me seriously. Even while doing my standard, every-Tuesday job of recording the babies’ weight, I often have to repeatedly ask the mothers what their child’s weight was because they’re too busy laughing at the fact that I spoke Bambara to actually answer me (keep in mind I don’t really know most of these women; I’m slightly less entertaining to people I actually know). But I couldn’t just let this case go, it was too extreme. So I told the mother: “Your baby is too small. His nutrition is really bad. He needs to eat more.” And of course, there’s always the excuses: “I don’t have any breast milk.” (She breast-fed him 2 minutes later on her way out). “Well he’s over 6 months old, he needs to be eating other foods, like porridge, fish, meat sauce, vegetables. These will help him grow.” “He doesn’t eat anything.” It’s a losing battle. And it breaks my heart that this baby is legitimately in danger of dying and I felt like I was the only one who cared.

 

Now, to be fair, I truly do not have a good enough grasp on language and culture for any of my perceptions to be considered fact. But it is how I see things. And I want this to change before I leave. At the very least, I want there to be a standard set of advice that we give mothers like this. I want to be able to provide them with moringa leaves. I want them to follow up with us, or us to follow up with them. This is one of my goals, but unfortunately, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and chronic malnutrition won’t be cured overnight by one Peace Corps Volunteer.

On a happier note, the last baby I weighed was 8 months-old and the minimum healthy weight for a 22 month-old! Not obese – just a fat, happy baby! I LOVE fat, happy babies! I have a “Fat, happy baby!” song I sing to them. (That’s pretty much the song). This boy was so adorable, he just couldn’t stop smiling! (Until he got 3 shots, that is). And he’s also proof that it’s quite possible to raise a healthy, well-nourished child in my village, even if you don’t have a lot of money or resources.

 

I went home as soon as we’d finished with the last of the paperwork, expecting to find a hungry dog waiting for me. Instead a found a dog who was just returning from a day-long outing with Alima, full belly included. I love that girl! I kicked the kids out for an hour of rest and reading, and then they came over and we planted the moringa seeds together. The seeds had to soak overnight last night, so today I showed the kids how to plant the seeds, and they took over the rest of the bags. Ala ka falεn ɲumana: May they grow well!

 


Sidiki

Chores came next, and of course the kids grouped around for the daily spectacle of Michelli Washes Dishes. Again, I had a rinse-water helper. Alima took off with my bike and Moose for awhile again, so he’s been passed out basically all night. Once dark hit, the kids played cards outside my door; but after the oil in my lamp ran out, everyone except 11 year-old Sidiki left to go home to dinner. Sidiki is one of my favorites: he has a huge crush on me and he’s so sweet, much less rambunctious than his other brothers. Since it was just the two of us, I gave him the rest of my dinner to finish and then asked him a question I’ve been wondering for a long time: why don’t he and his brother Amadou go to school? For awhile I assumed it was because their family didn’t have enough money: school can be expensive and they have a lot of kids, whom I’m sure they need to help them do work. But I recently noticed the 5 year-old coming home with a school bag. So why don’t the older two go? Sidiki told me he used to go to school but he dropped out in 3^rd grade because his teacher hit the students (which in theory is illegal in Mali, but who's going to enforce it?). In 3^rd grade kids are about 8 years old. Sidiki is yet another example of Mali’s horribly failing education system: here you have an extremely bright child who did have the opportunity to go to school (terrible as the education system may be), and he dropped out by the age of 8 so he wouldn’t get beaten. Like I’ve said in the past, I could rant for days about the education system here. Apparently that teacher has since moved to San, but Sidiki’s done with the idea of school, and Amadou never even bothered. Hopefully Solo, the 5 year old, will have a better experience. And at the very least, Sidiki can write his name.

 

My bed outside

It’s been a lot warmer out the past few days, and I’ve decided it’s time to start sleeping outside again. It’s annoying to drag my mattress, mosquito net, and everything out at night, and then back in again in the morning, but I do enjoy sleeping in the fresh air under the stars. I figure I need to prolong this delicious coolness as long as possible. Hot season is definitely coming, and I’m already warm in my house at night cooking dinner. It won’t be long before I need one bandanna tied around my forehead and another around my neck just to keep the sweat from falling into my food. Gotta enjoy it while I can! Moose, of course, has been passed out on my mattress from the moment I dragged it outside about an hour ago. Smart pup.

 

A Week in My World - Day 3

Monday, February 13, 2012

The Dog With the World’s Smallest Bladder made me get up twice during the night, so I was not thrilled when he was ready to go out again by 7am, but who am I to argue with a dog who takes up half of my bed, brings down my mosquito net if he jumps down without my help, and scratches at my screen door anyway until I get up? Spoiled.

It was a warmer morning today but still cool enough for me to put on my slippers and wrap up in my blanket to read, something I will miss in just a few weeks when it’ll be too hot for that. Other PCVs made all sorts of fun of me for lugging my slippers to Mali, but for 3 months out of the year my feet are happy campers! This morning started the same as most mornings, with intermittent reading and cooking breakfast, all mixed in with me trying to convince myself to put down my book and get on with my day. It’s a losing battle everyday, and today the kids weren’t too persistent, so I finally had to force myself to get going at 10am. The kids, with their secret kid hotline, came flooding in as soon as I opened my door and crowded around for the daily spectacle of dish-washing. Sidiki insisted on pouring the rinse water over each dish as I cleaned it – I suppose it’s almost like having a faucet and tap.

Sidiki and Amadou also couldn’t stop talking about the fact that I had promised to go to their house today – they always come to my house, so this is a big deal! But before I went, I had a very important task: one of the balls the kids play with at my house had been kicked a little too high, landed on my roof, and was stuck up there. With none of the bigger boys around to retrieve it, it was up to me. Secretly I was really excited at the prospect of climbing onto my roof. My 10 year old host brother has done it, so why shouldn’t I be able to?? I’ve never had a good reason though, and now I finally had one! Getting up there was pretty easy: chair to ɲεgεn wall to roof. The ball was quickly retrieved and I took a moment to enjoy the view. I was also secretly disappointed that no one other than the kids in my yard was within waving view of my super-cool feat. Sigh.

Above the wall on the right is the
corner of my roof that I climbed.

Getting down was not quite as easy. I’ve always been exponentially better at going up than coming back down. Once when I was in 1^st grade I got stuck up in a friend’s tree for awhile, and had to play it cool like I wanted to be up there for a long time before her dad came to help me down. But I think I’m sort of past that age, at least in village. That would be so embarrassing if someone had to go fetch an 11 year old, or my cekoroba (old man) dad to help me down. So I sucked it up and wiggled down on my belly from my roof to the ɲεgεn wall, all 5 feet of it. After that, all the kids were waiting down below to help me out, so that part was easy! I think I managed to pull it off looking pretty cool. Of course since I was still wearing my pajamas they ended up way too dirty to sleep in again, but that’s the price you pay for great adventure!!

My host dad, Madu Sogoba. 
A great man.

I changed clothes and headed off to Sidiki and Amadou’s house. They were so proud to have me come over! I checked out the photos they showed me and admired the new baby for a bit before going back home to get my things and sit with my dad for a few minutes. He loves saying and doing crazy things just to watch my reaction, and today was no exception: he lit a small pile of gunpowder and blew it up just for the hell of it. I love my host dad.

An Ŋoni
Image from mandinkamagic.com

I went to the CSCOM and greeted everyone and then headed over to the doctor’s house next door to hang out there with whomever was around, which turned out to be a few of the CSCOM women and some of the doctor’s kids. We were sitting around chatting when out of nowhere a man walks up with a Malian version of a guitar - called an Ŋoni (n-goh-nee) - asks me my name, and starts composing a song on the spot that incorporates my name. I, of course, can’t follow all of the lyrics, but the women are all laughing so it must be pretty good! The kids all clamor for him to sing about them or each other, and I was pretty impressed. 

Fatim

I soon caught on that you’re supposed to give men like this some money for their skills (it became clear when 9-year-old Fatim told me, “Give him money!”) but unfortunately I’d lost my changepurse the day before and all I had left were big bills, which would be like giving a street performer $20-$50. Not really in my budget! Fatim insisted that if I didn’t give him money Moose will die (she’s fairly melodramatic) but I think we’ll be ok.

After lunch I talked to the doctor, Oussé, and the pharmacist, Tidiani, about what I hope will be my first big project. We want to plant moringa trees at the CSCOM. Moringa is a plant that grows extremely well in tough climates with poor soil. The leaves - when picked, dried, and pounded to a fine powder - can be sprinkled onto any dish. The benefits of consuming moringa are astonishing: gram for gram they have 7x as much Vitamin C as oranges, 4x as much Vitamin A as carrots, 4x as much calcium as milk, 3x as much potassium as bananas, and an equal amount of protein as an egg. All of these nutrients are important to a healthy and balanced diet, but are difficult for impoverished Malians to obtain. Moringa is an alternative source for these important nutrients and the plant grows at a rapid rate: a plant is ready for harvest 6 months after planting and can be harvested every 4-6 weeks. 

Moringa.
Image from http://fitnessforyourwellness.blogspot.com

We’d tried this project once before, but due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances the trees all died. This time I’m much better prepared! I’m hoping that if these trees grow I can plant more, start a moringa garden at the CSCOM, and incorporate it into the daily life of women with small babies and children, later reaching out to the larger population. It’s one of the most sustainable projects I’ve heard of, and therefore I think it’s really great. I just have to make it work.

We decided the tree nursery will start at my house: predatory animals (scary ones, like sheep and donkeys) don’t come into my yard, I have a lot of shade – good for baby trees – and it’s a convenient place for me to water the trees daily. I’m optimistic about this project!

My awesome lounge chair.

I went home and grabbed a few relaxing hours to myself, reading in my lounge chair under my tree. It was a gorgeous day today, warm and breezy and pretty much just perfect. It was also 101° at 4pm. I’m terrified what’s going to happen when I go back to Amεriki, where that’s considered to be hella hot…

I wanted to plant the moringa seeds as soon as possible, but I needed help. So I enlisted the help of my favorite go-to person, Alima. Who would’ve known a 12 year old girl could be so incredibly useful?? First order of business: getting dirt. Alima and her brother Yaya and I grabbed my 2 buckets and set off for the fields. I had no idea where Alima was taking us, and we wandered around aimlessly for a long time, backtracking a bit, until she decided we were at the right spot – in the middle of a path, about a 10-15 minute walk through the fields and the edge of town to my house. Allah only knows why she went out that far, in a village literally made of dirt, and bordered to its very edges by fields. I find it easier not to ask questions sometimes, often because I get the standard “foi” answer: “nothing.” (Kids everywhere are the same: What did you do today? Foi. Where are you going? Foi. Why are you at my house? Foi.)

We’d been followed by another group of 3 kids, so between the 6 of us we quickly filled up my buckets with dirt. Alima looks at me and says, “You’re going to cry now!” I asked her, “Why?” She responded, “Pick up the bucket.” I tried. Reeaaalllly hard! -I got it a few inches off the ground. Turns out buckets of dirt are deceptively heavy! The kids howled with laughter at my expression, and Alima helped me raise the bucket onto my head, then fitted her own headscarf between my head and the bucket for a cushion. I called out, “Walai! A ka girin!” which more or less translates to: “Holy moly! That’s heavy!” I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used walai properly in a sentence and it set the kids off laughing again. The other kids helped Alima lift her own bucket – cushionless – and we set off.

Now, I’m pretty proud of myself for the skills I’ve gained in carrying things on my head. But that damn bucket was by far the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried! I was literally praying that I wouldn’t end up with a neck injury (sorry, Mama!) as we walked through all those fields we had passed on the way there. Alima’s house is near the edge of town, and as we entered her concession I was surrounded by people laughing at me – my struggles must’ve been showing! They had me stop and give my bucket to one of the other girls who had followed us into the fields, maybe 9 or 10 years old. Luckily not only am I used to being laughed at, I have long since accepted that girls more than half my age are way more hardcore than me. Certainly their necks are a lot stronger! The two girls carried the buckets the rest of the way to my house while I rolled my neck around and slumped forward while walking, triggering ever more rounds of giggles.

At home I was ready to fill the tree nursery bags, but Alima made me wait for a reason I didn’t understand. Soon Yaya returned with a sifter to sift out the rocks and old pieces of millet straw – good thing Alima’s around to be in charge of things like this! After sifting, I realized we were left with basically a bunch of sand. I’m worried that it isn’t good enough to support plant life, despite the fact that moringa grows well in crappy soil. I keep telling myself that the dirt/sand came from out in the fields, and although we got it from the path, it’s not like people bother to lay a bunch of sand down as paths: it’s just the paths they’ve naturally made through the exact same dirt/sand where everything else grows. So my fingers are crossed! We filled the bags and the kids helped me carry them to a corner of my yard: not so conveniently, it's the corner where Moose poops the most. Fertilizer?

The debris, the sifter, and all of the sand piled into one big bucket.

The rest of the night passed quickly. Alima, Yaya, and I went to the road to buy bread (a man goes to San every evening to buy it and we try to catch him on his way home so I can buy it cheaper “wholesale” rather than at the butiki), and by the time I came home all the kids had darted off to their own homes and surprisingly never came back. With the night to myself I made a delicious potato soup for Moose and I and spent a good part of the night reading. I’ve also recently realized that soon Hot Season will be here and all the chocolate in my house will melt into unidentifiable blobs. So I’ve tasked myself with the chore of stuffing my face with chocolate several times a day – it’s a hard life I lead. Delicious now, but so sad that soon the beauty of chocolate in village will soon come to an end until next Cold Season!