Rob McCann- Peace Corps Mali Volunteer

Checking Out

2008-09-04T13:36:00.001Z

hello hello hello.
So my time here in Mali is officially coming to a close on Friday. Last Tuesday we had a party in Madoubougou, and then on Thursday I left there for the last time. I had been bringing out my stuff a little at a time for the last month, and my host dad strapped the rest of it onto the back of his motorcycle. I drove my bike, and we went to the highway together to catch a bus to Sikasso. The goodbyes were kind of weird in a sort of anti-climatic way because an old lady had died the night before- everyone's mind was on that and I felt bad about taking off but we had everything ready to go so i just left. Very surreal really... I feel like I could just be going back tomorrow... but I won't :) Anyways I got to Sikasso just fine and now I've been in Bamako this week getting ready to go. Submitting final reports and getting papers signed and medical clearance, etc, etc, etc. Fun stuff.

Then on Saturday I start the road home... sort of :) First a group of us guys leaving PC together are taking a vacation down to Cote d'Ivoire. We'll be there 2 weeks, mostly just enjoying the beaches. We're leaving most of our stuff here in Bamako while we go to Cote, so I'll fly back here and spend 3 more days in Africa before finally heading to the States. I get to Washington, DC on September 23! I'll spend a week there with Kylee and see countless other RPCVs from Mali, so that should be fun. Then it's off to Grand Rapids, Michigan to see the newest Dr. McCann (my sister Michelle). Mom can't wait to see me, so she's going to meet us there, too :) After all that i head to Minneapolis on October 12 for a couple of weeks hanging out with Carrie P and everyone else that's ended up there (and anyone who just can't wait 'til i get to GF!) Then I'll head up to Grand Forks at the end of the month and will finally see good old North Dakota again in less then 2 months!

so... yeah. It's weird to be leaving this place that has become like home and so many friends and so many things I thought I'd be happy to leave but now know I'll miss... but I'm excited to see everyone in the States and to see what lies ahead on the road... and I'm terrible at endings but this is the end of this blog and I don't know what else to say except... see ya around!

Look I’ve got pictures!

2008-05-19T17:42:00.004Z

Here's a few pictures from the last couple of months, including my new house (finally) and the cereal grinder!

- a woman taking millet to the grinder

- the battery charger and batteries (picture's on its side...)

- right to left: the “rice mill” that shells rice and breaks down corn and millet into small bits; the motor; the “flour” mill, with “the experienced guy” helping a woman operate it

- view from the back. the barrels are the reserve water for the motor’s cooling system

- the experienced guy and a Madoubougou woman operating the grinder (pic on its side... sorry)

- my favorite old guy in village
- taking down my old, broken house- removing the roof
- taking down my old, broken house- breaking down the walls while trying to save the bricks to build the new house…
- the empty spot where my house once stood :(
- and my new house… pretty much the exact same thing, but hopefully a bit more sturdy…

Oh How The Time Flies When You’re Havin’ Fun…

2008-04-14T12:56:00.002Z

…Or something like that. Either way I don’t have much time left in Mali. Our Close Of Service Conference is coming up at the end of June, at which we find out the exact date that we leave Mali- mine should be sometime in September. The last few months have been really busy, which makes the time feel like it’s going that much faster. In December my family came to visit, and in February my friend and fellow PCV Grace came, too. Since December my women’s literacy class has ended and the cereal grinder project has technically been finished. I also went to a training on tree grafting and shea tree management and put together a training for the Sikasso region on high quality shea butter production.

My family coming to visit was something I’d been looking forward to for a long time. My mom, dad, sister and Carrie all arrived in Bamako one night, and you could tell they had had a long trip. (I’m not gonna lie- I’m cracking up right now just thinking about the looks on their faces!) We then proceeded to go on a whirlwind tour or Mali: relaxing at a dam south of Bamako; seeing Sikasso and the waterfalls near my site; spending the Muslim holiday of Tabaski in Madoubougou; taking a boat trip on the Niger River; visiting Dogon Country; and shopping and relaxing in Segou and Bamako. For me it all really was a blast. Being able to show 4 of the most important people in my life where I’ve been living and what I’ve been doing was truly amazing. Even with the language barrier, it was pretty cool for me to be able to introduce my Malian community and my family to each other. Everyone in Madoubougou still talks about it practically everyday.
Our ride on the Niger and trip to Dogon County was the first time I’d done either. My family probably wished that I’d known better what I was getting us into, but we survived :) The boat on the Niger was not exactly what any of us had expected, and I think Carrie in particular was ready to kill me when we stopped to spend the night on the shore (some might say “rock”) a few hundred meters downwind from drying fish (some might say “rotting”). There’s really no other way to see that part of Mali, though, and it really was pretty cool. Most of the trip was on what is called the Niger Inland Delta, and we spent the night at Lake Debo. It’s a gorgeous river valley with little fishing villages scattered along the way, a couple of which had beautiful mosques to add to the scenery.
Dogon Country lived up to its hype from the tourist guide books, too. Some of us (eh-hem… that’s a subtle throat clearing noise, p.s.) weren’t in quite as good of shape as hiking through Dogon (and really getting to see all of it) requires, but we were able to get the gist of it in the 2 days we spent there. The terrain is picturesque, and the culture is interestingly unique. But after 1 day of walking down the cliff and through a couple of villages, we were ready to move on and spend their last few days in Mali relaxing a bit and making sure they all had some souvenirs to bring home. All in all my family did really good dealing with all the tiring little annoyances Mali can throw at a person, and I can’t blame them for being ready to get back to America by the end of their trip!

A month later I got another visitor, my friend Grace. As some of you know, she is a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bulgaria, and it was fun for us to compare the 2 countries as well as our experiences in them. Of course there are many obvious differences between Mali and Bulgaria. Grace left freezing winter weather to come enjoy the beautiful February sun of Mali. She lives in a cement block apartment with internet; I live in a mud hut with a hole in the ground outside for a toilet. Bulgarians generally love to drink booze; Malians for the most part are strict enough Muslims to stay away from it. And she can dye her hair dark and dress in the right clothes to blend in as a Bulgarian pretty well; I stick out like a sore thumb no matter what. However, we spent a lot of time talking about the role of Peace Corps in our respective countries, the difficulties and joys of the languages, the ups and downs of dealing with a foreign culture, the things we miss about the States, and so on.
So anyways, Grace got into Bamako a few days before the music festival in Segou started, and we had some time to kill. Unfortunately the day she flew in I came down with the Triple Crown of stomach illnesses- giardia, amoebas, and bacterial dysentery. Not fun. I’ve gotten used to being sick here, but I felt bad for Grace that her first 3 days in Mali were spent mostly in our hotel room, the PC bureau, and the PC med. office. Luckily I was feeling better by the first night of the Festival sur le Niger, which turned out to be excellent. My favorite living Malian artist, Habib Koité, played that first night and only fell in the river once… yup, he fell in the river. But he kept right on playing afterwards like it was no big deal- it really wasn’t- and put on a good show. The other big name there was Salif Keita, and he was pretty good. Watching him reminded me of seeing Bob Dylan in concert, though, in that he’s way past his prime and too old for live shows, really, but still fun to listen to. The rest of the artists at the Festival put on some good shows.
After Segou Grace and I went down to Sikasso, spent a day at the waterfalls, and visited Madoubougou. Before we knew it, it was time to head back up to Bamako for some last minute souvenir shopping and a couple of nights out on the town. Grace even got to experience the real joys of Malian public transportation on the final leg of the trip. The bus from Sikasso to Bamako can take as little as 5 and a half hours, but for us it took the just-as-likely 11 hours. I knew we were in trouble from the start when we got on a mostly empty bus. They generally won’t leave town until they’ve filled every seat and have people sitting in the aisles. So we sat on the edge of town waiting for another bus for our bus to pass us off to for I don’t even know how long. Then of course the bus had to stop in every single one of the 40 villages between Sikasso and Bamako to drop off and pick up passengers, but not before getting a flat tire or some other such problem that took an hour and a half to fix. And they didn’t even really fix whatever it was all that well because we were going even slower than usual for the rest of the trip. It was so bad that even some of the Malians were complaining to the driver, which almost never happens. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with anything like that when I head up to Bulgaria to visit Grace in June. :)

The last time I wrote, I mentioned the start of the Women’s literacy class, and it ended in January. With the cereal grinder project, the idea was for the women’s association to manage it themselves. And since that requires keeping some form of records we had to start with teaching them to read and write. The nationwide literacy rate is something like 20 percent, but it’s virtually 0 for rural women. Some of the women in Madoubougou had a limited education coming in, but many could not even write or recognize the numbers 0-9. So 20 women started the class, and 18 ended up finishing. They spent 4 hours a day, 6 days a week for 8 weeks, learning first to read and write the Bambara alphabet (which is basically the Latin alphabet plus and minus a few letters) and the written numbers (which are the exact same). They learned to string the letters together to sound-out words and the concept of a one followed by two zeros symbolizing one hundred. It’s kind of hard to relate to at first, breaking down things like this that come so naturally after years of daily use. But it was really cool to see the women actually learning it. Of course two months wasn’t enough for those starting from the very beginning to reach the point of total literacy, but it laid a good foundation to build on. And the women who’d had some experience with letters and numbers before this class are now that much better at it. So I think it went well.

The cereal grinder project has also been finished, technically. In January we received all the funding, and I’d like to thank everyone who contributed. (For anyone who would still like to contribute to a similar project, there are a variety of projects on the Peace Corps website all the time.) Once the money actually arrived in Sikasso, Fousseynou and I went around buying all the parts and organizing a truck to come down to Madoubougou with it all. The village men built a house for the grinder, and it was all installed and ready to go within a month.
There is a 10hp diesel motor to run everything and two mills: one is a “rice mill” that shells rice and grinds corn and millet kernels down into smaller bits but not all the way to flour (I just realized I don’t know the proper terms for any of this stuff in English, so bear with me on the explanation if you do…); the other mill grinds corn and millet to flour and will also grind peanuts and shea nuts into paste. The third piece run by the motor is an alternator (i.e. electricity generator. This runs lighting, allowing the grinder to operate after sundown, as well as a battery charger. Many people use motorcycle- or car-sized batteries as a source of electricity at home, powering lights, radios, and even TVs if they have one. Now they are able to charge them right in Madoubougou. All of this is being managed by the women’s association as a business, just as any other grinder in Mali runs, and that covers all operating costs.
Along with the literacy class, there was a grinder operation and maintenance training for the women. That training ended up being shortened to 10 days from 20, and the village decided to have 3 young men from the community attend it as well. The idea was that these men could pick up the information better and faster and then help the women after the trainer left. But attendance at this training wasn’t very good, and there have been little problems here and there with the mills since the end of the training. Luckily a guy in village was able to convince a nephew of his who has 15 years of experience with grinders to come to Madoubougou for the next 2 months to help. He started on Saturday and got all the tweaking of everything done. Now the idea is that he’ll work with the 3 men and a group of women over the 2 months to teach them more about operating the grinder. Hopefully by then there will be at least 1 man capable of taking on the daily operation of the grinder along with a group of 6-14 women rotating in pairs to help out. The management of the money is still the women’s responsibility, and they’ll pay the chosen man (or men) as an employee. So I guess the point is that it hasn’t quite worked out the way we’d initially planned (what really ever does?), but it looks like it should be o.k. anyways.

I was going to tell you all about the shea training we just had in Sikasso and what we’re doing with shea down in my village, but this has just gotten too long… so I’m going to have to save it for next time, in’sha allah (god willing), and say goodbye ‘til then.

A Day in the Life

2007-11-21T18:11:00.000Z

Today was a good day. The best part was when I grossed out an “upper-class” Malian, in Madoubougou to help give a training, by eating with my hand. But the day was full of notable events: an especially funny hour of hanging out at my friend’s house in village; watching Fousseynou give a pregnant-women’s-health training (despite the fact that so few people showed up); seeing my first real, live strike; and finally having a meeting with the leaders of my women’s group to start their literacy class-the money for the trainings part of the grinder project finally arrived, and classes start Tuesday. (Thank you to all of those who have contributed to the actual grinder portion of the project- very much appreciated. For those who missed what I’m talking about, please see the entry below this one to read about the project.)

When I went to the school this morning, I had the intention of just giving back a 6th grade science book to the teacher and then being on my way. But as is usually the case, I ended up b.s.’in’ with the teachers for a few minutes, and then it was time for the morning bell. Since I usually don’t ever go over to the school until their 10am recess, I don’t think I’ve ever been there this early in the morning. In fact, lately the 8am “bell” (they actually just hit an old car wheel with another piece of scrap iron) has been acting as my alarm.:) The point is that I’m not sure if what I witnessed next happens everyday or not. What happened was that every class all lined up in nice straight, evenly spaced rows, somewhat military like. They then proceeded to do a very military-like “I-shout-out-commands-you-do-what-I-say” routine, followed by marching up to and relatively neatly encircling the Malian flag. (The flag pole is a not-so-straight cut trunk of a tree, but the whole setup is new this year.) As the flag was raised by a 6th grade girl, the whole elementary school sang the national anthem. It was really quite impressive, but rather funny, too. I couldn’t contain my laughter when one of the other guys who’d come to school for a sort of PTA meeting got yelled at by Fousseynou, who is the school director, for sitting down. Ha!

Incidentally, the “PTA” meeting was to tell the leaders of the Madoubougou school board (made up entirely of students’ parents and the school’s only governing board, since it is not state run or supported) that the teachers needed money to buy supplies like chalk. When the answer was “wari ko lon” (i.e. we ain’t got no money!), the teachers went on strike. Seriously. Fousseynou had been buying the chalk himself, and they’ve just been going without some of the other things they need. Fousseynou says that the school board should be able to come up with the money, but that they’re just being slow and acting like it’s not a big deal, like the teachers are being unreasonable. So the teachers are trying to use the strike to get the school board moving along- they really don’t even have anymore chalk. The school was built with the help of funds acquired through a nearby PCV about 6 years ago, so it’s a little disheartening to see them having trouble keeping it running smoothly. But I think it’s also promising that they’re trying to work it out themselves and not simply throwing in the towel, waiting for the government or some NGO to help them. Since the school hasn’t been running that long, it’s probably to be expected that they’ll have a few bumps in the road along the way to complete sustainability. I also think that it’s the first strike I’ve actually attended. And in that sense it was kind of a let down- no signs and no angry crowd. Just me and the 4 teachers sitting outside of the school while the students sat doing nothing in school and the parents all went about their day without most even knowing and the rest not caring much about the strike.

It was as we were sitting outside of the school that Ousman Campo, a Malian development worker with a World Bank program reaching out to rural villages in Mali, drove up. He had told the village he’d be here today but hadn’t specified the hour. So when he got here at 1030ish everyone was out in their fields, meaning only 6 people ended up being around for the training that Fousseynou gave on women’s reproductive health. But it seemed effective for those present and Fousseynou later said he’ll give the training again for those that missed out today. Sitting through the training was cool just because understanding most everything being said helped to boost my confidence in my Bambara. It was cheating a little since everyone was speaking more clearly then they do in usual conversation and since the training mostly involved vocabulary I know pretty well. But I can’t let that stop me from feeling good about it.:)

After the training, Campo and I had lunch at Fousseynou’s place. Since Campo works for an NGO as a relatively well-paid extension agent, he is one of the few Malians that one could really call “middle-“ or even “upper-class”- certainly upper-class in relation to anyone living in Madoubougou. The point is that, like most well-educated and/or wealthy Malians, he has adopted many “western” customs, especially when it comes time to eat. He laughed when I told him that I eat toh practically everyday and didn’t quite know what to think when I told him that I actually liked it. Fousseynou’s wife had made couscous with peanut sauce- a pretty decent step up from toh. She even knew enough about Campo to bring him a spoon to eat with. So Campo takes the spoon and then offers it to me, saying in French, something to the effect of, “here, let’s eat with spoons.” (Whether it’s just because they’re so used to speaking French or because they feel that Bambara is beneath them, Malians like Campo often continue to speak to me in French even after I tell them I can’t. In this case I felt that the use of French to say what he was saying was definitely to emphasize the status symbol of the spoon.) I fully intended to eat with my hand as I always do in Madoubougou, but before I could even really respond to Campo, Fousseynou said, “No, Balla (that’s me) has become an African. He always eats with his hand.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll eat with my hand. I always do.”
I don’t think he really believed me, watching me somewhat suspiciously as Fousseynou and I washed our hands. But as the 3 of us dug into our respective spots of the communal bowl, Campo kept watching me, finally saying, with a somewhat disgusted tone, “Well, he really does eat like you. He has become one of you.” I thought it was hilarious!

Later in the afternoon, I headed over to the 5th/6th grade teacher’s house to discuss the environmental education classes I’ve started- that’s another story, but I’ve only done one class session so far. Anyways, he wasn’t home, but his wife, Tene was sitting over at their neighbors’ place. So I went and sat down to chat with her, Vieux, and Vieux’s wife, Hauoa. Hauoa recently had a baby. She had told me a few days earlier that I had to buy her some fabric so that she could tie the new baby to her back (the way all Malian women carry their babies, of course). So as I was sitting down she asked, “Where’s that fabric? You said you were going to get me some.” Before I could give much of a response, Tene chimed in, “Don’t buy her anything. That’s not your baby. His father is right here (pointing to Vieux). Why would you buy her that fabric? She has too many kids. That one (pointing to the middle of their 3 children) isn’t even 2 years old and now she has a little brother. Is that good? Don’t buy this woman anything. You see her husband sitting here? If you buy her anything, her husband will think she likes you and will fight you. He’s crazy. He won’t even ask about it. He’ll just kill you.” On and on Tene went. Even after the rest of us had more or less moved on to other topics, she kept on. “See how this one (the middle child) wants to be carried still? But there’s her little brother. Don’t buy this woman anything.” I couldn’t stop laughing. When she finally did move on, she started telling me she was going to come to America with me when I go back. No matter that she doesn’t have a passport or visa- I can just tell the boarder patrol that she’s “with me,” and it’ll be all good. I said that wouldn’t work, but that I’d just put her in my suitcase. You probably had to be there to really understand the hilarity of it all, but man was it funny.

Finally, after supper Fousseynou and I met with the leaders of the Women’s Association to discuss the last few things before their literacy and bookkeeping class starts on Tuesday. We got it all figured out, and I’m mostly just happy that it is all finally working out. The women seem excited about it, too, which is cool. It would’ve been nice to get it started during the slight lull in workload they had in between corn harvest and the sorghum that just started, but it just didn’t work out. And as many of the women pointed out, their work is never really over. It’s as good of a time as any to start now.

note: I wrote this a few days ago. The class started with only a few minor glitches and has gone well these last 2 days. I hope to have lots of good news to tell you about it soon… Happy Thanksgiving!

Back In My House, And Projects In The Works

2007-10-10T10:04:00.000Z

Mali huffed, and it puffed, but my house never did actually come down. While some of my neighbors' homes continued to be topple over throughout the rainy season, mine merely cracked in a few spots but remained, for the most part, in tact. It will still need to be rebuilt this coming dry season, but since the rains (and therefore the danger of it falling on me in my sleep) are basically over for the next 6 months, I have moved back into my house. So I've got that going for me.

The other good news is that my project to get my women's association a cereal grinder has been approved. The training part of it is being funded through Peace Corps/USAID. The actual grinder was approved to be funded through something called Peace Corps Partnership Program. PCPP is a way for people back in the US to contribute to PC projects. Individual US doners give any amount they can towards specific projects until the total amount needed is acquired. Then PCPP sends that money on to the volunteer and his/her community to actually implement the project. For my project specifically, the money gathered by PCPP will go to buying the actual grinder and most of its parts. The community will build the grinder's building (complete with cement creping so it won't melt in the rain) and contribute some money they've raised towards the remaining grinder parts. To contribute to the project, click on the link below. Any amount will be appreciated. To contribute to other PC projects, surf back a page or 2 and browse by region.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=688-212&region=africa

Otherwise, that's all my news for now. Until next time...

Mud Breaks Down in the Rain????

2007-08-08T13:53:00.000Z

Greetings again from Mali! I’m doing well here… but my house is falling over. The nice thing about mud buildings with grass roofs is that they stay relatively cool even in the hot season. The bad thing is they don’t stand up to the kind of rain we’ve been getting in Madoubougou over the past month.
First I noticed a few drips coming through the roof- no big deal; water dries. It started getting worse, but I figured it was a small price to pay for the coolness I’d enjoyed in March and April. Then one part of my latrine wall fell over. That was mildly annoying, but I threw up a makeshift plastic wall for privacy and wasn’t too worried. Other people’s walls were coming down, too. It’s just the way rainy season is. 5 days ago more of my latrine wall fell over, and I thought to myself, “This is getting old…” but little did I know.
On Sunday we got the biggest rain yet. The open area to the east of my house has a hole dug out about 40 feet across and maybe 6 feet deep from people using that dirt to make mud bricks. On Sunday it turned into a small lake, with water pouring in from uphill to the east and emptying out around my house once it started to overflow. It didn’t go in the front of my house because of my concession wall, and I stood out there watching it for a while. The rain just kept coming. Sitting in my house waiting for the rain to quit, I was startled by a chunk of the inside wall falling from above the door that connects the 2 sides of my house. There were 2 big cracks in the wall, too. Once the rain let up a bit, I went to go tell Fousseynou and my host dad, Lamine, about the wall. Opening the door was slightly more difficult then usual, and I realized the front wall of my house settled (which is apparently not a good thing). I eventually realized the whole east side of my house had settled, causing the aforementioned cracks in the wall plus a few in the floor. When Fousseynou and Lamine saw all that had happened, they decided I needed to get all of my things out of the house immediately. Nothing has actually fallen over, even to this point, but it probably wouldn’t be all that cool to be inside the house if/when it finally does.
Now I’m living in one of the classrooms at the school, which is actually nicer than my house, until we get something else figured out. We’re going to rebuild the house, but that has to wait until rainy season is completely done- around the end of October. With school starting in September, I’ll need to move to a different temporary location. Right now it looks like that will be the community storage unit next to my house. It’s one of the few buildings with a cement floor, and it even has a tin roof. First we need to move the few things presently being stored in there, clean it out a bit and put another window in it so I don’t cook inside. And it’s not like my house is the only one needing to be worked on. Other people’s latrines and storage buildings have fallen over, and my host family spent yesterday morning repairing a leaky roof on one of there houses. However, everybody is willing to help make sure I’ve go a suitable place to live, and the school is working out just fine right now. Really, everything is ok. And we started the women's class on reading and writing numbers last Friday! 9 women came, despite the rain. (it was in the school.) Stand by for more exciting stories :)

Some rqndom thoughts from my hut

2007-07-29T15:17:00.000Z

Ever wonder why Muslims pray 5 times a day? Well… ok, neither had I, really. But I was sitting at Fousseynou’s the other day when he got up to go pray. He washed his hands, head and feet in a ritual that is never forgotten before praying if it can at all be helped. He didn’t go to the mosque as he usually would, since most everybody else was out in the fields. He simply rolled out his prayer mat to face east, towards Mecca, and went through the usual succession of standing, kneeling, bowing his forehead all the way to the ground, and then doing it all over again. When he was finished I started asking him about it:
“Does everybody out in their fields pray, too?”
--“Of course, people pray everywhere” (Including stopping the bus at sundown to get out and pray, but I digress.)
“5 times a day?”
--“Yeah.”
“Everyday?”
--“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot.”
-- “No, it isn’t.”
“OK, why do you do it then- pray 5 times every day?”
--“Well, Balla, people need to remind themselves often about God. We wake up in the morning and pray right away to remember God. Then maybe one forgets during the morning, so we pray to remember in the middle of the day (after lunch). Then maybe one forgets during the day, so we pray to remember at sundown. (He left out the one at ~4pm, but I was getting the point so didn’t press him about it.) And then we remind ourselves one more time before we go to bed (just in case). If we remind ourselves about God many times, then we won’t do bad things. If one is having bad thoughts, a prayer time will come up and remind the person to be good.”
“I see,” I replied.
--“How often do Christians pray?”
Uhh… I might not be the person to ask about that, I thought. :)

Mali recently had elections, so a mildly amusing conversation kept coming up with my friends in Madoubougou:
--“Balla, we’re going to vote”
“That’s great.”
--“Well, come with us.”
“I can’t vote.”
--“Of course you can. Don’t you live here?”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t have an ID card.”
--“That’s OK. You just need to tell them your name and that you live here. Then they’ll let you vote!”
One group of guys even went so far as to offer me a fake ID card- never mind the fact that Fousseynou was the one in charge of the voting site in Madoubougou and knew very well I couldn’t vote. Everyone else would understand after I explained that I’d already voted in America, and I can’t vote in 2 places even if I do live here. And they were impressed by the absentee voting system:
“I told the ‘voting people’ my address here, and they sent me my ballot. Then I filled it out and sent it back to America. And, voila, I voted!”
Actually, I’m pretty impressed with that myself. :)

Side note to all of you (Kelsey…) that thought my story about Lazy was going to end with her being eaten by someone in Madoubougou. No one in Madoubougou eats dog; they’re all relatively strict Muslims. But it’s funny you mention it, ‘cause you only have to go to… the village Lazy now lives in to find people that eat dog. I have been assured, though, that she won’t get eaten; the guy I gave her to wants her to catch small mammals out in the bush for him. I choose to believe him, no matter what anyone else thinks (Kylee…). In this case, ignorance is bliss. :)

This One Looked Funny Without a Title, So Now It Has One

2007-07-09T18:05:00.000Z

Hmmmmm, where to start. First off I’ll announce that I will no longer be making references to how long it’s been since adding to this blog (starting now). I’ve just been jinxing myself. The reality of it is that I’ve never been very good at keeping in touch with people- the major goal of doing this at all- and I’ve never found it that easy to sit down and write about myself- a major subject of the blog, of course. Add to that the total ambiguity that is this adventure we call Peace Corps (and the fact that I’ve accomplished, ummm, let’s see… nothing!) and voila, you get my total lack of motivation for writing here lately.

But I suppose some of that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I have been working pretty hard on the 1st 2 goals of PC (yeah for cultural exchange!). You see, the first and second of the PC’s 3 goals are a better understanding of Americans by foreigners and a better understanding of foreigners by Americans, respectively. So by just hanging out with Malians and talking about, well, just about anything, I’m actually accomplishing something. And by telling you all about it (whether now or later) I am at least attempting to fulfil part of my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer… This isn’t just a 2 year vacation, I swear! :)

Speaking of the 3 goals of PC, you might be asking, “What’s the 3rd?” (or maybe even, “What exactly are my taxes paying for?”- but we’ll get back to that in a second… sort of). The 3rd goal reads something like, “to help meet the country’s need for trained men and women.” This implies some sort of transfer of knowledge, or “capacity building”. Funnily (or is it depressingly?), this brings me back around to the question I’ve been struggling to answer for over a year now: “What is it, exactly, that you’re going to do over there?” As a Natural Resource Management Volunteer, I also have sector-specific goals to guide my work. These include increasing the sustainability and profitability of agricultural activities (e.g. improved storage of fruits leading to more sales), improving community health through sustainable use of naturally occurring foods and medicines (e.g. planting trees with highly nutritious leaves for use in sauces), and helping the community to actively manage their environment (e.g. creating management plans.) But of course, I didn’t exactly arrive and have my boss tell me, “this is what you need to do”- that’s not really her job, since part of my job is figuring that out. And while lots of people in Madoubougou have told me what they want me to do, it’s generally more along the lines of, “Build us a hospital,” “Give me money to put a fence around my field,” or the somewhat more feasible “find someone who wants to buy all these unprocessed cashew nuts we have.”

You see, my role here is poorly understood- sometimes even greatly misunderstood. So many organizations come into Mali and, usually with the best intentions, drop down a bunch of money in an attempt to solve a problem without looking at all aspects of the situation or ensuring proper use of the money. Naturally that’s what most people in Madoubougou think I’m here to do until I explain otherwise (and usually even after). But PC instead attempts to provide sustainable, long term results in specified areas of need- helping people to help themselves. I’m far from an expert in “development” or its accompanying theory, but the idea is along the lines of “Give a man a fish and he can eat today. Teach him how to fish, and he can eat for the rest of his life.” (p.s. I have no idea who said that.)

So the point here is that it has taken/is taking me a long time to figure out what I am doing here. But this is what I come up with so far:
-The tree plantation I talked about starting with the Men’s Association fell through for various reasons, among them my inability to give them free seeds to start it and the virtual impossibility of calling any sort of meeting to organize the work.
-I’m still working with the Women’s Association, along with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) in Sikasso, to get a cereal grinder. Along with that I want to have literacy and basic management classes so that the women can operate the mill as a self-sustaining business. The idea is to get the majority of it funded through PC’s funding sources, with the community funding the rest through both cash and labor (e.g. building the building in which the grinder will be housed). The major hitch in this process has been getting the budget worked out, but it’s coming along. Most likely, I’ll be trying to get funding through something called Peace Corps Partnership Program, which is basically just an official way to gather money from personal sponsors in the states (e.g. you!). But I’ll wait until I’ve got it all ready to be submitted before I make my real sales pitch. :) So stay posted…
-Since most of the women in Madoubougou lack basic numeracy (they can count and do basic math verbally but can’t recognize or write the numbers) and could all benefit from keeping track of the little bit of money they make/spend, I’ve taken this on as what we like to call a “secondary project”. First, a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer, Kylee (my wonderful girlfriend), came to Madoubougou to give a couple of introductory classes on numeracy and personal accounting, which went really well. Now the idea is to continue working with the women on this, ideally to the point where at least 1 of them can teach it to others herself. That’s a little ways off though…
-Building/teaching people to make mud stoves. The basic idea of them is just about heat conservation to reduce the amount of wood needed to cook. All cooking in Mali, generally, is done over an open fire; these mud stoves work around the same fire, just containing the heat. A nearby fellow NRM volunteer, Autumn, came to Madoubougou, and we showed a group of men how to make the stoves. People really like the ones that’ve been made so far, and everybody else keeps asking me about them. But since its rainy season now I think they’re kind of on hold til next dry season.
-Finally, I just finished up at a training workshop, together with the President of the Women’s Association, to learn more about working with shea, a tree nut common in much of Mali and processed mainly for its oil- commonly known as shea butter. The training was funded by USAID and facilitated by regional shea experts along with some PC staff and volunteers. 18 volunteers came with 24 community counterparts who work in shea. We learned a lot about the industry, from proper preparation of the nuts for storage (if wanting to sell to exporters) to what role rural Malian women do/could play in the shea industry. Hopefully Djeneba, the Madoubougou Women’s Asso. Pres., and I having attended this training will lead to the women in and around Madoubougou being able to profit from this abundant resource. If we’re able to properly prepare a bulk quantity of shea nuts, there are buyers willing to come get them this season. So we’ve got that going for us…
Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of ideas (working with beekeepers; organizing some sort of environmental education program for next school year) that have yet to see even beginning stages. We’ll see…

So that's a brief recap of my "work" (Kris- look here for my quarterly report... just kidding it's coming). The one last thing I wanted to share with you all this time around is my story of Lazy. Don't cry, 'cause I didn't and she was my dog-
Lots of PCV’s have dogs. In fact there are dogs all over Mali. Except Madoubougou. For some reason most of the people in Madoubougou hate dogs. Granted, dogs aren’t treated very well anywhere in Mali, but I swear I live in the only village with no dogs. (Nor donkeys, but that’s another story all together.) Before I took Lazy home from Sikasso, I did actually notice that there weren’t any dogs here. When I asked about it, though, all I found out was “that there used to be some but then they died and now there isn’t any.” OK. And there’s dogs in all the surrounding villages- like the rest of the country. All the PCVs I asked about their dogs said their host family watched it for them when they left and there weren’t any problems with having one. I even thought for a second that it was a good thing there aren’t any other dogs here since then I might be a able to get away with not having her spade. So, everything’s cool then, right? Well, then I brought her home. Despite the fact that she is naturally one of the most well-behaved dogs I’ve ever seen, I’ve gotten nothing but a hard time about her. "She chases chickens," (but never catches them). "She chases children," (most of whom call her 1st- its their new favorite game). "She puts her mouth in our dishes," (that we leave on the ground). OK, that one is pretty gross, but I would feel worse about it if all the goats, sheep, and fowl weren’t doing the same thing. The 1st few times I left her in Madoubougou, a boy from my host family (host dad’s nephew) took care of her for me, taking her out to the fields with him; no problem. Then he told me he couldn’t watch her anymore because everyone hated her and everyone was getting mad at him and threatening to shoot Lazy. So I asked my host dad if his son could take care of Lazy. No problem, he said, but they would tie her up some of the time. Gradually, I could tell (and finally some people were telling me) that she was being left off to run around less and less until this last time she was left off maybe 3 times over the course of 2 weeks. This included a couple of nights when storms came and the rope she was on was too short for her to get out of the rain. So I’ve decided it’s best just to give up. I agreed to give her away to Fousseynou’s friend in a nearby village, and Saturday morning he came and got her. Lazy came right to me to let me put the rope on ther, then she just walked away with her new owner like they were just heading out for a walk. That made it seem OK, in a way- like maybe she’s better off.
So anyways that's my story. Until next time- peace!

I know you've all been waiting in angst, but it hasn't been in vain

2007-02-28T16:10:00.000Z

Sunset over the Atlantic (Senegal)

My WAIST softball team, explained below.

Hello again all from Mali! After a nice shout-out from my good friend Grace, in PC Bulgaria, on her blog, I figure it's about time for another update before I, too, slip into the realm of "second-rate PC blogger". The highlights of the last 2 months for me were going up to Bamako for a couple of weeks of additional training in January, deciding on a couple of projects to get started on in Madoubougou, and taking a trip out to Senegal this past month for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. Oh, and that whole "being cold in Africa" thing didn't last very long, in case you were wondering.

The training- so called "Phase IV"- was much more technical-skills based than that which we went through our first 2 months in country. For Natural Resource Management volunteers such as myself, this meant learning about things like tree nurceries, gardening, errosion control, and local resource management plans. I also learned about bee-keeping, solar-drying of foods, and environmental education. Most of the sessions focused on the basics of the topic and how we as volunteers might be able to help people in our village. Still far from being an expert, I can now at least start to do something resembling work in Madoubougou and know where to look for any needed help (manuels, experienced PC staff, etc.) Being back at Tubaniso, our training center, also gave me a chance to catch up with all of the voluteers from other regions I hadn't seen since our installation.

As far as work goes, I have 2 projects in the making so far. The first is a plan to create a tree lot for the sale of lumber with the men's association. We'll start a tree nurcery from which we can plant the tree lot, and then create the lot itself. The association hopes to sell the wood as planks and poles for construction, and it seems to me like a good way to start talking with them about the importance of planting trees. The second project I'm starting on is helping the women's association to get an engine-powered cereal grinder. My main role in this is to help find funding, but I also want to incorporate some trainings around this project to ensure that they are able to manage the operation of the grinder.

The trip to Dakar, Senegal, was a blast. WAIST is an annual softball tournament of mostly Peace Corps teams and other foreigners. This year PC Mali had 2 teams, both playing in the social league. We got to play 5 games over the weekend, my team making it to the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual champions. The weather was gorgeous, I got to see the ocean, and every day was packed with lots of good food and beer!

So that's all for now. I'll try not to wait 2 more months before another update... but I can't make any promises ;)

2006-12-28T19:40:00.000Z

I got the chance to post some more pictures. Enjoy :)

Me at an amazing set of waterfalls south of my village

Another shot at the falls

A view of the falls through the brush.

I'm too dumb too know how to rotate this, but it's me in front of a really sweet baobob tree with a bunch of fruit.

Huskin some corn.

Still can't figure out the rotation, but thought this was too funny to leave out. Random lady hanging out at Fousseini's house wanting to dance and have me take a picture.

Lazy

Lazy

Here's a shot of my neighbor girls.

A few tid bits...

2006-12-22T15:51:00.000Z

The mango trees are flowering, and the harvest is wrapping up. The wind is blowing everyday, and everything is drying out. People are starting to make mud-bricks and collect grass in anticipation of the annual repair and building of houses, storage bins and compounds’ walls. The signs of the changing of the seasons are all around Madoubougou, though not the changes I’m used to. I will be glad when the mangos finally start to ripen- I’m getting sick of papaya. J And I got a puppy! She’s your typical Malian mutt… check out the pictures as soon as I’m able to get some up. She follows me everywhere and is currently learning to sit and fetch. Her name is Lazy… I don’t really know why; it just came to me while I was attempting to think of something clever (which obviously worked out really well) and I started giggling. So now she’s stuck with it. For better or worse, it tends to sound more like Lacy when the people in Madoubougou say it.

Per Carrie Paukert’s request, I am now going to attempt the impossible- to explain “to” to you. To (pronounced like the toe on your foot), along with rice, makes up the main part of my diet in Madoubougou (as well as the diet of most Malian villagers, usually minus the rice). Whether it’s made from corn, millet, or sorghum, the process is about the same. In areas without the luxury of a gas-powered grinder, women pound the grain by hand for hours until it’s a fine flour. Then it’s cooked into what most resembles a paste while hot but turns into a kind of spongy texture as it cools. There isn’t much of a flavor to it- not more than say a plain pasta or rice. The key to good “to” is a good sauce. Most people who don’t like to don’t like the texture of either the to or it’s most common sauce, which is kinda slimy/sticky. But I for one think it’s not all that bad, and sometimes even get a craving for my host-mom’s best corn to and sauce (a kind of spicy, onion and tomato based sauce that’s slightly less slimy than the average sauce). Mmm mmm good. J

I thought of many ways to start this story:
-So I helped my village fight a brush fire…
-Dry grass and high winds are generally a bad combination…
-I thought I heard Sada say something to Adama about fire, but I wasn’t quite sure. Then we were on our way to make some mud bricks…
-I watched Sada go from side to side of the small grass fire he had purposely started, controlling it by snuffing it out before it got out of hand. All the while I was thinking, “Maybe I could help…”
…But none of them seemed to really fit. Apparently, the quickest (though maybe not the smartest) way to clear an area for mud-brick making is to simply burn the grass standing in your way. Sada, a 30-something man in my village who I hear laughing at least once a day regardless of whether I actually see him, had cleared a circle around the area he intended to burn. He lit the grass in one area with his lighter, and it slowly spread. Then Sada chopped a couple of live branches with plenty of green leaves from a nearby bush and put out parts of the fire as it reached his “border”. Before I could act on my thoughts of helping, the fire started to get out of control. Once Sada realized it was going to leave his circle, we backed up to a nearby path with the apparent intention of controlling it from there. But by the time it reached the road, it was too big for just the two of us to handle. The women from the house nearby (within maybe 100 feet) were understandably quick to come to our aide with buckets of water, as their roofs are made of dry grass. J Soon the whole village, or everyone in the village at the time, showed up to help fight the fire, as they were apparently called through just lots of yelling. Women were pulling water from the 2 nearest wells and relaying it out around the edges of the fire as men made their way around to kill it bit by bit. In the end, the only thing to get burned was a few acres of grass, but it was enough excitement to last us all the rest of the day. Sada then finished preparing the ground for his next day brick making, and we went and drank some tea.

Well that’s all I’ve got for now. Stay tuned for more pictures, including a few of Lazy…
Merry Christmas and Happy 2007!

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-11-19T13:35:00.000Z

Hello again!!! I’ve had a really good last couple of weeks, and everything is going well. Of course there’s been frustrating moments, but the good has been outweighing the bad. Most notably, the seemingly impossible has happened… I have been cold in Mali! Most nights over the past week or so I’ve been wearing my sweatshirt. I actually woke up in the early morning wishing I had covered myself with more than just my usual thin bed sheet. Mind you, I’m definitely not complaining. I savor every second of the coolness as I think about the glaring mid-day sun and tuck away into my memory the moments one might consider too cold- I’ll do my best to remember them at the peak of the hot season in April. I’ve given up on trying to know the exact temperature since my first night back at homestay- when I realized it didn’t matter what the thermometer said if my mattress and pillow were soaked with sweat by midnight- but I don’t think it’s gotten any colder than 60F. Of course everyone else in Madoubougou is wearing the thickest coat they own after the sun goes down. My favorite thing to tell them when talking about the cold is that it’s probably cold enough to make water into ice right now in ND (that’s the best way I’ve found to explain it). They usually get a kick out of that.

Besides the weather, my conversations in Madoubougou lately have ranged from simple statements about what I’m doing at that very moment- “You’re washing clothes!” “Yes, I’m washing clothes!” -to differences between Mali and America- “Do they farm corn in America?” -to discussions of religion and explanations of cultural practices. The topic and pace of the conversation generally depends on the number of people involved, the amount that I have spoken with those people before, who they are, and how much my brain feels like working at the moment. I can generally have better conversations with fewer people because it means less people at once trying to explain the sentence I don’t understand. Everybody thinks that they’ll be the one I understand, even though most people don’t say it any slower or clearer. It usually gets easier the more I speak with someone, but some people just naturally speak more clearly (as with any language). Fusseini is especially easy to understand and he understands me better than anyone else, both because he’s the most educated person in Madoubougou and because he worked with the previous volunteer so much. Whether or not my brain wants to cooperate is kind of a crapshoot. Just when I think I’ve become fluent, it takes me 5 minutes to understand somebody saying something as simple as “Sit down and have a little tea before you go.”

Tea here is a big deal. It is… well, it’s tough to explain. It’s like the equivalent to both coffee and beer, depending on the situation. But it’s not your average tea, unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’ve heard it called “gunpowder tea” in English. It’s strong enough that it’s served by the shot and always comes with plenty of sugar. Making it is an art involving 2 small teapots (one for boiling the tea, one for mixing in the sugar), an equivalently small charcoal grill, lots of pouring between the appropriate teapot and 2 shot glasses, and lots of time. People drink it all day and into the night- anytime’s a good time for tea, and tea is always a good excuse to sit around and BS. It is at least part of, if not the main reason for, any social gathering. So I’ve had a lot of tea…

Other than sitting around, drinking tea, and having broken conversations in Bambara, there was one big event in Madoubougou last week. On Tuesday there was a huge funeral for the Imam that passed away 40 days before. He’d been really sick- I think Fusseini said it was something with his heart. They had a service the day of his death, 4 days after, 7 days after, and then finally 40 days after he’d passed away. Anyways, this last service was a really big deal, with people coming from all over- villages all over the region of Sikasso, plus Bamako, Cote d’Ivoire, and Burkina-Faso. My little village of 350 probably doubled in size for 2 days, everyone staying with family or sleeping on plastic mats with blankets outside in the Imam’s compound. After the service there was a huge feast, but by the next day everybody had left and Madoubougou was as quiet as ever.

Finally, I was able to upload some pictures!!! They’re all from down here in the Sikasso region over the last couple of months except for the 3 from swear-in, which was held in Bamako September 29th. Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to say that if anyone has any questions about anything at all, go ahead and post a comment or send me an email. I’ll do my best to answer either in a post (if it’s a request for a better description of something) or by email. Anyways, enjoy the pictures…

The Sikasso region country side, looking from the highway I take out of Sikasso to get to the turnoff for Madoubougou (the Cote d'Iviore road) in the general direction of Madoubougou.

A millet field on the southern edge of Madoubougou with some mango trees in the background. You might also see the rooves of some houses if you look closely.

A sunset I enjoyed from my front door, looking towards a neighbor's compound.

A corn field (about to be harvested) with a mango tree to the right and a papaya tree at center, looking from my compound towards Fusseini's compound.

The Sikasso area volunteers of the "Belushi" stage at swear-in(each training group is called a stage, and each stage is named by the previous. We earned our name for being huge and apparently knowing how to have a good time).

Mike (left) me and Peter LaFrancois (right) at swear-in.

The Sinsinakaw (people of Sinsina) at swear-in.

My House! The big tree in the background to the right of the house is a baobob. The roof peeking over the wall on the right is called a gwa. It's just there to create some shade.

Watermelon Jack-O-Lantern

2006-11-01T15:24:00.000Z

We made our Halloween the best we could... Jacq, a fellow PCV made this and I thought it was amazing :)

I'm having trouble getting other pictures on here, but I figured since this one worked I mine as well leave it. Maybe next time I'm in Sikasso...

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T15:16:00.000Z

I finally have furniture! I had 2 bookshelves and a small table made from bamboo, and a Peace Corps car was finally able to bring them and the 2 chairs I’d bought down to Madoubougou. There isn’t anyplace to get these things close to my village, and trying to get them here any other way would’ve been a nightmare. The best part was that 3 PCVs from Sikasso City were able to ride along and visit me. They weren’t able to stay long, but it was a nice surprise. The car had come from Bamako originally, so it was also carrying my mail that’d been sent to my old address. As one of the PCVs said, it was like I’d won a sweepstakes or something. Only without the balloons and TV cameras- maybe next time. As with any time an unfamiliar vehicle rolls into town, all the neighbor kids gathered around to see what was going on- this time they were starring at all the newcomers instead of me.

I’ve kinda got my host family figured out now. It’s a big compound with a lot of people, and it’s not entirely appropriate to sit down and index out a family, but here’s what I’ve figured out so far. The part of the family I’m around the most (i.e. eat dinner with every night and talk to everyday) is fairly simple. Lamine is about 30 years old. He has 2 wives, but one is living with her mom in another village about 20km away and I haven’t met her yet. I’m not quite sure why she’s there, but I know that she’s coming back in about a month. Lamine’s other wife is Shita, and there are 4 of his kids age 1-8 that are always around. I know he has other children, but I think they are with his other wife right now. Lamine’s parents are past away, but he lives in the same compound with his dad’s brother, Isa. Isa is about 60 years old, and his wife, Mariam, is maybe 45-50. Another one of Lamine’s brother’s wife’s, a widow, lives in the compound, too. One of Isa’s sons also lives in the compound with his wife and children. Lamine’s brothers all live in either Bamako or the neighboring countries of Burkina-Faso or Cote d’Ivoire.

Ramadan, the Muslims month of fasting, ended on Sunday. During Ramadan, Muslims do not eat or drink anything (or smoke) from sunrise to sunset. As you might imagine, people are not exactly themselves during this month. Some are slightly irritable, but most people basically just seem tired out constantly. So besides the “grande fete” we got to have on Sunday, I was glad to see the end of Ramadan just so I can get to know the people of Madoubougou as they really are. Everyone is eating normal and drinking their tea, now, so they’re in much better spirits. The “big party” was really just everyone having big meals, hanging out, playing games (some of the men really get into this board game that reminds me of “Sorry”) and drinking lots of tea. Kind of like Easter or something, only the kids go trick-or-treating instead of getting baskets of candy or hunting for eggs. The thing about the trick-or-treating, though, is that it’s completely acceptable (and basically expected in Madoubougou) to give small change out rather than candy. Also, instead of dressing up the kids just say a blessing or 2, and it goes on for 2 days. Being the moron that I am, I forgot to get any coins for the occasion (change is notoriously hard to get in Mali) and had absolutely nothing to give out. I managed to be hanging out at other peoples’ houses enough both days that it wasn’t a huge deal, but the little bit of time I did spend at home I felt like one of those mean old men who keep their lights off on Halloween. Oh, well… it’s not the first time I’ve seemed like an idiot here, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Further Adventures into Technology to Keep You All Informed About My Oh-So Interestsing LIfe!

2006-10-21T13:52:00.000Z

Hello all and welcome to my blog! For those of you who were getting my mass email, this is going to basically take its place. Hopefully, it will work out better for us all. I haven't been all that busy out in my village lately, mostly just getting settled in and trying to improve my Bambara. So I thought this would be a good oppurtunity to tell you all what "Mali is like".

The most common response I got when I told people I was going to Mali: a blank stare. (The second most common was, “Bali?”) This didn’t really surprise me, since I myself had to go straight to an atlas when I opened my invitation envelope and saw that I would be spending the next 27 months in “Mali”. Before coming here I was able to find out quiet a bit about the country, as much is written about its rich history and wide variety of interesting cultures. It is the country of Timbuktu (yeah, a real city) and the general location of 3 great, ancient empires. It is a former French colony and still uses French as its official language. Malians are mostly farmers/herders (~80%) and Muslim (~75%). Now that I’m here, realize that there is so much more to it.
First of all, Mali is remarkably diverse. It is impossible to encapsulate “Mali” or “Malians”. There are a wide variety of ethnic groups, from the Tuareg, Fulani, and Dogon, to the Malinke, Bambara, and Senoufou. Each has its own language with dialects varying between regions and, sometimes, even villages. Additionally, there are immigrants from surrounding countries like Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Burkina-Faso. Historically there was fighting between many of these groups, but for the most part they all live together in peace now. There is still a rift between the Tuaregs of the far north and the Bambara (the largest ethnic group, which dominates the government), but as of now there isn’t any organized fighting. That situation, even at its worst in the 1990s, is a long way removed from my region of Sikasso (in case you were starting to worry about me).
While most Malians are Muslims, there are also Christians and those that practice traditional religions (as far as I have seen and heard, they are all extremely tolerant/accepting of each other). The degree to which the Muslims are conservative and/or strict also varies pretty widely. Traditional (“animist”) beliefs may be mixed into Islam to varying degrees, and traditional rituals still persist in most areas for weddings, funerals, etc. Islam definitely has a dominating presence in the areas that I’ve been, though. Everyone dresses fairly conservative. Men wear shirts with sleeves and long pants, though these might be rolled up or cut off below the knee during manual labor or informal situations. Most women wear loose, long skirts, shirts with sleeves and a high neckline, and wraps that cover their hair. Muslims pray 5 times a day, which seems to always be rather conspicuous. They wash their feet, hands, and face before each time and will generally not skip a prayer for any reason. You can usually tell about what time it is by sound of the prayer call from a nearby mosque, and the sound of the misiriwele has actually become one of my favorite things about Mali.

More specifically, I can tell you about some of the places that I’ve actually been to. The capital, Bamako, is much like any other big city in the world. There are lots of people (exemplifying the country’s diversity) and lots of traffic. There are poor parts, extremely wealthy parts, and “touristy” parts. One can find most anything that might be harder to find elsewhere in the country- pork chops, a good Chinese restaurant, ice cream, dance clubs. Of course there are always a few things that remind you you’re in Mali. Sheep and goats freely roam the street. Public transportation consists mainly of pickups with covered beds, in which there’s ALWAYS room for one more, or a Peugeot taxi (there’s a reason you’ve probably never heard of the Peugeot car company). Open sewers run along most of the sidewalks, sometimes covered by wooden planks basically making it the sidewalk (not quiet as gross as it sounds, since most “toilets” are holes in the ground where waste naturally decomposes without needing to go anywhere, but still…). Besides those affiliated with the Peace Corps or other NGOs in country, its extremely rare to find anyone who speaks English at all, let alone very well (i.e. it’s relatively tough to communicate with anyone here without at least some basic French).
Sikasso is a much more scaled down version of Bamako. It’s about the size of Fargo, and has that same feeling of being a relatively big city in the middle of farm country. There are a few nice hotels, some decent places to eat, and at least one dance club that I know of. Traffic is hectic, though nothing like Bamako. Most anything not available out in village is available here. There is a good-sized market (think in the style of a “farmer’s market”) everyday that doubles in size every Sunday. One can find any fruit or vegetable in season, other foods, clothing, house-wear, tools, etc. Sikasso is also the base of many national and international development agencies for the region and a travel hub for those headed to Burkina-Faso or Cote d’Ivoire.

The big cities, however, are just the beginning of what Mali is really like. The thing I know the most about Mali (if I know anything at all) is village life, specifically in the southern part of the country. In my village, everyone is a farmer. The teachers are farmers. The bakers are farmers. The “shopkeepers” (if you want to call them that) and market sellers are farmers. They farm millet, sorghum, and corn mostly for their own consumption, plus a variety of crops such as peanuts, cassava, and yams. In other parts of the country, rice or cotton is produced in large quantities for sale, but they are farmed on a much smaller scale in my area. Around my village there are also lots of mangos, papayas, oranges, lemons, cashews, and trees whose leaves are used for sauces (e.g. Baobab). Smaller gardens contain everything from onions to hot peppers to an African type of eggplant. There are chickens, guinea fowl, and ducks that roam the village, every so often actually being in the compound of the family that technically owns them, and there are a small number of goats, sheep, and cattle kept in and around the village.
Most noticeably, the crops are right there. Walking from my house to my host family’s house across town takes me right through a small millet field either of the 2 ways I can go. There’s corn growing in the space between my compound and the one behind me, about 10m wide. The 30m between my house and the mosque in front of it is just weeds and grass right now, but a few cattle graze there for a while most every day. The “edge” of town is surrounded by crops, with the exception of some brush/forest in a few spots. Taking any of the paths (generally just wide enough for 2 motorcycles to pass on) from my village to one of the surrounding villages, there is a varying mixture of crops, grass/shrub land, and trees.
The houses in most villages are all loosely set up as family compounds. Generally, there is a circle of small, 1-3 room mud huts possibly connected by a wall that encloses the compound. The huts all face the inside of the circle, where there might be a few trees, a small garden, an area for a couple of live-stock, and/or multiple bare areas used for various activities. The huts might have an overhang coming off of the front to provide an area for shade, or there might be a roof elsewhere in the compound for the same purpose. Depending on the family, a wide variety of relatives could be living in the same compound. The elderly never live alone, and it is not uncommon for siblings to share a compound. A man may legally have up to 4 wives (in accordance with Muslim tradition), though 1-2 seems to be the norm in my village. For example, my homologue’s compound includes him, his wife and 6 children, his brother and his brother’s 2 wives with a bunch of kids including 1 that is 22 and married. I haven’t even been able to figure out exactly who is who in my host family yet with so many people always around. The compounds themselves have no apparent order. They’re just sort of clumped together in groups with paths snaking throughout the village. Rarely there will be a lone hut, possibly with a wall surrounding a front-yard sort of thing (e.g. my house).

Finally, this is as good a time as any to explain the person that I keep referring to as my “counterpart” or, as we like to say in PC Mali, my “homologue”. Every PCV is assigned a host-country counterpart. This person is supposed to be the PCV’s closet co-worker and best resource on work related manners. He/she helps to explain the PCV’s role to others, assists the PCV in organizing meetings, and acts as a guide for how business is conducted in the host country. My homologue is the village’s school director and 1st and 2nd grade teacher. He also farms, gardens, and has fruit trees. Most importantly, he is a highly respected member of the community who will add credibility to anything I want to accomplish. His name is Fusseini (I don’t even know if that’s spelled right, but sound it out like “foo”-“see”-“ny”), and he speaks fluent Bambara and French plus a tiny bit of English. Just wanted to throw that out there ‘cause I’ll probably end up talking about him a lot. Anyways, that's all for now... next time I'll attempt posting some pics. Keep your fingers crossed, and have a fun Halloween!