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!