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 -






August 25, 2009

Pelleni, home sweet home

So that last post wasn’t the end of my journey to site… it’s just the part that all of us shared as a group. Once I got to Sevaré I, along with 7 other Dogon PCTs, had to take another car for an hour into Bandiagara, which is our banking town. Sevaré is our ‘regional capital,’ so this is where I will go in the case of an emergency, if I ever get sick and need a place to crash, when I have grant writing or other computer-necessitating projects, or (definitely more likely and more frequently) to party with all of my fellow volunteers… which we’ve already begun. Mopti Caw seem to be notorious for getting a little rowdy, so I guess they placed me well. Currently two of the volunteers in this area are under threat of being administratively separated for riding motorcycles (not allowed) and/or public drunkenness (also technically not allowed, but it seems like this one isn’t enforced except under the most extreme situations). Bandiagara is going to be rowdy as well—this is one of the most touristy sites in Mali because of the draw of Dogon country, all of the hiking, etc. As such, there are a few really nice and reasonably priced hotels (one with a swimming pool!) and restaurants, as well as a couple of internet cafés. I imagine this will be my oasis when I’m starting to go crazy from being en brousse all of the time.

I spent a night in Bandiagara at a nice hotel with the other volunteers, and the next day they let us all loose to go to our individual sites! We were each paired up with our counterparts and our “site buddies” – current volunteers who live/work in the region, who came to site for a day or two with us to show us the ropes. I met my counterpart, Hassim Kansayi, who is a gardener in Pelleni, a few days prior for training. He is wonderful and enthusiastic and funny as hell. I went with him and a girl named Ashley, a PCV who lives nearby in a town called Kalibombo (villages have the best names here) with her husband Joe. We crammed into a bush taxi bus with about 20 other people, and with multiple rice sacks, buckets, bags and goats on the roof. These buses (really just gutted out vans) are so janky, they’re basically nothing but the bare minimum. Shocks/brake pads worn down, no power steering, no upholstery, body beat up. Everyone was staring at me, wondering what the hell a Tubab was doing going out into the bush. They’re used to tourists out there, but not ones who get off the beaten path. As such, volunteers are a bit of a novelty and generally people are really interested to know what we’re doing—they’re very welcoming. The ride was beautiful. The road on the 40 km route to my town, Pelleni, is mostly unpaved. But part of it was constructed with flat stones, which gives it a kind of old Europe feel. The area I’m living in is a series of rolling hills and valleys. The climate is definitely semi-arid, it feels to me like a mix of Arizona savannah and Moab, Utah. There are rocks everywhere, and virtually no topsoil, which makes for a beautiful landscape and incredible stone architecture, albeit sometimes impossible gardening. After about an hour in the bus, we got dropped off in what looked like the middle of nowhere… oh wait, it is the middle of nowhere. There isn’t a road that goes directly to my site, so I have to walk 3 km from the road to get to my village of 450 people. Since it’s the rainy season, I had to forge through a river on the way, dangling my bags around my neck and back, trying to pull my skirt up out of the water. The town is pretty (although admittedly not as pretty as I expected), nestled beneath a set of low rocky hills in a valley, surrounded (right now) by millet fields and tall towering trees. All of the fences are built of stone, and the huts are made of mud.

My house is great for the most part. I have my own concession, blocked off by a bamboo-looking gate and stone wall, with a space large enough to have a small garden and a chicken coop, and a cat to catch the mice (plans brewing already). There is a brouse ladder (a log with notches etched in it for steps) leading to the roof, where I will probably spend most nights staring at the immense sky—so many stars out there!—and sleeping in whatever breeze there is. I have a 2-room mud hut with 3 windows, and a ceiling that is perfect for sleeping on top of but not underneath. The rainy season has wreaked havoc on my poor roof, and each time the rains come I end up having to set up buckets and tarps to catch the flood of water and mud that falls down from above. We’re working on getting that fixed. I have a palace of a nyegen (poop hole), it is made from stone and raised up, with spiral stairs leading to the entrance, because they can’t break through the bed rock easily and dig down. The former PCV I’m replacing, Ryan Shaw (or Bara Yele, here), was kind enough to leave behind a lot of supplies for me, including some great brousse furniture, a stove and gas tank, pots/pans/dishes, and (my favorite) three morenga trees he planted in the corner of my concession.

I spent most of my time at site either walking/hiking around to check out the area, playing with the village kids, or in the field cultivating millet with everyone—which is their main livelihood—or, finally, taking the time to sit alone in my concession and breathe. This was the first time that I’ve really been able to just relax and let go of everything, imagining myself living and thriving in this place for the next two years of my life, and smiling. It’s going to be a good two years.

But at the same time, there are some things related to this seclusion and poverty that I didn't even think about, and that I'm realizing will undoubtedly have a big effect on my life. One big part of this is my physical health-- there is virtually NOTHING to eat out there. They eat the same shit 3 times a day out there, which is a millet-based mush called toh, with a slimy green sauce made from Baobab leaves. I can't stomach the sauce. I'm going to have to do a lot of my own cooking. The problem with this is that the closest market to me is 7 km away in a town called Kendie (which is BEAUTIFUL), and only once a week. Aside from this, there are only 2 boutiques in my village to buy supplies from, and they have no food other than crackers/cookies, tiny little onions, and canned tomato sauce, and occasionally peanuts/rice. Veggies don't grow well out there because it’s so dry, so I'm going to have to work hard at supplying myself with good food year round. I’m going to buy a solar oven, and hopefully build a dehydrator, so I can become more self-sufficient.

After a few days at site, I headed back into Bandiagara, solo this time, to meet back up with my fellow PCTs, commiserate/bitch/rejoice over beers and cocktails, and head back to Bamako to finish training. We went to Sevaré together and met up at the stage house, where I finally got to meet all of the current PCVs. We have a fun group. They made us a delicious dinner and threw us a big party, we danced all night long to 90s American hip hop and stumbled home. Great night.

Well that’s all I can muster for this time, I’ll update you all after this last stretch of homestay. As always, I send you much love! Thanks SO much to all of you who have been sending me letters and packages, it makes me feel so loved!

Some Pictures.... More coming soon!

Me making food at homestay












Jeremy and Ali making food








Rice Sack Gardens












My homestay family




Host brothers









Ambaga, my language tutor, during a rain storm





My homestay family at Diallakorobougou







This is part of the Beninois family in my homestay complex... the little baby girl is teething right now, and is going to grow up to be a man-eater she's so beautiful.





Some beautiful cliffs near Bamako on a hike

A waterfall west of Bamako on the hike









Part of the hiking crew, plus some random Malian kids that followed us up










Meggan and Tyson trying to climb an un-climb-able rock

Mopti Caw Site Visit

(picture from Tubaniso, the PC training site in Bamako)


Five years of living in Portland, and it turns out I had to come all the way to Mali to find my Oregon Trail adventure: the Mopti Caw site visit. The potential mishaps of the Oregon Trail are all apparent here, with some amendments to be sure... Replace the risk of scarlet fever with yellow fever, and the threat of your driving ox's heart giving out in the mid-day heat with the potential for your bush taxi's engine blowing out. The other potential risks are all there: having to forge a river and losing all your cargo on the way, having a giardia attack (necessitating a swift departure to go shit up a storm en brousse), encountering bribe-demanding bandits (a.k.a. Malian gendarmes), being peed/vomited on by a small child thrust upon your lap. Oh the joys of sub-Saharan African public transit.

So here's what that translated into for us, the 18 new Mopti PCTs, on our first visit to the villages we'll be living in for the next two years...

Most of us woke up at Tubaniso at the ungodly (un-Allah-y?) hour of 5am to the militant sound of our trainer's trumpet-- only a smidgen better than the usual loathesome donkey/rooster wakeup call. As was impressed upon us, at 6am precisely we trudged through the early morning rain and mud to the refectoire to catch our buses. Instead, we were greeted by a room void of the promised coffee and breakfast, and absent of anyone deluded enough to think that ANYTHING in Mali can be organized that early in the morning (except for praying or going to work in the fields).

We, the Mopti Caw (Caw means people in Bambara), finally loaded up at about 7:30am and hit the road in our air condition-less Spanish bohemouth of a van. Fourty-five minutes later, we roll up to the gare for Gana Transport... and stop. After some time we learn that we're waiting for them to "replace a tire," which I learned is Bambara for "wait around to fill the seats with as many passengers as possible." Once we got going again, we make periodic stops to fill up on gas, actually replace a tire, stop at a market, etc. At around 9:30 we finally get out of Bamako, which should've only taken about 40 minutes. Layilah. But, no crying babies, no livestock on the roof, and our driver doesn't visibly appear to be drunk: so far all is well by Malian standards.

A few hours later we roll through a part of Mali called Blah (not joking), and by now the lack of A.C. has started to hit. Funteni fuckin be, as my friend Chris would say (explitive Bambara for it's fucking hot). We pull over to unload some luggage for a PCT who will be staying in this godforesaken place, and chu-chu-phhhhh... the engine fails. The driver tries putting it into neutral and letting it roll backwards, then forwards, to give it a running start. To no avail. Eventually about 15 of us jump off the bus to go push the massive thing (okay, the Malians were pushing, the Tubabs were taking pictures/smoking cigarettes/laughing hysterically). Et voila, we finally get going again.

Hereafter, we begin repeatedly encountering a problem called "Jeremy Lhoir." This is a Belgian-American PCT (my friend) who insists on sprinting out of the bus at every opportunity to go... well, who knows what he does... thus delaying our departure time multiple times throughout the day, pissing several people off, and dramatically increasing the smell of b.o. in the bus (every time we stop, so does the airflow).

We make it to Seygou around noon, and get off to have lunch. Bad sign-- the driver opens up the hood of the bus. He sends someone to go get repair parts for something. We sit there in the midday heat, attacked by street vendors and garibous (street kids asking for alms), for THREE hours. The sound of the bus finally honking for us to get on was the sweetest noise I have heard here.

On the road again, and night starts to fall. Spirits are rising and the temperature is going down. We all are drifting in and out of a peaceful sleep. Then, all of the sudden the driver slams on the breaks and starts to swerve a bit.... THWAK! We hit a cow. Luckily our driver's skill prevented us from even coming close to tipping over or anyone getting hurt. No such luck for the cow.

Shortly thereafter, another storm rolls in, firing up the otherwise pitch-black sky with lightning and red dust, and slowing down the pace of our bus.

FINALLY, at about 9pm, we arrive in Sevare. Alxamdulilahi. Now the only thing we have to worry about is Yacouba (a trainer) having a heart attack...

Quite the intro to Malian transport. Still, I think we had it pretty good. The PCVs told us to stop bitching, that it ain't no thang. Personally, my only regret is that we hit a cow, not a donkey.

August 13, 2009

One month down, 25 to go

Back at Tubaniso, and the 11th marked one month of my Peace Corps training in Mali, and one month until I swear in as an official PCV. I've already become so absorbed in village life here that the outside world is fading away into the ether. There are far less radio waves swimming overhead, telling news of worldly politics, for me to snatch up whenever I like; fewer daily reminders of the constant hum of the rest of the world. It's frustrating to feel the reality of not having access to knowledge in that sense-- to realize that while this is the way I will be living for the next two years, it is a life-long reality for Malians. But I, on the other hand, occasionally am thrust back into the thick of the world, with an email or a news clip or a memory. Coming back into Bamako, then, was a shock for me: hopping into a van full of Tubabs, blasted with air conditioning, switching on the BBC world news with the quick flick of a finger.





One of the things that jolted me out of this state was hearing the news that my friend and former mentor at Aprovecho (the permaculture farm/community I lived at last year), Josh Fattal, was one of the three American travelers who was arrested along the Iraqi-Kurdish-Iranian border and is been detained in Iran. It's all over the news right now, as I imagine a lot of you've heard. One of those things that seems so surreal that you can't really fully connect to it, but that sends your stomach and heart into a swirl of knots. He is a good and vibrant person, one who I learned a lot from and who has a lot to give to the world. I pray that he is released soon.





A lot of things here have been bringing me back to my time at Aprovecho, actually, and I'm realizing that that was some of the best training I could've had for this experience. I wish that I had had the opportunity to take advantage of more of the resources I had at my fingertips then-- especially in relation to Appropriate Technology. It would be invaluable for me to have more formal experience constructing things like solar cookers/dehydrators, improved fuel-efficient mud stoves, rain water catchment systems, etc. Now those resources are a bit harder to get a hold of, since I rarely have internet access.





Nonetheless, my training thus far has been really hands-on and useful-- moreso than for a lot of the other sectors. Right now it is just about getting by day to day, learning and being and taking everything in. Dooni dooni, little by little, as they say. Because of all this, I find it easy to forget why I'm here-- all of the grandeur of ideology and joint anger/hope about the state of the world that pushed me to do this. But I'm realizing that THIS is what truly grassroots, bottom-up development work is about. Starting at the basics. Really learning a place. Experiencing first hand, and slowly, the effects of decades of colonialism, deforestation, climate change, and restrictive regimes/trade policies on everyday people. ASKING what the needs of the community are, and then implementing projects.





I leave tomorrow to FINALLY go visit my site, Pellini! They just announced site locations for everyone a few days ago, so we're all pretty fired up. Yesterday all of our 'homologues' (a.k.a. Malian counterparts from our respective villages) made their way to Bamako for our official introductions and some group training. Pretty intimidating, but rewarding as well. My homologue's name is Kassim Kansayi, and he is a Bambara teacher for secondary school, probably in his late 20s. He speaks enough French to have good conversation, and we get along really well. We went to villages that current PCVs are located and did some community assessment projects in the last couple of days, which was eye-opening. The way that we function/are trained to think and analyze problems in the States is very different from here. Over and over, we are learning that perhaps the greatest way in which we will grow here is in becoming extremely patient.



Tomorrow will open up an entirely new world for me, hopefully one that does not include getting violently ill on the 12 hour bus ride to Dogon country, running over any livestock (although I wouldn't mind hitting a donkey), or getting pickpocketed. All of the people that have been placed in my region are amazing, so I'm feeling really lucky. We have all of the good French speakers as well, since we're going to a place with so many dialects. But then again, some of my best friends here have been placed on the opposite side of the country. C'est la vie.

I won't have internet access for another two weeks (seeing a trend yet?), so until then, drink a nice iced cocktail in my name, while I sip on lukewarm piss-water African beer, thinking of you.

BISOUS!