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!

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 11^th.

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

Better late than never

This is me and my little host sister Ma... I don't know her real name, everyone just calls her Ma. She used to cry run away from me. She wouldn't even walk past my house on the road by herself. She would hide and I could just hear her screaming "Ne be sira!" (I'm scared) over and over again. One day she miraculously got over it. and now she always wants to high five me... I taught her the fist pound, and she always says "Rokia, Ne te sira sisa" (Rokia, Im not scared now)

These are some kids in my village looking at us as we wait for the bus to leave...

I have survived my first two weeks at site! In the moment it seemed like it the days went by ridiculously slow, but somehow it seems like the past two weeks have flown by. Granted I have spent 7 if the 14 days in Dioila with all the other Dioila cow. (Cow means people in Bambara, so if I say Seattle cow it means Seattle peeps, and for future reference Dioila cow consists of Chris a 1 yr. PCV, Me, Irina, Owen and Mike.)

I had a lot of fun (not) trying to get my furniture to my house… and I still haven’t been able to get a normal bed. But all in all things are coming together. If you know me you know that I am sort of anal about organization and what so it is imperative that I get more shelves to organize things in my mud hut! I don’t understand why people here don’t use tables and shelves. Why keep everything on the floor? Especially when they have animals running around wild! Imagine trying to eat and every two seconds you have to throw things and hit chickens so they get away from the bowl you are trying to eat from. All I can think is see… this is why we put food on friggin tables… well not the only reason, BUT had there been a table that would have been a non issue. I just don’t get it. Either way, I now have a table that my stove and food and dishes are on and shelves in my room for my books and clothes. Us Dioila cow said that we were going to have painting parties and paint each other’s huts! I haven’t really come up with a color scheme yet but I think I am going to go with blue and green. I found this mat at the market that I really liked its dark blue and teal with lime green and yellow. I know it sounds gross but its not to bad! Its Seahawks colors for sure so I may be going that route. I am going to the market maybe tomorrow to get fabric to make curtains and to cover things when I leave. The logistics of living in a hut made completely out of mud is pretty weird. It is always so dusty and chunks of my wall always fall off! There are also termites that crawl around the walls and dig tunnels EVERYWHERE, which then makes parts of the wall crumble and fall so I end up with piles of all over. Pretty gross huh? I guess they have this termite treatment that you can buy and sort of paint your walls with it and it helps… I don’t know how it works or if it’s even worth it, I might be able to use it as a primer for when I paint my walls. Hopefully by next time I get computer access I will have all of this figured out!

Ramadan has ended finally! People can eat again, and are more lively now. They had a big celebration they call fet which is the day after the full moon when they get to break their fast and everyone just stuffs their faces all day. I was interesting, we had to go around and visit people and they made us all eat. I am not used to eating very much anymore since the food here still disgusts me, so it was really hard for me. I didn’t want to be rude so I ate a little at each place but it was pretty rough. Then the following day September 22nd is the Malian Independence day. The part continued at the mayor’s office place. The whole town came and they set up big speakers and microphones. It was actually really cool because they had everyone from the community come up and talk about their issues. They had the town doctor and vaccinator talk about the health problems, they local teachers talking about school starting soon and all the issues the local schools have, and about cell phone connection for the village. All of which was in Bambara so I only understood a few words here and there but I got the gist of it. They of course re introduced me to everyone and again explained what I am doing there and had me talk in the microphone in my busted Bambara, which they all got a kick out of… I have also started working with my language tutor (who speaks English by the way!) to translate some of my baseline surveys have to do to assess my community. One of them is for the Mayor of the village and my language tutor told the mayor I was going to ask him questions. This is true I did need to interview him, but I didn’t expect to do it on the microphone in front of the whole village! It went ok I guess, Lucky I’m not afraid of public speaking huh?

Last night a few of us went out to “Chinese” food. It was pretty good compared to what I am used to eating! It was so weird though! Never had I been in a situation with so many language/ culture clashes! Haha… I don’t speak French at all; the restaurant owners didn’t speak it well, they speak Chinese (go figure) which I definitely do not speak! They don’t speak English or Bambara. Haha! It was a good time trying to order!

*I started typing this two weeks ago when I was in town for my birthday and never made it back to a computer to finish the blog post! It is now October 14th and I am going to post it. I may post another of the happenings of the past two weeks today if I can or in a few more weeks?!*

Oh Also my site buddy Owen keeps a way better blog than I do, and he put pictures up some of which I am in! If you wanna check it out its Owenfitz.blogspot.com

Love,
Gloria

Newbie PCV

Well, I made it! Honestly a month ago I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it to see Swear in... But I did, and here I am waiting for the Land Cruiser to be loaded up so we can go to site. We will be moving in over the next couple day and shopping for our new homes! A good bed is first on the agenda, which might be hard because good mattresses are far and few between here. Pretty much everyone has left already, there is only us Koulikoro folks left!

It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone today. 3 months seems like so long til we come back to Tubaniso at the end of November for IST.

Crap thats the horn for us! gotta go, wish me luck and I probably wont be blogging for a while!

The Final Homestay

Welp.... back from my final homestay. Its so weird how full circle it went! I was crying when I got there because I was basically freaking out and over whelmed, I didn't want to be there you know all that jazz. I thought I would be so excited to finally get out of Baguineda Camp but it was actually really sad!

I have been faced with the issue that Malians don't cry and it is actually culturally inappropriate to cry in front of them. If any of you know me at all you know that I am always crying (if I'm upset, sad, mad, happy, scared... doesn't really matter) So you could imagine me here, where everyone is on an emotional roller coaster ride all the time and you seem to go through all of these emotions various times through out the day. I now know what its like to be bi-polar I believe! I accidentally let a few tears fall in front of some Malian guys, who happen to be the sons of the Chief of Baguineda Camp... In my defense they weren't there when I started crying and walked into my conversation! They were dumb founded as to why I could possibly be crying and proceeded to make fun of me, which in turn only made me cry more. They basically said "whats wrong with you? you are crying because you don't like it here? how could you miss America you have only been here for 2 weeks!" then then told me that only babies cry and therefore I must be a baby. I hated them all! But since then they have evolved from making fun of my crying to calling me Belabelaba, which directly translates to fat. hahha... yup there is another tubab in our village with the same African name as me, she is Rokia Coulibaly fintini (skinny or small) and I am Rokia Coulibaly belabelaba (fat or big). By American standards this is straight bull shit and made me want to cry all in its own, because I am actually not the most "belebelaba" tubab girl in my homestay, I am however the most curvaceous? Its all so very uncomfortable to have everyone discussing my body! SERIOUSLY! I do now understand that big women are considered beautiful here and its a compliment but I am after all American and I don't think I will every to fully take that as a compliment. I have never felt so fat as I do here in Mali!

Aside from that, My family and most people are so nice its amazing. We had a going away "party" (if you will) at the dugutiki's house (Village Chief). All of our host families came with us to see us off, they carried our things and sat with us til the Peace Corps bus came to pick us up. I was totally fine until my host grandma came up to say goodbye to me. She is probably around 70 and she said "Rokia, I have to go to the market now, I won't see you anymore" she reached out to grab my hand, I wasn't looking at her because its respectful to NOT look directly at the elders here (weird) but I looked up when she stopped talking. Usually they ramble off at least 5 blessings before they leave and she said nothing! I looked up and saw her lip quivering and tears in her eyes! WHAT?! OK, of course... then I lost it! and so did everyone around me! It was so crazy, that opened the flood gates and most of us cried a little between that moment and the moment we waved as we drove off. I think that has been a defining moment for me. I felt like I have just been going through the motions and not really affecting anyone. But now I have realized that in the short time I have been here I have built relationships.... We have made an impact on each others lives in just a little over a month... Its crazy to think what can happen in two years!

Off to Senou

I am waiting for the bus to pick us up to head to my site. PC gave us money and are dropping us off at the bus station in Bamako... Scary! It is exciting to finally see my actually village I will be living in for the next two years. I'm excited to finally settle in and stop living out of a suitcase! Although that is still a month away.

I am going to a small village of 600 called Senou. Its about 3 hrs SE of Bamako, you cant find it on Google maps but it is 40K south of Dioila. My counterpart is a Midwife named Adam (pronounce the A's as AW) she seems very nice. But she speaks crazy fast and sort of mumbles and since I barely understand the language as it is I definitely foresee some issues! She speaks french... which doesn't help whatsoever, but I have a feeling I am going to be spending a lot of time with my French Dictionary writing out things I need to say to her then having her translate it to Bambara for me. I am going to be working at the CSCOM, which I am very surprised even exists in my tiny village. Most villages this small only have a maternity. Mainly I will be working on pre and post natal consultations and proper infant, child and nursing mother's nutrition. One of my main duties will be to try to get all the mothers to register their babies, and track their growth. I have to encourage and convince mothers that their baby's health is important, and I will be regularly weighing and measuring babies to keep record of their growth.

Part of me is excited to just be done with training and start my service already but the other part of me is freaking out because I feel like I need at least 2 more months of training! Well... I'm off to Bamako now... wish me luck!

1 month down... how many left to go?!

Well, I made it one month! I'm actually surprised! After being here for two weeks I was almost certain I wouldn't make it! It hasn't been easy that's for sure. Yup, I am really in the 3rd poorest country in the WORLD! I'm not sure if its what I expected or not...

First off my home stay village is called Baguineda Camp. It is a pretty big village of about 9,000, its a suburb of Bamako. We got dropped off and had a welcoming ceremony where we met the mayor and the Dugutiki (chief of the village) There were a lot of people who came to see the Tubabs (us/white folk) there was a lot of music, and dancing... we met our host parents, danced a bit then went "home" for lunch. Crap talk about overwhelming!!!! So many sights and sounds and smells, I was on the verge of tears the whole time!!!

My host family is AMAZING though! My host father is 35 his name is Yacouba Coulibaly, he only has 1 wife and I think he plans on only having 1 wife which is great! (I didn't realize Mali was hip to the whole polygamy business) So my host moms name is Fatimatu Seko and get this... she is 25! lol yup, just a year older than me. and they have 4 kids. The oldest is 10! Uh huh I said 10!! her name is Jaratu, Next is Boroley who is 7, then Bogoroba who is 4 and Muhamadu who is 1. Since it is summer and the kids are on break Yacoubas' older sisters two kids are also staying with us. There is Asa who is 9 and Jeneva who is 6. Also living in our concession is... Bakare Yacoubas 27 year old brother, and their mother Sonduguba, I'm not sure how old she is AND... another nephew Dreesa. I still haven't figured out who he belongs to or why he is living with them... but I guess it doesn't matter. Yacouba has 8 siblings his youngest brother Kassoum is 20 and quickly became my BFF because he is going to college in Bamako and is studying English, and can speak a tiny bit of English... which is amazing! it has proven to be very helpful! That is a whole crap load of people living in 3 bedrooms huh?! hahaha... I have my own room.

Lets see... so far I have been totally OK with the no electricity and running water business. Its amazing how quickly one can adjust. What I have not adjusted to so much is using a neygan... Which is a hole in the ground that you just have to squat over and aim very carefully... Me and my weak stomach don't agree with it so well. I throw up every time I have to go to the bathroom. Not good. Not to mention the Cock roaches and mosquitoes that seem to sit and wait for the split second that one pulls down their pants to bite my everything! NOT COOL! I loaththem! I have pretty much resorted to not going to the bathroom once it starts to get dark until the sun comes up. You do what you gotta do man!

Some things I have been amazed by are... 1, the fact that Malians don't use soap to wash their hands, they believe that soap will wash away all their luck/money. and it isn't just a wives tale, they truly believe this! 2, the amount of garbage there is... everywhere. I guess it makes sense I mean what do you do with garbage? you throw it away, then what happens to it? I know you put it out on the curb and someone comes and takes it away... what happens when there is no one to come take it away? It just sits there... which brings us to Mali. There is no waste management there fore the waste is well... in the streets. I don't know if I will ever get used to the kids running around half naked and barefoot playing with broken glass, razor blades, old pesticide cans and tampon applicators... and really what can I do about it? I mean I still collect my garbage, but I have no idea what I am going to do with it when it comes time to throw it out... throw it where?!

Language... is interesting. Bamanaka it is called and it isn't even really a written language! Its all contextual and I am convinced that it is made up as they go along! I'm also convinced that they entire language is made up of like 50 words, they just change the meaning... for example Ba means- mother, big and river. All pronounced the exact same way It just depends on the context of the sentence. its crazy. And you use the same word (ye) for past tense and present tense... So I can never figure out if someone is asking me what I'm doing right now or what I did before OR if I saw my mom before I got home or if I saw the river before I got home or if I am currently looking at something big... FML! and everything sounds the same! Somogo is family, Sonogo is sleep, Sokono is inside, and Sogoma is morning. hahah pretty sure I ask people how there inside is, tell them that I am going to morning and to have a good family because I cant ever remember which is which when Im speaking... I just cheated and looked at my language notes to get those right! I usually just say "Awo" which means yes, and if they look at my wierd I say, oh "Ayi" which means no! N ma famu ( I don't understand) and N taa do (I don't know) are my two most favorite phrases...

I think that's good for this session... I still have so much stuff to say but there will be more time... I can definitely say I am a total American and I miss it like crazy though!