Things that I think are funny: condom, literally translated back into English, is an “important hat”. I need to remember not to say that hoods are important hats when it is raining… people might get confused. Another thing is the tea. I hate the tea. I like it sometimes when they use a certain kind, but I never know which it is until I’m stuck drinking it with everyone watching me. I have learned to turn off my taste buds but by the second or third sip the I get curious but taste still creeps in and it is like sipping a shot of bitter ever clear, for those of you who know how bad that is, you know who you are. Or kind of like the rice vodka that Bryon brought back from china. But you have to sip it and it’s bitter and has chunks of tea in it. Another funny and awkward thing is that the third question I get asked by people when I meet them is whether or not I am married. In America this would be rude and I find myself kind of like, ‘what did you just say?’ But whatever, this is Africa. So I’m like no, I’m not married. ‘why? How old are you?’ Then I don’t know what to say because I don’t know how to explain in Bambara. To say that I’m too young and that I don’t want to be married yet, at all, would be hard to explain without them thinking something was wrong with me. It wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t happen at every one of the nine million houses in my town. Sometimes I’m just like whatever yeah I’m married; I have 4 husbands but no kids. Then they get really confused. And another funny thing is that every time I’m sitting down, drinking this gnarly tea, like 5 million kids come up and pet my hair. They stroke the parts that have fallen out of my hair thing and play with them… I’m kind of scared of their skin infections but oh man. As long as I can avoid having them braid it I will be happy. They always say ‘kunsigi? Kuntigi?’ Which means hair? Braids? Or something like that and I just run away. And Ashley, the crickets that lived in your bathroom in muscle beach are nothing compared to the mutant monster crickets that live in my house here… nothing. And then today I spotted a giant skink lizard under my bed… sleeping tonight will be interesting. Good thing I have my bug hut. And people here are obsessed with bathing 3 times a day, which you wouldn’t believe if you passed someone too close on the sidewalk, but they seem to think that freckles are dirt so maybe that explains why they think I don’t bathe well. Hmm. But tomorrow I head out of here in the early morning to get to Bamako alone, which will be real funny when it’s over and I know that I didn’t die or puke on anyone. But then once I get through the supposed bush taxi transfers, and if I find my bike, then I go to stage house and hang out for a little then go to this peace corps volunteers house for a regional party so that will be real fun. Tubab time! Then Wednesday back to tubaniso, yay. I can’t wait to hear the horror stories that have come out of this week at site visit, there are bound to be some good ones.
First night at my future site! This week we are visiting our sites for the first time. We have to set up bank accounts, meet people, and figure out public transport. My site is awesome though. I really think I got so lucky- I have cell service, pump water instead of just a well, the men speak French… the only thing I wish is that there was another peace corps volunteer kind of close to me. The closest one is 30 k away, and after today’s public transport experience, that is no easy feat. I think I’ll be riding my bike there and then spending the night and returning the next day when I go see him. Some people have site mates like 6 k away and stuff like that which would be nice for those days when you just really need a tubab, but I guess this is good. I have met 2 people in my family who are close to my age and friendly so maybe friendships will form with them. I mean friendships will form, but I hope they turn out to be really good ones. Driving in was so crazy though. When we finally pulled into my town, I was like oh my god; I’m going to be here for TWO YEARS. But while that is long and scary- it is also relaxing because there is really no rush. I can take my time, get to know people, learn the languages… its going to be awesome. I met a group of men who are some sort of medical board and they are all cool and can speak French. Then I met the dugutigi and all his old blind friends who have an assortment of weird visible diseases, including missing body parts (remember body parts man Ashley? Ahahhaha). Then we went to the maternity center- a 2 room building in a field that I don’t think even has electricity- but tomorrow i will get a tour. They also do everything else that doctors do there, but it is meant to be for maternity care. The closest CSCOM is like 30 k so I guess they do what they can. I have to say, I was kind of surprised when I met the doctor. He was a very well spoken, smart man. I was surprised because I have heard so much about the problem of smart educated people, especially in the health field, who leave their country because they can get better pay in others. This guy chose to stay here though and work in this center… it’s really refreshing. This town is beautiful though. Big trees, neon green fields, big sky, beautiful friendly people.
African public transport. Oh. My. God. I’m so glad I didn’t die today. But really. So I show up at the ‘bus station’ at 7 30 with my homologue lady who only speaks Bambara. They drop us off in this swarm of people and my homologue leads me to our bus. It is a really old rapist van, stripped bare inside and re welded to ‘reinforce’ the roof so it can hold more. Then they welded wooden benches around the perimeter and had one in the middle that was removable. I had seen these bush taxis before but I knew my site was between 4 and 8 hours away… so needless to say I was confused. We give the guys our stuff and they put it on top, and then we wait three hours, literally, for the bus to fill. Keep in mind that this is your average plumber car. We had 27 people in it, no joke, and a 200 kg diesel engine in the middle of us where the removable bench usually is that had just been brought in from china, obviously. I decided that this couldn’t be real so I took what my homologue said to mean that we were taking this part way, where we would then switch onto a real bus. So we pull out into traffic, I’m so scared and people are laughing at me, for many reasons, one being that in the white tubab in a van of 27 Malians. The little girl next to me is COVERED in little blisters and her scalp is peeling- I wanted to die. I didn’t think it could be contagious until I saw that both her siblings also had it. Oh my god I hope I’m vaccinated against whatever that was. Ew. She wouldn’t stop scratching. So then for the next 7 hours, yes, I sat on a wooden bench next to 26 other people and all their ‘carry on luggage’ as we barreled down the unpaved, sometimes under water ‘highway’. After about the first hour I realized that maybe it wasn’t definite that I would die so I started to relax. Then we stopped to get gas and filled up with the car running while a tanker backed in. But I also survived that so then I was pretty happy. It was funny though because by the end of the ride I felt really comfortable around all the strangers sitting around me. One boy spoke French which really helped when this guy stopped our car and made us all give 10 dollars and I had no idea what was going on. Apparently it was a transport tax…. Ironic.
But now I’m in my new house! Alive!!Did I mention they broke my bike? Yeah that was a bummer, they bent the back wheel outta shape so the peace corps is supposedly coming to get it tomorrow… good thing my bike is going to see public transport 3 more times in the next 3 weeks. This could be expensive. And my god, my lower back has never been so sore. And I better not have measles or whatever those girls were carrying. Ew. But my house is awesome, the girl who lived here last in 2009 but she left all her furniture (double bed hell yeah!) and lots of books and things. Tomorrow I am going to clean and organize, I can’t wait. I’m using my bug hut for the first time, the bug tent, and it’s the best thing ever, I’m definitely sticking to it. Everyone I have met I have really liked though and I feel like I can definitely do this, and I can’t wait to get integrated and start experiencing things. So much to look forward too!! We have this week here; a few days at Peace Corps office, 9 days at home stay, and then swear in! swear in is going to be so much fun and we get to spend the night in hotels with pools and bars and we get the next day free. First free day everrrrr. Peace Corps office (tubaniso) is always so fun though because we finally get o see all our friends and be free. It’s still packed days but we can hang out late and things. And plan ahead for things like WAST (West Africa softball tournament)… PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) organized it a long time ago and it is legendary. It is in Dakar so we bus out there (30 hours) in teams and I cannot wait. Apparently there is a form of it in dc too because the returned PCVs miss it so much. And then the new stage gets sworn in in April, yay!
Wow, I was definitely in the honey moon phase this morning. The thought actually crossed my mind that I was ‘too’ happy. But looking back, it’s because it was raining so I got to organize my room alone and she had just brought me a snack of the legendary green snot sauce but I really liked it and used a fork. I’m still happy but interacting with people in Bambara is a rollercoaster, an ‘emotional rollercoaster’, a term that we use all too often around here. So this morning I woke up and went to this guys house for breakfast. We had mango jam and milk, it was awesome. Then we explored a little and went to see the maternity center. I was talking to the doctor, the only doctor in the surrounding 5 or so villages and I asked him what difficulties he faces. He said that they need lights (that would be good for the surgeries they do) and forceps. They don’t have forceps in maternity ward?!?! Aunt Sue/ Aunt Carol, I would love to hear your thoughts on how and if it’s even possible to run a maternity ward without these. Their invention saved so many babies lives; I can’t imagine how that hasn’t reached this town yet. The family who invented forceps tried to keep it a secret and managed to for like 100 years, I don’t remember the statistics but they are astounding at how incredible they are. Anyways, maybe those 2 things can be project ideas. This town has a lot but there is another pcv doing a cervical cancer thing and I want to do that here. The only surgeries that they can do here are hernia repairs and some other small things. C-section have to go 30 kilometers away on the back of a moped- that is bad considering that C sections here are only used in emergency situations. From what I know, I know that part of the reason that C section rates are so high in the US is because forceps are a very feeling based tool; it takes a special feel to get it so many people opt for a c section instead of the doctor using forceps. So if they had forceps here and if the doctor could use them, couldn’t that prevent a lot of women from having to make the 30 k trip to the nearest CSCOM? I need to get some of these things, especially if that’s true. They see a lot of malaria, heart disease, and some other words that I don’t know what they are in English. Take this as you will- right behind this tiny, 2 room medical center for the whole 5 village area is a brand new giant mosque being built even though there are already multiple in this town. Needless to say, typical. It was cool though because when we were walking back towards the center of town we passed by this guy who worked for MSF (doctors without borders). He comes here every Friday to test people and treat them for malaria. It’s great to know that I will get to work with organizations like PLAN, IPPF, and MSF. I can’t wait to meet the other people. Then we were walking along and this dog looks at me and walks toward me confidently and I wasn’t sure what it was doing but it turns out that it was the former volunteers dog and I guess it recognizes white people because he came straight to me and knew I would love on him, he’s so cute and his name is Puppy. I love him already and I look for him all day. Then we went home and I organized and started cleaning my house. The last girl left a year ago but has been working in Bamako and has visited a few times since. Today I found lots of good books in the stuff that she left and this awesome journal. Both the previous volunteers who lived here wrote in it and it’s so cool. They both chronicle advice and thoughts throughout their service to help their replacements. I’m totally gonna continue that. I also found these funny books written by volunteers, for volunteers, as support books and full of fun things to do in each city and advice. Then this PC staff woman came and I had no idea what was going on as usual but we get in the land rover and it turns out that we were going to the mayor’s office. We went and she introduced us and we chatted. Bambara, French, and English all got mixed together because each of us spoke a combination of the 3 so things were getting passed around the circle in all 3 languages, it was cool. Then we went back via land rover which was awesome because the road was horrible so we got to test the land rovers skills at fording small rivers. Reminds me of Oregon Trail. Turns out that the guy who broke my bike on the bus yesterday came back and took my bike tire that got destroyed with the intention of fixing it. This is weird and news to me for like 9000 reasons. Not only are the bike parts needed not made in Mali but I didn’t even know he was taking it. Apparently my friend explained this to me but now that I think about it, when he said that the chauffeur was coming to fix my bike, I definitely assumed that they meant Peace Corps car driver, not bush taxi driver…. Lost in translation. So needless to say, I have a one wheeled American bike in Mali and I don’t know how I’m going to get out of here because I’m pretty sure I need to ride my bike to the bus station, basically a place on the mud road, and I don’t know how I’m going to do that. I gave my bike with one wheel to this Peace Corps lady today but I don’t really know what’s going on…. Fortunately it seems that things always work out in the Peace Corps. So far atleast. My brain is heavy, yet another bipolar year long day has passed. Ohhh mannnn. I really need to start typing this stuff when I’m in the honey moon phase of my day. Right now I’m just overwhelmed and really wonder if I will make any lasting difference that a Malian couldn’t do whether or not I was here. One thing that keeps me going is that my friend’s tour guide in the dogon country up north and many Peace Corps staff can speak English and have gotten jobs because Peace Corps volunteers lived in their town. I just need to be friends with one girl here and convince her to use birth control and not have 7 kids in 7 years and I’ll be happy. And this cervical cancer thing has me really excited too. I have to talk to the girl who started it and maybe visit her site for a tech exchange. Tomorrow will be cool though because it is prenatal consultation day. They happen every 3 months (doesn’t make sense because you need 4 prenatal consultations) but I’m really excited to start seeing my future. I’m so glad that I’m only here for a week because I am really looking forward to some tubab detox time. I’m scared for the first 3 months. Oh man. But also really excited to see how things come together and once I get used to the transport route of visiting friends. I also read in the book from the other PCVs who lived here that tubab holidays are some of their fondest memories. Halloween!! I’m definitely using some Bamako nights for that.
Sometimes I wonder what Peace Corps is doing to me. Its creating a precedent- is it setting me up to always be looking for something more? Is it making my life complete, by risking everything that I know and love to start over in a mud hut in Africa? It is starting from scratch. Some would say that this is living. Will I be overly judgmental of others when I get back? Will I be a social outcast and just want to stay on the move? Will I look down upon people who haven’t done Peace Corps but work for NGOs that do things in Africa and think that they don’t understand first hand? Will my ego become huge? Maybe ill become socialist? Or maybe I'll become a home body and want nothing more than the most stable life that any average American wants. It’s invigorating to know that being here is starting my brain over, questioning and reinforcing everything I have ever formed an opinion on. Will I see where the socialist teachers that I disagreed with in college are coming from? Will I become religious? It’s cool, knowing that I am living to the max I guess. Risking. Potentially dying of malaria, I’m not really sure. Round 2 of cipro has just begun, following a sudden fever which hit 103 in the span of 3 hours before I took max dosages of Tylenol… peace corps is a love hate relationship but I have to say, I enjoy the pain of a fever because I know I’m doing something, I know I’m creating a story and an experience that when I do fall into a routine lifestyle back in America, I can look back on this and know I can do it. I just wonder. In the beginning here when I was actually wondering if I was meant to do this, I realized that going home wouldn’t make me magically happy. Then I wondered, if I’m not happy here, then where will I be happy? Am I even the humanitarian women’s rights loving person that I thought I was? We will see. Right now I think so but I have only been here 6 weeks. I am curious to see what I will be thinking in a year. But already, I love the friends I have made here and there is so much to look forward to. The friends we make here are friends of a whole different sort, we don’t know anything about each other’s personalities and material belongings in America, all we know is why we are here and that makes us all connected. I know I sound retarded right now but it’s true. So many ups and downs to look forward to but even the downs I enjoy. But will I be able to enjoy the downs when I return to America? Right now the downs are exciting and adventurous and I feel free because I am in Africa and I’m speaking Bambara. But will all my feelings be muted once I return to the life I was living? Will I ever go back? Will I be forced to seek this adrenaline for the rest of my life, thus forgoing all plans of a family and a golden retriever? Can I have both; I guess is what I really want to know. And only time will tell. But I’ve got time on my hands to wonder. Like in the book the Lunatic Express, he wonders if his life style is what has made him who he is, the adventurous fun guy, or has it made him torn between 2 worlds, the world of being exhilarated by being so alone and the world of having family. I love the feeling of Africa because I am so alone, I’m free and I’m growing alone. Can I find a balance and have both? Have I created a wall? I don’t think so but I don’t know. Has Peace Corps in a way opened Pandora’s Box and ruined my life? I say that laughing but seriously. Time will tell and I’m excited, even as I pound cipro and lay in the fetal position in my bed taking my temperature every 5 minutes to see if it’s rising again. It’s still so unreal when I get lost in my thoughts and look up, out my screen door and see the mud huts around me- is this a dream? I have wanted and wondered and talked about the Peace Corps so long but I really don’t think that I ever actually thought I would do it. And why should I feel at all special, when I am getting paid to do something that everyone living here does for free, normal? Why do I feel so entitled and experienced by being here when to all the people in my village, this is the only life they know? Why is this even hard for me? Oh boy. I can totally see why 70 percent of all Peace Corps volunteers marry other volunteers… because we all go a little insane.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
... this is weird.
Things that I think are funny: condom, literally translated back into English, is an “important hat”. I need to remember not to say that hoods are important hats when it is raining… people might get confused. Another thing is the tea. I hate the tea. I like it sometimes when they use a certain kind, but I never know which it is until I’m stuck drinking it with everyone watching me. I have learned to turn off my taste buds but by the second or third sip the I get curious but taste still creeps in and it is like sipping a shot of bitter ever clear, for those of you who know how bad that is, you know who you are. Or kind of like the rice vodka that Bryon brought back from china. But you have to sip it and it’s bitter and has chunks of tea in it. Another funny and awkward thing is that the third question I get asked by people when I meet them is whether or not I am married. In America this would be rude and I find myself kind of like, ‘what did you just say?’ But whatever, this is Africa. So I’m like no, I’m not married. ‘why? How old are you?’ Then I don’t know what to say because I don’t know how to explain in Bambara. To say that I’m too young and that I don’t want to be married yet, at all, would be hard to explain without them thinking something was wrong with me. It wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t happen at every one of the nine million houses in my town. Sometimes I’m just like whatever yeah I’m married; I have 4 husbands but no kids. Then they get really confused. And another funny thing is that every time I’m sitting down, drinking this gnarly tea, like 5 million kids come up and pet my hair. They stroke the parts that have fallen out of my hair thing and play with them… I’m kind of scared of their skin infections but oh man. As long as I can avoid having them braid it I will be happy. They always say ‘kunsigi? Kuntigi?’ Which means hair? Braids? Or something like that and I just run away. And Ashley, the crickets that lived in your bathroom in muscle beach are nothing compared to the mutant monster crickets that live in my house here… nothing. And then today I spotted a giant skink lizard under my bed… sleeping tonight will be interesting. Good thing I have my bug hut. And people here are obsessed with bathing 3 times a day, which you wouldn’t believe if you passed someone too close on the sidewalk, but they seem to think that freckles are dirt so maybe that explains why they think I don’t bathe well. Hmm. But tomorrow I head out of here in the early morning to get to Bamako alone, which will be real funny when it’s over and I know that I didn’t die or puke on anyone. But then once I get through the supposed bush taxi transfers, and if I find my bike, then I go to stage house and hang out for a little then go to this peace corps volunteers house for a regional party so that will be real fun. Tubab time! Then Wednesday back to tubaniso, yay. I can’t wait to hear the horror stories that have come out of this week at site visit, there are bound to be some good ones.
First night at my future site! This week we are visiting our sites for the first time. We have to set up bank accounts, meet people, and figure out public transport. My site is awesome though. I really think I got so lucky- I have cell service, pump water instead of just a well, the men speak French… the only thing I wish is that there was another peace corps volunteer kind of close to me. The closest one is 30 k away, and after today’s public transport experience, that is no easy feat. I think I’ll be riding my bike there and then spending the night and returning the next day when I go see him. Some people have site mates like 6 k away and stuff like that which would be nice for those days when you just really need a tubab, but I guess this is good. I have met 2 people in my family who are close to my age and friendly so maybe friendships will form with them. I mean friendships will form, but I hope they turn out to be really good ones. Driving in was so crazy though. When we finally pulled into my town, I was like oh my god; I’m going to be here for TWO YEARS. But while that is long and scary- it is also relaxing because there is really no rush. I can take my time, get to know people, learn the languages… its going to be awesome. I met a group of men who are some sort of medical board and they are all cool and can speak French. Then I met the dugutigi and all his old blind friends who have an assortment of weird visible diseases, including missing body parts (remember body parts man Ashley? Ahahhaha). Then we went to the maternity center- a 2 room building in a field that I don’t think even has electricity- but tomorrow i will get a tour. They also do everything else that doctors do there, but it is meant to be for maternity care. The closest CSCOM is like 30 k so I guess they do what they can. I have to say, I was kind of surprised when I met the doctor. He was a very well spoken, smart man. I was surprised because I have heard so much about the problem of smart educated people, especially in the health field, who leave their country because they can get better pay in others. This guy chose to stay here though and work in this center… it’s really refreshing. This town is beautiful though. Big trees, neon green fields, big sky, beautiful friendly people.
African public transport. Oh. My. God. I’m so glad I didn’t die today. But really. So I show up at the ‘bus station’ at 7 30 with my homologue lady who only speaks Bambara. They drop us off in this swarm of people and my homologue leads me to our bus. It is a really old rapist van, stripped bare inside and re welded to ‘reinforce’ the roof so it can hold more. Then they welded wooden benches around the perimeter and had one in the middle that was removable. I had seen these bush taxis before but I knew my site was between 4 and 8 hours away… so needless to say I was confused. We give the guys our stuff and they put it on top, and then we wait three hours, literally, for the bus to fill. Keep in mind that this is your average plumber car. We had 27 people in it, no joke, and a 200 kg diesel engine in the middle of us where the removable bench usually is that had just been brought in from china, obviously. I decided that this couldn’t be real so I took what my homologue said to mean that we were taking this part way, where we would then switch onto a real bus. So we pull out into traffic, I’m so scared and people are laughing at me, for many reasons, one being that in the white tubab in a van of 27 Malians. The little girl next to me is COVERED in little blisters and her scalp is peeling- I wanted to die. I didn’t think it could be contagious until I saw that both her siblings also had it. Oh my god I hope I’m vaccinated against whatever that was. Ew. She wouldn’t stop scratching. So then for the next 7 hours, yes, I sat on a wooden bench next to 26 other people and all their ‘carry on luggage’ as we barreled down the unpaved, sometimes under water ‘highway’. After about the first hour I realized that maybe it wasn’t definite that I would die so I started to relax. Then we stopped to get gas and filled up with the car running while a tanker backed in. But I also survived that so then I was pretty happy. It was funny though because by the end of the ride I felt really comfortable around all the strangers sitting around me. One boy spoke French which really helped when this guy stopped our car and made us all give 10 dollars and I had no idea what was going on. Apparently it was a transport tax…. Ironic.
But now I’m in my new house! Alive!!Did I mention they broke my bike? Yeah that was a bummer, they bent the back wheel outta shape so the peace corps is supposedly coming to get it tomorrow… good thing my bike is going to see public transport 3 more times in the next 3 weeks. This could be expensive. And my god, my lower back has never been so sore. And I better not have measles or whatever those girls were carrying. Ew. But my house is awesome, the girl who lived here last in 2009 but she left all her furniture (double bed hell yeah!) and lots of books and things. Tomorrow I am going to clean and organize, I can’t wait. I’m using my bug hut for the first time, the bug tent, and it’s the best thing ever, I’m definitely sticking to it. Everyone I have met I have really liked though and I feel like I can definitely do this, and I can’t wait to get integrated and start experiencing things. So much to look forward too!! We have this week here; a few days at Peace Corps office, 9 days at home stay, and then swear in! swear in is going to be so much fun and we get to spend the night in hotels with pools and bars and we get the next day free. First free day everrrrr. Peace Corps office (tubaniso) is always so fun though because we finally get o see all our friends and be free. It’s still packed days but we can hang out late and things. And plan ahead for things like WAST (West Africa softball tournament)… PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) organized it a long time ago and it is legendary. It is in Dakar so we bus out there (30 hours) in teams and I cannot wait. Apparently there is a form of it in dc too because the returned PCVs miss it so much. And then the new stage gets sworn in in April, yay!
Wow, I was definitely in the honey moon phase this morning. The thought actually crossed my mind that I was ‘too’ happy. But looking back, it’s because it was raining so I got to organize my room alone and she had just brought me a snack of the legendary green snot sauce but I really liked it and used a fork. I’m still happy but interacting with people in Bambara is a rollercoaster, an ‘emotional rollercoaster’, a term that we use all too often around here. So this morning I woke up and went to this guys house for breakfast. We had mango jam and milk, it was awesome. Then we explored a little and went to see the maternity center. I was talking to the doctor, the only doctor in the surrounding 5 or so villages and I asked him what difficulties he faces. He said that they need lights (that would be good for the surgeries they do) and forceps. They don’t have forceps in maternity ward?!?! Aunt Sue/ Aunt Carol, I would love to hear your thoughts on how and if it’s even possible to run a maternity ward without these. Their invention saved so many babies lives; I can’t imagine how that hasn’t reached this town yet. The family who invented forceps tried to keep it a secret and managed to for like 100 years, I don’t remember the statistics but they are astounding at how incredible they are. Anyways, maybe those 2 things can be project ideas. This town has a lot but there is another pcv doing a cervical cancer thing and I want to do that here. The only surgeries that they can do here are hernia repairs and some other small things. C-section have to go 30 kilometers away on the back of a moped- that is bad considering that C sections here are only used in emergency situations. From what I know, I know that part of the reason that C section rates are so high in the US is because forceps are a very feeling based tool; it takes a special feel to get it so many people opt for a c section instead of the doctor using forceps. So if they had forceps here and if the doctor could use them, couldn’t that prevent a lot of women from having to make the 30 k trip to the nearest CSCOM? I need to get some of these things, especially if that’s true. They see a lot of malaria, heart disease, and some other words that I don’t know what they are in English. Take this as you will- right behind this tiny, 2 room medical center for the whole 5 village area is a brand new giant mosque being built even though there are already multiple in this town. Needless to say, typical. It was cool though because when we were walking back towards the center of town we passed by this guy who worked for MSF (doctors without borders). He comes here every Friday to test people and treat them for malaria. It’s great to know that I will get to work with organizations like PLAN, IPPF, and MSF. I can’t wait to meet the other people. Then we were walking along and this dog looks at me and walks toward me confidently and I wasn’t sure what it was doing but it turns out that it was the former volunteers dog and I guess it recognizes white people because he came straight to me and knew I would love on him, he’s so cute and his name is Puppy. I love him already and I look for him all day. Then we went home and I organized and started cleaning my house. The last girl left a year ago but has been working in Bamako and has visited a few times since. Today I found lots of good books in the stuff that she left and this awesome journal. Both the previous volunteers who lived here wrote in it and it’s so cool. They both chronicle advice and thoughts throughout their service to help their replacements. I’m totally gonna continue that. I also found these funny books written by volunteers, for volunteers, as support books and full of fun things to do in each city and advice. Then this PC staff woman came and I had no idea what was going on as usual but we get in the land rover and it turns out that we were going to the mayor’s office. We went and she introduced us and we chatted. Bambara, French, and English all got mixed together because each of us spoke a combination of the 3 so things were getting passed around the circle in all 3 languages, it was cool. Then we went back via land rover which was awesome because the road was horrible so we got to test the land rovers skills at fording small rivers. Reminds me of Oregon Trail. Turns out that the guy who broke my bike on the bus yesterday came back and took my bike tire that got destroyed with the intention of fixing it. This is weird and news to me for like 9000 reasons. Not only are the bike parts needed not made in Mali but I didn’t even know he was taking it. Apparently my friend explained this to me but now that I think about it, when he said that the chauffeur was coming to fix my bike, I definitely assumed that they meant Peace Corps car driver, not bush taxi driver…. Lost in translation. So needless to say, I have a one wheeled American bike in Mali and I don’t know how I’m going to get out of here because I’m pretty sure I need to ride my bike to the bus station, basically a place on the mud road, and I don’t know how I’m going to do that. I gave my bike with one wheel to this Peace Corps lady today but I don’t really know what’s going on…. Fortunately it seems that things always work out in the Peace Corps. So far atleast. My brain is heavy, yet another bipolar year long day has passed. Ohhh mannnn. I really need to start typing this stuff when I’m in the honey moon phase of my day. Right now I’m just overwhelmed and really wonder if I will make any lasting difference that a Malian couldn’t do whether or not I was here. One thing that keeps me going is that my friend’s tour guide in the dogon country up north and many Peace Corps staff can speak English and have gotten jobs because Peace Corps volunteers lived in their town. I just need to be friends with one girl here and convince her to use birth control and not have 7 kids in 7 years and I’ll be happy. And this cervical cancer thing has me really excited too. I have to talk to the girl who started it and maybe visit her site for a tech exchange. Tomorrow will be cool though because it is prenatal consultation day. They happen every 3 months (doesn’t make sense because you need 4 prenatal consultations) but I’m really excited to start seeing my future. I’m so glad that I’m only here for a week because I am really looking forward to some tubab detox time. I’m scared for the first 3 months. Oh man. But also really excited to see how things come together and once I get used to the transport route of visiting friends. I also read in the book from the other PCVs who lived here that tubab holidays are some of their fondest memories. Halloween!! I’m definitely using some Bamako nights for that.
Sometimes I wonder what Peace Corps is doing to me. Its creating a precedent- is it setting me up to always be looking for something more? Is it making my life complete, by risking everything that I know and love to start over in a mud hut in Africa? It is starting from scratch. Some would say that this is living. Will I be overly judgmental of others when I get back? Will I be a social outcast and just want to stay on the move? Will I look down upon people who haven’t done Peace Corps but work for NGOs that do things in Africa and think that they don’t understand first hand? Will my ego become huge? Maybe ill become socialist? Or maybe I'll become a home body and want nothing more than the most stable life that any average American wants. It’s invigorating to know that being here is starting my brain over, questioning and reinforcing everything I have ever formed an opinion on. Will I see where the socialist teachers that I disagreed with in college are coming from? Will I become religious? It’s cool, knowing that I am living to the max I guess. Risking. Potentially dying of malaria, I’m not really sure. Round 2 of cipro has just begun, following a sudden fever which hit 103 in the span of 3 hours before I took max dosages of Tylenol… peace corps is a love hate relationship but I have to say, I enjoy the pain of a fever because I know I’m doing something, I know I’m creating a story and an experience that when I do fall into a routine lifestyle back in America, I can look back on this and know I can do it. I just wonder. In the beginning here when I was actually wondering if I was meant to do this, I realized that going home wouldn’t make me magically happy. Then I wondered, if I’m not happy here, then where will I be happy? Am I even the humanitarian women’s rights loving person that I thought I was? We will see. Right now I think so but I have only been here 6 weeks. I am curious to see what I will be thinking in a year. But already, I love the friends I have made here and there is so much to look forward to. The friends we make here are friends of a whole different sort, we don’t know anything about each other’s personalities and material belongings in America, all we know is why we are here and that makes us all connected. I know I sound retarded right now but it’s true. So many ups and downs to look forward to but even the downs I enjoy. But will I be able to enjoy the downs when I return to America? Right now the downs are exciting and adventurous and I feel free because I am in Africa and I’m speaking Bambara. But will all my feelings be muted once I return to the life I was living? Will I ever go back? Will I be forced to seek this adrenaline for the rest of my life, thus forgoing all plans of a family and a golden retriever? Can I have both; I guess is what I really want to know. And only time will tell. But I’ve got time on my hands to wonder. Like in the book the Lunatic Express, he wonders if his life style is what has made him who he is, the adventurous fun guy, or has it made him torn between 2 worlds, the world of being exhilarated by being so alone and the world of having family. I love the feeling of Africa because I am so alone, I’m free and I’m growing alone. Can I find a balance and have both? Have I created a wall? I don’t think so but I don’t know. Has Peace Corps in a way opened Pandora’s Box and ruined my life? I say that laughing but seriously. Time will tell and I’m excited, even as I pound cipro and lay in the fetal position in my bed taking my temperature every 5 minutes to see if it’s rising again. It’s still so unreal when I get lost in my thoughts and look up, out my screen door and see the mud huts around me- is this a dream? I have wanted and wondered and talked about the Peace Corps so long but I really don’t think that I ever actually thought I would do it. And why should I feel at all special, when I am getting paid to do something that everyone living here does for free, normal? Why do I feel so entitled and experienced by being here when to all the people in my village, this is the only life they know? Why is this even hard for me? Oh boy. I can totally see why 70 percent of all Peace Corps volunteers marry other volunteers… because we all go a little insane.
First night at my future site! This week we are visiting our sites for the first time. We have to set up bank accounts, meet people, and figure out public transport. My site is awesome though. I really think I got so lucky- I have cell service, pump water instead of just a well, the men speak French… the only thing I wish is that there was another peace corps volunteer kind of close to me. The closest one is 30 k away, and after today’s public transport experience, that is no easy feat. I think I’ll be riding my bike there and then spending the night and returning the next day when I go see him. Some people have site mates like 6 k away and stuff like that which would be nice for those days when you just really need a tubab, but I guess this is good. I have met 2 people in my family who are close to my age and friendly so maybe friendships will form with them. I mean friendships will form, but I hope they turn out to be really good ones. Driving in was so crazy though. When we finally pulled into my town, I was like oh my god; I’m going to be here for TWO YEARS. But while that is long and scary- it is also relaxing because there is really no rush. I can take my time, get to know people, learn the languages… its going to be awesome. I met a group of men who are some sort of medical board and they are all cool and can speak French. Then I met the dugutigi and all his old blind friends who have an assortment of weird visible diseases, including missing body parts (remember body parts man Ashley? Ahahhaha). Then we went to the maternity center- a 2 room building in a field that I don’t think even has electricity- but tomorrow i will get a tour. They also do everything else that doctors do there, but it is meant to be for maternity care. The closest CSCOM is like 30 k so I guess they do what they can. I have to say, I was kind of surprised when I met the doctor. He was a very well spoken, smart man. I was surprised because I have heard so much about the problem of smart educated people, especially in the health field, who leave their country because they can get better pay in others. This guy chose to stay here though and work in this center… it’s really refreshing. This town is beautiful though. Big trees, neon green fields, big sky, beautiful friendly people.
African public transport. Oh. My. God. I’m so glad I didn’t die today. But really. So I show up at the ‘bus station’ at 7 30 with my homologue lady who only speaks Bambara. They drop us off in this swarm of people and my homologue leads me to our bus. It is a really old rapist van, stripped bare inside and re welded to ‘reinforce’ the roof so it can hold more. Then they welded wooden benches around the perimeter and had one in the middle that was removable. I had seen these bush taxis before but I knew my site was between 4 and 8 hours away… so needless to say I was confused. We give the guys our stuff and they put it on top, and then we wait three hours, literally, for the bus to fill. Keep in mind that this is your average plumber car. We had 27 people in it, no joke, and a 200 kg diesel engine in the middle of us where the removable bench usually is that had just been brought in from china, obviously. I decided that this couldn’t be real so I took what my homologue said to mean that we were taking this part way, where we would then switch onto a real bus. So we pull out into traffic, I’m so scared and people are laughing at me, for many reasons, one being that in the white tubab in a van of 27 Malians. The little girl next to me is COVERED in little blisters and her scalp is peeling- I wanted to die. I didn’t think it could be contagious until I saw that both her siblings also had it. Oh my god I hope I’m vaccinated against whatever that was. Ew. She wouldn’t stop scratching. So then for the next 7 hours, yes, I sat on a wooden bench next to 26 other people and all their ‘carry on luggage’ as we barreled down the unpaved, sometimes under water ‘highway’. After about the first hour I realized that maybe it wasn’t definite that I would die so I started to relax. Then we stopped to get gas and filled up with the car running while a tanker backed in. But I also survived that so then I was pretty happy. It was funny though because by the end of the ride I felt really comfortable around all the strangers sitting around me. One boy spoke French which really helped when this guy stopped our car and made us all give 10 dollars and I had no idea what was going on. Apparently it was a transport tax…. Ironic.
But now I’m in my new house! Alive!!Did I mention they broke my bike? Yeah that was a bummer, they bent the back wheel outta shape so the peace corps is supposedly coming to get it tomorrow… good thing my bike is going to see public transport 3 more times in the next 3 weeks. This could be expensive. And my god, my lower back has never been so sore. And I better not have measles or whatever those girls were carrying. Ew. But my house is awesome, the girl who lived here last in 2009 but she left all her furniture (double bed hell yeah!) and lots of books and things. Tomorrow I am going to clean and organize, I can’t wait. I’m using my bug hut for the first time, the bug tent, and it’s the best thing ever, I’m definitely sticking to it. Everyone I have met I have really liked though and I feel like I can definitely do this, and I can’t wait to get integrated and start experiencing things. So much to look forward too!! We have this week here; a few days at Peace Corps office, 9 days at home stay, and then swear in! swear in is going to be so much fun and we get to spend the night in hotels with pools and bars and we get the next day free. First free day everrrrr. Peace Corps office (tubaniso) is always so fun though because we finally get o see all our friends and be free. It’s still packed days but we can hang out late and things. And plan ahead for things like WAST (West Africa softball tournament)… PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) organized it a long time ago and it is legendary. It is in Dakar so we bus out there (30 hours) in teams and I cannot wait. Apparently there is a form of it in dc too because the returned PCVs miss it so much. And then the new stage gets sworn in in April, yay!
Wow, I was definitely in the honey moon phase this morning. The thought actually crossed my mind that I was ‘too’ happy. But looking back, it’s because it was raining so I got to organize my room alone and she had just brought me a snack of the legendary green snot sauce but I really liked it and used a fork. I’m still happy but interacting with people in Bambara is a rollercoaster, an ‘emotional rollercoaster’, a term that we use all too often around here. So this morning I woke up and went to this guys house for breakfast. We had mango jam and milk, it was awesome. Then we explored a little and went to see the maternity center. I was talking to the doctor, the only doctor in the surrounding 5 or so villages and I asked him what difficulties he faces. He said that they need lights (that would be good for the surgeries they do) and forceps. They don’t have forceps in maternity ward?!?! Aunt Sue/ Aunt Carol, I would love to hear your thoughts on how and if it’s even possible to run a maternity ward without these. Their invention saved so many babies lives; I can’t imagine how that hasn’t reached this town yet. The family who invented forceps tried to keep it a secret and managed to for like 100 years, I don’t remember the statistics but they are astounding at how incredible they are. Anyways, maybe those 2 things can be project ideas. This town has a lot but there is another pcv doing a cervical cancer thing and I want to do that here. The only surgeries that they can do here are hernia repairs and some other small things. C-section have to go 30 kilometers away on the back of a moped- that is bad considering that C sections here are only used in emergency situations. From what I know, I know that part of the reason that C section rates are so high in the US is because forceps are a very feeling based tool; it takes a special feel to get it so many people opt for a c section instead of the doctor using forceps. So if they had forceps here and if the doctor could use them, couldn’t that prevent a lot of women from having to make the 30 k trip to the nearest CSCOM? I need to get some of these things, especially if that’s true. They see a lot of malaria, heart disease, and some other words that I don’t know what they are in English. Take this as you will- right behind this tiny, 2 room medical center for the whole 5 village area is a brand new giant mosque being built even though there are already multiple in this town. Needless to say, typical. It was cool though because when we were walking back towards the center of town we passed by this guy who worked for MSF (doctors without borders). He comes here every Friday to test people and treat them for malaria. It’s great to know that I will get to work with organizations like PLAN, IPPF, and MSF. I can’t wait to meet the other people. Then we were walking along and this dog looks at me and walks toward me confidently and I wasn’t sure what it was doing but it turns out that it was the former volunteers dog and I guess it recognizes white people because he came straight to me and knew I would love on him, he’s so cute and his name is Puppy. I love him already and I look for him all day. Then we went home and I organized and started cleaning my house. The last girl left a year ago but has been working in Bamako and has visited a few times since. Today I found lots of good books in the stuff that she left and this awesome journal. Both the previous volunteers who lived here wrote in it and it’s so cool. They both chronicle advice and thoughts throughout their service to help their replacements. I’m totally gonna continue that. I also found these funny books written by volunteers, for volunteers, as support books and full of fun things to do in each city and advice. Then this PC staff woman came and I had no idea what was going on as usual but we get in the land rover and it turns out that we were going to the mayor’s office. We went and she introduced us and we chatted. Bambara, French, and English all got mixed together because each of us spoke a combination of the 3 so things were getting passed around the circle in all 3 languages, it was cool. Then we went back via land rover which was awesome because the road was horrible so we got to test the land rovers skills at fording small rivers. Reminds me of Oregon Trail. Turns out that the guy who broke my bike on the bus yesterday came back and took my bike tire that got destroyed with the intention of fixing it. This is weird and news to me for like 9000 reasons. Not only are the bike parts needed not made in Mali but I didn’t even know he was taking it. Apparently my friend explained this to me but now that I think about it, when he said that the chauffeur was coming to fix my bike, I definitely assumed that they meant Peace Corps car driver, not bush taxi driver…. Lost in translation. So needless to say, I have a one wheeled American bike in Mali and I don’t know how I’m going to get out of here because I’m pretty sure I need to ride my bike to the bus station, basically a place on the mud road, and I don’t know how I’m going to do that. I gave my bike with one wheel to this Peace Corps lady today but I don’t really know what’s going on…. Fortunately it seems that things always work out in the Peace Corps. So far atleast. My brain is heavy, yet another bipolar year long day has passed. Ohhh mannnn. I really need to start typing this stuff when I’m in the honey moon phase of my day. Right now I’m just overwhelmed and really wonder if I will make any lasting difference that a Malian couldn’t do whether or not I was here. One thing that keeps me going is that my friend’s tour guide in the dogon country up north and many Peace Corps staff can speak English and have gotten jobs because Peace Corps volunteers lived in their town. I just need to be friends with one girl here and convince her to use birth control and not have 7 kids in 7 years and I’ll be happy. And this cervical cancer thing has me really excited too. I have to talk to the girl who started it and maybe visit her site for a tech exchange. Tomorrow will be cool though because it is prenatal consultation day. They happen every 3 months (doesn’t make sense because you need 4 prenatal consultations) but I’m really excited to start seeing my future. I’m so glad that I’m only here for a week because I am really looking forward to some tubab detox time. I’m scared for the first 3 months. Oh man. But also really excited to see how things come together and once I get used to the transport route of visiting friends. I also read in the book from the other PCVs who lived here that tubab holidays are some of their fondest memories. Halloween!! I’m definitely using some Bamako nights for that.
Sometimes I wonder what Peace Corps is doing to me. Its creating a precedent- is it setting me up to always be looking for something more? Is it making my life complete, by risking everything that I know and love to start over in a mud hut in Africa? It is starting from scratch. Some would say that this is living. Will I be overly judgmental of others when I get back? Will I be a social outcast and just want to stay on the move? Will I look down upon people who haven’t done Peace Corps but work for NGOs that do things in Africa and think that they don’t understand first hand? Will my ego become huge? Maybe ill become socialist? Or maybe I'll become a home body and want nothing more than the most stable life that any average American wants. It’s invigorating to know that being here is starting my brain over, questioning and reinforcing everything I have ever formed an opinion on. Will I see where the socialist teachers that I disagreed with in college are coming from? Will I become religious? It’s cool, knowing that I am living to the max I guess. Risking. Potentially dying of malaria, I’m not really sure. Round 2 of cipro has just begun, following a sudden fever which hit 103 in the span of 3 hours before I took max dosages of Tylenol… peace corps is a love hate relationship but I have to say, I enjoy the pain of a fever because I know I’m doing something, I know I’m creating a story and an experience that when I do fall into a routine lifestyle back in America, I can look back on this and know I can do it. I just wonder. In the beginning here when I was actually wondering if I was meant to do this, I realized that going home wouldn’t make me magically happy. Then I wondered, if I’m not happy here, then where will I be happy? Am I even the humanitarian women’s rights loving person that I thought I was? We will see. Right now I think so but I have only been here 6 weeks. I am curious to see what I will be thinking in a year. But already, I love the friends I have made here and there is so much to look forward to. The friends we make here are friends of a whole different sort, we don’t know anything about each other’s personalities and material belongings in America, all we know is why we are here and that makes us all connected. I know I sound retarded right now but it’s true. So many ups and downs to look forward to but even the downs I enjoy. But will I be able to enjoy the downs when I return to America? Right now the downs are exciting and adventurous and I feel free because I am in Africa and I’m speaking Bambara. But will all my feelings be muted once I return to the life I was living? Will I ever go back? Will I be forced to seek this adrenaline for the rest of my life, thus forgoing all plans of a family and a golden retriever? Can I have both; I guess is what I really want to know. And only time will tell. But I’ve got time on my hands to wonder. Like in the book the Lunatic Express, he wonders if his life style is what has made him who he is, the adventurous fun guy, or has it made him torn between 2 worlds, the world of being exhilarated by being so alone and the world of having family. I love the feeling of Africa because I am so alone, I’m free and I’m growing alone. Can I find a balance and have both? Have I created a wall? I don’t think so but I don’t know. Has Peace Corps in a way opened Pandora’s Box and ruined my life? I say that laughing but seriously. Time will tell and I’m excited, even as I pound cipro and lay in the fetal position in my bed taking my temperature every 5 minutes to see if it’s rising again. It’s still so unreal when I get lost in my thoughts and look up, out my screen door and see the mud huts around me- is this a dream? I have wanted and wondered and talked about the Peace Corps so long but I really don’t think that I ever actually thought I would do it. And why should I feel at all special, when I am getting paid to do something that everyone living here does for free, normal? Why do I feel so entitled and experienced by being here when to all the people in my village, this is the only life they know? Why is this even hard for me? Oh boy. I can totally see why 70 percent of all Peace Corps volunteers marry other volunteers… because we all go a little insane.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
chacco tan lines and foot diseases
Forward: the first entry into this is the day of a malnutrition center visit so it’s a pretty depressing story. But keep reading because it gets better!! But things are great; I couldn’t love the peace corps more or be any happier. I can’t even believe I’m here.
First day of the second stint at home stay. Longest day ever, with as many emotions and bumps as I probably normally experience in a year. We woke up early because we had to drive to a malnutrition center in Bamako and get dropped off at our home stay sites again. And of course we had to also make time for lunch at the Broadway café, a Peace Corps favorite restaurant opened by an American expat. Long story short, I got a burrito and a strawberry milkshake… good way to follow up the visit to the malnutrition center.
But on a more serious note, today was defiantly a turning point. It could have either been the day that we realize there is too much sadness and that we can’t be here any longer, or the day that we realize that it is because we are now aware of this sadness in the world that we cannot leave. We pulled up to the hospital in out Peace Corps van and the 12 or so of us health volunteers entered into the hospital. It was an open square with scattered buildings around the perimeter, labeled everything from radiology to the morgue. We waited an hour, average Africa time, and then looked at some of the check out rooms and observed as they weighed and measured babies and children to see where they fell on the malnutrition scale, from OK to severe. Then we walked through the center square, past infected feet and new born babies, and into the malnutrition wing. First was the assessment and storage room. As usual, it was one million degrees and the fan was useless. We looked at the different treatment methods that we would later be educating women about in our villages. However, on a side note, most of our work will be preventative care. But if we should refer a case to a hospital, it could go here. Then we went into the treatment room, with about 10 beds crammed into the small sweaty room. This was the scary part. It was real life photojournalism. The first bed was a case of a small girl who refused to breast feed so they had to give her a feeding tube. She looked about average for Mali, which is malnourished but not too severe. The second bed was kwashakor- I think I misspelled that but I will try to correct it later. This severe protein deficiency causes the limbs to swell so much that the skin breaks and stretches and turns into a black ash. She was extremely weak and emaciated, ribs poking through but very puffy, black ashen limbs. The mother’s eyes were unforgettable. The next bed was a case of cerebral malaria. He was probably about 10, but guessing ages in children who are malnourished is hard. His eyes rolled back into his head about every ten seconds and they constantly probed him with needles. I am not sure what will happen to him and did not ask. The next bed was eight month old twins. Rare in Mali and these two were severely dehydrated, as noticed by the black gum like substance all over the top of their head. I don’t yet know why but this is a tell tale sign of dehydration. The mother was also malnourished and receiving treatment. All of this is free, though it is still hard to get women to bring their children in and especially to get them to stay for the whole treatment period. The next bed was the worst. I don’t even really want to type about it. It was absolutely unreal to see that this is real life and no longer a picture in a magazine. The baby was 8 months old but much smaller than even the other 4 month olds. But I can’t describe how malnourished this baby was- its cheeks and chin were more severe than those of a holocaust photo. How can this exist in our world today? The mother’s breasts had never produced much milk but they had stopped all together when the baby was 3 months old. Since then, for the following 5 months, she had tried to feed it adult food but it must not have eaten anything. Her eyes were unforgettable. My god. But there was little time to dwell because in the next bed was a baby whose mother had died. There was a woman there breast feeding it but I don’t know who she was in relation to him. The next few beds were assorted cases of cleft lip and general malnourishment, and one more case of kwashiorkor. Like I said, this could have easily gone 2 ways. We could either say wow, there is too much sadness in the world and I can’t live like this. Or, one could say that now that we have seen it, we will be haunted forever if we don’t try to educate mothers and families on how to prevent things from getting this bad. It still blows my mind that I am on the same planet as the life I used to lead. But there’s no turning back now. The rest of the day we waited for the shock to subside temporarily at least. We ate lots and then got dropped off at site. We translated a survey about health into Bambara to practice taking tomorrow. We ask women and families about hand washing, food variety, school level, and if they are aware of STDs or family planning. My brain is heavy. I just can’t wait to find out my site in a few weeks and then get started in September on my job.
Today was the wedding of one of the host sisters of another Peace Corps trainee living in my village. The girl getting married is 20, has one kid and is pregnant, and the man is 40. I asked my host brother if it was common for girls to get pregnant out of wed lock and he said that while not common, that it was ok because in some cases the money just isn’t there for marriage but they want kids. Marriage here is different because the girl never seems happy. Sure, emotions here are kind of taboo, especially sadness, but the men are always happy for marriage. Opposite of the US it seems. We watched and joined the party earlier this afternoon though when she gets picked up by a caravan of all her husband’s friends and taken to a friend’s home until the evening. My host dad is close friends with her family so she stayed here. Covered and in silence, as usual. So many things here will taint and change how I experience things back in the US: at weddings I will think of today, funerals, births…. Everything will be changed by what I experience here.
Today was a classic “lost in translation moment.” I was talking to my host mom (I can actually have a conversation now!!) and I thought she said something about tigedegas, or peanut butter. So i asked her and she said that she said nothing about peanut butter. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted so I just told a dumb story about how I eat lots of peanut butter in America. Then I knew I had made a mistake… next thing I know, one of my host moms brings out a big old mayonnaise jar covered in untreated water and full of peanut butter. Damn. This reminds me of the time I told her I liked her out fit and then she almost gave it to me until I convinced her that I was going to buy one the next day. And also of the time that someone said they like rabbits in America and bunnies, and then their family fed them one. Lost in translation… my roommate at tubaniso was doing laundry one day when her host mom offered to do it for her. She protested but to no avail, the mother took the clothes and began washing them. Then she insisted that she give over the shirt she was wearing. So my friend slowly unbuttons her shirt, saying, is this what you want?! And the host mom laughs and takes her shirt even though my friend told her that it was her last one. Then she had to spend the rest of the lunch break in her bra until the host mom understood and loaned her a shirt. My host family also gets a kick out of when I say I’m going to wash their dog with good smelling soap. Or when I say I want to go to the fields and pick peanuts with them… they just die. Man, humor is cultural. The biggest joke here in Mali is telling someone “you are a bean eater” or “I am your mom”. I personally love both; especially “I am your mom”. of the 5 or so last names in all of Mali, each one has another last name that they joke with in all situations. It can get you good deals on stores and resolve conflicts, simply by being a joking cousin.
Oh man another incident today occurred which will make my host family think I’m insane. I hope nothing bad happens, or else they may thing I cursed them. I was tired of sterilizing my water with my Steripen in corners. This thing is like a light saber that I stir around in my nalgene for a minute and it kills all the germs. It is this or bleach, and I don’t like the thought of drinking bleach for 2 years. But I finally was like whatever, I don’t care, and just used the steripen right in my door way. One kid walked by and came back…. I have never seen someone’s eyes get so big when they weren’t being sarcastic. It was hilarious. I have no idea how to explain water sanitation in Bambara so I just said over and over, to the growing crowd paralyzed in silence, “N te jinogo min!!” “I don’t drink dirty water!!” I hope I didn’t insult them, because they drink this water….
Today I got back to my home stay site after a short vacation at the Bamako Peace Corps health center. Really, it was just at the stage house, a hostel style half way house for Peace Corps volunteers to use for free when in Bamako. We get 24 per year for recreational use, such as catching a flight the next morning, or in my case, when death feels near.
But before I go into that story of adventure, I have to type about yet another intelligent conversation I have had with my host family. I got home around 9 because we had dinner at our teachers house. I sat outside on the mat watching the car battery powered TV for a little, trying to tell them about my visit to Bamako and that I am longer ill. The stars here are incredible by the way. I see shooting stars almost nightly and can see so much of the Milky Way. It’s incredible how big the sky is. But anyways, in awkward silences, I have a habit of listening to their conversations or the TV and just repeating a word that I recognize and hen forming sentences with it. This has gotten me into many uncomfortable situations, but there nothing else I can do but sit in silence which is a worse alternative I think. One of my fellow Peace Corps trainees names in my village is sorofan, translated meaning ‘trash pile’. This is what people name their kid after a few have died, hoping that god won’t want this one. But I heard the person on the TV say her name so I repeated it and said that it was my friend’s name. Then after a long confusing conversation I realized that it was not in fact my friend’s name, but a dinner dish, and I had no idea what was going on until a few minutes into their laughter…. Typical.
But these past few days were quite the adventure, but I have come out feeling not only the most healthy I have since arriving in Africa, but also with a new sense of ability. In the beginning, the smallest head ache would get me thinking of going home. But I realize that after this whole affair with what was probably bacterial dysentery, I didn’t once wish I was home and now feel invincible... it’s nice to know I made it through my first sickness. But after a week of uncomfort, Saturday was unbearable so I finally called the doctor in tears. I told her my symptoms and she said she would send a car… I wasn’t sure if her urgency was a good thing or a bad thing but I walked over to my teacher’s house and waited for the car, within crawling distance of a nyegen. Crying is really taboo in Mali, but my family was really great. They were really helpful and concerned during my hasty, tearful packing and dashing to the land rover. Apparently they even went to my teacher’s house a few times to ask how I was doing. But I get in the car and we drive to Bamako. We arrive at the stage house and I get out with my backpack, purse, and a zip loc freezer bog of puke… the guard did not quite know what to make of me. This led to an odd exchange of what to do with it, eventually we found a trash can after he tried to get me to drop it down a toilet hole, but it wouldn’t fit…. I don’t even know. But I went inside and passed out for a few hours and then the doctor came for an initial evaluation. I slept for a long time and the next day started cipro. I wish I had been coherent because I didn’t realize until later in my stay that there was internet, a kitchen, a TV…. A whole western world that I was too sick to enjoy. But on Monday morning I was feeling good and living the dream. I even managed to walk to this bakery to get me and my other immobilized sick friends pain au chocolats. This was a harder task than I had imagined, Bamako is not like New York, despite what I though. It has dirt roads and open sewers and does not yield for pedestrians. Elon did not prepare me for that. But I obviously got hopelessly lost on the way home and was pretty concerned. I found signs for another nearby Peace Corps building that I went to and then a guard walked me the 2 blocks to my house laughing. Then on the drive back to my village today I got to enjoy the scenery, so that was nice. I also realized that driving in a car here is like wake boarding. We weave down the road avoiding giant pot holes, especially on the unpaved roads. When the driver is in a rush we may catch some air going down the face of the pothole. We may do some cut backs and try to jump the wake but this is not so great when you’re not in the 4 wheel drive land rovers. But overall, very similar experiences to cruising down the intercoastal waterway on a wake board.
Along with surviving my first bout with something akin to bacterial dysentery this week, I survived my first bike accident! Woo hooo. I don’t even remember when the last bike accident I had was. Needless to say, this is Africa, and life pretty much starts over as soon as you get here. Learning how to do everything from going to the bathroom to eating to speaking from scratch. Today I don’t know what happened, maybe my pant strap got stuck in the chain, it’s a mystery. But whatever the problem was, it caused me to catapult over the handle bars, bike in tow, onto the dirt/hook worm infested mud path. My bike was ok after a quick tune up and all is well minus regular scratches which hopefully won’t get infected. This happened right in front of the girl in our village who is a little unsure of her biking skills, even better. But the best part of injury-less bike accidents is having someone see it happen because I’m sure it was pretty cool looking.
Today was a milestone for many reasons. I survived a bike accident unscathed, and I bonded with my family more. I feel bad I didn’t buy them anything at the market I went to, but I go so often that I can’t do it every time on my Peace Corps stipend. That’s one of the problems with being a white person here- people think you are made of American dollars and that I am here to give money of build a school and leave. I have no money and will be showing people that they can do it themselves instead, but I have heard it takes a while to get your village to see that. A long frustrating time of getting people to build the school themselves and such. But I was sitting outside and my host brother invited me to come sit at his hut so that was good. And then I sat and watched TV with 100 little kids looking at me instead of the TV calling me a tubab. I made a few jokes in bamanankan so that’s a big move- they think it’s hilarious that I treat their dog so nicely so today i told them my child’s name was polici, their dog’s name. My host mom was dying… Malian humor is easy to please. Then I told all the kids that they were the biggest tubabs and that they were bean eaters…. And now I’m famous. And tomorrow when I bring them back candy from market, I will be famous forever. The last Peace Corps trainee my family had was in 2008 so I asked them about the person today. My host brother went on and on about how awesome he was… oops.
The first 3 months at site are dedicated to integrating and to doing our baseline surveys. These ask people about their hand washing habits, toilet facilities, how well they eat, and their knowledge of STDs and family planning. I practiced on my family and they said that they never, ever wash their hands except when they eat with me. Ew. They also don’t have covers on their toilets (holes in the ground) and this allows fly’s to go in and out carrying disease. Bad. No wonder I was sick and had to zap my body with cipro. Neither of the 2 moms in my family have ever had a prenatal consultation. I want to ask how many, if any children they have lost, but I didn’t. They do not sell condoms in this town. Birth control is a woman’s responsibility here and she can get information on that in the main town, 30 minutes by bike up the road. This may be too far for most women though. But at this town she can get the shot or the pill. My host brother said that everyone had heard of AIDS but that no one in my town has had it. This is more likely because no one has ever been tested. Testing is optional at the CSCOM health center, but many women opt out because what would they do if they had it? It’s really about prevention here. But unfortunately, condoms are supposedly only used until marriage. But after marriage is when most women become infected with HIV. There are many women who live here and their husbands work in Bamako, probably leading to him bringing home STD’s. But in a culture where pregnancy is normally the goal, what can you do? Pregnancy in Bambara translates back to English as ‘to get lucky’. In whose opinion? I don’t have a problem with the fact that the average woman has 7 kids. I have a problem with the fact that she starts often times too young before her body is ready and doesn’t get pre or post natal care. I also have a problem with the fact that families have as many kids as they can in many village situations, without regard to when it would be appropriate to stop so that the kids can have enough food and go to school. I think about 6 of the 9 kids in my compound are under 5- it’s just not good planning to do this with the limited saving of the average family. Birth’spacing’ as they call it here would make the families children more spaced out so that there would be a better ratio of kids working the field to kids who are too young. But one thing I have noticed is that all the essays and reports I have read are really being tested right now. It is harder to be so critical when things actually do make a little but more sense that I thought and are just so rooted in society.
But while sitting outside watching the TV hooked into the open hood of the communist era looking truck, surrounded by all these tubab mocking kids, I realized unprovoked for the first time this is definitely really nice. It’s so relaxing here. I shower under the stars, watch the sunrise; sit in the nice weather all the time…. I am actually living the dream. My dream atleast. But I was thinking wow; I don’t want to go home. I can see how going home is the hardest part- I can’t even imagine. I really can’t. This life is so nice. So far at least. I haven’t had giardia or rabies yet, but I love it here. But I plan on going home (London) in July, maybe, we will see. I wonder if that will be a wakeup call as to how much I miss- but hopefully it will be a wakeup call of how settled in I am and how much I love it and have to do. I was talked about my future site with my host brother today and I sensed sadness in the conversation that I would be leaving. It is sad. I can visit, but it is sad. I love this family. It’s been a month now, about one third through my time spent Copenhagen on my semester abroad- but in this case, there is no end in sight. I didn’t think there was with Copenhagen, but this 27 month stint in Mali puts those three months to shame. Peace corps puts a lot in perspective, to say the least. But today, we were all talking about how even if we early terminated, there would be nothing to regret from doing this and certainly a ton gained. And that’s saying a lot, as one of us was puking today, 1 has something a kin to what I had, and of the other 6 of us, there a variation of opinions. It was a good day for me, but certainly not or everyone- like I said, Peace Corps volunteers become very bipolar towards the whole experience, during training at least. I hear the road is paved from swear in on out.
Today was funny. We had a field trip to a CSCOM that also had an AIDS/HIV ward and to a radio station. Typical Africa time, the 90 minute car ride was actually 3 hours. But it was awesome because no one was feeling car sick and we were in a bus with all the other health Peace Corps trainees. We don’t see each other outside of those tubabs in our village very often so when we do there is lots of gossip and stories to catch up on. This one girl who by luck got to live in a house with electricity with a woman a Christian couple where the mother is an accomplished doctor had some stories from her most recent weeding visit. She went to a rather wealthy persons wedding and there were like 400 people there- t eh size of my whole town- and they had a dj, beer, and people wearing western style clothes. She obviously missed the memo and showed up in her nicest most conservative Malian matching outfit, complete with head scarf, so she was not only the only non-Bambara speaking tubab but also the only wearing Malian clothes… but she said the party go crazy and there was a dancing circle where the dj would announce a song and then 2 people would have a dance off. She said there were chairs and other props being used and the most sexual dancing she had ever seen in her life, even in America. What a party! She eventually got pushed into the circle when shakira (hips don’t lie) came on and got stuck having a dance off with a pre teen 14 year old boy. Everyone was chanting TUBABOO TUBABOO the whole time and she said she won. Poor kid. Weddings here are crazy. I spent the car ride near a Peace Corps volunteer who shared the story of her most recent fight with tape worms. Sounds gross but these stories are hilarious and hearing them makes getting these weird diseases a lot better. And of course it makes a good story to tell to new baby Peace Corps trainees later. We went to the AIDS clinic and this was depressing because of all the barriers they face. Due to the stigma, many people cease treatment half way through when they start feeling better or never start treatment at all. Any are shunned by their communities if word gets out so the fear is real. The ARVs are free, as well as a bunch of drugs to treat opportunistic diseases. On the off chance when a person will actually have to pay for their own drugs to treat an oopporitunsitic disease whose treatment isn’t covered, the people get angry. This was frustrating to hear. Many people here do not believe that AIDS exists and have a host of explanations for this. It was engineered by white racists, it is caused by curses, can be cured by some disgusting measures…. Lots of theories. Perhaps the most disturbing is that there are those who don’t use condoms because they don’t believe in the disease and then there are those who believe that condoms will give you the disease, that something is on them. And this is why I am a health education extension agent. Even more concerning than all these things previously stated is that people here don’t connect germs with disease. So therefore, why use soap? Oh boy. Maybe I’ll find a good smelling soap that people will use just because it smells good. Who knows.
But the visit to the radio station was really uplifting. I hadn’t expected too much as I hadn’t really even thought about the impact that radios have on illiterate populations without electricity. The radio is the only source of entertainment or connection to the outside world for many. This radio station spoke of all the success they had had with recent movements. They had done a series on FGM ad why the practice should be stopped. Of the 9 surrounding villages, 4 stopped and the other 5 said they planned to. And this actually did happen. This did include visits to these sites by ngos and the showing of graphic movies on the topic, but it proved effective. I had been thinking of doing something like this but to be honest I am scared to breach the topic. The change on something that sensitive cannot come from a tubab. I don’t want opposition forming against me on an issue that controversial. I feel I would become scared for my own safety- maybe I’m paranoid but it’s no joking matter. I know I will encounter it but I am not sure yet how outspoken I will be or with whom. In many papers I have read on this, it takes convincing the male leader of the village against this. Turns out though that Peace Corps volunteers are actually not supposed to do anything against this practice. The town I am in now has apparently stopped recently too, supposedly, so that is good. The same goes for bringing birth control into town and getting families used to the idea- first must convince the dugutigi or male leader. At least this is what I have read about being done in other more conservative Muslim countries. Birth control has to be called birth spacing here because otherwise people will think that white people are trying to suppress their population.
Today I really had to do laundry so that was an adventure that ended with my mom trying to take over and a crowd of kids around laughing at me whenever I tried to push my mom away long enough to show here that I could do it too. And now I have a bunch of still soapy, still brown clothes hanging on the line outside and all my underwear hanging inside. Oh man do I miss the washing machine! I looked at all my clothes though and collectively I have 4 shirts, 4 pairs of underwear, and 2 skirts and a pair of pants. It’s really all I need. Africa really makes you realize that wow, 2 weeks have gone by and you haven’t missed your 120 dollar pair of designer jeans or anything else really. I do miss certain things that make me feel pretty but only for a second. It’s not like I have a mirror to remind me that I don’t shower. But we are going to the American club on Sunday funday with all 80 of us trainees together once again so it’s going to be awesome. I will shave my legs for that…. Second times since being here. Oh man, I can see already how assimilating back to America will be hard. Today at lunch I sat with 2 volunteer boys one year in, a volunteer girl 2 years in, and my trainee friend. Its great talking to volunteers about life post training. Apparently they throw us parties at our site capital when we get there in 2 weeks and again after swear in on the way to our sites again. I can’t wait to see who else is in my region. That is a huge deal. Those will be the people I will see the most. Right now we are all just dying to find out our sites. By the time I post this blog entry, I will know ahhhh. All I know is that of the 8 people in my village, 2 of us need to bring our bikes to site visit, which lasts a week. I don’t exactly know why but I assume it is because there is no public transport at these sites and maybe they are either close enough to bike/too far to walk from a larger market town or the nearest CSCOM. So I want to be closer to everything- and I am one of the 2 people that need my bike- so hopefully this means that I am close enough that I can bike instead of take the bush taxi to the market town. But I don’t know…. I have to stop thinking about it. All I know is that all health volunteers will either be replacing or joining current PCVs (peace corps volunteers) so that is good. Some people will have a site mate. One boy I ate lunch with today had his own site for a year but then last month a girl from his staging class moved to his site because her homologue (mentor person) killed her relay (outreach educator boss) (I am not quite sure if these names are even right) or vice versa via hit man from Burkina Faso- so long story short, she got moved. But sounds like the best of both worlds to me, I would like to have a site mate… maybe. We will see next Sunday. August 8th!
IT’S SO HOT. I’m sweating profusely even just laying here in my bug hut. So, it turns out that for the past few weeks that I have lived in this town, I have been telling my family about my big, golden, hairy, American… penis. Yes, true story. So much makes sense now. Apparently there is a very fine line between talking about my dog and… yes, the more unfortunate alternative. Bambara has a very special possessive rule. It is used on certain things but not others. Apparently, it is used not on body parts but on dogs. So yes, I have a big hairy American dog. But it is not as simple as it seems. Sure my 20 year old host brother never laughed at me but now I see that my 5 little brothers all are. Today I was watching the TV with them post finding out about the difference and they were all joking and making fun of me, asking me about it and provoking me to say it wrong. I made a point to say no…. it’s actually a dog I was talking about. Ah, little boy humor. They were complete with hand gestures. Apparently the same mistake can happen when talking about the fields so I just avoid the subject all together. It’s unfortunate because there are fields and dogs everywhere so I always want to talk about them…. Someday I will be able to sound like I have a college degree. Someday.
This is like the time that I spent 7 weeks telling my French host family that I was pregnant every night after dinner thinking that ‘I am full’ was actually what I was saying. ‘Want more food?’ ‘no thanks, I’m pregnant” Every night.
On a better note, today I was sitting in my room right after being served wondering if I was eating alone or if my host brother would be joining me. Yesterday in my one man bike accident my handle bar impaled my belly button area and it has been hurting. I am never alone long enough anywhere to inspect the damage, since we don’t really shower or have light in our huts, so since my door was open it was kind of light. I figured no one was coming and lifted my shirt a little over my belly button and out of my skirt that it had been tucked into. I grabbed my flashlight for extra examination and as looking at my stomach and belly button, poking around because some of my belly button has turned purple… but then I looked up and saw no other face through my screen door than my 20 year old host brothers. Needless to say, I ate alone today. Turns out that he was entertaining guests and was simply getting the chair from in front of my house but no doubt he saw my exposed navel. This town probably thinks all tubabs are prostitutes.
But regardless, our friendship is actually getting really good and has definitely crossed into the very comfortable zone. I am really sad to be leaving this town soon. Tomorrow we are going to paint a mural about hand washing at the CSCOM. Since my language skills don’t allow m to explain, everyone there thinks I am a doctor…. I hope that doesn’t bite me some day. Sunday we are going to the America club supposedly- ahh I hope so!
Finally, a month has gone by. Things are really good. I find that everything gets better after a month. Starting to form friendships and have a routine. We have a bar restaurant about 30 min bike ride away where we meet the other 2 neighboring villages about once a week. Overall, Peace corps is the best thing ever.
One day in class one of our teachers asked us if people who are born in America and never leave, ever get sick and die. I think he was asking if we have any diseases- we said sure, heart disease, cancer… but it’s funny to think that he probably imagined this country where no one ever dies of disease, since we don’t have malaria and such.
One of my friends in the village came to school today with a funny story. Apparently last night after tea he told his dad he was going to the bathroom. No big deal. His host dad acted surprisingly happy and odd, so when my friend came back the host dad explained himself. Apparently Peace Corps volunteers never go to the bathroom at bight, despite the unusual amounts of water that we drink. The host dad said how he thought this was so weird and how he was proud of my friend for going to the bathroom at night. I never go to the bathroom at night because between my house and the neygen bathroom lie sleeping donkeys, dogs, roaches, and all kinds of other scary things. That is why all Peace Corps volunteers get extra buckets for their house. So far, so good.
Even though abortion is illegal in Mali, there are apparently CSCOMs who do practice it. This si scary because those who are practicing are not educated on the process and have patients die or become sterile. Richer people can go to Bamako for the procedure but they have to have connections and enough money. Not to mention they will need a good excuse to leave town. Abortions in Bamako are about 30 dollars. Apparently here in Mali there is a lot of corruption in the medical system though, so many doctors have not really gone to med school and passed and many also just pocket the money. They make extra money by performing procedures which they are not licensed or trained to do.
Anyways, I miss and think of you all!!! Thanks for all your good feedback and good wishes!!
First day of the second stint at home stay. Longest day ever, with as many emotions and bumps as I probably normally experience in a year. We woke up early because we had to drive to a malnutrition center in Bamako and get dropped off at our home stay sites again. And of course we had to also make time for lunch at the Broadway café, a Peace Corps favorite restaurant opened by an American expat. Long story short, I got a burrito and a strawberry milkshake… good way to follow up the visit to the malnutrition center.
But on a more serious note, today was defiantly a turning point. It could have either been the day that we realize there is too much sadness and that we can’t be here any longer, or the day that we realize that it is because we are now aware of this sadness in the world that we cannot leave. We pulled up to the hospital in out Peace Corps van and the 12 or so of us health volunteers entered into the hospital. It was an open square with scattered buildings around the perimeter, labeled everything from radiology to the morgue. We waited an hour, average Africa time, and then looked at some of the check out rooms and observed as they weighed and measured babies and children to see where they fell on the malnutrition scale, from OK to severe. Then we walked through the center square, past infected feet and new born babies, and into the malnutrition wing. First was the assessment and storage room. As usual, it was one million degrees and the fan was useless. We looked at the different treatment methods that we would later be educating women about in our villages. However, on a side note, most of our work will be preventative care. But if we should refer a case to a hospital, it could go here. Then we went into the treatment room, with about 10 beds crammed into the small sweaty room. This was the scary part. It was real life photojournalism. The first bed was a case of a small girl who refused to breast feed so they had to give her a feeding tube. She looked about average for Mali, which is malnourished but not too severe. The second bed was kwashakor- I think I misspelled that but I will try to correct it later. This severe protein deficiency causes the limbs to swell so much that the skin breaks and stretches and turns into a black ash. She was extremely weak and emaciated, ribs poking through but very puffy, black ashen limbs. The mother’s eyes were unforgettable. The next bed was a case of cerebral malaria. He was probably about 10, but guessing ages in children who are malnourished is hard. His eyes rolled back into his head about every ten seconds and they constantly probed him with needles. I am not sure what will happen to him and did not ask. The next bed was eight month old twins. Rare in Mali and these two were severely dehydrated, as noticed by the black gum like substance all over the top of their head. I don’t yet know why but this is a tell tale sign of dehydration. The mother was also malnourished and receiving treatment. All of this is free, though it is still hard to get women to bring their children in and especially to get them to stay for the whole treatment period. The next bed was the worst. I don’t even really want to type about it. It was absolutely unreal to see that this is real life and no longer a picture in a magazine. The baby was 8 months old but much smaller than even the other 4 month olds. But I can’t describe how malnourished this baby was- its cheeks and chin were more severe than those of a holocaust photo. How can this exist in our world today? The mother’s breasts had never produced much milk but they had stopped all together when the baby was 3 months old. Since then, for the following 5 months, she had tried to feed it adult food but it must not have eaten anything. Her eyes were unforgettable. My god. But there was little time to dwell because in the next bed was a baby whose mother had died. There was a woman there breast feeding it but I don’t know who she was in relation to him. The next few beds were assorted cases of cleft lip and general malnourishment, and one more case of kwashiorkor. Like I said, this could have easily gone 2 ways. We could either say wow, there is too much sadness in the world and I can’t live like this. Or, one could say that now that we have seen it, we will be haunted forever if we don’t try to educate mothers and families on how to prevent things from getting this bad. It still blows my mind that I am on the same planet as the life I used to lead. But there’s no turning back now. The rest of the day we waited for the shock to subside temporarily at least. We ate lots and then got dropped off at site. We translated a survey about health into Bambara to practice taking tomorrow. We ask women and families about hand washing, food variety, school level, and if they are aware of STDs or family planning. My brain is heavy. I just can’t wait to find out my site in a few weeks and then get started in September on my job.
Today was the wedding of one of the host sisters of another Peace Corps trainee living in my village. The girl getting married is 20, has one kid and is pregnant, and the man is 40. I asked my host brother if it was common for girls to get pregnant out of wed lock and he said that while not common, that it was ok because in some cases the money just isn’t there for marriage but they want kids. Marriage here is different because the girl never seems happy. Sure, emotions here are kind of taboo, especially sadness, but the men are always happy for marriage. Opposite of the US it seems. We watched and joined the party earlier this afternoon though when she gets picked up by a caravan of all her husband’s friends and taken to a friend’s home until the evening. My host dad is close friends with her family so she stayed here. Covered and in silence, as usual. So many things here will taint and change how I experience things back in the US: at weddings I will think of today, funerals, births…. Everything will be changed by what I experience here.
Today was a classic “lost in translation moment.” I was talking to my host mom (I can actually have a conversation now!!) and I thought she said something about tigedegas, or peanut butter. So i asked her and she said that she said nothing about peanut butter. I didn’t know how to say what I wanted so I just told a dumb story about how I eat lots of peanut butter in America. Then I knew I had made a mistake… next thing I know, one of my host moms brings out a big old mayonnaise jar covered in untreated water and full of peanut butter. Damn. This reminds me of the time I told her I liked her out fit and then she almost gave it to me until I convinced her that I was going to buy one the next day. And also of the time that someone said they like rabbits in America and bunnies, and then their family fed them one. Lost in translation… my roommate at tubaniso was doing laundry one day when her host mom offered to do it for her. She protested but to no avail, the mother took the clothes and began washing them. Then she insisted that she give over the shirt she was wearing. So my friend slowly unbuttons her shirt, saying, is this what you want?! And the host mom laughs and takes her shirt even though my friend told her that it was her last one. Then she had to spend the rest of the lunch break in her bra until the host mom understood and loaned her a shirt. My host family also gets a kick out of when I say I’m going to wash their dog with good smelling soap. Or when I say I want to go to the fields and pick peanuts with them… they just die. Man, humor is cultural. The biggest joke here in Mali is telling someone “you are a bean eater” or “I am your mom”. I personally love both; especially “I am your mom”. of the 5 or so last names in all of Mali, each one has another last name that they joke with in all situations. It can get you good deals on stores and resolve conflicts, simply by being a joking cousin.
Oh man another incident today occurred which will make my host family think I’m insane. I hope nothing bad happens, or else they may thing I cursed them. I was tired of sterilizing my water with my Steripen in corners. This thing is like a light saber that I stir around in my nalgene for a minute and it kills all the germs. It is this or bleach, and I don’t like the thought of drinking bleach for 2 years. But I finally was like whatever, I don’t care, and just used the steripen right in my door way. One kid walked by and came back…. I have never seen someone’s eyes get so big when they weren’t being sarcastic. It was hilarious. I have no idea how to explain water sanitation in Bambara so I just said over and over, to the growing crowd paralyzed in silence, “N te jinogo min!!” “I don’t drink dirty water!!” I hope I didn’t insult them, because they drink this water….
Today I got back to my home stay site after a short vacation at the Bamako Peace Corps health center. Really, it was just at the stage house, a hostel style half way house for Peace Corps volunteers to use for free when in Bamako. We get 24 per year for recreational use, such as catching a flight the next morning, or in my case, when death feels near.
But before I go into that story of adventure, I have to type about yet another intelligent conversation I have had with my host family. I got home around 9 because we had dinner at our teachers house. I sat outside on the mat watching the car battery powered TV for a little, trying to tell them about my visit to Bamako and that I am longer ill. The stars here are incredible by the way. I see shooting stars almost nightly and can see so much of the Milky Way. It’s incredible how big the sky is. But anyways, in awkward silences, I have a habit of listening to their conversations or the TV and just repeating a word that I recognize and hen forming sentences with it. This has gotten me into many uncomfortable situations, but there nothing else I can do but sit in silence which is a worse alternative I think. One of my fellow Peace Corps trainees names in my village is sorofan, translated meaning ‘trash pile’. This is what people name their kid after a few have died, hoping that god won’t want this one. But I heard the person on the TV say her name so I repeated it and said that it was my friend’s name. Then after a long confusing conversation I realized that it was not in fact my friend’s name, but a dinner dish, and I had no idea what was going on until a few minutes into their laughter…. Typical.
But these past few days were quite the adventure, but I have come out feeling not only the most healthy I have since arriving in Africa, but also with a new sense of ability. In the beginning, the smallest head ache would get me thinking of going home. But I realize that after this whole affair with what was probably bacterial dysentery, I didn’t once wish I was home and now feel invincible... it’s nice to know I made it through my first sickness. But after a week of uncomfort, Saturday was unbearable so I finally called the doctor in tears. I told her my symptoms and she said she would send a car… I wasn’t sure if her urgency was a good thing or a bad thing but I walked over to my teacher’s house and waited for the car, within crawling distance of a nyegen. Crying is really taboo in Mali, but my family was really great. They were really helpful and concerned during my hasty, tearful packing and dashing to the land rover. Apparently they even went to my teacher’s house a few times to ask how I was doing. But I get in the car and we drive to Bamako. We arrive at the stage house and I get out with my backpack, purse, and a zip loc freezer bog of puke… the guard did not quite know what to make of me. This led to an odd exchange of what to do with it, eventually we found a trash can after he tried to get me to drop it down a toilet hole, but it wouldn’t fit…. I don’t even know. But I went inside and passed out for a few hours and then the doctor came for an initial evaluation. I slept for a long time and the next day started cipro. I wish I had been coherent because I didn’t realize until later in my stay that there was internet, a kitchen, a TV…. A whole western world that I was too sick to enjoy. But on Monday morning I was feeling good and living the dream. I even managed to walk to this bakery to get me and my other immobilized sick friends pain au chocolats. This was a harder task than I had imagined, Bamako is not like New York, despite what I though. It has dirt roads and open sewers and does not yield for pedestrians. Elon did not prepare me for that. But I obviously got hopelessly lost on the way home and was pretty concerned. I found signs for another nearby Peace Corps building that I went to and then a guard walked me the 2 blocks to my house laughing. Then on the drive back to my village today I got to enjoy the scenery, so that was nice. I also realized that driving in a car here is like wake boarding. We weave down the road avoiding giant pot holes, especially on the unpaved roads. When the driver is in a rush we may catch some air going down the face of the pothole. We may do some cut backs and try to jump the wake but this is not so great when you’re not in the 4 wheel drive land rovers. But overall, very similar experiences to cruising down the intercoastal waterway on a wake board.
Along with surviving my first bout with something akin to bacterial dysentery this week, I survived my first bike accident! Woo hooo. I don’t even remember when the last bike accident I had was. Needless to say, this is Africa, and life pretty much starts over as soon as you get here. Learning how to do everything from going to the bathroom to eating to speaking from scratch. Today I don’t know what happened, maybe my pant strap got stuck in the chain, it’s a mystery. But whatever the problem was, it caused me to catapult over the handle bars, bike in tow, onto the dirt/hook worm infested mud path. My bike was ok after a quick tune up and all is well minus regular scratches which hopefully won’t get infected. This happened right in front of the girl in our village who is a little unsure of her biking skills, even better. But the best part of injury-less bike accidents is having someone see it happen because I’m sure it was pretty cool looking.
Today was a milestone for many reasons. I survived a bike accident unscathed, and I bonded with my family more. I feel bad I didn’t buy them anything at the market I went to, but I go so often that I can’t do it every time on my Peace Corps stipend. That’s one of the problems with being a white person here- people think you are made of American dollars and that I am here to give money of build a school and leave. I have no money and will be showing people that they can do it themselves instead, but I have heard it takes a while to get your village to see that. A long frustrating time of getting people to build the school themselves and such. But I was sitting outside and my host brother invited me to come sit at his hut so that was good. And then I sat and watched TV with 100 little kids looking at me instead of the TV calling me a tubab. I made a few jokes in bamanankan so that’s a big move- they think it’s hilarious that I treat their dog so nicely so today i told them my child’s name was polici, their dog’s name. My host mom was dying… Malian humor is easy to please. Then I told all the kids that they were the biggest tubabs and that they were bean eaters…. And now I’m famous. And tomorrow when I bring them back candy from market, I will be famous forever. The last Peace Corps trainee my family had was in 2008 so I asked them about the person today. My host brother went on and on about how awesome he was… oops.
The first 3 months at site are dedicated to integrating and to doing our baseline surveys. These ask people about their hand washing habits, toilet facilities, how well they eat, and their knowledge of STDs and family planning. I practiced on my family and they said that they never, ever wash their hands except when they eat with me. Ew. They also don’t have covers on their toilets (holes in the ground) and this allows fly’s to go in and out carrying disease. Bad. No wonder I was sick and had to zap my body with cipro. Neither of the 2 moms in my family have ever had a prenatal consultation. I want to ask how many, if any children they have lost, but I didn’t. They do not sell condoms in this town. Birth control is a woman’s responsibility here and she can get information on that in the main town, 30 minutes by bike up the road. This may be too far for most women though. But at this town she can get the shot or the pill. My host brother said that everyone had heard of AIDS but that no one in my town has had it. This is more likely because no one has ever been tested. Testing is optional at the CSCOM health center, but many women opt out because what would they do if they had it? It’s really about prevention here. But unfortunately, condoms are supposedly only used until marriage. But after marriage is when most women become infected with HIV. There are many women who live here and their husbands work in Bamako, probably leading to him bringing home STD’s. But in a culture where pregnancy is normally the goal, what can you do? Pregnancy in Bambara translates back to English as ‘to get lucky’. In whose opinion? I don’t have a problem with the fact that the average woman has 7 kids. I have a problem with the fact that she starts often times too young before her body is ready and doesn’t get pre or post natal care. I also have a problem with the fact that families have as many kids as they can in many village situations, without regard to when it would be appropriate to stop so that the kids can have enough food and go to school. I think about 6 of the 9 kids in my compound are under 5- it’s just not good planning to do this with the limited saving of the average family. Birth’spacing’ as they call it here would make the families children more spaced out so that there would be a better ratio of kids working the field to kids who are too young. But one thing I have noticed is that all the essays and reports I have read are really being tested right now. It is harder to be so critical when things actually do make a little but more sense that I thought and are just so rooted in society.
But while sitting outside watching the TV hooked into the open hood of the communist era looking truck, surrounded by all these tubab mocking kids, I realized unprovoked for the first time this is definitely really nice. It’s so relaxing here. I shower under the stars, watch the sunrise; sit in the nice weather all the time…. I am actually living the dream. My dream atleast. But I was thinking wow; I don’t want to go home. I can see how going home is the hardest part- I can’t even imagine. I really can’t. This life is so nice. So far at least. I haven’t had giardia or rabies yet, but I love it here. But I plan on going home (London) in July, maybe, we will see. I wonder if that will be a wakeup call as to how much I miss- but hopefully it will be a wakeup call of how settled in I am and how much I love it and have to do. I was talked about my future site with my host brother today and I sensed sadness in the conversation that I would be leaving. It is sad. I can visit, but it is sad. I love this family. It’s been a month now, about one third through my time spent Copenhagen on my semester abroad- but in this case, there is no end in sight. I didn’t think there was with Copenhagen, but this 27 month stint in Mali puts those three months to shame. Peace corps puts a lot in perspective, to say the least. But today, we were all talking about how even if we early terminated, there would be nothing to regret from doing this and certainly a ton gained. And that’s saying a lot, as one of us was puking today, 1 has something a kin to what I had, and of the other 6 of us, there a variation of opinions. It was a good day for me, but certainly not or everyone- like I said, Peace Corps volunteers become very bipolar towards the whole experience, during training at least. I hear the road is paved from swear in on out.
Today was funny. We had a field trip to a CSCOM that also had an AIDS/HIV ward and to a radio station. Typical Africa time, the 90 minute car ride was actually 3 hours. But it was awesome because no one was feeling car sick and we were in a bus with all the other health Peace Corps trainees. We don’t see each other outside of those tubabs in our village very often so when we do there is lots of gossip and stories to catch up on. This one girl who by luck got to live in a house with electricity with a woman a Christian couple where the mother is an accomplished doctor had some stories from her most recent weeding visit. She went to a rather wealthy persons wedding and there were like 400 people there- t eh size of my whole town- and they had a dj, beer, and people wearing western style clothes. She obviously missed the memo and showed up in her nicest most conservative Malian matching outfit, complete with head scarf, so she was not only the only non-Bambara speaking tubab but also the only wearing Malian clothes… but she said the party go crazy and there was a dancing circle where the dj would announce a song and then 2 people would have a dance off. She said there were chairs and other props being used and the most sexual dancing she had ever seen in her life, even in America. What a party! She eventually got pushed into the circle when shakira (hips don’t lie) came on and got stuck having a dance off with a pre teen 14 year old boy. Everyone was chanting TUBABOO TUBABOO the whole time and she said she won. Poor kid. Weddings here are crazy. I spent the car ride near a Peace Corps volunteer who shared the story of her most recent fight with tape worms. Sounds gross but these stories are hilarious and hearing them makes getting these weird diseases a lot better. And of course it makes a good story to tell to new baby Peace Corps trainees later. We went to the AIDS clinic and this was depressing because of all the barriers they face. Due to the stigma, many people cease treatment half way through when they start feeling better or never start treatment at all. Any are shunned by their communities if word gets out so the fear is real. The ARVs are free, as well as a bunch of drugs to treat opportunistic diseases. On the off chance when a person will actually have to pay for their own drugs to treat an oopporitunsitic disease whose treatment isn’t covered, the people get angry. This was frustrating to hear. Many people here do not believe that AIDS exists and have a host of explanations for this. It was engineered by white racists, it is caused by curses, can be cured by some disgusting measures…. Lots of theories. Perhaps the most disturbing is that there are those who don’t use condoms because they don’t believe in the disease and then there are those who believe that condoms will give you the disease, that something is on them. And this is why I am a health education extension agent. Even more concerning than all these things previously stated is that people here don’t connect germs with disease. So therefore, why use soap? Oh boy. Maybe I’ll find a good smelling soap that people will use just because it smells good. Who knows.
But the visit to the radio station was really uplifting. I hadn’t expected too much as I hadn’t really even thought about the impact that radios have on illiterate populations without electricity. The radio is the only source of entertainment or connection to the outside world for many. This radio station spoke of all the success they had had with recent movements. They had done a series on FGM ad why the practice should be stopped. Of the 9 surrounding villages, 4 stopped and the other 5 said they planned to. And this actually did happen. This did include visits to these sites by ngos and the showing of graphic movies on the topic, but it proved effective. I had been thinking of doing something like this but to be honest I am scared to breach the topic. The change on something that sensitive cannot come from a tubab. I don’t want opposition forming against me on an issue that controversial. I feel I would become scared for my own safety- maybe I’m paranoid but it’s no joking matter. I know I will encounter it but I am not sure yet how outspoken I will be or with whom. In many papers I have read on this, it takes convincing the male leader of the village against this. Turns out though that Peace Corps volunteers are actually not supposed to do anything against this practice. The town I am in now has apparently stopped recently too, supposedly, so that is good. The same goes for bringing birth control into town and getting families used to the idea- first must convince the dugutigi or male leader. At least this is what I have read about being done in other more conservative Muslim countries. Birth control has to be called birth spacing here because otherwise people will think that white people are trying to suppress their population.
Today I really had to do laundry so that was an adventure that ended with my mom trying to take over and a crowd of kids around laughing at me whenever I tried to push my mom away long enough to show here that I could do it too. And now I have a bunch of still soapy, still brown clothes hanging on the line outside and all my underwear hanging inside. Oh man do I miss the washing machine! I looked at all my clothes though and collectively I have 4 shirts, 4 pairs of underwear, and 2 skirts and a pair of pants. It’s really all I need. Africa really makes you realize that wow, 2 weeks have gone by and you haven’t missed your 120 dollar pair of designer jeans or anything else really. I do miss certain things that make me feel pretty but only for a second. It’s not like I have a mirror to remind me that I don’t shower. But we are going to the American club on Sunday funday with all 80 of us trainees together once again so it’s going to be awesome. I will shave my legs for that…. Second times since being here. Oh man, I can see already how assimilating back to America will be hard. Today at lunch I sat with 2 volunteer boys one year in, a volunteer girl 2 years in, and my trainee friend. Its great talking to volunteers about life post training. Apparently they throw us parties at our site capital when we get there in 2 weeks and again after swear in on the way to our sites again. I can’t wait to see who else is in my region. That is a huge deal. Those will be the people I will see the most. Right now we are all just dying to find out our sites. By the time I post this blog entry, I will know ahhhh. All I know is that of the 8 people in my village, 2 of us need to bring our bikes to site visit, which lasts a week. I don’t exactly know why but I assume it is because there is no public transport at these sites and maybe they are either close enough to bike/too far to walk from a larger market town or the nearest CSCOM. So I want to be closer to everything- and I am one of the 2 people that need my bike- so hopefully this means that I am close enough that I can bike instead of take the bush taxi to the market town. But I don’t know…. I have to stop thinking about it. All I know is that all health volunteers will either be replacing or joining current PCVs (peace corps volunteers) so that is good. Some people will have a site mate. One boy I ate lunch with today had his own site for a year but then last month a girl from his staging class moved to his site because her homologue (mentor person) killed her relay (outreach educator boss) (I am not quite sure if these names are even right) or vice versa via hit man from Burkina Faso- so long story short, she got moved. But sounds like the best of both worlds to me, I would like to have a site mate… maybe. We will see next Sunday. August 8th!
IT’S SO HOT. I’m sweating profusely even just laying here in my bug hut. So, it turns out that for the past few weeks that I have lived in this town, I have been telling my family about my big, golden, hairy, American… penis. Yes, true story. So much makes sense now. Apparently there is a very fine line between talking about my dog and… yes, the more unfortunate alternative. Bambara has a very special possessive rule. It is used on certain things but not others. Apparently, it is used not on body parts but on dogs. So yes, I have a big hairy American dog. But it is not as simple as it seems. Sure my 20 year old host brother never laughed at me but now I see that my 5 little brothers all are. Today I was watching the TV with them post finding out about the difference and they were all joking and making fun of me, asking me about it and provoking me to say it wrong. I made a point to say no…. it’s actually a dog I was talking about. Ah, little boy humor. They were complete with hand gestures. Apparently the same mistake can happen when talking about the fields so I just avoid the subject all together. It’s unfortunate because there are fields and dogs everywhere so I always want to talk about them…. Someday I will be able to sound like I have a college degree. Someday.
This is like the time that I spent 7 weeks telling my French host family that I was pregnant every night after dinner thinking that ‘I am full’ was actually what I was saying. ‘Want more food?’ ‘no thanks, I’m pregnant” Every night.
On a better note, today I was sitting in my room right after being served wondering if I was eating alone or if my host brother would be joining me. Yesterday in my one man bike accident my handle bar impaled my belly button area and it has been hurting. I am never alone long enough anywhere to inspect the damage, since we don’t really shower or have light in our huts, so since my door was open it was kind of light. I figured no one was coming and lifted my shirt a little over my belly button and out of my skirt that it had been tucked into. I grabbed my flashlight for extra examination and as looking at my stomach and belly button, poking around because some of my belly button has turned purple… but then I looked up and saw no other face through my screen door than my 20 year old host brothers. Needless to say, I ate alone today. Turns out that he was entertaining guests and was simply getting the chair from in front of my house but no doubt he saw my exposed navel. This town probably thinks all tubabs are prostitutes.
But regardless, our friendship is actually getting really good and has definitely crossed into the very comfortable zone. I am really sad to be leaving this town soon. Tomorrow we are going to paint a mural about hand washing at the CSCOM. Since my language skills don’t allow m to explain, everyone there thinks I am a doctor…. I hope that doesn’t bite me some day. Sunday we are going to the America club supposedly- ahh I hope so!
Finally, a month has gone by. Things are really good. I find that everything gets better after a month. Starting to form friendships and have a routine. We have a bar restaurant about 30 min bike ride away where we meet the other 2 neighboring villages about once a week. Overall, Peace corps is the best thing ever.
One day in class one of our teachers asked us if people who are born in America and never leave, ever get sick and die. I think he was asking if we have any diseases- we said sure, heart disease, cancer… but it’s funny to think that he probably imagined this country where no one ever dies of disease, since we don’t have malaria and such.
One of my friends in the village came to school today with a funny story. Apparently last night after tea he told his dad he was going to the bathroom. No big deal. His host dad acted surprisingly happy and odd, so when my friend came back the host dad explained himself. Apparently Peace Corps volunteers never go to the bathroom at bight, despite the unusual amounts of water that we drink. The host dad said how he thought this was so weird and how he was proud of my friend for going to the bathroom at night. I never go to the bathroom at night because between my house and the neygen bathroom lie sleeping donkeys, dogs, roaches, and all kinds of other scary things. That is why all Peace Corps volunteers get extra buckets for their house. So far, so good.
Even though abortion is illegal in Mali, there are apparently CSCOMs who do practice it. This si scary because those who are practicing are not educated on the process and have patients die or become sterile. Richer people can go to Bamako for the procedure but they have to have connections and enough money. Not to mention they will need a good excuse to leave town. Abortions in Bamako are about 30 dollars. Apparently here in Mali there is a lot of corruption in the medical system though, so many doctors have not really gone to med school and passed and many also just pocket the money. They make extra money by performing procedures which they are not licensed or trained to do.
Anyways, I miss and think of you all!!! Thanks for all your good feedback and good wishes!!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
life in da bush
Songs that have kept me sane- Good time- Brazilian girls
Deflef Schrempf- band of horses
Book- Monique in the mango rains. I just traded a friend Half the Sky for her copy of Monique in the Mango Rains- just started it and its soooo good. A much more eloquently written version of what I hope my blog will be like. Pick up a copy if you want to know more about Peace Corps and Peace Corps Mali!!
Ok, so as I am re-reading my blog before posting it, I realize that it is kind of boring and depressing and not really that funny or written very well… so I apologize. When I am happy and having fun I am not writing on my computer, and the only time that I actually type stuff up is at night in my hut under my mosquito net, listening to donkeys cry and wondering if the roof will blow off my hut in these hurricane like rain storms. But, this is the first time I have had internet in basically 2 weeks so I will upload everything below.
After spending the first 5 days in Mali at the Peace Corps compound near the capital we left our new home for home stays in surrounding villages all with a thousand inhabitants or less. The Peace Corps compound was a rough adjustment into the life style change, but I was finally getting used to it. It feels like my grandpas farm in Texas really, just a little more rudimentary. And then there’s the culture shock and food shock and lack of friends and family. It was an old agricultural training ground. But we were always surrounded by the 80 other volunteers. Moving to home stay is a big deal because now we are in the real Africa. My village has about 2000 people. I live in my own hut that is a part of a greater compound with a few other huts. Now we get our own water, speak Barbara, the West African dialect I will be learning, and do everything with 100 kids following us. But for the first time, we are alone. I expect some people to drop after this. No one has dropped yet, except for the eight or so who didn’t show up to orientation in Phillie. This is hard though because now we are alone with our thoughts, force fed a new language for 8 hours a day in class and then surrounded by it at home with kids pointing at things and expecting you to learn at a genius pace. But this is real, this is probably what everyone pictures when they thing of the Peace Corps. Lots of flies, malnourished kids, mosquito nets, mud huts with thatched roves, and ethnic scaring on the faces of my new village friends. It’s hard right now though mentally because my birthday is coming up and I feel really nostalgic and home sick. I can’t even call my friends or check my email because in this village there is no electricity or internet so I won’t be able to contact anyone till a week or so after my birthday. But overall, I know the Peace Corps make a difference here and I won’t quit early. And after meeting the other kids here, it’s just amazing. Everyone is so different and not at all cookie cutters, like I imagined. There are so many good ideas and experiences floating around. It’s just crazy to finally be here, surrounded by the people who I used to seek out, and actually doing this when for so long I just heard other people s stories about it.
We arrived at the home stay village in the afternoon to overwhelming feelings. We drove down a severely potholed not really existent dirt road for about 30 min before spotting the thatched roves in the near distance. Then we could hear the drums and chanting of the celebration. I met some family and friends of all the teenage boys who befriended me first, yelling HEY TUBABOO!! Which means hey white person, or more specifically, hey you white French colonialist. Apparently we get called that for the next 2 years, but it’s funny and I always ask them what it means as if I don’t know and they get really embarrassed. About my host family, my host mom is 38 or 40 and has 9 kids, the oldest of which is 20. Luckily most of the older sons in the family speak French so they really saved me, I would have been so overwhelmed if they hadn’t been here to help me sort things out. And I can ask them how to say things in Bambarra. They are awesome though, so eager to walk around with me and hang out and really cool. One has passed the DELF exam and is studying in Bamako but right now it is summer time. But regardless, the university teachers were on strike all last year so the schools are now an entire year behind. Supposedly this week they are coming up with something. Feels just like being in France again!
A current Peace Corps volunteer told me that the first 2 hours of home stay are the hardest of the entire 2 years. And that the only advice they have it “don’t quit”, even when you get Guardia or feel like it’s too hard to learn this African dialect… I can’t say that I didn’t weigh the pros and cons of going home during the first 3 days in Mali, but right after that I guess I got over the bump because I haven’t considered going home since then. Maybe it’s because they were overdosing us on methloquane malaria drugs to get our levels up. I still have an almost bipolar relationship with being in the Peace Corps, but that’s normal and we are all thinking that. I just can’t wait to start my job. So many women would benefit from better birth spacing and prenatal care. Some of the facts are staggering though, this is not related to babies but to hand washing. Most Malians believe that using soap will make you poor. But also, we eat with our right hand. The left hand is dirty because Malians also don’t use toilet paper, and instead use this tea pit thing called a sillydaga and… yes, the left hand. So the fecal oral cycle is one of my most commonly used words around here. Luckily, so far, I have gotten anyone eating with me to wash their hands. This family that I am living with has had Peace Corps trainees before so thank god, I had heard the horror stories and expected the worst. But all is well, the food is awesome and I miss fruit loops but I try not to think about it. I actually don’t miss much, and it making me re-evaluates how much I really need. Returning to America will be strange and I have heard that it is harder than coming here. I can definitely see that. Mali has the highest rate of people who apply to stay for a third year in all of the Peace Corps, so take that as you will. It is a good thing but also bad because some stay to finish projects that got stuck in red tape for too long.
Being a classic American little girl, I fulfill many stereotypes that Malians hold of us. As my host dad who had nine kids and I were setting up my mosquito net, I spotted the world’s biggest cock roach and ran out of the hut and he just started laughing at me and tried to kill it…. But it escaped into my hut. The search continues. Spiders and crickets live in my hut too, among god knows what else. I don’t turn on my head lam at night for fear of what I can’t see.
After getting dropped off the first day in my village, I walked off with my family and heard that the peace corps people were going to come around and check on me at 4 30. As time rolled by and past 4 30, I got really scared and wished that time would hurry up so I could make it to the night. The Peace Corps used to literally just drop people off in the bush. I can’t imagine how hard that would be, and no cell phones. Nowadays the Peace Corps seems almost easy compared to what it used to be. The Peace Corps also used to keep the trainees at the compound for the full 9 week training, and then drop them off at site and wish them luck... thank god for the baby steps, that makes it a lot easier for me.
But the first day was special because there was a wedding, so one of the French speaking host sons showed me around and took me to it. No, it wasn’t like wedding crashers at all. The gang of all the boys in town road their motorcycles to the next town to pick up the bride from her village a few kilometers away. The groom’s friends accompany him on this journey. She was 19, which he said was rather late. My friend is 20, and plans to have kids by 22. My other friend is 19 and plans to have kids by 21. They keep asking if I have kids. I say I want to have kids when I’m thirty or something but that I really can’t predict that. They gasp at how long away that is. It goes
Do you have kids?
No.
Why not?
I am here, want to wait, am not married, etc.
So you will soon?
No, maybe 10 years.
Are you married?
No.
Oh. But you will have kids soon?
Ok….
And this is in French- my conversation in bambara are me saying random phrases like “I have a sister” and I am 21 years old, and asking how everyone and their families are 100 times in all the different ways I can think of. Then we play the point and stare game as they wait for me to learn all the vocabulary…
But the wedding was awesome. The guys were all so excited and doing tricks and crazy stunts on their motorcycles. We also met / saw the bride from the neighbor village and learned that she was not allowed to speak the day of her wedding. So we just stood in the dark room staring at her as she rocked back and forth covered from head to toe in fabric with 2 friends. I wonder what she was thinking. The boys on the other hand were having a grand old time outside. In Mali, you gain respect by getting married and having kids. As a single person, I am told that I will not have as much respect as I would if I were like the married couple in my Peace Corps class. Then we explored the town and I asked him about polygamy and if he went to mosque, I think he is Christian. I met a million people and had to go through this whole introductory ceremony with each one, asking about family and such and it takes like a minute per person, every time I leave the compound. I heard that this is why we need bikes, to avoid these conversations every day. Then dinner time came… this was a big moment. After the horror stories and my fear of losing weight over here, I actually was pleasantly surprised and the meal was awesome. They love French fries and spaghetti. I ate in my room with the 16 year old daughter who only speaks a little French, but we are supposed to eat in silence. I find it painfully awkward and just laugh a lot at nothing. They definitely think I’m an insane, slow learning tubab. A lot gets lost in translation over here… I have probably made a fool of myself more times than i would care to count. Today some kids were eating Styrofoam so I was proud of myself when I told them not to eat it in Bambarra. Then a few hours later in class I realized that I had actually said “I don’t eat”. Goooood job.
First full day at home stay is over. Has been full of ups and downs- unfortunately characterized by whether or not I am alone. When I am with other Peace Corps Trainees, I am normally in a great mood and so proud to be here. But today while bathing in my nygen, I was just thinking, why am I here? I don’t need to be here. Will it even matter? Would I be thinking the same thing at any new job? I don’t mind the heat. I mind the bugs, but whatever. I miss my friends and I can’t wait to see them again. What a great bunch. But when I think of how I would like to make new friends, immediately the Peace Corps comes to mind to find them, before I even remember that that’s where I am… I can’t wait till Sunday. My birthday should be interesting, to see how I feel. Sometimes I feel like crying. But everyone snaps at some point, a few already have. This is such a roller coaster. I can never fall asleep.
Mali is over 90 percent Muslim, this as a blanket statement was quite alarming to me when I first connected the dots and imagined wearing the symbolic outfit and living in submission. But all these thoughts were inspired by the media and my experiences in Copenhagen and other places where the Muslim population is in the spot light. But even if southern Mali were radical and anywhere near the culture of, say, Saudi Arabia, I have the tubab card. The third sex card. As a working white American woman, I confuse the preconceived gender roles of this country and no one quite knows if Peace Corps women are women or men. Who do we eat with? Do we shake hands? Can we disagree? So far, so good though. Men also suffer an odd role. As Americans, men are used to sharing in family chores and helping with cooking and such. Standard procedure in Mali is that women do all this, and men do the fields. But the womens jobs keep them up later and rising earlier than the men. However, as a male volunteer, they have to decide if they want to let a women do all the chores for them. Their laundry, food, fetching water… sounds tempting until one thinks of who has to do these chores instead. Usually one of the younger daughters. But to do these chores yourself runs a funny dilemma too. One guy who did his own chores alone was called “she-man” for 2 years. He didn’t even know until his language skills got good enough. This is a confusing country to be even remotely feminist in, to say the least.
My birthday! It made me feel very strange, not only because I am now 22 but also because I was sitting on the floor of my hut eating breakfast alone because I don’t know how to ask why she makes me eat in my hut, and looking at all the little heads lining my window. I had heard that Peace Corps volunteers feel like they live in a fish bowl… today we spent about an hour on our new bikes trying to escape the kids. So the other 7 volunteers doing home stay in my village and I planned to meet at the school at 2, just to get away from our families and relax for a little. Speak English and make sure no one is going in sane quite yet. It was just me and another girl at 2 30, and then we here the little kids start yelling TUBABOOOO TUBABOO and pointing to the window. Never before have I felt so relieved- we see tubabs riding bikes up the main road into the village. We waved them over and it was hilarious how good it felt to see everyone. They had gotten their bikes too and were going stir crazy so they decided to ride the 10 k ish to our village. We had been planning on walking up to the other village, so together we all rode our bikes to go rescue the others. We rode our bikes through the desert and farming terrain, flush with puddles of malaria and Guardia, but we all made it minus some cuts that hopefully aren’t infected yet. We spent the ride looking for this one village and eventually found it, and then entered the ‘sandals of Mali’. It was hte nicest village ever, my village I found out has only 500 people and this one had maybe 1200. They had trees and squares and walls and it felt like heaven. We rode around and couldn’t find the tubabs, after asking and yelling and looking. Eventually we found them and all hopped on our bikes to ride away from the swarms of kids. Then we sat in hte shade of this little forest and did nothing, it was awesome. It was a great day, a great birthday, and made me really glad I didn’t go home those first few hard days. The ride home was a near death experieence, as we experienced a flat tire, but fortunately the bike and rider hitched a ride with a passing Peace Corps truck. Gooood timing. But the rest of us ended up on some sort of highway in Africa, lost and looking like fools, asking directions in bambarra… we eventually found the road that we took in last week. Never stray to the unknown path! All this was done while riding a bike in my long skirt that kept getting stuck in my brakes and showing my knees…. And if your knees show then you’re a prostitute so I had the choice of risking falling while fixing my skirt or looking like a hooker the whole ride. Just another fun day lost and bewildered in Africa. But today was soccer finals, and I managed a few sentences in bambarra too. I just say ‘I ride bike to friends town” and “I shower (sitting next to a bucket of water) myself” every few minutes.
Today I became aware of the fact that death could be a very common happening in my time here. I was caught off guard today, not mentally prepared to know that a young boy who lives in my teacher’s compound where we have class sometimes died last night. He had been sick for a while apparently, I thought he looked normal but now that I look back, he did sleep a lot. But he looked like all the other kids to me. His mother took him to the doctor in a nearby village yesterday and was told he was malnourished and had malaria, but he died that night. I am reminded again why I am here to educate women and families in ways to improve their health, I am happy to be here. Turns out, most women are not surprised when their first child dies, and some almost expect it. One in ten children die here of a variety of mostly treatable and preventable diseases. One in 7 women will die in child birth. Pregnancy is not a disease where one should be ok with death. Many practices are simple in nature but are life threatening. For example, when a child has diarrhea, mothers will stop giving it any liquids, thinking that all the liquid coming out means that the baby is too full. But really they are just causing a dehydrated baby to become more dehydrated. But we have only been here a little over a week so we have been doing mostly language training but not technical health training. I look forward to doing technical training and visiting a nearby CSCOM health center on Wednesday.
Night time is when I have time to write so forgive me if I sound nostalgic and a little unenthusiastic sometimes. Nighttime is when I am alone with my thoughts and music so my mood dips. I’m alone in my little mud hut under my mosquito net and there are kids and things running around outside my door in the compound but I closed it so that I can wear shorts that show my knees… after class we all just sit in the school for another hour or so to detox and have some tubab therapy time. Complain; tell stories… help keep the mood up. It’s also nice to know that of the 17,000 or so people that applied to be in the Peace Corps, we got in. It’s great to hear everyone’s plans and stories and experiences and why we are here. Such a great group. I am so happy to be in the Peace Corps. Even when there are puddles of rain and cow poo outside probably creeping with ring worm or something called “creeping eruptions”. Oh, the rainy season. A girl in my class got bit by a Bot Fly (kmac and friends, you better be laughing) and a few days later a bug baby larvae came out of the bite… funsies.
Interesting observations of the day: More boys speak French than girls because they are in school longer. This explains why my host bothers speak French and my sisters don’t. We also learned about marriage traditions today. To quickly explain, the families will decide at any age really. If they marry before the girl has reached puberty, then she sleeps with her mother in law until she is able to have children. But for some girls, this could be very young, and it is not unheard of to be married in Mali by 12. Of course, some families allow people to date and have a say. But traditionally, there is a process involving kola nut offerings and dowries. An average dowry is 10,000 CFA, or about 200 dollars. For divorced women it is about half. Weddings are expensive though. But once the dowry is paid and the ceremony has occurred, the girl moves into the boy’s village and just visits her old home. My host brothers and sisters are not married yet, the oldest of which is 20. But like I think I have said earlier, they want kids by 21 or 22. Family worth and respect is earned by marriage and children, so it is no wonder.
Watching soccer has been funny. Every time a game is on, we move the TV outside with the car battery and set it up on the dirt, maybe on a stool. The TV has got to be older than I am. Definitely, and it’s black and white and in French. I am always the only girl around and all the boys from the neighbors come over. It would be a hilarious picture. I can’t wait to put up pictures. But this is normal; this is life for lots of people so I can’t complain. And the food is awesome for the most part so all is well, other than the threat of scorpions in my bed. I did hear from another girl that her family ate these huge weird white bugs for lunch though…. I got lucky with host families, they treat me too well. I need to figure out how to thank them better in Bambarra.
Today was really hard. I started out on the wrong foot because my host mom brought breakfast right as I had to go to school and then my door wouldn’t lock so I was late. Class was really hard and I was just in a foul mood in general all morning and had zero tolerance for all the little kids peeking in the windows and doors. By lunch though, I realized that I was not alone. We all cracked today. Frustrated with learning a new language, today was the tipping point. We started learning technical health language in Bambarra too and it was like a whole different language on top of that. For better or for worse, Bambarra doesn’t have words for many health professions, so there isn’t as much new vocabulary as say in English. Fortunately, they say that the day that you most want to early terminate and go home is the day most worth staying for, and this turned out to be true.
We had class in the afternoon and then all decided to ride our bikes a little up the road to sit in the shade away from this little town and enjoy a moment of anonymity. We sat and talked about how hard peace corps is and how not many people realize. Not only is it a job but its living in the poorest countries in the world. It’s a trying time, training is the worst part supposedly, and it has to be. We don’t speak enough of the language to tell our host families anything and we are just tired. But, for many many reasons, I am still really happy to be here pushing myself and growing. But I think that’s because now its night and I’m in my bed looking back at how angry at the world I was this morning. But tonight was wonderful. My host mom had been making me eat alone in my room and I didn’t know how to say anything about how I was lonely and felt weird doing that. So today I said “I eat outside? You eat outside?” and she brought my food back out and I sat in a chair outside my hut. She even brought me a spoon…. I guess she knows I don’t like eating with my fingers. Then one of my host brothers joined me and we sat and ate and he said he didn’t mind that I ate with a spoon. Then a guy came and I spoke real Bambarra to him, my first real conversation. I told him the names of my family and aunts and uncles and grandpa and they thought the names were hilarious. Today was great because I feel I am learning the new language and as I was sitting outside at dinner and before, it was the first time that I was really comfortable. I just looked around, snuck a few pictures and was finally feeling like a normal person and not like the weird tubab.
Today at dinner I was talking to my host brother about polygamy. I drew a family tree of their family for home work today and just found out today, after living with them for a week, that there is a second wife living in my compound. One has 3 kids and one has 6 with the father. I asked my host brother if he thought that maybe polygamy was something of the last generation and if maybe it would die out. He said no, not with him and his village. He wants one wife at 25 ish, and then another at 35 ish. But he doesn’t want more than 2. I tried to act like this was normal. But I just said that I would get jealous. He said he will live in his family’s compound when he gets married, with his new wife and their kids. He will build a new house maybe in the corner of the compound. Wow. I didn’t know what to say at this point, there were few common threads left in the conversation and I didn’t know what to say otherwise. He is in university in Bamako for computer programming though, and this town has no electricity so I can’t figure out why he is in school and still planning on moving back here where he will be a farmer. I don’t know how to ask these questions in a culturally sensitive way, and to add to that, in French. So to fill the gap on conversation I just said that it was different. He said tubabs are weird.
Today we went to the market in class to see what it looks like after visiting the community health center. A car drove by packed full of 25 year old ish tubabs and they yelled TUBAB at us; it was the highlight of my day. I forgot how fun it is to run not other Americans in other countries, especially when chances are that they are also here doing aid and development work.
The community health center (CSCOM) was crazy. All open, no AC (not surprising in Mali), a few buildings, and still your standard outside, toilet less bathroom. There is 8 staff at this average sized CSCOM. Mostly, they see pregnant women and car accidents. The place is located on the main road of Mali that goes all the way to the coast of Cote d’Ivoire. It is a two lane super skinny road with steep shoulders on either side with 4 foot deep sewage trenches after that, so it is literally a death trap. Donkey carts, motorcycles, bikes, people, buses, trucks …. They all speed along. It was good to hear that people actually come to the place to deliver babies though. They get a free mosquito bet if they do and deliveries cost 4 dollars. They see about 60 deliveries a month, now being the high season. They also do family planning and such but most women are too ashamed to get the information there. Most women are even embarrassed to say they are pregnant until it is painfully obvious because pregnancy is caused by... sex; and that is a taboo topic here. Only 7% of women here use any kind of birth control, and I am not sure if this includes the less reliable methods. Though many women do go at night for birth control shots and such when no one can see them. There are some non profits that employ women in villages to do this. On a similar note, about 90% of women who show up there to have babies have at least one STD. They also see lots of malaria and acute respiratory infections that follow. It was typical though that all the posters given to the CSCOM by various NGOs about FGM and STDs were in French. Yes, the national language here is French, but women drop out of school so young that only men can speak french. So since the posters are directed at women, they should be in bambarra, because right now they are hanging in storage rooms. I am surprised more girls don’t die as a result of FGM here. I see kids wearing t shirts obviously given by NGOs that say ‘STOP Excision” on them, but I guess he can’t read French. The boy was wearing a t shirt that graphically stated why FGM was bad. There is a town in Mali where a volunteer lives now where that does not practice FGM. In 1986, all 20 girls who were cut on the ceremonial day died soon after and they took it as a bad sign and stopped the practice. But regardless, I think I am right when I say that 95% of Malian women have undergone this ‘procedure’.
Today was awesome because this guy who works for the Peace Corps came to visit us (and because I found out it only takes a week to mail packages to me!! Hint hint hehe CRYSTAL LIGHT AND FOOOOD) but this guy really lifted our moods. We were having a hard day in class because our brains are full, so he came to hang out with us for the afternoon. He did Peace Corps Gambia in the late 90s and since then has worked in the Peace Corps. He met his wife when she was volunteering and they now live in Bamako and live just like Americans. Future job idea? Yes. But the best part was how he talked about meeting other aid workers in Mali and meeting other returned Peace Corps volunteers in America. He says it’s so awesome to meet people in bars or on the street or around the world that have also done Peace Corps. He also said that there is a Marine Corps house in Bamako that is really fun to hang out at occasionally. But there are so many people to meet now that I’m in Peace Corps! And they can speak their African dialect in America and no one knows what they are saying… I can’t wait to do that. Then later this afternoon, we were hanging out at my friend’s house because her host mom makes peanut butter. We looked up and saw tubabs everywhere, turns out that the town below us was going stir crazy do that rode the 20 minutes through the bush to visit for a little. It was awesome; it’s such a cool group and feels awesome to see everyone.
Today during class before he came to visit I was staring out the window, brain dead, and saw this old guy push this woman to the ground behind their house and start beating her with his fists from behind on her head and face. After a few minutes she walked away in silence and he was yelling at her in bambarra. It was really scary and sad and weird how helpless we were to stop the situation or prevent it from occurring again. Turns out it was my friends host dad so now she feels really odd when she sees him. My host dad is awesome, really nice and funny and he brings me cold sodas. He just has an overall cute, gentile personality. He plays with his babies and seems like a good guy but I guess you never know. She said her host dad was nothing but nice to her too.
But nowww, I am back at Tubaniso! Now this feels like the most luxurious place ever. At ‘home’, friends, ‘food’, FORKS, sharing ridiculous stories about being fed fried bugs and being made to take off our clothes for laundry day. Sanity. And some of us get packages here… hint hint hint hehheeh SO HUNGRYYY. But this is Africa after all… oh boyyyyy!
Deflef Schrempf- band of horses
Book- Monique in the mango rains. I just traded a friend Half the Sky for her copy of Monique in the Mango Rains- just started it and its soooo good. A much more eloquently written version of what I hope my blog will be like. Pick up a copy if you want to know more about Peace Corps and Peace Corps Mali!!
Ok, so as I am re-reading my blog before posting it, I realize that it is kind of boring and depressing and not really that funny or written very well… so I apologize. When I am happy and having fun I am not writing on my computer, and the only time that I actually type stuff up is at night in my hut under my mosquito net, listening to donkeys cry and wondering if the roof will blow off my hut in these hurricane like rain storms. But, this is the first time I have had internet in basically 2 weeks so I will upload everything below.
After spending the first 5 days in Mali at the Peace Corps compound near the capital we left our new home for home stays in surrounding villages all with a thousand inhabitants or less. The Peace Corps compound was a rough adjustment into the life style change, but I was finally getting used to it. It feels like my grandpas farm in Texas really, just a little more rudimentary. And then there’s the culture shock and food shock and lack of friends and family. It was an old agricultural training ground. But we were always surrounded by the 80 other volunteers. Moving to home stay is a big deal because now we are in the real Africa. My village has about 2000 people. I live in my own hut that is a part of a greater compound with a few other huts. Now we get our own water, speak Barbara, the West African dialect I will be learning, and do everything with 100 kids following us. But for the first time, we are alone. I expect some people to drop after this. No one has dropped yet, except for the eight or so who didn’t show up to orientation in Phillie. This is hard though because now we are alone with our thoughts, force fed a new language for 8 hours a day in class and then surrounded by it at home with kids pointing at things and expecting you to learn at a genius pace. But this is real, this is probably what everyone pictures when they thing of the Peace Corps. Lots of flies, malnourished kids, mosquito nets, mud huts with thatched roves, and ethnic scaring on the faces of my new village friends. It’s hard right now though mentally because my birthday is coming up and I feel really nostalgic and home sick. I can’t even call my friends or check my email because in this village there is no electricity or internet so I won’t be able to contact anyone till a week or so after my birthday. But overall, I know the Peace Corps make a difference here and I won’t quit early. And after meeting the other kids here, it’s just amazing. Everyone is so different and not at all cookie cutters, like I imagined. There are so many good ideas and experiences floating around. It’s just crazy to finally be here, surrounded by the people who I used to seek out, and actually doing this when for so long I just heard other people s stories about it.
We arrived at the home stay village in the afternoon to overwhelming feelings. We drove down a severely potholed not really existent dirt road for about 30 min before spotting the thatched roves in the near distance. Then we could hear the drums and chanting of the celebration. I met some family and friends of all the teenage boys who befriended me first, yelling HEY TUBABOO!! Which means hey white person, or more specifically, hey you white French colonialist. Apparently we get called that for the next 2 years, but it’s funny and I always ask them what it means as if I don’t know and they get really embarrassed. About my host family, my host mom is 38 or 40 and has 9 kids, the oldest of which is 20. Luckily most of the older sons in the family speak French so they really saved me, I would have been so overwhelmed if they hadn’t been here to help me sort things out. And I can ask them how to say things in Bambarra. They are awesome though, so eager to walk around with me and hang out and really cool. One has passed the DELF exam and is studying in Bamako but right now it is summer time. But regardless, the university teachers were on strike all last year so the schools are now an entire year behind. Supposedly this week they are coming up with something. Feels just like being in France again!
A current Peace Corps volunteer told me that the first 2 hours of home stay are the hardest of the entire 2 years. And that the only advice they have it “don’t quit”, even when you get Guardia or feel like it’s too hard to learn this African dialect… I can’t say that I didn’t weigh the pros and cons of going home during the first 3 days in Mali, but right after that I guess I got over the bump because I haven’t considered going home since then. Maybe it’s because they were overdosing us on methloquane malaria drugs to get our levels up. I still have an almost bipolar relationship with being in the Peace Corps, but that’s normal and we are all thinking that. I just can’t wait to start my job. So many women would benefit from better birth spacing and prenatal care. Some of the facts are staggering though, this is not related to babies but to hand washing. Most Malians believe that using soap will make you poor. But also, we eat with our right hand. The left hand is dirty because Malians also don’t use toilet paper, and instead use this tea pit thing called a sillydaga and… yes, the left hand. So the fecal oral cycle is one of my most commonly used words around here. Luckily, so far, I have gotten anyone eating with me to wash their hands. This family that I am living with has had Peace Corps trainees before so thank god, I had heard the horror stories and expected the worst. But all is well, the food is awesome and I miss fruit loops but I try not to think about it. I actually don’t miss much, and it making me re-evaluates how much I really need. Returning to America will be strange and I have heard that it is harder than coming here. I can definitely see that. Mali has the highest rate of people who apply to stay for a third year in all of the Peace Corps, so take that as you will. It is a good thing but also bad because some stay to finish projects that got stuck in red tape for too long.
Being a classic American little girl, I fulfill many stereotypes that Malians hold of us. As my host dad who had nine kids and I were setting up my mosquito net, I spotted the world’s biggest cock roach and ran out of the hut and he just started laughing at me and tried to kill it…. But it escaped into my hut. The search continues. Spiders and crickets live in my hut too, among god knows what else. I don’t turn on my head lam at night for fear of what I can’t see.
After getting dropped off the first day in my village, I walked off with my family and heard that the peace corps people were going to come around and check on me at 4 30. As time rolled by and past 4 30, I got really scared and wished that time would hurry up so I could make it to the night. The Peace Corps used to literally just drop people off in the bush. I can’t imagine how hard that would be, and no cell phones. Nowadays the Peace Corps seems almost easy compared to what it used to be. The Peace Corps also used to keep the trainees at the compound for the full 9 week training, and then drop them off at site and wish them luck... thank god for the baby steps, that makes it a lot easier for me.
But the first day was special because there was a wedding, so one of the French speaking host sons showed me around and took me to it. No, it wasn’t like wedding crashers at all. The gang of all the boys in town road their motorcycles to the next town to pick up the bride from her village a few kilometers away. The groom’s friends accompany him on this journey. She was 19, which he said was rather late. My friend is 20, and plans to have kids by 22. My other friend is 19 and plans to have kids by 21. They keep asking if I have kids. I say I want to have kids when I’m thirty or something but that I really can’t predict that. They gasp at how long away that is. It goes
Do you have kids?
No.
Why not?
I am here, want to wait, am not married, etc.
So you will soon?
No, maybe 10 years.
Are you married?
No.
Oh. But you will have kids soon?
Ok….
And this is in French- my conversation in bambara are me saying random phrases like “I have a sister” and I am 21 years old, and asking how everyone and their families are 100 times in all the different ways I can think of. Then we play the point and stare game as they wait for me to learn all the vocabulary…
But the wedding was awesome. The guys were all so excited and doing tricks and crazy stunts on their motorcycles. We also met / saw the bride from the neighbor village and learned that she was not allowed to speak the day of her wedding. So we just stood in the dark room staring at her as she rocked back and forth covered from head to toe in fabric with 2 friends. I wonder what she was thinking. The boys on the other hand were having a grand old time outside. In Mali, you gain respect by getting married and having kids. As a single person, I am told that I will not have as much respect as I would if I were like the married couple in my Peace Corps class. Then we explored the town and I asked him about polygamy and if he went to mosque, I think he is Christian. I met a million people and had to go through this whole introductory ceremony with each one, asking about family and such and it takes like a minute per person, every time I leave the compound. I heard that this is why we need bikes, to avoid these conversations every day. Then dinner time came… this was a big moment. After the horror stories and my fear of losing weight over here, I actually was pleasantly surprised and the meal was awesome. They love French fries and spaghetti. I ate in my room with the 16 year old daughter who only speaks a little French, but we are supposed to eat in silence. I find it painfully awkward and just laugh a lot at nothing. They definitely think I’m an insane, slow learning tubab. A lot gets lost in translation over here… I have probably made a fool of myself more times than i would care to count. Today some kids were eating Styrofoam so I was proud of myself when I told them not to eat it in Bambarra. Then a few hours later in class I realized that I had actually said “I don’t eat”. Goooood job.
First full day at home stay is over. Has been full of ups and downs- unfortunately characterized by whether or not I am alone. When I am with other Peace Corps Trainees, I am normally in a great mood and so proud to be here. But today while bathing in my nygen, I was just thinking, why am I here? I don’t need to be here. Will it even matter? Would I be thinking the same thing at any new job? I don’t mind the heat. I mind the bugs, but whatever. I miss my friends and I can’t wait to see them again. What a great bunch. But when I think of how I would like to make new friends, immediately the Peace Corps comes to mind to find them, before I even remember that that’s where I am… I can’t wait till Sunday. My birthday should be interesting, to see how I feel. Sometimes I feel like crying. But everyone snaps at some point, a few already have. This is such a roller coaster. I can never fall asleep.
Mali is over 90 percent Muslim, this as a blanket statement was quite alarming to me when I first connected the dots and imagined wearing the symbolic outfit and living in submission. But all these thoughts were inspired by the media and my experiences in Copenhagen and other places where the Muslim population is in the spot light. But even if southern Mali were radical and anywhere near the culture of, say, Saudi Arabia, I have the tubab card. The third sex card. As a working white American woman, I confuse the preconceived gender roles of this country and no one quite knows if Peace Corps women are women or men. Who do we eat with? Do we shake hands? Can we disagree? So far, so good though. Men also suffer an odd role. As Americans, men are used to sharing in family chores and helping with cooking and such. Standard procedure in Mali is that women do all this, and men do the fields. But the womens jobs keep them up later and rising earlier than the men. However, as a male volunteer, they have to decide if they want to let a women do all the chores for them. Their laundry, food, fetching water… sounds tempting until one thinks of who has to do these chores instead. Usually one of the younger daughters. But to do these chores yourself runs a funny dilemma too. One guy who did his own chores alone was called “she-man” for 2 years. He didn’t even know until his language skills got good enough. This is a confusing country to be even remotely feminist in, to say the least.
My birthday! It made me feel very strange, not only because I am now 22 but also because I was sitting on the floor of my hut eating breakfast alone because I don’t know how to ask why she makes me eat in my hut, and looking at all the little heads lining my window. I had heard that Peace Corps volunteers feel like they live in a fish bowl… today we spent about an hour on our new bikes trying to escape the kids. So the other 7 volunteers doing home stay in my village and I planned to meet at the school at 2, just to get away from our families and relax for a little. Speak English and make sure no one is going in sane quite yet. It was just me and another girl at 2 30, and then we here the little kids start yelling TUBABOOOO TUBABOO and pointing to the window. Never before have I felt so relieved- we see tubabs riding bikes up the main road into the village. We waved them over and it was hilarious how good it felt to see everyone. They had gotten their bikes too and were going stir crazy so they decided to ride the 10 k ish to our village. We had been planning on walking up to the other village, so together we all rode our bikes to go rescue the others. We rode our bikes through the desert and farming terrain, flush with puddles of malaria and Guardia, but we all made it minus some cuts that hopefully aren’t infected yet. We spent the ride looking for this one village and eventually found it, and then entered the ‘sandals of Mali’. It was hte nicest village ever, my village I found out has only 500 people and this one had maybe 1200. They had trees and squares and walls and it felt like heaven. We rode around and couldn’t find the tubabs, after asking and yelling and looking. Eventually we found them and all hopped on our bikes to ride away from the swarms of kids. Then we sat in hte shade of this little forest and did nothing, it was awesome. It was a great day, a great birthday, and made me really glad I didn’t go home those first few hard days. The ride home was a near death experieence, as we experienced a flat tire, but fortunately the bike and rider hitched a ride with a passing Peace Corps truck. Gooood timing. But the rest of us ended up on some sort of highway in Africa, lost and looking like fools, asking directions in bambarra… we eventually found the road that we took in last week. Never stray to the unknown path! All this was done while riding a bike in my long skirt that kept getting stuck in my brakes and showing my knees…. And if your knees show then you’re a prostitute so I had the choice of risking falling while fixing my skirt or looking like a hooker the whole ride. Just another fun day lost and bewildered in Africa. But today was soccer finals, and I managed a few sentences in bambarra too. I just say ‘I ride bike to friends town” and “I shower (sitting next to a bucket of water) myself” every few minutes.
Today I became aware of the fact that death could be a very common happening in my time here. I was caught off guard today, not mentally prepared to know that a young boy who lives in my teacher’s compound where we have class sometimes died last night. He had been sick for a while apparently, I thought he looked normal but now that I look back, he did sleep a lot. But he looked like all the other kids to me. His mother took him to the doctor in a nearby village yesterday and was told he was malnourished and had malaria, but he died that night. I am reminded again why I am here to educate women and families in ways to improve their health, I am happy to be here. Turns out, most women are not surprised when their first child dies, and some almost expect it. One in ten children die here of a variety of mostly treatable and preventable diseases. One in 7 women will die in child birth. Pregnancy is not a disease where one should be ok with death. Many practices are simple in nature but are life threatening. For example, when a child has diarrhea, mothers will stop giving it any liquids, thinking that all the liquid coming out means that the baby is too full. But really they are just causing a dehydrated baby to become more dehydrated. But we have only been here a little over a week so we have been doing mostly language training but not technical health training. I look forward to doing technical training and visiting a nearby CSCOM health center on Wednesday.
Night time is when I have time to write so forgive me if I sound nostalgic and a little unenthusiastic sometimes. Nighttime is when I am alone with my thoughts and music so my mood dips. I’m alone in my little mud hut under my mosquito net and there are kids and things running around outside my door in the compound but I closed it so that I can wear shorts that show my knees… after class we all just sit in the school for another hour or so to detox and have some tubab therapy time. Complain; tell stories… help keep the mood up. It’s also nice to know that of the 17,000 or so people that applied to be in the Peace Corps, we got in. It’s great to hear everyone’s plans and stories and experiences and why we are here. Such a great group. I am so happy to be in the Peace Corps. Even when there are puddles of rain and cow poo outside probably creeping with ring worm or something called “creeping eruptions”. Oh, the rainy season. A girl in my class got bit by a Bot Fly (kmac and friends, you better be laughing) and a few days later a bug baby larvae came out of the bite… funsies.
Interesting observations of the day: More boys speak French than girls because they are in school longer. This explains why my host bothers speak French and my sisters don’t. We also learned about marriage traditions today. To quickly explain, the families will decide at any age really. If they marry before the girl has reached puberty, then she sleeps with her mother in law until she is able to have children. But for some girls, this could be very young, and it is not unheard of to be married in Mali by 12. Of course, some families allow people to date and have a say. But traditionally, there is a process involving kola nut offerings and dowries. An average dowry is 10,000 CFA, or about 200 dollars. For divorced women it is about half. Weddings are expensive though. But once the dowry is paid and the ceremony has occurred, the girl moves into the boy’s village and just visits her old home. My host brothers and sisters are not married yet, the oldest of which is 20. But like I think I have said earlier, they want kids by 21 or 22. Family worth and respect is earned by marriage and children, so it is no wonder.
Watching soccer has been funny. Every time a game is on, we move the TV outside with the car battery and set it up on the dirt, maybe on a stool. The TV has got to be older than I am. Definitely, and it’s black and white and in French. I am always the only girl around and all the boys from the neighbors come over. It would be a hilarious picture. I can’t wait to put up pictures. But this is normal; this is life for lots of people so I can’t complain. And the food is awesome for the most part so all is well, other than the threat of scorpions in my bed. I did hear from another girl that her family ate these huge weird white bugs for lunch though…. I got lucky with host families, they treat me too well. I need to figure out how to thank them better in Bambarra.
Today was really hard. I started out on the wrong foot because my host mom brought breakfast right as I had to go to school and then my door wouldn’t lock so I was late. Class was really hard and I was just in a foul mood in general all morning and had zero tolerance for all the little kids peeking in the windows and doors. By lunch though, I realized that I was not alone. We all cracked today. Frustrated with learning a new language, today was the tipping point. We started learning technical health language in Bambarra too and it was like a whole different language on top of that. For better or for worse, Bambarra doesn’t have words for many health professions, so there isn’t as much new vocabulary as say in English. Fortunately, they say that the day that you most want to early terminate and go home is the day most worth staying for, and this turned out to be true.
We had class in the afternoon and then all decided to ride our bikes a little up the road to sit in the shade away from this little town and enjoy a moment of anonymity. We sat and talked about how hard peace corps is and how not many people realize. Not only is it a job but its living in the poorest countries in the world. It’s a trying time, training is the worst part supposedly, and it has to be. We don’t speak enough of the language to tell our host families anything and we are just tired. But, for many many reasons, I am still really happy to be here pushing myself and growing. But I think that’s because now its night and I’m in my bed looking back at how angry at the world I was this morning. But tonight was wonderful. My host mom had been making me eat alone in my room and I didn’t know how to say anything about how I was lonely and felt weird doing that. So today I said “I eat outside? You eat outside?” and she brought my food back out and I sat in a chair outside my hut. She even brought me a spoon…. I guess she knows I don’t like eating with my fingers. Then one of my host brothers joined me and we sat and ate and he said he didn’t mind that I ate with a spoon. Then a guy came and I spoke real Bambarra to him, my first real conversation. I told him the names of my family and aunts and uncles and grandpa and they thought the names were hilarious. Today was great because I feel I am learning the new language and as I was sitting outside at dinner and before, it was the first time that I was really comfortable. I just looked around, snuck a few pictures and was finally feeling like a normal person and not like the weird tubab.
Today at dinner I was talking to my host brother about polygamy. I drew a family tree of their family for home work today and just found out today, after living with them for a week, that there is a second wife living in my compound. One has 3 kids and one has 6 with the father. I asked my host brother if he thought that maybe polygamy was something of the last generation and if maybe it would die out. He said no, not with him and his village. He wants one wife at 25 ish, and then another at 35 ish. But he doesn’t want more than 2. I tried to act like this was normal. But I just said that I would get jealous. He said he will live in his family’s compound when he gets married, with his new wife and their kids. He will build a new house maybe in the corner of the compound. Wow. I didn’t know what to say at this point, there were few common threads left in the conversation and I didn’t know what to say otherwise. He is in university in Bamako for computer programming though, and this town has no electricity so I can’t figure out why he is in school and still planning on moving back here where he will be a farmer. I don’t know how to ask these questions in a culturally sensitive way, and to add to that, in French. So to fill the gap on conversation I just said that it was different. He said tubabs are weird.
Today we went to the market in class to see what it looks like after visiting the community health center. A car drove by packed full of 25 year old ish tubabs and they yelled TUBAB at us; it was the highlight of my day. I forgot how fun it is to run not other Americans in other countries, especially when chances are that they are also here doing aid and development work.
The community health center (CSCOM) was crazy. All open, no AC (not surprising in Mali), a few buildings, and still your standard outside, toilet less bathroom. There is 8 staff at this average sized CSCOM. Mostly, they see pregnant women and car accidents. The place is located on the main road of Mali that goes all the way to the coast of Cote d’Ivoire. It is a two lane super skinny road with steep shoulders on either side with 4 foot deep sewage trenches after that, so it is literally a death trap. Donkey carts, motorcycles, bikes, people, buses, trucks …. They all speed along. It was good to hear that people actually come to the place to deliver babies though. They get a free mosquito bet if they do and deliveries cost 4 dollars. They see about 60 deliveries a month, now being the high season. They also do family planning and such but most women are too ashamed to get the information there. Most women are even embarrassed to say they are pregnant until it is painfully obvious because pregnancy is caused by... sex; and that is a taboo topic here. Only 7% of women here use any kind of birth control, and I am not sure if this includes the less reliable methods. Though many women do go at night for birth control shots and such when no one can see them. There are some non profits that employ women in villages to do this. On a similar note, about 90% of women who show up there to have babies have at least one STD. They also see lots of malaria and acute respiratory infections that follow. It was typical though that all the posters given to the CSCOM by various NGOs about FGM and STDs were in French. Yes, the national language here is French, but women drop out of school so young that only men can speak french. So since the posters are directed at women, they should be in bambarra, because right now they are hanging in storage rooms. I am surprised more girls don’t die as a result of FGM here. I see kids wearing t shirts obviously given by NGOs that say ‘STOP Excision” on them, but I guess he can’t read French. The boy was wearing a t shirt that graphically stated why FGM was bad. There is a town in Mali where a volunteer lives now where that does not practice FGM. In 1986, all 20 girls who were cut on the ceremonial day died soon after and they took it as a bad sign and stopped the practice. But regardless, I think I am right when I say that 95% of Malian women have undergone this ‘procedure’.
Today was awesome because this guy who works for the Peace Corps came to visit us (and because I found out it only takes a week to mail packages to me!! Hint hint hehe CRYSTAL LIGHT AND FOOOOD) but this guy really lifted our moods. We were having a hard day in class because our brains are full, so he came to hang out with us for the afternoon. He did Peace Corps Gambia in the late 90s and since then has worked in the Peace Corps. He met his wife when she was volunteering and they now live in Bamako and live just like Americans. Future job idea? Yes. But the best part was how he talked about meeting other aid workers in Mali and meeting other returned Peace Corps volunteers in America. He says it’s so awesome to meet people in bars or on the street or around the world that have also done Peace Corps. He also said that there is a Marine Corps house in Bamako that is really fun to hang out at occasionally. But there are so many people to meet now that I’m in Peace Corps! And they can speak their African dialect in America and no one knows what they are saying… I can’t wait to do that. Then later this afternoon, we were hanging out at my friend’s house because her host mom makes peanut butter. We looked up and saw tubabs everywhere, turns out that the town below us was going stir crazy do that rode the 20 minutes through the bush to visit for a little. It was awesome; it’s such a cool group and feels awesome to see everyone.
Today during class before he came to visit I was staring out the window, brain dead, and saw this old guy push this woman to the ground behind their house and start beating her with his fists from behind on her head and face. After a few minutes she walked away in silence and he was yelling at her in bambarra. It was really scary and sad and weird how helpless we were to stop the situation or prevent it from occurring again. Turns out it was my friends host dad so now she feels really odd when she sees him. My host dad is awesome, really nice and funny and he brings me cold sodas. He just has an overall cute, gentile personality. He plays with his babies and seems like a good guy but I guess you never know. She said her host dad was nothing but nice to her too.
But nowww, I am back at Tubaniso! Now this feels like the most luxurious place ever. At ‘home’, friends, ‘food’, FORKS, sharing ridiculous stories about being fed fried bugs and being made to take off our clothes for laundry day. Sanity. And some of us get packages here… hint hint hint hehheeh SO HUNGRYYY. But this is Africa after all… oh boyyyyy!
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