I ni fama....(it's been a while)

I'm surprised that it's been so long since I have written something here. I have had internet on multiple occasions, and a lot has transpired over the last 4 months.

Following the festivities of the holidays, I sequestered myself in village for about a month to try and get some things accomplished, and to prepare myself, my hut, and my village for my parents' visit. The most notable thing about this time was that I was able to start a Water and Sanitation committee with help from my Director. Since then (for the most part) we've been having bi-weekly meetings to try and improve conditions in Dramétou.

As for my parents' visit: They came to Mali for 2 weeks in February and I am so proud of them! I came into Bamako to meet them and they were just thrown into West African craziness from the very beginning. One of the things I convinced them to do on their very first day in Africa was go to a market and pick out some wax print cloth to have made into traditional complets (outfits). I think Mom was more into it than Dad (big surprise!), but he was a trooper nonetheless. We walked around the part of town that I am most familiar with, met a lot of people in the Peace Corps office here that I work with, and adjusted to being in Mali together. It was certainly more of an adjustment for them than for me, but, well, you know how in middle school when you saw your teacher at the grocery store it threw you for a loop? That's a little bit what it was like for me seeing my parents in Mali.

After 2 nights and 1 day in the most westernized city in Mali, I once again pulled the rug out from under them and we left Bamako to head to site. Since Peace Corps was sending a car that way already, we were able to hop in and make the trip a little less foreign. We had an overnight stop in Manantali, which made me very happy since it is probably my favorite place in country, and then headed further north the next morning. In true Malian fashion, even though we were in arguably the most timely, safe, and reliable transport in Mali, with a great driver to boot, we ran into an extended delay merely 9 km away from Dramétou: the infamous ferry. As some of you may remember, I've run into problems with the ferry in the past, but this was possibly the most frustrating encounter, and amplified by the fact that I was feeling responsible for the well-being of Mom and Dad as well. Basically the ferry engine was broken, and had been for some time. However, they were still able to use it by having half a dozen guys with bamboo poles pull it across the river. Very very slowly. If only that were the only problem here....but no, it was also windy which meant that it was going to be even harder and slower. We ended up waiting for about 6 hours before the driver started to get nervous about being able to reach his final destination and I made a bit of a fuss as a result. (Talk to Mom and Dad if you need details....) We finally got across, got to Dramétou, and Mom and Dad got a taste of my little African life! We had a little dance party, some thatching of huts, some celebratory slaughtering of animals, some cooking of my favorite Malian foods and a few of my Mali-ized American ones, some sleeping under the stars and some long awaited time just hanging out with my parents. There were definitely stressful moments, since I was the only translator between them and the village and 3 people inevitably have more needs than I alone do, but I think it went really well and I am so happy that I was able to share Dramétou with them.

The trip back to Bamako was no more or less eventful than the trip up, but certainly different. It started out with a 9km donkey cart ride to the river, since there's really no other transportation option available for multiple people, then my friend Mori was waiting to take us across the river in his pirogue. We got the car the next 6km to Mahina with no problems, got our train tickets no problem, and, for the first time ever, the train was on time and we boarded for our 10 hour trip back to the city. Phew. If the return was any more difficult than the trip out it was the exhausting nature of 10 straight hours of being en route, and I know we were all really happy when we finally arrived safely in Bamako.

I allowed no time for them to catch their breath before we were on the road again in the morning, this time with a hired driver and headed east. The rest of the trip was up into Dogon country with side trips to Djenne to see the famous mosque and Mopti to get a slightly different glimpse of the bustle that is Malian commerce. For Dogon itself we had a great guide and a great group of people and then it came to an end and we headed back, once again, to Bamako.

So, I give myself, but especially Mom and Dad a big pat on the back for a good 2 weeks. We saw a lot of different aspects of the country, took a lot of different types of transport, met a lot of different fantastic people, and did a lot of catching up. Yay! And then we were exhausted...

After Mom and Dad took off to go back to the states, I took off to go back to village. Another month of the normal day to day life was enhanced by these committee meetings, and we put together a project to improve the situation. There's still some stuff that we need to hammer out, and there have been a few problems recently, but I'm *hoping* that we'll be able to pick it up in mid-June when I head back from........Ghana!
Yep, I'm going to Ghana next week for 3 weeks. I'm really excited because I haven't taken a real vacation since last September. Yes, I've left site for breaks many times, but this trip should include lounging on the beach, visiting my old site mate in bustling Kumasi and going on a mini safari to look at elephants. Woohoo!

The holiday season has come and gone, and it was fun while it lasted! It all kind of started as soon as I came back from America at the beginning of October, because everyone was excited to see me and hear about the wedding and my family, and has just continued on and on until now, alternating between Peace Corps/American parties and Malian ones. The next celebration was my birthday at the end of the month, which I came into Bamako for (as it was the big 25) and went out dancing until all hours of the morning. I followed that up with a Halloween party in Kita. I was a superhero, of course, and, yes, you can get red spandex tights with rhinestones in a Malian market. After that I had a short window of time back in village before leaving again for Thanksgiving. Every year Peace Corps volunteers do a sort of pilgrimage to Sikasso, otherwise known as 'the land of plenty,' for Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin and apple pies. This year was a little more complicated than most though. This year Tabaski, the biggest holiday of the year in Mali, was on the 28th of November, just 2 days after American Thanksgiving, which means there were a lot of volunteers (myself included) that wouldn't be able to attend. So we just moved Thanksgiving to a Monday. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and while some of you might horrified at the sacrilege, it was totally, deliciously, worth it.
After stuffing my face in Sikasso, I did my 2+ day journey back to site and arrived just in time to prepare for Tabaski, complete with henna on my feet and donning the special bezon clothing. Once again I stuffed my face and then went out and watched my village dance the night away.
After Tabaski was over I expected there to be a lull in village, like last year, but this was not the case. Mid-December we hit a week of part after party. Last year we didn't have anything like it, but first there was a party 'because the men fixed the road' and then we had a special chicken lunch to celebrate the 15-month mark of my service and then we had an engagement party for my host-neice and then we had another party 'because people are happy!' It was an exhausting week. That's right, all of that happened within a week. Talk about a lot of special food and a lot of dancing.
Finally, after all of that Malian celebration, I had a little bit of time to relax, and then I had to start getting ready for Christmas. I headed down to gorgeous Manantali and had a lovely Christmas by the river, complete with barbequed pig, cookies with rainbow chip frosting, and hot chocolate (yes, most of my delight in this holiday season involves food). After Christmas was over I headed into Bamako then the city of Koulikouro for New Year's celebrations, and met up a few friends for a lovely night of music and games with just a few people.
Now I'm getting ready to head back to village in the morning, and after all this partying, I am looking forward to a few weeks of settling into village, trying to work on some projects, and preparing for Mom and Dad's visit. Yay!

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!