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!