In Bamabara Mali means Hippo and Bamako means Alligator. I havent seen either.
2011… starting this year in the bush, ending it in the bush. I recently read a cool quote though that says “for some, traveling is more of a going away from rather than a going toward…” and lord knows that there are days when both of these things may be true for me, but overall, this is most definitely a going towards. It has been quite the month since my last blog post. It started with 2 weeks of in service training (IST, gotta love the governments appreciation for acronyms) in Tubaniso till December 19th, and then after that began my first vacation as a working woman and boy was it well earned. First I went to Manantali, the closest you can get to a beach in this land locked desert. Manantali is a full day of travel, mostly on a dirt road, North West of Bamako. It is kind of like the Hamptons of Mali… I imagine rich people would build lake houses there near a dam that was built by Germans to provide energy for Senegal. Lots of dam workers live there so there are bars and hotels and tubab stores. It was a week of not wearing anything but a bathing suit, good music, good company, cheap gin, and many abstract parallels drawn to how this was the weirdest Christmas ever. Then after that I spent a night in Bamako while en route to Segou for new years. We stopped in my friend Eric’s site for a few days to break up the trip. My friends Cary, Ryan and I stayed there and killed time while Eric worked and then we took the always exciting and unpredictable Malian greyhound bus equivalent to Segou. Segou is about 4 hours east of Bamako, on the river and really nice. Spread out, big trees, kind of reminds me of St. Augustine a tiny bit… there are lots of cool hotels because apparently tourists go there, though the only tubabs I met were French people escaping debt and depression and such. Interlude- just got this text from Anderson- “ONLY 37 DAYS TILL WE SEE THE OCEAN.” Since then, I have 2 other people send countdowns to that effect… needless to say; we are all very excited about WAIST (West African invitational softball tournament) Yep. Anyway, we were joined by many more friends and stayed in a catholic mission house on New Year’s Eve and the night after. It was quite the party, everything typical about new years and then all the rogue waves that Mali will throw at you as well. But successful over all, I had a great time. Lived off street food, I think my stomach has iron/bleach walls now. Then on the second, Cary and I returned to Bamako to disperse with everyone else back to site until WAIST essentially… so that was melancholy but after a straight month, I needed sometime alone to think and digest everything that had happened.
And now I am back at my site, it is January 10, 2011 right now and I got back on the 4th I think, I don’t really know. At first I just hopped back into my routine, some soccer here, holding babies there, greeting ten thousand people, holding more babies… but then I realized that for the sake of my sanity and to justify taking days off, I had to get some projects going. So I talked to some people and have a plan! I want to stand on a moutain top and proclaim- I have a project and an agenda and am no longer counting down days to Bamako but am now counting down by tasks that must get done! I am working on informing my village about soak pits right now, septic tanks basically to dispose of standing water. The girl before me made a bunch 2 years ago but didn’t finish an most have collapsed unfortunately, so this time we are going to cover them with cement which will be more expensive and time consuming but more sustainable. So I need to get a list of everyone who wants in on this project before I go to Bamako, so I can work numbers while I am there and apply for funding. My town will provide 33% of the money via labor, supplies, or cash. Update- it is not January 20th, 28 people signed up for my soak pits and the dugutigi and Fode did pretty much all the work, which is good, it has to be the villages project, not mine. So now I am in Bamako starting to dig through red tape and millions of forms trying to start applying for funding to buy cement and pipes. Sometimes I get feel pretty down when i think of how much people give Mali… so much money and projects and schools and I guess they are better off from that. They say peace corps is different because we don’t just drop cash and run away like some NGO's but it’s still disheartening sometimes, to think maybe we should just leave them alone. There was a satirical article recently written in the Senegal PC news paper I think called “why god hates peace corps volunteers”, and it was about how we are messing up gods plan… sure it’s funny but sometimes I wonder. If we didn’t give them all this money, would they have done it on their own? I know soak pits are important for a ton of reasons, preventing malaria and making the town prettier, so it does save lives but I doubt my town would do it if I didn’t push them into it. Hmm.
Also, I am now working on the World Wise Schools Program with my teacher from 7th grade, Mr. Coghlan. This is a program that links teachers in America with Peace Corps volunteers to facilitate a cross cultural exchange between the Peace Corps volunteers’ town and the classroom in the US. I will write letters and send packages in show and tell form, and his class will send me letters as well to give to kids here. Sometime soon, I will talk to the school director and tell him about this so that we can get a buddy system going and the class can exchange drawings and things… the language barrier may be an issue, along with the fact that most kids here can’t read or write… but I will find a way around that. The purpose is mostly to educate kids in the US about Peace Corps and about another culture so that side will be easy. I wish I had been in a class with this when I was little!
Most notably, I have been talking to this American Doctor who works at the embassy and this former Mali Peace Corps volunteer who now works in USAID as well about getting supplies for my maternity. The USAID man, Greg, wants to do an “Adopt a Clinic” program and already has some supplies and money ready to go, so I am getting a complete list of needs from the doctor while here and then I will meet Greg in Bamako next time I am in, I can’t wait! We are going to dinner Friday. He said he already has one hundred dollars to buy meds locally with for my maternity, once I get the list of meds. So that is looking up. But once again, if I really took the time in my village and made them an income generating activity like making Shea butter and selling it on a big scale or something, couldn’t they buy their own meds? Maybe. But lord knows the Malian government isn’t going to help out the health care system in my town.
I am starting to realize how much work will need to be done in Bamako though… I need to apply for funding for my project, meet with Greg, work that out, get prices and quotes for all the supplies for my project, write a letter to Mr. Coghlan… there is as much work to be done there as there is to do here at site. It’s frustrating though, because people here judge work based on manual labor. So when I go get water from the pump, they all stop and say ‘good work! You’re a regular Malian woman and we appreciate you!’ But when I left my hut this morning all excited, just off the phone with Greg and bursting to tell someone about the news, no one cared. I told two women about how he had some supplies for the maternity and they didn’t even crack a smile, and I know my explanation was clear. Frustrating. I really wish I had a house in Bamako to get work done at as well.
And now here I am, in Bamako, desperately trying to find the work ethic that I once had so that I can sit down and run numbers and write the paper for my SPA (small project assistance) funding… I am in Bamako until Saturday morning and then I am going to Kita, a city 2 hours north, for the weekend to see Cary. So that will be really fun, I haven’t been to Kita yet and it sounds like a cheap little place.
