it's been too long

the theme of this entry is: don't forget me!

this is entirely too long. sorry

Making it to this training has basically been the goal I've been looking towards since swear-in/installation. We first-year volunteers are not really supposed to start projects in our first 3 months at site-we're supposed to have been getting to know our villages and learning what we might want to work on, and improving our language skills. I had a good Bambara tutor in my village, the English teacher at the secondary school, for the first few weeks, but he got a little busy when school started in October, since there are only 3 teachers. I haven't had a real tutor since. I can still ask people what things are called, but it gets a little tiring to get your point across in Bambara sometimes, and I am, in fact, still an introvert. Coming to an entirely foreign country and culture hasn't changed my personality, but if anything it's made my inner introvert come out with a vengeance. Being here has also made me, apparently, more prone to random outburts of anger. I knew my emotions were going out of whack when one afternoon saw me screaming at 2 little kids when they refused to leave my concession after repeated requests, Bambara turning into English obscenities turning into me dragging the kids across the sand by their arms and slamming my wooden gate on them. This was followed by a retreat into my house to collapse and sob uncontrollably about everything and nothing for a few minutes before collecting myself. It sounds bad, and unfortunately things like it happened more times than I would have liked the past few months.

Niasso soccer team. they played Jiginna (it was a tie)

My cuz Ami, getting her hair done by my sis, Batima

How I spent a lot of October and November (knee deep in peanuts)

my bedroom!

I had a hard time at the beginning of December, realizing that I wouldn't be going home for christmas, my first time missing christmas in Atlanta...ever. It was hard thinking about not seeing anybody, especially my long-distance friends, the ones who have been long-distance for awhile...the ones I see, if ever, at christmastime. Also, I hadn't talked to anyone on the phone since, like, July, and had no idea what was happening in anyone's life. I convinced myself I would feel better if I could just have a day, or even an hour, with each of my friends. This, unfortunately, was all internalized and on a constant loop in my thoughts, which led to several incidents of crying in public. It was somewhat intentional...I wanted someone in my village to ask what was wrong. Malians really aren't big on that, apparently, and the few that did ask could really only offer "don't cry" as advice. You can see how frustrating that could be. I was getting altogether tired of studying Bambara, and asking people how their crops were, or whatever, and luckily I found something to do for a little while-there was a national vaccination campaign and I helped out at my clinic for a week. Since my village is the commune center it has the clinic (and the mayor's office and secondary school) that serves a population of 8,000 in 28 villages. Women from my village and others brought their babies to get vitamin A, albendazole and polio vaccines, and received mosquito nets for coming. It was a zoo-even though the vaccines were limited to kids only up to age 5, most women, some younger than me, had 2 kids with them. I was the mosquito net giver-outer, a job which didn't require any talking, or touching kids, ha. The women also wore their best outfits to the clinic, so I got to watch a parade of perfectly tailored complets, picking out fabrics I liked and planning future outfits for myself. This has become one of my favorite hobbies-the tailors here can work magic, if they understand what you're telling them.

The sun setting behind the mosque...just pretend it's a pinhole camera

Thanksgiving in Segou

Segou pirogues

Anyways, December was possibly the slowest month, even with some distraction. The thoughts of missing home were, and still are, accompanied by the thought that my lifestyle is changing. It was helping me in the beginning to think of this as a long vacation, at the end of which I could go back to all the things I used to do. I'm accepting now, though, that I have to find new hobbies. As of now all I've got is sudoku, reading, cutting weird pictures out of magazines to put in letters to you, and thinking about when I can travel next. I tried growing onions in my yard for a bit but some chickens came and ate them, so I gave up on gardening. The soil and the animals and the fierce harmattan winds make gardening challenging...maybe I'll try next year. A lot of other volunteers, the girls at least, are doing crafty things like knitting or beading or embroidery to stay entertained at site. Beads are plentiful at market-I just have to get some motivation to do something other than sit around and eat candy.

bored while waiting for transportation at the roadside=photo shoot!

The Christmas holidays provided good distraction, and I can say for sure now that I've luckily been able to retain dancing as a hobby, at least when I'm around other volunteers. Even though I don't really know who I am anymore, and have a hard time conversing about much of anything, at least I can still dance...dancing doesn't require talking. hmm, I'm noticing a theme. Anyways, the 9 of us in San exchanged presents and decked out the house and ate an awesomely delicious Christmas feast. I also went to Catholic church on Christmas-this country is 90-something percent Muslim but there is a small Catholic population among the Bobo ethnic group (I still don't know if Bobo is the PC term, so pardon if it's not). They live around the San area. The mass was interesting as different parts of it were given in French, Bambara, and Bomu, the Bobos' language. The nativity that was set up beside the alter was fabulous-wooden carvings of jesus and the crew, the whole thing decorated with sparkly tinsel, flashing rainbow lights and a garland of shredded notebook paper.

In our Christmas outfits after church (but before presents!)

The holiday season was also accompanied by Tabaski, the big end of Ramadan feast. Ramadan ended a few months ago, but this feast occurs in December, signifying, according to Ameera, the time when Muslims make their pilgrimage to Mecca...either that or they return. wait-here's a link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha. omg, how i've missed wikipedia. The feast also fell, neatly, at the end of harvest work in my village. Tabaski, or seliba in Bambara, was celebrated over several days. The kids got out of school for their holiday break and the next day feasting began. My family killed one of their goats, and I bought a guinea fowl to give to them to eat. My host father bought rice and spaghetti and we ate lunch till we were way past full. Even thought it's supposed to be a time of rest, my family baked several batches of bread during the day, which sold to other feasting families as soon as they came out of the oven. It was a fantastic day. me and my dad and siblings spent the entire day hanging out, listening to the radio, drinking tea and playing cards. My mom, of course, was in the gwabugu (cooking hut) all day cooking food, and I couldn't help feeling guilty and kind of sad about that-even on a holiday women still have to work. My younger siblings got dressed up in new shirts and went around giving blessings, just like the first Ramadan feast.

I enjoy days when my host dad is not working and we can hang out and chat. He's lived in Niasso his whole life and knows everything about it, or at least he's a good storyteller, even if some of it is not true. One of my favorite things to do is ask him about old times...he's told me about the time before there was a paved road, and the village was so poor, no one had horses or carts or even clothins, and if you wanted shoes you would have to wait until a cow was killed...and your dad would lay down the skin and cut out the shape of your feet as you stood on it, to make leather shoes. We also talk about the stars and planets and science. He knows a surprising amount, a lot more than most Malians, I think thanks to the last volunteer who was in Niasso (thanks, Bintou). I like hearing the Malian twist on things-like the constellation they call the "galama stars"-the galama is the ladle they use to drink porridge.

Since this blog entry is already disorganized, I'll sum up this part by saying I spent New Year's in Segou, which was entirely too crunk, for lack of a better description. City volunteers really live differently from brousse-y ones like me. After new year's I spent a week writing the report I've been working on since installation, and getting ready to come here, to Bamako. The report basically summed up everything I've learned about my village, and now that I've done my "assessment" I have an idea about what my village wants to work on. They, specifically the men's association, wants to plant trees that might eventually be used to generate income. Specifically, they want to plant gum arabic trees, whose gum can be made into adhesive, and also a cool plant called jatropha. It's currently used as live fencing around crop fields because of its animal- and pest-repellant properties, but its seeds also contain a lot of oil, which can be processed into biofuel. It grows really fast and well, even in poor soil, which is a plus here. In addition, the men want to plant eucalyptus, to use the wood for construction. But before planting anything, we need pretty much everything-seeds, tools, a water source-which is where I come in.

My work was seeming clear-cut and ready to start, which is very different from some other volunteers, some of whom have little idea, even a few months in, what their village really wants from them. I was, and am, feeling pretty lucky. I held a meeting a few days before I left for Bamako, which was attended by the chief and village elders, as well as about 20 men and 10 women. I had not been able to get that many people together ever before, especially during the daytime; previous meetings I've had have all happened at night and with the few people with enough energy to attend after a full day of work. I think, though, the meeting was cursed from the start, when a bull separated from its herd came very close to panicking in our meeting space. We were sitting behind the mosque, in an open space where another aforementioned bull was slaughtered a few months earlier. I think maybe this bull sensed some bad juju in the area, and thus I spent a good part of the beginning of the meeting huddled in a corner watching the bull's every move. Meanwhile, the chief was chattering on and everyone else was ignoring the distraction. Bulls don't scare Malians.


When business finally turned to my work, the chief presented what I and my counterpart wanted to do and asked if the village agreed. The village already has a fenced-in area, which an NGO built and planted trees in about 5 years ago. The trees died because, according to villagers, they were planted in the wrong season and without a reliable water source. I don't know if this is entirely true, but coming in I, and some of my village counterparts, assumed this was the area I would be helping my village to plant trees in. At the meeting, however, I was informed this area could not be used because it belonged to the NGO and not the village, and another area would have to be found for tree planting. Next order of business: well in the women's garden. After a few minutes of deliberation, with the men speaking on behalf of the women even though several were present, it was decided that...well the women's garden belongs to World Vision...Peace Corps can't work there! So basically my project ideas, the ones I'd had in mind for months, were shattered in just a few minutes. One of the women, my friend Alima, realized what had just happened and came over to comfort me, and told me I could maybe help the women with animal raising if I wanted. It was kind of ironic that it happened that way...and it just shows the slow pace of development work, and how much patience I'm going to have to have.
Fortunately a few days later the men showed me a new area where we can work together to create a tree plantation. Ironically it's literally on top of the other fenced-in area. When asked if we could piggyback the new fence onto the old one, thereby saving time and money, I was turned down because we have to allow room for a donkey cart path.


All of this is, of course, very tentative and may end up happening completely differently. My job right now is to start making a project plan in my village. This could eventually include writing proposals for funding from an outside source, if materials are needed, or linking up my villagers with resources of information. They already know a lot more than I do-my counterpart has a big garden and tree nursery where he experiments with all kinds of tree seeds and grafting. There are also a few people in town experienced in sinking wells. It seems the situation is the same for a lot of volunteers, in Mali and elsewhere-people have the knowledge and motivation to do the work, they just don't have the resources to do it. I really admire those among my villagers who are willing to go the extra mile to help develop their community. Lord knows each and every one of them have their hands full trying to keep themselves and their families alive and fed every day. I really don't know how they do it. You can't be lazy here if you want to survive.
For the next few months I'll be focusing on this project, hanging out in village with occasional trips to San, and possibly Senegal. Oh yes, and planning my trip home to visit America. I'm thinking a few weeks in June/early July maybe. Pencil me in!!


whoa, that was long. do people really read all this?