Finding my Magic

I've finally found my magic here-- that magic I was waiting to stumble across, and once found, I knew would give me my reasons to stay here. It came in the form of two people: two mentors, guides, friends. The first I met while coming in from harvesting millet in the field one day. His name is Anjigi Karambe. An old, white- haired, wizened, somewhat maddened with age, sun and work-roughened medicine man, jack of many trades. He was the counterpart of the first Peace Corps volunteer to come to Pelleni, back in the 1980s. He is well travelled and educated (he worked for many years with the formerly malevolent and now supposedly reformed Eaux et Forets, the Environmental sector of the Malian federal government), and he is the one person in village who speaks far better French than I do. He has put in his time and work into life; has given his strength to the land and taken wisdom from it. Now he spends his days and nights perched on a sheepskin rug by a fire outside his family's concession, mixing up tinctures and various medicinal concoctions, eagerly telling his life story to anyone willing to listen. The old men of the village gather round during the day to brew coffee and smoke their pipes, looking back over the decades of change that have passed under their feet here-- from colonial independence to the great drought of the 1980s, decentralization and democratization in the 90s, and the creeping introduction of technology and the outside world arching accross all of it. Anjigi is the sage, the guiding hand and encouragement, that I needed. He has seen, and played part in, both successful and failed development projects and environmental initiatives. He knows that tradition, comfort, and lack of education retard change to an almost maddeningly slow pace. "Villagers need to see change-- words are worth nothing here without demonstration and suivi," he tells me. This is a bit of advice that I keep hearing over and over. I know that what I do here must be approached whole-heartedly and followed through to the end. The other thing that has intrigued me about Anjigi is the appreciation and acknowledgement that we share for the joys and sadness that make up life here, and for the passion to make something more beautiful out of it. I've found that many people here are reticent about their lives, about the problems that they face. But Anjigi is the first person with whom I've shared the sentiment that "Il faut dire merci a la vie pour ce qu'elle nous donne," (We must give thanks to Life for what She gives us) and who I feel truly understands it.

The second piece of magic I've found here is my male 'tokoro' (homonym), Issa Tapily. (Did I write that I got a new Malian name when I came up to Dogon? My name is now Aissa Tapily) Issa is a permaculture-minded hermit... after spending twenty-some years farming in Cameroun he came back to Pelleni to create his own garden-home oasis just outside of the village. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what he had created-- he has taken this tired, spoiled and dry earth and put his soul and blood into it, to create something truly inspiring. He has made things grow here that I didn't know were possible. He is already practicing the things we are taught in the Peace Corps to promote here-- rain-water catchment (by digging swales on contour and forming deep rock pools for storage), composting, diverse gardening, mulching, live fencing with Morenga and Jatropha trees, etc. And he did it all with his own two hands. His property is stunning. I now have a guide to whom I can become an apprentice, who knows about soil-amelioration techniques and progressive gardening in this climate. We started a nursery of cucumber, tomato, peppers, basil, cilantro, beets, carrots, etc., and will transplant most of it to a big garden space that we're starting to prep the soil for in a month or so. It is huge, and I am giddily happy about it.

Another thing that has lifted my spirits here is that all of the teachers at the primary school have arrived (including my language tutor and friend, Ambaga). Almost all of them grew up in either Bandiagara or Sevare, and they commute to village during the school year each week to teach. They all have been educated and have some travel experience that gives them a perspective of the world that I can share (and the French to be able to communicate with). It's so strange, though, to see and bear witness to the animosity between villagers and 'city folk.' It makes me sad that teachers are reproachful of the villagers for their way of life. Admittedly, we share some of the same frustrations: the lack of respect for privacy villagers have here, borne out of boredom and such close proximity. The un-tamed curiosity of children that causes them to be rude without realizing it. The slow and conservative way of life here that they only know to accept and embrace. But the teachers seem to resent them for these things that are products not of the people themselves but of their circumstance and history. Nonetheless, they provide an outlet for fun and venting frustrations. Case in point: on the subject of gender roles and sexuality, something that is very fixed and somewhat taboo in village. The progressiveness of the teachers about these issues is one thing that caught me off guard last week. I was cooking dinner with the teachers one night, and one of them started playing a video on her cell phone that they were all laughing at. The strange noises coming from the phone intrigued me and I couldn't place them, so I went to go look at the video, only to find that they were watching a porn! "Tubab karate" is what they call it, and I've come to learn that this is not an oddity here-- lots of respectable people have porn downloaded onto their cell phones. Not expecting that one. When I got up to go home at the end of the night they left me not with the usual benediction- "May Allah give you a peaceful night," but rather with an improvised, "May Allah find you a man to give you great pleasure tonight." The world is full of surprises in the most unlikely of places.