Il faut dire merci a la vie pour ce qu'elle nous donne.

We have to say thank you to Life for what She gives us.

- Pierre Rabhi -






July 28, 2009

Three weeks in...

Wow. I can't believe it's only been three weeks. It seems like so much has happened-- I've met so many new people and have been thrust into such a dramatically different culture. I've been back at Tubaniso, the PC headquarters, for the last two days. I've been trying to update this blog, but there's always a rush amongst the 66 PCTs here for the three lone computers in the small amount of time that we're here. Another aspect of life that delays communication and, unfortunately, that we've all become too familiar with, is a little thing we refer to as Mr. D / Mrs. C.... or less fondly, diarrhea and constipation. There is a smorgasbord (am I allowed to call it that?) of horrible g.i. problems one can encounter in Mali, from amoebas to worms to giardia and parasites. As the current volunteers tell us, you can not be fully inducted into Peace Corps Mali without shitting your pants at least once. Oh the joys of development work! I've actually been pretty lucky, as I've only spent one day bed-ridden and occasionally having to sprint to the nyegen (shit-hole in the ground). There are some people who haven't been able to keep anything down for almost a week. Once again, they say these attacks will become fewer and further in between. Inshallah (god willing), this is true.



Other than this nasty aspect of life, my time here has been great. I'm living in Dialakorobougou, taking language classes 7 hours a day, drinking lots of tea with my host family, and laughing/being laughed at for silly cultural differences. I've been given a Malian name-- Khadija Samake (the 3rd wife of Mohammed, and my last name means elephant). My family is actually Bambara, and as such do not speak the language I'm learning. This sounds more frustrating than it actually is though, because it is good to know some Bambara, as it is the lingua franca of Mali. Nonetheless, it is pretty exhausting to learn Doguloso at school all day, and then go home to a family that can't understand why my Bambara isn't improving substantially. Luckily my host brothers speak French, so I can speak on more than an infantile level with some people at the end of the day. Doguloso, the language I'm learning, is absurd. I honestly laughed the first time I heard it, and I imagine you will all think I'm making it up when I come home. No, there's no clicking or tongue smacking. But it's tonal and bizarre. To give you a taste, "what is your name" is "ino ohn ayahn gineh neh?" So sweet.

I live in a concession, or compound, with a Malian family comprised of my one-legged host mother Ramata (who manages to do EVERYTHING from cooking to laundry to cleaning, all day long), her four sons (Muhammed, Modibo, Modi, and Didi) who just sit there and listen to Akon on their cell phones, her daughter Oumou, and Oumou's 6 month old baby boy. The women are truly amazing here, they work all day long for little reward. My host mother's husband passed two years ago, and in the cultural tradition the younger brother of her husband married her after the death, to provide support to the family (although I haven't seen him-- or Oumou's baby's daddy-- a single time since being there). I get along with all of them wonderfully, and I feel truly lucky to have been placed here.

My technical training is very hands-on and thus far, rewarding. We planted a community vegetable garden in a neighboring town, and are learning soil restoration/composting/gardening techniques for this semi-arid climate. Coming from Oregon and a permaculture/organic farming background, this can seem sad and ridiculous at times. The compost here is not the beautiful houmous we're used to in the northwest, but rather a mixture of sand, clay, and 'compost' that is actually burnt trash. We have to sift through the compost to remove pieces of glass, plastic and junk. But we're learning techniques that are available to, appropriate and sustainable for local people, such as found container/rice sack gardens, pepinieres (tree nurseries planted in used plastic water bags), seed saving, and live fencing to keep the animals out.

Oh god, the animals. There's another topic. The damn 'fali' (donkeys) will be my downfall. They are the most pathetic creatures on earth, I swear. They just sit there and make the most ridiculous, loud and annoying squealing sounds ALL DAY long. (HeeehAAAAAAAw, heeehAAAAAw!) Starting at 5am. Before that are the considerably confused/mentally delayed roosters, who announce the sunrise far before it actually happens, at about 3am. Then we have the ratpack of dogs who are ostensibly guarding our compound, but I'm pretty sure they just bark and mate and bark and mate and bark some more. At all hours. THEN we have the bats. The bats that swoop down about a foot away from your head while you drink tea at night. We have a nest of baby bats in my room at the PC headquarters, they sound like mice and poop everywhere just like them too. There are also tons of goats and sheep, but they don't bother me so much, except for when I see my neighbors cooking their heads on a fire outside every once in a while.

Anyway, that is a bit of my life thus far. I will be going back to my homestay sight tomorrow morning, where I have no electricity or internet. I apologize for being so disconnected, but that's the way life is here. I'll be at homestay for another two weeks, then back to HQ for another couple of days, which is when you'll hear from me next. I 'swear in' with the Peace Corps and actually become an official volunteer on September 10, when I'll be moving to my site in Dogon country.

I send my love to all of you. I miss you all already-- you are in my waking thoughts and my dreams. Til next time...

July 14, 2009

The storm before the calm

I've finally found some time to sit down and jot down some thoughts about the first week of my Mali/PC experience.... the few minutes I've been able to capture now came only because of the rolling in of some deep purple and brown clouds, a massive wind storm and a sudden downpour of sideways rain, thunder and lightning, which chased the monkeys into the trees and virtually stopped all productivity here. (Luckily we have a generator here at the Tubaniso Peace Corps training site here in Bamako, so the computers are still up in one building.) It has only ceded for a couple of bouts in the last few hours-- long enough to scramble through the red mud from shelter to shelter.

When I wrote this I was sitting in my mud hut listening to dull dhut dhut dhut sound of the rain on the tin roof, which is the only thing that can crowd out the noises regularly heard around here: the constant hum, tweet and chirp of the birds and bugs, the croaking of the frogs (which are to be watched here, I learned: it is bad luck to catch frogs because they can steal your soul, or for women, hop up into your vagina. I kid you not.)


I've been amazed by the life here. Much is similar to what I remember of West Africa from my time in Senegal. But I have never been here during the rainy season. This plot of ground-- maybe 30-some hectares-- which has been granted to the Peace Corps by the Malian government, is proof of the biodiversity this land could support if given the chance. Unfortunately the need to make a profit off of natural resources to feed mouths is too strong. This is why I am here ostensibly, as a Natural Resource Management volunteer.



I've only been here for a week and already all of us have had so much turbulence in our emotions that the only thing we can do is find a rock to hold on to-- to stabilize us. On top of the emotional mess of being torn from one life and stitched into another that is unrecognizably different, we've all been host to the artificial psychological/physical mash-up of 6 different types of vaccines and a triple dose of malaria medication in the past three days. Despite the laundry list of adverse side effects, Mefloquine is required by the Peace Corps / U.S. govt. and has the benediction of the WHO. The first day I felt diziness, the second my ears alternated between ringing and being mute, and by the third I felt like I was hallucinating. They say this will pass, and I do feel better now.



With this in mind, ironically enough, they've assigned me to a post to study native medicinal herbs! I'm really excited about my placement. I have been assigned to a small rural town in Dogon country called Pelini, home to about 500 people. This region is famous for its cliff-dwelling animist population and great hiking-- Senegal friends, you know how amazing this area is! Here I will be learning a language that only 3,000 people speak, called Doguloso. I'm the only PCT (Peace Corps Trainee-- they have an acronym for everything here) learning this language or going to my site, and I will be 40 km away from the closest Tubabu (interchangeable for white person/foreigner/PCV). No one else will be learning a language that no other PCVs speak. So basically, I have one of the hardest posts of the entire group and have already been dubbed a badass. Luckily the PCV formerly at my site (he's leaving this year) has spent the last year assessing community needs and developing a three-part project plan that I will be able to jump on. They want me to connect them with a local NGO to assist in rebuilding a road, build a granary/seed bank, and build a water pump. I'm also hoping to create a traditional herbal medicinal garden for the community, and have my own vegetable garden as well. The nearby larger town, called Bandiagara, also has a local traditional herbalist shop that produces medicine for retail in Mali. I will be working here part time as well in whatever way I can. Another PCV and I have talked about trying to create a book/resource compiling all of the local medicinal herbs in each of our regions.

Basically, A LOT has been going on. Tomorrow I leave the PC headquarters to go live with a host family in Bamako who speak Doguloso and are from the region I will eventually be moving to. I will be in Bamako with this family for the next two months, trying to soak up as much language as possible and stay sane. I am so excited and happy right now, although it is hour-to-hour and often I question why I am here and miss everyone at home more than I can stand. Write to me, I would love your support. I will have a cell phone soon if there is an emergency and you need to get a hold of me.

I love you all! K'an ben (goodbye in Bambara)!