I'm going to start off with a quick update on what I've been up to as far as work and adventure goes:
Ramadan ended a few weeks ago which was neat to be a part of. My host family killed a cow, and gave me a large chunk of pretty good quality meat, meaning there were no shards of bones or pieces of guts attached. I made a really rocking pot roast, and shared it with my host family. The party itself was much like a sort of family oriented party might be in the states. People just kind of sat around and relaxed and chatted, divided by different age groups. Adolescents hung out with adolescents, adults with adults, and kids with kids. Also, apparently it is a tradition to give small amounts of money to children who walk around and greet you. I caught on to this eventually but was really annoyed the first few times I was asked for money. And A LOT of kids asked me for money because I am white, and therefore have tons and tons of money. All in all, it was pretty fun, and I was glad my village could stop starving itself (more than it already has to), and go back to not being quite so grumpy and tired.
I've been working on getting a project going to build some well tops in my village to try to keep the well water a little cleaner, so I've been making a lot of trips to Sikasso to get prices for various things like metal, and talking to welders to explain what I need and figuring out how much it will cost. Then I had to okay everything with the village and fill out all the funding paperwork, which I submitted yesterday so hopefully that will all go through and I will have the money by the time I get back from Ghana.
GHANA!!! Next week I head out on a long (40+ hour) bus ride to Ghana to run my first marathon. I'm looking forward to the trip, though the race is still sounding very daunting. My training has been going pretty well though in the last few weeks I've developed some really unfortunate blisters on the bottom of my feet. My pace is going okay, but the long runs are HARD, which means the race is going to be hard as well. Ah well, it will be a good experience.
It's still raining quite a bit though the last few weeks have been hot!!! The short way into my site is now completely flooded which actually makes for a pretty entertaining bike ride when I can't see the terrain, but only occasionally as it also makes you and your stuff very wet and muddy. So, usually I go the long way these days. I also had an exciting car ride into Sikasso with the mayor one rainy day. I was coming in with him to do some work, and so he gave me a ride in his old Mercedes. Someone built those cars well. It had just rained a whole bunch so even the long way into Sikasso was a river, and we were in the two wheel drive sedan. The mayor did a good job, and only conked the bottom of the car a few times on the numerous huge rocks in the road. Then we got out to the "main" road and there was some pretty major flooding across it. The mayor got out and briefly looked at it, and then decided to go for it. I was thinking that it is generally not a good idea to cross floods (or so I was taught in silly American Driver's Ed). Sure enough we get about half way through, and the water is really deep especially for this little car, and the current picks the car up and starts to transport us off the road. We hit a sand bar and the mayor gunned it and we made it out just before we were deposited in the rice pattis. It was an exciting moment.
Now onto the title of the piece, and once again these observations may be fairly obvious, but I just think it's interesting and therefore it's going on the blog. In America, and the western world we have figured out how to live beyond Darwin, (for the most part). All sorts of useless traits get passed on because we have the technology and medicine to enable such things. I certainly appreciate this stuff when I get sick, but it definitely isn't here. If a mentally handicapped kid is born, a lot of times it dies. I've noticed the physically handicapped do a little better. A lot of times the Muslim "church?" takes them and they can become Imams or do other sort of work. Also their social values allow for a slightly more classic form of the idea of "only the strongest survive," at least when it comes to marriage. In the wild the largest and strongest male will typically have some sort of "brood" or herd of females and have offspring by multiple females. In much the same way the men here are allowed to take to up to four wives, but not just any man can take more than one wife. Each successive wife costs more and more than the previous one(s), (by cost I mean you have to show that you have means to support more than one wife). So you have to be sort of wealthy, and at least in village the only way to get wealthy is through farming, and the only way to get wealthy through farming is by having more fields than the next guy which means you have to be bigger and stronger than the next guy. And if you are big and strong, then according to Darwin your kids should have a good chance a being big and strong, and your kids help you in the fields. And the more kids you have the more fields you can take care of, and the more fields you have the more wives you have, and then you can have more kids which pass your big strong traits along more than the next guy's. Or at least this is my perception of the way things work. In cities people get money in other ways like by having a business, but at least in the bush people seem to be more in tune with "natural" processes.
Also in the western world we get to have what I've decided to call "luxury diseases." I'm not denying that these are very real, horrible, and legitimate diseases, but they really don't exist here. These are diseases like depression and anorexia as well as many others in this vein. If someone here is too depressed to get out of bed for a week, their field dies, and then they die. But also, they don't exist here because the community mind-set is not conducive to it. There is no unhealthy relationship to food in the way that the western world has it at least, and depression isn't really possible because you are never alone here. Your friends and family are always coming in and out of your house or coming over to drink tea, so you'd probably be snapped out of any funk you get into pretty quick. But if not, yer dead. We get to have these diseases because we have so much food that people develop an unhealthy relationship with it, and we have such big houses that we can shut out our friends and family with a nice walled in yard and gated community so no one can barge in and get you out of your depressed funk that you have the money to medicate yourself out of as well as the money to order in some of the copious amounts of food that you are afraid of and so will later throw up using some other medication. Wow, I guess that sounds a little bitter and anti-western, and I guess it is, but I'm just trying to point out the differences in cultures by using extreme examples. Despite all these issues I still love my western life-style. Yes, there are problems with it, and I try to live in what I consider a reasonable way, but I'm not trying to give it up anytime soon. I guess I'll leave it on that fairly unsummed up and bi-polar note.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Dogon and Djenne
I just had a super great trip to Northern Mali. I really wish internet was fast enough to do pictures because I got some good ones, and since a picture is worth a thousand words I'm gonna have to do a lot of writing to make up for the lack of pictures. I'm gonna paint YOU'RE MINDS!!!
First though, a brief update on my site. Things are great!! Before I left (2 weeks ago) I taught my villagers how to make a mosquito repellant and a pesticide using the leaves of a local tree. They were really into it, especially the repellant. Also, I started building a little garden in my yard. I'm making raised beds using rocks and filling it with good dirt, it is very time consuming since I have very few implements, (ie. a short handled hoe and a bowl). I also designed a thing for drying veggies, fruits, and edible leaves that I can hang from the ceiling of my house since I don't have that much floor space. Hopefully, tomorrow I can buy the wood...and a hammer.
So, two weeks ago I hitched to Bamako for a meeting and also to see the newest stage get sworn in. I got a ride with some folks from the local government here in Sikasso. It took a long time to get to Bamako because we had to stop in Bougouni for many hours to get some paperwork from the President of the Commune of Bougouni. I told the president about the mosquito repellant and he told me to come back and teach him... That won't happen. We eventually made it Bamako without incident though we did pass an unfortunate car/motorcycle head-on. Guess which one won? Also, as a side note, for those of you who may be out of touch with the Muslim world Ramadan started at the beginning of August, so most folks are fasting (no food or water sunrise to sunset), which makes them grumpy and also dangerous drivers. If you catch a ride early in the morning you're better off as far as having good company for a while.
Bamako was good, I had a beautiful run one of the days. It was my long run for the week (still training for the marathon in Ghana next month), and I ran out of the city up through the cliffs behind the city and up on top of a nice grassy plateau where amazingly there were really no people and no farm fields and I could see all of Bamako and the Niger River below me. It was so pretty!!
I left Bamako on a Peace Corps shuttle which was not comfortable. I got to the departure point a bit late in the morning, so I got stuck in the very back of the land cruiser where there are seats that run parallel to the car so you sit sideways, and they cram 4 people in the backend. The seats are short so your knees are just always up by your ears, and it's a 9 hour drive so it was not that awesome. We got into Sevare in the evening, met some friends who live up there, and then caught a Bashi (remember those?) to a city called Bandjiagara. There is a Peace Corps house there with no admin so they don't charge you to stay. The purpose of this trip was two fold: It was two of my friends' birthdays in early August AND I wanted to see more of Mali. There was a fun party and one of the days we took a tour to Dogon Country. We went into the cliff country and it was so so so beautiful! It reminded me a lot of the desert southwest in the US. We went to a little village and had lunch at this "encampment" which is a little tourist hotel/hostel thing in the middle of this Dogon village. (Dogon is an ethnic group in Mali). Then we hiked up into a cliff village. It was so much like Mesa Verde, but only abandoned 20 years ago! It was really cool to see, and while we were there we saw a storm on the horizon, and it looked like we were going to get some rain, 15 minutes later a few miles out there was a wall of sand towering out of the desert blowing our way. We could see all the farmers running out of their fields for the town at the base of the cliffs, and we started hustling, but it moved fast. In under 2 minutes it was almost dark and we were in the middle of this huge sandstorm. Luckily it preceded a big rain storm, so it wasn't too bad, but it was really wild. The others loaded up the van to get outta dodge before the roads became impassable, but myself and two friends decided to stay behind to do some more exploring. We sat for a while in the little "encampment' while we waited for the rain to pass and I had the following interesting conversation (Rated PG-13):
Hotel Worker: So you guys are gonna stay here tonight?
Me: Not sure yet. I think we'll sleep out in the bush.
HW: You can't do that.
Me: Why?
HW: There are good people and bad people.
Me: Hm...Okay. (Not a very convincing argument).
HW: So, old man, is one of these women your wife? (People here think I'm old because I have a beard, only old men have beards in this country also the two friends who stayed behind were women).
Me: Nope, I'm not married.
HW: What?!!! Do you have kids?
Me: Nope.
HW: But you're old.
Me: I'm not old, I'm only 24.
HW: That's pretty old, you have to find a woman soon. Before you are 28.
Me: Why?
HW: Because now you are strong.
Me: True, but I'll be strong when I'm 28.
HW: Maybe, but your penis won't work anymore.
Me: (Silence, did I just hear that correctly?)
HW: Yeah, you won't be able to get it up when you turn 28. (Complete with gestures near inner thigh so there could be no mistaking what he was talking about).
Me: (Lots of laughter, then): Okay, I doubt it.
HW: It's true.
Me: Oh yeah, how old are you.
HW: 27
Me: (Lots of laughter). You don't have long then.
HW: Where are you going? (We are leaving).
Me: To the bush to stay the night.
HW: This is bad, I'll come with you. One man cannot go with two women.
Me: That's not true, and you are staying here. Bye.
HW: Bad!! bye.
So we wandered off and discovered that where a little waterfall was falling off the cliffs before now had a roaring waterfall shooting off the cliffs. It had created a nice flood across the road, and some good pictures. We asked some local kids where it was safe to cross and they showed us, and I put my backpack on my head and waded across. It was just under waist deep and the current wasn't too bad. We walked for a ways until I saw where the cliffs were a little broken up and we might find a sheltered place to spend the night since I wasn't sure if was going to rain more. We hiked up and took a break and I went off exploring for a campsite as I had done this sort of thing before so I knew what to look for... or so I convinced my compatriots. I ended up finding a crack in the rock that was almost a cave, and had a bunch of dry wood scattered around it. So we made a fire after gathering wood and cooked up some dinner. The cave had the advantage of being hidden from view of the villages down along the cliff base so we didn't have to worry about the "good people or bad people." After dinner I tried to gain access to the clip top but the move to get up to the very top seemed a bit sketchy in the dark and I wasn't sure if I could my friends up or down it safely. So we set up our mosquito nets outside the cave, and in the morning we all made it up to the cliff top for some pictures (I was right, that move would have been bad chi in the dark as it was pretty exposed...meaning lots of air below before you hit the ground should a fall occur). This day was the actual birthday of one of my companions (though the party had been a few days earlier), so we hiked back to the village of the day before and tried to acquire some camels to go check out the beginning of sand dune country. They only had one, so we walked out. It was pretty cool, and I had arranged for a woman in the village to make cake for us which we enjoyed after our lunch upon our return from the pre-dunes.
We hiked out to the main-ish road in the afternoon and were told that there were no more cars going into Bandjiagara for the evening. We made the decision to camp again, so I sat by the road in the off chance a car came by, and my friends went into the nearby village for some supplies. Well, I am a lucky traveler, and a car came by that said they could take us in to Bandjiagara. So my friends came by, and off we went.
The next day we went to Sevare and spent the night, and the next day I went to the site of one of my friends who did the trek with me. I helped her start her garden (though we'll see because my garden is not doing great so I may not have been the best person to help), and start a Moringa tree nursery. After a few days we went to Djenne. Since her site is near a river we tried to hire a boat to take us, but they wanted too much money, so we hitched. Djenne is a little city on an island, and is the home to the largest and oldest mud structure in the world which is the Djenne mosque. Along the way we rode with a few people including a dumptruck that had a chinese man in it and in the back of an ambulance. My friend was stoked about the Chinese man as she can speak Chinese pretty well and so got to chat with him.
We got to Djenne in time to see the sunset on the mosque, and grab some pictures and then found a hotel that was cheap, had great food, and had really nice staff. The next day we met up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers from our stage who came to see the city as well as the brother of one of our language teachers who lives in Djenne. We saw the city, some women doing mud-dying of cloth (called Bogolan), and had a good time. Since it is a pretty touristy city, you get mobbed by beggars if you are white, so that got a little old after a while. That afternoon my friend and I left Djenne and made it to the ferry, but were unable to get a ride with anyone to the main road, so we scrounged some food out of our packs, made a picknick next to the river and then walked to the nearest hotel/resort where we had earlier haggled a "non-tourist" price with the owner who happened to be at the ferry before dinner.
The next morning we got a ride with an interesting group of individuals. This land cruiser pulled up and a guy got out and I asked him if we could ride with him. He said he'd ask. He motioned me over, and I greeted the teens in the back in the local language. They just sort of looked at me. The man told me they could speak English this usually means halting English, so I said very slowly, "Oh neat, you can speak English?" The kid said, "Yeah man, we from Houston!" Double take. So we got a ride with them, and they informed us they were here to see the "motherland" with their dad who was in the front seat. The teens were interested in what we were doing here, and were very nice, but interesting. They were covered in tatoos, had very inner city accents, and the kid next to me spent my portion of the ride with them rolling a joint and complaining about how crappy the weed is in Mali, but how it gives you a more spiritual high. I left the car at the intersection with the main road, and my friends continued back to her site with them since they were going in the same direction. I caught a bunch of rides and did a lot of walking and eventually made it to a town called Koutiala where I spent the night at a Peace Corps house. Then this morning I walked out of Koutiala a caught a ride in the back of a pharmaceuticals van to Sikasso. All in all, a great trip, and I think of anything else I'll add it, but for now this is long enough. My feet smell, so I'm going to go shower.
First though, a brief update on my site. Things are great!! Before I left (2 weeks ago) I taught my villagers how to make a mosquito repellant and a pesticide using the leaves of a local tree. They were really into it, especially the repellant. Also, I started building a little garden in my yard. I'm making raised beds using rocks and filling it with good dirt, it is very time consuming since I have very few implements, (ie. a short handled hoe and a bowl). I also designed a thing for drying veggies, fruits, and edible leaves that I can hang from the ceiling of my house since I don't have that much floor space. Hopefully, tomorrow I can buy the wood...and a hammer.
So, two weeks ago I hitched to Bamako for a meeting and also to see the newest stage get sworn in. I got a ride with some folks from the local government here in Sikasso. It took a long time to get to Bamako because we had to stop in Bougouni for many hours to get some paperwork from the President of the Commune of Bougouni. I told the president about the mosquito repellant and he told me to come back and teach him... That won't happen. We eventually made it Bamako without incident though we did pass an unfortunate car/motorcycle head-on. Guess which one won? Also, as a side note, for those of you who may be out of touch with the Muslim world Ramadan started at the beginning of August, so most folks are fasting (no food or water sunrise to sunset), which makes them grumpy and also dangerous drivers. If you catch a ride early in the morning you're better off as far as having good company for a while.
Bamako was good, I had a beautiful run one of the days. It was my long run for the week (still training for the marathon in Ghana next month), and I ran out of the city up through the cliffs behind the city and up on top of a nice grassy plateau where amazingly there were really no people and no farm fields and I could see all of Bamako and the Niger River below me. It was so pretty!!
I left Bamako on a Peace Corps shuttle which was not comfortable. I got to the departure point a bit late in the morning, so I got stuck in the very back of the land cruiser where there are seats that run parallel to the car so you sit sideways, and they cram 4 people in the backend. The seats are short so your knees are just always up by your ears, and it's a 9 hour drive so it was not that awesome. We got into Sevare in the evening, met some friends who live up there, and then caught a Bashi (remember those?) to a city called Bandjiagara. There is a Peace Corps house there with no admin so they don't charge you to stay. The purpose of this trip was two fold: It was two of my friends' birthdays in early August AND I wanted to see more of Mali. There was a fun party and one of the days we took a tour to Dogon Country. We went into the cliff country and it was so so so beautiful! It reminded me a lot of the desert southwest in the US. We went to a little village and had lunch at this "encampment" which is a little tourist hotel/hostel thing in the middle of this Dogon village. (Dogon is an ethnic group in Mali). Then we hiked up into a cliff village. It was so much like Mesa Verde, but only abandoned 20 years ago! It was really cool to see, and while we were there we saw a storm on the horizon, and it looked like we were going to get some rain, 15 minutes later a few miles out there was a wall of sand towering out of the desert blowing our way. We could see all the farmers running out of their fields for the town at the base of the cliffs, and we started hustling, but it moved fast. In under 2 minutes it was almost dark and we were in the middle of this huge sandstorm. Luckily it preceded a big rain storm, so it wasn't too bad, but it was really wild. The others loaded up the van to get outta dodge before the roads became impassable, but myself and two friends decided to stay behind to do some more exploring. We sat for a while in the little "encampment' while we waited for the rain to pass and I had the following interesting conversation (Rated PG-13):
Hotel Worker: So you guys are gonna stay here tonight?
Me: Not sure yet. I think we'll sleep out in the bush.
HW: You can't do that.
Me: Why?
HW: There are good people and bad people.
Me: Hm...Okay. (Not a very convincing argument).
HW: So, old man, is one of these women your wife? (People here think I'm old because I have a beard, only old men have beards in this country also the two friends who stayed behind were women).
Me: Nope, I'm not married.
HW: What?!!! Do you have kids?
Me: Nope.
HW: But you're old.
Me: I'm not old, I'm only 24.
HW: That's pretty old, you have to find a woman soon. Before you are 28.
Me: Why?
HW: Because now you are strong.
Me: True, but I'll be strong when I'm 28.
HW: Maybe, but your penis won't work anymore.
Me: (Silence, did I just hear that correctly?)
HW: Yeah, you won't be able to get it up when you turn 28. (Complete with gestures near inner thigh so there could be no mistaking what he was talking about).
Me: (Lots of laughter, then): Okay, I doubt it.
HW: It's true.
Me: Oh yeah, how old are you.
HW: 27
Me: (Lots of laughter). You don't have long then.
HW: Where are you going? (We are leaving).
Me: To the bush to stay the night.
HW: This is bad, I'll come with you. One man cannot go with two women.
Me: That's not true, and you are staying here. Bye.
HW: Bad!! bye.
So we wandered off and discovered that where a little waterfall was falling off the cliffs before now had a roaring waterfall shooting off the cliffs. It had created a nice flood across the road, and some good pictures. We asked some local kids where it was safe to cross and they showed us, and I put my backpack on my head and waded across. It was just under waist deep and the current wasn't too bad. We walked for a ways until I saw where the cliffs were a little broken up and we might find a sheltered place to spend the night since I wasn't sure if was going to rain more. We hiked up and took a break and I went off exploring for a campsite as I had done this sort of thing before so I knew what to look for... or so I convinced my compatriots. I ended up finding a crack in the rock that was almost a cave, and had a bunch of dry wood scattered around it. So we made a fire after gathering wood and cooked up some dinner. The cave had the advantage of being hidden from view of the villages down along the cliff base so we didn't have to worry about the "good people or bad people." After dinner I tried to gain access to the clip top but the move to get up to the very top seemed a bit sketchy in the dark and I wasn't sure if I could my friends up or down it safely. So we set up our mosquito nets outside the cave, and in the morning we all made it up to the cliff top for some pictures (I was right, that move would have been bad chi in the dark as it was pretty exposed...meaning lots of air below before you hit the ground should a fall occur). This day was the actual birthday of one of my companions (though the party had been a few days earlier), so we hiked back to the village of the day before and tried to acquire some camels to go check out the beginning of sand dune country. They only had one, so we walked out. It was pretty cool, and I had arranged for a woman in the village to make cake for us which we enjoyed after our lunch upon our return from the pre-dunes.
We hiked out to the main-ish road in the afternoon and were told that there were no more cars going into Bandjiagara for the evening. We made the decision to camp again, so I sat by the road in the off chance a car came by, and my friends went into the nearby village for some supplies. Well, I am a lucky traveler, and a car came by that said they could take us in to Bandjiagara. So my friends came by, and off we went.
The next day we went to Sevare and spent the night, and the next day I went to the site of one of my friends who did the trek with me. I helped her start her garden (though we'll see because my garden is not doing great so I may not have been the best person to help), and start a Moringa tree nursery. After a few days we went to Djenne. Since her site is near a river we tried to hire a boat to take us, but they wanted too much money, so we hitched. Djenne is a little city on an island, and is the home to the largest and oldest mud structure in the world which is the Djenne mosque. Along the way we rode with a few people including a dumptruck that had a chinese man in it and in the back of an ambulance. My friend was stoked about the Chinese man as she can speak Chinese pretty well and so got to chat with him.
We got to Djenne in time to see the sunset on the mosque, and grab some pictures and then found a hotel that was cheap, had great food, and had really nice staff. The next day we met up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers from our stage who came to see the city as well as the brother of one of our language teachers who lives in Djenne. We saw the city, some women doing mud-dying of cloth (called Bogolan), and had a good time. Since it is a pretty touristy city, you get mobbed by beggars if you are white, so that got a little old after a while. That afternoon my friend and I left Djenne and made it to the ferry, but were unable to get a ride with anyone to the main road, so we scrounged some food out of our packs, made a picknick next to the river and then walked to the nearest hotel/resort where we had earlier haggled a "non-tourist" price with the owner who happened to be at the ferry before dinner.
The next morning we got a ride with an interesting group of individuals. This land cruiser pulled up and a guy got out and I asked him if we could ride with him. He said he'd ask. He motioned me over, and I greeted the teens in the back in the local language. They just sort of looked at me. The man told me they could speak English this usually means halting English, so I said very slowly, "Oh neat, you can speak English?" The kid said, "Yeah man, we from Houston!" Double take. So we got a ride with them, and they informed us they were here to see the "motherland" with their dad who was in the front seat. The teens were interested in what we were doing here, and were very nice, but interesting. They were covered in tatoos, had very inner city accents, and the kid next to me spent my portion of the ride with them rolling a joint and complaining about how crappy the weed is in Mali, but how it gives you a more spiritual high. I left the car at the intersection with the main road, and my friends continued back to her site with them since they were going in the same direction. I caught a bunch of rides and did a lot of walking and eventually made it to a town called Koutiala where I spent the night at a Peace Corps house. Then this morning I walked out of Koutiala a caught a ride in the back of a pharmaceuticals van to Sikasso. All in all, a great trip, and I think of anything else I'll add it, but for now this is long enough. My feet smell, so I'm going to go shower.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Insight...
Hopefully, I can write this before either the power goes out, or we lose the internet, or both. And I'd like this post to be both insightful and intelligent, but I'm afraid that is easier said than done. Also, the following epiphany I had may seem completely obvious to everyone reading, but to me it answered some questions and helped my brain click a little more with life here. Hopefully, for everyone reading, my thoughts are more organized than usual or this is going to be horribly confusing, or worse, just sound stupid.
So a while back I realized that I don't pity Malians in any way with one exception: their lack of excitement about food. I've made some delicious things that, (in my humble opinion), blow their bland millet paste out of the water, and I've shared these things with some people in my village. Their reactions are minimal if any. If I ask, they say it is good, but never without prompting. And I know they can get excited about desserts (nutella drives them wild), but a well spiced spaghetti or garlic mashed potatoes with gravy just don't get a reaction. I don't take this as an insult or anything, I just think culturally there is nothing to be excited about involving food. Food is eaten to survive only, so why enjoy it. It is like breathing. I don't take a breath and then exclaim over how amazing that breath was. They do put out good food at weddings and funerals, but they still don't get really excited about it. And I think this is a pity. But again, this is only my perception of what is going on, and I may only find it a pity because I LOVE good food so very, very much.
Now back to the main point of this whole thing: I don't pity Malians because they are so happy. I realized this long ago, but I really couldn't figure out why they were so happy. They have so many reasons to be unhappy. They are hungry, they work really hard for essentially nothing, they're poor and to compound this, they have TV and they see other people (such as me) when they are in country. They are aware (at least a little) of how other people in the world can live. And while James Bond dubbed in French which most can't understand doesn't give them an accurate view of America or the western world it does give them a least a window into western life, and I make that window broader. They see that I've got a nice bicycle though by American standards it is pretty low grade, I've got a camera that is probably worth more than their entire income for a year, and when I get malaria I just jump on a bus and go to Bamako (which costs a fair bit), then when in Bamako I go to a special doctor who gives me extremely expensive medication to get better. When they get malaria they sit in village in horrible pain until it goes away or it gets the best of them and they die. Now, these things I've listed are simply that: things, goods and services. And we all know that they can't buy happiness, but they can make life easier, and regardless they are aware of how different their lives are than mine, and they don't seem bitter about it.
And so again, why are they so happy? The answer, or at least part of it, occurred to me the other night as I was sitting with a group of young men at night playing my guitar while they chatted and some younger kids horsed around: community. It is as simple as that, but this is going to be the toughest part to explain. Young boys tend to be in charge of watching over the goats or sometimes cows. They get together in small groups of friends and herd around the goats all day. When they turn 14 or 15 they are put to "real" work ie: farming and building houses. Many times these same groups of friends who herded goats will work on part of a house together, or go to the fields together. In the evening they sit around and chat together, they go to each others weddings and baby naming ceremonies, and they do this for the next 40 or 50 years until their short lifespan is used up. I've sat with these groups of friends at various stages. The youngsters play little games in my hammock, the young men sit and pretend to be grown up (which I guess they are, but they are only 20 and married with a kid on the way so they better be grown up), then when they in their 30's they've got a few kids maybe a few wives, and they sit and talk of serious things like crops and fishing. And I've also sat with my favorite age bracket: the old men. They sit around and chat a lot while repairing fishing nets or weaving ropes, and they also chat about crops and such, but also of things that only those with the luxury of time chat about such as politics and weddings. But they, (for the most part), are the same group who have been meeting every evening for the past 40 years and chatting of such things. The women have different jobs, but still grow up with a group of friends that sticks together for the most part, unless a girl is married off to a different town where she quickly finds another community of friends who take her in and she sticks with for the rest of her life.
I get to see this on a daily basis, and yet I can only imagine what it is like. Yes, I have wonderful friends, and a wonderful family all of whom I love very much, but this is something else. Supposedly, in American society at least, your spouse knows you better than anyone else especially after living with this person for many, many years. And Malian community is like having a group of spouses, if you will, that know you better than anyone else. Even when you are only 20 years old, these "spouses" have known you for 20 years. I know a few people beyond my family who have known me for 20 years, but it is more of a known of me. I was friends with them when I was a toddler, and our families have kept in touch. It's an extension of family, but a family that you choose, and it's one that you WANT to see everyday. There is no obligation. Simply put, it doesn't exist in America, and this is why it is so hard to explain, but I think I've explained it well enough for folks to get the idea. And I think this a big part of the secret to the unwavering happiness that pervades all of Mali.
I could see myself being happy existing as they do with this sort of community all around me. Given the chance to get out, I think some would, but since most don't have the chance this community provides all the comforts you could want, and it relieves the stress of a long day of work, and it is in essence the definition of community. It goes well beyond even the strongest and most tight knit communities that I have experienced. Now, this all makes perfect sense to me, and though I am not part and can never truly be part of this community, I have seen it. That said, I hope this makes sense to the people reading it, and doesn't give too much of a false impression of people and life in Mali. Though to be fair this blog is kind of like Malians understanding America by watching James Bond in a language they can't understand, though in reverse.
So a while back I realized that I don't pity Malians in any way with one exception: their lack of excitement about food. I've made some delicious things that, (in my humble opinion), blow their bland millet paste out of the water, and I've shared these things with some people in my village. Their reactions are minimal if any. If I ask, they say it is good, but never without prompting. And I know they can get excited about desserts (nutella drives them wild), but a well spiced spaghetti or garlic mashed potatoes with gravy just don't get a reaction. I don't take this as an insult or anything, I just think culturally there is nothing to be excited about involving food. Food is eaten to survive only, so why enjoy it. It is like breathing. I don't take a breath and then exclaim over how amazing that breath was. They do put out good food at weddings and funerals, but they still don't get really excited about it. And I think this is a pity. But again, this is only my perception of what is going on, and I may only find it a pity because I LOVE good food so very, very much.
Now back to the main point of this whole thing: I don't pity Malians because they are so happy. I realized this long ago, but I really couldn't figure out why they were so happy. They have so many reasons to be unhappy. They are hungry, they work really hard for essentially nothing, they're poor and to compound this, they have TV and they see other people (such as me) when they are in country. They are aware (at least a little) of how other people in the world can live. And while James Bond dubbed in French which most can't understand doesn't give them an accurate view of America or the western world it does give them a least a window into western life, and I make that window broader. They see that I've got a nice bicycle though by American standards it is pretty low grade, I've got a camera that is probably worth more than their entire income for a year, and when I get malaria I just jump on a bus and go to Bamako (which costs a fair bit), then when in Bamako I go to a special doctor who gives me extremely expensive medication to get better. When they get malaria they sit in village in horrible pain until it goes away or it gets the best of them and they die. Now, these things I've listed are simply that: things, goods and services. And we all know that they can't buy happiness, but they can make life easier, and regardless they are aware of how different their lives are than mine, and they don't seem bitter about it.
And so again, why are they so happy? The answer, or at least part of it, occurred to me the other night as I was sitting with a group of young men at night playing my guitar while they chatted and some younger kids horsed around: community. It is as simple as that, but this is going to be the toughest part to explain. Young boys tend to be in charge of watching over the goats or sometimes cows. They get together in small groups of friends and herd around the goats all day. When they turn 14 or 15 they are put to "real" work ie: farming and building houses. Many times these same groups of friends who herded goats will work on part of a house together, or go to the fields together. In the evening they sit around and chat together, they go to each others weddings and baby naming ceremonies, and they do this for the next 40 or 50 years until their short lifespan is used up. I've sat with these groups of friends at various stages. The youngsters play little games in my hammock, the young men sit and pretend to be grown up (which I guess they are, but they are only 20 and married with a kid on the way so they better be grown up), then when they in their 30's they've got a few kids maybe a few wives, and they sit and talk of serious things like crops and fishing. And I've also sat with my favorite age bracket: the old men. They sit around and chat a lot while repairing fishing nets or weaving ropes, and they also chat about crops and such, but also of things that only those with the luxury of time chat about such as politics and weddings. But they, (for the most part), are the same group who have been meeting every evening for the past 40 years and chatting of such things. The women have different jobs, but still grow up with a group of friends that sticks together for the most part, unless a girl is married off to a different town where she quickly finds another community of friends who take her in and she sticks with for the rest of her life.
I get to see this on a daily basis, and yet I can only imagine what it is like. Yes, I have wonderful friends, and a wonderful family all of whom I love very much, but this is something else. Supposedly, in American society at least, your spouse knows you better than anyone else especially after living with this person for many, many years. And Malian community is like having a group of spouses, if you will, that know you better than anyone else. Even when you are only 20 years old, these "spouses" have known you for 20 years. I know a few people beyond my family who have known me for 20 years, but it is more of a known of me. I was friends with them when I was a toddler, and our families have kept in touch. It's an extension of family, but a family that you choose, and it's one that you WANT to see everyday. There is no obligation. Simply put, it doesn't exist in America, and this is why it is so hard to explain, but I think I've explained it well enough for folks to get the idea. And I think this a big part of the secret to the unwavering happiness that pervades all of Mali.
I could see myself being happy existing as they do with this sort of community all around me. Given the chance to get out, I think some would, but since most don't have the chance this community provides all the comforts you could want, and it relieves the stress of a long day of work, and it is in essence the definition of community. It goes well beyond even the strongest and most tight knit communities that I have experienced. Now, this all makes perfect sense to me, and though I am not part and can never truly be part of this community, I have seen it. That said, I hope this makes sense to the people reading it, and doesn't give too much of a false impression of people and life in Mali. Though to be fair this blog is kind of like Malians understanding America by watching James Bond in a language they can't understand, though in reverse.
Friday, July 8, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, June 13, 2011
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'.
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'.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
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!
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!
Monday, May 30, 2011
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.
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.
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