Fall

Well, it's officially autumn now and its signs are everywhere in the USA.  My baby sister is one month into college at St. Olaf where the trees are in peak fall-colors mode.  I have seen emails and pictures of pumpkins, sweatshirts, and leaf piles.  I have been checking on (unhappily after the Wisconsin loss) Nebraska Husker football scores.  Here, while it is autumn, there is no fall.  After rainy season, we are now in mini hot season before winter.  So it is back to 100-110 degree days.  Trees here are growing well, not shedding leaves.

Recently while trying to explain the autumnal climate in the USA, Anna told a Malian village woman that leaves fall off of the trees this time of year where we come from.  The response was priceless- the woman asked Anna, "Can you then gather them and eat them?"  Good question, I guess I don't know... 

(here there are many sauces for rice or millet dishes that are made primarily of leaves of various trees, there are also quite a few traditional medicines made with leaves, so her question was pretty reasonable, just funny for an American)

Anna's banana tree

slowly bringing out the camera

Dugutigi (Chief of our Village)

View of the Niger River from downtown in our village, unfortunately our mud house is not beach front

Public health, painting a mural at a health center

Mural audience

Traffic jam on a bridge

Moto Taxi- exactly what it sounds like

Mosquito nets ready to be distributed to all residents of the Segou region

Salim working the mosquito net distribution, families lined up to redeem their nets using a coupon system

Net distribution. These particular nets are treated with insecticide to kill the mosquito species that carries malaria.

Our front porch during a recent visit from a friend and fellow PCV

Village Holiday

So after the most recent posting, you must think that we (and all Malians) tiredly trudge through village one day at a time wishing that we could be transported to a more comfortable climate controlled, hard wired life. While thoughts like these do often cross our minds, in some ways life in Mali is just like life anywhere else - the monotony of daily life is occasionally warmly interruupted by a fun life event - weddings, baptisms, summer vacation and holidays.

The fasting month of Ramadan (called Sunkalo in Bambara) came to a close at the end of August. Breaking the month long fast of Ramadan (no food or water from 4am-7pm for a month!) is celebrated with a feast day (Seli Fitini in Bambara, Eid ul-Fitr in Arabic), one of the most celebrated holidays in Mali. The largest feast day here is known as Seli Ba and will take place in early November this year.

The village was buzzing in preparation for Seli a few days prior to the feast. Going to the market the Saturday prior to the feast was like being in a grocery store the day before Thanksgiving or a toy store on Christmas Eve - Never again. I'd rather skip my weekly banana purchase than walk through the village market prior to Seli. Having a new outfit made is quite common, especially for children. The owner and his apprentices at our favorite tailor shop literally spent the night at the shop churning out clothes the two nights prior to Seli...apparently kids will cry if their outfits aren't ready.

As with all feasts, an important aspect is FOOD. Here, this means lots of meat, an expensive treat not consumed on a daily basis. So when my work counterpart and neighbor (named Capi) told us that he and his coworkers were all chipping in to butcher a cow together, we signed up too. The night before Seli, Capi gave the following instructions to George -- Meet at a specific corner of the village at 7am tomorrow. We will be butchering the cow at 4am. Oh, and bring your own bucket to haul your meat. Don't bring a bucket that you use for drinking water or your water will forever have a lingering taste of beef carpaccio.  George arrived to watch the 2nd half of the butchering, which consisted of using an axe to cut hunks of beef off of a cow split open on the ground and then divide up piles of meat on a large mat to be put into buckets to take home.

The other most important aspects of Seli are - prayer and visiting family, friends and neighbors to give blessings.

Prayer takes place outdoors, in designated places in the village (known as the Seli Kene). Our village has 2 Seli Kenes, we went to the largest one, near the banks of the Niger River. Seli is lead by the Imam, men and women praying in designated areas, all at the same time at about 9am. After a quick scramble to find Bintu a head scarf we walked across town to the Seli Kene.

Following the public prayer, the rest of the day consists of greeting friends and family, showering others with blessings, eating meat and other treats, listening to music, playing cards and relaxing.

The villagers most excited about greeting and blessings are kids - during Seli kids go door to door wishing adults a happy, healthy feast day and many more to come. In return, kids are given pocket change or candy. It reminded us of Halloween in America, minus the costumes.

Survivor Man (and Woman)

Anna found this under a water container in the house; sharpie is there for perspective

Still wondering what we are up to?  Understandable question- there is a stereotype of some Peace Corps Volunteers doing quite a bit of vegging and not much work.  Well I can assure you, we don’t fall in this category, and nor do many of our fellow volunteers here.  Life is HARD here.  After posting a fair number of photos of our break weekends in the regional capitol, or our fantastic visit to the presidential palace, per suggestion from home (Margaret, I think you get credit?) it is time to give you a picture of our glamorous daily lives.

65% of our lives here are all about survival up to this point, honestly.  Our actual work is nowhere near 40 hours per week yet, as our language is still somewhat limited and so are our relationships with villagers.  But, if you are picturing a nice camping trip-esque life in the tropics with rice dinners and plenty of relax time, let me set your record straight.  To really picture this, think about your daily routine, then substitute items and scenery for ours here in Africa.

MORNING ROUTINE

The nyegen and your morning bucket shower, the hole on the left is for shower water, the right is the toilet

Ameriki: Wake up, get out of bed, relieve yourself, shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, make some coffee and breakfast, and then get in your car and head to work.

Mali: Wake up and get out of your mosquito net tent, dismantle it.  Go to the nyegen, our open-air latrine, and wash your hands afterward with a plastic teapot called a salidaga.  Go get water (see WATER below).  Pour yourself a bucket of water to take your shower, which is also done in the nyegen.  Brush your teeth, many Malians use sticks but I continue do the brush and paste routine.  Make some coffee (real coffee, thanks to packages from you!), ride your bike to the bakery to get a loaf of bread for breakfast- bread that is 24h+ old is generally moldy so you actually need to get this the day you want to eat it.  Look in your fridge for breakfast, psyche, no power=no refrigeration.  I recommend peanut butter on bread for breakfast.  Get dressed with your choice of outdoor clothes you brought from America or some Malian clothes.  Put on copious amounts of sunscreen.  Walk to work, sometimes in boots.

WATER

Coming back from the pump with 88lbs. of water

The pump

Ameriki: Want a drink, turn on the faucet.  Want to flush the toilet, well, flush it.  Want ice, open the freezer.  Want to water your garden, turn on the hose.

Mali: Want water, go get it from the pump or well.  We don’t have a well…yet (the landlord told us he would dig one after rainy season which will allow me to have a much bigger garden- happy face).  We do have a neighborhood pump, and there is a little lady who sits in front of it collecting $1 fees per month or 25 cents to fill an individual bucket.  To get your water, you need to buy a 20 liter empty cooking oil plastic container from the butiki for $1.  After cleaning these with soap and sand, you can put this on your wheelbarrow, cart, or carry in your hands during rainy season.  1 liter of water converts to 2.2 pounds (physics-inclined brothers, this probably depends on the temperature, right?) which means that carrying two of these is about 88lbs.  When you return, you can put some of this in your water filter and add a little bleach as an extra giardia-killing measure, and after 15 minutes drink away.  The remaining water in your plastic containers is for bathing, flushing, washing hands, washing clothes, washing dishes, and watering plants.  If you want ice, you can go look for the ice lady in the center of town who has a cooler of frozen baggies of water that have been transported into town from a big city down the road.

GOING TO THE STORE

Neighborhood butiki and the cashiers for the morning

Ameriki: Drive your car to the supermarket, Target, etc. and purchase away.

Mali: There are one room sheds, called a Butiki (Boutique said with a Malian accent) who have all of the soap, cigarettes, tea, nescafe, bags of sugar, few loaves of bread, mini bags of cooking oil that once lived in your water container, and a few other random items.  These all generally carry the exact same wares and can be found every 500 meters.  If you want anything else you go to the town market, where YOU are the spectacle.  You can eat whatever you bought in the market the previous day, as long as it is in-season.  You will need to make frequent trips because food storage is next-to-impossible.  There is one big market per week when you can get specialty items like those green peppers or bananas you have been coveting, but you should be ready to push and shove your way through the crowds and beware of aggressive old ladies.

I could keep going, but you would probably stop reading- transportation, animals, house repairs, seating, entertainment, etc.  You can see how some seemingly mundane parts of the day take significant time and effort.

I will never take electricity, running water, and transportation for granted again… or maybe I will, but at least not for a 6 months after we come back to Ameriki.

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A couple extra unrelated photos:



Storm rolling in, first dust, then rain

The street in front of our house in rainy season

 The street toward the pump

 Buses that we take to the regional capitol, I think they were purchased from greyhound 50 years ago

Month in Review

July Challenges -

Coming home after June's training session to a house that had been flooded after our village got 12.8cm of rain in one day. Moldy books, moldy clothes and a leaky roof. Weeks of working with our landlord and house repairmen. When rain falls on a mud house, small amounts of mud wash away as well, so parts of our house literally wash away whenever it rains.

Rainy Season + Rice Farming Season

People are in the fields all day every day as July-Sept is the peak in workload for rice farmers in our village. Almost everyone in our village owns a rice field or works in one, including govt officials, teachers, office workers etc. People are busy, tired and soggy which makes generating excitement to start new projects somewhat challenging.

Wuluwulu Ji
The liquid waste that drains from the nygen (bathroom) onto the street is called wuluwulu ji. When the rains fall, roads turn to rivers carrying the wuluwulu ji all over town.

Reasons Why We are Still Here -

Rainy Season
Wuluwulu ji aside, rainy season means that hot season has come to a close. Temperatures are more manageable, we see clouds on a regular basis and typically fall asleep to a breeze at night.

Basil etc.
Salim's garden is thriving which means tomato sauce with fresh basil. Pasta is available in any village here though the name for all pasta is "macaroni" regardless of the pasta's shape. The garden is still in its infancy, two large piles of compost are slowly cooking and will be ready for peak garden season in a few months. We are also growing a handful of trees thanks to seedlings donated by Bintu's work supervisor--mango, pomegranate, guava, flamboyant and a tree called moringa that Salim grew from seed.

Friends
As difficult as it can be to communicate in Bambara some days, we have been blessed with a very supportive network of hosts or friends in village. We have places to go to "hang out" instead of simply hiding out in our house waiting for the days to pass. Our friends are also supportive and willing to listen to us ask questions about the tough times we've had.

Dooni Dooni (little by little) things do get easier
We are gaining the confidence to work through things that were so challenging in the beginning--Bintu danced in the town square with a circle of women in front of hundreds of people during a celebration for Pan African Women's Day. It was one of the fastest ways to earn street cred from the most powerful women in village.
Salim lost his cell phone in a cab in Bamako and was able to call the phone, explain the situation to the person who found the phone and pulled a nearby construction worker into the conversation. The worker then sped off on his moto to retrieve the phone 5km away for a cash reward. Negotiations conducted 100% in Bambara.

It's impossible to sum up the entire month in a single post, but we tried our best to share the highs and lows. We are now headed back to village after a Bamako whirlwind wedding anniversary celebration weekend. In Bamako we attended the swearing in ceremony for the newest group of volunteers. The ceremony was held at the US Embassy (not quite as amazing as our ceremony at the president's house, but good nonetheless). We are now officially not the least experienced volunteers in country.

Thanks to a connection from Tom we were invited to a lunch event at the acting ambassador's house. It was enlightening to hear development workers' perspectives on Mali and the people at our lunch table enjoyed drilling us with questions about life in a real live village. The food - fantastic. Tables and silverware too.

We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary at a small hotel in Bamako and enjoyed a peaceful, quiet retreat. It's hard to imagine going through this experience solo, I am so thankful to be one of the few married couples here.

Work wise we are continuing to network in village and have started small projects, though it is too early to tell what will take off and what will flop.

The month of August this year is Sunkalo which means "fasting month" in Bambara (aka Ramadan). There is a celebration at the end of Ramadan followed by the largest feast day of the year in early November.

Signing off until next month.

Two Seasons

View from the house, hot season

View from the house, rainy season (now)

View from the front gate, hot season

View from the front gate, rainy season

We've done more in the past month than simply watch the grass grow.

Updates on the way.

Return to Village

After 3 weeks of technical training, we are 110% prepared to return to village and start our work. Confession: as we pack our bags to return to village today, I am anxious. I don't know if there will ever come a time in the next 2 years where I feel as if I am fully prepared to live and work in this country. Every day presents a new logistical challenge. Language, cultural integration or simply trying to figure out bus departure times -- tried to google the bus schedule, no luck. Nevertheless, waati sera (the time has come) to give it a try. We most likely will be out of contact until early August. Thanks to all of you for your letters, packages, text messages, prayers and other words of encouragement. *Bintu