Ni i ma seneke, I tena dumunike

It's hard to decide what to write a blog entry about this time around. A lot has happened during this last month at site – both good and not so good. In short, I have received terrific visits from both my good family friend Jean and a couple of other Peace Corps Volunteers, I have interviewed some people in village, made some new friends, attended a training workshop given to the cotton growers association in my village (which I didn't understand because it was in Bambara, but was happy to attend), attended my first funeral in Mali, started a garden (and have some serious callouses), gotten better at Bambara (and worse at English), made it out to the fields multiple times to help with the harvest, started playing soccer, practicied my stitching skills, and the list goes on.

The title for this blog entry, “Ni I ma seneke, I tena dumunike,” was given to me by a neighbor's daughter who was helping me shell peanuts one night. We were talking about what crops people in the United States grow, and I explained that very few people grow their own food in America. She replied, “Here, if you don't grow crops, you won't eat.” This is certainly true in my village. With the rainy season over, the harvest has begun. Each day people go out to their fields to harvest tiga (peanuts), woso (kind of like sweet potato), nyo (millet and/or sorghum), sho (beans), kaba (corn), and even zeere (watermelon!!!). Every day donkey carts full of produce is brought in from the fields to be processed for storage. Processing generally means drying, shelling, removing chaff, etc. This food will feed their families throughout the next year, ni ala sonna (If God wills it).

People work incredibly hard during this time of the year, so that they can eat the rest of the year and into the next rainy (hungry) season. I can't help but notice that many women are awake at 5 AM pounding millet (they are my third wake up call after the call to prayer from the Mosque, followed by donkeys braying and roosters crowing). Women spend their days fetching water from the well, preparing breakfast, taking care of their kids, pounding more millet, and preparing lunch. Maybe they'll sit for 5 minutes to eat lunch, then they're off to their peanut fields in the heat of the day (that's the only time they have to go out to the fields), then they return to cook dinner, followed by shelling peanuts or preparing other foods for the following day's meals, then maybe they get to sit for a few minutes to watch TV (though their husbands get the front seats...don't get me wrong though, their husbands have often been working hard in the fields all day too). We work hard and constantly in the US as well, but it's not the same back-breaking, tiring work that the Malian women have to do each day. We're so lucky that we can buy food processed to such a point that we don't have to spend 2 hours each day pounding grains. Here are some pictures from the fields, first sorghum:

Here is a picture of peanuts freshly pulled from the ground. A lot of people don't know that peanuts actually grow underground.


Some of the women from my host family, on their way home after working in the fields for part of the afternoon:


And, here is a picture of me with a bunch of peanuts:


Since you won't eat if you don't grow your own food, I've finally started my garden! I've been given two large plots in the women's garden, for the price of 200 CFA each month. I have been working one plot for the last week and a half, and haven't made a lot of progress just yet. I don't think I'll get to the second plot until after training in Bamako during December. I spent 3 days using a daba to clear grass from my garden area, which was quite hard work. Luckily I had some help from a couple of random kids who's teacher hadn't shown up for school one day, and my friend Morimakan helped me finish up on the 3rd night...he's much quicker at this kind of work than I am. Here are a before and after picture from my garden clearing extravaganza:

Once the ground was cleared, I had to break up the ground before I could plant any seeds. I've decided to go little by little, breaking up each bed as I go. It took me a good 2 days and asking at least 20 people to find out that there are some cow pens just outside of town in which over 200 cows sleep each night. Perfect. I loaded up my bike with cow manure, rode to my garden, and have been amending the soil in the my garden with the poop as I go. I've also started a very wimpy compost pile for future plantings. So far, I have planted tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and cabbage. We'll see how it goes. Here's a picture of the current garden and the well that I get water from to water my garden (here's to hoping it lasts through at least a little of the dry season):

In other news, I still have the ability to scare the living hell out of little kids...Last week I was walking by a kid who was playing with a strange looking hole in the ground; I stood over him to look at it, and asked him what it was. When he looked up, terror took him, and he was screaming bloody murder for at least five minutes; I'm not sure what happened after I walked away. Whoops. I guess it would be scary to see a blindingly white person for the first time in your life, especially looking over your shoulder like I was doing to this poor five year-old.

I have been in Kita this week for some more language tutoring, and will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow with some other volunteers. Last night we attended the annual Roman Catholic Pilgrimage. I couldn't find any information about it easily on the internet (though others with more computer time might be able to), but I am told that the Virgin Mary was once seen on the face of Mount Kita, so people come each year from all over West Africa and the world to worship the Virgin Mary. It was quite incredible, and I would guess 2,000-3,000 people were there.

I tried to bake a pumpkin pie in the solar oven today, and it is a complete failure so far. Darn, I had imagined having pumpkin pies as good as Mom's here in Mali, but that's hard to do without a real oven. So, Happy Thanksgiving to all, especially the Eugene crowd, have a great time and I hope you have a huge soccer game.

To end the entry, please send positive thoughts to my homologue's son, who cut his ankle badly with a daba (a hoe, basically) while harvesting peanuts. He was fine for a couple of days, but then the cut became terribly infected, and he hasn't been out of bed for more than a few minutes during the last week. Luckily we have a CSCOM (health facility) in my village, so he was able to obtain antibiotics relatively quickly. Still, it's bad news to get hurt during the harvest time, and I am guessing it will be at least another 2-3 weeks before he is back to himself.

And, some more pictures...We have a huge banana orchard in my village, which I just discovered last week:

There is a small river that runs through town in the wet season, and there were a ton of ducks in it the other day, this one is for you, Mom:


A pretty sunset:


Me and my homologue's daughter, Tierno. She has been my lifesaver on more than one occasion: