Hitchhiking and Hippos

Except no hippos. Damn!

So I finished my training, and then went through training about starting a tree nursery.  This was interesting for me, but not really for blog readers.  So on to more interesting things.

After training I made my way to Manantali.  I was fairly sick of paying for crappy Malian transport, and dealing with their sheisty employees... So a friend and I decided to hitchhike.  Brilliant! Everything fell into place just about perfectly, though the adventure did involve LOTS of walking in the heat and humidity.

We left Bamako in the afternoon and took sotrama to a little town called Kati. A sotrama is an old van that has been gutted and fitted with some wooden benches.  The sides have been creatively cut up to provide windows, the tops properly reinforced to so all manner of shit can be strapped to the top, and usually the back doors are tied shut.  The advantage of these is they are cheap! Usually 100 to 500 cfa (20 cents to a dollar) to go a pretty good distances, and you don't have to haggle like with a taxi, and there are generally enough people on that the operators don't try to rip you off.  The bummer is that they are crowded and hot.  Usually they fit 20 to 25 people in the back depending how many kids there are.  They go on a fixed line like a bus, so you just ask people where the line is in order to go to, say Kati for example, you go there and yell "Kati!!" at every passing sotroma until one going to Kati stops.    We were told by another volunteer to go under a bridge at what turned out to be a very busy and harrowing intersection, and eventually flagged one down.  I've taken them many times, but I still think they operate in a very strange way at least seen through the eyes of me, an outsider.  There is a driver...who drives, and a guy that 'sits' in the back with the passengers and collects fares and makes sure the number of people in the back does not exceed the capacity which is painted in a creative manner on the side of the van.  By sits I mean this guy dangles out of the open side door and yells the destination to any unlucky pedestrian who happens to be in earshot.  If they show a sign that they want to go this guy slams on the top or side of the van until the driver notices and pulls over or until everyone has a bigger headache than the one they started with from all the exhaust.  As you can imagine, they generally overshoot most of their clients by a fair amount so they have to hustle to get in.  Oh, and the guy who hangs out the side always jumps off before the van stops, and waits for the van to start up so they have to run and jump on while the van is moving.  This is for fun...obviously.  We made it to the big traffic jam that is always around the toll booth at Kati.  We pulled off towards the end of the line, with plans of continuing until the end.  They were sitting waiting to fill the rest of the van, and I decided to get out and wander...and buy bread.  I randomly decided to flag down the first car  I spotted.  Brilliant! I asked where he was going he said Kita, and that's where I was headed, and he said I could go with him.  So I ran and grabbed my friend and our bags and jumped into his Land Cruiser.  He is a veterinarian who apparently also dabbles tree planting and hotel management.  The best part is that he and his associate were stoked to have us aboard, were very nice, and had AIR CONDITIONING!!! We followed a big truck he had hired with a bunch of trees in it so it wasn't as fast as it could have been, but still faster than a bus.  It was evening when we got to Kita and he said the road to Manantali would be pretty empty so he put us up in his hotel for the night... FOR FREE! It was awesome, and super nice of him.  There is a peace corps house in Kita, but unless Kita is your "regional capital" you have to pay 5,000 cfa a night to stay.
The next morning (July 3rd) we walked out of Kita...and walked, and walked.  Maybe for two or three hours before a guy picked us up.  There were very few cars along the way, and the ones that pulled off before that either were turning off soon, or wanted money.  This guy took us to the turn off to Manantali.
Now for the long part of the day.  The road to Manantali is 104 kilometers of really, really not maintained dirt road, and there are very, very few cars on the road. We filled our water bottles at the pump at the intersection and started walking.  It was now approaching noon-ish.  We walked for about an hour or so when some construction workers picked us up in their beat up pickup that was somehow still running, and took us about 15 km.  Then more walking. I don't know how long, but it was long.  Eventually a bush taxi (another converted van) came by that was filled with bags of rice and other goods instead of people.  We haggled a ride to a town 40 km from Manantali for 1000 cfa each.  After I finally fell asleep on a bag of rice we got a flat.  The passenger rear wheel blew, so they took the driver front wheel off and put it on the back, and put the mostly destroyed spare on the front as there was less weight in the front.  I started drifting off again, and they broke the rear axle or at least the seal blew.  They took out their bag of spare parts complete with bearings covered in sand and other equally useful things, and went to work.  My friend and I decided it was time for lunch.  Part way through lunch another bush taxi came by that just happened to have been chartered by the other Peace Corps volunteers from Bamako.  They had left Bamako at 6 am.  Two of the volunteers...volunteered to ride on the roof (a place coveted by me, but beggars can't be choosers) and we crammed in the back.  A few hours later we made it to Manantali.

Manantali is a peculiar area.  There is a huge dam that you see as you start down the treacherous road to the town.  This dam provides the power for much of Mali as well as Senegal and Mauritania? maybe.   At the base of the dam is a sort of traditional village thing, and a few km down the road is the "city" where all the dam workers live.  This little city has paved roads, flushing toilets, and has none of the usual heaps of burning trash everywhere.  The Peace Corps house is in the city right on the banks of the river there.  This is an "unofficial" peace corps house which means that it doesn't get the same funding, and cleaning crew, but also no administration keeping track of those who stay there and what goes on which bodes well for those people who are looking to celebrate with the things that are not entirely Peace Corps "approved" if you will.  There were a lot of people there, so they also rented another house that you could stay in for a small fee.  I chose to do this one night as the couch in that house was much cozier than sleeping outside in my little bug hut.  I was able to swim in the river, float down in tubes, and I even saw some monkeys including one with a baby clinging to the under belly! though unfortunately no hippos.  We had hamburgers and fireworks on the Fourth of July which was awesome!! And the river is so, so beautiful there, and the feel of the little "city" is very un-Malian, so it felt like a real vacation, like I was at a campground in Florida or something.

I left on the 6th after spending one last day relaxing next to the river.  My friend and I picked up another friend for the hitch to Kita.  We started walking early, and walked once again for a few hours.  Eventually a truck stopped and only wanted a little money so we hopped aboard.  This was a large U-Haul sized truck, that had "Poisson" written on the side, which for those of you who don't know is the French word for fish.  We climbed into the back, and were immediately blasted by the smell of old fish.  Luckily, they were hauling all sorts of other things at this point such as peanuts, motorcycles and furniture, but oh man, that smell was gnarly!!  Thankfully, they left one of the doors open so we didn't suffocate, and we were rewarded a 3 hour dust shower (from all the dust blowing in off the truck).  Luckily, after 3 hours it started raining which made the road even sweeter, but less dusty.  By the time we rolled into Kita after 6 hours in the back of the fish truck, we looked like hell.  The driver decided he would not take our money after all.  Oh yes, and starting that morning I was struck with a nice case of diarrhea which I gulped drugs to counterattack, and was able to stave off any major disasters while in the back of the truck.  I managed to procure a free night at the house in Kita by using some vague wording with a higher up.  It was actually all legitimate, but sometimes finer details are best left out of some conversations.
The next morning I gulped some more anti-diarrhea drugs and hit the road again.  More walking with one of the friends, the other stayed in Kita.  Eventually we were picked up by an accountant with a nice car with A/C and made it Bamako in the late afternoon.  We grabbed some dinner, I arranged to have some of my stuff sent to Sikasso on a the full Peace Corps transport (it can only seat 8, but you can put all sorts of baggage on top in classic Malian style).  Then we hit the road again.  It took us 3 sotramas to get out of Bamako on the road to Sikasso, and by this time it was rather dark.  Eventually, a car full of young guys picked us up and took us to the nearest toll booth where they told the workers there where we were trying to go, and we had to clarify and say for free... Just to be a little more ridiculous.  After half an hour or so a bus came by and the workers convinced them to let us ride in the aisle for free to Bougouni (which was the final destination for my friend, and as it turned out for me).  The bus's brakes were not good, every time the driver used them, the entire bus smelled like burning brakes...not a good sign.  We got into Bougouni a little after 11pm and my friend went towards the unofficial Bougouni PC house.  I tried convincing the bus to let me ride on to Sikasso for free...on the roof.  They declined.  So the bus left and I started walking.  Around midnight I reached the edge of Bougouni, and stood at the edge of the end of the street lights and peered into the darkness.  I sat there for 20 minutes or so debating what to do: I could either keep walking and probably not get picked up and sleep in the bush in my fairly uncomfortable mosquito net or call my friend and sleep in the Bougouni house in a bed. Exactly 0 cars passed me so I called my friend, and got directions to the Bougouni house.  The next morning (today the 8th) I caught a quick ride to the edge of Bougouni, then another to the next toll station, then quickly caught another in an air conditioned Land Cruiser all the way to Sikasso.  We had a lengthly conversation about religion, and by that I mean he told me about Islam and tried to convert me.  Since my language isn't great I understood about a 20th of it, but I got the main points: Allah loves me, and Jesus was a nice guy, but not the son of god.  We listened to people chanting the Koran the whole way, but the guy gave me some delicious pain au chocolat (a chocolat croissant), some sesame crackers, a coke, and a ride so no complaints.  He was very happy that allah put me in his car and was stoked about what a good muslim I was going to be.  He also told me that my beard is handsome, so he goes into my good book for sure.

I was going to head to site today, but ended up helping another volunteer work on her bike (by that I mean diagnose the problem and then break it a little more in an attempt to fix something that just needed a new part in the first place).  So here I am, writing an extremely lengthly blog post that will surely get me flogged if anyone in PC admin reads it.  So, if you are in PC admin then this entire thing is fictional.  I'll post again another day.  I'll for sure head back to site tomorrow, though I wish my tummy would calm down some.

Buses and Running

I had a fight with Malian transportation yesterday.  I tried to catch the good bus line to Bamako, but missed the bus so I went to a different company where they over-charged me for my ticket.  I had a sneaking suspicion I was over charged, so I asked a Malian how much he paid for his ticket, and found he had paid 1,000 cfa (about $2) less.  So, I talked to the people who seemed to be in charge of the bus, and asked why I was charged more.  They said because I am white.  This made me pretty mad, and so I argued with one of the guys until he ignored me, making it very clear I would not get my money back.  So, I decided to take two seats.  I recognized then and do now that this was not the high road, and sucking up the blatant racism would have been the high road, but I was frustrated so decided to be a stubborn American.  People were sitting in the aisle, and the bus operators, (there are many: a driver, and several helpers who collect tickets, strap luggage to the roof, and yell out stop names), to move.  I said, "Give me my money and I will, but right now I can't." Of course, these people didn't take my money, the guy at the ticket counter did.  And the people in the aisle didn't take my money either, but I was not going to give in.  And I didn't, I had two seats the whole way, and really enjoyed the lounging and ability to spread out.  When we got to Bamako I got a taxi, and loaded my stuff into the trunk.  Then some fellow volunteers in a different cab spotted me, and I said I wanted to go with them (in order to split cab fair).  And the driver closed the trunk, and held it down and said, "Nope, you're my friend." Which was weird, but I was tired and didn't want to argue...Until he took another passanger and we had to drive all the way to the other side of town to drop her off. So when we got to my destination I said I wasn't going to pay him the price we agreed on because he didn't listen to me when I said I wanted to go with my friends, and then we went to the other side of town.  I knew that this was causing more trouble for me, but by now I was SO frustrated, and I wanted to cause him some frustration.  So we got in a shouting match, which involved him saying stuff I didn't understand and me shouting random Bambara words over him, and gesturing wildly, and making faces.  The guard in the Peace Corps house came out, and the driver told some version of the story which I couldn't understand, so I decided to give him the rest of the money as I was now confident I had caused him ample strife for my frustration.  But, now we had to revert to the Malian "3rd Party System" because we had a conflict.  This just means I had to give the guard the money first, and the guard would give it to the driver.  Was I immature? Yes. I don't care.  I was too annoyed to be reasonable.

Then I had a lovely spaghetti dinner, and got up really early to run our half-marathon.

I didn't win.  I got second, and a respectable one.  The kid who won was running under seven minute miles, as he was a good runner and ran cross country for Johns Hopkins.  He lost me around mile 3.  I ran it in an hour and 45 minutes, and felt pretty good about that.  I had taken a break from training due to the malaria, and still did great!  So, I'm proud of myself.  Now, I'm sore and thinking that the marathon I'm signed up for in September is gonna give me a whoopin'.

My Thistle Skills

The title is a little joke for my family, and those who knew me as a youngster.

I got back to site last Sunday and discovered that my poor garden had been completely overgrown with weeds.  The next morning I pulled weeds for three hours and cleared them all out.  Thus, the skills I learned when I was younger were put to good use.  I have some before and after pics, but I need a faster internet/a good batch process program.  I think I'll probably send some pictures to the states at some point.  I've started sorting them into folders that someone with a faster internet will be able to easily use and post online.

Other than that this past week passed sort of slowly; that is to say that the week went pretty quick, but the individual days were extremely slow.  I've been very anxious to get to In Service Training and see my friends and eat delicious food that doesn't have to be prepared or bought by me.  I've noticed that time is a strange thing here.  Days can be so, so slow, and then a week will be gone before I even realized the day is done.  The last two months have gone by really quick looking back, but there were times during that I couldn't believe that it was still Tuesday for seemed like the fifth day in a row.

One of my friends in Colorado (Karen) sent me a guitar book with bunches of songs, and I got that last week so that helped pass the time this past week.  Thanks Karen!!  I'm excited to get to Bamako tomorrow, and I am running a half marathon Monday morning with only Peace Corps volunteers.  That should be fun!

Malades in Mali

Check that title out!! Dang.  It involves alliteration AND it lets you know a little taste of what is to come in this post.  The ideal title.

Okay, so the last week has been rough.  I managed to catch malaria.  This was not fun.  Last Sunday I started feeling kind of yucky, and then I got a really persistent and terrible headache.  That lasted till Wednesday at which point I decided the pain was too much to handle in the heat and went to Bamako.  The doctor tested my blood and discovered that the prophylaxes I am taking apparently didn't work completely, and I had malaria parasites in my blood.  I got a pretty mild case.  My fever wasn't too high, but I did feel yucky.  I've been staying at the peace corps house in Bamako since late Wednesday night.  I've taken the required meds, and the blood test I took today came back negative so I will be heading back to site sometime in the near future.  I learned the following: Don't get malaria.

Other than that, things are relatively peachy.  I've enjoyed being able to stay in the air conditioning, but it comes at the price of being ill.  Site is the same, I'm starting to sort of make friends.  Though I still can't speak to them really.  Our conversations are usually roughly the following:

Friend: Do you have beans in America.
Me: Yes
Friend: Do you have motorcycles in America
Me: Yes, we have lots of big motorcycles.
Friend: Do you have corn in America.
Me: Yes, lots of corn.
Friend: Do you have onions in America.
Me: Yes.
Friend: Can we go to America together?
Me: Sure, in two years.  Do you have a lot of money?
Friend: How much is it to go?
Me: A lot.
Friend: Oh.
(Silence while we drink some tea followed by a few more questions followed by silence).

I think that's all I've got for now.  I'll be sure to write again soon.  I'll be coming back to Bamako around June 11th or so for In Service Training.  I'll be at the training center.

Waterfalls!!!

So, I just got back from a little place called Woroni where there are some gorgeous and wonderful waterfalls.  I had my first real ride in a long distance taxi, and it was splendid.  They are called Bashees, and on the way there we had 11 people in a station wagon designed to sit 7.  They had at some point removed the roof, and welded their own on so it could hold more weight on top.  On top the pile of gear was taller than the car itself.  It included, 2 chairs, 2 decent sized tables, and one motorcycle along with all our backpacks for the trip.  Four Malians sat across the front where there were only two bucket seats, so that was probably really uncomfortable.  We had 4 Americans across the first bench seat, and three in the back.  The seats were designed for two in front, 3 in middle, and 2 in back.  Luckily it was an ancient Peugot and had a "3 on the tree" set-up for shifting so the two men sitting in the middle up front did not get in the way of the driver...too much.  We had to stop a few times and put water into the radiator, I don't know how the water did not burst out when he opened the radiator cap...maybe there was just no water in it?  Anyways, it was a little over and hour drive, and then a splendid hike through some fields up to the falls.  There were three sets.  The first set is maybe 40 feet, and kind of spread out, the second is also maybe 40 feet but is one big stream, and the third is small, but really secluded and beautiful.  The second set has a nice pool for swimming in, and a ledge that is maybe 10 feet up to jump off of into the water.  We spent the night at the base of the first falls, and hiked out in the morning.  We had paid the driver to stay the night at the nearest village and pick us up at the trailhead in the morning, and he was right on time.  Coming back, we had less people in the car, but I got stuck in the very back and so was pretty cramped, and the smell of gasoline and exhaust got trapped back there a little worse.  And I believe the car was actually gasoline as opposed to diesel which is really uncommon here.  Also, the driver would turn the car off on any downhill to conserve gasoline which is a good idea, but I just thought worth mentioning.  I'll try to put pictures up... but no guarantees.  Okay, well I had a great weekend, and I'll try posting soon!

Another Report

My creativity with titles of blogs is really slipping... I'll have to work on that.  Today, I got a lovely set of letters from the second grade class I volunteered in, and it really made my day!! Life at site is going well, and very warm.  I feel like the heat is a fairly recurring theme in these posts, but it is hot! Yesterday, my thermometer read 110, and it was so humid that there was a high fog that prevented me from seeing across the little valley that I can normally easily see across.  My teaching continues to go well.  I should be getting the the textbooks I asked for tomorrow sometime, and am very excited about that.  I tend to try to spend time with the students who are further behind.  There is one older woman who I have been working with a lot.  At certain points the class has to copy words down onto their little chalkboards, and she tries but her heart really isn't in it.  She told me that all she really wants to be able to do is write her name.  So, I wrote her name out, and I make her copy it over and over again.  She throws all her effort into this, and it is actually sort of touching how badly she wants to be able do this.  She's getting it down pretty well, and I am really proud of her.  I also work with other students by writing letters or numbers on their boards and asking them what they are.  And then I'll do simple combinations like "f" and "a" and I try to get them to understand that the name of the letter and the sound that it makes are different, (at least with consonants).  The village really enjoys when I play guitar, and I am asked on a daily basis if I am going to play for them that day.  I don't everyday because some days I am too tired, and also I only know a limited number of songs, and I think they're going to catch on that I am only playing the same songs, and I don't want them getting bored with it.... Though I honestly doubt that's possible.  They love it too much.

My garden is coming along nicely.  I have three tiered beds dug, and am in the process of digging out the large rocks of the lowest bed.  I hoping we get a good rain before I plant because I want to see how well things drain so I can make adjustments to the design as needed.  Also, I still need a gate, but that shouldn't take too long to make.  I'll be venturing down to a little town called Woroni tomorrow to check out their waterfalls.  Apparently, they are splendid.

I had a pretty large ant colony living under the clay pot I keep my veggies in, and I went to war with them a few days ago.  I got bitten a lot, but I won in the end.  I had to break out "Rambo" which is probably the gnarliest insecticide ever made.  It makes RAID look like water.  It comes from Nigeria, and works really, really well.  I discovered I can make gravy (sort of) using flavored MSG, onions, and flour.  It is delicious, and goes very well with the endless supply of potatoes I have.  I think that's about all for now.  I'll probably have another update in a few weeks.

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