Happy Holidays Everyone!
(id hoped to post pîctures but the internet is too slow...next time)
May you share this holiday season with those you love and may the new year bring you much joy and fulfilment in all you do!!
I just spent a wonderful couple days here in Gao with my Malian Peace Corps family to celebrate the holiday. Not all of Gao bori (Songhai for people of) was here but we had guests including parents, girlfriends and friends who joined us and shared the holiday. We had a cocktail party on Christmas eve. Everyone dressed up and we drank mulled wine, mojitos and Scottish whiskey! We also had quite the spread of desserts and appetizers to munch on and great music to dance the night away to. WE went to Church on Xmas day and although the mass was mostly in Frnech and Bambara there were some songs the choir sang that we knew some of the words too. It gave me a warm feeling just to be in a place that had some Christmas decorations and Christmas songs. This year has been harder than last in terms of nostalgia and missing you all. It got bad enough that I decorated my house back home with snowflake cut outs and stars made out of pictures from magazines (see picture) and even taught my little sister how to make them as well. My walls are now covered in square snowflakes made by her and I’ll have some explaining to do before I can take them down. I received lots of delicious foods and warm clothes in packages from my family so I was able to open presents just like we do at home.
While in Gao we also held a bachelorette party for our friend who is marrying a fellow volunteer in Hombori. We went on a scavenger hunt through the Malian market, our bride to be adorned in tinsel and fairy star headband. We actually got less catcalls and harassment than normal because I think we left them all in shock ! We were telling those who asked that in our culture every new married woman has to go out on the town, dressed up to the nines on the day after Christmas to bless her marriage. Then we came back to the house for food and pedicures. It was my first bachelorette party ever and considering the circumstances, I think we had a pretty good time.
Before we came to Gao for Christmas, Bess, Rachel, a fellow volunteer from Gao region and I held a Girls empowerment and HIV/AIDS education camp over three days. All the girls worked really hard, paid attention and contributed in all of the sessions. We had a the local clinic nurse come to speak about AIDS and a visiting doctor from Gao talked to the girls about her life career and striving towards your goals and fulfilling your dreams. I believe that it was the first itme that many of the girls in the room had learned any of the stuff we talked about, and certainly the first time a fellow Malian woman had told them they had to take control of their own lives, work to pursue their dreams and make choices for themselves. She talked about waiting until after you’ve finished your schooling to marry, a very uncommon suggestion and path in my village and in the country. The girls were truly in awe of her and I’ll feel enormously happy if even one girl in our group decides to continue on to high school and even university.
At the camp we also presented on health and nutrition, hand-washing and talked about role models and women in African history. The last day the girls divided into three groups and created skits that they will present at local schools and on the radio. They also decided to have a “soiree” night at the local youth center and a traditional music night which they will use as an opportunity to educate the audience about HIV/AIDS. We’ve got some giggling fits we have to get past before we’ll be ready to present but there are some true leaders among the girls, who set a great example (except when anyone has to say les relations sexuelle non-protegees!). Check out the pictures of them doing team-building activities like the human web.
Our work with these girls has truly been some of the most fulfilling I’ve done here and reinforced my commitment to the youth in village. As I wrote last time, all the funding has come through for our youth center project and we’ll start construction in the coming month! Giving these girls, and the boys too!, a chance to know the world outside the village and actually develop dreams beyond the daily grind of life here is so important and I thank you all once again for your support and commitment to my work!
Now for some stories of the past month. To get to Gao from site we have to wait on the roadside for buses coming from Bamako to pass. They can come any time from 4am to 12 noon sometimes even later and we’ve had days where we’ve waited hours to catch a bus. As I described before, I was very anxious to get to Gao to celebrate Xmas as were my fellow volunteers so as the hours passed on December 23 and no buses were passing we were considering everything that passed a transportation option, except donkey carts of course. We were settling in for a long day, Jared had his guitar out serenading the children, women roadside vendors and store owners and Bess, Rachel and I were striking up conversations with anyone who would listen to us talk about our wonderful fete (holiday) coming up. Then a blue midsize truck pulls up, one you might see making deliveries to Staples or a small size moving truck. Out climbs three white people, a middle aged man, and two women, one in her late twenties, the other maybe her mother?(always exciting to see “takafarts”-we’re as bad as the Malians when we see white people now, exclaiming and pointing and forgetting that they might speak English) and we strike up a conversation. They’d travelled all the way from France in this truck to bring supplies to their “adopted” Malian friend/brother/son who lived south of Gao. The inside of the bed of their truck was converted into a little house, with a kitchen, bed shower couch etc but was also crammed with all the stuff they were bringing in no discernible system of organization. It looked like they were bringing some computers, clothes chairs and other miscellaneous items They offered us a free ride to Gao and being the cheap PCV’s we are we all climbed in discovering the mess that comes with bumpy roads, not tying or nailing things down and the carefree lifestyle that allows one to take off however many months from work to travel down to Africa by truck. There were some tipsy moments in the back during our two hour ride, mainly because there weren’t seats per se to sit in. Jared made himself quite comfortable, climbing up into their bed and taking a nap, but the rest of us were too busy avoiding falling light bulbs and catching ourselves so that we didn’t fall into sharp objects. In retrospect it may not have been the safest thing I’ve done but I also have never ridden in the back of a truck before (well at least an enclosed one), so now I can cross that off my list of life things to do. We decided that the people with whom we were riding could be categorized as modern travelling people—they certainly embraced an out of the ordinary lifestyle; the man had even adopted Toureg dress yet refused to conform to Malian standards of footwear, opting instead for bare feet and challenging the thorns to prove him otherwise. We never did figure out what the relationship was between all three of them but they were exceptionally kind to us and it was an honor to meet them and hear about the selfless adventure they were taking over the holidays. The way they lived also made me think about living simply and remembering what’s really important about the journey.
Two days before our trip to Gao, on the last day of our AIDS camp, I came out of my house in the morning to two other white people greeting my host family and asking for Raisha. They turned out to be two archaeologists, one a college professor and the other her doctoral student who was looking for a spot to do her fieldwork for her thesis. They inquired after artifacts in the area and I helped them as much as I could with contacts, maps and info that I knew. I also brought them out what I had believed to merely be a rock with which a young Toureg man had attempted to woo me, proclaiming it an object from the paleological era. I’m ashamed to say I’d laughed it off with my Malian brother, wondering how this guy could think I was such a sucker and was he really trying to curry favour by giving me a ROCK? The doctor and her student took one look at it and confirmed it to be a tool from 4000 years ago and within the hour off to the town where it had come from. When they came back that night they had found all sorts of tools and objects and now the doctoral student is considering returning here for her studies. Sharing a meal with them and discussing Mali in a totally new and interesting way was really enjoyable and had us all intrigued by the geological and ancient history of the region. The doctor has already done a lot of work in Djenne and now some of her students are working in Gao as well tracing back the culture and history of the trans-saharan trade routes and other interactions between the different communities. The doctor and her partner’s work has served to prove that major trade was occurring along the Niger, long before scholars had previously believed, prior to the beginning of the trans-Saharan trade. If anyone is interested in reading more about it, I can send you articles about it. It was also neat to hear about Africa from a academic scholars perspective, who could look at the society objectively and not through a development social responsibility lense. While I’m sure they notice the poverty and difficulties this country faces, they’re see the geological fixtures and the rocks beneath our feet and the stories they tell and have dedicated their life to these studies. Of course it made me want to be an archaeologist haha so tack that on to my list of things to do.
Here’s another article that was just in the new york times about mali, security and radical Islam. (see below) Its hard to judge what really is going on up there in the desert but I can certainly speak for Timbuktu region and gao and say that there is none to VERY little danger of radical islam or al-quaeda taking hold here. They make a very good point about the lack of jobs for young men and the new mosques springing up. But that’s for another blog post-read the article and ask me questions if you have them and ill write more next time.
U.S. Training in Africa Aims to Deter Extremists
By ERIC SCHMITT
KATI, Mali — Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another side of America’s fight against terrorism is unfolding in this remote corner of West Africa. American Green Berets are training African armies to guard their borders and patrol vast desolate expanses against infiltration by Al Qaeda’s militants, so the United States does not have to.
A recent exercise by the United States military here was part of a wide-ranging plan, developed after the Sept. 11 attacks, to take counterterrorism training and assistance to places outside the Middle East, like the Philippines and Indonesia. In Africa, a five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and Libya is on the verge of joining.
American efforts to fight terrorism in the region also include nonmilitary programs, like instruction for teachers and job training for young Muslim men who could be singled out by militants’ recruiting campaigns.
One goal of the program is to act quickly in these countries before terrorism becomes as entrenched as it is in Somalia, an East African nation where there is a heightened militant threat. And unlike Somalia, Mali is willing and able to have dozens of American and European military trainers conduct exercises here, and its leaders are plainly worried about militants who have taken refuge in its vast Saharan north.
“Mali does not have the means to control its borders without the cooperation of the United States,” Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister, said in an interview.
Mali, a landlocked former French colony that is nearly twice the size of Texas with roughly half the population, has a relatively stable, though still fragile, democracy. But it borders Algeria, whose well-equipped military has chased Qaeda militants into northern Mali, where they have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, making them even more difficult to track.
With only 10,000 people in its military and other security forces, and just two working helicopters and a few airplanes, Mali acknowledges how daunting a task it is to try to drive out the militants.
The biggest potential threat comes from as many as 200 fighters from an offshoot of Al Qaeda called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which uses the northern Malian desert as a staging area and support base, American and Malian officials say.
About three months ago, the Qaeda affiliate threatened to attack American forces that operated north of Timbuktu (or Tombouctou) in Mali’s desert, three Defense Department officials said. One military official said the threat contributed to a decision to shift part of the recent training exercise out of that area.
The government of neighboring Mauritania said 12 of its soldiers were killed in an attack there by militants in September. By some accounts, the soldiers were beheaded and their bodies were booby-trapped with explosives.
Two Defense Department officials expressed fear that a main leader of the Qaeda affiliate in Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was under growing pressure to carry out a large-scale attack, possibly in Algeria or Mauritania, to establish his leadership credentials within the organization.
Members of the Qaeda affiliate have not attacked Malian forces, and American and Malian officials privately acknowledge that military officials here have adopted a live-and-let-live approach to the Qaeda threat, focusing instead on rebellious Tuareg tribesmen, who also live in the sparsely populated north.
To finance their operations, the militants exact tolls from smugglers whose routes traverse the Qaeda sanctuary, and collect ransoms in kidnappings. In late October, two Austrians were released after a ransom of more than $2 million was reportedly paid. They had been held in northern Mali after being seized in southern Tunisia in February.
Because of the militants’ activities, American officials eye the largely ungoverned spaces of Mali’s northern desert with concern.
This year, the United States Agency for International Development is spending about $9 million on counterterrorism measures here. Some of the money will expand an existing job training program for women to provide young Malian men in the north with the basic skills to set up businesses like tiny flour mills or cattle enterprises. Some aid will train teachers in Muslim parochial schools in an effort to prevent them from becoming incubators of anti-American vitriol.
The agency is also building 12 FM radio stations in the north to link far-flung villages to an early-warning network that sends bulletins on bandits and other threats. Financing from the Pentagon will produce, in four national languages, radio soap operas promoting peace and tolerance.
“Young men in the north are looking for jobs or something to do with their lives,” said Alexander D. Newton, the director of A.I.D.’s mission in Mali. “These are the same people who could be susceptible to other messages of economic security.”
Concern about Mali’s vulnerability also brought a dozen Army Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany, as well as several Dutch and German military instructors, to Mali for the two-week training exercise that ended last month.
Just before noon on a recent sunny, breezy day, Malian troops swept onto a training range here on the savannah north of Bamako, the capital, aboard two CV-22 Ospreys, rotor-blade transport aircraft flown by Air Force Special Operations crews from Hurlburt Field, Fla.
As the dull-gray aircraft landed in a swirling cloud of dust, rotors whomp-whomping, the Malians disembarked single file from the rear ramp in dark-green camouflage uniforms and helmets, M-4 assault rifles at the ready. (The Malians normally use AK-47s, but used American-issue M-4’s for this exercise.)
After a mile-long march through savannah grass, the troops walked down a hill into a small valley. Their target — the mock hide-out of the insurgents — was in sight. But what the Malians did not know was that their American instructors were lying in wait, and suddenly attacked the troops with a sharp staccato of small-arms fire (plastic paint bullets), with red flares soaring high overhead.
The make-believe skirmish lasted just a few minutes. The Malians, shouting to one another and firing at their attackers, retreated from the ambush rather than try to fight through it.
“We’re still learning,” said Capt. Yossouf Traore, a 28-year-old commander, speaking in English that he learned in Texas and at Fort Benning, Ga., as a visiting officer. “We’re getting a lot of experience in leadership skills and making decisions on the spot.”
Even more significant, Captain Traore said, was that the exercise gave his troops an unusual opportunity to train with soldiers from neighboring Senegal. Soon after the Ospreys returned to whisk the Malian soldiers from the training range, two planeloads of Senegalese troops arrived to carry out the same maneuvers.
Still, worrisome indicators are giving some Malian government and religious leaders, as well as American officials, pause about the country’s ability to deal with security risks.
Mali is the world’s fifth-poorest country and, according to some statistics from the United Nations and the State Department, is getting poorer. One in five Malian children dies before age 5. The average Malian does not live to celebrate a 50th birthday. The country’s population, now at 12 million, is doubling nearly every 20 years. Literacy rates hover around 30 percent and are much lower in rural areas.
There are also small signs that radical clerics are beginning to make inroads into the tolerant form of Islam practiced here for centuries by Sunni Muslims. The number of Malian women wearing all-enveloping burqas is still small, but the increase in the past few years is noticeable, religious leaders say.
New mosques are springing up, financed by conservative religious organizations in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, and scholarships offered to young Malian men to study in those countries are on the rise, Malian officials say.
In Imam Mahamadou Diallo’s neighborhood in Bamako, a congested, fume-choked city on the Niger River, a simmering debate is under way. Imam Diallo, 48, said that two new mosques had been built in his area with financing from Wahhabi extremist groups in Saudi Arabia, and that they were drawing away some members of his mosque.
“Many people here are poor and don’t have work,” Imam Diallo said through an interpreter in Bambara, one of the local languages. “They’re potentially vulnerable to these Wahhabi people coming in with money.”
Just down a bumpy, reddish dirt road, however, the leader of one of these newer mosques, Al Nour, quarreled with Imam Diallo’s characterization. Ali Abdourohmome Cisse, the imam since Al Nour opened in 2002, said he did not know who had financed its construction. He added that no one on his staff, including an Egyptian assistant who helps conduct Friday Prayer in Arabic, advocated any form of extremism.
At El Mouhamadiya, an Islamic school in the neighborhood, more than 700 students, ages 4 to 25, take classes including math, physics and Arabic. “But we don’t train them in terrorism,” said Broulaye Sylla, 25, an administrator. “We don’t talk about jihad.”
Mahmoud Dicko, president of the High Council of Islam in Bamako, acknowledged over soft drinks in his second-story office that the influence of conservative Sunni and even Shiite groups had become more visible, but he said they did not pose a serious threat to Malian society.
“Their influence has limits because of the importance of cultural ties here in Mali,” he said. “We have a tolerant Islam here, a pacifist Islam.”
American and African diplomats here said Mali was one of the few countries in the region that had good relations with most neighbors, making it a likely catalyst for the broader regional security cooperation the United States is trying to foster. American commanders expressed confidence that by training together, the African forces might work together against transnational threats like Al Qaeda. While Mali has no effective helicopter fleet, for instance, it could team up its soldiers with better-equipped neighboring armies, like Algeria’s, to combat a common threat.
“If we don’t help these countries work together, it becomes a much more difficult problem,” said Lt. Col. Jay Connors, the senior American Special Forces officer on the ground here during the exercise.
American and Malian officials acknowledged that there were other hurdles to overcome. The Pentagon needs to better explain the role of its new Africa Command, created in October to oversee military activities on the continent, and to dispel fears that the United States is militarizing its foreign policy, Malian officials said.
American officials say their strategy is to contain the Qaeda threat and train the African armies, a process that will take years. The nonmilitary counterterrorism programs are just starting, and it is too early to gauge results.
“This is a long-term effort,” said Colonel Connors, 45, an Africa specialist from Burlington, Vt., who speaks French and Portuguese. “This is crawl, walk, run, and right now, we’re still in the crawl phase.”
Eric Schmitt reported from Mali in November, and did additional reporting from Washington
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy thanksgiving from Mali!! We're heading out in a couple hours for a big thanksgiving meal in Sevare with duck, pie and ice cream. This may sound unhealthy but I've been almost starving myself all day so I can eat as much as possible tonight!
First off...THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! The youth center project has been funded and when the money arrives sometime this month we should be able to start construction on the building. I really can't express how much it means to me that you all supported my project. he only thing we're lacking now for the space is the books to put in our library. I'm trying to find French or English organizations that donate books so if you know of any please let me know! or if you have any old books in English or French that you'd like to get rid of please leave me a comment and I can send you an address to send them to. Any help is greatly appreciated!
I feel so grateful for the amazing friends and family I've been given and it makes me so proud in village to tell people that my amazing friends and family care about them! I'm so lucky for the friends and family I have. AND not only for the money but for the love and support i get everyday. I always know they're will be a facebook message, email, letter or package waiting for me and although it sounds silly, a letter makes my week!
Weeks have been flying by lately and I can't believe its almost Christmas. After Halloween and the election I had lots of work to do at site before heading down to Sevarre and Bamako for Thanksgiving and meetings. Bess and I are planning a gender and development camp for young women in our village. We're focusing on AIDS/HIV prevention, child and maternal health and girls empowerment. At the end of the three day camp the girls will write a play or radio broadcast to present to the community and then we'll have a party. Its been really fun to plan and the doctor's helping us and the girls we've invited are really enthusiastic and motivated.
The tree pepiniere association has grown again, adding several new members and having discussions about finding a bigger space to work in. We've faced some obstacles in selling the trees and deciding how to market them. I'm hoping that another volunteer will be placed at my site so that they can continue to help them.
Its almost time for the elephants to arrive in Gossi so tourists will start coming soon. We're in the midst of setting up a guide office/info center and artisan room at the local lodge and I'm hoping to collaborate soon with another volunteer on a gourma region biodiversity website too to raise awareness internationally.
Its almost time for Tabaski also known as Eid al-adha(i think i've talked about this holiday in another post) so everyone is buying ram and fattening them up for slaughter to honor Abraham's devotion and willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Allah intervened and offered a lamb to sacrifice instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha
We've been seeing buses going by, their roofs packed with a hundred or so sheep heading south. ITs really a site to see. It seems like rams are appearing everywhere now. Im looking out the window at three in our peace corps concession that the guards are keeping here before the fete. Eveyrone buys the rams ahead of time because the price climbs high the week or two before. Last year by day three of the celebration Bess Jared and I were acutally getting sick of meat, which considering how little we get usually is pretty shocking. Its a fun time for everyone, children get all dressed up in new cloths, and women (who can afford it) decorate their houses with new drapes etc. My host mom is putting in new plastic flooring that i bought for her in gao, kind of like fake tile? She's very excited. im kind of on holiday overload, with thanksgiving, tabaski, christmas new years etc.
Thats pretty much it in terms of a quick update. Ill try to get some funny stories down over the next couple days since i have wireless access.
love to everyone!
ps--I wanted to post some pictures from the last couple months to share with you all. From the election party we had in gao and from a trip to the dune rose- a beautiful huge sand dune located next to the Niger near Gao.
obama WINS!!!
the dune rose
First off...THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! The youth center project has been funded and when the money arrives sometime this month we should be able to start construction on the building. I really can't express how much it means to me that you all supported my project. he only thing we're lacking now for the space is the books to put in our library. I'm trying to find French or English organizations that donate books so if you know of any please let me know! or if you have any old books in English or French that you'd like to get rid of please leave me a comment and I can send you an address to send them to. Any help is greatly appreciated!
I feel so grateful for the amazing friends and family I've been given and it makes me so proud in village to tell people that my amazing friends and family care about them! I'm so lucky for the friends and family I have. AND not only for the money but for the love and support i get everyday. I always know they're will be a facebook message, email, letter or package waiting for me and although it sounds silly, a letter makes my week!
Weeks have been flying by lately and I can't believe its almost Christmas. After Halloween and the election I had lots of work to do at site before heading down to Sevarre and Bamako for Thanksgiving and meetings. Bess and I are planning a gender and development camp for young women in our village. We're focusing on AIDS/HIV prevention, child and maternal health and girls empowerment. At the end of the three day camp the girls will write a play or radio broadcast to present to the community and then we'll have a party. Its been really fun to plan and the doctor's helping us and the girls we've invited are really enthusiastic and motivated.
The tree pepiniere association has grown again, adding several new members and having discussions about finding a bigger space to work in. We've faced some obstacles in selling the trees and deciding how to market them. I'm hoping that another volunteer will be placed at my site so that they can continue to help them.
Its almost time for the elephants to arrive in Gossi so tourists will start coming soon. We're in the midst of setting up a guide office/info center and artisan room at the local lodge and I'm hoping to collaborate soon with another volunteer on a gourma region biodiversity website too to raise awareness internationally.
Its almost time for Tabaski also known as Eid al-adha(i think i've talked about this holiday in another post) so everyone is buying ram and fattening them up for slaughter to honor Abraham's devotion and willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Allah intervened and offered a lamb to sacrifice instead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha
We've been seeing buses going by, their roofs packed with a hundred or so sheep heading south. ITs really a site to see. It seems like rams are appearing everywhere now. Im looking out the window at three in our peace corps concession that the guards are keeping here before the fete. Eveyrone buys the rams ahead of time because the price climbs high the week or two before. Last year by day three of the celebration Bess Jared and I were acutally getting sick of meat, which considering how little we get usually is pretty shocking. Its a fun time for everyone, children get all dressed up in new cloths, and women (who can afford it) decorate their houses with new drapes etc. My host mom is putting in new plastic flooring that i bought for her in gao, kind of like fake tile? She's very excited. im kind of on holiday overload, with thanksgiving, tabaski, christmas new years etc.
Thats pretty much it in terms of a quick update. Ill try to get some funny stories down over the next couple days since i have wireless access.
love to everyone!
ps--I wanted to post some pictures from the last couple months to share with you all. From the election party we had in gao and from a trip to the dune rose- a beautiful huge sand dune located next to the Niger near Gao.
obama WINS!!!
the dune rose
Thursday, November 20, 2008
old posts just putting up now
I wrote these entries before the internet broke the last time I was in gao. Nothing new to report; things here are great and its actually CHILLY in the morning. Making preparations to ehad down south for thanksgiving and my vac meeting and another volunteer is coming to our site to paint murals at our school. Shes going to let me help, which for those of you who know my artistic skills, she’s really being very kind and taking a big risk putting a paintbrush in my hand.
I also need to ask for all your help. The funding for the youth center library has almost all come in but I still need to fill it with books. If you have any books you would like to donate, French preferably but we’ll take English too for any age group, please contact ldf@flournoylaw.com, my momma, and she can give you the address to send the book too. Also, If you know of anyone who has an old computer or laptop too that they don’t need or are looking to get rid of/donate to an excellent cause, and only basically functions, we would put it to good use. Please contact me on the comments section of the blog. Thank you notes are on the way to everyone who donated! Thank you all so much for helping us to make this happen.
November 3, 2008
It’s the day before the biggest day of the year. This could be better than Christmas birthday and St patrick’s day combined. Ive made sure that I’m with friends so that if in the two possible alternate scenarios, I can either be put on suicide watch or supported as I have seizures of joy. I’m sure in the states its been nothing but election coverage 24/7 and every possible argument and conjecture has been made, analyzed and then made again on another cable channel five minutes later—and I kind of miss that, just a little. I mean I was the fifth grader who had a map set up next to me in front of the tv to keep track of the electoral college. But even here in the land of the midnight sun, as we affectionately call this remote corner of the world, there’s been a lot of election excitement- the mayor of Gossi holding us hostage in his office for half an hour sharing with us everything he knows about barrack and emphasizing how important the American election is to the entire world and expecially mali (he had some good reasoning) or the old man seated outside the gendarme station, asking us if we knew how long obama would be visiting his sick grandma in Hawaii, or the man coming up to us at the track in gao, pleading us to vote for obama and then pumping his fist in triumph when we let him know we’d already sent in our ballots. The rest of the world is pretty invested in this America. So please don’t mess it up.
My only excuse for not writing for over a month is actually a really good one. We haven’t had internet. Its back up now, kind of, so if you’ve sent me emails etc I apologize for my lack of response. We did manage to get out an email to invite all the volunteers in the country up here for Halloween. This past week Gao has had the highest concentration of white people in mali apart from maybe Bamako, and certainly the highest concentration of crazy white people. We had a our party visited the tourist sites of gao, and pretty much overwhelmed the populace with our 35+ group of white people trekking through town. It was nice to see people from down south that I haven’t seen since april but its incredible to realize how close you become to your teammates just out of proximity and sad how much you miss being separated from the people you were close to in training but who are now on the other side of the country. Its given me a new perspective on friendships and meeting people. I absolutely love my teammates and I think we might get along better than if I had to choose 10 people to work live and have fun with. We even each other out. We’re funny, calm, sarcastic, spiritual, hilarious, serious and almost uniformly goofy. They’re my family right now and im grateful for such an amazing group of individuals.
We’re on another positive upswing in gossi, we’ve decided to give work another chance. (not to be sarcastic, ok maybe it leaks out once in a while but you would understand when you’ve shown up for a meeting three days in a row or four weeks in a row, waited an hour, used up your phone credit and then returned back to your house to try to find something to do since you’ve already read the five books you brought to site with you—im exaggerating, about the books). Our ongoing conservation efforts with the elephants and the gourma biodiversity have been receiving lots of support and help from the USFS and it looks like we’re going to be able to collaborate on some small projects including environmental education and handouts of educational materials. The members of my tree association planted new seeds for trees to sell the other day that we think will be more marketable including more fruit trees. I’m trying to be more and more hands-off so the project is sustainable. A friend from Gao has offered to come and paint murals at our school too. She hopes to do a sign and a world map on the wall. Besides that it’s the day to day grind, going to market, greeting people, maybe starting up some plots to grow flowers for Rachel and kevin’s wedding (two volunteers from our stage, met here, fell in love, and are going to get married here in mali in January.) I wish I was there to watch the election but I think we’re going to have a good time here too.
I wrote the following after no sleep… I felt the moment needed to be recorded but maybe I should have taken a nap first. My apologies….
November 5
I’ve been hit by an emotional truck of joy. Ive cried, wept, cried again, sang, kissed the tv, laughed hysterically at how destiny likes to play funny tricks on us (joe biden is from the hometown of the office, Scranton pa-maybe jim will be secretary of the treasury) and ive woken up with a huge grin still plastered on my face. I will remember where I was at that moment for the rest of my life, who I was with and how surreal I felt the next day. We didn’t sleep but spent the night watching our future unfold in front of our eyes. And so when that beautiful family walked on to the stage my face flooded and didn’t let up until joe biden’s grandma practically fist pumped.
This means a lot for volunteers. We were proud to serve our society, our nation but now we’re proud to serve the administration, to represent our government. No more qualifiers necessary (“I support democracy but I don’t support our president”, Malians don’t get that). Thank you everyone back home who voted and Congratulations!!
I also need to ask for all your help. The funding for the youth center library has almost all come in but I still need to fill it with books. If you have any books you would like to donate, French preferably but we’ll take English too for any age group, please contact ldf@flournoylaw.com, my momma, and she can give you the address to send the book too. Also, If you know of anyone who has an old computer or laptop too that they don’t need or are looking to get rid of/donate to an excellent cause, and only basically functions, we would put it to good use. Please contact me on the comments section of the blog. Thank you notes are on the way to everyone who donated! Thank you all so much for helping us to make this happen.
November 3, 2008
It’s the day before the biggest day of the year. This could be better than Christmas birthday and St patrick’s day combined. Ive made sure that I’m with friends so that if in the two possible alternate scenarios, I can either be put on suicide watch or supported as I have seizures of joy. I’m sure in the states its been nothing but election coverage 24/7 and every possible argument and conjecture has been made, analyzed and then made again on another cable channel five minutes later—and I kind of miss that, just a little. I mean I was the fifth grader who had a map set up next to me in front of the tv to keep track of the electoral college. But even here in the land of the midnight sun, as we affectionately call this remote corner of the world, there’s been a lot of election excitement- the mayor of Gossi holding us hostage in his office for half an hour sharing with us everything he knows about barrack and emphasizing how important the American election is to the entire world and expecially mali (he had some good reasoning) or the old man seated outside the gendarme station, asking us if we knew how long obama would be visiting his sick grandma in Hawaii, or the man coming up to us at the track in gao, pleading us to vote for obama and then pumping his fist in triumph when we let him know we’d already sent in our ballots. The rest of the world is pretty invested in this America. So please don’t mess it up.
My only excuse for not writing for over a month is actually a really good one. We haven’t had internet. Its back up now, kind of, so if you’ve sent me emails etc I apologize for my lack of response. We did manage to get out an email to invite all the volunteers in the country up here for Halloween. This past week Gao has had the highest concentration of white people in mali apart from maybe Bamako, and certainly the highest concentration of crazy white people. We had a our party visited the tourist sites of gao, and pretty much overwhelmed the populace with our 35+ group of white people trekking through town. It was nice to see people from down south that I haven’t seen since april but its incredible to realize how close you become to your teammates just out of proximity and sad how much you miss being separated from the people you were close to in training but who are now on the other side of the country. Its given me a new perspective on friendships and meeting people. I absolutely love my teammates and I think we might get along better than if I had to choose 10 people to work live and have fun with. We even each other out. We’re funny, calm, sarcastic, spiritual, hilarious, serious and almost uniformly goofy. They’re my family right now and im grateful for such an amazing group of individuals.
We’re on another positive upswing in gossi, we’ve decided to give work another chance. (not to be sarcastic, ok maybe it leaks out once in a while but you would understand when you’ve shown up for a meeting three days in a row or four weeks in a row, waited an hour, used up your phone credit and then returned back to your house to try to find something to do since you’ve already read the five books you brought to site with you—im exaggerating, about the books). Our ongoing conservation efforts with the elephants and the gourma biodiversity have been receiving lots of support and help from the USFS and it looks like we’re going to be able to collaborate on some small projects including environmental education and handouts of educational materials. The members of my tree association planted new seeds for trees to sell the other day that we think will be more marketable including more fruit trees. I’m trying to be more and more hands-off so the project is sustainable. A friend from Gao has offered to come and paint murals at our school too. She hopes to do a sign and a world map on the wall. Besides that it’s the day to day grind, going to market, greeting people, maybe starting up some plots to grow flowers for Rachel and kevin’s wedding (two volunteers from our stage, met here, fell in love, and are going to get married here in mali in January.) I wish I was there to watch the election but I think we’re going to have a good time here too.
I wrote the following after no sleep… I felt the moment needed to be recorded but maybe I should have taken a nap first. My apologies….
November 5
I’ve been hit by an emotional truck of joy. Ive cried, wept, cried again, sang, kissed the tv, laughed hysterically at how destiny likes to play funny tricks on us (joe biden is from the hometown of the office, Scranton pa-maybe jim will be secretary of the treasury) and ive woken up with a huge grin still plastered on my face. I will remember where I was at that moment for the rest of my life, who I was with and how surreal I felt the next day. We didn’t sleep but spent the night watching our future unfold in front of our eyes. And so when that beautiful family walked on to the stage my face flooded and didn’t let up until joe biden’s grandma practically fist pumped.
This means a lot for volunteers. We were proud to serve our society, our nation but now we’re proud to serve the administration, to represent our government. No more qualifiers necessary (“I support democracy but I don’t support our president”, Malians don’t get that). Thank you everyone back home who voted and Congratulations!!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Our pepiniere!!
planting with my women from our tree nursery training
theres a tree underneath the sac, they're protecting it from the inevitable goat
there's also a tree in this picture, i swear we actually planted.
Almost one official year! October 1 will mark the one year anniversary of my arrival at site. I however have not been at site recently! I've just returned from my wonderful ten days in tunisia where I was happily reunited with Kate and Miche. We had a really relaxing and fun time and it was so good to be with friends who have known you at your best and worst(ex: right before a econ final, not having slept for 36 hours). it was like no time had passed, although i did show my ignorance on the past year's pop culture on several occasions.
Tunisia is like a islamic french greece. how so you ask?
Islamic- We were traveling during Rammadan which made it difficult some days to find an open restaurant during the day and a glass of wine at night. We saw several beautiful mosques, although we couldn't go inside and their calls to pray are sung by muezzins, not recordings, so they were really beautiful to hear. There's a large population of women who choose to wear the hijab, but also a population that chooses not to. I would estimate it to be 50-50.
French- Tunisia is a former french colony so not only do tunisians speak french (and with pretty god accents I might add) but they've also picked up on alot of aspects of french culture like cuisine (crepes! pain au chocolat!), but also often mixing it with their own mediterranean dishes. We had amazing seafood and some traditional dishes too, like the pastries Muslims eat when breaking their fast during Ramaddan. There are streets in Tunis that look just like Paris, one is actually called the Champs Elysses of Tunis.
Greece- When flying over Tunis, it looked like someone had dropped a big can of white paint and just coated the city. When you get closer on the ground, you see the blue accents on the doors and windows. Sidi Bou Siad is a beautiful town outside of Tunis that we visited and I posted some of the pictures below. We stayed at an apt building on the water in the beach resort town of Hammamet which was also very beautiful. The water was crystal clear and warm (most days). A mediterranean paradise!
Here's some pictures, you'll understand the greece thing from these?
Sidi bou Said
Sidi Bou Said
more sidi bou
on our apt balcony--she came with the house
carthage ruins
full moon on the water
view from our balcony
miche and Kate thanks for an amazing vacation. it was just what i needed! where to next?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
making up for two months without posts....
Im up at 439 unable to sleep after the dust wind storm woke us up and moved us inside and then the heat pushed us right back outside. the sheet over my head didn’t keep much of the sand out of my hair and with the mosquitos buzzing intermittenly between wind gusts outside my mosquito net I eventually gave in, planning instead on sleeping in the car today down to Bamako. Iv'e written some blogposts at site jsut on paper that i type up later so I can share more with you when i do get to internet.
Fadi
I sat outside of the Gao house today talking with Fadi, the girl who comes here to wash dishes and do laundry and whose family has helped us out for years of volunteers. Because there’s so many of us sort of living here and moving in and out its nice to pay someone to help us with stuff so that it doesn’t pile up and fall on one person to do three days of dishes and this way a malian earns an income. She was sad that James and Dave, two volunteers who are just finishing up their service, had left and that she didn’t have a photo of them. It really touched me because even though sometimes the only interaction we have with her is a quick hello as we catch her on her way out of the concession and shes seen a lot of volunteers come and go, she still really valued our friendship and just wanted a picture to remember them by. I promised to find her one.
Earlier on she’d confided in me that she was pregnant and asked if I would have children a question I often get here. I told her someday I would but not while in Mali- and would it be a boy or girl that I wanted she asked. I told her a girl and asked her in turn. She said a girl and joked she would name the baby Aisha, my malian name. While sometimes I grasp for conversation topics with my limited vocabulary, Fadi seemed content to just sit next to me even in silence enjoying my company and my friendship. This wise young girl, my age or younger, expecting her second kid, and never having attended school, agreed the kids in Gao could be rude and mean to us. After all she professed, all that was different about us white people was that we wore white people clothes. I loved that. Although she used a major physical feature, our skin color, to differentiate as to whom she was referring, she didn’t recognize it as a divisive characteristic. Only our white people clothes gave us away as “white people”. We were all of one god, so what was the big deal? I usually try to avoid conversations around this topic, religion can be tough to navigate without the words to describe. But fadi understood so much more, so much more simply.
Some noises
One night when Bess was sleeping over (its considered indecent for a woman to sleep at home by herself if her husband is our of town) a huge chorus of children yelling banging pots plastic whatever they could get their hands on broke out all around us. Now this sort of noise is not unprecedented but usually the racket follows the curve of the passing of a speeding train, rising and falling quickly as the group of people celebrating a marriage birth etc. turns the corner around our concession.
This time the noise started in my own concession, Suleiman and Moussa on a chore to bang out a piece of metal, I thought on the border of sleep. But why did they have to do it now and right next to my house. The protests of an old man visiting to watch it TV in my concession pushed them outside the concession door and it was then that I realized behind me, in the gendarmes concession, across the street where the Bambara functionaries family lives and from down the street where a group of children must have gathered came the sounds of banging plastic bottles shouting singing pots being smacked with wooden sticks. It was truly a cacophony and wasn’t dying down anytime soon. I peeled my fatigued, nearly asleep body out of bed and trudged to the front of the concession to inquire as to the purpose of these sounds. My mom pointed at the almost full moon nearly obscured byt the clouds and said “because the moon is being taken” I immediatesly thought of an eclipse which made perfest sense. Even in the US I’ve heard of superstitions surrpuonding lunar and solar eclipses but as I quickly turned to look at the moon again it appeared as it had earlier that night—nearly full and partially obscured by clouds. I protested to her that there was still a little bit showing, that it wasn’t completely gone but that didn’t matter to her nor the kids. As I walked back up to my house, having resister the urge to commence a lecture on lunar cycles and to exact an explanation as to why the amount of moon showing now was any different from when we had a quarter moon or even a sliver, I glanced back at the cloud cover and knew the noise wouldn’t stop until the kids fell asleep drumming, sticks in hand, heads on pots or pans serving as pillows. The clouds would certainly win this match. Bess explained to me that she’d just heard the other day that they believe the moon is being stolen by a car and so they bang the pots and pans to scare it away. Eventualy the banging just faded into all the other noise I’ve grown accustomed to, singing me to sleep.
When I was talking to my mom on the phone last week we had one of those annoying echoing connections where you’re forced to hear the sound of your own voice after everything you say, which if you’re anything like me causes you to change your pitch and tone to be super feminine and upbeat, like some over caffeinated female news morning news anchor. After several minutes of wondering if my voice really was that deep, I noted an imperceptible noise echoing alongside our conversation. It had to be coming from my end. As I looked around I realized the goats had come home from the garden and their babies were bleating for milk. I had become so accustomed to the background noise that I only noticed it because it was coming back at me thru the phone. Its decibel level had to be greater or equal to my (by now) singsongy cheer and I suddenly realized how terrible it must be for the person talking to me on the phone, wondering if I’m actually trying to stand around as many animals as possible.I started giggling which turned into full on laughter at my situation and how genuinely oblivious I’ve become.
Several nights later, most of my family ahd left the concession to go watch the feuilleton and only tekmanit, my host mom, and my two little brothers, the baby (the three noise culprits) and myself were left in the concession. My host mom went inside to help my little brother find his mattress and sheet with the aide of her flashlight and my baby sister quickly gave chase, her little feet barely keeping up with the forward movement of her body. Oumar, not to be left out, leaped up from his mattress and ran after her, courteously notifying me that as to his current destination. And then there it was. Silence. I hadn’t heard it since when? I couldn’t recall. I aly my head back and enjoyed the stars and my thoughts for a moment until the pitter patter of feet announced their arrival and the return of the noises that I’ve come to know and love.
Now, I’m in bamako leaving for vacation on Saturday. the first time ive left mali in over a year other than to go to burkina for a couple days to pick up my parents. I’m a little nervous about how it will feel. Will I like it too much, remember and savor my dependence on first world goods and services? Will the vacation ive built up towards for a year be anticlimactic? Or will it be a glimpse of the existential crisis I imagine myself to have whenever I think about going back in another year? Or will I just enjoy the break and then be prepared to come back and start fresh after being worn thin from a year of extreme ups and downs
A couple days ago I was talking with another volunteer about how transitory our lives are. We’ve only know just started to really become close with the group who came in a year before us and now they’re leaving us and a whole new batch to get to know is coming in now that we’ll only have a year to share our experience with. And even with the people who are in your year, only a quarter of them you see regularly. The close friends you make during training may end up on the opposite side of the country from you and you only see them occasionally if ever when you’re passing through Bamako or you can coordinate your schedules to vacation together. Then there’s the transition you make every two or three weeks when you leave site, come into the regional capitol for banking internet and a beer or two and before you know it site is calling you back for work, a baptism, a wedding….I sometimes allow my mind to catch up with my body and I realize where I am and this isn’t some dream life I’m living for someone else for two years. Its just that I have changed so much that I feel like this is a different life and I’m a different person living it, constantly adapting changing. This is most likely not making any sense to the reader at this point but as my friend said the other day; you can’t really talk about it with someone who hasn’t done Peace Corps. You can certainly have an amazing conversation, but they won’t truly understand. They can only imagine and these conversations loom over my head a year from now, wanting to make you understand but wondering if I’m wasting your time.
This constant change- even when you’re sitting at site in the middle of the day, waiting for the heat to break and your mind is turning over things you’ve never had or thought to think about before—this questioning, trying to reorganize the way things have always been arranged and explained in my head—or the random dreams about people from high school you haven’t seen and won’t see for years that you wake up from like you’d just been there but find yourself in a different time, in a different spirit and mind amd wondering where and why that person is buried in your subconscious. And that’s what’s weird. You can separate your dreams from reality; you wake up from sleep and know that was a dream. Yet sometimes in the middle of the day as I’m walking down the street in broad daylight I wake up—I wake up but not from sleep and realize this all isn’t a dream. And then I’m leaving again to go to Bamako or somewhere else with each day passing drawing me closer to the biggest transition of them all. What happens when these two people with two different lives merge?
more later
Fadi
I sat outside of the Gao house today talking with Fadi, the girl who comes here to wash dishes and do laundry and whose family has helped us out for years of volunteers. Because there’s so many of us sort of living here and moving in and out its nice to pay someone to help us with stuff so that it doesn’t pile up and fall on one person to do three days of dishes and this way a malian earns an income. She was sad that James and Dave, two volunteers who are just finishing up their service, had left and that she didn’t have a photo of them. It really touched me because even though sometimes the only interaction we have with her is a quick hello as we catch her on her way out of the concession and shes seen a lot of volunteers come and go, she still really valued our friendship and just wanted a picture to remember them by. I promised to find her one.
Earlier on she’d confided in me that she was pregnant and asked if I would have children a question I often get here. I told her someday I would but not while in Mali- and would it be a boy or girl that I wanted she asked. I told her a girl and asked her in turn. She said a girl and joked she would name the baby Aisha, my malian name. While sometimes I grasp for conversation topics with my limited vocabulary, Fadi seemed content to just sit next to me even in silence enjoying my company and my friendship. This wise young girl, my age or younger, expecting her second kid, and never having attended school, agreed the kids in Gao could be rude and mean to us. After all she professed, all that was different about us white people was that we wore white people clothes. I loved that. Although she used a major physical feature, our skin color, to differentiate as to whom she was referring, she didn’t recognize it as a divisive characteristic. Only our white people clothes gave us away as “white people”. We were all of one god, so what was the big deal? I usually try to avoid conversations around this topic, religion can be tough to navigate without the words to describe. But fadi understood so much more, so much more simply.
Some noises
One night when Bess was sleeping over (its considered indecent for a woman to sleep at home by herself if her husband is our of town) a huge chorus of children yelling banging pots plastic whatever they could get their hands on broke out all around us. Now this sort of noise is not unprecedented but usually the racket follows the curve of the passing of a speeding train, rising and falling quickly as the group of people celebrating a marriage birth etc. turns the corner around our concession.
This time the noise started in my own concession, Suleiman and Moussa on a chore to bang out a piece of metal, I thought on the border of sleep. But why did they have to do it now and right next to my house. The protests of an old man visiting to watch it TV in my concession pushed them outside the concession door and it was then that I realized behind me, in the gendarmes concession, across the street where the Bambara functionaries family lives and from down the street where a group of children must have gathered came the sounds of banging plastic bottles shouting singing pots being smacked with wooden sticks. It was truly a cacophony and wasn’t dying down anytime soon. I peeled my fatigued, nearly asleep body out of bed and trudged to the front of the concession to inquire as to the purpose of these sounds. My mom pointed at the almost full moon nearly obscured byt the clouds and said “because the moon is being taken” I immediatesly thought of an eclipse which made perfest sense. Even in the US I’ve heard of superstitions surrpuonding lunar and solar eclipses but as I quickly turned to look at the moon again it appeared as it had earlier that night—nearly full and partially obscured by clouds. I protested to her that there was still a little bit showing, that it wasn’t completely gone but that didn’t matter to her nor the kids. As I walked back up to my house, having resister the urge to commence a lecture on lunar cycles and to exact an explanation as to why the amount of moon showing now was any different from when we had a quarter moon or even a sliver, I glanced back at the cloud cover and knew the noise wouldn’t stop until the kids fell asleep drumming, sticks in hand, heads on pots or pans serving as pillows. The clouds would certainly win this match. Bess explained to me that she’d just heard the other day that they believe the moon is being stolen by a car and so they bang the pots and pans to scare it away. Eventualy the banging just faded into all the other noise I’ve grown accustomed to, singing me to sleep.
When I was talking to my mom on the phone last week we had one of those annoying echoing connections where you’re forced to hear the sound of your own voice after everything you say, which if you’re anything like me causes you to change your pitch and tone to be super feminine and upbeat, like some over caffeinated female news morning news anchor. After several minutes of wondering if my voice really was that deep, I noted an imperceptible noise echoing alongside our conversation. It had to be coming from my end. As I looked around I realized the goats had come home from the garden and their babies were bleating for milk. I had become so accustomed to the background noise that I only noticed it because it was coming back at me thru the phone. Its decibel level had to be greater or equal to my (by now) singsongy cheer and I suddenly realized how terrible it must be for the person talking to me on the phone, wondering if I’m actually trying to stand around as many animals as possible.I started giggling which turned into full on laughter at my situation and how genuinely oblivious I’ve become.
Several nights later, most of my family ahd left the concession to go watch the feuilleton and only tekmanit, my host mom, and my two little brothers, the baby (the three noise culprits) and myself were left in the concession. My host mom went inside to help my little brother find his mattress and sheet with the aide of her flashlight and my baby sister quickly gave chase, her little feet barely keeping up with the forward movement of her body. Oumar, not to be left out, leaped up from his mattress and ran after her, courteously notifying me that as to his current destination. And then there it was. Silence. I hadn’t heard it since when? I couldn’t recall. I aly my head back and enjoyed the stars and my thoughts for a moment until the pitter patter of feet announced their arrival and the return of the noises that I’ve come to know and love.
Now, I’m in bamako leaving for vacation on Saturday. the first time ive left mali in over a year other than to go to burkina for a couple days to pick up my parents. I’m a little nervous about how it will feel. Will I like it too much, remember and savor my dependence on first world goods and services? Will the vacation ive built up towards for a year be anticlimactic? Or will it be a glimpse of the existential crisis I imagine myself to have whenever I think about going back in another year? Or will I just enjoy the break and then be prepared to come back and start fresh after being worn thin from a year of extreme ups and downs
A couple days ago I was talking with another volunteer about how transitory our lives are. We’ve only know just started to really become close with the group who came in a year before us and now they’re leaving us and a whole new batch to get to know is coming in now that we’ll only have a year to share our experience with. And even with the people who are in your year, only a quarter of them you see regularly. The close friends you make during training may end up on the opposite side of the country from you and you only see them occasionally if ever when you’re passing through Bamako or you can coordinate your schedules to vacation together. Then there’s the transition you make every two or three weeks when you leave site, come into the regional capitol for banking internet and a beer or two and before you know it site is calling you back for work, a baptism, a wedding….I sometimes allow my mind to catch up with my body and I realize where I am and this isn’t some dream life I’m living for someone else for two years. Its just that I have changed so much that I feel like this is a different life and I’m a different person living it, constantly adapting changing. This is most likely not making any sense to the reader at this point but as my friend said the other day; you can’t really talk about it with someone who hasn’t done Peace Corps. You can certainly have an amazing conversation, but they won’t truly understand. They can only imagine and these conversations loom over my head a year from now, wanting to make you understand but wondering if I’m wasting your time.
This constant change- even when you’re sitting at site in the middle of the day, waiting for the heat to break and your mind is turning over things you’ve never had or thought to think about before—this questioning, trying to reorganize the way things have always been arranged and explained in my head—or the random dreams about people from high school you haven’t seen and won’t see for years that you wake up from like you’d just been there but find yourself in a different time, in a different spirit and mind amd wondering where and why that person is buried in your subconscious. And that’s what’s weird. You can separate your dreams from reality; you wake up from sleep and know that was a dream. Yet sometimes in the middle of the day as I’m walking down the street in broad daylight I wake up—I wake up but not from sleep and realize this all isn’t a dream. And then I’m leaving again to go to Bamako or somewhere else with each day passing drawing me closer to the biggest transition of them all. What happens when these two people with two different lives merge?
more later
Sunday, July 13, 2008
food situation in Mali
Some of you have been asking abotu the food situation in Mali with the food crisis going on. Mali is self-sufficient in millet and sorghum so the prices haven't gone up too much here for thost staples, but the price for a sack of rice has gone up alot. Here's an article our country director just sent us that you might find interesting.
MALI: Food situation looks positive
Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79197
GAO, 11 July 2008 (IRIN) - Despite high global food prices, conflict in the north and the onset of the lean season which lasts from July to September, the food security situation in the north and elsewhere, looks positive this year in Mali.
"[Food] prices are going up, but it's normal; stocks are good and the cereal is available. We think overall, the harvest will be good," said Alice Martin-Diahirou, director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Mali.
"There are pockets of concern for us around the towns of Bourem and Ansongo, near Gao, but the situation this year is not serious like in previous years," she said.
The positive outlook for food security in the north comes despite the recent insecurity in the region. A number of violent raids and clashes have caused more than 50 deaths over the past few months as the Touareg rebellion has escalated.
Gao, 1,200 km north of the capital, Bamako, is currently under an unofficial curfew, and many people fear the rebels have laid landmines on the road up to Kidal.
However, aid agencies said so far this was having little effect on their ability to operate. "Although Gao is classified by the UN as facing a security threat, we are not seeing any interruptions to our work here," said Mohammed Ag Hamalouta, from WFP in Gao. "This year is quite a normal one for us."
Rains good so far
The rainy season in the Malian Sahel appears to have started well. "Although we have to treat first predictions with caution, it seems like the rainy season in the Gao and Timbuktu regions will be good," Dirama Diarra, head of research and the development of rainfall prediction at the National Meteorological Office, told IRIN. "We think it will be humid with more rains than normal."
This is welcome news for farmers in and around Gao which lies deep in the Sahelian belt. Mostly they rely on rain-fed agriculture. Even in a good year, it only rains about 10 times in Gao.
Self-sufficient in millet, sorghum
Mali has been more protected than some of its neighbours by global food price rises because it is self-sufficient in millet and sorghum, the staple food of 80 percent of its population, and it exports these grains to its West African neighbours, including Mauritania, Senegal and Burkina Faso.
But the country has not been entirely insulated from global food price rises, particularly when it comes to rice. Mali produces on average half of its total annual rice consumption, importing the rest mostly from Asia. "We have seen some rises in the price of local rice," said Christian Bren from the non-governmental organisation Action contre la Faim in Gao, "but Mali has better managed the high prices than the other countries."
High rice prices mainly affect urban residents who prefer to eat it rather than traditional grains. Consumer rice prices in Bamako were 27 percent higher than the five-year average in March 2008, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Government action
To cushion the blow, the government has levied import taxes on rice, and heavily subsidises fuel costs, making them among the lowest in West Africa. The ministries of economy and finance also introduced additional regulations for imported rice in March: "Any businessman who benefits from tax exemptions on rice imports has to sell it at a fixed price to consumers," said Mahaman Assouma Touré, the national director of commerce.
Because of these measures the government has so far succeeded in stabilising the price of rice at about 70 US cents per kilogram.
The government has also adopted the 2008-2009 Rice Initiative, in which it commits to setting aside land and providing agricultural equipment to increase its rice paddy fields by half, bringing production up to 1.6 million tonnes per year.
The next step, according to Touré, is for Mali to increase its self-sufficiency in other basic products. Mali is still heavily reliant on imports of basic necessities, importing 70 percent of products such as cooking oil and dairy products, but there are as yet no concrete schemes in place to improve yields for any of these products.
According to a World Bank official who preferred anonymity, with the right investment Mali could go even further - moving beyond self-sufficiency to becoming a major exporter.
"Mali has to get over its addiction to rice and start growing other crops in higher quantities - sesame seeds, dates, potatoes, bananas, and mangoes," the official told IRIN. "Mali could become a major bread-basket in West Africa if it plays its cards right."
MALI: Food situation looks positive
Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79197
GAO, 11 July 2008 (IRIN) - Despite high global food prices, conflict in the north and the onset of the lean season which lasts from July to September, the food security situation in the north and elsewhere, looks positive this year in Mali.
"[Food] prices are going up, but it's normal; stocks are good and the cereal is available. We think overall, the harvest will be good," said Alice Martin-Diahirou, director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Mali.
"There are pockets of concern for us around the towns of Bourem and Ansongo, near Gao, but the situation this year is not serious like in previous years," she said.
The positive outlook for food security in the north comes despite the recent insecurity in the region. A number of violent raids and clashes have caused more than 50 deaths over the past few months as the Touareg rebellion has escalated.
Gao, 1,200 km north of the capital, Bamako, is currently under an unofficial curfew, and many people fear the rebels have laid landmines on the road up to Kidal.
However, aid agencies said so far this was having little effect on their ability to operate. "Although Gao is classified by the UN as facing a security threat, we are not seeing any interruptions to our work here," said Mohammed Ag Hamalouta, from WFP in Gao. "This year is quite a normal one for us."
Rains good so far
The rainy season in the Malian Sahel appears to have started well. "Although we have to treat first predictions with caution, it seems like the rainy season in the Gao and Timbuktu regions will be good," Dirama Diarra, head of research and the development of rainfall prediction at the National Meteorological Office, told IRIN. "We think it will be humid with more rains than normal."
This is welcome news for farmers in and around Gao which lies deep in the Sahelian belt. Mostly they rely on rain-fed agriculture. Even in a good year, it only rains about 10 times in Gao.
Self-sufficient in millet, sorghum
Mali has been more protected than some of its neighbours by global food price rises because it is self-sufficient in millet and sorghum, the staple food of 80 percent of its population, and it exports these grains to its West African neighbours, including Mauritania, Senegal and Burkina Faso.
But the country has not been entirely insulated from global food price rises, particularly when it comes to rice. Mali produces on average half of its total annual rice consumption, importing the rest mostly from Asia. "We have seen some rises in the price of local rice," said Christian Bren from the non-governmental organisation Action contre la Faim in Gao, "but Mali has better managed the high prices than the other countries."
High rice prices mainly affect urban residents who prefer to eat it rather than traditional grains. Consumer rice prices in Bamako were 27 percent higher than the five-year average in March 2008, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Government action
To cushion the blow, the government has levied import taxes on rice, and heavily subsidises fuel costs, making them among the lowest in West Africa. The ministries of economy and finance also introduced additional regulations for imported rice in March: "Any businessman who benefits from tax exemptions on rice imports has to sell it at a fixed price to consumers," said Mahaman Assouma Touré, the national director of commerce.
Because of these measures the government has so far succeeded in stabilising the price of rice at about 70 US cents per kilogram.
The government has also adopted the 2008-2009 Rice Initiative, in which it commits to setting aside land and providing agricultural equipment to increase its rice paddy fields by half, bringing production up to 1.6 million tonnes per year.
The next step, according to Touré, is for Mali to increase its self-sufficiency in other basic products. Mali is still heavily reliant on imports of basic necessities, importing 70 percent of products such as cooking oil and dairy products, but there are as yet no concrete schemes in place to improve yields for any of these products.
According to a World Bank official who preferred anonymity, with the right investment Mali could go even further - moving beyond self-sufficiency to becoming a major exporter.
"Mali has to get over its addiction to rice and start growing other crops in higher quantities - sesame seeds, dates, potatoes, bananas, and mangoes," the official told IRIN. "Mali could become a major bread-basket in West Africa if it plays its cards right."
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
on the way to fourth of july
it was a little cramped
the participants in my formations
monkey
hippo, little ot sticking up
sandstorm
I am very very tired. I just got off a bus that left from Kita at 2am and got into bamako at 5am, making this the 5 or 6 night in a row I haven't gotten my regular 9-10hours of sleep. This past week I've been on a little mini adventure for the fourth of July and got to see a drastically different side of Mali, so different I felt as if I was in a different country. Several volunteers got together in Manantali, a small town/city in the southwest corner of Mali for the fourth of July. In addition to the good food and cool weather, there is an amazing river that passes right next to the volunteer house which is home to hippos and monkeys! Needless to say I was in heaven. I couldn't get over how drastically different two different parts of the country could be. Granted you find this in the United States and other countries I've been to before, but I think because I've been getting so used to the desert, coming to this green paradise was so refreshing and it was really tough to leave! The river reminded me so much of New England in the summer. I've posted some pictures of the festivities, monkeys and one of the hippos. I was much closer to both during my stay there but didn't have my camera on hand.
My trip down to Manatali was pretty long too. My fellow gao PCV, Sarah and I arrived in Bamako on Wednesday morning after a 20 hour bus ride and then upon discovering that everyone else was leaving for Manantali that day, we grabbed egg sandwiches and hopped on another bus for another 4 and a half hours. We had a night's rest in kita and then all 23 of us packed into a bachee and headed off for a bumpy ride through the bush. When we got there though, it was totally worth it and now I know a place to go when I need to remember what water looks like.
Since I last wrote in I've started my tree nursery formations with a great group of motivated women and men who seem genuinely interested in what they're learning; how to plant a tree, how to plant seeds and care for them after germination, how to make a compost, relationship of trees and nutrition (vitamins and nutrients from tree leaves, fruits), agroforestry techniques and grafting. Each participating association has to do a public tree planting somewhere in town and they will also recieve saplings they can take home or to their association garden. At the end of the formations, they will also decide how they want to proceed with the nursery we've started, whether it be as a large cooperative, sharing work, or just one individual person who wants to run it independently. I think by leaving the decision up to them of how to continue, it creates a sense of ownership and pride and will help the project's sustainability. When I have pictures of the public plantings, I'll let you know and put them up!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Top ten
Bess and Jared just got back from America last week and had a great time. They gave alot of presentations back in the states (one at my worldwise school, Abington Friends). One of the things they noticed being there was how little we had told people about our every day lives, mostly because we've become so accustomed to it. So i made a list of interesting/strange things that I don't think I've shared with you but that now are a normal part of my life!
Top ten things "you think you know but you have no idea" (in no particular order):
1) Malians don't celebrate birthdays.
Most Malians don't even know their ages. In the past births haven't been registered, most people don't have birth certificates. When a kid gives you his age, he could be off by several years. We had an interesting conversation several weeks ago about whether Oumar was 4 or 5.
2)There are alot of big scary bugs.
The other day there was a spider on my screen door that was 3/4 the size of my hand and looked mad. I've also seen scorpions in my house, although not as big thankfully. I also have a couple lizards that show themselves once in a while and scurry fast enough to scare me.
3) I sleep outside with cows and goats.
My family has alot of sheep, goats, and cows some of which just hang out at night around the concession. Sometimes at night I'll wake up to a cow munching away on smoething only a couple feet away from me.
4)A sea of mangos!
Its mango season right now in Mali and everywhere you go, all you see are mangos, even up north. I mean everywhere--You're hardpressed to walk a blcok without someone walking by with a bunch on their head or comnig across someone selling them in front of their house. On the way down here to Bamako, I saw thousands of mangos waiting to be purchased in a 500 meter stretch along the road. I've never been a huge mango fan, maybe i'd eaten one before i came here but now that I've been here I'm obsessed. There's all sorts of different varities, big, small, grafted, non-grafted, American (? no idea why its called this). You can buy a huge delicious one for 100 cfa, about the same as a Us quarter. The best way to eat them is like an apple, skin and all. i suggest you all come over and eat some.....
5)At lunch and dinner we all eat with our hands
Speaking of eating, when i eat with my family we use our hands to scoop up rice or to, form it into a ball by squeezing it and then take a bite. WE wash our hands before and after, although soap was only just introduced by me when I arrived and I think when I'm not there, soap is mysteriously absent. Some Malian ethnicites beleive soap is bad luck
6)Mali is polygamous.
My host father has two wives, which I only recently found out. One lives out en brousse and he goes to visit her occasionally. Bess and Jared's host dad has three wives, all who live within a three block radius of each other. Usually in my village they don't all live in the same concession, like is the case in other polygamous societies in Africa. I've heard of both cases in Mali but at site the women each have their own house. I'm not going to speak about this more now because my opinions/feelings are a bit too strong.
7)There is no trash collection in this country.
ok to be fair there is some trash collection in Bamako and other cities as well, but nothing city wide or really organized. Trash is everywhere in the streets and people litter everywhere (even in my house, although we're working on this). Bess is getting a trash collection service started in Gossi though! Her plan is really great. You can donate to help the project get started at www.peacecorps.gov, then click on the donate now link.
8)Everyone has the same names.
There are some people with uncommon names (Jared's tammasheq name, Iknet, is fairly uncommon, he's the only iknet we've met) but alot of people share the same name. I've met countless girls named Aisha and Assahara in Gossi (my name and bess' name in Mali) and there are alot of men who are named mohammed, mohamet, mohammad etc. but who have nicknames so that people can tell them apart. The most common names: Mohammed, Abdoulaye, Souleymane, Fadimatah, Zeinaba, Sidi, Bobacar
9)12-3 Siesta
The middle of the day is too hot to do anything other than lie around and rest. At this point of the year its too hot to try to really sleep but you can certainly get a little bit of a cat nap in. So the middle of the day is just a nice relaxing time, except really really hot!
10) I live with an extended extended family.
Most family units include some combination of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, wives, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews. We've got five cousins living with us now, one grandson and a second cousin. In addition every market day, there are any number of people, family and friends, who come to stay for the night in the concession unannounced. Sometimes my host mom has to make extra food at the last minute, no easy task in mali
Top ten things "you think you know but you have no idea" (in no particular order):
1) Malians don't celebrate birthdays.
Most Malians don't even know their ages. In the past births haven't been registered, most people don't have birth certificates. When a kid gives you his age, he could be off by several years. We had an interesting conversation several weeks ago about whether Oumar was 4 or 5.
2)There are alot of big scary bugs.
The other day there was a spider on my screen door that was 3/4 the size of my hand and looked mad. I've also seen scorpions in my house, although not as big thankfully. I also have a couple lizards that show themselves once in a while and scurry fast enough to scare me.
3) I sleep outside with cows and goats.
My family has alot of sheep, goats, and cows some of which just hang out at night around the concession. Sometimes at night I'll wake up to a cow munching away on smoething only a couple feet away from me.
4)A sea of mangos!
Its mango season right now in Mali and everywhere you go, all you see are mangos, even up north. I mean everywhere--You're hardpressed to walk a blcok without someone walking by with a bunch on their head or comnig across someone selling them in front of their house. On the way down here to Bamako, I saw thousands of mangos waiting to be purchased in a 500 meter stretch along the road. I've never been a huge mango fan, maybe i'd eaten one before i came here but now that I've been here I'm obsessed. There's all sorts of different varities, big, small, grafted, non-grafted, American (? no idea why its called this). You can buy a huge delicious one for 100 cfa, about the same as a Us quarter. The best way to eat them is like an apple, skin and all. i suggest you all come over and eat some.....
5)At lunch and dinner we all eat with our hands
Speaking of eating, when i eat with my family we use our hands to scoop up rice or to, form it into a ball by squeezing it and then take a bite. WE wash our hands before and after, although soap was only just introduced by me when I arrived and I think when I'm not there, soap is mysteriously absent. Some Malian ethnicites beleive soap is bad luck
6)Mali is polygamous.
My host father has two wives, which I only recently found out. One lives out en brousse and he goes to visit her occasionally. Bess and Jared's host dad has three wives, all who live within a three block radius of each other. Usually in my village they don't all live in the same concession, like is the case in other polygamous societies in Africa. I've heard of both cases in Mali but at site the women each have their own house. I'm not going to speak about this more now because my opinions/feelings are a bit too strong.
7)There is no trash collection in this country.
ok to be fair there is some trash collection in Bamako and other cities as well, but nothing city wide or really organized. Trash is everywhere in the streets and people litter everywhere (even in my house, although we're working on this). Bess is getting a trash collection service started in Gossi though! Her plan is really great. You can donate to help the project get started at www.peacecorps.gov, then click on the donate now link.
8)Everyone has the same names.
There are some people with uncommon names (Jared's tammasheq name, Iknet, is fairly uncommon, he's the only iknet we've met) but alot of people share the same name. I've met countless girls named Aisha and Assahara in Gossi (my name and bess' name in Mali) and there are alot of men who are named mohammed, mohamet, mohammad etc. but who have nicknames so that people can tell them apart. The most common names: Mohammed, Abdoulaye, Souleymane, Fadimatah, Zeinaba, Sidi, Bobacar
9)12-3 Siesta
The middle of the day is too hot to do anything other than lie around and rest. At this point of the year its too hot to try to really sleep but you can certainly get a little bit of a cat nap in. So the middle of the day is just a nice relaxing time, except really really hot!
10) I live with an extended extended family.
Most family units include some combination of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, wives, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews. We've got five cousins living with us now, one grandson and a second cousin. In addition every market day, there are any number of people, family and friends, who come to stay for the night in the concession unannounced. Sometimes my host mom has to make extra food at the last minute, no easy task in mali
Monday, June 2, 2008
an email to friends fam and friendly people!
Dear Friends and Fam,
Hello from Mali! I can't believe time has gone by so fast but in about a month I'll be celebrating my one-year anniversary here. It has certainly been a year of amazing experiences, surprises and fun and I hope alot of you have been able to read my blog and check out my pictures to see what I've been up to (www.nataliegrillon.blogspot.com). Bess, Jared (my sitemates) and I have been really fortunate to have been placed in a community with a lot of motivated individuals and we're looking forward to accomplishing as much as we can in the year we have left.
I wanted to first express my appreciation for the postive feedback from emails, letters and facebook and all of the questions about my work and my life here. I hope this interest that people have expressed can now be extended to helping Gossi with a project important to the youth and the population of my village as a whole. In my work with the youth here and in conversations with various members of the community, it became apparent that the youth lacked an adequate space to come together, where they could organize events and meetings or a space to expand their learning with tutoring, lessons and books outside of a school setting. Currently the youth center is not much more than a courtyard with a stage. Groups occasionally hold dances and kids come by once in awhile to play cards but with no electricity, few chairs and tables, and crumbling walls the space is in neglect and its hard to arrange events or develop new activites. Bess, Jared and I thought that one of the most important things we could do while here was to give the youth a space to call their own and where they could discover more about the world and their community.
We want to start out by building a library with a small snack stand and a computer(both to lure people in to the library!). If we can find the funding we might even be able to bring internet to the village. The library will not only give the community a place to learn and discover individually but also to meet and offer classes. We're also hoping to buy sound equipment for dances, outdoor chairs and tables and a projector to hook up to the computer to have movie nights, which will generate income for the youth activites in addition to the small charge for computer use and the snack stand. The total project cost, without the books and computer, is around $8,000 but we're hoping to find other sources of in-kind donations for the books and computer.
I'm writing to ask for your help in the hope that each of you might be willing to make a small contribution towards the project. I've posted the project online on the Peace Corps website and donations can be made electronically. The website is www.peacecorps.gov and you click on the "donate now" link and then "donate to volunteer projects" and then under the africa section you'll find my project "community youth center" under the title of Mali. Here's also a direct link that might work https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-257 .
I realize its a tough time financially in the US right now, but if you can even make a donation of $5, it would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to pass on to people I've left off on accident or other family and friends - we need all the help we can get! I also apologize for sending out a mass donation soliciting email--forgive me--but I unfortunately don't have unlimited access to internet to write individual emails out.
Any questions or comments, please send along or post on the blog and I thank you in advance!
Natalie
Hello from Mali! I can't believe time has gone by so fast but in about a month I'll be celebrating my one-year anniversary here. It has certainly been a year of amazing experiences, surprises and fun and I hope alot of you have been able to read my blog and check out my pictures to see what I've been up to (www.nataliegrillon.blogspot.com). Bess, Jared (my sitemates) and I have been really fortunate to have been placed in a community with a lot of motivated individuals and we're looking forward to accomplishing as much as we can in the year we have left.
I wanted to first express my appreciation for the postive feedback from emails, letters and facebook and all of the questions about my work and my life here. I hope this interest that people have expressed can now be extended to helping Gossi with a project important to the youth and the population of my village as a whole. In my work with the youth here and in conversations with various members of the community, it became apparent that the youth lacked an adequate space to come together, where they could organize events and meetings or a space to expand their learning with tutoring, lessons and books outside of a school setting. Currently the youth center is not much more than a courtyard with a stage. Groups occasionally hold dances and kids come by once in awhile to play cards but with no electricity, few chairs and tables, and crumbling walls the space is in neglect and its hard to arrange events or develop new activites. Bess, Jared and I thought that one of the most important things we could do while here was to give the youth a space to call their own and where they could discover more about the world and their community.
We want to start out by building a library with a small snack stand and a computer(both to lure people in to the library!). If we can find the funding we might even be able to bring internet to the village. The library will not only give the community a place to learn and discover individually but also to meet and offer classes. We're also hoping to buy sound equipment for dances, outdoor chairs and tables and a projector to hook up to the computer to have movie nights, which will generate income for the youth activites in addition to the small charge for computer use and the snack stand. The total project cost, without the books and computer, is around $8,000 but we're hoping to find other sources of in-kind donations for the books and computer.
I'm writing to ask for your help in the hope that each of you might be willing to make a small contribution towards the project. I've posted the project online on the Peace Corps website and donations can be made electronically. The website is www.peacecorps.gov and you click on the "donate now" link and then "donate to volunteer projects" and then under the africa section you'll find my project "community youth center" under the title of Mali. Here's also a direct link that might work https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-257 .
I realize its a tough time financially in the US right now, but if you can even make a donation of $5, it would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to pass on to people I've left off on accident or other family and friends - we need all the help we can get! I also apologize for sending out a mass donation soliciting email--forgive me--but I unfortunately don't have unlimited access to internet to write individual emails out.
Any questions or comments, please send along or post on the blog and I thank you in advance!
Natalie
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
heat
I know i've said that it was hot before but I didnt really know what i was talking about. now its hot. I can just be sitting in a room and im baking. i have a sweat sheen on my skin, sort of like beyonce in her baby boy video except not. Its scary how much the environment here effects your daily decisions and activities. its not like al(my climate change advisor dad) telling me "dont forget your raincoat natalie" and me thinking..... pshawww i wont really need it and then i regret it when im drenched later on in a downpour (al always knows the weather). here its more of a sickness , living dying thing. It is literally a health hazard to be out too long in the middle of the day and you absolutely can't forget water when you travel, even at night. When i came into gao several days ago, I left my water bottle at home on accident and even though it was night time and cooler, I was dehydrated and desperate for water when I arrived. it was really stupid and dangerous of me. People here are always willing to offer water to you because it would really be making someone suffer and risk illness if you didn't. There are days in gossi where in the middle of the day, where the only thing to do is sleep, you cant even sleep because its like trying to fall asleep in a sauna.
I came to gao to escape the heat of the day and find some ice and fans and ive also been getting some work done for the ecotourism projects im working on. A team from the us forest service is coming up to conduct a feasibility study on tourism in the region im stationed based on the elephants and the other biodiveristy in the region. It will be interesting to introduce them to my community and the projects we have going on.
I've started working with the middle school kids more, who have shown such amazing enthusiasm in writing letters to their new penpals at Abington Friends School in Pennsylvania and with whom i've started my environmental education club. Their project for next time is to either draw a comic strip or a before and after picture telling the story of their local environment based on interviews with family members. We're also hoping to arrange some activities for earth and environment week, the first week in june here. I really enjoy working with the kids because they are so motivated. I think adults here have come across many dissapointments and have lost some of their hope and drive, just like you can sometimes find in the US. The kids and I are able to work right now without thinking off all the negative things that could set us back and without getting discouraged. Its refreshing. One obstacle for the youth in Gossi is there is no high school for them to continue their studies. They have to go to Gao, timbuktu or sevarre to purue their bac and I think the cost of this prevents some students from continuing. An increasing problem in Mali at large is that even students with a high school and even university degree find it difficult to find employment. There are not many large companies in Mali and government bureaucracies already seem to be overpopulated. Many young people leave their villages to pursue employment or their education in Bamako or another city but many find themselves unemployed and as a result the villages have also lost their working age population.
quick update but better than none?
some pictures above of my classes, my little brothers with their clay animals, the garden etc.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
a letter I wrote to my penpal class in Pennsylvania
I'm sharing this letter I wrote to my worldwise schools class in the US with you all because I relized as I answered their excellent questions that it had a lot of info in it that I hadn't shared before. They just sent a wonderful package to the kids of Gossi with letters, candy, pencils and paper that I'm going to distribute when i return to site tomorrow.
I just returned from a week long training in Bamako where we learned alot and got to see everyone from all over Mali. It was nice to be reunited with everyone but tough because it was our last time all together at Tubaniso. I cant believe a new stage of volunteers is coming in the first week of July. We Won't be the least experienced ones anymore. time here goes by so fast... fourth of july is right around the corner and then ill have been here a whole year.
no more internet time but If any of you all have any questions like my students I'm more than happy to answer them. Happy Spring!
HI guys!
Thank you so much for the package! I just reached Gao today and received it and I will be bringing it back to Gossi tomorrow. Im going to distribute the pencils to the upperschool kids who are approximately the same age as you guys, 6-9 grade, and the candy to kids in the lower (elementary) and upper schools. As for your letters (all of which were fantastic by the way!), I’m going to try to respond to them to the best of my ability in this email and if I forget anything or skip it, I will write it up in my next letter. Its so wonderful of you all to contribute and I hope you realize how much they will appreciate your gifts. I think that establishing connectiosn like this is so important and I think you all can learn so much from each other.
A quick update on what I’ve been up to in the last couple months as I realize my two letters may not have reached you yet. Its getting really hot here as “la saison chaude” begins. Its easily 110 degrees each day but because I’ve been in country for almost nine months now I’ve (kind of) habituated to it. However, its nice and cool at night because it’s the desert, like Arizona or New Mexico, which is more than I can say for the southern part of Mali where its so humid, like you might find in the southeastern US. Apart from trying to stay cool, I’ve been working on my work with the elephants and ecotourism, which is tourism that promotes conservation and appreciation for the natural habitats it focuses on and that operates in a sustainable and responsible manner to protect the environment in which it operates. I’m also going to be starting an environmental club with the upper school kids to educate the students on their environment and the biodiversity of their region and of the world. We’re also going to be planting a bunch of trees as soon as hot season is over. Are you guys doing anything for earth day? We’ve also submitted a proposal for a new library for the youth/community center in Gossi. Hopefully we will have a computer there and my BIG goal before I leave is that the kids will even be able to communicate with you by email!
Ok so let me get down to your questions. I’m really impressed with what you came up with and I apologize for not addressing these questions before, but its all become so normal to me, I forget these sorts of things are all interesting to you guys.
1) what kind of currency is used? How much can you buy with one dollar?
Mali is part of West African States Central Bank System. Their currency is the CFA , which stands for “Colonies des Francs Africains”, indicating their former currency the franc, used when the French colonized the region. The CFA is used in many countries in West Africa, all former French colonies, like Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger etc. Right now about 400 CFA is equal to 1$, a change from when I first arrived and 500 CFA was equal to one dollar. With 400 CFA you can buy a soda, but thats considered a BIG luxury here, because 400 cfa could also buy ingredients for rice and suace for a family.
2) Are the kids there similar to kids here?
Here’s a blog post I wrote on this recently.
I think some of my most enjoyable moments as a child were out catching frogs in our pond or playing tag in the woods. But how many times have you sat around with a group of friends, admitting to remembering the theme song to Captain Planet or having snap bracelets and pogs. Our generation and those younger than us define ourselves by the TV characters we loved and the toys that if we didn’t get them for Christmas we would most certainly meet an untimely death. For the children in my town here in Mali, I see as much excitement in their eyes when I give them a plastic soda bottle as I remember seeing in my little brother when he got a snowboard one Christmas. Granted they lose interest in the bottle about as quickly as Evan did in snowboarding, but children in Mali have more fun with that bottle than you would think possible. It’s a pretty general theme when it comes to the kids I see everyday. Even the dirtiest children, wearing the rattiest clothes have huge grins on their faces, shrieking at me and laughing at my responses or just running through the streets, racing their bike tires or, if they’re really lucky, car tires. A new pen or the very rare new notebook is as exciting here as it is buying the cartload of back to school stuff at staples (or was that just me? I really loved getting new notebooks and pencils even in college….).
Chores don’t ever need to be yelled or reminded about, they’re just done. Milking the cow, washing the baby’s clothes or watering the garden gets done every day without any complaining or griping. Once, out on a visit with my little sister, I was reminded that we needed to get home because she had dishes to do. To be fair, I’ve seen my fair share of tantrums and the hitting, biting and kicking still goes on and I get asked for money or gifts every time I leave the house. But kids here do make more with less, because they have to. In my experience, not all the kids are ready to burst into tears because they have no food, like the children in those Christian children’s fund tv commericials, but with the little they have, they are so happy.
We’re very lucky to have schools in my town and the surrounding villages, but all of the classes are overcrowded, 60 plus per class, and although the fee to attend is minimal, less than $4 dollars a year and its obligatory, many parents don’t send their kids to school. Many of the kids who are lucky enough to attend school struggle with their studies and paying attention, just as some do back home. My heart broke when the English teacher told me he had trouble getting a lot of the kids to pay attention because they hadn’t eaten breakfast and probably wouldn’t get much for lunch either. Most don’t have text books or pretty displays on their classroom walls. Yet when we go in to teach English to the seventh and eighth grade, almost everyone tries to participate and my brothers are eager to practice their French and English with me whenever they can or show me their drawings of the human body. These classes more than make up for the harassment we can sometimes put up with from adults and teenagers asking for the shirt off my back or my telephone. I say this to emphasize that no, these kids aren’t perfect but I guess to make my point I’ll share this story.
My little sister Zeinaba was given 50 cfa (about 10 cents) the other day when she returned a lost item to a neighbor and trying to suppress her obvious glee, asked if I would walk with her to buy candy at the boutique down the street. She, of course offered me three (I took one, its insulting not to and they’re really quite good), ate one herself and saved the rest to share with her two little brothers. The thought of saving them for herself never even crossed her mind. I feel like I have more than a thing or two to learn from a six-year old.
3) Host family names and ages
These are approximations on age because most Malians don’t know really their birthdays for several reasons. A lot of people are illiterate so they can’t write down births or important days and a lot of babies aren’t born in clinics so they don’t have birth certificates. A lot of this is changing with the new health clinics called CESCOMS which ask that babies come in to have their umbilical cord treated and to get vaccinated, so many more people are getting registered now. Also only recently has the country started using the roman calendar like we use. Previously they used no calendar or the Muslim Calendar, which is based completely on the moon.
Aguissa (father)- 50’s-60’s
Tekamanit (mother)- early 40’s
Assahara (sister) – 23, educated in Gao and Bamako, she knows her birthday and her age. She just got married and is finishing her secretarial studies in Bamako.
El-Mehdi (brother)- 18, studying at a high school in a town 3 hours north of Gossi. There is no high school in Gossi so if you want to continue your education you must move to Gao, Sevarre, Bamako or Timbuktu and stay with family or friends.
Alxamis (cousin) - 16-20, student in upper school
Abubacrin (brother - 16-18
Abdoulay (cousin) - 14-15
Suleyman (brother) - 14-15 Abdoulay and Suley are both students in the lower school
Ousman (brother)-10-12
Moussa (brother) 9-10
Zeinaba (sister) 7-8
Harunna (cousin) 5
Oumar (brother) 4-5
Xadijatu (sister) 1, she just learned to walk!
4) Population of town
The village around the mare is about 8-9,000 people but with the surrounding towns which are included in the commune, the population all together is over 20,000 but spread out over a very large region.
5) What kinds of stores are there? Any big companies?
In my town there are only little stores, like a corner store you might find in city, selling tea, flour, pasta, coffee, sugar, soap, fabric to make clothes, candy, peanuts, dates and some other basic hygiene products. Some stores also sell batteries or cell phone chargers and there is one or two pharmacies in the town. Two days a week there’s a big market, where everyone from out of town comes in to sell and buy things. These are the days where you can find small electronics and household goods, like pots pans and buckets for sale in Gossi. In bigger towns like Gao or Sevarre, there are more and varied stores, including places that sell American style clothes, electronics, gardening equipment and other household items. In Bamako, you can find almost anything you can find in America but only if you’re willing to go on a hunt. There’s a grand marche (big market) in Bamako, which is insane to navigate- the only thing I can compare it to that you might have seen is the market in the movie Aladdin? There’s thousands of people moving, shouting and selling things and its semi-divided by products-for instance all the food things are sold in one area, and clothes or electronics in another section. Bamako also has stores like you would find in the United States for clothing and electronics but the average Malian can’t afford to shop there.
In terms of big companies, there are several native to Mali. There are companies whose factories I’ve seen in Bamako like the company who makes powdered Milk (Vivalait), and another which makes sodas. There’s also companies that make ciment and other construction supplies. There’s also the two major cell phone companies in Mali, Orange (a frnech company) and Malitel.
6) What kind of food do they eat daily? What is considered a delicacy?
Most Malians subsist on a diet of a starch, like rice or to (kind of like a cross between dough and mashed potatoes made out of corn or millet that they dip into sauces) served with a veggie based sauce that too often doesn’t have many veggies in it. The sauce will also have some pieces of meat in it but if you’re eating with twelve people, you may not get one. This definitely depends on income and ethnicity. In some parts of the country, near the river, they eat a lot more fish, and with the tammasheq, you eat a lot more meat, because it is so important to their culture. A delicacy definitely is meat but also cookies and candy. My family hadn’t ever eaten cake until I made them one. In the big cities theres more variety but food that we take for granted in the states is very expensive here. A small pizza can be over 12 dollars way too much for a typical malian.
7) Is there any technology? What kind?
In Gossi the extent of technology is cellphones -almost every male and now lots of females have one- and televisions and DVD players, which only the wealthiest families can afford to have. There’s no electricity in Gossi so if people want to run lights or their TV’s they have to use a solar panel or a generator. They used to have some electricity so some people have refridgerators left over from this time, but now no one is using them because they can’t afford to power them. There are also a couple of computers in Gossi but not that are accessible to the public.
8) Whose cell phone in the photos on the blog?
Hmmm good question? Its either mine, my host dad’s or my mom’s? All PCV’s have cellphones and I charge it at my families house when they run their generator to watch TV.
9) How long, which days do kids attend school
The calendar for school here is approximately the same as in the states. They start in late September and go through to the middle of June with the same vacations public schools in the states usually have, except for February vacation. Kdis go to school from 8-12, have a break for lunch, where they go home to eat with their families in the heat of the day, and then return for a second session from 3-5. They go to school Monday –Friday with one afternoon a week off.
10) What is the housing like?
In town, people mostly live in houses made of mud bricks, although the wealthier families have concrete walls and floors. The mud houses have to be repaired every couple of years or each year from wear and tear from the rains. The houses are too hot at night to sleep in now, so people sleep outside sometimes under small “hangars” kind of like pavilions or shade gazebos, but all homemade from sticks and grass. During the day they also sit under these structures. Out in the bush, people live in huts made from sticks and grass or in tents made from animal skins.
11) What is your daily routine?
That can depend ont he day but usually after I get up, do some chores, go for a run, and eat breakfast I have a meeting or I head to the market for supplies, food that I need. After lunch with my family, which we all share from big bowls and eat with out hands, its too hot to go anywhere so i do paperwork, read or color with the kids. then i usually head to my garden in the afternoon to water or do other work there. Some days are full of meetings, other days are full of reading books!! I come into Gao, the hearest big city, about every three weeks, to use the internet go to the bank and see other volunteers. I jsut returned from bamako where i attended a training and got to eat real american food like pizza!!!
12) What is the temperature now?
Now that its hot season, its up to 115-120 degrees each day. At night up north its cooler and gets down to 75-80.
13) What activites and sports do kids do in their free time?
Kids here love soccer which they call football. I always see at least one game going on in a square or in the street. I also saw some kids playing volleyball the other day in village which was astounding! I haven’t seen it played anywhere else in Mali. We also have a bball court in Gossi but not too many people use it or know how to play. Bess and I are working on that! The little kids also have a game that’s like duck duck goose and another that’s like red rover. There are also songs and fortune telling games too. A lot of kids don’t have too much free time because they have so many chores to help out with! Herding animals, working in the garden, pounding millet or cleaning leaves them with little time for school work or fun.
So i hope that gives you guys some more background. Look for individual responses to letters in the mail soon and I'll try to get some pictures taken of the stuff you guys asked about including the students with their new supplies! i willa lso ask them for questions they have abou tyoua ll and America and maybe you can help them out!
I just returned from a week long training in Bamako where we learned alot and got to see everyone from all over Mali. It was nice to be reunited with everyone but tough because it was our last time all together at Tubaniso. I cant believe a new stage of volunteers is coming in the first week of July. We Won't be the least experienced ones anymore. time here goes by so fast... fourth of july is right around the corner and then ill have been here a whole year.
no more internet time but If any of you all have any questions like my students I'm more than happy to answer them. Happy Spring!
HI guys!
Thank you so much for the package! I just reached Gao today and received it and I will be bringing it back to Gossi tomorrow. Im going to distribute the pencils to the upperschool kids who are approximately the same age as you guys, 6-9 grade, and the candy to kids in the lower (elementary) and upper schools. As for your letters (all of which were fantastic by the way!), I’m going to try to respond to them to the best of my ability in this email and if I forget anything or skip it, I will write it up in my next letter. Its so wonderful of you all to contribute and I hope you realize how much they will appreciate your gifts. I think that establishing connectiosn like this is so important and I think you all can learn so much from each other.
A quick update on what I’ve been up to in the last couple months as I realize my two letters may not have reached you yet. Its getting really hot here as “la saison chaude” begins. Its easily 110 degrees each day but because I’ve been in country for almost nine months now I’ve (kind of) habituated to it. However, its nice and cool at night because it’s the desert, like Arizona or New Mexico, which is more than I can say for the southern part of Mali where its so humid, like you might find in the southeastern US. Apart from trying to stay cool, I’ve been working on my work with the elephants and ecotourism, which is tourism that promotes conservation and appreciation for the natural habitats it focuses on and that operates in a sustainable and responsible manner to protect the environment in which it operates. I’m also going to be starting an environmental club with the upper school kids to educate the students on their environment and the biodiversity of their region and of the world. We’re also going to be planting a bunch of trees as soon as hot season is over. Are you guys doing anything for earth day? We’ve also submitted a proposal for a new library for the youth/community center in Gossi. Hopefully we will have a computer there and my BIG goal before I leave is that the kids will even be able to communicate with you by email!
Ok so let me get down to your questions. I’m really impressed with what you came up with and I apologize for not addressing these questions before, but its all become so normal to me, I forget these sorts of things are all interesting to you guys.
1) what kind of currency is used? How much can you buy with one dollar?
Mali is part of West African States Central Bank System. Their currency is the CFA , which stands for “Colonies des Francs Africains”, indicating their former currency the franc, used when the French colonized the region. The CFA is used in many countries in West Africa, all former French colonies, like Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger etc. Right now about 400 CFA is equal to 1$, a change from when I first arrived and 500 CFA was equal to one dollar. With 400 CFA you can buy a soda, but thats considered a BIG luxury here, because 400 cfa could also buy ingredients for rice and suace for a family.
2) Are the kids there similar to kids here?
Here’s a blog post I wrote on this recently.
I think some of my most enjoyable moments as a child were out catching frogs in our pond or playing tag in the woods. But how many times have you sat around with a group of friends, admitting to remembering the theme song to Captain Planet or having snap bracelets and pogs. Our generation and those younger than us define ourselves by the TV characters we loved and the toys that if we didn’t get them for Christmas we would most certainly meet an untimely death. For the children in my town here in Mali, I see as much excitement in their eyes when I give them a plastic soda bottle as I remember seeing in my little brother when he got a snowboard one Christmas. Granted they lose interest in the bottle about as quickly as Evan did in snowboarding, but children in Mali have more fun with that bottle than you would think possible. It’s a pretty general theme when it comes to the kids I see everyday. Even the dirtiest children, wearing the rattiest clothes have huge grins on their faces, shrieking at me and laughing at my responses or just running through the streets, racing their bike tires or, if they’re really lucky, car tires. A new pen or the very rare new notebook is as exciting here as it is buying the cartload of back to school stuff at staples (or was that just me? I really loved getting new notebooks and pencils even in college….).
Chores don’t ever need to be yelled or reminded about, they’re just done. Milking the cow, washing the baby’s clothes or watering the garden gets done every day without any complaining or griping. Once, out on a visit with my little sister, I was reminded that we needed to get home because she had dishes to do. To be fair, I’ve seen my fair share of tantrums and the hitting, biting and kicking still goes on and I get asked for money or gifts every time I leave the house. But kids here do make more with less, because they have to. In my experience, not all the kids are ready to burst into tears because they have no food, like the children in those Christian children’s fund tv commericials, but with the little they have, they are so happy.
We’re very lucky to have schools in my town and the surrounding villages, but all of the classes are overcrowded, 60 plus per class, and although the fee to attend is minimal, less than $4 dollars a year and its obligatory, many parents don’t send their kids to school. Many of the kids who are lucky enough to attend school struggle with their studies and paying attention, just as some do back home. My heart broke when the English teacher told me he had trouble getting a lot of the kids to pay attention because they hadn’t eaten breakfast and probably wouldn’t get much for lunch either. Most don’t have text books or pretty displays on their classroom walls. Yet when we go in to teach English to the seventh and eighth grade, almost everyone tries to participate and my brothers are eager to practice their French and English with me whenever they can or show me their drawings of the human body. These classes more than make up for the harassment we can sometimes put up with from adults and teenagers asking for the shirt off my back or my telephone. I say this to emphasize that no, these kids aren’t perfect but I guess to make my point I’ll share this story.
My little sister Zeinaba was given 50 cfa (about 10 cents) the other day when she returned a lost item to a neighbor and trying to suppress her obvious glee, asked if I would walk with her to buy candy at the boutique down the street. She, of course offered me three (I took one, its insulting not to and they’re really quite good), ate one herself and saved the rest to share with her two little brothers. The thought of saving them for herself never even crossed her mind. I feel like I have more than a thing or two to learn from a six-year old.
3) Host family names and ages
These are approximations on age because most Malians don’t know really their birthdays for several reasons. A lot of people are illiterate so they can’t write down births or important days and a lot of babies aren’t born in clinics so they don’t have birth certificates. A lot of this is changing with the new health clinics called CESCOMS which ask that babies come in to have their umbilical cord treated and to get vaccinated, so many more people are getting registered now. Also only recently has the country started using the roman calendar like we use. Previously they used no calendar or the Muslim Calendar, which is based completely on the moon.
Aguissa (father)- 50’s-60’s
Tekamanit (mother)- early 40’s
Assahara (sister) – 23, educated in Gao and Bamako, she knows her birthday and her age. She just got married and is finishing her secretarial studies in Bamako.
El-Mehdi (brother)- 18, studying at a high school in a town 3 hours north of Gossi. There is no high school in Gossi so if you want to continue your education you must move to Gao, Sevarre, Bamako or Timbuktu and stay with family or friends.
Alxamis (cousin) - 16-20, student in upper school
Abubacrin (brother - 16-18
Abdoulay (cousin) - 14-15
Suleyman (brother) - 14-15 Abdoulay and Suley are both students in the lower school
Ousman (brother)-10-12
Moussa (brother) 9-10
Zeinaba (sister) 7-8
Harunna (cousin) 5
Oumar (brother) 4-5
Xadijatu (sister) 1, she just learned to walk!
4) Population of town
The village around the mare is about 8-9,000 people but with the surrounding towns which are included in the commune, the population all together is over 20,000 but spread out over a very large region.
5) What kinds of stores are there? Any big companies?
In my town there are only little stores, like a corner store you might find in city, selling tea, flour, pasta, coffee, sugar, soap, fabric to make clothes, candy, peanuts, dates and some other basic hygiene products. Some stores also sell batteries or cell phone chargers and there is one or two pharmacies in the town. Two days a week there’s a big market, where everyone from out of town comes in to sell and buy things. These are the days where you can find small electronics and household goods, like pots pans and buckets for sale in Gossi. In bigger towns like Gao or Sevarre, there are more and varied stores, including places that sell American style clothes, electronics, gardening equipment and other household items. In Bamako, you can find almost anything you can find in America but only if you’re willing to go on a hunt. There’s a grand marche (big market) in Bamako, which is insane to navigate- the only thing I can compare it to that you might have seen is the market in the movie Aladdin? There’s thousands of people moving, shouting and selling things and its semi-divided by products-for instance all the food things are sold in one area, and clothes or electronics in another section. Bamako also has stores like you would find in the United States for clothing and electronics but the average Malian can’t afford to shop there.
In terms of big companies, there are several native to Mali. There are companies whose factories I’ve seen in Bamako like the company who makes powdered Milk (Vivalait), and another which makes sodas. There’s also companies that make ciment and other construction supplies. There’s also the two major cell phone companies in Mali, Orange (a frnech company) and Malitel.
6) What kind of food do they eat daily? What is considered a delicacy?
Most Malians subsist on a diet of a starch, like rice or to (kind of like a cross between dough and mashed potatoes made out of corn or millet that they dip into sauces) served with a veggie based sauce that too often doesn’t have many veggies in it. The sauce will also have some pieces of meat in it but if you’re eating with twelve people, you may not get one. This definitely depends on income and ethnicity. In some parts of the country, near the river, they eat a lot more fish, and with the tammasheq, you eat a lot more meat, because it is so important to their culture. A delicacy definitely is meat but also cookies and candy. My family hadn’t ever eaten cake until I made them one. In the big cities theres more variety but food that we take for granted in the states is very expensive here. A small pizza can be over 12 dollars way too much for a typical malian.
7) Is there any technology? What kind?
In Gossi the extent of technology is cellphones -almost every male and now lots of females have one- and televisions and DVD players, which only the wealthiest families can afford to have. There’s no electricity in Gossi so if people want to run lights or their TV’s they have to use a solar panel or a generator. They used to have some electricity so some people have refridgerators left over from this time, but now no one is using them because they can’t afford to power them. There are also a couple of computers in Gossi but not that are accessible to the public.
8) Whose cell phone in the photos on the blog?
Hmmm good question? Its either mine, my host dad’s or my mom’s? All PCV’s have cellphones and I charge it at my families house when they run their generator to watch TV.
9) How long, which days do kids attend school
The calendar for school here is approximately the same as in the states. They start in late September and go through to the middle of June with the same vacations public schools in the states usually have, except for February vacation. Kdis go to school from 8-12, have a break for lunch, where they go home to eat with their families in the heat of the day, and then return for a second session from 3-5. They go to school Monday –Friday with one afternoon a week off.
10) What is the housing like?
In town, people mostly live in houses made of mud bricks, although the wealthier families have concrete walls and floors. The mud houses have to be repaired every couple of years or each year from wear and tear from the rains. The houses are too hot at night to sleep in now, so people sleep outside sometimes under small “hangars” kind of like pavilions or shade gazebos, but all homemade from sticks and grass. During the day they also sit under these structures. Out in the bush, people live in huts made from sticks and grass or in tents made from animal skins.
11) What is your daily routine?
That can depend ont he day but usually after I get up, do some chores, go for a run, and eat breakfast I have a meeting or I head to the market for supplies, food that I need. After lunch with my family, which we all share from big bowls and eat with out hands, its too hot to go anywhere so i do paperwork, read or color with the kids. then i usually head to my garden in the afternoon to water or do other work there. Some days are full of meetings, other days are full of reading books!! I come into Gao, the hearest big city, about every three weeks, to use the internet go to the bank and see other volunteers. I jsut returned from bamako where i attended a training and got to eat real american food like pizza!!!
12) What is the temperature now?
Now that its hot season, its up to 115-120 degrees each day. At night up north its cooler and gets down to 75-80.
13) What activites and sports do kids do in their free time?
Kids here love soccer which they call football. I always see at least one game going on in a square or in the street. I also saw some kids playing volleyball the other day in village which was astounding! I haven’t seen it played anywhere else in Mali. We also have a bball court in Gossi but not too many people use it or know how to play. Bess and I are working on that! The little kids also have a game that’s like duck duck goose and another that’s like red rover. There are also songs and fortune telling games too. A lot of kids don’t have too much free time because they have so many chores to help out with! Herding animals, working in the garden, pounding millet or cleaning leaves them with little time for school work or fun.
So i hope that gives you guys some more background. Look for individual responses to letters in the mail soon and I'll try to get some pictures taken of the stuff you guys asked about including the students with their new supplies! i willa lso ask them for questions they have abou tyoua ll and America and maybe you can help them out!
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