Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Celebrate...Seliba, Thanksgiving, World AIDS Day... Akon!?



Holidays are in full swing again! As you can see by all the goats that are lined up and waiting to be slaughtered for Seliba!

Even in Africa I love this time of year! We just celebrated Seliba or Tabaski as we sometimes call it. This year was much more fun than last year because I actually semi understand what is going on. It’s like a Malians Christmas. I got a full comple made. (skirt, top and purse all made out of Malian fabric) Malians really like it, the crazier the fabric the better! The woman that I work the most closely with left town to spend the fete with her family in Segou and I stayed in Dioila and spread myself out between all of the families that invited me over. It was soooo hectic! I ate with 4 different families, and received 2 bags of raw meat…. YUM! All day long I went around with the families that I was celebrating with and greeted all of their family and friends in town, throwing out blessings until you think you couldn’t possibly say ‘Amina’ anymore and then some more! 

“I Sambe Sambe, Fa tiki allah, ba tiki allah, mussow tiki allah, denw tiki allah, wari tiki allah, allah ka san were diarrala, alla ka an bara nogon nuyman ke, Amina, amina, amina ere, amin, allah ka duomine”

 This is my landlord Boubou (who is also the prison ward), he is cutting a piece of meat for me from the goat his family killed this morning. "You can eat this tonight and even tomorrow!" he said smiling as he threw the hunk of meat into a pot and handed it to me.


For the kids its sort of a cross between thanksgiving and Halloween. They get all dressed up and go door to door and bless the home owners and in return they get candy and/or money, when they are done or their pockets are full they go home and eat more meat in one day than they usually eat in months. The whole candy aspect is great for kids but sucks for an adult! If you get caught by a slew of kids without candy, you gotta be ready to cough up some dough! I definitely learned after last year and made sure to have a bag of candy on me at all times…. Just in case!  Most of the wealthier families always slaughter a goat the day of Seliba and eat it multiple different ways. Its customary to share your meat with close friends and is considered an honor to receive meat from someone. Unfortunately I was so wrapped up driving around and stuffing my face that I forgot to take pictures! Which is so sad because I really would have loved to put up some pictures, its amazing at how dressed everyone gets… even the little kids of 4 yrs old will have a suit and tie with freshly shined shoes! I love it! 

 I am spending Thanksgiving in Bamako this year. I am going to be eating dinner at the American Ambassadors house again. Last year the food was sooo good, I almost forgot I was in Mali. Well, except for the fact that I would never be in a house that fancy in America!  But, needless to say I am really looking forward to grubbing and watching football, something I don’t take for granted anymore!
The rest of my year is pretty packed with is great… I am starting to work with Helen Keller International, their headquarters is located here in my town (Dioila) and they have asked Peace Corps if I could formally work with them, which will be starting soon. This will allow me to continually go to my old village (Senou) and help collect data periodically, which makes me happy that I can still see them and still be a part of the study.  Also this week I will be turning in another funding proposal to build an incinerator at the Health Center in my old village (Senou). As of right now they have no safe way to dispose of their medical waste. Old needles, IV lines and broken used bottles are either saved in boxes until the main hospital (CesRef)  drives over an hour to come pick them up, then transports the waste back to Dioila to burn them in the incinerator about every 3-4 months, or they are thrown into a hole with no lid behind the health center. Either way I’m sure you can see how many hazards and health risks there are with both of these options… So, yeah… 

December 1st Is World AIDS Day!!! I’m sure you all know this!? Haha… don’t feel bad! I didn’t either before I came here! This year as the president of the HIV/AIDS task force I kinda gotta do SOMETHING, so I am doing a series of radio shows with my counterpart Nakoria, to raise awareness and another volunteer Jessica Duncan (Shout out Alima!) is coming to my site to do some activities at a local private school. During the new stage’s 2 week Technical training, I along with another volunteer Veronique Porter (shout out Kidjiatu!) will be running HIV/AIDS sessions and teaching the new volunteers activities and games they can implement into the work they already do. 

December 18th AKON is coming to Bamako!!! I am so excited! I saw Sean Paul last year and it was soo crazy but super fun… I can’t remember if I wrote about it or not? Just in case, I’ll sum it up real quick. Sean Paul basically ended up turning into a riot, the cops were being crazy and beating people for no reason, so the crowd started fighting back and throwing chairs, people were getting trampled and squished, luckily I made it up to the very front, side stage so I could watch the show up close and all the rioting was behind me. It did get pretty scary at the end though, when the cops started blocking off all of the exits and weren’t letting people leave, they were trying to make everyone pay bribes to get out. So, of course everyone started jumping over the fences and getting beat more for trying to run… it was madness actually. Sean Paul was yelling at the police and telling everyone to calm down, but it was no use, it had already escalated to the point of no return, so he walked off stage and got in his hummer and took off… Hmmmm, here is to hoping that the Akon concert is not as crazy! Wish me luck!


Thursday, September 23, 2010

CINQUANTENAIRE!

The 50th Anniversary of Mali's Independence was yesterday... and the country has been crazy for the past few weeks preparing for the celebrations. I spent it in Village with my town, which was crazy but fun.


 This is Nakoria, the woman I work with who runs the orphanage. We just got back from opening a bank account for the association, and I decided it was a good photo op, with her standing in front of the Monument de Independence in Bamako. 


This is the Monument at night, when its lit up. This picture was taken a few days before the actual independence day so they weren't done "fixing" it yet. But you can also see to the left of it, as stage, where they completely blocked off one of the main roads in Bamako for 3 days to have a concert in the middle of the road! All of Mali's top artists were there to perform in this concert that started, in the rain at close to 1am and ended around 5am! 


 This picture was taken in Dioila, at our Cinquantenaire Celebration. This is the opening ceremony where the military officers raised the flag while the National Anthem played... I was surprised at how quiet everyone got... they definitely showed their Nations Pride!

 There were soooooooooo many people there, I think every person in the town was there! The police were all on a power trip and kept the crowd in random lines that they kept moving whenever they got bored it seemed like. I got to use my "white card" and sat with all the big names in Dioila. We each got a seat under a tent with prime view of everything, with guards standing by to whack anyone who tried to stand or sit in front of us. You see the kids on the wall trying to look in, it was like that everywhere!

Stilts! One of the villages obviously has talent! I don't remember which one it was, but each village surrounding Dioila got to march in the parade and showcase themselves somehow. This village chose to have 5 members walk and dance around on Stilts while they drummed and sang!


 One of the woman's association in Dioila. I was really impressed by their signs and coordinating outfits. 4 hours later the parade finally ended with, a bicycle race by a boy from each village, a rice sack race and a egg on a spoon with the spoon in your mouth race for the children.

Later that evening Eric, my new Dioila volunteer and I went to the soccer game. Which was a HUGE deal. It was Old Town Dioila VS. New Town Dioila. Eric and I both live in New Town so we had to represent... I have no idea who won because there were soooo many people there we couldn't see anything. People were sitting in trees, standing on whatever they could possibly find, it was madness! I'm glad I got to experience it though, It really was a pretty cool time to be in Mali! Who knows, I might be back in another 50 years to celebrate the 100th! Now that is going to be wild! lol I'll be 75... Damn!

Monday, September 20, 2010

2 weeks I have been back in Mali... geeze it seems like ages all over again!

I was really dreading coming back, but I know myself and had to have things lined up to come back to and keep my busy. I came back to meetings and presentations and swear in! Congrats to the new stage, Peace Corps Mali 2010-2012, Team America! Swear in was a good time as usual, and it was back to village.

It has been raining A LOT more this year than it did last year. When I got home I could definitely tell that my house had been sitting, unopened for a month in humid, humid Africa. It smelled gross! Most people like the smell after it rains... I have always hated it, so it was that smell mixed with a musky, mildewy smell! haha! I noticed that there is still two spots in my tin roof that leak after it being "fixed" twice and the rain basically just seeps in through the walls. Weird! I spend my first week back at site cleaning. For such a humid place there was so much friggin dust! I tuned fans on in all the rooms to dry them out, took all the linens and mattresses outside to dry/air out in the blazing hot sun and febreezed the heck out of everything else. It's all good, and smells clean now!

The damn rain has also brought many more transport issues, and it has been pretty rough. Today on my way into Bamako we actually had to get out of the bashe and walk because the road was way to bad to pass! All the men got out to help push the bus, that was spinning out of control, and almost hit a biker nearby. Little by little they would push the bus it would inch forward then slide deeper in the mud. It was sad to watch because all of our stuff was still in the the bus... my laptop included! Which I should have taken out of the car with me but I didn't know what was going on, the bus stopped and the driver told everyone to get out, so I along with everyone else just climbed out and began walking! Its funny how we humans just follow what everyone else is doing... I should probably work on that! After a while the car finally got through the mud and came back to pick us up, to continue on our way to Bamako.

This should be a short trip into town. I came to say a sad goodbye to an esteemed member of VADG... Daniella Allum :(

*PEACE OUT YELLA! MALI WILL MISS YOU!*

Mali is in a a whole 50th year celebration craze! Saturday there was a free concert in the middle of the street, the lanes were lined in blinking lights and there were hundreds of people standing around waiting for a concert that was supposed to start at 8pm... more like around 12:30am it started and apparently ran until after 4 am! Sunday there was a marathon, which was run throughout the city by Malians, which is great, except that all the roads were randomly blocked off and made for a hellish ride through town to the Formi. The actual celebration starts today and ends on Wednesday, which is the actual anniversary. I am going to try to get back to fight the traffic and head back to Dioila today... wish me luck!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

1 Year and Counting


Already at the end of July! I pretty much can’t believe that I survived my first year in Mali! I know it sounds crazy, but those of you that I have spoken with on a regular basis know… there were plenty of times that I was ready to pack it up and head home. Thanks to all my amazing and supportive friends and family at home, as well as my new Risky Business friends that I have made along the way.
It’s now 1 week tomorrow, until I take a month vacation home! I’m so excited, but very busy trying to tie up all the loose ends over here before I go. Things in Dioila are going well, I just found out that I officially get to stay in my house and have begun to fix it up. We want to make it more “homey” feeling, (Owen is pretty good at this home décor business!) I also have corn growing in my yard! By the time I get home from vacation it should be just right to eat.
Working with Djiguiya womans association has been fun thus far, we went to the Peace Corps Cultural fair at our training facility Tubaniso and it went really well. Which is very encouraging for the women! We have been struggling a little bit to see eye to eye on everything, us coming from the American “time is money” and supply and demand stand point vs. the Malian, “Eh if we sell something cool, if not that’s cool to, we will just sit around and talk all day” stand point. After the cultural fair we were able to show the women and help them completely understand that it’s better to sell more products at a lower price than to sell a few things at a ridiculously high price. Now we are on the same page and I am happy to continue moving forward with the Bogolan.
I am going to start learning French! I know I should have already picked some up before, but I didn’t. I just stuck with Bambara,  but I figure…. Why not? I have enough Bambara to get by, and Peace Corps has an amazing language program, I might as well get a year of French in if I can huh? The last time I was in Bamako I had a funny experience, (typical experience actually, but I chose to write about this one) I went to a Vietnamese food stand which have delicious sandwiches and egg rolls. I usually don’t go to them by myself and realized as I walked up to the counter that I doubt they speak Bambara… I obviously don’t speak Vietnamese, or French… they don’t speak English… SHIT! Luckily I know my numbers in French so it was easy to just point and say a number, but the trouble happened when I needed more sauce and another package of veggies because I ordered two orders and they only gave me fixings for one order… Yeah that didn’t go over very well! Haha… we were both talking and nobody was listening, she was calling over everyone and their moms, it was sad. Finally a Malian man came over to translate for us. I told him what I needed in Bambara and he translated to her in French. SAD! This my friends, is one of the many reasons that I need to learn French… so I can order Vietnamese sandwiches in Africa!
I can’t wait to get back to America where everything is so “easy”! hahahaha…. See you soon Seattle!

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Happenings

Life is actually good right now in this crazy place we call Africa! I have been keeping busy fixing up my new house, which is pretty awesome. Hopefully before Chris leaves we will do a film our Dioila cribs video... haha If we do I'll post it.

But really, its crazy having electricity, I never go to sleep before 10pm now, as opposed to village, I never stayed up past 8:30pm! We collaboratively bought a fridge for the house, its so funny how much easier it makes life, you can cook something and put leftovers in the fridge! I know, I know basic concept... well not so much here! I forgot how convenient a refrigerator is, not to mention being able to drink cold water, its a privileged not a right here. I also bought a multi-speed fan, and a 3 seat bamboo type couch. Between all the furniture Irina had, all the furniture I brought and the stuff Chris already had I now have a fully furnished 3 bedroom house. My land lord just pained both houses in my concession and is building my fence higher and putting spikes on top to make it more secure. They also pained a chalkboard on my wall outside. After talking with Peace Corps yesterday i found out that I need to write up a new lease, and that i get to keep both of the houses in my concession as the new Dioila Transit house for all the volunteers in the area, I get a guard to watch the house when I am not there and even when I am because I am a girl living alone... AAAANNNDDD We are working on getting internet at my house! I am almost living better here than I did in America!

Project wise things have been really moving and keeping me busy which is great! I don't feel like I am going crazy anymore staring at the wall. At the end of may we did our "Pedal Protected against HIV/AIDS" bike tour, which oddly enough turned out pretty well. We were able to reach over 1,000 villagers, with over 200 getting tested. There were 11 PCV's who rode about 70K to 7 different villages. All of the villages were pretty excited to see us and we had big dance parties in each village. There is definitely room for improvement with this project, but then again when is there not room for improvement?



We never cease to find hilarious shirts on villagers, This is one of my favorites from the Bike tour. "Kiss me before I sober up" is funny anyways, but when worn by a child in a non drinking, Muslim country it's even funnier!

Oh yea this was a good one to... I think its pretty clear why!


I am not sure who took this picture, but yep, that's me. I rode a bike about 70K! I don't think I have ridden a bike that much, ever... not even all bike rides in my whole life combined!

This is Me, Suzy and Veronique trying to teach the children the Thriller dance. The DJ insisted on playing it over and over... unfortunately we were all pretty rusty and just ended up making it up! Atleast everyone got a good laugh out of it, volunteers and villagers alike.

And these are the children in the village watching us do the Thriller dance! hahaha.... They are obviously entertained! A few of them did try to do it eventually... Really!



Thanks to Chris Romero (shout out) I have also gotten involved with the Djigyiua Woman's Association in Dioila. Nakoria Doumbia is the founder, president and the person that i hang out with most in village. She is a very rare breed of Malian woman who has drive and ambition. She has started her own NGO which takes in orphans whose parent's have died from HIV/AIDS. We have begun working on an income generating activity to raise money for the organization. The women are going to start a bogolan (earth cloth) business from the ground up. The exciting part is that I really believe this can work, each of the women has more of a vested interest in this business working. Most businesses want to make money solely for their own benefit, but in this case the profit is for the benefit of the orphans. 45% of all money earned will go towards food security. The organization will buy grains and other food items in bulk and distribute them between all the women to ensure that each orphan has adequate food. 40% of all money earned goes to the education of the orphans, because public education here in Mali isn't free. The money earned will pay for the enrollment fees of each orphan as well as buy school supplies. The last 15% will go back into the business, like to buy more supplies or for whatever is needed. This project is coming through Peace Corps as a donation only project, when it is approved I will attach the link to my blog so that people can donate!


This is Nakoria the founder of this NGO, and another man (I forgot his name) who is helping the women learn to freehand mud drawings. 
 
Unnamed man again... I feel like its Moussa, showing more women how to use stencils for adding prints onto the cloth.

 This is the wall art that I designed for my grandparents, in stage 2. The plain cotton cloth is dyed yellow from special leaves soaked in water over night, then put out in the sun to dry. When they are completely dry, the first layer of mud is added, the black color. All other colors and designs are added in stages to make a final product with different shades of grey, browns, yellows and white. 

 
Other than those two projects I have been busy saying good bye to friends! It is COS season (close of service) I cant believe that in about a week it will be 1 yr in Mali for me... I am going to be spending the 4th of July in Manatali, which is in the Kayes region. It is supposed to be very cool, and I hear they have hippos and monkeys up there. I'm sure it will be fun!

Happy 4th of July from Africa!!




Tuesday, May 18, 2010

movin on uuuup....

After all of my contemplating and worrying about what the right thing to do was, the decision was taken out of my hands and made for me. I met with my Country Director and expressed my concern about my transportation situation. I had heard rumors that PC might be able to give volunteer satellite phones to use if they have absolutely no cell reception in case of emergency. After listening to my argument as to why Owen my site mate and I needed a satellite phone my (which was a very good one at that) I was denied! My Country director calmly sat back in his chair and said “frankly Gloria, I don’t see communication as being the problem, it’s your transportation that is the issue and we are going to move you.” That was it! I don’t really think anyone person is to blame in this situation, My village or course eager to get a volunteer may have told PC what they wanted to hear and may have suggested that we have transport in and out of the village more than we really do , in order to comply with PC standards. Then there is PC staff who go out and do site visits, they take PC transport and have drivers, they don’t have to ride on public transport so they have no way of knowing what the actual transport is like and how often it runs.
After my accident I will honestly say I was scared to leave and/or return to site. I don’t have the greatest luck when it comes to transport in general, Africa or the US for that matter so I was very worried! So, that being said, a HUGE weight was lifted off my shoulders but I still felt really guilty about leaving my village. I moved to my banking town Dioila which is 47K North of my old village and on the main road. My mode of transportation now is a big charter bus that goes back and forth between here and Bamako daily… WORLDS BETTER! There is an French NGO working here in Dioila so rode with them once to visit my village already and hope to get the chance to go back a few times a month.
Even as I am getting settled in my new home and working on getting my work in order, I still think about whether this move was the right decision or not… it wasn’t until two days ago that my moving was confirmed as a GREAT idea. I was at the family of my village counterpart (Adama, the matron at the hospital), when they told me that on Saturday the bus from Dioila to Senou (my old village) crashed on its way injuring 22 people and killing 1 or 2. They were a little fuzzy on the details, since Senou doesn’t get cell reception; Adama sent word to her family that she wasn’t going to be able to come into town because the hospital was full of patients. I thank my lucky stars that the last accident wasn’t very bad and I came out unscathed. I really hope that this new accident will alert somebody that there is a problem on this road and with this transportation, so that hopefully more people don’t have to get hurt. I also thank everyone who says they have prayed for me while I have been here… God or Allah, or whoever you pray to had definitely heard your prayers!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Decisions.... Decisons...

Ok … So a am sitting here faced with one of the hardest decisions that I may have to make during my Peace Corps service.
I just got done with the Shea conference in which I felt that my women got absolutely nothing out of… that is except for the idea that they needed a big grinding machine to grind the Shea nuts into to butter, and a covered area to sit under while they did this, as well as a building or room to store the machine and all the other equipment we were going to magically acquire. EPIC FAIL! As most of you already know, on my way into Bamako for the Shea conference I got in a relatively bad accident on the bush taxi (which is my only way in and out of site) And most of you know that I have been in A LOT of vehicle accidents in my day and am overly scared when it comes to vehicles in the first place. So that said, I am now at regional training where all the volunteers in my region come together and talk about what we have done. It dawned on me that I haven’t really done anything! Not for lack of trying, but for a lack of enthusiasm on the part of my village members.
So, being me, I over analyze everything! Why am I even her e? I’m obviously not getting anything done, and the chances of anything getting done in the near future looks pretty glum, and I am risking my life every time I get in public transport… For what?!
I am not arguing the fact that my villagers don’t need help. I know they obviously do, but what am I supposed to do if they don’t want to work with me. In the past two months 2 NGO’s have decided to move into my village. A village of 500 people has Peace Corps, Helen Keller International and a French NGO working on bee keeping. HKI comes in and give motorcycles to the workers at my CSCOM so they can “work” with them, then the friggin frenchies haven’t even moved in yet and they are already building a big well and making plans to give more stuff… I can’t compete with that! I mean who would you want to work with? A company who comes in and gives you all kinds of free stuff and lots of money or someone who just comes to help you but wants you to contribute 33% of the project labor and/or cost. It’s a no brainer!
Owen has really helped me, he sat down and made a pro’s and con’s list with me, my options are to stay in my village and keep trying, as I have for the last 9 months, or move to a different village or town, and work with an established organization that actually wants to work with me. Not to mention, if I move I won’t have to ride a bush taxi in and out of site. Honestly the only thing that is keeping me from jumping on the opportunity to move, is the relationships I have built with some people in my village. My counterpart Adam, and my Language tutor Amadu and his family, and especially my Host dad Mama and his family. I don’t want to leave them. But then, is it really worth it?! Say worst case scenario, nothing changes, my transport is still shitty and I don’t get a decent project off the ground by the time I leave. I honestly don’t think I would be able to handle it. I have never been the sit back and watch kind of person, I am a do-er and need to make things happen. I don’t think I would be able to honestly say I did anything worthwhile in Peace Corps and that is slowly killing me.
If I do move I feel like I am being selfish, because yes my life would be sooooo much easier, and at the same time that makes me feel like a cop out. I am here to help Malians, not myself right? Yes, electricity, running water and a toilet would be amazing, and the town I would be moving to is only about 50K from my current village, I could keep the ties with my host family and other people in Senou and I would be able to work with an amazing, motivated Malian woman who has started her own orphanage! That is what I want to do, that would make me feel like I am doing legitimate work and that would make me happy…. That is also so selfish! But at the same time, if I am happy then I will do much better work?! Can someone just make this decision for me? It will all come down to transport in the end though, If I decide to stay for now, fine I will have to brave a bush taxi again. But I’m telling you all now as my witness, if I get in another wreck that’s it! I’m done…


***I wrote this 4 days ago and since then have decided to stay in my village. I have decided that my village deserves a second change, and that I will not be doing any funded projects for a while. Until/if they get motivated****

Saturday, March 20, 2010

When in Mali...

Do as the Malians do? I guess that is what it means to be integrated! I just spent 14 hrs on a bus and wasn't really even that bothered by it! Weird huh...

I keep thinking of the serenity prayer... "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I feel like this should be the Peace Corps motto. I have never been the most religious person, but I find myself thinking back to prayer almost daily. If I could just live here in Mali and not have to do anything it would be fine. I know that sounds horrible, but its soooo frustrating trying to get anything done!

My main problem I am facing right now is all America and Americans fault! Why do we feel the need to just throw money at situations? I am in no way putting Africans to blame, because they don't know any different. America just forms all kinds of organizations to "help starving children in Africa" who come in give a village or two tons of money and maybe builds something then leaves. This maybe helps these starving children for a month or two, then they are right back where they started from! Peace Corps is different, and it is killing me trying to explain and show my village how i am not just another American from yet another NGO, who is going to come throw money at them to band aid up their wounds and leave! The whole point for PC, and what should be the whole point for all organizations is to help our people elevate, and be self sustainable. It does hardly any good to give a village $10,000 to feed themselves in the long run. They will feast for a few weeks or maybe even months, but then run out of food again. PC thought is, use that $10,000 to build a community garden, teach farmers how to compost and use natural fertilizers, and teach mothers how to use everyday foods and make more nutritious meals with the food they can get daily, thus allowing them to harvest foods from the garden every year and get more from the crops they already farm every year... Make sense right? Then why doesn't every one do that?

As a result, my job is so friggin hard. I am not in the position to tell Malians, no I am not going to buy you all these things you don't need, but I am going to teach you things that will be very useful... They look at me like I have 3 heads! FML

So, I say "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference"

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Transportation

As if I didn't need more reminding... that I am in a whole new world here! Let me tell you a little story about the public transport in West Africa.


We left Banjul, The Gambia at 1pm saturday. We found a nice cabbie the night before who was very nice and said he would pick us up at our front door, take us across the ferry in the taxi and drive us the 3 hrs to Kaolack where we take our "direct" bus to Bamako, which should be about 16 hrs. Simple right?! haha...


When we arrive at the Ferry the queue was WAY to long and we would have had to wait for probably 4 or 5 ferries to go before we could get on. So we decided to ditch our nice cabbie and walk onto the ferry that was leaving in 10 minutes. So, far so good, we got off the ferry, found a bush taxi to take us to the border. From the border we road a donkey cart... literally a donkey cart with our luggage the 2k to the bus station. From the bus station we took a stationwagon, called a sept bus. Which all 7 of us fit comfortably in that took us the 2 hrs. We got to Kaolack in record time and had 2 hrs to spare until our 10:30 "express bus" left for Bamako. We went to find dinner, brush our teeth, and walk around and stretch our legs before the long bus ride... We chose to take Ghana transport, which left at around 10, there are a few other transport companies, like Sonef and Bani who all left between 10 and 10:30. At about 10:27 they came up and told us that we wouldn't be leaving tonight because the they hadn't sold enough tickets. Our only option was to spend the night on the bus and hope that we left early the next morning.


The night wasn't to bad, yet another time im super glad that I am short, I fit quite well on the bus seats. The bus owners swore up and down that we would leave at 7 or 8 am the next morning even if more people didn't show up. So, we went to sleep and woke up at about 11:30 the next morning. At around 10, we had had it! We had patiently waited for 17 hours and now we were done waiting. If we left last night we would be about 4 hrs away from bamako at that time!! So, we gave them and ultimatum... If the bus isn't pulling out of Kaolack at 11:00 then they WILL give us our money back and we will go to another bus company. Of courses they didn't want this to happen. All 7 of us had already bought our tickets at 24,000 mil each which is about $50 each.

We then argued amongst ourselves as to what we should do, because at his point is is just the principle of it, what Malians and aparently Senegalese people don't seem to understand. We just wanted to work on our cross culture! haha In America that would never happen, because people are acctually held accountable for things! Im sure if we didn't have a 23 hr bus ride ahead of us we would have held our ground and wondered off to find another company... but we didn't! Damnit! Next time!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

One day at a time

Well I have succeeded at surviving 6 months in Mali! I know I have said it before and I will say it again! It seems like it takes 3 days for just one day to pass in the moment, but before I know it 3 weeks have passed. That is a good thing!

This past month is by far the longest stint I have been at site! It was 3 weeks, then I went to my banking town for 2 days and went back to site for a week before I left this time. I am currently in Segou for the yearly music festival! There are a lot of volunteers in town and I am looking forward to the concerts! I hear they are amazing. I am going to Bamako after this to do my first Volunteer report form before I leave for Senegal on February 11th.

I had my site visit last week, my APCD came out to my site and talked to my village. This is always sort of nerve racking because you never know what they are going to say to each other. I mean up until now, I have been the liaison between Peace Corps and Malians. It all went very well to my surprise! My village basically said that they love me. They said I am very well integrated and I am nice, and I love Malians… I feel like this isn’t all entirely true, BUT it was nice to hear. It would have been horrible to have them say that they didn’t like me or that they had been having problems with me. It all turned out ok and we even started to work on my project outlines. So the main projects we decided were going to be:

1) Food security: Like most villages in poor African countries my village deals with a major lack of nutrition. During certain seasons there is a lot of one type of food, then the season ends and its back to millet every day with rice every now and then. The women’s association on my village is going to start a community garden. As of right now we can only get a few types of fruits and vegetables on Saturdays, which is our market day. If we had a womens community garden the women would be able to eat vegetables year around a few times a week, and also allow them to generate income by selling some of the product to raise more money for the garden. On a side note, it is very important for the women to gain in come so they can have more of a say in their health and especially family planning practices, which right now is all in the hands of the bread winner (the man of the family). But first in order for the women to have a garden they need better access to water, so I have to do a project proposal and build a well where they would like to put the garden…

2) Helen Keller international is coming to my Village for an 18 month study! They are going to be doing basically what I was working on! I am going to be working with them on nutrition and healthy eating habits. The project is going to track some families in my community who are all healthy and doing well, and track a few families who are not a healthy and/or have malnourished children, then compare and contrast the two. To see what common things most families are doing, and what the difference is between the ones that succeed and the ones who don’t . They should be coming within the next few weeks so I am very excited for this project to being.

3) Finally, I will be working on starting a boys youth group and a girls youth group. The boys group will give the guys something to do so they learn life skills while having fun, I think this is going to focus around soccer and learning English. We are going to have fun, while learning important things like hygiene, safe sex practices, HIV. Its amazing how much these teenagers don’t know! The adults don’t tell them anything, so they just figure it out themselves so its usually the wrong information! I am doing a separate girls group that is basically to serve the same purpose. The girls will also learn that they have a choice in these matters! They can go to school, and they don’t have to have 7 children. They mainly need to be empowered. It is so hard for a girl like me to come here and see that women here still feel like they have no say in anything! That is a major goal for me!

Funny all these things seem pretty simple, yet they will pretty much take my whole service to get up and running…. If they get off the ground at all! Thus is Africa, thus is Mali and I am slowly beginning to realize this. Its so frustrating!

Daily life is going! Patience has never been my strong point and I definitely get tested multiple times a day. I have figured out how to be sarcastic in Bambara, which is fun, Most Malians take everything very literal and are always stating the obvious… I need some way to entertain myself!

I have also started painting my newly creped mud hut! Now it is partially cement and in the process of being painted! I’m excited! My bedroom is green and my front room is going to be yellow, with one white and yellow striped wall. I bought material and made table cloths and matching curtains and got floor mats to match. Haha… All my villagers think I am crazy. (Malians hate to be in their houses… I mean I did to, Mud huts suck!) so they cant understand why I am going through all this trouble., but shoot I gotta do something to keep my busy! I’ll post some pictures when its all done!

Well that about sums up what has been going on thus far. Im sure there are many things I am forgetting but I’ll get to them one day. Until next time!

Rokia