...I recall that today is the day that every American family comes together, cooks Turkey, and eats as a family--Thanksgiving. I've briefly talked about Malian food and eating habits briefly, but I'll speak a little more specifically on what exactly I eat day to day.
My community, like nearly all of Mali, is composed of farmers; everyone grows corn, millet, beans, and peanuts. The rice fields are slightly further out, so fewer people grow rice. People also have gardens and grow tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, okra, and watermelon. At the end of rainy season, the larger crops are harvested, and everyone goes out to the fields for a few hours to pull up peanuts or cut millet stalks. Once these major crops are harvested, Malian women dry and pound, (in Bambara, susulike) them: millet must be pounded out of it's outside casing and washed, beans dried and washed, and corn dried. Next, you can take your dried beans, corn, or millet to the masine in the center of town and the machine will grind them into a powder. I myself bought some rice, and had it ground into rice powder or malomugu.
Now, finally, you can actually cook what you grow. Mali, and only Mali, eats something called to: you heat water, little by little add millet powder to the heated water, and a thick porridge-like substance results after much stirring. You then ladle it out in large spoonfulls, allow it to cool so it develops a consistency like jello, then you put sauce on it. Most often, Malians serve it with tomato-okra sauce, baobob leaf sauce, or another type of sauce that's mostly just tomatoes.
When peanuts are harvested, women susu peanuts into tigadiga or peanut butter, and then most often make peanut butter sauce--tigadigana-with peanut butter, okra and tomatoes, and serve it over rice. Really good tigadigana is simply...amazing. It makes my day to have rice and tigadigana.
Following a meal, Malians drink tea. When first asked if I drink tea, I had only my American frame of reference: tea as an infusion of a dried plant in hot water, which you drink slowly only while reading philosophy on a rainy morning.
Tea in Mali is not tea in America (or at least not my kind of American tea). Sure, the box says "green tea" like in America, but Malians make their green tea with sugar and through a different process:
1. Take two little ceramic tea pots, put water and tea in one teapot and heat it until it's boiling.
2. Pour the mixture into the second teapot only to pour it back into the first. Heat some more.
3. Pour again into the second teapot and add sugar until it tastes right, pouring the mixture back and forth to dissolve the sugar.
Tea is then served in small glasses that resemble shot glasses: there are always two teapots, and always two tea glasses. Often to get the taste right, the person pours the tea back and forth between the two glasses to get the sugar dissolved and to cool the drink. Finally, the person who makes the tea fills a glass, and hands it to you, at which point you quickly drink and give back, so that he can refill the glass and pass it to the next person. Finally, this process happens no fewer than three times: if you are at a meal, you sit and wait until you get three glasses of tea.
Today I will not be eating turkey, nor will I be drinking tea. But I will don my Malian shirt and skirt made out of a blue fabric with orange autumn-like leaves while eating my cheeseburger.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Doni, doni
The phrase oft repeated in Mali becomes a bit annoying, but in many cases, and at this point, it's something I keep reminding myself. Little by little, doni doni, you learn, and things will become easier.
Right now, my official task at site as previously mentioned was to
1. Keep learning the language and
2. Integrate into my community
Going into site, we receive 9 weeks of language training--about the equivalent of getting you to a lang 201 level for anyone who took college level language courses (or for those of us who had a good highschool teacher, placed out of them). This means you know how to greet, how to perform the most basic transactions, and talk a little about anticipated subjects such as your job description, your family, your personal interests, etc. Anything more complicated, you can just answer, but only after you think a bit and struggle to state a more complex idea or opinion.
Of course performing on an exam isn't the real world. Anyone who has gone to another country knows how different things are once put in a real context--people speak much faster and use slang. Styles of speech differ depending on the location. Think just about regional speech differences in the U.S. and how you can tell that I've lived in the south when an occasional "y'all" sneaks into my speech. Mali is no different. Volunteers going south to the Sikasso region often find Bambara mixed with Malinke. Everywhere, you find Bambara mixed with French to varying degrees. Markets up in the Mopti region become fairly complicated where some vendors speak Bambara, others Fulfulde, and others Dogon, the common meeting ground always being French.
In my village everyone knows Bambara but will mix in French words too. The Bambara they speak is also slightly different than the textbook Bambara we learned-- 'C' is pronouced 'ch' but my village likes to turn 's' into 'sh' and 'g' into 'gw'. I'm also still struggling to figure out what they're even doing with the letters 'u' and 'e'. The first three months are dedicated to figuring these things out, and for me, this process is incredibly frustrating: I'm replacing a volunteer, so everyone has forgotten how long it takes for someone to figure things out and gain a footing, linguistically and culturally.
At the end of every day, I try to remind myself that I've learned a little more. I'm learning techincal-specific vocabulary now, so I know how to talk about the three food groups, about how vaccinations are beneficial, and how to describe malaria symptoms. One incredibly good suggestion that was given for language learning was to do the things you liked to do in your own culture, and start learning the words for it. I like cooking, and I'm not a complete stranger to cooking over a fire, so I went over to a neighbor's house and we made moni together, her saying each of the steps and me repeating to make sure I understood, so later I could perhaps make moni myself. Then the Malians ask me what my favorite recipe is in America, and I tell them how I make tomato sauce in the U.S. and put it on pasta or a type of bread called pizza.
Maybe while we're cooking, I'll start to ask some of my health specific questions: what do you usually make for dinner? What can you buy lots of? What's too expensive or not available? I try and do this a little bit each day so that much later when I know families better (and my Bambara is better) I can ask about more sensitive subjects and get honest answers--How many children have died in this family? What illnesses did they have? Do you know about birth control options available? Do you know about AIDS and other STIs?
To make real progress and get to know the community, integrating is necessary: I'm no longer an outsider, but I'm someone who lives with Malians and like Malians. But integration is tough to call in many cases, because fundamentally I'm not a Malian--I'm an American, and daily I try to decide how to draw the line at how far to integrate.
I'll close with my most recent dilemma in these past few weeks. Mali, and my village, is mostly Muslim. I live two houses away from the Mosque, and most things are structured around the prayer times. Yet when asked what religion I am, I'll respond honestly that in America I went to a Protestant Church. Malians like to hear about me and my family and who I am as a person, and going to Church in America is a small part of that. There is a small Christian population in my village, and further, there is actually a Protestant church--the Catholic Mission is in neighboring Kolokani and Sirado. Missionaries at some point got to many of these small villages, originally animist, and converted those that weren't Muslim to Christianity. Animism is practiced to varying degrees by everyone in my village, but people do align as either Muslim or Christian. At first I was hesitant to go to the church (although several Malians invited me), concerned that it would interfere with integrating fully into the predominately Muslim community.
I attended Church this past Sunday when my language tutor was out of town. And it functioned much like...any other church, except in a Malian context, of course. You sing some hymns, you have prayers and concerns, an offering, a sermon, and then you give blessings as you leave for the day. As Malians, though, men automatically sit on one side and women and children on the other. Hymns are accompanied by drums and are much more call and response (and of course memorized).
I have decided I would keep going to the Church for several reasons. The congregation has two Bambara hymn books, so while everyone is singing, for once, I can look on at words, and with the repetition, learn new words. The congregation also has two Bambara Old and New Testaments. With scripture and hymns, it's also good practice for becoming faster at numbers, something I'm still not as rapid in as I am in English or French. The African blessings are also used frequently, so I get practice with the blessings too (think of how much repetition there is in any religious service!). Finally, by going, I'm sharing a bit about myself with Malians: I always respect the Muslim call to prayer times, I always wear skirts and I cover my head if the situation calls for it or it makes women more comfortable, but I can respect the Muslim community and express a little of my American self in this Malian context too.
For everyone Stateside, Happy Halloween. While the leaves are turning in America, watermelon and orange season has just stared. So good!
Right now, my official task at site as previously mentioned was to
1. Keep learning the language and
2. Integrate into my community
Going into site, we receive 9 weeks of language training--about the equivalent of getting you to a lang 201 level for anyone who took college level language courses (or for those of us who had a good highschool teacher, placed out of them). This means you know how to greet, how to perform the most basic transactions, and talk a little about anticipated subjects such as your job description, your family, your personal interests, etc. Anything more complicated, you can just answer, but only after you think a bit and struggle to state a more complex idea or opinion.
Of course performing on an exam isn't the real world. Anyone who has gone to another country knows how different things are once put in a real context--people speak much faster and use slang. Styles of speech differ depending on the location. Think just about regional speech differences in the U.S. and how you can tell that I've lived in the south when an occasional "y'all" sneaks into my speech. Mali is no different. Volunteers going south to the Sikasso region often find Bambara mixed with Malinke. Everywhere, you find Bambara mixed with French to varying degrees. Markets up in the Mopti region become fairly complicated where some vendors speak Bambara, others Fulfulde, and others Dogon, the common meeting ground always being French.
In my village everyone knows Bambara but will mix in French words too. The Bambara they speak is also slightly different than the textbook Bambara we learned-- 'C' is pronouced 'ch' but my village likes to turn 's' into 'sh' and 'g' into 'gw'. I'm also still struggling to figure out what they're even doing with the letters 'u' and 'e'. The first three months are dedicated to figuring these things out, and for me, this process is incredibly frustrating: I'm replacing a volunteer, so everyone has forgotten how long it takes for someone to figure things out and gain a footing, linguistically and culturally.
At the end of every day, I try to remind myself that I've learned a little more. I'm learning techincal-specific vocabulary now, so I know how to talk about the three food groups, about how vaccinations are beneficial, and how to describe malaria symptoms. One incredibly good suggestion that was given for language learning was to do the things you liked to do in your own culture, and start learning the words for it. I like cooking, and I'm not a complete stranger to cooking over a fire, so I went over to a neighbor's house and we made moni together, her saying each of the steps and me repeating to make sure I understood, so later I could perhaps make moni myself. Then the Malians ask me what my favorite recipe is in America, and I tell them how I make tomato sauce in the U.S. and put it on pasta or a type of bread called pizza.
Maybe while we're cooking, I'll start to ask some of my health specific questions: what do you usually make for dinner? What can you buy lots of? What's too expensive or not available? I try and do this a little bit each day so that much later when I know families better (and my Bambara is better) I can ask about more sensitive subjects and get honest answers--How many children have died in this family? What illnesses did they have? Do you know about birth control options available? Do you know about AIDS and other STIs?
To make real progress and get to know the community, integrating is necessary: I'm no longer an outsider, but I'm someone who lives with Malians and like Malians. But integration is tough to call in many cases, because fundamentally I'm not a Malian--I'm an American, and daily I try to decide how to draw the line at how far to integrate.
I'll close with my most recent dilemma in these past few weeks. Mali, and my village, is mostly Muslim. I live two houses away from the Mosque, and most things are structured around the prayer times. Yet when asked what religion I am, I'll respond honestly that in America I went to a Protestant Church. Malians like to hear about me and my family and who I am as a person, and going to Church in America is a small part of that. There is a small Christian population in my village, and further, there is actually a Protestant church--the Catholic Mission is in neighboring Kolokani and Sirado. Missionaries at some point got to many of these small villages, originally animist, and converted those that weren't Muslim to Christianity. Animism is practiced to varying degrees by everyone in my village, but people do align as either Muslim or Christian. At first I was hesitant to go to the church (although several Malians invited me), concerned that it would interfere with integrating fully into the predominately Muslim community.
I attended Church this past Sunday when my language tutor was out of town. And it functioned much like...any other church, except in a Malian context, of course. You sing some hymns, you have prayers and concerns, an offering, a sermon, and then you give blessings as you leave for the day. As Malians, though, men automatically sit on one side and women and children on the other. Hymns are accompanied by drums and are much more call and response (and of course memorized).
I have decided I would keep going to the Church for several reasons. The congregation has two Bambara hymn books, so while everyone is singing, for once, I can look on at words, and with the repetition, learn new words. The congregation also has two Bambara Old and New Testaments. With scripture and hymns, it's also good practice for becoming faster at numbers, something I'm still not as rapid in as I am in English or French. The African blessings are also used frequently, so I get practice with the blessings too (think of how much repetition there is in any religious service!). Finally, by going, I'm sharing a bit about myself with Malians: I always respect the Muslim call to prayer times, I always wear skirts and I cover my head if the situation calls for it or it makes women more comfortable, but I can respect the Muslim community and express a little of my American self in this Malian context too.
For everyone Stateside, Happy Halloween. While the leaves are turning in America, watermelon and orange season has just stared. So good!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
"Did you sleep well last night?" Just another day
Before I head out, I'll talk a little bit about how mundane things are done, for example, a shopping day. You forget how much is involved in a culture until you begin to think about the process by which everything gets done.
We get at least one day in our regional city (in my case the capital) to get things we can't get once we're at site (various western food items, furniture, clothes, etc). Even though the volunteer I'm replacing left me about five skirts, I started my morning set on getting my own skirt made.
First, I went to the market (sugu). A big market (suguba) like in Bamako has everything a Malian needs for daily use: produce, eggs, meat (yes I've seen animals killed/plucked/hacked to pieces before my very eyes), bowls, shoes, clothes, hardware, and yes, fabric. Buying anything requires greeting (Hello, how are you? how's your family? did you sleep well?) before actually proceeding to the purpose of the transaction. I asked the fabric lady the price, which she stated, and since I went through the proper channels (greeting, speaking in Bambara) she didn't try to rip me off. Later in the afternoon I did have to bargain much harder for a chair.
With fabric in hand, I asked her where the tailor was. She pointed about 4 stalls down and over where I found two men each sitting at those old metal sewing machines. Again, I went through the proper greetings, then to make things easy, I pulled out another voluteer's skirt with a cut I liked and asked for the same thing. I was unsure of my Bambara at the end of my sentence, so I inadvertantly switched to the French phrase for "same thing." He asked if I knew French, and we chatted briefly about how yes, I knew some French but, little by little, I was trying to improve my Bambara and not use French.
At this point I asked a price. Pricing at first is a little bit of a nightmare: the smallest CFA coin is 5 CFA. Therefore, in Bambara, 5 CFA is referred to by the word for 'one.' Yes, this means that the word for 100 CFA is 'twenty', and 500 CFA is 'one hundred', etc. Malians think it is absurd that we stand there quickly multilpying or dividing by five: they don't realize they're not saying the number on the coin, so to them it's just like counting and not mental arithmetic. To make it more complicated, everything is bargained, so nothing has a 'formal' price: you can't pull a "look at the price tag because I don't know what you're saying" in Mali. Now, I've memorized most benchmark amounts or at least know about how much something should cost so I can guess--I can tell what cab ride distance is keme fila (1000 CFA) and most produce/food items are around mugan (100 CFA). But for large purchases or things where I don't have a price I'm aiming for, it still gets hairy. The tailor first stated the price for me in Bambara, broke it down into my memorized units when I looked puzzled, then stated it in French so I was certain of the price. After we agreed on the price, he told me to come back in three hours.
One folded piece of fabric will make a skirt called a tafe. Nearly every women in Mali wears this kind of skirt which is simply a huge rectangle of fabric tied around you and tucked in the waist like a bath towel. For a little more, you get fabric sewn on the ends in order to actually tie the thing around your waist. Two pieces of fabric, and you can get a complet made, or a matching top and bottom. I inherited a complet in this great teal fabric--
And then my family made me a complet from the independence day fabric for this year...
...which was just yesterday. I love the grassroots-ness of the independence day fabric, or the day to end violence against women fabric. I picked out the above blue and orange this morning since it reminded me of UVA.
Three hours later, I returned and he was just finishing up. Again, I greeted, and as I praised his work, he asked me and my friend's name. She stated first that she was a Traoure, at which point he said "did you eat your beans this morning?" I chimed in that she also drank her toilet water, confirming that, like him, I was a Diarra, Traoure's joking cousin. Even later in the day when I walked past him, he shouted "Diarra!" at me, and the women he was helping shouted "she's good!", affirming that she was a Diarra too. Such was my morning of buying from start to finish a skirt.
At site, I will work at my village's clinic or CSCOM: to start with, I'll go in for about 4 hours three times a week to observe, ask questions, chat with people that come in, etc. In afternoons on opposite days, I'll work with my language tutor to improve my Bambara.
Now I know you're sitting there saying, "ok, what about the rest of the time?"
Time, outside of the 5 call to prayer times (dawn, noon, 2, 4, dusk), really isn't that important. Most places of work "start" at 8am. That means about 8:45. In an office, meeting, anything formal, there is ALWAYS a pause cafe (coffee break) from 10-10:30. Noon is lunch/prayer call/tea, at which point work doesn't resume until 2:30. That means about 3. Which means, yes, you only work until the next prayer call and so the day just kind of putters out.
By this description, it looks like there aren't too many working hours in a day...which is somewhat true. There's quite a bit of sitting around doing nothing time in Mali, and Malians don't see anything wrong with that. But this sentiment is only "somewhat" true since in Mali, when things "get done" they "get done" more often through informal connections then anything ever in an office-- especially with what my work will be. Case in point, my homestay mother exercised huge influence in my homestay community: she knew when every marriage, baptism, or funeral was because she rented out chairs and showed up at most social events. So when I asked her if she could have some people over for us Health Volunteers to practice our health presentations, I came home to a concession full of about 10 members of the Sonraii Women's Association. Since every member of that organization took her seriously, they took me seriously too and tried to be as helpful as possible with my stumbling Bambara.
Likewise, I was specifically assigned to this site to work the school kids aged between ages 9-12. My language tutor is a teacher at the school. His wife is the matrone at the CSCOM and my work counterpart.
In conclusion, what will I be "doing?" As far as "doing," I will be walking into familys' compounds one by one, sitting for a few hours, drinking lots of tea, and asking, "how things are going? Did you sleep well last night?"
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Coming to you from Moribabougou...
Fata on the left and Alliou on the right, host brother and sister.
This was everyone from my family I could
round up at that moment. That's about half of the people who regularly live in/sleep in/ come in and out of our concession. The serious default is just an African thing: they all really do smile.My host mother. That's me on the left.
My host mother, Fatimata, is president of a Moribabougou Women's Association and is generally important community member, if nothing else because she's incredibly old: few things outrank the respect you get from age in Mali, and nothing, not even a married man with four wives, can pull rank on you if you're older.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Briefly,
I've been busy working toward my language exam, but I thought I'd comment on the recent news stories about Mali--mostly, the severe flooding in West Africa.
Rainy season is nearly over, but for about two weeks, it thunderstormed every night, flooding my family's compound every now and again and sections of street. People here respond to rain a little bit how the US southeastern seaboard responds to snow: everyone stops everything and just sits at home, fearful of venturing out. My family looked at me like I was crazed when it was just letting up rain, and said "you're going to school in this??" And rightly so: two of our side streets where flooded out, and you don't want to walk through standing water for risk of some water borne parasite. Weakly built houses also have a tendency to collapse in on themselves (I checked my family's house after some houses fell in and was pleases to see they spent the extra money for secure metal beams and attachments over wooden beams and leather to tie boards together. If it rains particularly hard or for a long time, the electricity and/or phone grid is also cut, making venturing into flooded streets even more treacherous. In the southern regions of Mali (Kayes, Kouilkoro, and Sikasso), the soil or rivers can accomodate the influx of water. In the northern regions where there's only sand, entire roads are submerged under water because there's no place for the water to go. On site visit, most of our volunteers in the the northern regions had trips which involved sitting on top of the bus while the driver drove through standing water. Or actually getting out to help push the bus/car through water.
The other most relevant hazard of rainy season, other than property damage due to flooding, is that malaria will tend to be worse: more standing water equals more mosquitos. Just before I left my homestay, one of my younger sisters was sick. The word for malaria is the same thing for chills and fever, so you can never be sure if when they say "sumaya" it really is malaria. But her low-grade fever, general malaise, and the fact that I know she doesn't sleep under a mosquito net makes it pretty likely that she does have malaria. Nearly everone here has malaria to some extent. But malaria contributes to why the age five and under mortality rate here is the highest is the world: you're either strong enough to just live with the malaria, or you just don't make it. She's six. I'm terrified if when I go back and visit my homestay family in december if she'll still be there.
Fortunately, rainy season seems to be nearly over. Clouds have been coming through every night, but it no longer thunderstorms--although you can still see the lighting far away, so someone somewhere is still getting rain. Rainy season is followed my mini hot season, and then by october/november, the winds come off of the desert and it's cold season.
Rainy season is nearly over, but for about two weeks, it thunderstormed every night, flooding my family's compound every now and again and sections of street. People here respond to rain a little bit how the US southeastern seaboard responds to snow: everyone stops everything and just sits at home, fearful of venturing out. My family looked at me like I was crazed when it was just letting up rain, and said "you're going to school in this??" And rightly so: two of our side streets where flooded out, and you don't want to walk through standing water for risk of some water borne parasite. Weakly built houses also have a tendency to collapse in on themselves (I checked my family's house after some houses fell in and was pleases to see they spent the extra money for secure metal beams and attachments over wooden beams and leather to tie boards together. If it rains particularly hard or for a long time, the electricity and/or phone grid is also cut, making venturing into flooded streets even more treacherous. In the southern regions of Mali (Kayes, Kouilkoro, and Sikasso), the soil or rivers can accomodate the influx of water. In the northern regions where there's only sand, entire roads are submerged under water because there's no place for the water to go. On site visit, most of our volunteers in the the northern regions had trips which involved sitting on top of the bus while the driver drove through standing water. Or actually getting out to help push the bus/car through water.
The other most relevant hazard of rainy season, other than property damage due to flooding, is that malaria will tend to be worse: more standing water equals more mosquitos. Just before I left my homestay, one of my younger sisters was sick. The word for malaria is the same thing for chills and fever, so you can never be sure if when they say "sumaya" it really is malaria. But her low-grade fever, general malaise, and the fact that I know she doesn't sleep under a mosquito net makes it pretty likely that she does have malaria. Nearly everone here has malaria to some extent. But malaria contributes to why the age five and under mortality rate here is the highest is the world: you're either strong enough to just live with the malaria, or you just don't make it. She's six. I'm terrified if when I go back and visit my homestay family in december if she'll still be there.
Fortunately, rainy season seems to be nearly over. Clouds have been coming through every night, but it no longer thunderstorms--although you can still see the lighting far away, so someone somewhere is still getting rain. Rainy season is followed my mini hot season, and then by october/november, the winds come off of the desert and it's cold season.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Pictures!
I am frazzled tonight, so pics only. Tomorrow, we practice building a soak pit and practice using the technical vocabulary we learned today, ie, "Standing water is bad. It is necessary that we build a soak pit!"
Language huts at Tubaniso.
Huts where we sleep at Tubaniso--three to each one.
The first, French, second English, third, Bambara. You'll get everyone at Tubaniso (trainees, kitchen staff, gaurds) with at least one of these languages.
This is how we walk to school. A cloudy day--it is rainy season.
Kyle waxes poetic to Brian about something during a break. Backdrop of mango trees and river--our classroom.
Language huts at Tubaniso.
Huts where we sleep at Tubaniso--three to each one.The first, French, second English, third, Bambara. You'll get everyone at Tubaniso (trainees, kitchen staff, gaurds) with at least one of these languages.
This is how we walk to school. A cloudy day--it is rainy season.Kyle waxes poetic to Brian about something during a break. Backdrop of mango trees and river--our classroom.
My bed in my room in homestay.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
"Take a moment to see how far you've come"
I found myself saying this often to the PCV I'm replacing in a month. Even more disconcerting is how far my standards have dropped as well.
Case in point, my highlight of the week was opening my mailbox I'm sharing with another PCV (my own mailbox!)... which i will need to bike 20 km to access. But none the less, it felt good to have the postman point to the dull metal box with a faded "16" on the front: "Voila, numero seize est votre boite de poste." This will be the best way to get in touch with me once I move up to my village, Tioribougou:
[my name]
B.P. 16
Kolokani, Mali
West Africa
My post box is in Kolokani, the next largest city outside of Bamako since my village does not have electricity, much more a post office. Also oddly enough, my village is in a valley, so there is no cell phone coverage until I go north to Kolokani, or south to Bamako. To call me, you must call one of the three landlines in my village. Here is the Cabine which is open the most and tends to do the best job:
011-223-226-65-16
A Malian girl named Kura will answer. Just say my name, "Fatim Diarra" ("Di" sounds like a "j") or try the French "je veux parler avec Fatim Diarra" and then she'll hang up. If all else fails, say "tubabo" (white person) as I am the only one of those in the village. Wait ten minutes and call back. Kura will walk to my house to get me; it only takes about five minutes to walk to the cabine, so I should be sitting there waiting. Also, check the weather: the landline is powered by solar panels, so on a cloudy day, it doesn't work that well.
You know your life has become absurd when it takes a paragraph to explain how to make a phone call. And further, that phone call is contingent on the weather.
Also gone is any uncertainty about where I am. Over the past week, we road up to Kolokani, and then walked about 2 km to the neighboring village at which the current PCV did baby weighings. As soon as you walk for about 10 minutes in either direction from the edge of my village, the fields of millet stop, and you're in the middle of the bush:that untouched land that goes on, seemingly, forever. It was the first second I'd honestly had to simply look out across the grassy landscape, to notice the hornbills in the trees, to look at the brillant white clouds in a sky that is not nearly that big on the East Coast in America.
Case in point, my highlight of the week was opening my mailbox I'm sharing with another PCV (my own mailbox!)... which i will need to bike 20 km to access. But none the less, it felt good to have the postman point to the dull metal box with a faded "16" on the front: "Voila, numero seize est votre boite de poste." This will be the best way to get in touch with me once I move up to my village, Tioribougou:
[my name]
B.P. 16
Kolokani, Mali
West Africa
My post box is in Kolokani, the next largest city outside of Bamako since my village does not have electricity, much more a post office. Also oddly enough, my village is in a valley, so there is no cell phone coverage until I go north to Kolokani, or south to Bamako. To call me, you must call one of the three landlines in my village. Here is the Cabine which is open the most and tends to do the best job:
011-223-226-65-16
A Malian girl named Kura will answer. Just say my name, "Fatim Diarra" ("Di" sounds like a "j") or try the French "je veux parler avec Fatim Diarra" and then she'll hang up. If all else fails, say "tubabo" (white person) as I am the only one of those in the village. Wait ten minutes and call back. Kura will walk to my house to get me; it only takes about five minutes to walk to the cabine, so I should be sitting there waiting. Also, check the weather: the landline is powered by solar panels, so on a cloudy day, it doesn't work that well.
You know your life has become absurd when it takes a paragraph to explain how to make a phone call. And further, that phone call is contingent on the weather.
Also gone is any uncertainty about where I am. Over the past week, we road up to Kolokani, and then walked about 2 km to the neighboring village at which the current PCV did baby weighings. As soon as you walk for about 10 minutes in either direction from the edge of my village, the fields of millet stop, and you're in the middle of the bush:that untouched land that goes on, seemingly, forever. It was the first second I'd honestly had to simply look out across the grassy landscape, to notice the hornbills in the trees, to look at the brillant white clouds in a sky that is not nearly that big on the East Coast in America.
Yes, I really do live in Africa. And it's beautiful.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
It's been a month?
Yes, it has been a month. But shifting everything that has ever been your social and cultural compass 180 degrees is no easy task. Friday, we each had our mid training language evaluation. Twice I have bought soap and water from the market entirely in Bambara without myself or the vendor falling back into French.
Progress, little by little.
Today we're back at Tubaniso, where we meet our local Homologues, or local counterpart with whom we will work. My counterpart is a Matrone who works just below (the one) doctor in my village's Centre Sante de Communitaire (CSCOM). Then, with our counterparts, we take public transit to our local site.
Yes, Mali has public transit.
Sotromas, or small vans, are what we refer to as "green boxes of death." Inside are wooden benches, they only sometimes have a door, and people often strap goats or sheep to the roof or windows. For the bulk of my two hour trip, I will be on a large bus which actually resembles the large buses of any American city (Denver, SanFran, etc). The only difference being that Malian public transit can have elastic prices, breaks down much more frequently, stops for the call to prayer, and overall runs on what is referred to as West African International Standard Time--WAIT.
My site visit does have a little bit of the edge taken off--I'm staying with the current PCV, and she's riding back with me to Bamako to help me and the other KoliKoro region volunteers open our bank accounts. Some volunteers are navigating back to Bamako by themselves.
In this month, I a bit about some of the things that Peace Corps expects of volunteers, and how far past we have been pushed past any sort of comfort zone. For example, we received our 9th immmunization last week. The medical officer came out, we rolled up our sleeves, and she went down the line, right under the mango trees. After this, we practiced making a thin and thick smear in the event that we started experiencing malaria symptoms at site, requiring us to mail in slides to be tested. This meant, again, we sat in a circle, passed around slides, sterilized needles, and alcohol wipes, and right then and there practiced smearing our own blood. The week before, the PC bike mechanic came and taught us how to repair a flat bike tire. One of us asked if this would likely happen. He chuckled softley, then said "yes, this happens all the time." The very range of things peace corps expects us to do--self diagnose most medical issues, fix our bikes ourselves, learn an entirely new language in the space of a month, often while being sick.
The other day, after an intense language session, we all met for a few minutes, frazzled, and just began to laugh hysterically. For some reason, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Progress, little by little.
Today we're back at Tubaniso, where we meet our local Homologues, or local counterpart with whom we will work. My counterpart is a Matrone who works just below (the one) doctor in my village's Centre Sante de Communitaire (CSCOM). Then, with our counterparts, we take public transit to our local site.
Yes, Mali has public transit.
Sotromas, or small vans, are what we refer to as "green boxes of death." Inside are wooden benches, they only sometimes have a door, and people often strap goats or sheep to the roof or windows. For the bulk of my two hour trip, I will be on a large bus which actually resembles the large buses of any American city (Denver, SanFran, etc). The only difference being that Malian public transit can have elastic prices, breaks down much more frequently, stops for the call to prayer, and overall runs on what is referred to as West African International Standard Time--WAIT.
My site visit does have a little bit of the edge taken off--I'm staying with the current PCV, and she's riding back with me to Bamako to help me and the other KoliKoro region volunteers open our bank accounts. Some volunteers are navigating back to Bamako by themselves.
In this month, I a bit about some of the things that Peace Corps expects of volunteers, and how far past we have been pushed past any sort of comfort zone. For example, we received our 9th immmunization last week. The medical officer came out, we rolled up our sleeves, and she went down the line, right under the mango trees. After this, we practiced making a thin and thick smear in the event that we started experiencing malaria symptoms at site, requiring us to mail in slides to be tested. This meant, again, we sat in a circle, passed around slides, sterilized needles, and alcohol wipes, and right then and there practiced smearing our own blood. The week before, the PC bike mechanic came and taught us how to repair a flat bike tire. One of us asked if this would likely happen. He chuckled softley, then said "yes, this happens all the time." The very range of things peace corps expects us to do--self diagnose most medical issues, fix our bikes ourselves, learn an entirely new language in the space of a month, often while being sick.
The other day, after an intense language session, we all met for a few minutes, frazzled, and just began to laugh hysterically. For some reason, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Friday, August 10, 2007
The envelope please...
Trioribugou, pop. 4,000, is the name of my permanent site.
Although located just 200Km outside of Bamako (I'm the third closest volunteer to the capital), the village has no electricity and a barely functioning CSCOM I will formaly work at, which is highly trafficked by women and (malnourished) children. The major accomplishment of the current PCV is (and I quote) 'getting a wall up on the pharmacy and said pharmacy stocked with medicine.'
The current PCV requested another volunteer after she leaves for two reasons. First, she relized too late how willing and excited the first and second cycle schools were. The school administrators have requested another volunteer to create an educational program for kids ages 8 to 12 about nutrition and physical fitness. They also want the volunteer to work with the formal soccer teams.
Second, Triobugou has five other 500 person villages less than 10 km away. They each want the volunteer to implement a similar nutrition and fitness program geared toward decreasing widespread childhood and infant malnutrition. The current volunteer just started biking out to each of these villages.
The last page of the description reads: 'needs a volunteer willing to work in highly informal environment with schools and women's association, who likes sports, and who is willing to bike alot.'
Flip the page, and there appears my resume.
Although located just 200Km outside of Bamako (I'm the third closest volunteer to the capital), the village has no electricity and a barely functioning CSCOM I will formaly work at, which is highly trafficked by women and (malnourished) children. The major accomplishment of the current PCV is (and I quote) 'getting a wall up on the pharmacy and said pharmacy stocked with medicine.'
The current PCV requested another volunteer after she leaves for two reasons. First, she relized too late how willing and excited the first and second cycle schools were. The school administrators have requested another volunteer to create an educational program for kids ages 8 to 12 about nutrition and physical fitness. They also want the volunteer to work with the formal soccer teams.
Second, Triobugou has five other 500 person villages less than 10 km away. They each want the volunteer to implement a similar nutrition and fitness program geared toward decreasing widespread childhood and infant malnutrition. The current volunteer just started biking out to each of these villages.
The last page of the description reads: 'needs a volunteer willing to work in highly informal environment with schools and women's association, who likes sports, and who is willing to bike alot.'
Flip the page, and there appears my resume.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Colibaly? I be sho dun.
These few days at Tubaniso have been full of those ever-so-exciting discusions. So rather than actually paying attention, leaving homestay has been great for getting some edible food and reviewing my Bambara language flashcards. The most draining thing about this whole process, and that keeps being a sidenote to everything I post, is the problems with language here, so I'll briefly talk about what I'm learning.
Bambara is spoken by 80% of the people in Mali. Yet the 'official' language is French, so anyone who has been through the school system speaks French. I asked my niece about school, and she pulled out one of her french books, and had me read a passage about malaria, her watching as I read, since my French is still a bit difficult for her to understand. At first, I was frustrated and annoyed, since I knew I was pronouncing these words correctly. Then I talked to some fellow volunteers who had actually lived in France and Quebec, and they were having similar difficulties: them knowing French doesn't mean they know French from France or French from Canada. The French they speak is slightly different in a way I can't explain, but I'm finally starting to be able to follow and speak in a way so they understand me.
Yet most people--and where my permanent site will be-speak their local language. Even if people know French, they don't want to speak it, since it's a European (read: white) language. Therefore, if anyone is dealing with an NGO or office, you need to know French. If you're dealing with anyone on a personal level, or illiterate people, you need the local language. Educated people will mix the two languages.
Bambara has several things going for it--you don't really conjugate verbs, so there aren't any verb tables to memorize. Also, words aren't gendered like in French, Spanish, and German, and they don't really have articles. Past tense is a bit tricky, since there is really no pattern to what verbs change endings, forcing you to simply memorize or guess. After learning French, I can appreciate some aspects of the language which are making my life a bit easier.
But the very lack of formality--a strength which makes it less complicated-is also it's very weakness. Bambara wasn't written down and systematically understood as a language until the 1960s. Peace Corps did most of this work. Since the language was so informal, words are said "or sound different depending on the region you're in. 'Tree' is "yiriden" in one part of Mali and "jiriden" in another. I'll often ask my instructor about a word she writes, which differs slightly from what our book says, and the answer is almost always "well, you hear both ways, it just depends where you are." On volunteer at site even said the older people in villages won't be able to understand you at all, nor you them: they didn't learn words or a structured language, but only sounds.
The very lack of formality is why, written, it's also pretty strange. There are two different kinds of 'e's--one which i can't type, but that looks like a backwards '3'. This type sounds like 'eh', rather than 'e', and ends most words like 'dumunike'--so you actually say the 'e' unlike in french. The letter 'i' sounds like a french 'i', which is of course, literally said 'e'. What's difficult for English speakers are the closed 'o's and the open 'o's, and then there's a high tone and a low tone which we also have trouble hearing. Luckily, sentence positioning is different, "N ba" is "my mother" while "N ka ba" is "my goat." Additionally, there's an 'ng' and an spanish-like 'naw', neither of which I can type either. Other than the two 'o' sounds and three 'n' sounds, I'm having some difficulty with the sharpness of letters. I try speaking some with my family, and found out last week that they couldn't understand me when I said the letter 'j'--like in 'ji' (water) 'jege' (fish) or 'jamana' (country): I was saying it like a soft 'j', while most of the letters are sharp or heavily stressed at the beginning, and then taper off.
After two weeks, I feel like I can almost greet someone--which is no easy task. Westerners might say 'hi, how are you?' and then move on: our entire greeting takes about 5 seconds. In Mali, I've come to just sit and watch people come into our compound and greet my mother: Malians always say hello, then go into a series of questions--How are you? How's your family? How's your mother? How's your father? Did you sleep well? (until about 3pm). Then after you answer this series of questions, you ask the same of them. The responses are always the same, half the time the responding person answering the question while their friend is asking it. So your mother could have just died, and you will still answer 'my mother is fine' in your greeting, and only later say something like 'oh, last week, my mother died.' An entire greeting takes up to a minute before you can proceed to any real conversation.
What's more, you do this with everyone: when you go into a store, you ask the seller these questions, and then if he doesn't know you, he asks you your name. The name is crucial, last name that is, because certain last names, are called 'joking cousins', or always joke with each other. It's a little bit of a method to diffuse the stereotypes between different groups in Mali--like Bobo's always joke with Dogons, and Traores always joke with Djarras. So for example, Colibaly is a last name that jokes with...almost everyone. If I run into a Colibaly (I'm a Toure) I can tell them 'I be sho dun' (you eat beans) or 'I be negan ji min' (you drink toilet water). You do this back and forth a few times, jokingly, before you can proceed to any actual conversation. In class when we get bored, we'll think of more phrases to use with our joking cousins (last time we went over how to say 'you're a donkey.')
Tomorrow we head back to Moribabougou--and I'm excited to see my two nieces Fata and Adam again. Tonight I underwent yet another Peace Corps rite: I had another volunteer cut my hair. She used actual hair cutting scissors and she'd cut three people's hair before mine, so she'd had a bit of practice. It's still long (she only took off a little over an inch), so I'm working up to the day when I ask her to just take off those 7 inches to make my bucket bath every morning just a little bit quicker.
Bambara is spoken by 80% of the people in Mali. Yet the 'official' language is French, so anyone who has been through the school system speaks French. I asked my niece about school, and she pulled out one of her french books, and had me read a passage about malaria, her watching as I read, since my French is still a bit difficult for her to understand. At first, I was frustrated and annoyed, since I knew I was pronouncing these words correctly. Then I talked to some fellow volunteers who had actually lived in France and Quebec, and they were having similar difficulties: them knowing French doesn't mean they know French from France or French from Canada. The French they speak is slightly different in a way I can't explain, but I'm finally starting to be able to follow and speak in a way so they understand me.
Yet most people--and where my permanent site will be-speak their local language. Even if people know French, they don't want to speak it, since it's a European (read: white) language. Therefore, if anyone is dealing with an NGO or office, you need to know French. If you're dealing with anyone on a personal level, or illiterate people, you need the local language. Educated people will mix the two languages.
Bambara has several things going for it--you don't really conjugate verbs, so there aren't any verb tables to memorize. Also, words aren't gendered like in French, Spanish, and German, and they don't really have articles. Past tense is a bit tricky, since there is really no pattern to what verbs change endings, forcing you to simply memorize or guess. After learning French, I can appreciate some aspects of the language which are making my life a bit easier.
But the very lack of formality--a strength which makes it less complicated-is also it's very weakness. Bambara wasn't written down and systematically understood as a language until the 1960s. Peace Corps did most of this work. Since the language was so informal, words are said "or sound different depending on the region you're in. 'Tree' is "yiriden" in one part of Mali and "jiriden" in another. I'll often ask my instructor about a word she writes, which differs slightly from what our book says, and the answer is almost always "well, you hear both ways, it just depends where you are." On volunteer at site even said the older people in villages won't be able to understand you at all, nor you them: they didn't learn words or a structured language, but only sounds.
The very lack of formality is why, written, it's also pretty strange. There are two different kinds of 'e's--one which i can't type, but that looks like a backwards '3'. This type sounds like 'eh', rather than 'e', and ends most words like 'dumunike'--so you actually say the 'e' unlike in french. The letter 'i' sounds like a french 'i', which is of course, literally said 'e'. What's difficult for English speakers are the closed 'o's and the open 'o's, and then there's a high tone and a low tone which we also have trouble hearing. Luckily, sentence positioning is different, "N ba" is "my mother" while "N ka ba" is "my goat." Additionally, there's an 'ng' and an spanish-like 'naw', neither of which I can type either. Other than the two 'o' sounds and three 'n' sounds, I'm having some difficulty with the sharpness of letters. I try speaking some with my family, and found out last week that they couldn't understand me when I said the letter 'j'--like in 'ji' (water) 'jege' (fish) or 'jamana' (country): I was saying it like a soft 'j', while most of the letters are sharp or heavily stressed at the beginning, and then taper off.
After two weeks, I feel like I can almost greet someone--which is no easy task. Westerners might say 'hi, how are you?' and then move on: our entire greeting takes about 5 seconds. In Mali, I've come to just sit and watch people come into our compound and greet my mother: Malians always say hello, then go into a series of questions--How are you? How's your family? How's your mother? How's your father? Did you sleep well? (until about 3pm). Then after you answer this series of questions, you ask the same of them. The responses are always the same, half the time the responding person answering the question while their friend is asking it. So your mother could have just died, and you will still answer 'my mother is fine' in your greeting, and only later say something like 'oh, last week, my mother died.' An entire greeting takes up to a minute before you can proceed to any real conversation.
What's more, you do this with everyone: when you go into a store, you ask the seller these questions, and then if he doesn't know you, he asks you your name. The name is crucial, last name that is, because certain last names, are called 'joking cousins', or always joke with each other. It's a little bit of a method to diffuse the stereotypes between different groups in Mali--like Bobo's always joke with Dogons, and Traores always joke with Djarras. So for example, Colibaly is a last name that jokes with...almost everyone. If I run into a Colibaly (I'm a Toure) I can tell them 'I be sho dun' (you eat beans) or 'I be negan ji min' (you drink toilet water). You do this back and forth a few times, jokingly, before you can proceed to any actual conversation. In class when we get bored, we'll think of more phrases to use with our joking cousins (last time we went over how to say 'you're a donkey.')
Tomorrow we head back to Moribabougou--and I'm excited to see my two nieces Fata and Adam again. Tonight I underwent yet another Peace Corps rite: I had another volunteer cut my hair. She used actual hair cutting scissors and she'd cut three people's hair before mine, so she'd had a bit of practice. It's still long (she only took off a little over an inch), so I'm working up to the day when I ask her to just take off those 7 inches to make my bucket bath every morning just a little bit quicker.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Fatime! Dumunike!
As requested two weeks ago, I'll talk about Malian food and customs. This is an appropriate place to start, given the title phrase is what my host mother is most often yelling at me--"Fatime (my malian name), eat!!" Additionally, general food and food customs is fairly central to my work as a health volunteer.
Before we all headed to our respective homestay villages, we practiced eating lunch Malian style. This entails sitting in chairs or on a mat together around a large bowl. Men eat with men, women with women, and children with children--none of these groups can share a bowl unless it's a very small family. Meals are usually a rice, couscous, or to base. On top of this huge pile of carbs, my family most often makes this orange-red sauce with some meat chunks in it. One person usually takes the cover off of the large bowl, and tries to evenly ladle the sauce-meat mixture over the entire bowl. After I finish, my host mom sometimes gives me an apple, banana, or mango. As particulrarly high note, I cannot begin to describe how amazing the mangos are--they melt in your mouth in a way I simply cannot describe.
Now the complicated part about eating: Malians eat with their hands--actually, just their right hand specifically. In Malian culture, the left hand is considered dirty and is never used. This isn't peculiar to Mali or even Africa; anyone going to a school under the Catholic church might of had his left hand tied behind his back to learn in order to learn to write with his right hand. Language reflects this too: the word gauche, literally meaning "left" in french often refers to a clumsy or dirty person. Maldroit, or literally "bad right" has the same clumsy connotation in English. In Mali, this dirty connotation is not just from language but literally true: Malians use their left hands to (there's no way to put this nicely) wipe their ass after they shit. As a result, everything--eating, receiving objects, waving goodbye-is done with the right hand. The left hand just hangs out the rest of the time, only being used for toilet paper, picking your nose (acceptable here) or anything else that you wouldn't want your clean hand to be involved with.
The first time we ate Malian style was a mess--rice all over the place, grease smeared all over our mouths. By the time I arrived with my homestay family, I can now eat fairly comfortably with only my right hand, although I still shovel much smaller amounts into my mouth than any Malian would.
As a slight segway, I'll talk a little about the work I will be doing. My title with the Peace Corps is as a "Health Educator", but this word is often used interchangeably with the label "Life Skills Educator"-- life skills being teaching people how to wash hands and brush teeth. In the First World, we balk at the idea that we need to be teaching adults something that 3 year olds do without thinking--you would never eath with dirty hands or refuse the use of soap.
Now when Malians eat, before a meal, there is a dish of water with soap in it. Starting with the oldest/most respected person around the bowl, you pass the hand washing bowl around to wash your right hand. In more remote villages, families only pass around a bowl of water to rinse your hand, since soap is thought to wash your luck away. Other Malians simply choose not to use soap, since the hardness of the water makes it difficult to rinse off, and they don't like tasting soapy food.
My family--as are all the homestay families-are fairly good about using soap and making an effort at washing hands. But even with Peace Corps' encouragement, the reality is difficult: in a country which is dusty and where 70% of people are farmers, you can regularly taste dirt, grit, and small rocks in your food. Additionally, even if my family has soaked potatoes or onions, I can still taste soap on it. In my family, the 'oldest first, youngest last' rule is always followed; my younger siblings pick over what I don't eat after the adults and older children have had their fill. In a country where malnutrition is rampant, being heavy and large is considered a sign of health and wealth. My mother is deeply confused with why I'm such a petite American.
Finally, I'll conclude with what will be the unfortunate but realistic part of my job as a health volunteer. The twelve of us volunteers in our village have language class for 5 hours a day. The four of us in my class speak better french than our instructor speaks english, so she simply decided to teach Bambara in french. Due to the intensity of learning a third language primarily in my rudimentary second language, we all spend a few minutes talking (in english!) with each other after class. For weeks one volunteer noted how sickly his younger sister looked, and some other volunteers even visted and confirmed how malnourished and lifeless she was. Within my own family, there's a questionable attitude about anyone five and under, and then the three seven year olds in my family I can say with confidence, are going to survive. It's not surprising, given that Mali has the highest infant mortality rate in the world.
So this morning it was no surprise when our fellow volunteer came to class and stated his sister had died that morning. Our instructor sent him back home to his family and said "We'll have an hour of class, and then go the family and be with them. We are Malians, this is what we do." After an hour of class, our female instructors gave us veils to cover our heads to go into the family's house. All the women sat together in a room, in silence, and as visitors, we expressed our sympathy, and then just sat in silence. The men sat in a seperate room with an Imam (Muslim religious leader) and similarly, said prayers, and simply sat together.
We were the only village that already had to go to a funeral. But, like Malians, we did it together. As we left the house, the other neighbors saw us, and like for any other Malian, wished us blessings too.
Before we all headed to our respective homestay villages, we practiced eating lunch Malian style. This entails sitting in chairs or on a mat together around a large bowl. Men eat with men, women with women, and children with children--none of these groups can share a bowl unless it's a very small family. Meals are usually a rice, couscous, or to base. On top of this huge pile of carbs, my family most often makes this orange-red sauce with some meat chunks in it. One person usually takes the cover off of the large bowl, and tries to evenly ladle the sauce-meat mixture over the entire bowl. After I finish, my host mom sometimes gives me an apple, banana, or mango. As particulrarly high note, I cannot begin to describe how amazing the mangos are--they melt in your mouth in a way I simply cannot describe.
Now the complicated part about eating: Malians eat with their hands--actually, just their right hand specifically. In Malian culture, the left hand is considered dirty and is never used. This isn't peculiar to Mali or even Africa; anyone going to a school under the Catholic church might of had his left hand tied behind his back to learn in order to learn to write with his right hand. Language reflects this too: the word gauche, literally meaning "left" in french often refers to a clumsy or dirty person. Maldroit, or literally "bad right" has the same clumsy connotation in English. In Mali, this dirty connotation is not just from language but literally true: Malians use their left hands to (there's no way to put this nicely) wipe their ass after they shit. As a result, everything--eating, receiving objects, waving goodbye-is done with the right hand. The left hand just hangs out the rest of the time, only being used for toilet paper, picking your nose (acceptable here) or anything else that you wouldn't want your clean hand to be involved with.
The first time we ate Malian style was a mess--rice all over the place, grease smeared all over our mouths. By the time I arrived with my homestay family, I can now eat fairly comfortably with only my right hand, although I still shovel much smaller amounts into my mouth than any Malian would.
As a slight segway, I'll talk a little about the work I will be doing. My title with the Peace Corps is as a "Health Educator", but this word is often used interchangeably with the label "Life Skills Educator"-- life skills being teaching people how to wash hands and brush teeth. In the First World, we balk at the idea that we need to be teaching adults something that 3 year olds do without thinking--you would never eath with dirty hands or refuse the use of soap.
Now when Malians eat, before a meal, there is a dish of water with soap in it. Starting with the oldest/most respected person around the bowl, you pass the hand washing bowl around to wash your right hand. In more remote villages, families only pass around a bowl of water to rinse your hand, since soap is thought to wash your luck away. Other Malians simply choose not to use soap, since the hardness of the water makes it difficult to rinse off, and they don't like tasting soapy food.
My family--as are all the homestay families-are fairly good about using soap and making an effort at washing hands. But even with Peace Corps' encouragement, the reality is difficult: in a country which is dusty and where 70% of people are farmers, you can regularly taste dirt, grit, and small rocks in your food. Additionally, even if my family has soaked potatoes or onions, I can still taste soap on it. In my family, the 'oldest first, youngest last' rule is always followed; my younger siblings pick over what I don't eat after the adults and older children have had their fill. In a country where malnutrition is rampant, being heavy and large is considered a sign of health and wealth. My mother is deeply confused with why I'm such a petite American.
Finally, I'll conclude with what will be the unfortunate but realistic part of my job as a health volunteer. The twelve of us volunteers in our village have language class for 5 hours a day. The four of us in my class speak better french than our instructor speaks english, so she simply decided to teach Bambara in french. Due to the intensity of learning a third language primarily in my rudimentary second language, we all spend a few minutes talking (in english!) with each other after class. For weeks one volunteer noted how sickly his younger sister looked, and some other volunteers even visted and confirmed how malnourished and lifeless she was. Within my own family, there's a questionable attitude about anyone five and under, and then the three seven year olds in my family I can say with confidence, are going to survive. It's not surprising, given that Mali has the highest infant mortality rate in the world.
So this morning it was no surprise when our fellow volunteer came to class and stated his sister had died that morning. Our instructor sent him back home to his family and said "We'll have an hour of class, and then go the family and be with them. We are Malians, this is what we do." After an hour of class, our female instructors gave us veils to cover our heads to go into the family's house. All the women sat together in a room, in silence, and as visitors, we expressed our sympathy, and then just sat in silence. The men sat in a seperate room with an Imam (Muslim religious leader) and similarly, said prayers, and simply sat together.
We were the only village that already had to go to a funeral. But, like Malians, we did it together. As we left the house, the other neighbors saw us, and like for any other Malian, wished us blessings too.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
'Room Temperature' depends on where your room is
And here, it's about 81 F. Tomorrow everyone leaves for homestay for two weeks. Here we get 5 hours of language class a day, then some cultural discussion, then the usual homestay benefits--eating all our meals with our Malian family and having them help us use the language.
I'm heading to Moribabaougou, about 17 km outside of Bamako to learn intensive Bambara, the local language which 80% of Malians speak. I'm incredibly happy about this: nearly everyone in Mali speaks either Bambara, french, or both, so unlike some of the minority languages, I should be ok anywhere. Which, right now, is the reason why I still am in the dark about my permanent work site. I was told due to my grassroots experience (over office or beureucratic experience) that I'd most likely be put in a pretty small village, working at a community health center. Called Centres Saite de Communitaire (CSCOMs), these things are initiated by the village and are incredibly limited, only having some midwives, birthing attendants, and maybe even a nurse. In the Malian health care system, you have to go up to the regional level before you can get to a Nurse Practitioner or even a doctor.
It's absurd being in a country where there is still the colonial language (French) and the many local languages (Bambara being the majority). For example, Claudine, our Health Ed instructor is from Cote d'Ivoire. She has french and limited english, but her assistant only has limited french and her local language. Since every health volunteer has at least some knowledge of French, it's everyone trying to meet somewhere in the middle-- the volunters trying to use their limited french, Claudine using her slightly less limited english. Nearly every conversation goes this way, falling into a mix of french/English. Hopefully, it will get better with knowing Bambara. No Malian wants to speak french unless they really must.
Since leaving Philidelphia, the immunization count is now at 7 since I received 2 more today. Fortunantely, this Typhoid is the first one that has really hurt (the Rabies is surprisingly fine). I have honestly probably doubled the total number of immunizations I've had. Such is being a health worker in Africa.
I'm heading to Moribabaougou, about 17 km outside of Bamako to learn intensive Bambara, the local language which 80% of Malians speak. I'm incredibly happy about this: nearly everyone in Mali speaks either Bambara, french, or both, so unlike some of the minority languages, I should be ok anywhere. Which, right now, is the reason why I still am in the dark about my permanent work site. I was told due to my grassroots experience (over office or beureucratic experience) that I'd most likely be put in a pretty small village, working at a community health center. Called Centres Saite de Communitaire (CSCOMs), these things are initiated by the village and are incredibly limited, only having some midwives, birthing attendants, and maybe even a nurse. In the Malian health care system, you have to go up to the regional level before you can get to a Nurse Practitioner or even a doctor.
It's absurd being in a country where there is still the colonial language (French) and the many local languages (Bambara being the majority). For example, Claudine, our Health Ed instructor is from Cote d'Ivoire. She has french and limited english, but her assistant only has limited french and her local language. Since every health volunteer has at least some knowledge of French, it's everyone trying to meet somewhere in the middle-- the volunters trying to use their limited french, Claudine using her slightly less limited english. Nearly every conversation goes this way, falling into a mix of french/English. Hopefully, it will get better with knowing Bambara. No Malian wants to speak french unless they really must.
Since leaving Philidelphia, the immunization count is now at 7 since I received 2 more today. Fortunantely, this Typhoid is the first one that has really hurt (the Rabies is surprisingly fine). I have honestly probably doubled the total number of immunizations I've had. Such is being a health worker in Africa.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Who knew that Mali, Africa was so far away? I'll be short since there are only 4 computers between 80 people. Friday, we started with a 7 some hour plane ride from Philly to Paris CDG. Since we had an 8 hour layover, we actually checked into hotel rooms to get a bit of sleep, and then back to the airport at evening for a 5 some hour flight to Bamako.
At about 10 pm we landed in Bamako, where it was 29 C. Thats about 95 F for everyone stateside. And it had rained earlier in the day, so it was humid.
Then we loaded into vans and made the 40 minute drive to the training site, Tubani So, which means "peace of the doves" in Bamabara. We're sleeping about 3 people to a mud hut. Today we start the Bambara classes (all day), and as a break, head over to the health building to get 3 more vaccinations (we received 3 in philly).
We're staying here at Tubani So until the middle of the week, after which we'll each move to our homestays to continue language and cultural training--a Language and Cultural trainer (LCT) comes to the village to perform language instruction during the day. Then we live and work with our Malian families to immediately use whatever local language (and french) we must use.
I don't really think any of this can be completely conveyed without photos. And yes, we're all really that insane.
At about 10 pm we landed in Bamako, where it was 29 C. Thats about 95 F for everyone stateside. And it had rained earlier in the day, so it was humid.
Then we loaded into vans and made the 40 minute drive to the training site, Tubani So, which means "peace of the doves" in Bamabara. We're sleeping about 3 people to a mud hut. Today we start the Bambara classes (all day), and as a break, head over to the health building to get 3 more vaccinations (we received 3 in philly).
We're staying here at Tubani So until the middle of the week, after which we'll each move to our homestays to continue language and cultural training--a Language and Cultural trainer (LCT) comes to the village to perform language instruction during the day. Then we live and work with our Malian families to immediately use whatever local language (and french) we must use.
I don't really think any of this can be completely conveyed without photos. And yes, we're all really that insane.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The best time to be online-
Is when there are about twenty other things to do. Which is right now, two days from when I head to Philadelphia, and then Mali with the Peace Corps. Excited? Sure. Terrified? Absolutely.
Hopefully this page will become my Africa-specific page for updates and pictures for the friends and family scattered all over the place.
Hopefully this page will become my Africa-specific page for updates and pictures for the friends and family scattered all over the place.
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