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!

A Week in My World - Day 2

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Mornings have never been easy for me to accept, and getting out of bed is often quite the feat. Luckily I have a dog with a bladder smaller than mine (between the two of us we’re up at least once a night, plus out of bed fairly early in the morning) so I was out of bed a little after 7. It was a cold morning again, cloudy and dreary, so I grabbed my blanket and my Nook, wrapped up in my lounge chair, and spent a good hour reading and dozing. Eventually hunger won over my curiosity of how England’s Cousins’ War would end (not that I didn’t already know) and it was time to make oatmeal for breakfast.

I managed to keep the minions out till almost 9 but these days I’ve come to graciously accept when I’ve lost the battle and have to let them in. While opening my door I took the opportunity to go greet my family, then came back to finish morning chores: washing dishes, sweeping my yard and house, getting ready for the day. Normally that takes a few hours as it is, but after the ridiculous wind storms we’d had the past week during my absence, my house was filthy with everything covered in a more-than-fine layer of dust. Which meant I had to wash/sweep/shake out everything. Luckily I have a host of kids more than willing to help! They don’t actually go in my house but they do what they can to help me outside, in between playing with the balls, playing with Moose, and staring at me while I do fascinating things like wash my dishes (somehow it never gets old). 

Sidiki with his littlest sister, Mamine.

Alima even helped me repair a rip in one of my skirts by holding the fabric taut for me. It was a much more successful attempt than many months ago when her younger brother Yaya tried to help me do the same thing: with Alima I only sewed the skirt layers together once! Sidiki’s mom came over to tie her new baby (about a month old) onto Sidiki’s back: at 10 years old, he’s spent about half of his life old enough to carry around younger siblings (he has 5 younger siblings and many younger cousins). 

The morning came and went with chores, and I kicked the kids out for lunch and an hour and a half of rest. Alima had insisted that my floors needed scrubbing, and Allah forbid I defy her 12-year-old forcefulness, so I soon found myself on the floor with an old rag, scrubbing on my hands and knees. My Aunt Mel would be so proud! After the floor was finished we washed the doors, followed by the ɲεgεn floors and doors. Alima did at least twice as much work as I did, but I’m willing to bet my arms were at least twice as sore as hers. Luckily I have long since come to terms with being weaker than she is. By the time we finished we were out of water, so Alima took off on my bike to go to the pump so I could take a quick bath and make my way to the CSCOM to visit my people there before dark. The day went by so fast! Somehow that never fails to happen, despite the lack of meetings, deadlines, due dates, appointments, and cross-town errands. It’s awesome.

Neighbor kids playing.

My dad called me for his weekly hour-long chat, and as usual, Skype cut us off at the hour mark. Alima had sat and listened to about 45 minutes of our English conversation, and while I was waiting for him to call me back she was able to confirm with me that I’d told him about our cleaning adventure. I personally have to force myself to pay attention to other people’s Bambara conversations, a language I sort of understand, and here a 12-year old girl with absolutely no formal education (she’s never been to school) listened to almost an hour of a language she doesn’t know at all and picked up on a conversation tidbit. She is so smart! It kills me that she doesn’t go to school – not that the Malian education system has much to offer (I could rant about it for days, and I’m only marginally familiar with it), nor does her life path offer her many choices, but I feel like she at least deserves the opportunity. Life is so unfair sometimes.

Amadou and Sidiki

Surprisingly only a few kids came to my house tonight. I had extra cabbage stew so I let them all try some, and they all proclaimed its deliciousness. Normally I’d agree with them (it’s one thing I make that I really like!) but sadly this was not my best effort. Sigh. It was nice to hang out with just a few of my faves for the night, and before they left, I promised Sidiki and Amadou I would go to their house tomorrow morning to see a photo of their grandfather, also named Sidiki, who recently died.

After they left, I decided to enjoy the pleasant evening a bit longer and took my book outside to read. I was on my stomach on a mat when I finally registered that I was hearing a weird noise; after thinking about it for a moment, I decided it almost sounded like rain. But that wouldn’t make sense, rainy season ended in October. But wait – it WAS raining! Whoa! I haven’t felt rain in over 4 months!! It only lasted a few minutes, and was just a few sprinkles, but it was exciting. The mango rains are coming!!

A Week In My World - Day 1

A week in my world, starting with the day I finally returned to village after 3 weeks away, and 2 months of only scattered presence in my village.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Today ended my 4-day visit to Chrissy’s village, which followed a series of travels to Bamako for some special Peace Corps opportunities that included an international health conference in the capital, and the chance to join a team of Malian doctors and a CDC worker in the south of Mali to do surveys for people with symptoms of lymphatic filariasis: my favorite parasitic worm disease (it’s fascinating, I swear!).

We left around 11:30am and headed down the brusse (bush) paths that lead to Jim’s village, Zana. These paths were a bit more difficult than the ones from the main road to Chrissy’s vill but still pretty good. Brusse paths tend to be anywhere from 5 feet wide (big enough for a donkey cart) to just a small bike trail. Although paths split off a lot, many of them were made during Rainy Seasons to skirt around small areas of flooding, and they often rejoin with the main path a short way away. Chrissy tried to give me reverse directions in case I should ever go alone to her vill from Jim’s. 

Baobab Tree

She said when she first moved to her village another PCV friend of ours came to visit and said she would learn to tell direction using baobab trees. He was right! Chrissy’s directions follow something like this: “You’ll follow this path for a long time and eventually it will want to split off, but if you remember to follow the bushes you’ll be fine. The path splits right after the huge baobab tree that is only half a tree now. After the split, keep following the path and keep an eye out for these landmarks: you’ll go under the double tree and a little while later you’ll pass by the only palm tree in the area. It should be on your left. Keep riding and look out for the baobab tree; it’s the only one on this side of my village, but if you look to the right you’ll see another one. Keep riding and soon you should be able to see the school, and then you know you’re on the outskirts of my vill.”

That’s how we do directions in brusse. :D

It’s really cool for me to see other PCV’s villages. Like Chrissy’s, Jim’s vill is way off in brusse and very different from mine, but it’s also very different from Chrissy’s, despite their close proximity. Chrissy and I rode alongside the fields into the edge of town, past the ditch where Jim is building a bridge so his community can get to market during Rainy Season, and into Jim’s concession. His dugutigi (village chief), homologue (Malian counterpart), and jatigi (host family) are all the same man, which is pretty unique for a PCV. Jim’s house is also unique: he lives within the family’s concession, but the way his house is situated he basically has his own concession at the same time. His family is small (very different than Chrissy’s) and he has a lot of privacy (very different from me!). We spent a very pleasant 3 hours at Jim’s house, eating lunch and laying around on the ground chatting. That’s one of the nice things about Peace Corps: you don’t have things like television and Sporcle to fill up the time so you’re kind of forced to have actual conversations!

Eventually it was time for us to leave. Chrissy rode back to her village and Jim and I headed out in the opposite direction to try and get me home. He’s been to my vill before but his homologue had told him about a shorter, more direct brusse path that we wanted to try and find. Unfortunately, the route wasn’t nearly as simple as Jim’s homologue’s directions seemed, and the path wasn’t nearly as nice. Several times my bike came to a stop in the sand and I had to get off to push a few feet before it was solid enough to get going again. It was a frustrating ride at times.

Brusse.

At one point we came to a big fork in the road. Jim, who was in the lead, stopped and turned to me and said, “What do you think?” Oh boy. Asking me for directions is rarely a good idea, and this was my first time here, in the middle of this particular nowhere, after all! We blindly chose a direction – it was the wrong one, of course, but luckily a few minutes down the road we passed a lone house and Jim happened to know the owner, so after stumbling over my Malian name (of course!), which Jim and I both repeated twice each, the man gave us directions and we turned around to go back and take the other fork. That was the only major path division; the rest of the way was “fairly” straightforward and we passed a few villages and field workers who pointed us in the right direction. However, lots of little paths kept turning off, and I didn’t envy Jim trying to find his way home again soon!

As we entered the edge of my village I started to feel just a tiny bit nervous, especially because the people we passed greeted us without using my name – was I gone so long they’d forgotten me?! But we’d come through the side of town I rarely visit, and I’m sure the site of two toubabs threw people off balance. Because as soon as we entered my own territory it was clear that I hadn’t been forgotten! I swear, the kids in my neighborhood have some sort of secret communication; we’d barely reached my house when everyone came running over! I was turning a million directions all at once, trying to listen to everyone as they raced to share their news first.

He's so big!

Apparently the lock on my concession door had broken awhile back and the kids had been climbing the walls in order to bring Moose food. I’m so thankful for their dedication! So one of my brothers climbed over to let us in and Moose came running out. He’s so HUGE!! I knew he would get bigger while I was gone, but I still couldn’t believe just how big he is. He jumped all over the place, so excited, and I was so excited to find I can still pick him up like a child by grabbing him under his “armpits” and swinging him up (an event Mailans find hilarious) – but I won’t be able to do that for much longer. It was pretty evident just how he’s gotten so big: a HUGE pile of toh was sitting in Moose’s bowl. They certainly took good care of him!

The kids were really excited to see me again and everyone helped me take my things inside. They were also really excited to see Jim, whom they’ve met twice before but not seen for about 6 months. Jim’s last name is Coulibaly, just like at least 50% of my village, so he’s a particularly awesome toubab in their eyes. Jim hung out for a little while and my brothers insisted on getting their photo taken with him, but the day was ending quickly and he needed to find his way home before dark, so he soon took off. I’m so impressed he made it home, and in good timing!

Jim with Shina

Jim with Sinali

One of my older host sisters had been away and delivered her baby, and now she was back with her 37-day old daughter, Worokia, a Christmas Baby. :) I fawned over her for awhile, and of course was peed on, which, as you’ll remember, is considered to be good luck for me (duh). My host fam’s puppy Koniakunte (Konia for short) has also gotten really big and he and Moose are so funny together, wrestling around while the puppy’s mom watches over them carefully. 

Konia and Moose

I went to Djeneba’s house to greet her family, then came home and let the kids stay until dark when I told them I’d see them in the morning - they were surprisingly agreeable to not coming over for the night. I was exhausted and passed out next to Moose by 9pm – it was an awesome homecoming indeed!

Letter to My Friends

Hello Friends!

It's extremely bittersweet for me to return to this blog, 4 months after my last post and the unexpected end to my Peace Corps Service. I've spent most of the last 4 months traveling both internationally and within America and it's been wonderful to see so many loved ones and places. 

Now that I'm a bit settled down again, I'd like to finally post the blogs I wrote back in February. And once I've finished with that, I do want to explain what happened in Mali, why we were evacuated, and what's happening now.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy hearing a bit more about how I lived my day-to-day life in my village shortly before I left. That's a question I'm asked a lot, so hopefully this will give you a better idea of Michelle in Mali!

Much Love,

Michelle

The End of Michelle in Mali

It is with great sadness that I find myself having to tell you all that I am no longer a Peace Corps Volunteer. Instead, I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV), meaning I have officially completed my Peace Corps service.

As many of you know, Mali experienced a coup d'état about 3 weeks ago - a mere 5 weeks before the next democratic presidential elections were to have occurred. I have a lot to say about this coup, and I hope to write a future post about it, but right now I'll just say that due to the political instability caused by the coup, and the instability in the north of Mali which was enabled by the coup, Peace Corps Mali evacuated the country last Sunday, after 41 years of uninterrupted service. It is an extremely sad time for all of us.

This blog post is for 3 purposes:

1. To let you all know that I am safe.

2. To let you know I am no longer a PCV in Mali.

3. To let you know that this blog isn't finished!! I had a bunch of blogs ready to go when the coup happened - I just hadn't had time to post them yet. I still have some of my story to share. I will post these blogs in the next few weeks once I'm back on my feet somewhere, and I'll also write a little bit about the coup d'état and what's been happening in my life since then. 

Thanks so much for sticking with me and I hope to see you back here over the next few weeks!

Love,

Michelle