Thursday, March 29, 2012

Coup and Cabin Feva. The only prescription is more cowbell.

Last week the lovely country of Mali experienced a coup d'etat.  The military decided it wanted to take over the government because they were annoyed that they were not receiving proper money or weapons to fight the Tuareg rebels in the north.  So they did.  What this means for me is that all of the volunteers in the immediate Sikasso regions were called into the stage house until further notice.  All of the volunteers in Mali were called into there respective regional capital stage houses with the exception of the volunteers in and around Bamako because Bamako has the potential to become dangerous quickly so the having volunteers holed there up would make little sense.  From Thursday to Tuesday (27th) the airport and borders were closed.  They are now open though there were protests at the airport today which caused a plane carrying many heads of state from surrounding countries to turn around.  The heads of state were coming in to talk with the new, illegal government of Mali about their options.

The coup seems rather poorly thought through.  It is almost as if they just wanted to make the point that they could take the government, but now that they have they seem unsure of what to do with it.  This coup really has little to no effect on my village because the government essentially does nothing for my village.  There are no roads, taxes, or other public services so who controls the country is of little consequence to my village.  As long as they can farm, they are fine, but we have been restricted to Sikasso in case they need to get us out of the country in a hurry I guess.  There is a lot of more in depth information online regarding this whole situation so I won't go into details, but instead will tell you what this means for me.

I have been in Sikasso since last Saturday couped (ha ha get it) up in the house with 25 other volunteers. Of course, I am doing well, but there is a decent amount tension floating about because this is a fairly stressful situation.  Right now, Peace Corps is taking a wait and see approach if things clear up quickly then we will be allowed to go back to our sites.  If things deteriorate we will be evacuated unlikely to return.  If things stay the same there is a good chance that we will evacuated as well no because of the danger necessarily but because our working relationship with the new government is uncertain and unknown.  Also, most aid organizations are pulling their funding in an effort to strong-arm the new government into restoring the constitution.  This means that the funding we have available for projects will be essentially depleted leaving us with doing only unfunded projects.  While this isn't the end of the world (I have done a few unfunded projects), it does definitely change my service.  My village and I were recently making good progress with USAID to fund a very large fishery project in my village, and I believe USAID has pulled almost all of its funding at this point.  Raising the money for this without USAID or other NGO support is fairly unrealistic so I'll be put back to square one if we stay with current situation.  Anyways, I'll try to people updated as best I can.

The most recent protests in Bamako were pro-coup protests with signs saying things like "Down with ATT" (the overthrown president), and "Down with the international community!"  I don't know how many of those people were under order from the current gov't but there were several thousand of them protesting.  That doesn't seem like a good sign, but my fingers are crossed.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Why I am Thankful for my Education...

Over the past year in Mali I have come to appreciate many, many things about my home, America, and American society.  My education is riding very close to the top of that list.  I readily admit that there are many problems with the American education system and many other American policies as there is a lot of hypocrisies built in, but as a whole, the system works really, really well compared to Mali and I imagine many other countries similar to Mali.  After being here, I've found a new pride in our system even though I had nothing to do with its inception, but I can admire things I didn't make, and I do.

Anyways, I've been attending the first level French class in my village's Madras which is an Islamic Koranic school, and it has been a pretty good experience for me.  Koranic schools are one of a few options in Mali.  There is a public system, a Koranic system, and a private school system.  I'm not sure why my village has opted to build a Madras as opposed to a school that would be part of the public system, but I would guess that is cheaper (funded by Islam), and therefore cheaper to send your kids to.  The public school system is not free, and, like many things in Mali, extremely ineffective and inefficient.  Students come from several villages to attend the Madras in my village, and once they reach a certain point in schooling they go to Sikasso through the 12th grade if they are so inclined.  Very few students do this, I only know of one from my village who is currently in Madras in Sikasso.

The school has three rooms probably about half the size of your average school room in the States.  The French class I attend has 45 students in it.  Most classes (not the French class) are taught in Arabic which  means that students have to learn Arabic just to attend the school.  I think Arabic is a very interesting and beautiful language, but a largely useless one in a country where the official language is French.  The university in Bamako is taught in French so in order to go to college the students graduating from a Koranic school, (unless they've mastered French which is rare), have to go to an Arabic country.  The closest and therefore most reasonable option would be Libya or Egypt and given the current state of affairs in those countries going to either is probably not a viable option.

The French class I have been attending is the first level.  The students range in age from I'd say 8 to maybe 16 or 17.  Boys and girls attend in roughly equal numbers, but the girls must have some sort of head covering.  I have a hard time judging age in this country as everyone is mal-nourished and therefore much, much small than their American same-age peers.  The teacher is a graduate of the the 12th grade in the public school system.  She has an extremely imperfect command of the French language.  When I first met her, I thought it would be interesting to have a French-English teaching exchange in our spare time until I realized just how incomplete her knowledge of French is.  I brought a book of French-English verbs over to her house to facilitate some learning on both sides.  She started flipping through it, and stumbled across a list of French Past Participles.  Granted the title of the section was in English, but the words in French are only used for one thing-conjugating in the past.  Anyways, she goes on to tell me that they are synonyms (which is kind-of true), and then points to the verb "to drink" and then the past participle- "boire" and "bu" respectively.  She said if you are drinking a big glass of something you use the word "boire" but if you are drinking a small glass, such as a little glass of tea you use the word "bu."  Oh boy... That is not quite what a past participle is.

Alright.  I now understand just how little the teacher knows French and it is a big bummer that she is the best the school has for a French teacher.  Obviously, she has little to no teacher training, much less any sort of formal degree in teaching which is not surprising in any way.  The teacher is the only one with a textbook and the textbook is not even a French language textbook.  It is a 5th grade level Ethics and Behavior textbook which is at least written in French but certainly not designed to teach French.  So each day she copies a paragraph out of it onto the board and the students copy it down.  These usually have a theme like "work hard" or "clean your house and yard" or "wash your hands" which I think are great for Malian society where things like washing hands with soap is not commonly practiced or understood.  The students then copy the paragraph into notebooks.  Most are just copying the shapes of whatever is on the board, they can't read the letters.  But it is very obvious when the students do understand what they are writing because their writing is so much clearer.  It's not just a penmanship thing, anyone could tell the difference between the two camps.  Lessons vary slightly, but one of her go to lessons is the "simple" (one verb) vs "complex" (more than one verb) sentence.  She asks who can give her an example of each, and some students understand and answer though I'm not sure they know what a verb is since the sentences they give are always examples that the teacher has given previously.  If they come up with a different one the teacher often gets confused and tells them it is incorrect when it is correct or vice versa.

The teacher walks around with a rubber belt off of an old car or machine and if a student acts up or has answer the teacher deems just too stupid then she hits them with the rubber belt.  It doesn't do any damage, but I'm sure it stings a bit.  Or if the teacher is not feeling like worming her way through the packed desks then she nods to the kid next to the kid who is acting up.  The acting up kid leans forward in the desk, and the kid next to him or her punches him or her in the back.  The teacher says "Voila" and continues.  I can understand why the teachers have to control by fear.  For one thing, they have no training to help them come up with another way, and they can't bribe the kids into good behavior as they have no incentives.  I volunteered in a 2nd grade class in America just before coming here, and if the students were good they got to get a treasure from the "treasure box" at the end of the week.  The treasure box was mostly silly decorated pencils and cheap plastic ring things, but to a second grader those are pretty cool.  And what was easily found, usually for free, at various events and things by the teacher in America would be found here only at the sacrifice of giving up a meal or something like that.  And though decorated pencils are pretty cool, not being hungry is even cooler.

The teacher had bigger ambitions, but those were dashed when she was married off to some guy.  Her husband does not want her to go to University so she can't even try.  Also, now she has a few kids.  Her youngest, being a little over a year old, goes to class with her everyday.  This is obviously necessary but it often takes the attention of teacher off of her job.  The kid frequently will start whining, so the teacher has to pull her shirt down and start breast feeding while teaching.  Definitely multitasking.

Now I know I've painted a fairly bleak picture, but accurately describing a living and rich experience is a tough task so I've had to pick and choose what to share and how to share it.  There is definitely hope in the system, but it is still a tough set up.  A few kids will go on to finish high school through the Madras in Sikasso.  One of my best friends from village is about to finish the 12th grade.  He understands that scholarships exist, but he says he has to do really well on his exams to get one.  I hope he can get to college.  I wish I could pay for it actually because I think investing in education is the smartest investment anyone can make, but I don't have that capacity right now.

I hope I've painted a fair and informative picture of education if Mali, but I probably haven't so keep that in mind as you read this and form your own opinions.  But regardless, what I've described above is why I am so, so thankful for the education and opportunities that being an American has given me.  And again, our system is also flawed, and I think always moving to improve is an awesome and valid goal.  However, I see online and hear/heard from various people so many complaints and criticisms about how stupid, horrible, corrupt, and unfair our system is without so much as a nod towards some of the good aspects of what we enjoy as Americans and it annoys me sometimes.  Right now is one of those times.  I know this will sound elitist and self-righteous, and I think that all opinions are valid and help society evolve as a whole, but I really think all the damn whiners should really shut the fuck up because the fact that they have the ability to write their stupid, uninformed opinions all over the internet is a blessing that literally 74%  of this country does not have.  I am extremely fortunate and nothing has made me understand that better than being here.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Segou Music Festival

I'm still trying to catch up on my blog posts... Sheesh.

From Feb 15th to the 20th I rallied on up to Segou to catch the Festival sur le Niger.  It was a really good time, and I was completely impressed with how set up it was...since it was in Mali.  It was almost like a US concert!!  Just not as loud perhaps, and definitely not on schedule.  The music was from all over the world, but concentrated on artists from Mali and it went all day and all night.  There were two main stages and numerous little venues.  The smaller of the main stages had music during the day, and the bigger of the main stages at night.  The big stage was really, really cool as it was on a barge out in the Niger river (it was only about 5 or 10 feet off shore for obvious reasons).  This made for an amazing backdrop for the music.

During the day admission was free, and I spent the days strolling around catching random shows or parts of shows, sitting by one of the hotel pools, and enjoying the awesome street vendors who came out in force for the festival.  The days tended to be pretty laid-back but super fun, and the street food was way better than it usually is.  At nights everything sort of cranked up a notch.  At around 5 security would come into the area which was barricaded off on one side by the river, on one side by some buildings, and by some built barricades on two other sides.  They'd then proceed to kick everyone out who did not have a wrist band which meant all the poor people because you had to pay for a wrist band.  It was sort of horrible... my friends and I were standing in the big square and after security had kicked everybody out the only people remaining were basically all white.  The wealthier Malians didn't bother to go to the day time shows it would seem and would just show up to the night time shows for the big names.  They'd show up a little later.  The big stage was scheduled to start each night at 7 or 8, but usually was an hour or so behind.  For some reason, they were not good at getting the sound checks done ahead of time or in a timely manner, so the headliners usually didn't hit the stage until 11pm or so.  The shows usually went until about 2 in the morning and were followed by a DJ for an after party each night at a different locale.  I only managed to get to the after party two nights just because I was so tired, and the after party would usually go until 5 or 6 am.  I was just not up for staying up that late too much especially since sleeping much past 8 was very difficult due to the heat.  I was camped out at the designated "camping area" which was just a dirt parking lot inside one of the hotel compounds and once the sun hit me, it was just too hot to consider sleeping any more.

The main acts were generally pretty good.  Again they could have been louder, but I really like loud music so I'm not sure if I'm a good judge of the volume.  Also, the organizers did not do a great job with the flow of the shows.  For example, the big night (Sat) had a bunch of big names, and the place was packed and buzzing with energy.  They started out with a Malian blues guitarist, followed by a Kenyan rock and roll group that got everybody really pumped and excited.  At 11pm they brought out a very famous Malian singer, who had a nice voice, but was kind of like a Malian version of Enya.  Nice to listen to, but basically put everybody to sleep right before the main act which made the main act's job a lot harder because he had to get everybody going again.  The main act was Salif Keita who is an albino Malian, and one of the most famous Malian musicians.  He tours internationally, and puts on a pretty good show.  All the shows had good lighting by Malian standards, and the big names even had one little flame thrower in the back for some pyrotechnics.  The lighting and fire was sort of funny though because it all seemed very random.  In the states, I am used to well rehearsed shows with the lighting and all the other elements coordinated with the music.  Here, it seemed like the light board operator just sort of randomly decided when to feature certain lights and effects.  Like..."Hmmm... let's see, I haven't pushed the flame thrower button in a while.  I'll do it...NOW!"  And up would go the flames during one of the calmest part of a song instead of hitting the big breaks for emphasis.

One of my favorite acts was on Sunday (the last day), and it was a Venezuelan drum groups with an electronic "fusion."  So, it was a couple of guys playing "African" style drums and a DJ who would put some fun electronic music behind the extremely talented drums.  I thought these guys should have taken the place of the Enya-like lady instead of playing Sunday when the crowd was tired and laid-back and just looking for some light music to sit back and groove to.  If they had played Saturday night instead they would have had a super-high energy and fun crowd.  The crowd was probably my favorite part of the whole festival.  It was fun to experience Malian music in a Malian crowd as they got really into the music.  I usually pushed my way through the crowd to the front where people were going nuts!  They were really dancing and singing along to all the tunes they knew.  One night I ended up by some really drunk Malians which was really fun because most Malians don't drink so it was a new experience for me.  Because I look homeless, the asked if I was Jesus, so of course I said, "yes."  Then they got really stoked and started chanting "Jesus! Jesus!" and lifting me up in the air (I think they were some of the few Christians in Mali).  Man, what a good time!!