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

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