Since Peace Corps prides itself on being a sustainable development program, there is a pretty common debate about providing funding. In a nutshell: if we are providing outside funding it is a one-time (or at least only during the volunteer’s service) thing and therefore not sustainable for the community, BUT there are a lot of projects that are not possible without some funding assistance. Most of the time we try to strike a balance between these two, requiring ‘community contribution’ in funding applications and promoting payback systems.
Many of you know how fiscally conservative I am (I have heard the word ‘stingy’ on occasion), so I find myself on the more conservative side of this debate. So far the stuff I’ve done in village has not technically required any funding: I’ve done classes with different groups in village using Peace Corps provided materials (paper, pens, etc.), and I inherited supplies from a soak pit project that a volunteer near me did. Even more so, I engaged in hundreds of conversations in stunted Bambara/Khassonke about simple sanitation interventions like washing your hands with soap.
After making it through the first year without asking for financial assistance, I came back from an extended period of time away from village and I found myself pulled in the direction of giving. Another volunteer has become involved in Global Smile, an organization that does free cleft-palate surgeries, and they have come to Bamako. As there is a girl in my village with this condition, I approached her family with information, telling them that if they were able to send her to Bamako for the week of the surgery that they wouldn’t have to pay the doctors. Since this time of year is not the most destitute, I thought it would be difficult but possible for them to find the money. I was apparently wrong. My emotions were all over the place: I had spent the last year avoiding giving money to my village, but here was this 13-year-old girl who had a pretty great opportunity (in my opinion) at very little comparative cost. After thinking long and hard about whether this would be a violation of my funding-related values and consulting a few friends, I decided to give it a go. My homologue, my church back home, and I created a payment plan that worked for the family, and on Thursday the girl, her older brother, and I took the train into Bamako.
Not only did I have some qualms about money, but there was also the possibility of the surgery not happening. If the girl was anemic, or had some other condition that might cause complications with the surgery she wouldn’t pass the health screening and would have to simply return home after having hopes deflate and unnecessary money spent as well as time away from work back in village. Since the diet here has made me anemic despite taking supplements in pill form and trying to eat nutrient rich foods whenever I’m outside of village, this was a significant concern.
Now for the good news: yesterday afternoon I found out that the girl, named Tagati, passed the screening and will have the surgery tomorrow! If everything goes well, she will be back to Drametou ahead of schedule and have a brand new smile to show off when she arrives! So, despite all the stress about money, the inevitable complications with transport (i.e. the train was running 10 hours late), and the many other things that could potentially cause failure, everything appears to be working out for the best.
Now if we can just get this soak pit project hammered out…..

My first year as a volunteer in Mali is coming to a close. As I prepare for a trip back to the states and help out with the training of new volunteers I'm evaluating my service thus far and planning for the future. (See I haven't changed that much!)
While I wish I had gotten more tangible work accomplished in the past year, I recognize that it was about a lot more than project work. I've become conversational in Bambara/Khassonke, I've developed friendships across cultural barriers (harder than I anticipated), and hopefully I've taught my village about sanitation. And I got one soak pit completed! Yay! With more in the works! Yay! I'm starting to feel competent in my Malian life, and as I answer questions for the new volunteers I realize how much I've learned. If I can learn a fraction of what I've gained this year in the upcoming one, I will be ecstatic. With my still improving language skills and increased cultural confidence, I anticipate my second year to be more obviously productive. Drametou and I have a lot of stuff in the works for my return and the end of rainy season, so here's hoping I go and return safely, and that my house and nyegen are still standing when I do - there were some heavy rains this weekend resulting in a lot of destroyed huts. And the wall of my nyegen lost some of it's outer coating of cement my last day in village before this trip. So we'll see. I think the time is going to fly by pretty quickly since I plan to be busier in the upcoming months and I've saved all my vacation days for my second year. My months in village have been flying by since the very beginning, but the past few months my days and weeks have been rapidly disappearing as well. I am approaching old age - or at least my Malian friends keep telling me how I need to get married and have kids before it's too late. Being nearly 25 I should have produced a couple of offspring by now - terrifying! I have been thinking about my big 'life picture' recently, since my brother is getting married, I have several friends back home who have bought houses, and I will be living in a mud hut in the African bush for another year. Honestly, I still wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Technically I'm a home-owner, too, my house just happens to be made of mud and thatch instead of wood, steel, or concrete.
I have been contemplating my return from Mali and how that may work out. At present there are two options at the forefront: some time working stateside before entering grad school or the option to extend in Mali for a third year and put the previous option aside for an additional 12 months. The former is more likely since the latter would require me to find work rewarding enough to justify another year without cheese.

Growing up, my mom told me I was special. In some ways, I now that's true, but in some ways I'm still just your normal middle-class white girl. And then I came to Mali. In Mali, I'm not just special. In Mali I am a BIG deal.

While I'm sure I've changed during my year in Africa, for the most part I'm the same girl I've always been, it's how I'm perceived that's changed so drastically. See, in Mali it's not what you've done but who you are that matters.

Let's start with my family connections:

In my village I have a host family that I spend time with every day, primarily mealtime, even though I have my own house. The patriarch of this family is the acting 'dugutigi' of Dramétou, which literally means 'village owner' but is essentially the chief. So, my dad is an African chief which makes me and African princess!

For those of you familiar with Malian custom, I also have a significant family name. I'm a Kanté, which makes me a blacksmith, which is by far the best group in Mali. All you donkeys and bean-eaters are my slaves.*

Next we'll address my appearance:

I am a pale Caucasian. Unfortunately, this makes it rather difficult to blend in visually and also causes most people to assume I am rich and speak French. Neither of these assumptions is correct, but the former results in automatic attention that goes beyond noticing the color of my skin. (Just imagine what they would think if I *gasp* showed my knees which haven't seen the sun since my arrival in Mali.)

This attention I receive can be obnoxious or great depending on the person. If it is a street beggar - obnoxious. If it is some random guy I've never met before that wants to marry me on the chance that I will take him back to whatever rich country I came from or just to show me off to all his friends - obnoxious. If it is a non-beggar who nonetheless thinks I want to throw away my (non-existent) riches on them and has no problem asking me for it - once again, obnoxious. Lest you start to identify a negative pattern here, I will now tell you that, despite the aforementioned annoyance, and the children who chant 'tubabu, tubabu' (white person, white person), being this 'tubob' has its advantages. It also causes me to be the recipient of friendly advances, largely unearned respect, and grins and waves from children (sometimes the same ones who chant).

Finally, there's my gender to consider:

I am female, and, when combined with my white skin, that opens a lot of doors. My site mate and I have identified what we refer to as the 'vagina discount.' Even though he gets the preferential treatment of a white person, I tend to be even more popular. I've gotten free stuff in shops, been bumped to the front of lines, and received lowered prices. Now, some women may be used to this, but I am not, nor have I done anything remotely resembling flirting in order to obtain these advantages. You may be thinking, okay, so that's nice and all, but aren't women in Mali pretty repressed? Don't I get less respect because I'm female? The answer is: yes, sometimes, but the vast majority of the time the disadvantages associated with my gender are trumped by my race. Another term we use here is the 'third sex' phenomenon. White women are kind of a different category. People recognize that tour cultural background does truly set us apart from the typical Malian woman** and I have participated in things a Malian woman never would, like constructing a house and going fishing. Yet, I am also obviously not a man so I can also enjoy the advantages of being female. I've often thought it must be harder to be a male volunteer here, because it would be so hard to connect with the women, whereas I have largely felt accepted in groups of both genders.

These 3 factors are things completely out of my control, and in some ways I am ashamed of them. My cultural upbringing has taught me to believe in what I am capable of achieving regardless of who I happen to be. However, the things I have achieved have brought me where I am (that's Mali, for those of you not paying attention), so I am going to use all the tools at my disposal to try and achieve a successful 2 years of service.

So - when I come back to the states for a visit or for good, please be patient with my inflated ego.

*This is all just part of the 'joking cousins' aspect of Malian culture. People regularly refer to other ethnic groups as donkeys, bean-eaters, and slaves, but it truly is all in good fun and even a good way to diffuse a tense situation with laughter.

**GAD (Gender and Development) is just getting off the ground here in Mali as an effort to empower women and other disadvantaged populations. Thank you Caroline and Amber!

Just in case some of you were worried about my health care, I have a little story to share.

Thursday night I had just gone to bed when I felt a pain in my back. I tossed and turned for a while thinking I was just laying funny or something, but the pain just kept increasing no matter how I changed position. Two hours later, after some other unpleasant symptoms and increased pain, I had moved to the harder surface of my bento outside, and was thinking of kidney stones and appendicitis. (I know virtually nothing about anatomy, so these were both pretty wild guesses.) Since I know nothing about either of these conditions and didn't feel like I was capable of diagnosing and treating myself under the circumstances I was also checking my phone constantly to see if I had enough reception to call the health center. Thankfully I'm one of the lucky volunteers who has 30 second windows of cell phone coverage scattered throughout the day, and I was able to get through to Bamako. Now, if some girl out in the African bush called to wake me up in the middle of the night with abdominal pain I would have been kind of upset with her, but our PCMOs are far more sympathetic than I. She not only suggested I come into Bamako, but also arranged for a car to drive all the way out to pick me up (about 16 hours round trip). The response from my friends and family in village was just as supportive - after hearing me on the phone in the middle of the night, the family I live with realized something was wrong and went to tell my host family. After a small group had gathered around me, offering blessings and rides into the hospital in Bafoulabé, I was finally able to fall asleep. They did not. Instead I know that my host father spent the night in a chair by my side and my friend Gundoba (the mother of the family I live with) couldn't sleep either because she was worried about me. Gundoba even admitted to crying a little because I was - and this is a pretty big deal in Mali, since crying is mostly reserved for little kids and funerals. My host father's vigil took a short break in the early morning, but then he returned to wait with me until the car arrived.
Does anyone remember that episode of friends when Phoebe is giving birth and Joey has 'sympathy pains' that end up being kidney stones? Well, apparently life imitates art. (That's right, I'm calling 'Friends' art. Suspend your disgust for a bit and appreciate the metaphor.)
While I was curled up in the fetal position outside, my cat Basi was giving birth inside. 24 hours prior I was still a little upset with her for getting pregnant at such a young age, but the cuteness factor of 4 tiny little mewling hours old kittens has a cathartic effect! And it took my mind off of me and my own pathetic state...
Unfortunately I had to leave my new little babies behind and head to Bamako. The car never actually made it to my village, because the ferry was broken somehow (again?!) and they couldn't cross the river. Instead I got special permission to ride on the back of a moto to the river, provided I wore my bike helmet for safety of course. I got to the river safely, avoided getting completely ripped off by the pirogue drivers who were trying to convince me that since I was in a bit of a hurry I should have to pay 5 times as much, and successfully made it to the car on the other side. Thanks to significantly diminished pain, the car ride was uneventful.
On a Saturday morning in Bamako there's not a lot open, but I was able to get all the appointments I needed, and now I'm stuck in the city until Tuesday (they observe Africa Day on Monday) so that we can make sure everything is back in order.
Moral of the story: Make sure you stay super super super hydrated at all times especially if you have a pregnant friend or cat!

I’ve spent the last 3 weeks traveling around Mali, and it’s been amazing!
Following my last posting, my friend Audra and I took the train back to my site where she spent a few days helping me get used to village again and then returned to her village over in the Sikasso region. I had decided to spend 9 straight weeks at site, only leaving to go to market in Bafoulabé every 10 days or so, and the plan was to use that time for a series of educational meetings. I wanted to do one session a week with two separate groups for the men and women in Dramétou, and after a couple weeks of preparation and delays my two homologues, Sané Kanté and Modibo Dembélé, and I started meeting with members of my village. Due to multiple delays the women’s group was much more successful than the men’s and they even expressed interest in continuing to meet while I was gone. Despite my still limited language skills I feel that I can count the “formations” as a success, and I hope that the things that we talked about during the sessions (mostly diarrhea prevention) will act as a catalyst for community initiated development. Inchallah!
Since I was only doing the sessions weekly I also had a lot of time for other things. I’ve been experimenting a lot baking without an oven (there’s a lot of flipping involved as well as messing around with lids and temperatures - basically I have to stand there the whole time so it’s really hot work, especially now during the hot season…), and I’ve even used my solar oven successfully once with hopes for a repeat not yet achieved. I also planted a garden, which promptly got attacked by chickens and mice, decimating my tomato and carrot sprouts (damn!). Fortunately my moringa survived and has inspired quite a bit of interest amongst friends and acquaintances – hopefully that interest will expand beyond just amazement that the Ameriki muso can actually grow something! I also managed to get my house reroofed and new doors put on my hut. All in all I feel like a lot got accomplished in those nine weeks, especially considering the pace of Mali that I’m still getting used to!
At the end of those nine weeks I said good bye to my village for a while and headed down to Manantali to celebrate Jewish Passover with a few friends. Jake Asher, the volunteer from my training class that lives closest to me put together a truly impressive celebration. After some time there, all of us headed for Bamako, with Jake planning to get off in his village along the way, and we left the house at 5:45 on Easter morning. After getting to the bus station we all loaded our bags onto the top of the bus (next to the ram that was also tied up there) and then waited for our names to be called so that we could board and pick out our seats….and waited….and waited. About 3 ½ hours later we finally left and arrived in Bamako about 9 hours later, and my seat mate got peed on by the sheep directly above his window a whopping 4 times. 10 points for Malian transport!
I spent one night in Bamako loading up on food that’s not couscous, rice, or nyelenkino (I have no idea what it would be called in English – sorry kids), and then was able to take Peace Corps transport out towards my friend Gemma’s village. We rode bike’s the 6km from the paved road out to her village, and I, in my infinite grace, wiped out in a sand pit on the way and barked up my arm pretty well. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective and level of self-consciousness) we were just on the outskirts of Kouro, so I was able to clean myself up right away and then spend the next few days hanging out with Gemma and her friends in village before we headed back towards Bamako on our way to our friend Kira’s site of Faragouran. We were also there for a couple days, in which we watched a couple soccer games, I was able to do a little bit of technical exchange thanks to her current soak pit, wash area, and potable water project, and also got to spend more time catching up. The three of us headed back into Bougani together, with Kira going directly back to her village, Gemma staying the night with me at our friend Jacqueline’s before going back to Kouro, and me getting on a bus for Sikasso.
Since I recently lost my phone, my arrival in Sikasso was a little stressful. I didn’t really know where I was going, so I told the taxi driver to take me to the mission next to my friend Diane’s house and then the plan was to ask around for the ‘white woman’s house.’ Unfortunately there is more than one mission in her part of town, so the people I was asking had no idea who I was talking about. I eventually went into a payphone shop and she had to bike across town to rescue me, but everything worked out anyways. Diane and I left the next morning to go down to visit our friend Beatrice, who was doing a formation in her village. We observed her and her crew in action for a while and then headed over the nearby waterfalls, which were spectacular (if you have facebook you can check out a few of the 70 pictures that I took there…), and then headed back to Sikasso to help one of the new volunteer transfers from Madagascar settle into to her new house there. The next day I hit the road again and went up to Koutiala, where I waited for my friend Audra to get back from a visit with her boyfriend and spent the afternoon with another volunteer, Maridee, at the house there. Audra and I then went to her village for a day before returning to Koutiala, where I finally had a completely relaxing day of no travel and no technical exchange. After that I was on the road again, this time up into the Segou region. I had to transfer in the city of San, but I went all the way to my friend Alaric’s site that day, including a10km bike ride. After a couple days there I got back on the road, and after a short night in Bamako I was back on the road on my way to Kita.
In Kita I was able to see a bunch of my friends, because we were doing a 2 day IST that went fairly well, and now I’m finally getting ready to go back to village. Yay! I have had a really busy, but really great time seeing new parts of the country and catching up with friends, but I truly miss my friends in village, and am looking forward to some down time as well as starting some new work ideas that developed over my 3+ weeks away. Dramétou here I come!

My in-service training is officially over. For the last 3 weeks I’ve been at the Tubaniso training center with all of the people from my stage doing follow-up studies, and for the last week all of our homologues have been here with us. It was quite the experience, I learned quite a bit, and now I’m heading back to site with a ton of ideas swarming my brain. The best thing about the whole experience, though, is not how much knowledge I gained, but rather how I’ve been re-inspired to help my community. It’s not that I was down-trodden before, but after sitting in village for 4 months the honeymoon period of being in Africa (!) was beginning to wear off. I’d like to think that we’ve now moved into a more mature state in our relationship, if you will… My friend Audra, who lived with me in Sinsina will be going back to site with me tonight on the train. I’m very excited for her to come visit and see Dramétou, and I think it will help my transition from seeing 70 Americans every day and speaking English for 3 weeks to living in village. We stayed in Bamako last night for one last evening with a few friends (watching the Superbowl, actually – it’s amazing how much American culture I’ve packed in this month) before we once again scattered across the country.
All of the volunteers here in Mali were invited to the American Club here in Bamako to watch the inauguration of President Obama, and I think everyone from my stage and a few others went. It was exciting to see and I’m grateful that I was able to watch both the election and the inauguration – two things that I don’t think I watched in entirety until this year, but both of which have taken on greater importance now that I’m out of the country. I would have to say that the inauguration was more fun though, since we were basically at a clubhouse with burgers and a bar, whereas I watched the election lying on a foam mattress on a Malian friend’s living room floor until 3 in the morning.
Yesterday I went back to Sinsina, my homestay village, with fellow Sinsina-kaw Audra and Dave. We’d always been taken in Peace Corps transport before, so it was a little complicated getting to and from village (multiple bachees), but I’m so glad that we went. My Bambara is better than it was when I left 4+ months ago, so I was able to chat fairly well, and it was really nice to see and be seen. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back again sometime in the course of my service, maybe at the 1 year mark or so…
I may not be able to achieve internet access again until April, but I still love to hear your comments and I will write again as soon as I can!

While my ‘American’ holidays were spent with my fellow American PCVs, I chose to spend my ‘Malian’ holidays in village. I’m actually a little worried about the fact that these two schedules happen to coincide in the same period of time, because with all 6 of these celebrations occurring during my first 4 months at site, how am I going to party for the next 8? I’m sure we’ll figure something out…
My first feti in village was the feast at the end of Ramadan. For the month of September, give or take a few days, a large number of people in my village fasted. A lot of women and most of the children don’t fast for various reasons, but the majority of the men don’t eat or drink from sunrise until sunset, despite that fact that they were still working in the fields. I did not fast, not being Muslim and all.
My second feti in village was Tabaski, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and the sheep given by God/Allah to save Isaac. We therefore killed not only sheep in village, but also a cow. I was really interested, so I asked my host dad if I could go with him to get our family’s portion of meat. I followed him out to the dirt square in the middle of town where, spread on top of a sheet of corrugated metal and 2 cow hides, there were about 45 individual piles of meat and organs to be divided among the 32 concessions in my village – some families are much larger than others and presumably got multiple piles. The men who were making the piles tried really hard to make sure that each of them got the same share of heart, liver, intestine, etc. on top of the actual meat, and then when that was all complete my dad went out and pointed to the pile he wanted. He got to select our pile first since he is the dugutigi, or chief of the village, and I think that’s why he also wanted to stay and supervise the rest of the proceedings. I headed back to their concession with my nephew to deliver the beef (plus some various chunks of non-meat cow product) to my sister, and then she taught me how to prepare it Mali style.
My third feti in village was New Years. I had been invited to a party near Bafoulabe, but I asked my family whether it was celebrated in village, and, being told yes, I decided to stay there. Silly me, I thought New Years was celebrated on December 31st/January 1st, but I ignorantly didn’t remember that the traditional Malian calendar is based on the lunar cycle, so we instead had our annual chicken dinner on the 5th.
Now you may be saying to yourself, thanks Karmen, but what does it mean to feti in Mali? Well, in my experience it mostly just means that you get to eat meat. Those 3 holidays I mention above are the only times I have had meat in village. Ramadan there was also some praying, blessing, and greeting in new clothes around the village to accompany the day-long meat consumption, but the New Years celebration was pretty much confined to my chicken and rice dinner. Tabaski, however, was a big affair. I actually got henna put on my feet, along with a lot of the women in Drametou, and they also braided their hair especially for the day. Since I just look bald and tend to burn my scalp, (spring training in Phoenix, as you may recall, was painful shortly afterwards,) I declined the offer to braid my hair in cornrows. I did however get a new complet made, which matched a bunch of other women in my host family, and I wore it that evening for the dancing. Malian women are apparently all amazing dancers. We imported some drummers for the music and then there was one giant drum which had to be reheated over the fire several times through the evening to keep the head tight, and the only other instrument was a cow bell. The women would sometimes sing along, but what I enjoyed the most was the dancing. I went out to the square in a procession of women following the drummers, and I intended to just watch, but was persuaded to dance a few times as well. Most of the time a couple women would go out in the circle together and shake their groove thing, but there were also a few individual performances and a few group dances. All of them were impromptu, and all of them put me to shame. Thanks to band, I’ve always thought I had a good sense of rhythm even if I was lacking in the dance moves, but I’ve got nothing on the women of Drametou. It was spectacular getting to watch them jump, sway, and bounce in the firelight, and even my 3 months of African dance class my last term at the U of O couldn’t begin to prepare me for it. They manage to dance beautifully even with an infant strapped to their back – amazing!

Wow – I can’t believe my Peace Corps service is 1/6th complete….well, complete is the wrong word, but I think you know what I mean. Since I haven’t been able to write since mid-September, I have many stories and experiences to share, far too many for one entry, so I’ll try to hit the highlights for you:

Perhaps the most significant event which I could possibly articulate is that I am now a mother. In mid-November I adopted a little girl who has become a daily joy (and frustration). I’ve named her Basi, which means both couscous and trouble depending on the context, and it’s proven to be appropriate for both, considering our diet and her precocious nature. She’s mostly white with some black patches and has become quite the mouser in the last few weeks, for which I am incredibly pleased (this was perhaps my main reason for getting her). She also curls up in my lap on a regular basis while I’m reading or writing, sleeps on my chest while I nap, and just generally gives me the affection I’ve been craving. She’s also well known throughout my village and if she happens to stray too far from my concession a small boy usually finds her and brings her straight back to me, which is unnecessary but very sweet and they always look so proud of themselves for helping me!

Other animal news: One night during my first month at site I was sitting in my concession studying after dinner when I caught motion at the edge of my lamp light. I stood up to confirm my suspicion, and, yep, there was a giant green mamba crawling across the compound. My surprise and poor language skills only allowed my to shout “Sa file!” (“Look a snake!”) to the woman in my concession who caught its fleeing tail in the beam of her flashlight as it rounded her kitchen hut. She, in turn, notified the men in the village and they set out to kill it before it got too close to small children or livestock. I, in the meantime, went into my hut to try and wrap my head around what I had just seen and only emerged after I could hear a group of people gathered outside. Shortly after I joined my village outside the dead snake was brought back on a stick, paraded a bit and then probably eaten. I’ve since then had one much smaller snake crawl through a small hole in my screen door as I watched, but it was quickly dispatched of as well. I have heard talk of many other snakes in the village, but I’m ok with only having seen the two.

I’ve taken 3 multi-day trips from my site in the last 4 months, all of which were a nice break from village life. In October I biked down to Manantali with my fellow volunteer, Brooke, which was a much more traumatizing ride than I had anticipated. The trip was just under 100 kilometers for me, more than twice as far as I’ve ever biked in one sitting before. The first 2 hours were really pleasant, with gorgeous scenery and pleasant temperatures, but the next 6 started to really suck. The weather was just getting hotter, the entire trip was upstream along the Bakoye and therefore slightly uphill the whole way, and I was just not quite prepared for that kind of endurance. Fortunately the next 4 days spent at the Peace Corps house in Manantali were run and relaxing and I definitely took a bush taxi back…
For Thanksgiving I took the train up to Kayes to meet up with a different group of volunteers at the house there. Kayes is the hottest inhabited city in the world, so I’m glad it was the cold season, but it was still significantly warmer than my village. Kayes, being so much bigger than Manantali, and on an important route, is much more of a city, so I was even able to partake in some soft-serve ice cream while there. For Christmas I met up with people again in Manantali, and, like Thanksgiving, feasted and celebrated the holiday amongst friends.