Images from the first year - part one

These photos are also a bit chaotic.

My Bambara teachers Labassy and Claudine in my training village.

Obama clothes are everywhere.

My host mom from my training village, Awa.

My training village host family and me.

Swear in!! Me and Suzie.

Typical Regis.

The President of Mali, A.T.T. (I only know his initials).

Country Director

Randy doing a speech in the Donoso language.

George doing a speech in Bambara.

ATT at swear in.

Me and Suzie post ceremony.

Me and Thera

Me and Michaela.

Me and Regis

My house in April 2011, and the fence I had just built for my garden.

The inside of my garden...pre-anything.

Running with my "Africa tree" in the background. (Yes I took a picture of myself).

Some dance when I first showed up in village.

Happiness...

Sunset over my village.

Some picture of the falls at Woroni May 2011.

Not quick enough. Tim, Me, and Joanne.

Made it this time.

Lots of people.

Back row (L to R): Roger, Tim, Jenny, Lauren, Delissa, Joanne.
Front row: Me, Elizabeth, Jess, Hannah

Literacy class with my counterpart.

My counterpart, Siaka, lounging in a chair.

Arouna and me outside my house April 2011.

Typical day when I first showed up at site.

Garden after a week of no week pulling in May (I was in Bamako with malaria).

...Three hours later.

Sunset at village.

Truck stop in Kati.

Free hotel room in Kita with Thera.

The streets of Kita in the morning.

Hmmm... They only sell drinks. (Kita)

The road to Manantali with Thera.

The river at Manantali at sunset with Bethany and Thera.

And me!!

Some fishermen at Manantali.

The dam at Manantali:

The fish truck leaving Manantali with Thera and Cecilia.

In addition to being very clean, we definitely did not smell like fish after this ride.

Post Fish Truck

Riding home... or rather standing on the side of the road on the way home.

Nice bird.

Another nice bird outside my house.

Dogon Country.

This is one lucky volunteer's site in Dogon.

The cliff dwellings of Dogon:

Sandstorm coming in!!

3 minutes later... I wonder why my camera is broken....

Waterfall post thunderstorm in Dogon country.

with suzie!

Suzie and Thera crossing the flashflood.

Thera almost across.

Camping in the cliffs.

Thera and Suzie on top of the cliffs of Dogon.

Me, Suzie, and Thera looking out at Dogon country.

The same waterfall from above, but the day after the rainstorm...Pretty much the same I'd say.

Visitations of the First World

It has been a long time since the last update, but that's okay because for a lot of that time a majority of my huge reader base was here with me in Mali.  But before they came we had a good Thanksgiving in Sikasso with more than 90 volunteers in attendance.  Then I went to site for a month.  This went very well for me, I got really involved in the potato farming process, and after maybe a week I was able to use their work techniques well enough that I actually contributed to the work as opposed to just getting in the way.  I also noticed the a very big difference between the way the men and women worked.  The men working reminded me of the military.  There was a lot of ego and hoo-rah, but this seems necessary in order to be able to have a farming operation as big as they have around my village.  This sort of really competitive working was very apparent in my counterpart's farming association.  Each day they set out to till a section of the fields (by hand, of course), and each guy was given a certain area to till, and when they finished they were given a new area.  These areas were usually 5m x 15m or something like that.  Frequently, two guys whose sections were near each other would race to finish their sections.  When these races got going they always involved a lot of whooping and exclamations like "yi-yi-yi-yi-yi" in very high pitched voices.  But without this desire to prove who was the strongest I doubt the fields would be tilled nearly as fast, and maybe not in time to get the potatoes planted when they needed to be.  The women of course have different jobs, but their working was much more focused on working together.  Large groups of women get together to beat rice with sticks in order to remove the rice grains from the plant and they sing the whole time and set up intricate beats to keep in time together.  Their is more laughter and fun with the women's groups, but I guess I just found in very interesting how different the approaches to work were.

I can this post is going to be a bit foggy as I seem to have contracted TB or something and my head is quite foggy. (Not actually TB, stop panicking, just a cold).

We also got the money for my project and have started making some cement molds to put around the wells.  But I have not been at my site for a while due to my parents and little brother coming to visit.  We went up to Dogon country, my site, and spent some time in and around Bamako.  After my parents left my little brother and I went out to Manantali, and then on a short climbing trip in Siby.

Highlights for me:
Seeing my family.
Riding in a rented car.
Eating yummy food in restaurants that I can't afford to eat very often.
Watching to see what my family thought was really crazy or nifty, and then watching how they got used to the craziness in the two weeks they were here.

When they first showed up, everything got an exclamation from them (as it should have because their is lots and lots of crazy shit that goes down here), and by the time they left there were a lot less exclamations because as it turns out humans are very adaptable creatures.

I think some of the highlights for them included:

The first taxi ride at the airport.  The taxis here are notoriously janky, and this one was no exception.  And then we experienced a fairly good third world juxtaposition as we were entering Bamako proper.  You pass under this elaborate archway that is lit with fancy neon purple lights that says "Welcome to Bamako" in several languages.  And as we're passing under this super modern, Vegas-like sign my dad asks, "What's that smell?"
"Oh that's just the fields of burning trash," I reply.  Classic Bamako.

Also, I think the drive out of Dogon in which we had 5 people in the car, and our guide as well as two hitchhikers sitting on the window sills for a total of eight people... oh yeah, we also had two live chickens strapped to the side view mirror so they didn't crap in the car.

Everyone did well considering it was Mali, and nothing here works right.  We had a good New Year's Eve meal finally at about 10:30 PM because it took us a long to find the restaurant that was recommended, and when we finally did, they were out of chicken, beef, and pasta...and vegetables.  Basically everything.  They had one bottle of wine with the label rotting off.  We opted to leave and go elsewhere that actually had food.

It was super awesome to see my family, and I can't wait to see them all again, and hopefully my older brother will be able to make it out here.

Yesterday I had a good "Wow, that is REALLY crazy" reaction to a truck stacked with goods.  I don't get those very often anymore.  I was standing on the street in Bougouni, waiting for a ride, and I see this truck stacked way, way high with something stop in the road.   Two of the four people in the cab get out, and take these poles on the side of the truck off.  The poles have a wide, flat top, sort of like a push broom, and are maybe 20 to 25 feet long.  They take the poles and push the power line wires that are across the road up because the truck is so high it can't fit under them.  Then the truck drives by me, and I get whiff of something gnarly.  The truck was packed with goat skins.  Thousands and thousands of dried and slightly rotting goat skins.  Who needs that many goat skins, and for what?  That is my question.

The Last Few Weeks

This should be short and sweet.  I went on a rock climbing trip to Siby, Mali with some of my friends.  I was there for five days and had a blast.  I camped out most of the nights, and when I stayed in the hills outside the city it was cool enough that there were no mosquitos so I was able to sleep under the stars.  Most of the routes were bolted which made the logistics of climbing with a lot of people easier, and we also were able to rappel down the middle of a huge arch that is up there.  It was beautiful and I really enjoyed myself.

Then I went to a Halloween party in Bougouni.  I had a great time there.  My costume was Osama Bin Laden.  Some people thought that it was a bit riskee but most people really liked it.

Then I went back to Sikasso and went to a friend's village to paint a World Map on the side of a school there.  It turned out really, really well, and on top of that I felt like I accomplished something which is a nice feeling to have every so often.  Also, it was really nice to spend more time among my English-speaking American friends.  I have some pictures, but as usual will have to get them posted another time, or they may end up on Facebook at some point.

Then back to site for a while where I continued to wait for money, and work in my counterpart's adult literacy class.  My big achievement this week was explaining to him what the point of comprehension questions is.  He was confused about the questions at the end of the reading passages without answers.  I explained that the answers were found within the passages, and if students understand the passage then they will be able to answer the questions.

Yesterday, I left site at 6 AM and went to Sikasso from which I hitchhiked to Bamako.  My luck was a bit lacking this time as I hiked for a good 3 and a half hours before I got picked up, and as luck would have it I forgot my trusty hat so my face got a bit cooked in the lovely African sun.  Today, I ran a half marathon for the most recent stage's In Sevice Training like I did for my stage's IST.  I did a bit better this time with a time of 1:41 minutes on the dot.  I was very happy with this time and should be able to break 1:40 next time since I shaved 5 minutes off my last time.  That's it.  I am going to go help with some trainings for the brand new stage that just came in a week ago or so for the next few days and am looking forward to that since I enjoy teaching.

I recently returned from Ghana for vacation and a marathon. Now I'm going to tell you about it. Buckle up (as this is long, and I did not proofread it).

Getting there involved a 36 hour bus ride from Bamako, though I caught the bus in a town called Koutiala so shaved 6 hours off my ride making it an easy 30 hours. (36-6=30). My friends rocked the full 36. Granted we were not on the bus for all that time. We stopped every 5 or 6 hours to eat and do whatever else you needed. Also, the borders close at night, and we were going to hit the border of Burkina Faso and Ghana in the middle of the night, so at 1 AM the bus pulled off and we all got off and slept on the ground until 4 AM when they woke us and we went on our way getting to the border at 6 or 7 AM. One fairly embarrassing story comes to mind from this ride. The bus was playing movies that were of course dubbed in French, and during one such movie (I believe it was Time Cop) there was a love scene. I knew that this would be very...progressive for the mostly Malian audience and I turned to one of friends and was just about to make a sassy comment about the sauciness going on, in fact the words were on the way out of my mouth, when someone hit fast forward. For some reason this combination of events was extremely hilarious and I burst out laughing...very loudly. Essentially the entire bus turned and looked at me and so I promptly pretended there was something very exciting out the window, and felt a bit bad. It was just such a perfect display of Malian morals and the situation, (minus the laughing), went exactly how it would in my head that it was funny.

We landed, (or at least would have if buses could fly and the ride was so fast and so comfortable that I think we must have flown...I mean I just wish the ride were longer. There is nothing I like more than sleeping with my head dangling over a seat at a 90 degree angle...so cozy), in a town called Kumasi. We ate a delicious dinner, slept and the next morning as we were eating some delicious street food we started talking to a woman, and I had my first experience with awesome Ghanian hospitality. It turned out she worked at a radio station, and she asked us if we wanted to see it. Of course we did. We went to the station and she introduced us to everyone and they were all extremely nice. One woman offered to make us dinner if we came back through the city. Then we recorded some marketing "jingles" for them such as: "When we're in America we listen to K-whatever online at www.kwhatever.com (naturally I've forgotten the name of the station, but whatever). They gave us names in their local language, and taught us a few phrases. They were so nice so the trip started off really well.

And before we embark on the 7-hour journey to Takoradi I'd like to give you (for free) my overall thoughts and impressions of Ghana. It is AWESOME. This country is definitely in the next stage of development from Mali. Granted I never went to an extremely remote village, so this is not a complete view of Ghana, but this is what I experienced. Most of the cities are cleaner. There are less motorcycles spewing blue smoke as they putter by, and more, nicer cars. Every other shop is a computer shop or Internet cafe. Also, the south of the country is predominately Christian, and the Christians are way, way more liberal than the Muslims in this part of the world, which manifests itself mainly with the women. Personally, I found this refreshing. The women were allowed to where shorts and skirts cut above the knee. They wore fitted dresses and pants, and they went to bars. If a woman is in a bar in Mali, she is a prostitute, guaranteed. Again, this is city life, and the women in Mali are more progressive in the cities as well, but the sheer numbers of well-dressed women was much different. Also, the food in Ghana is amazing!! There are a huge number of really good restaurants in Ghana, and the street food is great. The street food ingredients are the same that are found in Mali, but the sauces are better and the combinations are better. For instance, rice and beans is a staple for a lot of places because it's delicious, nutritious, easy to come by, and easy to make. Ghana has rice and beans mixed together with awesome pepper sauce. No one has thought of mixing the two in Mali. My favorite dish is called red-red. It is fried red plantains, beans, and a red sauce of some sort. So, so delicious. Also, the bread is AMAZING. The British colonized Ghana and so they have knock-off British bread. Mali has knock-off French bread, and it sounds surprising but knock-off British bread is much tastier and hearty than knock-off French bread. I did not even want copious amounts of mayonnaise on my egg sandwiches because the bread was so good. In fact, most places did not even offer mayonnaise. This is unheard of in Mali where everything has tons of mayo slathered all over it. Also, I got a little bitter for a while about being placed in Mali. I met some of the Ghana volunteers, and talked to them. One kid's secondary project is a surfing school with the kids... WTF??!! Surfing, man that sounds rough. I think I'll stick to soccer with a tree in the middle of the field for entertainment. Surfing would just be too much fun for me to handle. Yes, I am a little jealous of volunteers in Ghana. I know I will have a great overall experience, but still, be able to surf or go to the ocean occasionally would make life a lot, lot easier, as would being able to speak English on a regular basis. Okay, back to the trip.

We took a bus to Takoradi and then on to a little hostel, which is literally right on, the beach called the Green Turtle. It turns out this place is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, and we took a taxi so had a costly trip. In West Africa you agree on prices before you go anywhere, and everywhere here you ask the taxi driver if they know where it is, and they always say yes. And then most of the time they actually have no idea where it is, and when you get there they try charging you more because it turns out that your destination is way, way further than they thought. This was the case with the Green Turtle. We had a battle over the price when we rolled up at 11PM after traveling for 10 hours. We did end up paying him a little more because it was really far, and the road was really bad, but all I'm saying is don't say you know where something is if you don't. The beach at the Green Turtle was absolutely amazing. It was clean (by West African standards at least), and the waves were very fun to play in, though a bit rough. We had intended to meet up with more friends at the Green Turtle, but they left early and since we didn't have a phone we didn't know. So the next day we left the Green Turtle mid-day and made our way to Cape Coast. Here is where we met up with more of my friends, which I immediately left again to go to Kakum National Park. I left one of my traveling companions with them, and the other person I was traveling with came with me to Kakum.

We took a taxi to the edge of town and from there immediately caught a bush taxi which we had been told would not come by all of the regular taxi drivers who wanted our money. Bush taxis are the shared vans mentioned in a previous post, in Ghana they are called tro-tros, and are nice and cheap. We walked into the Park, and talked to the people there about staying the night. All of the options were too pricey so we walked out of the park then 100m up the road, and then bush wacked through the jungle a ways and camped (technically in the park still, stickin' it to the man)! This was a new experience. As you can imagine rain forests are rather dense, so we did not get too far before deciding that we should quit while ahead and just camp. We had to chop up a bunch of underbrush and rotting logs up to clear a spot big enough to cram a mosquito tent in. The sleeping quarters that night were rather snug, and because it is a rain forest it is very, very humid. So the leaves were transpiring a whole bunch, and we just had water dripping on us the entire night which despite the warm temperatures was cold, and made sleep difficult as did the giant root I was snuggling. The next morning we went back into the park and did the rope bridge canopy tour, as well as the separate nature tour. The canopy tour was neat because we were walking on swaying rope bridges 30m above the forest floor, but we did not see any wildlife or anything. The nature walk was nice as well because my friend and I were the only ones who did the nature walk and our guide pointed out lots of trees, plants, and bugs and what they are used for. For instance the sap from Strangler Figs is extremely deadly, but is used to treat Guinea Worm. You put the sap on your skin, and as the worm eats its way out of your body it eats the sap and dies so you can pull in out. Also he showed us his extremely swollen hand and then pointed out the caterpillar he had accidentally touched that caused all the swelling. Also, he showed us a grass that is razor sharp that the locals use to do their tribal scarring. It was really sharp.

Then we went back to Cape Coast and toured the castle. This was cool, but depressing. The castle itself is magnificent. It is stuck out on this rock promontory that juts into the ocean, and it is this gigantic white building that looks like it is just ripping out of the sea, and waves smash against the rocks it is built on sending spray 30 feet in the air. It is very picturesque. It was also the biggest slave port in the world for a time. Slaves from all over where shipped here before taking the horrible journey to America or elsewhere. We toured the dungeons and the barracks, and the governor's chambers. They were all very different. And the dungeons were, as you might expect, very eerie and sad. And like all West African countries (that I've been to) they love Barack Obama and they had commemorated his visit with a plaque, and were sure to point out the gift he had left amongst the pile of gifts left at castle. By gift I mean the kind of thing that you might leave at a grave or the Vietnam Memorial such as knickknacks and flowers. After the tour we went on to the capital city of Accra where the marathon was to be held.

MARATHON DAY. Brutal. My friend and I eventually made it to the hotel that all of us were staying at. One of my friends had gotten a friend of hers to pay for us to stay in a nice hotel on the beach. This was nice, and we once again were treated to some fine Ghanian hospitality. We only had two rooms, and there were 12 of us. Six people in each room was against the rules, and the manager guy was concerned about this arrangement. We said that was fine, and some of us could go to a hostel if the price was going to jump. This was unacceptable in his eyes so he let us stay in the hotel at no extra cost, and arranged rides for us to the marathon shuttles at four in the morning. I was the only one of my group who ran the whole marathon and my day started off a little rocky when my ride didn't show up on time, and when I got to the shuttle meeting place I ran in to use the bathroom. When I came out a few minutes later the shuttle to the starting line had left. Luckily a Peace Corps volunteer from Togo had a phone, and was able to call someone on the shuttle and they came back and got me. The race was supposed to start at 5:30, and it started at 6:15, which isn't bad for West Africa. It was still really hot. I "hit the wall" about halfway through, and pushed on. Around mile 18 I started feeling really, really bad. So I started walking, and walked for a few miles. This was not my plan, but it was so damn hot. I did eventually finish in 5 hours and 30 minutes. My goal was under 4 hours so that didn't happen, but I am super proud of finishing anyways. I have never been so exhausted in my life. The last few miles sucked. It was on a major road so we had to dodge cars and motorcycles, and I had to deal with people talking to you. "Are you tired?" "Yes, I'm fucking tired. How can you tell?" When I got to the finish I saw some people that I didn't remember passing me. I asked them when they got in, and it turns out they collapsed from heat stroke and were brought to the finish with medics. It was hot. Afterwards, I relaxed for a few days, and just kind of checked out Accra a bit. I went to a supermarket, and got a bit depressed because everything looked so good, and while significantly cheaper than in the states it is still way out of my budget, especially when on vacation. And one of my favorite sites was "The School for Peculiar Children." It made me laugh.

One evening I decided to walk to the beach with one of my friends. I read in my guidebook about something called "the castle" which is an old fort that has been converted into government offices or something. Anyways, all the streets around it are supposedly barracaded, and taking pictures of this structure is illegal due to its "strategic importance." I decided that it would be fun to go to the beach near the castle and take a look at it, so I did. As we got closer to the ocean we encountered a barracade across the road. I walked up to it and a very concerned citizen decided to intervene with whatever I was planning. He saw I had my camera with me, and told me that pictures were not allowed, and I had the following interaction.

"Okay, I won't take pictures. Don't panic."

"I'm not panicking but you will be if they catch you taking pictures and throw you in jail."

"Okay, can I hop over the barrier?"

"No."

So, my friend and I took the street to the left of the barrier, which led to the otherside without crossing any other barriers. Why have a barrier if you can just walk around it? Anyways, my friend and I started walking down the road towards the ocean and we heard a motor behind us, so I turned around and there driving towards us was a tank. And I think, "Well, this might get interesting." The tank pulls up beside us and stops and the top opens, and I had the following interaction.

Me: Hi, how are you?

Soldier in awesome tank: Fine. You?

M: Good, just headed to the beach. Can we ride in your tank?

S: Sure.

M: Really? (approach tank).

S: Um... (clearly thought I was joking and turns to his superior who has popped out of the hatch).

M: Good evening sir, can I ride in your tank?

Superior: No, I'm sorry.

M: Okay, well have a nice evening.

Soldiers: You too.

So my friend and I walk to the beach, which is guarded by soldiers, one of who was pooping next to a wall on which was painted "No defecating here." He was just sticking it to the man, and was rather embarrassed when my friend and I walked around the corner. These soldiers informed us that we had to stay on the otherside of some red flags on the beach, which we did, and when they walked off I trickily took pictures of the castle. HA HA. Sticking it to the man...just like that soldier. Also, the building was looking awfully nice in the sunset, and is really an impressive building with this huge white tower all lit up with floodlights and stuff. I'd post a picture, but then I'd have to kill you. Later that night I dined on real sushi! Delicious. And then most the group I was with went off on their own, and three friends and I continued on to a little town called Ho in which we encountered some more awesome Ghanian hospitality.

Through some random person a friend talked to for five minutes we were put in touch with someone who lives in Ho. He put us up in his friend's hotel for two nights for free, and also showed us around the city and helped us get transport when we needed it. But he was also what you might call a worrier. The first night we were there we were all walking and I decided I wanted to look at something a little longer, and told them to go on ahead. I would catch up. I got to a fork and decided that they would have gone left. I was wrong. They went right, and so I just wandered around for a few hours and checked things out on my own and talked to people and had a nice time. But my friends reported that our guide was worried sick about me. I didn't have a phone with a Ghana SIM card so there was no way to get a hold of me, and he was sure I would be lost or killed or something the way he was carrying on. My friends kept telling him that I would be fine, and I never get lost, and I can look after myself and to not worry about me, but I think it did little to calm him down. I eventually wandered back to the hotel and saw him on the street near the hotel. He told me the others had gone to bed and how worried he was, and so we went out and got a beer since he was nice and I figured it would calm him down some.

The next day we went to a monkey sanctuary and Wli (pronounced vlee) falls. The monkey sanctuary was neat, but was not what I thought it would be. I was expecting to go traipsing into the jungle and maybe see a monkey if we were lucky, but instead we showed up, our guide gave us bananas and we walked into the jungle. The monkeys came up to us, we held out our hand and they jumped onto our arms and ate the banana out of our hands. They were adorable little creatures, and well adjusted to us humans especially if we had a banana. Wli falls are a 45-minute hike up a valley right on the border of Togo and Ghana. They were so freaking cool. In fact, one of the coolest things I've experienced. They are double staged, and we hiked to the bottom of the lower stage. We went into the pool at the bottom but you couldn't get too close because the falling water created a gale force wind that you could feel 200m away and the closer you got the more the blowing water stung. It hurt quite a bit actually, but still felt sort of nice. At least nice enough for us all to stand there for a good 45 minutes in the stinging blowing water. And as the sun started going down thousands of bats took to the sky around the falls. I guess they roost in the rocks around the falls, and they all took off to go hunting. We ended up hiking out after dark and one of my friends stepped in a line of ants crossing the trail. They started biting her so she started brushing them off, but as she was brushing them they were taking big chunks of her skin with them. They were really ferocious. She survived, and we went back to Ho for the night.

The next day we visited our guide's village, which was really nice, and eye opening to see the potential that exists for some of the more remote and less developed villages. The village had electricity, which is a huge help with development, but there was also a lot less trash and animal feces everywhere. We asked our guide and he said there were rules in the village about when you can have animals out, and there seemed to be a lot of social pressure to keep the yards clean because they were super clean. The main thing I noticed was that the village didn't smell horrible. That was new a new experience for a village for me. Also, they had a really nice school, which helps the whole development process.

After that nice visit we got on transport to get to a ferry port to cross Lake Volta. Lake Volta is the largest man-made lake in the world. It takes several days to go across from North to South, but we went from East to West so it only took about an hour or so. Our luck was with us as we ended up catching the last boat for the day just as it was about to leave. The boat was a long wooden canoe with a motor attached. About halfway across the lake a storm blew up and we got really socked in. The visibility went from several miles to about 30 feet in a matter of minutes. The locals had made buoys out of old plastic jugs so we followed those to find our way. The crossing was a fantastic journey as we passed trees sticking up out of the water and islands in the mist. By the time we hit land we had made it through the storm and we could see again, but looking back we could just see a big wall of gray moving across the water. When we landed I figured I would be uber-suave and jump over the side of the boat into the water and walk to shore like all the locals did. It went better in my head... I jumped over the side, landed on a rock, and fell over into the water much to the entertainment of everyone watching. From the shore we hitched a ride for several bumpy hours in the back of a pickup and crossed the peninsula we were on and arrived at the next ferry crossing well after dark. We found a place to stay, and crossed in the morning.

After the twenty-minute ride across the lake we obtained some transport to Kumasi where we arrived in the early evening. We tried to meet up with the friends we had made on our previous stop in Kumasi, but that fell through so we just hung out at a bar for a while and tried to guess which of the young men roller blading by on the street were prostitutes. The next morning we went to a bus station to try to get tickets to Tamale. This was a bit of an experience, and one we got to repeat at several other bus stations. We showed up at 9 or something and were given a number. The bus was supposed to show up at noon or so, and at that time we were to present our number to the ticket window and only those with numbers would get a seat. When the bus showed up there was a mad dash to the ticket window. People were packed in around it, and were shoving their way to the front. There was a sense of great urgency. I had all of our numbers and was not sure if they issued too many numbers for tickets due to the frantic way people were trying to get to the ticket window so I joined in the fray. I started physically moving people out of my way and worming my way to the front. It turned out that they issued the correct amount of numbers so I am still not sure what all the commotion was about. The same thing happened when getting on the bus despite having assigned seats. After that fiasco the 6 or 7 hour trip to Tamale was relatively uneventful. We stayed the night there, and a prostitute who looked to be about 13 or 14 solicited me. The following interaction played out.

Prostitute: Hi, how are you?

Me: Fine, you?

P: Fine, I'll see you in a small time, okay?

M: What?

P: I'll come see you in a small time. Can I have your contact information?

M: uhhh... I'm staying in the hotel right down the street.

P: Okay, see you soon.

M: Okay.

Needless to say she never showed up, but I did chuckle thinking about what my traveling companions would have done if I had brought a hooker back to the room. The next morning two of my companions went to the bus station at 6 AM to secure us some tickets for the 1 O'Clock bus to Mole National Park and got to experience the pushing and shoving technique as well. We all showed up at the bus station at noon for the one o'clock bus. The station was very new and so there were no shade hangers built yet, just some chairs set up in the blistering sun. You might think that sitting in that kind of brutal sun for an hour would be uncomfortable... Well, the bus showed up a little after 4 PM and left a little after 5 PM. We spent the day alternating between putting my sleeping mat over our heads and lying on the ground in whatever shade parked cars could offer. The trip to Mole was also very long. It was about an hour on the paved road and then another 90 kilometers on a dirt road to the park. The drive on the dirt road took about 6 hours. We were going FAST! But West Africa once again amazed me with where it could take buses. Your average American would not even take a car down the road to Mole, much less a bus. When we got to Mole it was about 11PM, and we met two other volunteers from Ghana while on the bus. They were not Peace Corps, but we all decided to travel together for a time. In Mole the night watch was very curt and rude when we were trying to figure out sleeping arrangement. Three of our party rented a hotel room, and we tried to ask if we could pay a small extra fee for the rest of us to sleep on the floor of the room. They took this question rather personally and all of us being absolutely thrashed from the day of traveling got into a bit of an altercation. The other three of us ended up camping for some outrageous price that we didn't end up paying because we were so fed up with all the staff in the park by the time we left.

In the morning we all decided to go on a walking safari with a mandatory-armed ranger. We showed up for the tour a bit late, which was fine because we were the only ones going. It's not like anyone else was waiting on us. Anyway, this made the guy in charge of organizing the tours grumpy, and things got worse from there. The two women from Ghana we had assimilated into our group did not have appropriate walking attire, but boots and socks were available to rent. The man in charge said, "Boots and socks are 1 CD." (Ghanian currency). After the two girls had put on their boots and socks he said they were 1 CD each which was not at all clear the first time he told us the price. We tried explaining that we had a misunderstanding about the price, and he started getting huffy. So we said that we didn't want the socks anymore, and they took them off. Then they informed us that once we had put the socks on they could not re-use them and that the girls "throwing the socks on the ground" was rude... I'd like to point out that the socks were stacked neatly on the bench. Around this point everyone started yelling at one another until at some point I said, "I'm not doing the tour because this is fucking ridiculous," and walked off. Everyone else decided this seemed like a good idea, and we got our money back and walked to the picnic table I had slept on the night before. The man told us as we walked off that if we were caught going off into the bush without a guide he would make it "very serious" for us. So, we ate some breakfast at the picnic table and griped about the idiots in charge of the tours.

At some point I decided I was going to take myself on a walking safari, to hell with the guides. I wasn't going to miss out on seeing elephants and stuff because I couldn't get along with the rangers. After only talking to me for about 30 minutes the two Ghanian volunteers decided that they would come with me, and I would be their guide of sorts. I was flattered I guess, but made it clear that I didn't know the first thing about African wildlife and the whole adventure was really quite foolhardy. Also, I had them bring along as much money as they had in order to bribe rangers if we were caught. Naturally, due to my superb guiding skills (ha ha), we were not caught, but we also did not see any elephants. The first half of our 3-hour loop through the bush was in knee-deep to thigh deep swamp, and the second half was a little tamer. We did see two different types of antelope, warthogs, monkeys, and baboons.

At one point we wandered into a troop of baboons and all started taking lots of pictures. Eventually, an enormous male baboon started walking towards us. 20m off it stopped at started to smell the ground or something. At any rate, as I mentioned I know nothing of African wildlife and decided it was time to move on...quickly. We got back to the hotel area without a hitch, and went and sat by the pool that looks over the savannah. Late in the afternoon a baboon came up and swiped one of our loaves of bread we had sitting out so we started getting all the stuff together in one spot and he came back. My friends tried valiantly to defend our food but he scampered around everyone, leapt onto the table grabbed some more food and took off again. The third time he came back we had armed ourselves with a leaf collector thing from the pool. It had an 8-foot handle or so, and we managed to stave off the baboons repeated assaults on our poolside stronghold. That afternoon we travelled to a town called Larabanga and stayed the night with at a guy’s house that I met on the bus the night before. He was part of an organization that would let you stay the night for free, and you can donate whatever you see fit in the morning to his outfit that was working to get orphans off the streets and into a school. It was started and run by the village, so I thought it was pretty neat because it was not imposed on them by an NGO or something. They also really liked us because they had had a Peace Corps volunteer in the village who helped their outfit set up a funding method or something. Also, the people of Larabanga speak a language that is unique to it and only one other village.

The next day we all made the long journey back to Tamale in which one of the Ghana volunteers, two of my friends, and I decided it would be a wonderful idea to eat a bag full of scalding hot red-red on the bumpy road for lunch. It was a good idea as much hilarity ensued. We stayed the night in Tamale and said good-bye to our new found friends in the morning and we travelled onto Ougadougou (pronounced Wagadoogoo), the capital city of Burkina Faso. We stayed there for two nights and ate a whole lot at this delicious restaurant owned by some Italian guy and his wife. And a guy who kept asking if we wanted to smoke weed with him also followed us around for a night. Then on to Bobo in the west of Burkina where one of my friends and I split from the other two as we were going to Sikasso, and they were going up to more northern parts of Mali. We got to Mali without anymore major adventures/fiascos.

Now I am sitting in Sikasso looking forward to the next time I get to eat red-red.

Darwin and Disease

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.

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.