Moon Over Mali

Si Tulu Safinye ni Si Tulu Pomati (Shea Butter Soap and Shea Butter Lotion)

2011-10-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

As many of you may know, I'm home from Mali! Currently in the process of studying for the GRE, applying for graduate school and looking for jobs, I'm living between Eugene and Seattle until I get more settled (read: find a job). I don't have too much more to add to this blog, but I will post this and at least one other entry before I throw in the blogging towel. This entry is about the another project that I was involved with this year.

In May of 2011, I facilitated a 3 day training on the production of shea butter soap and shea butter lotion with the shea association that I had been working with for 2 years. Over 36 women and 4 men came from 4 different villages to participate. Our trainer, Sali Traore, has conducted shea butter soap trainings for multiple volunteers and the associations they work with. She taught the women how to make a shea butter pomade without fragrance, a shea butter and vaseline pomade with fragrance, and various mixtures of shea butter and palm oil soap with and without fragrance. This was a pretty exciting training for me, because the women that I worked with were so excited to learn these skills. In two years, I had never seen such excitement. Many commented, "I've always wanted to learn how to make soap like this." About a month after the training, the association met to make a second batch of soap, to be sure that they could do it even without the trainer around.

Women from the association bought all of the bars of soap from both of these occasions, and bought all of the shea butter lotion. Through this, they were able to re-earn all of the money that they had put towards the training (about $100), and double the amount of money they had in their savings account (now about $400). Each month, the women give each other micro-loans with this money, which they then return with interest the following month. Women use this money to do their own small business enterprises, or to pay for food and medicine if the need arises. With this method, and monthly fees, the group's money is constantly increasing. When the time comes to make shea butter products during the dry season, they use this money to pay for the materials they need. Each association member is also required to provide 2 large tins of boiled shea nuts to the association each year - this is what they use to make the shea butter that they sell (or that they now turn into soap!). This is a really small amount of nuts, but it's a great start for this small association.

I am so proud of the women that I worked with during the last two years. When I arrived, they had less than $40 in their account, were not meeting regularly, and were fighting constantly. While fights still happen regularly (the President is not one to be questioned), the association has ten times the amount of money that they started with, and is meeting monthly. During the training this year, they even recorded a tape for our village radio station, encouraging all of the women in the commune to join.

It took me nearly 1.5 years to fully (well, probably not fully) understand the association, shea butter in Mali, and how I could help them. It's sad that my Peace Corps service is over now that I better understand how to be effective. But, that's one of the downfalls of Peace Corps, and many think that Peace Corps should be 3 years instead of 2, and I full-heartedly agree...but how many people would commit to 3 years? There are also those who would say Peace Corps should be only 6 months...but then, it wouldn't be Peace Corps, would it?

Anyway, this shea butter soap and lotion project was quite a success, and I thank all of my friends and family who donated money toward the project and made it happen! Thank you so much! Aw ni ce, aw ni baaraji. Ala k'aw sara! Ala k'an to nyogonye.

And for your viewing pleasure: First a video of the association making shea butter in early May. We used this shea butter to make the soap and lotion, and it was one the association's many contributions to the project:

Second, a video of the women singing, dancing, drinking tea and making soap at the training:

Stirring the shea butter and palm oil soap is a multi-person job. It gets much harder the closer you get to being done. And yes, we did use large sticks to get the job done:

Here I am using the ProKarite Shea cards from the Peace Corps/Mali Food Security Tool Kit to teach the association about the best practices for producing shea butter. They've heard this information many times before, but there are still many ways that they can improve.

The entire training group on day 2 of our training:

Our trainer, Sali (in green and white) helping Fatumata cut the first block of soap with our new soap table:

The treasurer of the association, Mayi, counting up all of the soap and lotion, which was divided sold equally and among the 4 villages:

Alright, all for now, I will try to post one more on here in the near future!

An ka kolonba

2011-08-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long...things are hectic these days with thoughts of returning home (Is it really that time already? What on earth will I do?), wrapping things up here (How do you say goodbye to people who have become like family to you?), and not having a computer any more (mine seems to have called it quits as a result of the heat, dust, etc.). At this point, it looks like I will be returning home to the US in late September, ni Ala sonna.

It has been a very busy few months, probably the busiest in my whole Peace Corps service. One of the main things that happened was the construction of a 1.5 m diameter well in our women's garden. During my initial community assessment (using PACA), the construction of a well was determined to be the top priority of women in my village. This is something that every woman in the association pushed for - an amazing feat considering half of the group refuses to speak to the other half due to a longstanding disagreement.

Project planning began as far back as last November/December, when I worked with Peace Corps staff to learn the basics about building wells. Perhaps you weren't aware, but at the time I knew zilch about building wells. I also met with the entire women's association multiple times to discuss their plans for the future of the garden and their motivation for the project. The association chose 5 women, in addition to my homologue, with whom I would work with to carry out the project. We met regularly throughout the duration of the project to plan, divide responsibilities and troubleshoot. After three weeks of work during May, our beautiful new well was completed.

Sounds rosy, right? Actually, it was one of the hardest, most onerous projects I've ever had to work on. From the first month when I visited a local well digger's house 6 times (not to mention the messages sent by our mayor, dugutigi and additional visits by my homologue), each time to have him say, "Yes! I can dig your well; I will come discuss it with you tomorrow, ni Ala sonna." More than one month was spent in this pursuit as the hot season began and the well-digging season was well into effect. Turns out what he really meant by "yes" was, "I can't do the work, I'm too busy with these other wells that I'm being paid millions of CFA to build by an NGO." The total budget for my well was less than 1,000,000 CFA (~2000 USD). So, we hired well diggers from Bamako, who charged more than three times what we had anticipated as the cost of well digging.

As the project progressed my village wouldn't produce the required community contribution of gravel and sand. I had waited to buy materials for the project until I had the full monetary contribution in hand - turns out that was the easy part! I won't go into details, but it got so bad that I was left shoveling gravel into a donkey cart with a 10 year old boy, who then stood me up and didn't come back for a second load. Further, my homologue, who is my greatest link to the community and who I would call the "mover" of the village, was absent for all but the last couple days of the project due to a death in her family. Then, our lead well digger's foot got infected, which led to a full-blown infection of his body. He couldn't walk or do manual labor the last 2 weeks of the project, though he was at least able to oversee the laying of bricks in the well. Our second well digger's pregnant wife got sick in Bamako, so he had to leave for four days. A local man refused to give sand and gravel to the women's association for free. The women's association president complained that she wasn't given enough compensation to host the well diggers (each of 120 women had contributed a small amount of money and millet). One of the well diggers complained they hadn't eaten meat for a week - on a day that I had planned to spend a fair amount of my own money to buy them a bowl of smoked goat meat. The well diggers from my town started showing up 3 hours late to avoid the tiring task of pulling water (they had to clear the well of 1-2 meters of water each morning before digging could commence, often making them too tired to continue digging once the well was dry).

On the last day of work, I found three young men to pull water out of the well in the morning, allowing all of the well diggers to save their energy for digging. The well was finished that day - a depth of 8.5 meters, width of 1.5 meters, with Dutch bricks laid in the top 3 meters of the well. A few days before the end of the project, my homologue told me that we forgot to sacrifice a chicken before we started digging, and that we could have prevented most of our problems had we done so. Well, shoot, wish I had known!

All of the women were ecstatic that the well was finished. In the morning and afternoon, 10-15 women would be gathered around the well, pulling water for their gardens. At the same time last year, I remember being one of just a few people still trying to hack out a garden with the scarce water that was available!

A week later, when I was in Bamako, I got a call from my homologue saying that the well had dried out each of the last three days. That's not to say the well was dry, but that the women were pulling so much water that they were using up the water faster than it could recharge (there was a little over 6 m3 water). My heart sank - the whole point of the well was to have sufficient water access even at the driest point of the year. I'm told that even if we had dug to our goal of 10 meters, the well would still dry out with the demand that the women are placing on it. Even so, I'm left with a bitter taste in my mouth because my superiors told me to stop digging rather than to dig all of the way to 10 meters. They said we had enough water already and that it was pointless to keep going. And, not knowing about wells, I said okay.

Lessons learned:

-Try even harder to work out the project plan with the women piece by piece. Who will get the sand and gravel? (Where, When, How, How much?)
-Set up a schedule for pulling water to help the well diggers.
-You need to sacrifice a chicken or two before starting well digging
-Don't always trust people when your gut tells you they're wrong, etc.

As far as capacity building, how did I do? That is, after all, why I joined Peace Corps. I did okay. I tried as hard as I could to make the women do the majority of planning and implementation, but it didn't work well. They learned a little about budget management and project planning. The two well diggers from my village are now trained in both top well repair and construction of a well with Dutch bricks. With the materials from the project remaining in the hands of the women’s association, they could easily complete this same type of well on their own, in the future. Capacity building was one of my main goals as a PCV – I didn’t do as well as I had hoped with this project. But, at least we have a well!

Here are some pictures from the well construction; this is from the first day of well digging, when we thought things were going to be easy.

Digging in the well a couple of weeks later – lots of progress!

This is how you get out of the well before there are bricks laid in it. Kind of looks like fun to be pulled up and down on a rope!

Here is Diama laying the first cement in the well. We used Dutch bricks, popular with PC/Mali because they use far less cement than other types of bricks.

These are the men who worked for three weeks to build the new well in my village.

Some pictures

2011-05-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

May has been an incredibly busy month with trainings in Bamako and Kita, well building in my village and the shea butter soap training this last week. I plan to write an entry on both the well and the shea butter training, but here are some pictures in the meantime:

Grasshoppers took over my garden in May. They decimated it. Goodbye eggplants!

This is what was left of one of my beautiful moringa trees after the grasshoppers got to it. There were honestly thousands of grasshoppers in my garden. Thousands.

A beautiful sunset in the garden on one of the first days of well digging.

It's been really hot in Mali this last month and a half, but the mangoes have been great. Here are all of the women in my village lined up to sell mangoes. Whenever a truck drives through town, they will immediately be surrounded by 10 mango sellers. All with the same produce and the same price. Somehow, they all make a profit.

May is wedding season in my village. My host brother, Vieux, freshly returned from Libya, was married to Aminata two weeks ago. This picture is of Aminata (in green), our Dugutigi and my host father Fadiala, Vieux (in the nice suit from Libya), Sali (my host mom and the Dugutigi's third wife), and me.

In early May, all of the volunteers in the Kita region of Mali gathered with our homologues in Kita for 4 days of In-Service Training. Here we are at a dinner to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Peace Corps in Mali, and the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps in general.

The latest headlines...

2011-05-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Pumps restored after local men's group threatens destruction of new robinet system

In April 2011, a European NGO celebrated their completion of a brand new water tower and piped water system throughout a small village near Kita. This new system would solve all of the villagers' problems regarding clean, safe water access and would decrease the amount of time village women had to spend completing the back-breaking task of pulling well water. The best part was that villagers would only have to pay 10 CFA (~$0.02 US) per bucket of water. This money would be used to pay for any future repairs to maintain the water system.

At the official opening ceremony for the water system, all of the village members were called to celebrate. Hunters came in large numbers to shoot off their guns. Griots came to sing praise for the NGO. Women came to dance and sing. The head of the NGO had a big smile on his face as he saw that one faucet had even been installed 3 km away in a nearby village and still received good water pressure from the central water tower.

Within weeks of the opening ceremony, the local water committee decided to remove the handles of the 2 village pumps (one located near the school and one near the doctor's office) to encourage people to use the new water system. This action coincided with the drying out of most village wells as the hottest month of the year approached.

Chaos erupted. The local men's association threatened the people in charge of the water system, saying they would destroy all of the new water faucets if the pumps weren't restored by the next day. The primary reasoning for these threats being that sick patients who come to the village and all students in village should have unrestricted access to free water from the pumps.

After 2 days of intense meetings between the village men at the Dugutigi's (Chief of the Village's) house, the water association members were convinced to reopen the pumps. The young men's association immediately rescinded their threat to destroy the water faucets.

Adding to all this, the local PCV was confused with the European NGO's actions to place a new water system in village. A large water tower and associated water faucets already exists on one side of town and has been broken her entire service; the village refuses to pool money together to fix it. How is it that the best solution to the broken water system is to get a whole new water system? Further, most new water faucets do no more than 100-200 CFA business per week (10-20 buckets worth) - was this really an appropriate project for the village? After all, even the local PCV is too cheap to pay 30 CFA ($0.06 US) per day for her 3 buckets of water, which she chooses to get for free at the pumps.

Local association leader lies openly to Spanish NGO

Approximately 3 years ago, a very well-meaning Spanish NGO provided farming and gardening equipment to a local women's association. Included in this equipment were shovels, watering cans, buckets, a plow ("traditional", cow-led), and a donkey cart. This Spanish NGO is well known for providing school supplies for local children, benches for classrooms, and building schools and maternities in the area. In many ways, they are one of the most active NGOs in the commune (similar to a US county).

Since the materials were received 3 years ago, they have been sitting at the house of the traditional women's group leader. Members of the government-recognized women's association frequently complain that the materials were "stolen" from them by the traditional leaders of the village.

During the last 2 weeks, representatives of the Spanish NGO visited the village to check on the progress and impact of their work and to plan for future projects in the area. Prior to their arrival, the local PCV and women's President had the following discussion:

President: Aminata, the Spanish NGO is coming to ask what we have been able to achieve with all of the materials they gave us 3 years ago. The traditional women's leader asked me to speak to the NGO representatives on her behalf at their welcoming ceremony.

PCV: Oh, wow. But all of those materials are just sitting at her house and have not been utilized. What are you going to say to them?

President: I am going to lie. I am going to say that we have used all of the materials for both farming gardening, and that they have greatly increased the quantity and quality of our harvest. I am going to give them many blessings and tell them how happy we would be if they gave more materials to us and the surrounding villages.

PCV: So, you're really going to lie to them?

President: Of course I am, they'll never know.

The local PCV left this conversation with 2 thoughts:

1. How many times have I been lied to in the past 2 years and not realized it? (There have been many times that I did realize it)

2. Knowing that my response might cause the NGO to provide me with more free materials, wouldn't I lie too?

The Shea Association Goes to Ghana

2011-04-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

Written April 2, 2011

I have a story, and if I can tell it well enough, it will shed light on many different aspects of Malian culture. Or, I should say, the culture of the Malian village in which I reside.

In March, a commercant from Bamako arrived wanting to buy as many shea nuts as she could. It was a bad year for shea across Mali – the trees didn't produce a lot of fruit – so she was willing to buy good- and bad-quality nuts.¹ She said she would give money to the woman's Shea Butter Association (Sabunyuman), such that they would do the buying and make a small profit in the business. But, when the woman arrived after the initial meeting with the association, she refused to give the money to anyone but me, the trustworthy Peace Corps Volunteer. She proceeded to give me the equivalent of $800 US in the middle of village in the front of a small crowd at 9:30 PM.² This led to me having to run around and buy shea nuts every 2-3 hours over the next week. I had, in effect, become her unpaid employee. I was disturbed by all of this, as it resulted in the association not making any profit, and led to disagreements among association members. And, when the money ran out, I had villagers yelling at me, saying, “You have to buy my nuts! My Grandson's baptism is tomorrow and I need the money.” People thought I was the one buying nuts, not the commercant from Bamako. At the end of the week, the commercant returned to collect her nuts – over 7 tons in the end – to be shipped to Sweden for processing and addition to all sorts of face and body creams for Tubabs like you and me. I was happy to be done with the business, and the shea association was ready to move on, not having benefited as they had hoped they might.

So, last week, the commercant called our association's President to say that she had funding for 4 association members to go all the way to Ghana for the International Shea Conference. The women would get a chance to see the work of shea producers from all over West Africa and the world. This would also be the 1^st opportunity for these four women to visit another country. Four association members were found who are slightly older and thus aren't carrying babies on their backs – Fatumata, Sitan, Djeneba and Tutu. Everyone's husband agreed except for Djeneba's.³ He did not want Djeneba going, seemingly because he didn't want his 1^st and 2^nd wives to fight. But, let's leave Djeneba for a moment, who was heard to say, “There are many good trips that Allah will provide for, and this isn't one of them.”

My homologue, Tutu, spent all day last Wednesday getting ready for the big trip – putting Jabi on her feet, braiding her hair, ironing her clothes and getting her business together. I left her at approximately 5 PM to all of this preparation. After dinner that night, I went by her house to say goodbye, to find that her husband had decided that she was no longer allowed to go.⁴ All Tutu could do was smile, laugh, and say “I'm not going.” I was angry and wanted to yell at her husband for changing his mind at the last second. The next morning, Tutu asked her eldest son to speak to his father for her. It didn't work. Djeneba, who's husband had been convinced to let her go, also pleaded Tutu's case – to no avail. They told me that their last chance lay with me...

It came down to the 3^rd party system – something we had learned about in early Peace Corps training, but I had never had to use in such a serious case.⁵ At lunch time, I spoke to the Dugutigi (Chief of the Village), who is rumored to be 102 years old and is my host father here. He is also Tutu's husband's host father here⁶, so he holds large sway over her husband's actions. As soon as I explained the situation, he jumped up (mind his age and the fact that he is mostly blind), told me not to worry and left for Tutu's house. He spoke to her husband and told him that he must allow Tutu to go to the meeting in Ghana. This was the 4^th or 5^th person of the day to speak to Tutu's husband on her behalf (Tutu herself can have no say in the matter – she was never even give a reason as to why she couldn't go), but he had still refused. Until the Dugutigi came. Tutu came by my house a couple of hours later to say she would be on her way that night.⁷ Still, he was deeply saddened because her husband had defended his actions to the Dugutigi by saying she doesn't respect him. The woman who gets up every morning at 5 AM to heat bathwater for her husband and his 2^nd wife; the woman who, alone, provides nutritious food to the family; the woman who takes care of her husband's blind mother and nearly blind father; the woman who works constantly to improve the lot of her and her husband's 7 children. You say she doesn't respect you?⁸ I must bite my tongue, as it's not my business, and saying anything would cause more troubles for Tutu than there already are.

The four association members have now left together for Ghana. I'm so excited to hear what they learned on the trip, and of the opportunities it might bring for the further advancement of the association. I'm also excited to hear impressions from their 1^st visit to another county, especially one with such a different language and culture.

1So much for the efforts across Mali (including Peace Corps) to educate people about the importance of boiling nuts to produce high quality nuts. People have often said that only boiled, high-quality shea nuts will be bought by exporters, but this commercant was buying anything that remotely resembled a shea nut (even moldy, smelly, yucky clumps of mud).

2This is a huge sum of money in my village. I was quite distressed for the entire time that I had the money, worrying constantly that someone would try to break into my house. I don't normally bring any more than $40 US with me any time that I go to my village.

3In Mali, each household has a “dutigi” or “head of house” who has the last word in all matters. Whatever he says is law, no discussion.

4Tutu's husband's 2^nd wife has a history of interfering in Tutu's business. Last year, for instance, whenever Tutu had a Peace Corps training event to attend with me, the 2^nd wife would also leave town – leaving no one to cook and care for the family. This year, with the addition of 2 daughter-in-laws to take care of the cooking, things have gotten much better.

5The 3^rd Party system is very important in Mali. If you have a problem with someone, or a question of someone, it is rare that you would broach the topic with that person yourself. Instead, you find someone you trust and know is respected, explain your situation, and have them broach the subject with the other party. This avoids fights and embarrassment that might otherwise come from the matter. I have seen it in action when the griots speak for the mayor when dealing with village business. I have seen it when a young man likes a woman – his friend speaks to the woman first, and the woman gives her answer through her own 3^rd party. A very functional system, though quite different than Americans' “forward” approach to things. If you were to go about things with the 3^rd party system in America, we might say you were being passive aggressive.

6Even though the family has been in the village for 40 or 50 years now, they are not original members of the village. Because of that, Tutu's husband's father is the “guest” of the Dugutigi (Chief of Village), and now that her husband has become head of the house, he is the Dugutigi's guest. Any time there are problems or discussions of marriage in their family, it must be done through the Dugutigi.

7Woohoo!

8Forgive my American, feminist point of view in this matter...perhaps I've stepped away from the straight story here.

Nako mason

2011-04-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

I've had many questions from friends and family back home along the lines of: “How is your garden growing?” And the answer is: “A ka wusa” (literally: It's better). And, it truly is better than last year. I've nearly tripled the amount of produce from my garden last year, and have not needed to buy vegetables from the market in quite some time!

Through the rainy season last year, I grew peanuts, beans, squash, cucumbers, eggplants, corn, hibiscus and tomatoes...most of which were failures. I didn't realize it, since I hadn't been in that spot during the rainy season the year before, but my garden turns into a mud cesspool during the rainy season. Rice would be much better suited to the spot during the rains. I did have a bountiful peanut crop, which made me very happy because I considered it my first real success in the garden. In addition to the mud, I had been previously unaware of the invasiveness of grass during the rainy season. I would completely clear an area of grass to plant a peppiniere, only to find that new grass seedlings would outgrow my seedlings in a short time.

Lessons learned last year have helped me to grow a much more productive garden this season. I am currently growing “big” onions (called Tubab onions here) and smaller shallots (called African onions), eggplants, lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, green peppers, basil, cilantro, carrots, 2 beets, moringa trees, etc. etc. I tried growing cabbage but grasshoppers devoured all of my seedlings. A second species of grasshopper (black and white with neon stripes) is now attempting to destroy my eggplants and freshly transplanted green peppers. I'm reluctant to buy pesticide and haven't found a natural solution as of yet.

Since pictures speak better than words, here is my garden. First, a couple pictures of hibiscus: the flower being pollinated and a fruit. We brew the fruit into a delicious tea:

I grew "kusa" during the rainy season, a strange mix of cucumber and squash. I had some early successes with the fruits, but everything rotted once my garden turned to a mud cesspool.

And, here's my overall garden these days (well, back in February or March):

Here are the small "African" onions. Almost every woman in the garden grows this variety of onion during the gardening season. There are very few pest problems associated with it, the onions store well, and women can sell them for a large profit in the market. The leaves are also dried to be used later in the year. I have a whole bunch of these onions sitting in my house right now. As soon as my "big" onions are used up (they don't store as well in the heat), I will use them in my cooking.

This is the star of my garden. I received seeds for this variety of eggplant from my boss at Peace Corps last year and planted a peppiniere in the rainy season. I have 7 of these plants in my garden, which have produced over 300 fruits since December! The other women in the garden have been excited about this variety, though a little wary because it looks so different from their own, local variety. I gave out a lot of the fruits and several women saved the seeds to plant in their own gardens. Needless to say, I have been eating a lot of small, orange eggplants over the last few months.

I tried growing green beans last year, but nematodes destroyed them before they produced any fruit. This year, I had a 3 week run on green beans! Unfortunately, most women in my village have no idea what these beans are or that you can eat them whole. I tried to explain their preparation to the women who came by my garden, but I'm not sure I got any converts to grow green beans in their own gardens...

As with last year, the main thing I have planted in my garden is tomatoes. I buy tomatoes every day in the market, so it makes sense to just grow my own. And, I haven't had to buy tomatoes for over a month now! Tomatoes are hard to grow in Mali without using pesticides...they get attacked by moth worms, root diseases, and viruses. A virus has infected many of my plants, and the tomato plants in other women's gardens. Still harvested a lot of fruit though!

I ran a couple of informal trainings in the garden about how to make a compost pile and how to plant peppinieres (nurseries for seedling development). Here are four women at the composting formation, in the middle of building the compost pile:

Looking for a way to help?

2011-03-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I have been working with my village's shea butter association since I first started work as a volunteer in Mali. I have written about my work with the shea association multiple times on my blog (see an introduction here, and photos, and information on the training that was held in my village last year). The women that I work with come from four different rural villages, and the association meets monthly to discuss their plans for the development of the association. Through these discussions, the women and I have worked together to determine the best way for Peace Corps to help them advance as an association.

I am currently looking to fund a project to both train my village's shea association members in the production of shea butter soap and lotion and to increase their capacity for the production shea butter. This project will fund a 3 day training on how to make soap and lotion using shea butter as a base, products that can be sold at the local level. In addition, the project will help to fund the purchase of different shea butter processing materials (cauldrons, storage and transport containers, buckets, etc.) which will allow the women of the association to increase the amount of shea butter they produce each year.

If you are interested in helping to fund this project, you can make donations at the Peace Corps website here. Any contribution that you can make, no matter how large or small, would be welcome and incredibly helpful to the women that I work with on a daily basis in my village. Thank you in advance!

I ni fama!

2011-03-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

Heh! It's been a long time. In fact, since my last post, Mali has switched from the amazing, relaxing cold season to 24-hour-a-day-sweaty hot season. At least the mangoes will be ready soon. They are ripening by the day on their trees.

To share the latest news and photos, I visited Paris for a week in early January with Mom and Dad. It was very good to see my parents after 1.5 years, very cold, and the food was very good. Here's a picture of Mom and Dad outside of Notre Dame in Paris:

Then, Mom and Dad came to visit Mali for 2 weeks. We travelled to Dogon country, Mopti, Djenne, Segou, Bamako and my village. It was wonderful to show them around my home of 2 years and to share bits of Mali with them. Here are the 3 of us near the village of Begnemato in Dogon Country.

As soon as Mom and Dad's plane left, Margaret and Lauren arrived! They spent 3 weeks with me in Mali, also hiking in Dogon Country, visiting Mopti, attending the Festival Sur le Niger in Segou, and visiting my village. The music at the Festival was amazing - what an opportunity to see so many Malian musicians in one place! And, truly, the Malian music was far superior to any we heard from the other West African countries (I should add, "in my opinion"). Here are the 3 of us at the Festival:

And, Lauren and Margaret with freshly prepared tea in my village:

I returned to site in February and have gotten back to work, trying to complete two projects before I finish my service in September: 1) A well in the women's garden, and 2) A combined training and purchase of shea butter processing materials for the women's shea association.

In March, I celebrated my 26th birthday by baking a cake in my solar oven. We also celebrated International Women's Day on that day, so all of the female teachers in my village and I put our money together to have a huge dance party...just for the women! We all had matching International Women's Day Fabric, and had a great celebration. Here is a picture of Tierno, Jayi, Sayon, baby Sali and me enjoying my solar oven cake:

In other fun times, I was in Bamako in late February for work, and had the chance to celebrate my friend Assigue's successful completion of his final English exams at the University of Bamako. Here is Ibrahim, me, Assigue and Bill at the celebration:

And, most surprisingly, some men came through my village on their camels a few weeks ago. As I walked home from a friend's house, I suddenly found myself face to face with a giant camel! This time of year, nomads come through the area giving blessings in exchange for food, money and other gifts. I was a little nervous to take their photo, but my next door neighbors came running over and made me take their picture with the camels! Here is a large camel, Ba and Famodi Jan...the only time I've seen camels in my village during my whole service!

REAL Dawgs Wear Purple

2011-01-03T07:08:00.000-08:00

Proof that true husky fans can be found the world over. This is my host brother Sununba. Go Huskies!!!

Tiga ka di de!

2010-12-15T05:06:00.000-08:00

Peanuts. Arachis hypogaea. Tiga. L'arachide. They're a way of life in my village. I was even told by our Dugutigi that former President of Mali, Moussa Traore, nicknamed my village "Tigabugu" (village of peanuts) after being given several rice sacks full of peanuts on his arrival. Peanuts are an important source of protein in everyone's diet (including mine). There is rarely a day where peanut butter (tiga dege) is not added to our sauce at lunch time.

Peanuts are an interesting crop here because the women are primarily responsible for growing them. All other food staples (millet, sorghum, rice, sweet potatoes, etc.) are grown by men. I'm often told that's the man's main responsibility in a marriage - to provide food for their family. It's unfortunate that women are put in charge of obtaining any (and often all) of the more vitamin-rich food (fruits, veggies, even protein-rich peanuts)...men don't seem to view that as their responsibility in my village. Okay, let's put feminism aside for a moment. Women are responsible for growing and processing peanuts. Many break up their fields by hand (men are generally busy with the few cow-driven plows until long past the time that peanuts need to be planted). Women generally plant a 1/2 to full hectare of peanuts to provide extra nutrition for their family and an extra source of income when they prepare and sell small parts of the harvest.

The peanut plant itself is quite interesting. It has a yellow flower, and once pollinated, the plant sends shoots into the ground. If all goes well and the rains don't end early, each of these shoots will produce a mature peanut fruit (found underground) by the end of the growing season. This is the same peanut that we know and love in the United States. Sometimes, Malians seemed shocked to learn that the United States is one of the biggest producers of peanuts in the world...and even more shocked to find out that we use machines for most of the planting and harvesting. Here in my village, the ground has generally dried up when it's time to harvest the peanuts. It is a man's job to break up the ground and dig up the peanuts with a daba. I hate to admit it, but this really is a man's job. I tried digging some peanuts up in my host family's field, and found that half of the peanuts on each plant were still in the ground. After a short time, I figured out that I was hindering their progress more than helping, so I went to help the women with their job of gathering all of the harvested peanut plants together.

Mamidou and Momo harvesting peanuts:

My host brother, Mamidou, and his father Momo.

My host Mom, Nba, gathering peanut plants together to dry in the sun.

Nba, my host Mom, who cooks me lunch every day:

More of my host family: Yacouba, Dabi and Hawa:

My other host mom (Momo's wife), Gundo, with her daughter Nandi and newborn baby girl.

My host sister Hawa and her little baby brother, Papa, gathering peanuts.

Peanuts! I was told by my language tutor long ago, that I would learn how to cook peanuts over one hundred different ways from living in a Malinke village. I would say it's pretty close to that.

My other host Dad, Nfa, preparing tea in the fields. He is Nba's husband.

This year, as a part of the seed trials conducted in my village, I gave 10 women a new, drought-resistant variety of peanuts. They planted this variety next to their own, local variety. I would call the trials a semi-success because this new variety seemed to have greater insect damage and a much lower yield than the local variety. Even so, the new variety matured almost 2 weeks earlier than the local variety...so the new variety has some potential as far as a climate-changed future with more frequent drought periods and shorter rainy seasons. Even so, the new variety wasn't good enough for my work partner to save for planting next year. She roasted the peanuts up the other day and shared them with me as a snack. Sometimes, I question the value of my efforts here...especially when they just get eaten up.

This is Kadia, one of the women who received the drought-resistant peanut variety. She and I worked together to prepare her peanut fields for planting.

Partly because I'm Malinke (we're known for eating and loving peanuts more than any other ethnic group in Mali - at least joking cousin-wise), partly to be able to say I was farming peanuts when asked (at the beginning of rainy season, I was asked 5-10 times per day whether or not I was growing one of the main staple crops), and partly to be in some sort of solidarity with the women, and to understand more about their work, I grew peanuts in my garden during the rainy season. I grew three beds of peanuts, a miniscule area compared to the areas grown by each woman here. It was really fun for me to go through the whole process of growing peanuts, from planting to harvesting. So fun,that I decided to go all the way to processing the peanuts into peanut butter - a main sauce ingredient in our village. Here is the peanut butter process:

My garden early in the year, when the peanut plants were very young. I had worked on weeding half of the plot the morning this picture was taken.

Here is one of my peanut beds, just before harvesting:

And, the yield from the above bed. I had a huge smile on my face the day I harvested these, because I considered these peanuts one of the first real successes I've had in my garden.

After harvesting, I dried the peanuts in their shells for 3-4 days in the sun, then worked on shelling the peanuts by hand. This is an important social activity in my village - you can bring a bucket of peanuts anywhere to meet with a group of women and spend a couple hours shelling peanuts together. My young host brothers and sisters also liked to help out during their breaks from school. Once shelled the real fun of making peanut butter began. The first step is to roast the peanuts (ka tiga jiran). Here are the peanuts ready to be roasted, followed by me and my host Mom, Gundo, roasting the peanuts.

Next, you rub the skins off of the roasted peanuts, and shake the skins off using the wind (ka tiga fe). I'm no good at this step, so my host Mom did it all:

Next you pound the peanuts (ka tiga susu):

And, take them to the manual grinding machine to process them into delicious peanut butter. If you have a lot of peanuts, you can take them to the gas-powered machine to process them into a much smoother, delicious peanut butter, which is closer to what we eat in America. Without the added salt and sugar anyway.

Yum, delicious peanut butter. I put it in my oatmeal every morning, or make peanut butter, honey, banana sandwiches. These two uses are considered weird by my neighbors, who add peanut butter to their okra, leaf, or straight peanut butter sauces, to be eaten with millet or rice. To make sure people didn't think I was too strange, I made peanut butter, honey, banana-sandwiches for everyone who helped me the other day...they all loved it. If you want to learn more about the amazing peanut plant, here is yet another widipedia link...

It's a problem of time and "Lahidu"

2010-12-15T01:43:00.000-08:00

I've realized more and more over the last couple of months that there are some huge cultural divides between American and Malian cultures (duh, right?). Unfortunately, we as volunteers often blame the slowness of development and projects on these cultural differences. I'm not saying one culture or another is "better" than another, I'm just saying differences between cultures can make working together and mutual understanding difficult. Especially when you are more familiar with one set of customs and beliefs than another.

Before volunteering in Mali, I was unaware of what American "culture" is; I think I even accused the US of lacking culture because we don't have some of the vibrant, colorful, musical and ancestral traditions that you find in civilizations older and more "exotic" than our own. I realize now that I was completely wrong - so many parts of how I act and conceptualize my surroundings are based on American culture. And, you have only to respect events like Bumbershoot, Folklife Festival or even a Grateful Dead concert to realize how "colorful" our culture can be. I would like to start including cultural differences on my blog every once in awhile. Keep in mind my observations are based on living in one small village in Mali and one bigger city in the US.

While working in my village, I have been faced with the issue of time on more than one occasion. In America, we are obsessed with time. Our planners are packed to the brim, sometimes we have every last 15-minute period of the day planned. Unfortunately, this means that we have to plan get-togethers weeks or months in advance to be sure we get the attendance we desire. And, it's important to be on time. If you're late, you can mess up someone's 15 minute by 15 minute plan for the day. I remember job interviews where I arrived to the building early, but was unsure whether I should go to the interview room 5 minutes early, 3 minutes early, right on time, 3 minutes late or 5 minutes late. What is the etiquette on that anyway...and does it really matter? I am sure someone has written a book on it at one time or another.

In Mali, this is not the case. For instance, meetings with the women's group are held at night because it is the only time all of the women are available. But, the word sufe (night) lasts from sunset until early morning. And, hours aren't used here. Last May, sufe meant to meet at 9 PM. When I showed up for a meeting at 8:30 PM a few weeks ago (October), I was rebuffed by women who had arrived before 8 PM. As far as the men, we were to meet "sogomadafe" one morning, and I was still eating breakfast at 7:15 AM when a man came by and said they were ready for me. This week, I showed up at 7:30 AM for another "sogomadafe" meeting, and the first man didn't show up until 9 AM. Hard for an outsider to know.

Impromptu gatherings are also common here. I can show up at any friend's house and expect a warm reception and food. I don't even have to call in advance. It is incredibly important to sit for 2 hours and share tea with friends on occasion. If you only show up for work, they'll start to resent your presence.

Another side of the time issue is "lahidu", which as far as I can tell might be translated as "commitment." I went to tell Terena, the farmer I was working with, that I had received affirmative responses from all 10 men I had spoken with that day. Each man replied that they would attend the meeting I had scheduled for the next morning. Terena laughed, saying Malians lack "Lahidu". Because of embarrassment or something else I can't understand, they will look me in the eye and say to my face that they will be there, even if they know that they won't. Terena said I would be lucky if 5 men showed up. I guess I was lucky, because 5 men did show up. I have had people tell me they would be in in village for an important event, and to prepare for their presence, only to not show up. The other side of this is that people sometimes get offended if I say I can't do something - even if I'm absolutely sure I won't make it to an event. People seem more satisfied with, "Ni ala sonna (if God wills it), I will be there." I find myself saying "maybe" all of the time, even when I know maybe means no.

My friends tell me that Americans have a lot of Lahidu. If we say we will do something or be somewhere, we will be there, barring unforeseen circumstances. They also puzzle at how I know my schedule and/or what time it is. I leave time behind to some extent while living here, but still find it important to plan out my activities to be sure that everything can get done when it needs to be. As far as I can tell, Lahidu is one of the most important aspects of American culture, and is something largely missing from the village I currently live in.

Let's go for a run

2010-11-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

Following the Independence Day celebrations, I left for Bamako and I jumped on a plane with 11 other PCVs from Mali to go to Accra, Ghana. The main purpose of the trip was to run in the Accra International Marathon (4 runners) and Half-Marathon (myself and one other runner). Everyone else came along to support us as rowdy spectators.

We arrived in Accra in the afternoon on Saturday September 25, having woken up at 2:00 AM to catch our plane. We were all exhausted, so super early to bed that night and up early again on Sunday to run the half-marathon! The bus picked us up at 5 AM to take us to the race course; the race was supposed to start at 6 AM, but didn't start until after 7, which did nothing to help our pre-race preparations...

At 7, my friend Josh and I began the half-marathon. About 1 minute into the race, I was side-swiped by a handicap hand-cyclist, a group of whom had begun the race 3 minutes ahead of us to avoid such incidents. Luckily not too much harm done, despite being laid flat upon the pavement. Nerves shaken a bit, Josh and I got going again. 2 hours and 12 minutes later, I finished my first-ever half-marathon! While perhaps not a wonderful time, I was proud to have finished and not to have walked during the race, which were my two main goals during training. Having trained every day in village, where I have no idea of time over distance – I ran slightly faster than the 10:30 minute mile I was planning for. Also, I am hopeful that I can run faster if I ever decide to run a half in America. Just an idea of the race conditions: no mile markings until a mis-marked final mile marker that led me to nearly bonk out in the last 5 minutes, infrequent water stops (water only, no rehydration drinks/bananas/what have you), the HOT Ghanaian sun on your back because of starting one hour late, running through neighborhoods and along busy, exhaust-filled streets with no sidewalks and people gaping saying either, “Walk Walk! You're tired!” or “White person!” (one friend was even told she was “late” by a person handing out water...imagine hearing that when you're 20 miles into a marathon!). Even with all of that, it was nice to get a coconut and soy milk at the end of the race and to wait and cheer for the full marathoners as they arrived.

Running is not my favorite thing to do for physical activity by any means, but this was a great opportunity to stay active in village. I have no desire whatever to run a full marathon, but it might be fun to train to run a faster half marathon when I get home to America. Really I just want to start rowing again when I get home. Thanks to all of the fellow runners (Josh, Holly, Colleen, Kat and Jeremy) for their support, sometimes training runs and inspiration. And, big thanks to Chris and Gloria for the water, gel packs and bananas on the road – and for taking pictures as we ran.

After the half-marathon, 5 of us traveled to the Green Turtle Lodge on the coast, a great place to relax for a few days, especially with legs that felt like jelly. From there we traveled to Cape Coast and Elmina, sites of two “slave castles.” We visited Elmina Castle, a very haunting place. Slaves from all over West Africa were held here in inhumane conditions prior to being traded to the Americas. We also traveled to Kakum National Park, where you can walk along a bridge in the forest canopy, 30 m off of the ground. The bridge was overpriced and uninformative, but a few of us did a nature walk with a Park guide, where we learned about the medicinal uses of all sorts of trees...some make you have diarrhea, some stop diarrhea, some have beautiful fragrance, and some give you good breath if you chew the bark.

Later, Josh and I traveled to the Kumasi area. Highlights of that trip were staying with an amazing couple we met at the Green Turtle Loge, Coy and Kacie. They are on sabbatical and in the process of writing a very creative children's story. Thanks for being such great hosts! Coy and Kacie knew a lot about the area, and helped us get to Ntonso (a village known for their Adinkra-printed cloth), Adanwomase (a village known for its Kente cloth) and into Kumasi (the Kejetia Market was an enormous mass of goods, you can't walk anywhere without being knocked over by merchandise sitting on top of a woman's head).

From Kumasi, Josh and I traveled to Tamale and Mole National Park with the hope of seeing elephants. Unfortunately, we didn't see any elephants on the hike we did (our friend Colleen had seen them just the week before), but we did see all sorts of monkeys, antelope, warthogs, etc. In the afternoon, some elephants were spotted with telescopes, way off in the distance. Pretty cool. By the end of this part of the trip, Josh and I were pretty tired and ready to go home to Mali. We traveled back to Accra and met up with Chris for the flight back home to Bamako. Good times.

One of the most striking things for me about Ghana was the omnipresence of Christianity. In the south of Ghana, it seemed like every store had a name related to Christianity... “Downtown Virgin Liquor Store,” “Watch and Pray Hair Salon,” “Don't Judge” (plastered on the back of a public transport van double passing on a curve), and many other gems. Funerals are elaborate occasions, and everywhere you look there seem to be posters advertising someone's funeral. In Cape Coast, there were huge nightly gatherings next to our hostel, with gospel and sermons hosted by Ministry International. I guess I am not used to such in-your-face expression of faith. Not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly something that is suppressed to a great extent in the United States. I think it is probably a good thing to suppress it to some extent so as not to offend/discriminate those people with beliefs different from your own. Okay, enough of that, enjoy some pictures:

Kat, Jeremy, Josh, Holly, Colleen and I waiting for the bus at our hostel before the marathon:

View from the beach at the Green Turtle Lodge:

Gloria, Josh and Jeremy on the canopy bridge in Kakum Naitonal Park:

View of Elmina Castle:

Josh and I in Elmina:

Josh practicing Adinkra stamping in Ntonso...there was a Peace Corps Volunteer working in that village who recently had a Peace Corps stamp made and let Josh buy it:

Kente cloth weaver in Adanwomase:

Our tour guide dressed me up in traditional Kente cloth...these cloths are in the range of $150-200 each. We were even shown a very intricate cloth that was close to $1000. A huge amount of work goes into the production of each cloth, and the cloth is worn for weddings and other festivities in the area:

A curious monkey in Mole National Park. I am pretty sure this same monkey swiped at a tourist eating in the hotels restaurant later that day.

An elephant through the telescope:

An ye an yere ta...

2010-11-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

On September 22, 2010, Mali celebrated it's 50^th anniversary of independence. We've had a lot of celebrations in my village over the last year, but this truly beat them all. There was a lot of anticipation for the day...the start of the school year was delayed 2.5 weeks so that people could focus on Independence. At least a month in advance, people started talking about the huge party we would have, frequently asking to make sure I would be in town.

My village is the commune seat (think: county seat), and representatives from each village within the commune met to plan and contribute money to the festivities. Our Mayor and Commandant were very clear in pointing out that no money was provided by the government for this to take place – everything had to come from the general population. When the day came, I was proud to be living where I am – they were able to do a lot with the money they raised.

The start of festivities began with the opening of a new “cultural centre” in my village. Dances (think: exactly like a high school dance, and just as corny, with just as bad of music) are very important to the youth in my village. During the dry part of the year, dances are held 2-4 times per month at the donke yoro (dancing place), and can be found around village much more frequently than that. A new donke yoro was built this year; basically a giant enclosed space for dances and theater to take place. On the night of September 21, a dance party was held to open the new dance hall. As part of all this I was asked to be the donba (mother of the dance) and to open the dance with the Mayor, who was the donfa (father of the dance). This involved dancing to a Celine Dion song while students formed a circle around us. All in front of 200-300 people...just my kind of thing, right? It was a lot of fun though, the new cultural center is great, and I had the chance to see many friends I hadn't seen in awhile at the dance. Unfortunately I don't have any photos. We danced unitl 2:30 AM, when the gas in the generator ran out. Probably a good thing it ran out when it did because we all had to get up for the real festivities the next morning.

On Wednesday September 22^nd, the town woke up with smiles on their faces. Neighboring communities had spent the night in my village and were parading through the streets drumming and dancing. The Mali flag had been draped in as many places as possible, and a crowd was gathering at the nyenaje yoro (literally: fun place). I walked over with my chair and got a seat towards the front in the “invitees” area. I was glad to get a seat there because I was able to take lots of photos. By now nearly 600 people had arrived, I wouldn't be surprised if the number was greater than that.

Let's step back and picture this for a moment...There I was, a little over half-way through my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. And, at about half-way, you really start to question what in the world you're achieving by being away from your friends, family and things you know for 2 years. You wonder if your presence is doing anything to help the people you're living with, and whether or not it's worth it to stick through another year. As I sat watching the Malians of my village come together for this celebration, I was struck more than usual by how awesome this PC opportunity is, and how lucky I am to be here in mali. The depth of Malian culture and the generosity of Malian people has no bounds. This celebration of Independence displayed what Mali and her people are all about. A celebration of where they've come from, and how far they've come since gaining Independence. When Malians tell me how their country has no money and no work, I gety frustrated because I want them to understand the huge value of the assets they do have. As the theatric performances and dancing went on during the afternoon, I was proud to be “Malian,” at least for these 2 years. And, it's worth staying another year, not just to dig a well and help the shea association, but to continue to build relationships and understanding with these amazing people.

Moving on...the festivities began. The young men of my village raised the flag and sang the national anthem. Then, the Mayor and Commandant planted a tree and made long speeches about the importance of the day. Each village that is part of our commune paraded by the mayor to “greet” him. This involved drumming, dancing and singing. Men running everywhere doing flips, some dressed as clowns. The young women of my village wrote a song about how “An ye an yere ta,” (Kind of translated as: We took control of ourselves). 50 years ago that day, Malians were no longer under the control of a colonial power, and were able to take decisions into their own hands. They accompanied the song with dancing, both synchronized dancing and some amazing solo performances. Perhaps I' prejudiced, but my village made the best show of them all. The karate masters from our village also did a demonstration, which was a lot of fun.

In the midst of all this, the hunters paraded through the crowd. These men are part of the Hunter's Association, and are particularly known for their "nyenaje" (fun). The pace slowed as they came through dancing and shooting off their guns at random moments. There was a man playing a kora-like instrument and others blowing whistles and playing bells. All were dressed head to toe in bogolan, carrying their guns as they traipsed along. They came to the front of the crowd and sat down, while the leader of the group sang a song (I didn't understand a word). Others creeped around as if hunting, shooting off their guns when you least expected. Then, they got up and moved off as slowly as they had arrived.

To finish the morning's fun, there was a bicycle race, sack races, and attempts by kids to climb a greased pole to get candy. For the little kids, there was a blindfolded game where they tried to cut down candy that was hanging by a string. Unfortunately, the donkey races were canceled because the morning activities had taken too long, and it was too hot for a donkey race. After these games, everyone went off to eat - food had been bought and prepared so that everyone who attended received food.

After a couple hours rest, the day's celebration was ended with a soccer game: my village vs. all of the other villages combined. We won 3-1 in a good game, which saw the coaches nearly in a fist fight shortly after half-time. The mayor had to call them over and tell them to mind their manners in front of all of the dignitaries that were present.

And so the day ended, everyone ridiculously tired and satisfied with all of the activities that had gone on. Now, for your viewing pleasure:

This is my good friend Papou and I just before the celebrations began. Papou's last name is Kouyate, which makes him a Jeli, otherwise known as a griot in Mali. In Malian culture, the griots have many important roles, such as acting like an MC at funerals, weddings, baptisms and other special occasions, acting as third parties (when I eat lunch with the mayor or sit in at his office, he always has a griot with him. People who talk to the mayor will actually talk through the griot, even though everyone present can hear and perfectly understand what is being said. It's a hard thing to get used to as an American sometimes), etc. Papou acted as the MC for the Independence day celebrations, announcing all the activities and trying to keep people within their time limits (pretty much impossible).

Some of the performers parading through prior to the opening of the celebration.

Young men of my village raising the Malian flag and singing the national anthem of Mali.

Young women from a nearby village performing a dance for Independence day celebrations.

Some of the hunters during their performance on Independence day.

Another hunter...Playing a kora as he dances along (some debate among PCVs as to whether this is an ngoni, kora, or both, or what...forgive me if I am wrong).

This guy was responsible for most of the gun powder shots going off. Huge clouds of smoke would follow the shots of his gun as he skipped away smiling giddily.

And here come the proud young women of my village. They had the best dance and song by far...but I am biased.

Dancing mid air to the Djembe beat.

Trying to climb the greased pole to get the prizes at the top. This kid was lucky because a lot of the oil had been wiped off the pole by previous contestants...I'm pretty sure he won a bag of soap for his slippery efforts.

The bicycle racers lining up for the big race. Approximately a 4 mile “sprint” ride on a poor dirt road.

Have I ever mentioned that we have karate lessons in my village on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays? I should really take it up. Karate is hugely popular, especially with many of the younger kids. The karate masters demonstrated their sport shortly for the crowd.

San mana keme bo....

2010-10-21T08:43:00.000-07:00

Written in September 2010

My second Ramadan in Mali has come and gone by now. We celebrated “selifitini” last Thursday. I feel a little weird writing about Ramadan since I am not a Muslim. But, I realize that I probably know more about Islam than 90% of people who read my blog, so anything I can share might be helpful for creating a better environment for understanding, especially in the United States where Islam has tended to be represented in a negative manner as of late. So, with that said, here's my attempt to explain what I have come to understand from one year of living here. Ramadan, or “sunkalo,” is a month of abstaining from food, water and sex during the daytime hours for Muslim people. This fast represents a sacrifice for Allah, and a month of reflection on Allah and your relationship to him. I noticed that men in my village spent far more time praying during this month than I normally see.

I did not participate in the fast for various reasons – mostly the fact that I am training for a half-marathon, and on a normal basis can hardly make it through the heat of the day without a liter of water at lunch time. That's part of the sacrifice though, to do something in the name of God. My friend told me, “Fasting is more difficult that running...so you should fast.” Perhaps, but not being a Muslim myself, you could say my participation might demean the sacrifice that so many people around me were making.

My two host mothers were not participating (one is pregnant, and the other gave birth recently), and neither were their husbands. But, I did notice that our food was much better than usual (this, I think, is my opinion only...but they regularly made foods that we've rarely eaten during the rest of the year).

It is interesting that Sunkalo/Ramadan coincide with the rainy season this year and last. Rainy season is known as the hunger season in Mali because people's crops are in the ground, but have not yet matured. Last year's food stores are dwindling or gone. And money, which is mostly earned from farming and/or hot season labor, is running short. So, people have no money with which to supplement their food stores. Even if you have money, it's hard to get good food in village right now – for awhile the only vegetables available were leaves from the forest, hot peppers and a local eggplant variety.

Even with the hungry season in effect, we had delicious food to celebrate the end of Ramadan last week. Unfortunately, people did not know until 3 AM the morning of Selifitini that the celebration would take place. “Officials” in Bamako were waiting to see the moon (the phases of the moon are the basis of the calendar used here, and therefore determine when the month of fasting begins and ends); they did not see the moon until 3 AM. In fact, I had promised to fast the last day of the month, which everyone expected to be Thursday. When I showed up at my homologue's house at 4 AM to prepare for the fast, she looked at me and said, “Sunko banna, sun te ke bi. Taa k'i da.” (The fasting is over, there is no fast today, go back to bed). Because the moon wasn't seen until 3 AM, people complained they did not have enough time to prepare the feast well. At any rate, I thought my host family made the most delicious okra sauce we've had in awhile (some will be surprised that I just called any sort of okra sauce delicious), and they gave me more meat than I've had from them in my entire last year of meals with them combined! And, we ate that way for 2 days! In some ways, I think of that feast as a respite from hungry season. Everyone was able to eat vitamin-rich, protein-filled food for two days, hopefully adding to their health to help get them through rainy season.

After lunch, I walked around village greeting every person I know. Blessings for the long lives and health of our parents, brothers and sisters, children, hosts, etc. were exchanged. One of my favorite blessings is, “San mana keme bo, an ka je ka seli nogonfe.” When 100 years have passed, may we celebrate this day together again. Amiina.

Disclaimers: Lots of pictures from this day to come, ni ala sonna.

It's been a long time

2010-10-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I know it's been awhile, but I did have blog entries written! Unfortunately, my computer caught a virus, and I just finished fixing it this morning (well, I hope I'm finished). And, the internet in Kita hasn't been working very well when I've been in town – even the internet cafes! Enough excuses, and at long last, a blog entry:

Written sometime in August, 2010

The last time I wrote, every farmer in my village was worried because the rains weren't coming. That seems so long ago now as we are now into the season where it rains everyday. It's hard to do work in the fields (or in my garden), because the ground is so soggy! I don't think the streets have dried out for at least a month now. Quite a change – sometimes nice because it's cool enough to sleep with sheets at night and running in the misty mornings is quite pleasant; sometimes not so nice when you find your clothes never dry and your house floods on a daily basis.

During the last 2 months, my time as a PCV has come full circle. Well, half circle really, sine I'm only half way done. Yesterday, my village celebrated selifitini, or the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. It was on that day last year that I arrived to be officially “installed” in my home for 2 years. I have spent the last two months with frequent trips (more frequent than I would like) to Bamako to help train the new group of volunteers about our PC Mali Food Security Program. It has been so fun to meet with some of the new volunteers as their enthusiasm is infections. Could I have possibly been that enthusiastic and full of ideas when I arrived here a year ago? Quite possibly. I think I came with 100 ideas of how I could help my village take a step away from “poverty.” Now, I struggle on a daily basis to determine whether project ideas are worthwhile and sustainable. PC funding is not much, though it is enough to do some substantial projects. I lean more towards knowledge-giving. I would rather build the capacity of the people in my community to help themselves, rather than giving them something just for the purpose of being able to say “I did that, I gave them X.” I would much rather hear the President of the Women's Association say, “Look what we accomplished, and how much we can continue to accomplish in the future,” rather than to hear her say, “Aminata, if you build us a magasin [storage house/work, area for shea processing], we'll remember you forever – even after you've left to America and found a husband.” She doesn't understand that doesn't mean anything to me, because I won't have truly succeeded in what I came here to do. At the same time, does simple “knowledge-giving” achieve what I came here to do?

Now, with that said, the difficulty becomes determining what the best path for capacity development within my village is. I have some ideas, but my work partner says yes to any suggestion I give... “Of course, if you're going to give us something, we want it.” So, I haven't really given anything, at least I've tried not to.

It can also be difficult when you are trying to complete community assessment with a group, and they say to you, “Why are you asking us what we have in our village? We don't need to go over this, we can telly you exactly what we need...build us X.” But in reality, X is something that they want, not what they necessarily need. Where can an outsider draw the line though, even after one year of working with these groups?

Today I was told by my neighbor that the money-making machine is in America, that's why we're so rich. She also said that's why we should give Malians a lot of money. She blamed some of Mali's poverty on the fact that there's no money-making machine in Bamako. I tried to explain that the presence of a money machine doesn't make one rich, and that if you print too much money you'll likely become poor. You can be sure I was not understood.

The most exciting event over the last couple of months was the arrival of new volunteers in the Kita area, and going with one of them to visit their new site. It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to Ryan, Joelle and Jackie – our steady 2nd-year volunteers who were always around for vent sessions, advice and getting together to make delicious food. But, with 6 new volunteers, I think Kita Kaw (the Kita family) will be fine. I traveled with a volunteer named Matt, and spent 2 days with him at his new site. It was so much fun to see a different village – far different than mine, being only 300 people, much farther from Kita, and no electricity at all. My village has 4,000+ people, is 20 km from Kita, and we have electricity 3 hours per night (and apparently might get cell phone service this month). The people in Matt's village were so friendly and excited to have someone there to help them. It was like a whole other world compared to my village. What was really great about this visit is that his homologue's brother works for an NGO in my village – I had met him before, but we hadn't talked much. Since traveling to Matt's village, I have had the opportunity to eat and chat with him and his wife many times, which has been a treat. They speak Bambara very clearly for me and are as eager to ask questions of my culture as I am of theirs. I look forward to developing this friendship!

I may have mentioned this previously (don't have internet access to check...)...I am currently working with 10 men and 10 women to test new seed varieties in small plots in their fields. 10 men received sorghum seeds and 10 women received peanuts seeds. In the majority of the men's fields, there is a clear difference between seed varieties, and most have found that at least 2 varieties are better than their own seeds (so far). Very good news! Because I have been in Bamako so much, I haven't made it out to all of the farmer's fields, but I hope to get to everyone's fields soon. The harvest will occur in another couple of months, and it will be exciting to see whether or not these new crop varieties can be of use to these and other farmers in the future.

On a personal note, I have been training for a half-marathon every day since early July and will be running a half-marathon in Ghana in 2 weeks (ni ala sonna)! This is something I never thought I would do because, honestly, I don't like running very much. I would much rather row (can't do that here) or ride a bike (I do that frequently here, but hard to get a good workout on the rough roads). The opportunity to go to Ghana for this marathon presented itself, and it seemed like a great idea. I think the running has had great side effects on my health – I've hardly been sick these last 2 months! Knock on wood that continues. After running the marathon, I hope to travel around Ghana for a few weeks, we'll see how that pans out.

In an effort to keep my blog readable, I'll stop myself here and do a couple of separate entries.

Other disclaimer: I have so many pictures, but there is only one internet connection in the house right now and others need to use it, and I want to get back to site. So, I promise lots of pictures in the next month! As long as I can get to the internet!

It looks like rain and it feels like rain...

2010-07-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Except it’s not raining. In the time since my last blog entry, the weather in Mali has changed from the unbearably hot month of May to a decently rain-filled June, to a cool and dry July. The rain arrived early this year; we even had several big rain storms to break the heat in May. Farmers in my village were excited, thinking this was going to be a great year for rain – they were going to get a big harvest! Some began plowing their fields and planting seeds earlier than they might do on a normal basis. At the beginning of June, those who hadn’t yet started planting their crops were considered lazy.

Now, we’re into July. In the last 3 weeks we’ve had 3 rainstorms, only one of which was substantial enough to keep the ground wet for more than an hour. Everyone keeps saying “dugu jalendon” (the ground is dry). Millet and other crops that were planted in June are wilting and being destroyed by insects. I gave 10 farmers new varieties of sorghum to test in their fields (seeds from ICRISAT) 3 weeks ago. Most haven’t been able to plant their seeds yet; some haven’t even been able to plow the area in which they are going to plant the seeds! The ground is too hard and dry to work with. One friend came back from the fields before lunch time today, saying “There’s nothing to do until it rains – the ground is too dry.” Normally, people would be in their fields from morning through afternoon at this time of year.

Granted, this is only my 2^nd rainy season in Mali. And last year in training, I had no idea what was going on, or what should be going on. This year, I still don’t know what a normal rain pattern is for the area, but I do know that people in my village seem scared and antsy. Hopefully the rains will return soon and all of this will be moot. I asked one farmer what he would do if the rain didn’t come, his response, “Nothing, it’s God’s will.” I guess there’s not much you can do when you’re entire livelihood is based on rain-fed agriculture and having a successful harvest.

Other than a lack of rain, things have been going well on this side. Even though it hasn’t been raining, clouds are rolling through every day, which drops the temperature to a livable 90-something degrees. We’ve had some beautiful, overcast, Seattle-like days over the last few weeks (except 30-40 degrees warmer.

My brother Ben and sister-in-law Kelly came to visit Mali for a week during June. We had a really good, although very short, visit. We spent a couple of days in Bamako, and spent most of their time at my site. Ben and Kelly were given live chickens on three separate occasions, which were all made into delicious dinners. We visited the fields the day after a big rain (this was before the rain stopped) and saw everyone plowing and preparing their fields for planting. Since both Ben and Kelly are doctors, we visited the health center, so that they could get an idea of what the health issues at my site are. Most of their visit was spent greeting my friends throughout the village; I hope I didn’t tire Ben and Kelly out too much. It was so good to see Ben and Kelly, it meant a lot to have family come to visit and begin to understand a little bit about what Peace Corps is about, and about my experiences in Mali. Thanks Ben and Kelly!

I’ve been working hard in my garden over the last 3 weeks. The early rain in June replenished the ground water to some extent, so I am able to get well water for my garden. I used a daba (hoe) to dig up all the grass that had taken over. This week, I’ve been preparing new beds and planting peppinieres (nurseries). I have a little of everything – peanuts, corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, green peppers and a compost pile. I hope it works better than my previous gardening attempts. I harvested a lot of tomatoes, onions, green peppers and lettuce from my last round of planting, but I’ve also had huge problems with insects. I am slowly learning how to deal with all of the problems that come with growing a garden in Mali.

I forgot to comment about the hot season in my last blog entry. I dreaded the month of May starting in February, when the cold season seemed (to me) to end early. It got hot fast. From mid-February onwards it must have been above 100 degrees every day. As late April/May approached, the temperature was 105-110 degrees every day. That’s hot. It got even hotter in other areas of Mali. I think the hottest I experienced was ~115 degrees. When it’s that hot, you drink 7-8 liters of water per day, and learn to follow Malians' examples of showering 3-4 times per day, sitting and doing nothing during the hottest parts of the day, and eating mangoes – 4-6 mangoes per day! The most delicious mangoes you could ever imagine (available in all sorts of varieties) made sticking around through the hot season almost worthwhile. Mangoes may have trumped oranges as my favorite fruit, though it has been over a year since I ate my last delicious orange.

Hope you’re happy and healthy. I’ve been here a year now, and I appreciate all the letters, phone calls, notes, emails and packages that have helped me try to keep in touch with home. Thank you. I’ll leave it at that, here are some pictures for the road:

Watching the World Cup in my village was a pleasure. Until the United States played Ghana, I was able to convince everyone to cheer for the US. Because we don't have electricity more than 3 hours a night, there are very few televisions in town. I watched the games at my language tutor's house. This is a picture from just before the start of the World Cup Final. At one point I counted over 70 people watching the game on the single, small-screen TV.
Some pictures from Ben and Kelly's visit. First, Ben and I on the Niger River:

Kelly and I on the river:

My good friend Oumou and her son Bu. All dressed up for the students vs. villagers soccer game. Oumou sponsored a big dance that was held the evening following the soccer game.

Here is the student side of the soccer game:

Ben and Kelly gave out lots of stickers to the kids in my village. Quite a hit, though it turned into kids trying to trick us into giving them more and more stickers. And, as we all know, stickers are meant to be put all over your face.

Ben and Kelly with one of their 3 chickens:

Papa, Ladji and Mamidou - my homologue's sons - plowing their field after one of the big rains in June.
Ben and Kelly's visit attracted more kids to my compound than are normally there. Kids I had never seen even showed up!

And, there were kids constantly standing in my doorway watching Ben and Kelly's every move (until I, ehem, politely, would tell them to get out of there).

Projects

2010-06-04T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time, but no worries, everything is going well on this side of the planet. It has been a very busy month and a half filled with weddings and work-related activities. I have lots of ideas for blog posts now though! Keep your eyes out for a blog entry describing Malian weddings (at least how they are celebrated at my site).

Two quick notes before I get too far:

1. Check out the new Goodreads section on the right side of the blog. If for some reason you were interested in what I've been reading while in Mali, there you go!

2. We've been having problems at the post office recently...many of our packages have been opened and have had materials stolen from them before they reach Kita. If you send a package, please tape it such that it is difficult for me to open. I've also heard that writing Bible verses or religious symbols on the package can keep it from getting opened. Worth a try I guess.

Alright, what have I been doing the last month? I have completed my first true "project" as a Peace Corps Volunteer. At the beginning of May, I received small project assistance (SPA) funds from the Peace Corps to hold a training about the production of high quality shea butter at my site. While the logistics of the training (and getting straight answers from our trainers) were a bit of a pain to organize, the training seemed to be a success. 5 women and 1 man were invited from each of 4 different villages. With a few people added here and there, 31 people participated in the training. During the first day, the trainer discussed how to produce high quality shea butter starting with the gathering of nuts and ending with going to the market to sell shea butter. As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, if women are able to produce high quality shea butter, they are more likely to sell their product for a high price. They may even be able to sell their product in an international market. But, since international market standards are so high, shea butter must be produced following strict guidelines. Many of the practices we discussed are relatively simple, and do not require a big jump from how women in my village currently produce shea butter. This means that creating a high quality shea butter is well within the reach of the women producing shea at my site. Here is a picture of the women gathered together for the training:

Here is a picture of our trainer, Oumou, using pictures to describe good shea butter practices during the training:

During the second day of the formation, the women made shea butter following the practices they had learned the day before. Oumou closed the training by talking about how associations should be run, and how the women can improve their association. Many women remarked that they had learned a lot, and hoped we could hold similar trainings in the future.

As we enter the rainy season in Mali, shea fruit is beginning to ripen. I will be excited to see the women who attended the training implement the practices they learned. Here is several women making shea butter on day 2 of the training:

All of the women involved in the training gathered together:

The weekend following the shea training, Mama, a Peace Corps employee, came out from Bamako as part of our PC Food Security project. Mama helped my homologue (work partner) and I to conduct several meetings with both the Women's Association and Men's Animal Raiser's Associtaion at my site. We used a process called PACA, or Participatory Analysis for Community Action (see the Peace Corps PACA manual here). Rather than simply asking community members what they want, PACA begins with appreciative inquiry and community assessment activities. The idea is to encourage community members to recognize all of the resouces that they have in their community (health clinic, schools, mayor's office, water pumps, grinding machines, mosques, market, etc.) and to recognize that they are already participating in many work activities that they can be proud of (producing shea butter, selling meat, selling produce from the women's garden, etc.). Ideally, this would turn the focus of the meetings from "We need this, we need that, we have nothing, we have no money..." to "What resources can we use within our community to improve our situation, and what outside help would be most useful and most likely be successful in helping us to improve our livelihood?"

Here are several pictures of bott the men's and women's groups working on drawing a map of their community in the sand. They identified all of the major buildings and resources available to them within the village:

The meetings seemed very successful. Mama encouraged myself and my homologue to lead a large portion of the meetings, which instilled us with confidence that we can complete similar meetings on our own in the future. While I know these meetings were just the beginning of many conversations that will be had with these two groups in the community, we were able to identify initial project priorities for the two groups. The women would like help to improve the wells in their community garden (the wells currently collapse each rainy season, and most have dried up during the hot season). The animal raiser's would like help in starting a bank for animal fodder in the village. I will let you know how these projects proceed (or don't) in the future. These meetings were a great way for me to continue to understand my community. I wish that this could be available for every Peace Corps Volunteer, but earlier in their services (I'm almost 9 months in!). PACA is a great tool, though can be very intimidating during your first few months of service. With the help of a Malian PC employee who both understands the language and culture of my community, we were able to complete PACA much more successfully than I might have been able to do alone with my homologue.

Alright, I'm headed back to site, I'll try to write that entry about weddings during the next couple of weeks!

Shea and stuff

2010-04-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

I hope everyone back at home is going well as the days get warmer and the flowers start popping up everywhere. It's also getting warmer here, and by that I mean hot. Each day is reaching at least 105 degrees, and even hotter on most days. There was a big rainstorm in Bamako on Friday night - the "Mango Rains." These rains arrive about this time of year, and help make the mango harvest especially delicious. I was told that after a week of rains, it will get really hot. At some point I wonder how much difference a few degrees will make - we are already sitting in our own sweat all day every day at this point. I'll let you all know when those extra few degrees arrive.

Life is going well in Mali. The moon is still here and still beautiful. March was a very busy month full of shea butter trainings in Bamako with my work partners, and planning the Kita Regional Training for all of the PCVs in the Kita area. Because of all that, I have hardly spent any time at site - which is very unfortunate at a time when I am trying to get projects started up. I will head to site this evening once the sun goes down a little, and I look forward to a long stay in my home.

I just returned from a 3 day training in Bamako about establishing a shea network between all of the small villages that PCVs work in, such that women will be able to sell their butter to a wider market. Most buyers want to buy large quantities, and it is difficult for small villages to produce such large amounts by themselves. We also discussed the importance of producing high quality shea butter. There are many steps along the shea butter production process that can intoduce contaminants, which can lead to a 250-500 CFA difference in price per kilo ($0.50 - 1.00, which is quite a huge difference when the price per kilo is generally between 500-1000 CFA depending on quality). The whole training was conducted in Bambara, and two women from my village attended it with me. They are so excited to get going on shea work now - it will be important to get together with the other members of the shea association to share what we have learned! To continue with the excitement, I am hoping to hold a training on how to produce high quality shea butter at my site in the next month. Ni Ala sonna, it will all come together, but I find that planning things in Mali is far more difficult than planning at home...things are often pushed off to the last minute, including informing people of WHEN the formation will be occurring! Hard to plan for that. Alas, dooni dooni (slowly, slowly).

Village life has been going well, despite not being around as much as I would like. My friend Oumou just had her baby (see a picture of her peeling woso in a previous post). His name is Madi Keita, and he was whiter than me for the first two weeks of his life! The wedding season has commenced in my village, and every weekend there is either an engagement party or wedding to attend. My work counterpart's two eldest sons are getting married this year, I am very excited for their weddings. Also, a member of my host family will be marrying his second wife in the next few weeks. All very exciting, and lots of celebration to lead up to the next rainy season and the start of the planting season.

My garden is doing okay, though suffering for my lack of attendance. I have hired a girl to water it for me when I am gone, which leads to more reliable watering than what I had before. The tomato harvest ended up going very well, and is slowing down quite a bit now. I ate the first green pepper from the garden just the other night, which was very exciting - this is a vegetable that I can rarely get in village. The most exciting bit about my garden is that I have started to use a new type of compost (I wish I could see your faces as you read this)...my pee! My plants have doubled in size in just a short amount of time after first adding the urine fertilizer, it seems to work VERY well! The Peace Corps held multiple trainings on using urine fertilizer during our trainings, and it took me until now to start using it. It's very easy, you fill a water jug with 5 L of water, then add 5 L of pee over the next few days. The jug must sit (tightly sealed) for at least 2 days to kill any schistosomiasis or other bad bugs in the pee (though it has been found there there isn't too much bad stuff going on in pee, just schisto if you are unlucky enough to have it). After two days, I take the jug to my garden and add another 10 L of water, and apply to the garden. Voila! A ma gelen (It's not hard). I am going to see how well it works on my garden, then do a short animation for the women in the garden talking about it. Urine fertilizer is a hard thing to accept, because it is, well, urine. From what I've read though, it has an even higher nutrient content than using straight cow manure...

See the entry just before this for a bunch of pictures from the last month, from village and around town. I celebrated Passover in Manantali with many volunteers, which was a lot of fun. I never expected to learn so much about Judaism in Mali! My PCV friends who are Jewish held a whole Sadyr dinner for all of us, and explained the significance of the holiday and the foods that we were eating, it was really great.

Take it easy until next time, go see some music and dance your butt off.

A life in pictures

2010-04-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

I've got a lot of pictures from the last month and a half...enjoy!

Working with shea butter is going to be one of my main projects here in Mali. Here is a photo with my counterpart, Bintou, myself, and the President of the Women's Association, Djeneba. Bintou and Djeneba had just received their certificates for completing a 3-day shea butter training:

Last week, the Women's Shea Association made a whole bunch of shea butter. Here is a picture of 3 of the women "beating" the shea butter:

I've had trouble posting videos in the past, so we'll see if this works. Here are all of the women beating shea butter.

And, me, pretending I know what I'm doing for 10 minutes. Beating shea butter is a good arm workout:

After you first grind the shea nuts, the shea butter is a dark brown paste. You have to beat it with your hands for 1-2 hours to draw out the actual shea butter. After this time, it becomes a white color. So, here's the shea butter, almost done with the beating process.

Next, the white shea butter is boiled for quite a long time to draw out the actual shea butter:

And, then you get shea butter!

I visited a man in my village named Buwa the other day, who has a very large and successful garden. He has hundreds of banana trees. In this picture, the kids who work for him had cut down some of the bananas to sell to women in my village. The women then sell the bananas in the market, where I buy them and am very thankful that I can get fresh fruit in my village!

My friend Oumou gave birth a couple of weeks ago. The baptism was held one week after the birth of her son, his name is Madi Keita. I spent the morning of the baptism playing cards and games with the men. This game is called Lido, and reminds me a lot of Trouble. I did alright, I am pretty sure Adama, Damisi and Mogoba were making up some of the rules as we went...:

In late March, all of the volunteers in the Kita and Manantali areas got together with their counterparts for a regional training. It was a relatively successful training, I was happy just to get some one on one time with my work counterpart, without the distractions of her other work in village. Here's the group photo:

Here's the ladies from Kita region, we all got outfits made of the same fabric for the training.

Eating out of the communal bowl at lunchtime during training. Yum, tigadegena (rice with peanut butter sauce). This is Karmen, Lindsey, me and Ryan:

Another group at the communal bowl, Jess, Jackie, Joelle and John:

About a month ago we celebrated my 25th birthday in Kita with a delicious burrito dinner, tye dye shirt requirement, and a yummy birthday cake (frosting creatively colored by Jess using powdered juice packets):

We had a big party at my site with a married men vs. single men soccer match followed by a dance that night. Here's Oumou and I, resting for a few minutes before going back on the dance floor:

This is Damisi, my next door neighbor. He's just figuring out how to talk, and comes to greet me every morning and evening. Definitely one of my favorite kids in town.

We celebrated a Kuranajigi (spelling totally wrong I'm sure) in a nearby village. This was the celebration of a student of the Koran finishing reading the Koran. There was a big feast with lots of praying, chanting, and chatting. In this picture I am sitting with many of the women inside, preparing dege (kind of millet with sugar mushed into a ball, it tastes okay). The women were surprised to see that the Tubab could roll dough into a ball, I had to explain that we do it all of the time to make cookies...

As the dry season moves forward, I begin to understand more and more why Malians are scared of frogs. This is the drainage hole from my concession onto the street, where I dump my dish and cooking water. I went to do my dishes one night and found tons of frogs congregated in the pool of water! Add this to the many times I have dug up frogs (more like goo balls) 6 inches under the ground in my garden or in my compost pit...I assume they put themselves down there to save moisture during the hot season?

Again, I don't know if this video will come through, but we have some pretty amazing dancers in my village. Just watch those hips and feet move!

Cold Soda, Cold Pop

2010-02-26T03:28:00.000-08:00

I guess it hasn't been too long since my last blog entry, but a lot has happened! I just returned from a trip to Senegal for the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST), followed by a quick trip to the Gambia. Peace Corps and Expat teams from all over West Africa got together for a weekend of softball and parties. Unfortunately my team didn't make it to the semifinals, but we went 2-1-1 in the round robin games. Our team, the Cowboys, certainly didn't receive any help from my "awesome" softball skills! Here is a picture of the Seattle Kawboys...Holly, Gloria, me and Mike (Kaw means family in Bambara ):

Here is part of Kita Kaw after an awesome game of kickball, unfortunately won on the basis of rock-paper-scissors by the Refugees (a team made up of volunteers that worked in Guinea and Mauritania up until the programs in those countries were shut down), Ryan, Jess, Joelle and I:

Me, Joelle and Jess enjoying a view of the ocean on N'Gor island in Dakar, Senegal.

I traveled to the Gambia with three friends after the softball tournament. Highlights of the trip to the Gambia were swimming in the ocean, watching the catch of the day come in on pirogues (canoe-like boats that we were told travel from 10-20 km into the ocean to go fishing), going to a nature reserve filled with monkeys, having to pull a cable to bring a boat across the Gambia river, and the hospitality of all of the Gambia volunteers, especially our host Kris. Here's some pictures from the trip, first the small port where we watched all of the fish come in:

Taxis were being loaded with fish to go to the local restaurants. I got to eat lots of delicious fish in both Dakar and the Gambia.

After watching the fish come in, we had a small "senior photo shoot." This was my winning photo...:

Here's Ester and Jess, both of whom are also from Washington:

Matt, Jess, me and Owen on the beach. The four of us traveled together from Dakar, through the Gambia and back home to Mali. We were so happy to be back in Mali when we crossed the border!

The Gambia volunteers held a toga party for one of their volunteers who is leaving early to start medical school. All of the Mali volunteers who were in town decided to join in.

I'm on my way back to site in just a few hours where I will go to my homologue's son's engagement party, it should be a lot of fun. I spent January and February at site continuuing to learn Bambara, making new friends, and working on my garden. Sometimes I feel like my garden has been a series of failures, and there are two obvious problems with this. 1. Will I get any food for my hard work? and 2. How will the women in the garden ever trust my gardening advice? I'll blame most of my problems on the huge envrironmental differences between Mali and the places I have gardened in the past - Ecuador and Washington. Also, I haven't grown most of these vegetables before, so a lot of what I am doing is based on trial and error. Next year, ni alla sonna, I'll have an awesome garden.

So, what problems have I had? Worms and grasshoppers have become my arch-enemies. Grasshoppers have single handedly destroyed my carrot (x 2), cabbage, beet (x2), and salad (x2) peppinieres. I might have been able to halt the destruction had I caught it earlier, but by the time I had discovered the problem and brewed up some strong natural pest deterent (Neem tree, garlic, hot pepper, onion, and soap), the seedlings were all but gone. Sad times.

Worms are a more recent problem. I have about 90 tomato plants with a lot of fruit on them, which is very exciting. But, I have just discovered that worms have enterred most of my tomatoes...I am pretty sure they are some sort of moth larvae. Once they enter the tomatoes there is not much I can do, so I searched for the little green worms on the plants before I left for Senegal, and I couldn't find a single one. Shoot.

Yesterday, while visiting my site with my boss, Yacouba, we discovered that worms of a different kind have destroyed my green beans. When I left for Senegal, my green beans were robust and just starting to fruit. Yesterday, I was hoping to show my Yacouba my beautiful green beans. When we arrived at my garden, they were yellow, rotting skeletons of plants. Yacouba pulled up the plants and we discovered that worms had enterred the roots of the beans and destroyed them! Oh jeez. So much for all the delicous green beans I was hoping to harvest.

I've also had some transplanting issues, and discovered that the lettuce I was hoping to harvest right after my trip to Senegal has gone to seed during the two weeks I was gone. Now that I don't have any trips planned, hopefully I can do some good recovery work in my garden at get some produce from it. We're on the brink of hot season, and I am hoping the water in the wells will last for awhile longer. It was a really good year for rain, so I might be in luck. Here's some pictures from the garden before I left for Senegal:

Yum, lettuce, except the three largest heads went to seed in the last two weeks, which makes them very bitter and not nice to eat.

Here is one of my four beds of tomato plants. Can't wait to harvest these!

This was the first tomato fruit to appear. It has since been destroyed by worms.

Here are some more lettuce beds, they haven't gone to seed yet, so I should be able to eat and give away lots of this lettuce!

Onions, which appear to be growing well. Most of the women in the garden grow onions exclusively, and they all seem to be expert onion growers.

Lastly, here are some pictures from around my village. I should let my vegetarian friends know that there is an offensive picture coming up. First, this is my friend Oumou peeling woso (sweet potato). She will be giving birth sometime in the next 1 1/2 months.

Here is Gundo, Sayon and their kids. Gundo is one of my host moms and makes me lunch every day.

The day before I left for Senegal, there was a big party to celebrate the baptism of a baby named Mariama. As part of the celebration, two goats were killed. In the afternoon, I was chatting with some friends, and all of a sudden my host brothers started attacking each other playfully with the heads and legs of the goats. Shortly after this picture, the heads were cooked and eaten:

Take it easy until next time!

Some Q & A

2010-01-30T08:14:00.001-08:00

I haven't written a substantial blog entry recently, partly because of lack of will, and partly because of lack of internet access. I have been at my site for almost all of January, after being gone for all of December. It's a hard transition to make after being gone for so long – in some ways it's as if I am starting from scratch all over again. And, here I am, about to leave for two weeks! (More details to come post-trip)

I have received several questions from friends and family in letters and emails, so I thought this would be the best place to answer them all. Here goes.

How are you?

I'm okay.

How many people are in your village?

I've heard anywhere from 3,000-5,000. It certainly doesn't seem like that many! I think the population estimates include smaller neighboring villages, not just my village proper.

How tall are the people in your village?

As with anywhere, there is a huge range in the height of people in my village. Some are really short, some are really tall. I'm one of the taller women at the moment, though there are some other tall women around. Men are usually the same height as me or a little shorter, and there are a few who are taller than me. (I'm 6'0'' if that helps).

How many Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) are in your village?

Just me. As a general rule in the Peace Corps, there is only one volunteer per village. This is a way to help/force a volunteer to integrate. If there was an English speaker here who's culture I understood, I would be likely to spend more time with them than out and about in my village. This also forces you to practice your Bambara. The closest volunteer to me is 18 km away. In larger cities, like Bamako, there is often more than one PCV.

Are there any hills close by?

There is a large “mountain” in Kita, which I think is more like a large hill. There are also several small hills and rock formations on the bike ride out to my site, which I love because they are beautiful and their presence reminds me a little bit of home.

Tell me about the landscape.

In addition to the rock formations, my village is surrounded by a lot of large, old trees. I wouldn't necessarily call it a forest, but it is nice to see so many trees – certainly more than in many other areas of Mali that I have visited. Aside from that, the land is mostly flat agricultural land, and anywhere not used for agriculture is filled with brush. If you were to walk with a Malian through the brush, they could tell you a use for almost every type of plant. I don't think it's possible to learn them all in just 2 years!

Is there any water nearby?

There is a river that runs through town during the wet season. This is a good year for water, and the river didn't dry up until December. There are still a couple of large ponds and puddles of water. I think some of the puddles might last the whole year. Every day I see a man placing his fishing net in the largest of our ponds; I've been told he's able to catch a lot of fish. My homologue told me she doesn't think the wells will run dry before the next rainy season, which is a very good thing.

How's the weather?

People keep telling me how cold it is as they walk around in their winter parkas, and kids can be found in one-piece ski suits. Here I am, still struggling to say cool during the day (it still reaches the 90s every day!). At night, we're in the mid to high 60s. It has certainly gotten colder since my arrival in July – I now sleep with a sheet and blanket (as opposed to nothing). The rain ended in October and won't come again until June. Ever. It's a strange concept to me that the rain just doesn't come during the dry season. Some days it will cloud up like Seattle, and I'll think, “It's definitely going to rain today.” Nope. This cold season will only last another month before it turns into the hot season, a time that I fear a little bit. I'm sure I'll get somewhat used to it, but I've never been one for super-hot weather. Following the heat will come the rain, and the beginning of another planting season.

Are you sick of beans/more explanations of food?

I could and probably will do whole blog entries on food options. So, I won't go into detail here. I'm not sick of beans. In fact, I crave beans. I had big intentions of cooking beans multiple times per week, but they are a pain in the butt to cook here, and will eat up my gas tank quickly. So, I save the beans for special occasions. Luckily, there is a woman in my village that sells delicious beans every night, so I buy them every once in a while. I cook my own breakfast and dinner, but eat lunch with my host family. I am a little sick of leaf sauce and millet “rice” which I eat for lunch every day. I have to say, it's not the best stuff. I have tasted some very good food in Mali, but this isn't a dish I prefer. Since I am living in the peanut-producing region of Mali, we eat peanuts and/or peanut butter with everything. If you're allergic to peanuts, you probably don't want to come here!

Are there domestic cats/dogs/other pets?

There are cats and dogs here, but they aren't like your normal idea of a pet. Generally they must scavenge for their own food, and are pretty mangy. A lot of the time, dogs and cats seem like the beating posts for children. I thought of getting a cat or dog in my village, but decided against it since I don't know how often I'll be gone. So far, a good decision. Of the 5 pets bought by my PCV friends in Kita, 3 have either died or run away. Not the best success rate. Aside from cats and dogs, there are loads of other animals. These are somewhere between pets, property, signs of wealth and food. There are ducks, guinea fowl, chicken, pigeons, rabbits, goats, sheep, donkeys, cows and horses.
Here is a picture of my good kitty friend, who belongs to my homologue. He knows I am a sucker, and he comes out for a good ear scratch every time I come into their compound. I get a lot of puzzled looks when I pet cats or dogs...that's just not normal.

Do you wear sunscreen every day?

Yes.

How do you bathe?

Every morning and night I get a bucket of water from the pump and carry it back to my house on my head. Then, I take a bucket bath. It can be a little chilly at this time of year. When I had a cold a of couple weeks ago, people in my village told me it was because I didn't heat my water before bathing. Hm.

How did you haul poop and were your hands bare?

I have gotten cow manure for my garden on multiple occasions, collecting from where the cows sleep every night. I ride my bike out to the place and load up an old rice sack with poop (yes, using my bare hands and a daba/hoe). Then I load up my bike with the poop and head to my garden, which is a 5 minute bike ride away. I water the manure for a couple of days before adding it to my garden, because there is so much nitrogen in it that it might burn my plants if I were to add it directly. Watering the poop allows some of the nitrogen to escape.

Alright, that's all for now. Keep the questions and comments coming, I love it. Thank you to everyone who has sent a letter or email, they increase happiness levels 10-fold! Until next time, have a good month and take it easy.

A month in photos...

2010-01-05T09:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to friends, family and visitors! I'm headed back to site today after a long month of training, traveling, and spending time in Bamako for the New Year. I am very excited to get back! Before I jump on my bike, I wanted to post some pictures from the last month so that you know what I've been up to.

Here is a picture of me and my homologue (work partner), on Seliba (Tabaski), which was held two days after Thanksgiving this year. It was a wonderful day full of greeting neighbors, giving blessings and eating sheep.

Here is another friend, Bayini, on Seliba as well:

Here is a picture of Oumou, myself and Tierno on Seliba. Oumou and Tierno are two of my best friends in village, and we danced together until late in the night on Seliba:

More of my friends and Malian family on

Again, the moon over Mali, though maybe not the best picture. I'll get another really good one some day.

Onto training - the first year volunteers all had 2.5 weeks of training at Tubaniso, and on one of the last days we had the opportunity to see Habib Koite play in Bamako. Here is Owen, me, Jess and John, waiting for Habib Koite to begin.

For Christmas, and the next several days afterward, I traveled with 15 other volunteers to Dogon Country for a 3-day hike. Here is Colleen and I after a delicious Christmas dinner (Thanks Sam):

There was a Dogon Festival going on in Sangha while we were there, and many of the women from the area came together to dance on Christmas day - this picture doesn't quite get across how beautiful it was:

On the hike - Mike, Marissa, Ali, Chris and Colleen:

The view from Sangha:

Down on the plains, just below Sangha:

Hiking through Yougadougourou:

On New Year's Day, there was a Hungover Hash Run which many of us participated in:

That's all for now, I'll try to write something more substantial for next time.

Ni i ma seneke, I tena dumunike

2009-11-22T07:42:00.000-08:00

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:

Happy Halloween from Mali

2009-11-02T01:42:00.000-08:00

No real post this time, just some pictures. We celebrated Halloween in Kita this Saturday, we had a big party with people from other regions coming in to celebrate. Good times! Here is my family in Kita, all dressed up:

I was a millet stalk. You kind of have to use your imagination, like last year when I dressed up as a salmon. Here I am standing in the millet stalks outside our house, I fit right in.

I have found that I have some really annoying neighbors, they try to get in my house sometimes. At least this one is cute:

And, just to prove that Ecuador isn't the only place in the world with beautiful frogs, this guy was hanging out in my nyegen the other night:

I am headed back to site in a couple of hours, I'll post more closer to Thanksgiving.

Yup

2009-10-16T01:58:00.000-07:00

The first days are getting harder, and I am pretty sure they are going to get really hard before they start getting better! It's certainly been a rough couple of weeks at site, and from talking to my friends here in Kita, they are all experiencing similar things. Here is a short list of things to imagine: what if 5 people laughed at you every time you did anything, what if people were constantly telling you that you “can't” do something (cook rice or do laundry for instance), what if you were constantly being stared at, what if you were being called “Hey, tubaboo (Hey, white person!)” constantly, what if you were told you don't understand anything, what if you have had marriage suggested to you by 10 men in a single day – none of whom you have said more than 5 words to in your life, what if a wife offers you her husband (you can be the second wife!), what if you have nearly burned your house down twice, dumped a cup of salt on your dinner, and ruined your first attempt at cooking Malian beans (after at least 4 women have told you that same day that you can't cook Malian beans), what if you are “lonely, but never alone”, what if your language tutor (who you are paying) just sits there waiting for you to instigate any and all conversations/language learning, what if rain is still coming through your roof and mice are eating your food, what if you've been told multiple times “you should give me X” (X = headlamp, necklace, clothes, you name it), what if you have a terrible cold compounding all of these things?

Yeah, it's been rough.

Here's another list of things to consider: what if your homologue seems to be the most awesome, hardworking woman in the village; what if her kids are also awesome and make sure that you have food to eat and a place to dance if you want it; what if you can hardly understand her parents-in-law because they have no teeth, but they smile at you every time you come into the compound and ask how you are doing; what if the mayor comes to your house and asks for a chair, then sets down a plastic bag that holds a delicious cooked chicken, which you then share for lunch; what if you've been able to watch the Malian national soccer team beat Sudan 1-0 with friends (they should have won 5-0), what if you've been told that your language has improved a lot in two weeks by someone who is willing to chat with you and help you practice Bambara; what if you made a huge, amazing salad with a friend who likes to call himself “Cheick Obama”; what if you've read two really good books (in English); what if you received a letter from a good friend back in the US; what if you've figured out how to get BBC reception in your hut on the shortwave radio; what if everyone greets you wherever you go (because that's what Malians do); what if you have huge plans for a garden in your head, but haven't started yet (this could go in either list); what if you had a really nice “complet” (outfit – long skirt and top) made by the tailor in your village; what if you've made friends with a 15 year old who really wants to learn English and is willing to have a bit of a language exchange – and who takes you out to see his family's fields, my first real trip to the fields; what if you have a loving family back home who is going through rough times too, but is still able to call you at midnight to chat for an hour. All of that is when you have to say thank you, life is good.

With all that said, here are some pictures. Tierno (my homologue's daughter) did jabi on my hand for fun, she did a really great job. Here's the tape beforehand:

And, here's the after picture. Those are my Malian and American initials on my hand:

Here are a couple of pictures from my friend's corn field. The first is a pile of corn laid out in the middle of the field while the corn dries. In a couple of weeks he will pick all of the corn and it will be turned into any number of different foods. The second picture is a pretty tree.

Here's my homologue's granddaughter, unsure quite what to do with the stickers I gave her:

Here is my beautiful neigbor and her baby sister:

Here are the two huts, with the sweet new mud wall and shaded area that were built between homestay and when I arrived.

My nyegen has a door now!

And walls!

Here's another view of my compound:

That's all until next time, take it easy until then.

The first day are the hardest days

2009-09-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

I just returned to Kita from a short, surprise trip to Bamako to go to an initial meeting on food security. One of the Malian government's top priorities is ensuring food security for their population, and USAID and Peace Corps Mali have recently signed an agreement to work together on the issue. I am excited about this agreement, as working on food security was one of the reasons I wanted to join the Peace Corps, specifically in West Africa. This meeting in Bamako was with the Peace Corps and 10-15 NGOs, government organizations, and private sector organization partners, in an effort to share ideas on combating food insecurity and to teach our partners more about what the Peace Corps does. While the meeting was in French (which I don't speak), I still found it very interesting to (partly) understand what some of the Peace Corps partners' approaches to food security are. Straight from the PowerPoint presentation that was given, here are the objectives of the “USAID and Peace Corps/Mali Global Food Security Response Partnership:”

-Increase Community capacity to respond to food insecurity

-Improve organization, planning and coordination

-Improve natural resource management

-Enhance accessibility of local resources

-Improve agricultural techniques

-Improve health and hygiene through better nutrition and education

-Increase incomes

Peace Corps/Mali already works towards these objectives, but hopefully the partnership with USAID and other organizations will increase our capacity to achieve these goals.

The best part of my trip to Bamako was being able to stay with Jean, a member of our close Thanksgiving family. It was great to spend some time with her, especially since I hadn't seen her for more than half an hour since arriving in Mali! Thanks Jean.

Okay, now onto the juicy stuff. This last week was my first week at site, and it was full of entertaining stories, most of which I don't have the room to share here. Here are a few anecdotes:

-My first day at site was Seli, or the celebration of the end of Ramadan. For those of you who don't know, Ramadan is the month of fasting from food, drink, sex, etc. during the daytime hours for Muslim people. I was told by one person that even your eyes have to fast during the month of Ramadan. It is a also a time to develop an "increased compassion for those in need of the necessities of life, a sense of self-purification and reflection and a renewed focus on spirituality" (More on Ramadan and Islam here). Ramadan is also the month that the Prophet Mohammed first received revelations of the Qur'an.

Each night during my homestay, my family would break their fast at sunset after the call from the Mosque. Usually they broke their fast with moni, which is a delicious porridge made of tiny balls of millet flour, loads of sugar, and usually some lemon flavoring.

On the day of Seli in my new village, we got dressed up and spent the day greeting everyone, giving millions of blessings. I san be san be (Have a good feast), sitigiyala (May you have a long life), fatigiyala (May your father have a long life), batigiyala (May your mother have a long life), cetigiyala (May your husband have a long life), dentigiyala (May your children have a long life), and on and on, beyond the limit of my undertanding. Seli was a lot of fun, especially since it was my first full day in village, and I got to meet a lot of people.

-On the day of Seli, the commandant in my village gave me a chicken to welcome me to the village. I had quite an adventure figuring out how to get help gutting it, then cooking it on my new gas stove. I won't go into it here, but it took me all morning to cook the chicken, with a lot of questions from the women: “Are you sure you know how to cook?”

-When I visited my village in August, my site buddy told me that soon there would be more corn available than I would know what to do with. He was right. During the last week, I have eaten more corn than the past two years combined. It's not like the sweet corn from home: it's tougher, and we eat it after it has been burned to a crisp over coals. It's delicious. And, everyone kept handing me cobs of corn, so I ate a lot of them. Yum.

-Just so you know I have people looking out for me here: One day last week, I was spending time with my homologue's family grilling and eating corn on the cob. I had already eaten 1 ear of corn, and they were trying to give me a 2^nd ear, even though not everyone had eaten their first. I protested, saying everyone should get one before I receive my 2^nd. My homologue's daughter (my lifesaver last week, who I hung out with quite a bit, and seems to be the best at understanding my limited Bambara/Malinke. Unfortunately (for me only), she will be heading to Kita this coming week to start school, so I will not see her very often anymore. She is 17 now, and hopes to go to University, I hope she does.) turned to me and said “Your father is not here. Your mother is not here. Your brother and his wife are not here. Your friends are not here. We must give you what we can, and make sure that you have what you need.” I was quite touched, and am happy that my homologue's family is amazing.

-My homologue has been sick most of this week, saying she had malaria. People generally assume that any ailment is malaria, but she had some pretty serious fevers going on and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what she had. She seemed to be back on her feet when I left on Saturday, so hopefully she will be back to herself when I return in the next few days. Ala ka nogoyake (May you return to yourself).

-My most frequent conversation over the last week concerned my lack of a ce (husband). “You're 24 and you DON'T have a ce? No kids? What is wrong with you?” I spent a lot of time explaining the fact that some women in America get married around 18-20, but most wait a little longer, many don't get married until 26 or 30, and some never get married. Also, a man can only marry one woman in America. To ease the confusion I assured the women in my village that I would find a ce when I got back to America... : )

-Most of what was wrong with my house when I came to visit has been fixed, I have a brand new cement nyegen, some shade, and a small wall around my compound to provide a little privacy. I'll try to post pictures of my area next time.

-I had quite an adventure when I tried to do my laundry the other day. I've been doing my laundry for the last two months by hand, but suddenly I had an audience of 10 women laughing and yelling at me when I tried to do laundry the other day. They kept saying I was doing it wrong and that I should just give my clothes to them to wash. I became very frustrated, as they were just taking clothes from my hands as I tried to wash them. Hopefully my next laundry day won't bring quite the same level of interest for anyone within a 50 m radius from the well.

-One problem: I woke up on my second night at site soaking wet. As I came out of my dreams, all I could think was: Why am I wet? That's when I realized that my thatch roof had not quite held up to the rainstorm raging outside. My new mattress, tent, floor, clothes, etc. were quite wet, and I spent some time setting out buckets to try to catch the biggest drips, until I realized that there were huge drips everywhere. Sweet. I dried everything out the next day, and moved most of my things to the smaller hut. The mayor brought plastic by a few days later to put on my roof, and then another couple days later I was walking home with the mayor, and saw a lot of lightning in the distance. “So, do you think it will rain tonight?” I asked. The Mayor replied something along the lines of “Yes probably, I'll bring dinner over to your house and then we can hang the plastic up.” After I had unwittingly eaten a chicken's head and liver for dinner with the mayor, we were discussing how to put the plastic up on my roof in the dark. Just then, an old man walked by and said the rain was not going to come. So, the mayor and my host dad decided we would put the plastic up in the morning. About an hour later it started to rain, and I evacuated to my cooking hut, which had just a few small drips. I no longer place any weight in anyone's predictions of the weather.

-Between Seli and all the weddings that took place this week in my village, there was plenty of partying. I spent 3 of my nights during the first week dancing until late into the night, to pretty terrible Malian club music and American songs like “California” (you know...California, knows how to party...in the city, the city of Compton...etc.), and “We're gonna party like it's your birthday...”

-The other morning, I was studying in my compound, and my next door neighbor came over and told me I needed to come for a picture. It turns out she had brought the photographer to take a picture of me and her daughter, here's the result (sorry, no names available):

-The other day, the mayor came up to me and asked if I had done any work that day. I really hadn't done anything besides sitting and eating corn on the cob and trying to understand what people were talking about, so I said no. He told me to meet him at his office. When I arrived, there were tons of people standing outside, amid hundreds of new backpacks, notebooks, pens, pencils, chalkboards, etc. that had been given to my commune from Spain. How cool! I spent the evening and all of the next morning sorting through all of the new things, working with some of the students from my town. We had a lot of fun, as they know a tiny bit of English (they are pretty clever with what they put together). Here are the guys I worked with, surrounded by all of the packaging that the bags came in:

Here is a stack of completed backpacks, ready to go to the students:

And, even though it's not a great picture, here is the view from my hut. Why am I posting it? Well, because it's the Moon over Mali, obviously.

That's all for now, plenty more to come after another couple weeks at site. Hope you are all doing well and finding some relaxation at the beginning of fall.

PS: I apologize for linking to wikipedia, I know some people will be disappointed that I would use such a source...but my internet time is limited and I didn't have much time to find a better reference. Sorry. I also apologize for the black font, I can't figure out why it won't let me change the font color back to normal, and I've got a 1.5 hour bike ride to go do before it gets too hot!

Ala k'aw sara, Ala k'a to N kono aw ye

2009-09-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

Homestay is now over, and I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)! As a way to say thank you to my homestay family, I gave about 10 blessings while failing in my attempts not to cry. Two of the blessings that I gave make up the title of this entry: May God pay you all, and may I not forget what you did for me. The response to each blessing is generally “Amina” (amen).

I really enjoyed my homestay experience: living with the Traore family, learning Bambara, and getting to know the other PCVs in my village and the surrounding villages. I loved hanging out with my family each night, playing with my sisters, learning how to cook a few Malian things, drinking tea, and having many understanding resources while I was trying to learn Bambara. And, the more Bambara I learned, the more fun I had. I will miss my family a lot, and hope that I can go back to see them in the future when I can actually say more than simple sentences in Bambara.

The day before I left, my friend Matthew came by to take pictures of me and my family. Unfortunately I didn't get all of the pictures before he headed to site, but here is one picture of my whole family (minus my 4 Dads):

Also, the day before I left, Monique and Adja did “Jabi” on my feet. It's a little bit like henna, and takes several hours to finish. Here is Monique and Adja, Monique is taping the design on my feet, while Adja is applying the Jabi:

Here's a taped foot:

Unfortunately, the Jabi didn't turn black like it's supposed to, so my feet turned into a kind of crazy black and orange Halloween tie dye. Here's the finished product:

Here's a picture of three of my favorite homestay sisters, Tenen, Alima and Tia:

Homestay is over, and we spent another week at Tubaniso before officially swearing-in as Peace Corps Volunteers! As part of our celebration of the end of training, we had a talent show. There were a lot of acts, and some friends and I decided to hoola-hoop. Yes, that's right: hoola-hoop. My friend Kat is really good at hoola-hooping, and found some old pipes in the garbage which we converted into hoola-hoops. So, Kat, Sara and I hoola-hooped to the String Cheese Incident while Eric, Jeremy and Owen juggled. It was pretty ridiculous. Here is a picture of Kat, Sara and I following the talent show:

The morning after the talent show, all of the Trainees and I were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers at the United States Embassy in Bamako. The ceremony was fun, most of us dressed up in Malian outfits for the occasion, and someone who had learned each language (Bambara, Fulfulde, French, 3 Dogon dialects) gave a short speech. My homestay decided to get matching outfits for the swear-in, which was kind of a hectic process. We ended up with Basin (a type of really nice fabric, I may not have spelled it correctly) outfits, and here is the result (from left to right: Kristin, Diatrou, Matthew, Jeremy, Souleymane, John, Ali, Nick):

Here is a picture of all of the new environment volunteers in my stage (training group):

My LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator, ie: teacher) Diatrou was a huge help for Kristin, Matthew and I over the last couple of months. He has been incredibly patient with all of us, and I don't think we would have learned Bambara as well without him, or had such a good homestay experience. Here is Diatrou and I:

Yup, good times. Swear-in is over, we're real volunteers now, and our 24 months of service has begun. I have been hanging out in Kita all week while the other volunteers in this region get installed. It has been nice to have some free time, but I am excited to head out to site on Saturday morning. We have spent the week buying necessary items like stoves, bed mattresses, buckets to do laundry and haul water with, etc. If I have forgotten to buy anything, I will be back to Kita sometime soon to get the last things I need.

That's all for this incredibly long blog entry. I am moving into the time where I will only have internet access 1-2 times per month, and with that in mind I will try my best to keep this updated. Maybe I can split time intervals of internet access into two blog entries rather than one super-long blog entry like this one. I would happily accept any suggestions! I would also happily accept any letters or emails, and I will do my best to respond to you (eventually...).

Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to Mom, Ben, Margaret, Amelie, and anyone else I've forgotten.

Site Visit

2009-08-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had a chance to visit the village that I will be living and working in for the next two years. The village is near Kita, Mali, which is a small city about 3-4 hours west of the capitol (if you take a bus that stops every five minutes to let vendors on board, you can buy things like fried dough balls, milk, apples, hard-boiled eggs, etc. etc.). I am not going to write too much about site visit, but I did take lots of pictures with my borrowed camera, so I will share some of those. But, first things first: please take note that my mailing address has changed! I can still get mail at the old address if you have already sent something, but this address will be best for future letters/packages:

Ali Paulson
Corps de la Paix
BP 25
Kita, Mali
West Africa

Be sure to add the West Africa bit so that the letters don't get sent to Malawi or Bali...I'm not kidding, that happened to a current volunteer, it took a year for a letter to get to her! Also, I've been told that if you send a package to be sure to put the package value as $0, which will decrease the chances of the box being explored somewhere along the shipping line.

Also, I have been checking out a few of my friend's blogs from out here in Mali, and I thought some of you might be interested in reading some other (and perhaps more frequent) perspectives on our service in Mali. I will post them in this blog entry, and will also start a side bar with links to the blogs:

http://thehottamali.blogspot.com/ This is my friend Billy's blog, he will also be out in the Kayes region of Mali, but it will take two days to get from my site to his. He has a great blog with much more informative posts. Enjoy!

http://kristinrichards.blogspot.com/ This is my friend Kristin's blog. Kristin and I live in the same homestay village, are in the same Bambara language class, and will both be living near Kita for the next couple of years.

http://thekohbearreport.wordpress.com/ This is my friend Dave's blog, he will also be living in the Kita area.

Okay, now for pictures! Here is a picture from the outskirts of my village, heading out to the fields. It's really green right now because it is the rainy season. That's also a "mountain" in the distance. It's more of a big rock, but I'll call it a mountain.

This is a picture of my homologue's (the woman who I will be working most closely with over the next two years is called my "homologue" by the Peace Corps) daugther. I can tell we are going to be good friends. She always seems to be causing trouble, and in this picture is wearing her Grandpa's hat and carrying his cane. You should have seen her take off running when her Grandpa came out of his room!

In case you were wondering what my living arrangements are like, here is a picture of my new house! It is an awesome mud hut with a straw roof, which has been heavily populated by termites. The termites create a constant sawdust snow, which will give me plenty of opportunity to sweep my room five times a day. I will have to figure out a way to keep the dust out of my bed, I am thinking a plastic sheet might work best.

And, here's my kitchen! It's a smaller version of the other hut. Both huts are brand new, and are really great. My home needs a lot of work as far as privacy and shade go, but I am very happy with the huts.

And, here's my nyegen! I haven't written anything yet about the bathrooms in Mali, but people use a nyegen to do their business. See that hole on the ground? Yup. My nyegen would be okay, except the walls don't quite reach my chest (I am guessing they were expecting a shorter volunteer?), the doorway looks straight in on the nyegen hole (that won't be good when the amoebas strike again), and one of the walls fell down in a rain storm shortly before I arrived. So, it could use some work, but a lot can be done in the month before I head back out to site again.

The Dugutigi (Chief) of the village is my Jatigi (Host Father), and he told me that he is 102 years old. I haven't decided whether or not I believe him yet. But, here are some of the kids from his family, I am guessing either grandkids or great-grands. It will take me another month to figure out how the family fits together, it seems like there are over 50 people hanging around the compound!

Here I am with one of my host sisters, unfortunately I can't remember her name.

Here is a picture of some of my other host sisters, I am pretty sure each of them is named Mama Suko. My first two days in the village, both of these girls would run away screaming when they saw me (yes, my white skin has that amazing effect on kids of a certain age). By my third day in the village we were able to play with each other, and I think they are starting to trust me. We'll see how it goes in September.

I was given the opportunity to borrow a bike to ride out to my village from Kita, instead of taking bus transport. I couldn't give up the opportunity to ride! While it meant getting lost on my way out to the village with my site buddy, Ryan, it was SO nice to ride a bike for a decent distance, even on a rough dirt road. Here's my bike all loaded up and ready to go for the ride back to Kita. It takes me a little over an hour to do the ride right now.

Today, the environmental and small enterprise development volunteers had a chance to visit a Shea butter processing place in Siby, which is about 45 minutes outside of Bamako. We learned a lot about Shea butter production and it's importance as a means for women to earn money to support their families. I will probably be working a TON with shea production over the next two years. At the end of the day, we were able to go on a short hike to a really cool rock arch. Here is the group at the top of the hike. A lot of other people hiked to a waterfall to go swimming, which also sounded fun, but I opted for what was described to me as a "really cool hike." And it was.

Okay, that's all for now. I head back to homestay tomorrow morning, where I will be trying my hardest to learn a lot of Bambara over the next week. We swear-in as official Peace Corps Volunteers in about two weeks!

Fotota

2009-08-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like friends with pictures, and extra cameras for that matter! My roommate here at the training center brought her old camera with her, and is letting me borrow it for the next few weeks! Awesome. Also, thanks to Mom who has sent me my old camera. Hopefully my picture taking will be back in action soon!

In the meantime, I have some pictures to share from Kristin and Matt, who I live with at our homestay site. Enjoy! I should clarify: most of my two months of training has been spent at "homestay" where I live with a Malian family and have daily language lessons. It is basically total immersion into Malian culture and language, and has been a very good and difficult way to adapt to living in Mali.

About a week ago, my homestay buddies and teachers got together to make a "normal" dinner. We bought three chickens at the market, here is a picture of Kristin, myself and Diatrou (my language instructor) with our dinner:

Here is my host sister, Kiatou, helping to prepare the chicken. She helped us do a lot of the cooking, since we aren't really used to cooking with coals, and didn't have most of the "normal" kitchen utensils:

In addition to chicken, we made tortillas, an enormous salad, guacamole, beans and ate cheese and crackers. It was kind of like home. Here is a picture of Jeremy and I preparing the dough for the tortillas (pay no attention to my sunburn...I can't go 5 minutes without sunblock in Mali!):

Here is part of the group hanging out before dinner (left to right: Diatrou, Souleymane, Ali, Jeremy, Matthew, Nick). We also invited our friends from down the road to come over, so we had quite the party.

Here is a picture of Kristin and I at the National Museum in Bamako. We went there about a week ago before heading back to our training center from our homestay villages.

Here's another picture from the bar down the road. There are a lot of people in the picture, but the ones actually looking at the camera are from left to right: Justin, myself, John and Tyler:
Last but not least, here is the President of Mali, ATT, about to lay the first brick for construction across the street from my village:

Glad I could get some pictures up here, even if none of them are mine! I am off early tomorrow morning to visit the village that I will be living in for the next two years. Should be a good week!

The President, a wedding and the next two years of my life

2009-08-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

The last several weeks have been quite eventful, and I am not sure which highlights to share! First of all, I would like to give a shout out to my beautiful Aunt Paula, who is an incredibly brave woman. I wish you all the best in your treatments this week and over the next month, and I hope that everything goes smoothly. Please know that I love you and am thinking of you often.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share with you all, as my camera is as good as gone. I will try to get some pictures from the other people in my homestay to share sometime soon!

The most exciting news from the last few weeks is that we got our site announcements. I will be spending the next two years in a village outside of Kita, Mali! Kita is West of the capitol, Bamako, and is supposed to be a very beautiful area. I have even been told there are mountains, sweet! I met the woman who I will be working most closely with over the next two years, and I think we will get along well. We can only say a few words to each other right now, but my Bambara is coming along day by day.

Now back in time: Shortly after leaving the Peace Corps training center 3 weeks ago, the President of Mali, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) came to my homestay village. There was a huge ceremony to celebrate the start of construction of factories and a small "strip mall" across the street from my village. People from all of the surrounding villages came by to see ATT, which led to plenty of dancing and celebration. There were several people dressed up in masks and elaborate costumes, and a man running around the crowd with a megaphone encouraging people to cheer for ATT. Many speeches were made that I didn't understand, ATT laid the first brick for the new factories, and then it was over. That may be the only opportunity in two years that I will have to see the President of Mali, so it was pretty cool.

The day after ATT visited, my next door neighboor got married! I think my homestay family is related to our next door neighbors, but I can't quite figure out the connection. At any rate, the wedding was a big deal. My whole family dressed in their finest clothes, and my Moms took me over the the wedding. At first there were two celebrations going on, one at the groom's home (where we were), and another at the bride's home. At the groom's home, three women were playing traditional music on kalabashes while the rest of the women danced. I have learned several new dances between this wedding and the baptism last month, and I love the opportunity to dance with my family. One of the elders of the village even gave me her scarf so that I could have something to wave around while we were all dancing. After a short while, my sister Alima (who I think is 10 years old) took me over to the bride's party. They had a full on DJ over there, with lots of not-so-good music to go along with great dancing. In my experiences thus far, Malians seem to enjoy having just a couple people dance in the middle of a huge circle of people, and they especially like to shove the Americans into the middle of that circle. When my turn came, I dragged Alima into the middle with me. I still can't quite get used to one hundred people watching me dance!

At sunset that night, there was a huge commotion with motorcycles and vans bringing the bride to the groom's home. My Dad, Secouba, took me over to the groom's house to watch as five men went crazy with their motorcycles: driving around in circles, revving their engines, popping wheelies, and generally destroying their motos. Every once in a while a van would drive into the compound with 30 people inside and on the roof screaming and pounding the sides of the van. It was one of the craziest spectacles I have ever seen.

I went home for dinner (which was to, okra sauce, and fish - the meal I eat every night at homestay). Following dinner, the DJ from earlier in the day had set up shop next to my friend Matthew's house. The next several hours were full of dancing (again, they love getting the 6 Americans in the village to dance in the middle of the circle!), and watching some amazing dancers. Ever since the night of this wedding, random people in our village have come up to me and said "I be se ka donke!" (You know how to dance!). Yup, that's right.

We will be leaving Sunday to visit the villages that we will be living and working in for the next two years, which I am sure will be an exciting and slightly awkward experience. Hopefully my Bambara will improve enough so that I can do more than just greet people. I will try to post some pictures soon to add some excitement to the blog! Hope all is well on the other side of the world, peace!

A couple of pictures

2009-07-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

So, the results are in, I have amoebas and a bacterial infection! But, other than that, all is good.

My friend Matthew took some great pictures at our homestay, so I decided to post them here too. Here is a picture of the people at my homestay, from left to right on the bottom: me, Kristin, Matthew, John, Souleymane (Tomokan language instructor), and in the back: Diatrou (my Bambara language instructor), a bunch of kids from the village, and Jeremy. The only one who isn't in the picture is Nick, who took the picture. I'll just make a note that all of these people are really awesome people.

So, there is a bar about a half hour walk away from our homestay site, so we've met up there with the people from another homestay village a couple of times. Here's the first toast in Mali (around the table: Kristin, Justin, Andrew, John, Jeremy, Nick and me (Ali):

N be sho dun

2009-07-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

Yup, that's right, I eat beans. I have been at my homestay site outside of Bamako for the last two weeks, and am now known as Aminata Traore. It turns out that the Traore's are known bean eaters. I'll have to explain more about this later when I know more about “joking cousins.” All I know is that it's a good thing I like beans, otherwise I might be taking more offense to people telling me how much I like beans. It's also a good thing I brought the bean game with me to Mali...once my Bambara is better I'll be able to teach the game to some Malians...what better way to celebrate how much I like beans.

It has been a really good couple of weeks at homestay. We have 4-6 hours of language classes a day, then go home to our Malian families and practice what we have learned. Most days have been very overwhelming because we are learning so much so fast. Since I am in a small village with 5 other volunteers, we try to meet up every once in a while to play cards and speak English. I am really lucky to have really great fellow volunteers at my site. I could probably talk for hours about the last two weeks in Mali, but I'll try not to be so verbose...instead I'll share some interesting bits, and then pictures!

-Malians generally think Americans are dirty because we use toilet paper. Americans generally think Malians are dirty because they use a salidaga instead of toilet paper.

-Malians think Americans are dirty because we only shower once a day. I now take 2-3 bucket baths a day, as they're a great way to cool down in the heat, and since I am constantly dripping sweat in Mali, I kind of need 2-3 bucket baths a day!

-I usually eat to ever night for dinner, and it is actually pretty good. I wasn't so sure about it to start, but I don't mind it now.

-Let's not talk about the intestinal difficulties that 90% of the trainees are having...

Now for pictures! I live with the Traore family (Tarawele), which consists of about 30 people total. My togoma (the woman I was named for) is the matriarch of the family...her four sons and their wives all live in the same compound, about 50 m x 50 m. There are somewhere around 20 kids running around, some are older and have families of their own, and the youngest was born just two weeks ago! Last week we had a baptism for the baby, one week after he was born. His name is Sidi. The baptism was a lot of fun because we got to dance around for 2 hours! Here is a picture of the beginning of the festivities, I'm the tall white person in a blue shirt, the woman in pink is my nextdoor neighbor Geisha, the woman in bright green is one of my mother's, Adja, and the white woman in a grey tshirt is Kristin, a fellow volunteer:

Here are some pictures of the family, this is Adja, one of my four host mothers, with her youngest child Karamogo, and Tia, one of my favorite sisters:

This is Oumou and her youngest child Salimata. Oumou knows some French, and I know some French, so we have been able to communicate a little bit when my Bambara fails (which is more often than not...). I usually hang out with her and her husband Secouba at night, drinking tea or powdered milk, depending on whether or not I need to sleep.

Here is the Bamba (this one is for you, Rolf!), or crocodile. The man who owns it is a griot that plays music for hunters, and a hunter gave this crocodile to him when it was a baby. The crocodile is now 17 or so, and eats frogs, or meat when the owner can afford to buy meat.

Here is the garden that we have been working on, we've planted lettuce, carrots, beans (of course!), tomatoes, eggplant, marigold, squash and cucumber so far. We've been learning a lot about composting and planting gardens in Mali.

Last but not least, here is a short video of a huge storm that came through yesterday afternoon. I don't think the intensity of the storm quite comes across in this video. The storms in Mali seem to come hard and fast. And, then they're over in 30 minutes or so. There is usually constant rumble of thunder, and lightning all around, and rivers running everywhere after the storms. Rainstorms usually make the trainees happy because they drop the temperature by 20 degrees or so. My host mom told me that it rains even more in August, so we'll see. NOTE 7.27.09: Due to internet problems, and the fact that videos take forever to upload...no video with this post, sorry!

That's all for now, I'll try to write again when I get back to the internet in a couple of weeks!

Ah, the environment

2009-07-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book called "The Challenge for Africa", by Wangaari Maathai. She started the Green Belt Movement, and is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. In her book, she is a strong advocate of the inclusion of the environment in development programs, and of restructuring many development programs. There was one quote that I particularly liked, discussing development in Kenya and the surrounding region:

"In these regions, concern for environmental issues is treated as a luxury. But it is not: protecting and restoring ecosystems, and slowing or reversing global warming, are matters of life and death. The equation is simple: Whatever we do, we impact the environment, if we destroy it, we will undermine our own ways of life and ultimately kill ourselves. This is why the environment needs to be at the center of domestic and international policy and practice. If it is not, we don't stand a chance of alleviating poverty in any significant way."

Today we had a 4 1/2 hour training session about the Peace Corps environmental program, and about part of what I will actually be doing for the next two years. In the past, natural resource management and agriculture were separated into two different Peace Corps sectors in Mali. Now, there is one overarching environmental program. Technically that means I am an environmental volunteer, rather than an agricultural volunteer like I first thought, but that is beside the point.

We learned a lot today about "Farmers Field Schools" (FFS), which we will probably be developing and working with once we learn the language and become integrated into our communities. The cool things about FFS is that you work together with farmers, use the knowledge that they already have, and test new ideas in small test plots. This is very different than the approach of going into a community and telling farmers that they are wrong, and should be doing things differently (as if they haven't been farming the same crops for generations). I like the FFS approach a lot better. I'll probably give more details about this in the future, so I won't go into more just yet.

Have a good week everyone!

i ni ce

2009-07-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

We're only on day two here in Mali, but it feels like we've been here two weeks! I am at the training center with 65 other new volunteers, and we all leave for our homestay families on Wednesday. Our next 8 weeks or so will be with our homestay families, where we will be having intensive language classes and technical training.

I found out today that I will be learning Bambara, and probably not too much French. I would like to learn more French while I am here, but may not get any specific training in it...which is too bad. But, Bambara will be much more important for my job, so that's all good.

Here's what I've learned over the last few days: Mali means hippopotamus, Bamako means home of the crocodiles, Mali is the third poorest country in the world, sawdust can be used against sore throats, frogs can steal your soul, washing your hands with soap can wash away your fortune, I might be working in the Kayes region, I've gotten better at using the pit toilet, all of the other volunteers and our trainers seem like really great people.

I apologize for this quickly written entry, I am trying to respond to lots of emails before I leave email for the next week and a half or so.

Here it is!

2009-07-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Well, here is the blog you've all been waiting for! I am hoping to use this space to share my experiences in Mali as a Peace Corps volunteer with anyone who wants to learn more about the Peace Corps, Mali, or me.

After battling Poison Oak for the last month down in California (this is a battle I haven't won yet, unfortunately), I will leave next Tuesday for Philadelphia! After two days of meeting all of the other volunteers (around 80), we will travel as a group to Bamako, Mali via Paris. We will have approximately 2 months of language, culture, safety, health and technical training near Bamako, and then will travel out to our sites- where we will be working for the next two years. I won't know for a few more weeks where my site will be. Here's some Q & A:

What exactly will you be doing in Mali?

My official title is "agricultural extension volunteer." This means I will be working with the environmental side of the Peace Corps in Mali, and might be working with things like soil improvement and conservation, increasing and improving crop production in a sustainable manner, gardening, environmental education, agroforestry, irrigation, etc.

What language will you learn?

I don't actually know yet. While I have been practicing French with Rosetta Stone, I will most likely be learning a local language when I get to Mali. French will help me communicate with some people all around the country, but a local language will allow me to talk to most people at the site I will be working at for the next two years. I'll let you know what the language is when I find out.

Can I send you a letter?

Yes, please! I would love to receive mail, and will certainly write you back. Keep in mind that it can take a month or more for mail to arrive from the US, so be patient. I have heard that it is a good idea to write "air mail" on your letters/packages, and that if you send a postcard, you should put it in an envelope. If you want advice on sending packages, email me.

Here's my address for the next couple of months, I will have a new address when I move out to my site:

Ali Paulson, PCT
Corps de la Paix
BP 85
Bamako, Mali

Will you have internet access?

Yes, I'll have internet access, but I may not have it that often. I'll try to post on here once a month, but I can't promise anything. I should be able to check my email at least once a month as well. I'll know more when I find out where my site is.

How long will Ali be gone?

I leave on Tuesday July 7th, and will be in Mali until September 2011, 26 months total.

Where is that picture of the moon from?

I took that picture at the Festival au Desert (some cool videos here, click on the main one to get to some other YouTube videos) near Essakane, Mali in January 2009.

If you have any questions about Mali, the Peace Corps, or anything really, feel free to leave a comment and I will try to answer your questions in a future post! If you have trouble posting a comment, send me an email...there seems to be some quirkiness with the comment feature that I haven't figured out yet.

And now, to close out this first post...a cool Baobob tree that I took a picture of in Mali last January: