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

Development Work

Humble beginning of a tree nursery in our compound...

Before coming here to Mali, I thought about how exciting it would be to come to a developing country and about all of the big projects I could do to revolutionize a developing community.  Well, 5 months later, while I haven't figured it ALL out, I am here to tell you that was a little naive.

After a fantastic presentation by a third-year volunteer on development work in our final training, I feel compelled to explain our roles here as development workers in order to:
1. help you understand what we hope to accomplish in these two years
2. to weigh in on what I think development projects and charity organizations roles SHOULD BE in changing the world

Below are my thoughts on that presentation* with some observations we have made in our community.

There are many charity organisations from all over the world here with a strong presence in many areas of the country, including our town.  Many of these organisations have a reputation for driving around in white SUVs and providing big money projects to communities such as building health centers or buying tractors.  Some Peace Corps volunteers take this approach to community development, and use some of the fund-raising resources we can access in order to do big projects in their communities.

While these big projects are sometimes successful and can be done properly, they are often not sustainable, or worse, have negative impacts on a community.  Let me provide a few examples that we have seen thus far to illustrate:

1. Building a new village maternity center- A fellow volunteer in my training group returned from her village and told us this story: She arrived in her village for the first time and discovered a fairly new, beautiful maternity center.  The only problem was, nobody was using it.  With no supplies, not enough staff, and a lack of funds to run the center, it has stood vacant.  This building stands as a monument to failure in her village and nobody is healthier for it.   

2. Computer center- With my experience as a software application trainer I was very excited to hear that there would be a computer center in our town.  This center was built and funded for a time by a famous international organization that operates in our village.  When we arrived we found that the computer center had shut its doors.  While there is a great demand for computer literacy in the community, there is not regular or reliable electricity.  The computer center runs on a generator, which requires expensive gasoline; therefore it doesn't run and only was used for a little more than a year until the funds for gasoline ran out.  Another great idea in theory, but putting the cart before the horse without a longterm plan for affordable access to energy.

3. School supply drive- Many well-intentioned school, church, or other groups organize supply drives to send say notebooks (to use our presenter's example).  Consequently, families here can sometimes expect to recieve free handouts of these items, and not purchase them when there is a need or devalue the item in the eye of the recipient.  Also, for the community, whoever may expect to gain income from selling this item finds themself out of luck when a big shipment arrives.  Finally, when this shipment doesn't come on a regular basis, it is a setup for future letdown.

4. Big farm machinery- In my short time here, I have seen a handful of big tractors and other machines sitting dormant in stark contrast next to a mud house.  After many years of working with rudimentary tools, you can imagine what it might be like for a third world farmer to see some magical machine that can do the work of many people in a fraction of the time, in fact you probably would really want one.  Well, many people do- almost half of our group of 60+ trainees has been solicited to buy a tractor for their community already.  How do you go from using basic equipment to a tractor?  Who provides training to drive the vehicle, funding for gas and repairs, where do repairs get done, and so forth and so on.  This is a problem of scale and again sustainability.

(for the record: there ARE other success stories of all four of the above in the Peace Corps, and other big projects here in Mali and elsewhere in the developing world, but this is a message of proceeding with caution and doing the necessary homework)

In many conversations that we have had with Malians, they will immediately say that the solution to many of the local problems are all of the above projects, they want: buildings, supplies, machines, etc.  However, after digging deeper, one can see there is a need for more basic community improvements and knowledge.

If these don't work, then what does?  It starts with REAL understanding of the community.  It is difficult to know what a community really needs and wants without a deep understanding.  Luckily, living in a community for 2 years, speaking their language, and doing what the people do is a pretty good strategy (maybe I am a little biased toward the Peace Corps) for a deeper understanding. 

So for the forseeable future, you won't see any big projects in the works for us.  We are starting small.  We will be doing presentations on how to prevent illness, providing demonstrations on things like making soap or improving porridge to be more nutritious, talking to small organizations about budgets and basic accounting, and drinking a great deal of tea with our community.  We need to improve our language, get to know people better in the community, and ask many questions.

Longterm success means local buy-in to projects and community improvement.  There are so many local resources untapped here, both in people and things.  If we can connect one Malian with a good idea, or a better way of doing something with other Malians in the community we will have made a positive difference.  So much aid to Mali, and specifically to our community has done a great deal of good work, but it can also create a culture of waiting for handouts for some of the people we encounter, and this needs to change. Capacity building, small projects, and tapping existing community resources are the best work that we can hope to do.  This is our work.

*This is in no way a new idea, and there are various books on this approach to development, including one oldy-but-goody referenced in our presentation called Two Ears of Corn by Roland Bunch

Fruit by the Foot - Village Style

Food Security is a major initiative for Peace Corps in Mali (and other PC countries). Essentially the concept of food security is anything that has to do with improving availabilty, accesibilty or utilization of food. We are just now reaching the end of mango season here. During peak season, the country explodes with mangoes. No joke. In some regions mangoes go to waste when everything ripens at the same time. Supply far outweighs demand and infrastructure is not in place to preserve fresh produce.

So...I decided to try my luck at drying mangoes in an effort to have better access to mangoes in the off season and possibly share this approach with those in my village. My first attempt at drying mango slices ended in a chewy and dusty mess. Turning to fruit leather was a vast improvement.

As mango season is winding down I will have to put this project on the back burner until next season. But when mango season rolls around next year I'll be ready.

Start with 3 softball sized mangoes. Not too hard, not too soft. 

Cube.

Add 1 spoonful of sugar per mango, a bit of water and bring the fruit to a boil. As it heats, the fruit will soften into a sauce. I used a fork to mash up any stray chunks.

Remove sauce from heat and let cool.

 Pour sauce onto a lightly greased tray.

Cover in a way that still allows air flow. The contraption I used is something that Malian women use to sift rice or millet. The sifter is for sale in our village market daily.

Find a hot dry place to dry. During hot season with temps reaching +110 degrees most days this was not difficult to find. I chose our front yard. Drying took approx 2.5 days.

Once fruit is dried, remove cover. Check for dust or bugs. Rinse off if necessary and allow to dry again. Cut off the edges.

Cut into strips.

Voila!

Work

As fun as it is to see photos of donkeys and women carrying produce on their heads, a few of you have mentioned that you don't exactly understand what we are actually doing in Mali as it relates to work and community development.

Past: Just finished our first 2 months of cultural integration at site. Main goal was to improve language skills, get to know members of the community and identify needs in the community.  Bintu had a report to complete inquiring about various aspects of the community.  Salim had to complete a door-to-door sample survey of families' knowledge of diseases and prevention strategies.

Present: We are in Bamako for a 2 weeks of technical training. Our Malian work counterparts come for the 2nd week of training.

Future: July 2011 forward, Salim will work in Health Education, Bintu will work on Small Enterprise Development. The work we do in these fields is known as our "service." We are also able to take on secondary projects as needed (the most effective and happy volunteers here usually have their hands in many types of work including stuff that is unrelated to their formally assigned area).

Bintu's Service:
Working with a group of 51 rice farmers who have received monetary and equipment loans from a Malian agency that promotes business development and entrepreneurship among "youth" (anyone under 40). Here is a link to the agency's website. The farmers themselves are interested in learning about different distribution channels to sell their rice, improved farming techniques, and/or working to acquire larger machinery in order to farm more efficiently. The "off season" for rice farming is Feb-June and the farmers have also expressed interest in finding other business ventures to generate supplemental income during the off season. My work counterpart is the president of this group of 51. As secondary activities I will be working with women's associations. These are typically a group of 15-25 women who meet to save and borrow money weekly. The associations essentially function as a mini credit union/microfinance institution. Sometimes the women also pool their savings in order to start business ventures together.

Salim's Service:
Working with the local clinic (CSCOM or Centre de Sante Communautaire) to assess the community's main health issues and and work to provide education on prevention.  The goal areas for Mali in general are: maternal and child survival, disease prevention, and organizational and institutional development.  Some of the common activities that volunteers have done in this sector are: animations (an interactive demonstration on a health topic, such as making improved porridge or how to prevent malaria), doing a radio show on health topics, partaking in vaccination campaigns (ex. polio), doing baby weighing to monitor malnutrition, and doing prenatal consultations at the health center.

This health center is actually quite well staffed by Malian standards (one doctor, one resident, one nurse, one formally trained midwife, two trained-on-the-job midwives, one technician, one pharmacist, and many nurses in training), there is also a regional hospital in our town where complex problems can be referred.  As opposed to the tiny villages where many other health volunteers work with NO health centers, there is fairly good access to care here.  My challenge will be deciding where I can be impactful.  I work with a retired school teacher who is a community Relais (volunteer, trained-position providing basic community health information and care).