heat delerium and other tales

I am eating Oreos, listening to my iPod, checking my cell phone neurotically for texts, and on the computer… Is this Peace Corps? For a country with such a hard reputation, right now in this moment, I feel as though I am in the “posh corps” that we have all bitched about together when imagining our fellow idealists in say, anywhere but here. But it’s ok. Whenever my mind goes blank, probably due to the short term memory loss associated with the amphetamine based anti malaria drug I’m on, the only thing that I can think of to type is that I love the peace corps and that I want to feel this free and passionate every day for the rest of my life. Which leads me to my current issue that I ponder during the hours that I spend pretending to understand conversations in Bambara… can I have everything I want? Things are what you make them out to be. I am now reading Eat, Pray, Love; after ignoring it because it was too popular, I was convinced to give it a try and am in love with the writer. I have taken it to mean the same thing as Tales of a Female Nomad and The Lunatic Express meant to me- will I ever be somewhere where that there aren’t emotional rollercoaster’s everyday? Will I be happy if there aren’t? I can’t wait to live in America again in a cute apartment with a nice kitchen and bathroom… maybe move in with someone and get married someday. Everything else that I want to do I can do alone whenever I want. Like Peace Corps.
So, I arrived back at site 2 days ago for the second stint until I go into to Bamako for Halloween… obviously, transport as usual was a huge pain and I am getting fed up. It’s not really that funny anymore when I am convinced that I am going to die every 5 seconds, of either a heart attack or a mulit- bush taxi pile up. We all know the horror stories here. .. the volunteer whose bus got in a head on collision and the first 5 rows all died but he was in the sixth row and had to climb out over all the bodies and then take post exposure (to HIV/AIDS) prophylaxis… but I have dealt with this by never sitting in the front of taxis and always trying to sit in the dead middle of the bush taxi with my back pack acting as a seat belt. And riding my bike insane distances. But the story is that my site mate Anderson and I arrived at the bus station at 9 and then waited around till 2 for the bush taxi to fill up. Then we left and arrived at his site, 100 k from Bamako, in 2 hours. The road is not paved but smooth. Then we dropped him off and I continued down. I considered spending the night but didn’t think it was necessary since it was only 4. The road looked better, it had improved in the last month thanks to some new work because the president visited and the lack of flooding. But the 30 k to my site never seems to end and every bend that we take reveals more road that looks like it has been hit by heavy mortar fire worse than what I already used my last pleas to God on. So we evacuate the vehicle every so often so it can blow through the lakes without getting stuck in the mud. It’s a gamble, you have to go fast to make it through the ravines and lakes, but slow so that you don’t flip in the unforeseen underwater trenches. So long story short, after a few push starts and evacuations, we didn’t make it out. But it’s ok, because usually we can push start it out of the mud. But this time we can’t. It’s now 7 and getting dark. Should have stayed at Andersons. So we start walking… I only have one of my bags with me. I am walking with these ladies whom I have befriended with old stale cakes I had in my backpack. I finally get a hold of Fode and he comes right away on his Moto… I hate motos and am not even allowed on them… except in emergency situations maybe? So I sit on the road, wet because I fell in an underwater trench, praying that I didn’t get worms or schisto, while he rides back to the car to try to get my other bag. He comes back with nothing so then we walk together back through the disgustingly warm puddles. We wait around and help them try to dig out the car for a little and then just get my bag off and walk back to the Moto. Then much to my dismay there is no other option than to load me, my 2 bags, and Fode onto the Moto. Let me say again, he is an absolute life saver and I absolutely love him. He puts up with so much from me. Not sure why it’s worth it. So we embark on the road with me yelling “DONNI DONNI A KA GELEN!!!” every ten seconds. Slow down slow down this is hard! He just laughs and slows down. I need a helmet for the next time this inevitably happens. Unfortunately motos are one thousand dollars, or else I would just buy one. So we arrive at site. I still can’t read my military time watch that I accidently switched and can’t switch back and I thought it was 10 but it was only 8 I later realized… after I was in bed. Might I add, as soon as we arrived, there was a freak rain storm with hurricane force winds and thunder. So now I am just wondering how I will get back to Bamako next time… I think I will ride my bike the 30 k to Anderson’s house and then spend the night and then go in with him the next day. And now I am just praying that worms don’t start crawling out of my legs anytime soon. Ugh.
But the next morning I slept in and then my homologue came and got me saying what I thought was that we were going to plant trees but then we instead spent the next 8 hours making ameliorated porridge for 70 women with Bartoma, my friend from my market town. It was really good that I was there for that so I am definaly glad that I didn’t sleep at Andersons.
Today I saw my teacher beat a little girl with a tree branch. He didn’t do any tangible damage to her but it really messed me up. I couldn’t watch and I don’t know if the other women who were sitting around noticed my discomfort. I know that maybe since Fode grew up in that kind of environment that maybe it isn’t his fault, but for a man so modern and seemingly cultured there is no excuse and it has tarnished his image in my mind. He has now become a “Malian”, instead of just a friend and teacher. There are now differences too big to cross cultures. Sure there were probably a ton before too, but they didn’t strike me.
Though today at dinner we had a good conversation. He was talking about some trips that he had taken to Goa, Mauritania, and Guinea. This conversation had a few parts which I knew I would want to remember. One was his first time on an airplane was coming back to Bamako from Goa in a military cargo plane… not sure on the details of that but it was funny the way he described the plane and how scary it was. This was right after we saw a plane in the sky and he made all the kids look at it as he explained what it was. I think he has been to England though so I guess he has been on a plane since then. Some things get lost in translation though. I think he wanted to stay in England forever but couldn’t… he says he never experiences nostalgia because it is tiring and therefore only lives in the present, but I sense that he would have liked to live in Bamako or England or America. He describes his dream life in America, with his wife who doesn’t work because he makes so much money…. But he makes his life here very well. For example, he was in guinea because the nonprofit Plan Mali was opening a Plan guinea so he was invited to be a part of the ceremony. He is a big name guy, so helpful to everyone and he never says a bad word about anyone and I imagine there is no one who could say a bad thing about him. But then we got talking about how dangerous Mali’s border sharing countries are and about al queada. I asked him how he felt about al Qaeda and he went off on this tirade about how they are vagabonds. He used the same word to describe the governments of most of the countries around here too.
Ok, I have been really bad about writing for my blog lately. In the past week, I hit a tipping point. I hadn’t been sleeping really at all, had been feeling what I think is probably anxiety, and I just never felt relaxed. Which is weird in a place where I have no deadlines or any obligations of any sort for that matter… so I hopped on my bike and finally decided to ride the 35 k to my site mate Andersons house. This was a Tuesday. Things here happen so damn slow, like on activity per day, so I had to point out what day of the week it was because this was the craziest week ever… in my opinion. It only took a little under 3 hours which was not bad given how many bacteria and schisto infected lakes and puddles and mud bogs that I had to wade through. And the fact that I was riding in essentially sand, which I didn’t realize till I woke up the next morning would cause me severe pain. So I got to Andersons and he had a bucket bath ready and waiting and left over burritos from the night before for us to eat. Best welcome ever. Then we sat in his hammocks for a few hours and read lonely planet books and commiserated. On a business note, I met the matron in his town who I will definitely want to work with some and she knew lots of people in my town. We also visited the Plan Mali headquarters. Then we rode our bikes into the bigger town 7 k from his and got cold beer and chicken and lots of good food. So so nice. Hello low standards for what qualifies as an awesome vacation. But then we were riding back and he wanted to show me this cool cliff with an awesome view, a rarity in flat Mali, and we made a wrong turn and all the sudden ended up at this house and saw a tubab. So we decided to go see what he is doing here and turns out he is a missionary, 7th day Adventist, from Texas living here with his wife and 2 kids, both under 5. They have been here for a year and they live in a cool house with a few Malians living in smaller houses around it too. So we chatted and then we went back the next day after market for lunch. The guy is pretty cool, I didn’t ask what his mission was, he says he is not leaving until he achieves “his mission”, and after scanning his book shelves I decided it was better not to ask. But he told us his life story and he is a really cool guy who we will visit often at around lunch time.
Side note- Michael Jackson is blasting in my neighbor’s concession right now.
Anyways, then Anderson and I rode to my site on Thursday and on the way found this awesome “coffee café” where we spent over an hour, delaying our trip but well worth it to make a few friends and drink African brewed and grinded coffee. Then we continued riding, I took funny videos of Anderson wading through the waters in routes that were most likely the worst ever, and then we finally got to my site and hung out here. The next day my APCD (boss) came to visit to evaluate how things were going and reintroduce me to the “authorities” as she calls them. The next day we wanted to start our mural but didn’t have paint so that evening we rode back to Andersons site so I could catch a bus into Bamako the next morning, since my sites transport has been unreliable because the road is so bad. So we stopped in the big town for dinner and then went to his site and I left the next morning at 6 and got into Bamako around 10, took the best shower ever, bought paint, and then met up with my friends who had an assortment of infections that landed them all in Bamako. My friend and I stayed in this really cool old French hotel with pretty colonialist era architecture and design, complete with a pool and nice showers. I am defiantly going to bring my family there. It’s about the same price as other places too but so much better. Hotel Rabelais, for those of you planning a trip to Bamako right now… but we got dinner nearby and just got to lay around and there was ever a nice TV so my friend even got to watch like 5 minutes of Manchester united against the wolves. But I had to get back to site on Sunday because of a meeting on Monday morning with ASACO, a board of health directors of sorts, but it was a great spontaneous trip into Bamako to say the least. So that meeting was today and now I am cleaning and decorating and integrating until Thursday when the national polio vaccination initiative begins, a 3 day door to door event that I am really excited about because it will give me a chance to literally see every person in this entire village. And then Sunday I am going into Bamako because I have no money left and the bank was closed when I was there buying paint… and it’s Halloween too. So things are moving fast right now and then when I get back from Halloween I really need to start my base line survey…. And then it will be thanksgiving at the ambassador’s house with friends and official people and then December IST! I forgot to say though that today I hung out with the guy from doctors without borders who was here giving out free malaria testing…. I swear, every kid we tested was positive. And the little ones don’t want to swallow the meds so it ends up all over their face and I doubt any of it makes it into their little bodies… bad plan. They need and injection. But also, Fodes wife has pretty serious malaria right now and she said that she was planning to go to the doctor tonight, but that Fode had to go fishing first before he could drive her there on his Moto…
The past week is over but god did it go by slow. Had my first mental break down since getting site, wondering why the hell I am here, and though I can’t say the question is answered, it helps to not be in my house alone. Even though it’s hard to stay out it definitely leaves me happier and feeling more productive which is vital to my fragile mind right now. But yesterday and today we vaccinated about 300 kids for polio so that has been really good. I like to think that maybe my presence acted as a catalyst to get things going, but I don’t know. It was just drops so even I could administer them when the kids weren’t running away from me in fear. Ironically enough, the only family to refuse the vaccine is the family in which the head of the household only has one good leg because, you got it, he had polio as a kid. So I am not sure what his logic is, but the doctor from a neighboring town is coming in tonight to try to convince him one last time and if that doesn’t work then they are off to the gendarme. I am not sure what happens at the gendarme but I can’t imagine. I am hoping to go into Bamako tomorrow but may have to wait till Sunday, depending on whether or not the neighboring town is done with their vaccinations because if they aren’t then I have to go over there and be the main spectacle to get people out and excited about polio vaccinations. Halloween in Sunday though and I have a few errands to run, including going to the doctor to zap and infection obviously since this is Africa after all, but all my friends are already in Bamako… so I am hoping to get outta here tomorrow morning but the last day is bearable so I won’t be too bummed, since no matter what I’ll leave Sunday and I need to stop spending money in Bamako like its play money. Gotta save up for my life after Peace Corps.