I ni fama

May 3rd, 2010

Well, I’m back. From America ...fuck... At least that’s how I felt when I landed on the plane in Bamako. I sat there frozen, enjoying the last little bits of recycled cold air, gripping the arm rests and staring forward at the blank TV screen while everyone else unloaded. My trip home was so surreally wonderful I had forgotten everything remotely good and rewarding about Africa, Peace Corps and my village. But today - after a week of hiding out between friends’ houses and the stage house in Bamako, delaying the inevitable – I made the journey back to site. The hardest part truthfully is the anticipation of coming back. What has or hasn’t changed since I’ve been away? Will my people be mad at me for staying away for more than a month? Those hesitations, teamed with pining away for the American distractions that whisked me away from certain realities and tempted me to stay away from Africa again. Take a hint, Jessie(!); sick grandma, coup des ta, VOLCANO!??? I guess I can’t say that I heed much caution to signs, no matter how blatant.

But here I am. In my bed, under a mosquito net, fan blasting for another 45 minutes before the power cuts out for the day. And I think I’m OK. My saving grace? The “wet noodle” which is a wet piece of cloth, continuously dunked in a bucket of water by my bed then draped over me as I lay in the 100+ degree heat, trying to doze off. I was told about this technique at the beginning of training while older volunteers boasted about how they got through hot season. I remember thinking it sounded ridiculously soggy and uncomfortable, but it is in fact, divine… It’s so effective that it has me feeling like the rest of hot season just might be bearable.

When I climbed down off the bus onto my street, toting my guitar case and back pack, I searched the road for a familiar face. While I didn’t recognize anyone right away, they all knew me. “Traore!” (my Malian last name) “In I fama!” (it’s been a while) rang out from under thatched hangars that lined my street and I looked ahead in the near distance, fixated on the entrance to my concession. Then as I had hoped and secretly feared, the children came running down the street to greet me and grab my bags, all too heavy for their little frail, boy sized old man frames. Two took my guitar case, almost toppling over as they hoisted it proudly on their shoulders. “Alima na na!!” (Alima has come). They chanted. As soon as I crossed the threshold into my house, greeted by my Mango tree with fruit the size of my head, host dad Brahma and his colleague Dada ironing clothes in the shop next door, I knew I was home. Or at least I can call it that for the next 17 months.

No matter how resistant I was to returning to Mali and finishing up the 2/3rds I have left of service I knew there had to be something real pulling me back, and I remembered as soon as I set foot in my village. I have a family and real friends here. I may not have the most motivation to start projects, build a school, dig a well, or save the world, but I’m making real connections with people that I know in time will pay off. Even if its 5-10-20 years post my service, I’ll know that my time spent here was important to me and the people I’ve met. And who knows, I may save a baby or two.

I have spent the last month in gluttony, vacationing back in the states to see my family, eat real food, drink real beer and reconnect with my American self, who I didn’t know how much I had missed. The best part of all is that being around everyone was effortless and I don’t feel like I’ve missed a beat. Volunteers hear from the past that upon returning home, there is a disconnect between yourself and the people you left behind. But I strongly disagree. If there was one thing missing the most from my life in the first 10 months in Africa, it was being with the people who knew me before all of this. My new friends here, while important and wonderful, have no frame of reference to my personality prior to coming to Mali, and it was nice to come home to familiar and heartwarming faces. Thank you everyone who I saw and talked to while I was home. It was great to see everyone and I’m excited to come back to you some day.

Tailor

In an attempt to break up a stale routine I had established back at site, I varied up my greeting route and went over to the tailor for a quick, “Good afternoon, are you well? And your family? Children? Wife(s)? it’s been a while? And your family?” This tailor is the town favorite, and a good tailor in Mali is hard to find, so I’m eager to be on good terms with him. Also, there was a trusting familiarity in his “Andre 3000” voice.

Sitting there in his workspace in between small talk, I looked around at the fabric strewn everywhere, two small kids, and another guy at three foot peddle machines, turning gaudy waxy fabric into Malian couture. The heat is starting because it’s the end of February and you can feel how thick the air is, and literally the walls are sweating. We’re trying our hardest not to talk about how oppressively hot it is because it only makes us sweat worse.


Every Malian asks me if I can do what they do. Women pounding millet, or cooking t’oh, breastfeeding babies: they all ask, “Alima, can you do this?” Sometimes I say “yes”, sometimes “no,” depending on my mood, because sure enough, I’ve found my self hopping into the millet pounding lineup, or strapping a baby to my breast. (just a joke, but recently, the little girls in my concession have been really touchy feely with my boobs. They keep asking me to see them because they’ve never seen a white boob before. I think I’ll leave that one to their imagination.)

So, in true Malian form, the tailor asks, “Alima, can you sew clothes?” I’ve seen a few other tailors at work and I think to myself, “God, if my grandmother saw what they were doing she would flip!, they are so sloppy.” So I had thought sure I could do it better than half the Malian tailors. After a little banter about how he’s so busy and has no time or money to finish all these clothes, he sets me down at the foot peddle machine and patiently watches me try to sew a hem on a piece of fabric.

That was yet another humbling moment in Africa. All my notions about Malian tailors have dissolved since my time spent with this tailor. Sure, he blindly cuts huge chunks out of fabric and doesn’t pin or iron a single seam, but the way these guys work is nothing short of remarkable. I knew nothing about how to work a foot peddle machine and they are impossible beasts. Just getting it started takes incredible arm strength, then to keep it going is a whole other work out with your legs. I get so excited when I can finally get the machine working, but then my hands can’t function at all because I’m so focused on peddling. It’s like patting your head, rubbing your belly, doing hopscotch and having a really serious conversation about American politics simultaneously. Also, as soon as I start getting the hang of it, everyone and mother (literally) comes berating me with questions. “Oh! Alima! You’re learning how to tailor!? Are you used to it? Can you do it well? Really well? Oh! (As the turn to the tailor) Did you find yourself a white woman? Did you buy her at the market? Are you teaching her how to sew? What’s her last name? Oh, Traore, that’s bad, she’s a bean eater, she can’t tailor…” And so on…
I’ve gone there now for 5 afternoons now, so in Peace Corps Mali time that’s like 8 months. So far, I’ve gotten the hang of it a little bit more, but as I sit there struggling to hem one side of a pagne, while the guy next to me bangs out three ornate complets, all with satin hems, and elaborate embroidery. Everyone gets a kick out of seeing the white girl try to do anything, so I’ve now added another trick to my repertoire as the town mascot.

"...happy in a paper bag."

January 11, 2010
My mindset when I ride my bike has definitely evolved in the last six months. I remember at first having a healthy fear of riding my bike alongside the main road, whether it was at homestay, or when I originally got to site. I had seen a few accidents already in my short stint in Mali on the roads, so I knew it only took a moment for the road kill to be me.
After a few weeks at site, I had established a few great routes through the corn fields for my morning ride, and could kind of clear my head from the fear that had daunted it in previous weeks. I could predict the slopes in the road, where water would pool from the night’s rain, where the dried nyegen waste to avoid was, and had a new keen eye for donkey carts, goats, and naked children darting across the dirt streets.
One morning in early November, I climbed on my bike and rode out from my house, greeting everyone I could along the way, including my neighbor, Brahma. He was riding on the back of a rickety old moto (this thing had old bike pedals to start it and had parts falling off as it bounced uncontrollably along the dirt road to Baroeli). I was having one of those moments where I really appreciated Africa, its greeting customs and how everyone is so friendly and welcoming. I had just slipped into the groove of the ride, and was anticipating a turn into a large cornfield.
In a second that now replays over and over in my mind like a nightmare in slow motion, I glance up to see less than ten meters ahead of me as Brahma and the man on the moto turn quickly in front of a boche and get run over. I will never forget the sounds of metal and bones crunching, followed by a deafening silence, seeing the bodies in a pile of mess and scraps in the middle of the road, motionless. The boche had pulled off to the side of the road, but the people in it stayed inside, maybe delaying the inevitable because they knew there was no life there in the wreckage. I struggled with shock and confusion as I ran through my mind what exactly it was that I could do. I’m not a doctor, there were other able bodied large men there that could lift the men from the scene of the accident, but all protocol that we have in the states just doesn’t exist here. Is there an ambulance? Would Brahma go to the hospital in Bamako or Segou? Where could he get relatively better care? Here at the CSCOM the extent of their stock room is gauze pads and penicillin. I figured I would alert my family and Brahma’s neighbors so that they could make those decisions for me because I had no where near the language, cultural, or medical where with all to help these two men, who I wasn’t even sure were still alive.
I peddled back to my house in a daze of shock, afraid of how cowardly I looked, fleeing the scene like I did, but I didn’t see an alternative. After a mess of trying to explain the accident to my host brothers, Dada and Brahma, I hid in my house…for three days.
This past fall was a definite test of my emotional strength. It’s a struggle to properly process the terrible things that happen here. One foot in front of the other I guess. I easily locked myself in my room, watched movies, and wrote in my diary, pretending maybe that it didn’t happen... I went to the clinic to visit my neighbor, the older man had died at the scene of the accident, but my neighbor survived for a few more days, while my host dad cared for him with the doctor, without much response. I visited him one day and will never get that image of him out of my head; wrapped in bandages, lifeless on the disintegrating foam mat on the floor, blood speckled on the dirty tile.
Before the accident, I had a hard time connecting with the suffering that Malians and Africans go through on a daily basis. Sure I knew it was sad and horrible and “3rd world,” but there was and always will be too many differences in my upbringing and privileges to identify with them. It wasn’t until the conversations with my host dad in the following week that I began to really connect with a Malian. My host dad was caring for Brahma in much the same ways that I’m familiar with: changing bandages, lifting him to bath, and hurting his back as a caretaker. My biggest frustration when the accident happened was that because of my language barrier, I couldn’t properly grieve with the people in my community. I spoke with my English speaking friend, Brahma (I know, everyone is named Brahma, just bear with me), but it still wasn’t enough to say how I felt. When someone dies, Malians say a number of benedictions to one another, but I couldn’t get them memorized with enough sympathy and frankly, my brain was too full of Bambara and post traumatic stress.
It was in my conversations with my host dad, sitting with him outside on the street every night as his back and heart ached from taking care of his neighbor tirelessly all day that I had the most satisfying cultural breakthrough. We compared stories about me and my dad, motorcycles, careless driving and all while laughing at his children and looking up at the remarkable night sky. We were transcending the language barrier because in the moments between talking, in those moments of silence, I felt a connection closer to him than I had ever thought I could get to a Malian. God was there, helping us both get through this horrible event in our lives that I now see as a landmark in adjusting to life in Africa.


January 18th, 2010

I have owned a copy of Jan de Hartog’s, Peaceable Kingdom for almost ten years. It’s been on my, “next to read” list since then because its 900 pages and the absurdly small text print are a little daunting for someone who pretty much hates reading. I acquired it in my first years at George School, because it’s a novel about the beginning of the Quaker movement and the love story between George Fox and Margaret Fells. My grandmother, Big Mama, knowing that I was not much of a reader, read it for me and gave me some cliff’s notes as she “trudged” through it every night before she went to bed in Beach Haven one summer. I have always promised myself I would read it, and it is the only book I brought with me to Africa because with my track record, I figured a two year stint would be sufficient time to read one novel. I often think about that summer with Biggie, in her bed in Beach Haven, her little reading glasses on the tip of her nose, I’m standing in the doorway to say good night on my way upstairs to bed and she says, “Oh Jessica! This book is truly remarkable, but it’s a lot to get through!” As I read it now, with all of life’s events unfolding as they did, I am comforted knowing that she flipped through these same pages for me, so that she could tell me what it was all about knowing I never would get around to reading it before her. But now I sit here, finally in Africa, trudging through it as she did, and finding that the story would not have impacted me as it has, had I read it before coming here. Its parallel to my emotional quest, search for truth, or at least a reason for why I’m here has been surprisingly poignant.

The protagonist’s spiritual struggle reminds me of my first few months here, being thrown into a home stay family in a village covered in trash and stench, the streets filled with wild, foreign children all screaming in fear and excitement and crying at the sight of us. Those months were definitely the hardest part so far and I am comforted knowing that the worst is over.

“Now the idea that she would have to lie down in the straw to sleep with the children while there might be rats burrowing all around her was petrifying. The voice of fear was much stronger; anything was stronger than the pitiful whisper that pleaded with her to go to those children. Why should she? What were they to her? She had tried her best, hadn’t she? Was there any hope she would ever get through to them? They were beyond human reach… Then the still small voice rose up inside of her, ‘All He has is thee’

That first step turned out to be the most difficult; once she had discovered the candle flame would survive as long as she went slowly, she took heart. She found that if she concentrated on going down those steps to the exclusion of everything else, the whole thing became possible.

She had never quite realized before how horrendous this place was, how futile her effort to relieve some of its horror. It was not fear that would defeat her, it was hopelessness, the conviction that she would never be able to change this place, that nothing could, that the one thing likely to happen was that it would change her.

As she sat there, in the darkness, with the child on her lap, she felt moved to go into meeting quite alone. She relaxed her body, emptied her head of thoughts, even the small babbling ones, until she sat there blank and passive, waiting for that of God to rise within her.

What rose was a thought. A cold thought, almost angry: ‘What is so godly about sharing in their filth?’

It startled her; she had expected something noble, soothing. Looked at coolly and without religious rapture, there was indeed nothing godly about her sitting there waiting to feel the first lice on her scalp. Rather than sharing their filth, she should make them share her cleanliness.

That of God within her manifested itself to clean out this pigsty first thing in the morning.
She suddenly was sure that Christ, had He been a woman, would have done the same.”

Piece of Corps

As the initial culture shock wears off, the every day “Africa” that used to freak me out, has become pretty normal. I’m gradually becoming under whelmed by things I had first thought remarkable. I haven’t quite figured out if this is a good thing or not, when I take a step back and realize what it is that I am capable of getting used to. For instance, earlier today when I was sitting and chatting with my neighbor, her baby, who she is “potty training” had to poop (another thing I’ve gotten WAY more comfortable with than I had ever imagined… I know, even I can be more comfortable with a bodily function.) Anyway, the mom made a makeshift port-o-potty with her feet that the baby sat on and pooped on the ground between her mother’s feet. Her mom nonchalantly tossed some dirt over it, then swept it up with a broom made of threaded reeds, into a dustpan that was a cut out of a plastic jug… The first time I saw someone do this, I thought, “OMG, that’s the ground the kids roll around in, and I know my neighbor dropped a ladle there the other day and just dusted it off and kept stirring sauce with it…” But today, it’s totally normal.

Another side effect of the fizzling culture shock that felt a lot like tunnel vision is that I’m noticing a lot more about my village. Street signs… Who’d have thought? Not only street signs, but address numbers! I think mine house is # 182. It’s written on a bright blue ceramic tile, pressed into the mud wall facing the street, totally out of place and somewhat remarkable against the brown landscape surrounding it and the trash that lines the streets. It’s these little things working their way into my African routine that I fear will go undocumented as a significant part of my journey. Like the way people just blow their noses out into the open air and wipe the remainder left on their hands on a nearby wall or child’s t-shirt - I’m surprised we use tissues in the states at this point - or how I recognize Africa’s heartbeat, and it’s not some hippy drum circle, it’s the women pounding millet early in the morning. I wake up to it as the sun rises and I can predict their hands “clapping” as they toss the mortar up into the air and slam it into the pestle, scrapping along the side. (or is it the other way around? I can never remember which is which, the mortar or the pestle. It’s a kolon and a kolonkalan in Bambara. Way easier.) It’s this rhythm that makes up the “pizzazz” that accompanies their labors, as if pounding millet all day wasn’t impressive enough.

My village is in no way the most beautiful place I’ve traveled, or even the most spectacular landscape in Mali. It’s pretty developed and has no trash collection (well, unless you count the children who sift through my leftovers and later use my Emergen-C packets as pot holders). There are trees, but not many. Most houses are basic square, cement dwellings, no romantic huts with thatched roofs and adorable little hangars made out of palm fronds. Most of the “foliage” comes from the corn and watermelon fields on the outskirts that make my village look more like Iowa than Africa. Despite its visual shortcomings, Konobougou’s villagers are pretty awesome. They are so genuine with their generosity, respect and politeness because those basic human qualities are just a part of their culture. The other day I was walking home from my homologues house and a little girl walking home from school was so excited to see me, she handed me her half eaten potato and a little bag of salt. She said, “Hi Alima! My name is Alima too! Here’s a potato and some salt, I want you to have it. Can I walk you to your house and carry your bags?”

I go to school with my host sister a few days a week. She’s in the third grade. I walk into the classroom with the teacher, Monsier Maiga and all 180 children stand up, cross their arms infront of them and say, “Bonjour Madame, Bonjour Monsieur, Bienvenue au classe.” And then all sit, cramming five kids into each desk made for two. I guess their politeness can somewhat be attributed to the switch made out of a rubber door jam that the prof carries on his shoulder as he walks around the class, petrifying them into politeness… But those kids sure are damn cute.

Some days, it feels like my house is located at the heart of the village. There are hangars positioned right next to the street where, groups of men gather everyday to play checkers, smoke cigarettes, drink tea and pick at their feet. I can’t help but make comparisons and notice that these guys are the Malian equivalent of our male clientele at the Sugarloaf Lodge, only I must say, there are much more enjoyable and friendly (sorry Grumpa! But I know you don’t read this). Probably because they don’t drink, but they sure do gamble!!!! Oh yes, they bring out these charts with numbers and horses names on them and I watch their adorably juvenile expressions get all excited and pensive as they place their bets on little scraps of cigarette packets and old newspapers that my neighbor tucks discreetly in his breast pocket and disappears into the night on his bicycle. When I walk by they ask me to place my bet and I yell out random numbers and they laugh and pretend to write them down. One day, I think I won. It was a big to do, they gave me a slice of watermelon.
In the same area in my little neighborhood, there is a rotation of women who sell various street food next to a mud brick oven constructed in the dirt. Twice a week, a woman and her daughter bring fish from the Niger and set up shop on the corner, where they fillet and fry fish of various shapes and sizes. Some are little minnows, whole fried and eaten as such, and other huge fish are gutted, cut into thirds and fried. The fish is actually really good if you don’t think about what it was swimming in. Malians chomp right down on the whole fish, head and all, chew for minutes and meticulously spit out the perfectly cleaned bones, while none seem to get lodged in their throats. I pay pretty close attention because I’m always amazed when the little kids aren’t choking. It’s done with such a careless finesse, at first it looked painful, but now I realize that it’s truly an art form, as are most Malian habits and activities. The way the pick up their children by one arm and sling them onto their back, then quickly wrap a piece of cloth around them with one loose knot and the child stays there all day (The babies LOVE this btw, it’s called “boma” and they practically beg their moms to ride along in the sling on their backs.) Or the way they trim their toenails with razor blades and manage not to slice an artery.
I especially like it when they sort millet or peanuts. They wait for the wind to be blowing just right, so that when they hold one gourd high in the air and tip over its contents, the dirt, dust and husk particles are sifted out by the wind and the larger stuff falls into the new gourd below, ready for cooking. Although maybe this isn’t fool proof, since I still have to be somewhat careful when I chew. I’ve had some close calls with rocks in the past four months. (btw, break a tooth, get sent to America to a dentist in DC to fix it! I’ll keep my fingers crossed!)

A Malian’s hands double as a remarkably efficient water faucet. I don’t know how they do it, but they can cup their hands in a way that multiplies the amount of water they’re using by maybe a gallon. When they wash their dishes, their hands, their babies… anything, it’s amazing how they’ll dip their hand in a bucket, and pull it out with a stream that runs for significantly longer than it does for the average person, completely dousing whatever it is they are rinsing.

Care Package updates:

Good cheese! A horseradish cheddar, I swear if you package it well, it will get here. It’s been done.
Cute tops! My clothes are destroyed. No hiking/sport tops you’d think would be great (Please! No typical “Peace Corps volunteer gear,” I’ve got all the lesbian clothes I need, thanks. And you bet I’m leaving them in Africa.
Something fun I can hang on my wall that reminds me of you and the states.

Ni Allah sonna

I’ve now put my public transport woes behind me and find my time on busses and boches utterly amusing. For instance, the last one I was on, the engine caught fire and all the passengers ran off the bus in a cloud of smoke where we proceeded to stand on the side of the road for an hour while everyone emptied their water bottles onto the engine and got back on the bus, only to break down again in the next town a few kilometers away. I decided to hop in the next moving, hopefully non-combustible vehicle that went by to make it to my language lesson in village two hours late. Sometimes I have to laugh to keep from crying and just go with the flow. This is Africa.

I’ve been at site almost a month now and every day that I’m here I feel that I make a progress, if only to say that I’ve survived another day in Africa. September might have been the slowest month of my life, but it’s over now and I’m already feeling October fly by. I’m settling into the groove of my village, feeling more and more comfortable. I guess I stay in my village more than other volunteers because they're starting to call me a "site rat"... They're just jealous because I love my town more than they love theirs... It's true!!! My town is known for its watermelons and the Sunday market. Every Sunday, it explodes with people from all over the region selling their produce and some of the most random items: car parts, furniture, dried fish, prayer mats, gateaus, bread, fresh cow’s milk, sour cow’s milk, really old and nasty cow’s milk… I can find pretty much anything I need on Sundays. Sometimes it’s just too overwhelming, but I love walking around and getting lost in it. The great thing about Mali (and I've heard this about most of West Africa) is that once you’ve met someone, you are friends for life, so it’s very difficult to feel alone. I always find a friend to walk around with, or just to say hello and feel like I belong. I wander aimlessly, looking for anything in a cooler because I know there’s a slushy, icy treat in a plastic baggie. I usually go for the frozen yogurt with coconut, but there’s a ginger and hibiscus tea which I just learned how to make last week. I try to find someone new to sit with and watch them sell their items, scoping out their produce or cloths for the day and try to finesse my bargaining. I guess you could call that part of my research for “small enterprise development” but I have a hard time feeling like this is “work.” Everyone is really eager to teach me Bambara, so they’ll humor me, or ask me the basics, “Are you married? How many children do you have? How do you like Mali? Are you French or from “Ameriki.” click click… (did I mention there’s clicking in Bambara? It’s subtle, and more of a signal that they’re listening or understanding. I definitely have the click down, it makes me sound like I know what’s going on…)


During my first week at site, Ramadan had ended and everyone broke their fast with a celebration called Sambe Sambe. For three days, gaggles of women and children multiplied on the streets, swooshing as they walked around the village greeting each other in their newest shiny wax fabric dyed in a wide array of vibrant colors. The men in their elegant flowing boubous - the tuxedos of Mali - slaughtered many a livestock that everyone ate. And ate. And blessed. And ate. And blessed again. The children, like trick or treaters, ran around to houses singing benedictions and asking for money. My host mother had bought her grandbabies cheap plastic watches and sunglasses and they rocked them like they were the coolest kids in village, which of course they are. My host mother, Tanti, is the sweetest person in all of Mali, but you’d never know it by the tone of her voice, so it took some getting used to. The sheer volume of it sometimes makes me think she is yelling at someone she hates across town, but no, she’s just talking to her children across the concession. I now love her for it, but was a little scared of her at first. Plus she makes the best food in Mali (well actually her children do, she puts them all to work): rice with peanut sauce and lots of veggies, fish gumbo and rice porridge, flour tapioca porridge, she makes me crave Malian food now! Her t’oh is even gourmet! All her children are fat and happy, people in the village even refer to her one daughter as “Batoma Bilibiliba” (Batoma, the fat one). She has another daughter in America and feels like it’s her duty as a mother with a daughter overseas to take care of me.

My brain is totally overloaded with Bambara and I’m hoping it’ll work itself out soon and I’ll actually be able to form complete sentences. Right now I just spit out random vocabulary to get my point across, but don't make any real sense. I think Yoda is my inspiration… ("Sleepy I am", "hunger I have", "you are going where?") I meet with my language tutor four times a week for Bambara lessons in French. It’s a fun couple of hours where we play charades and sometimes I get it right. He’s a highly respected man in my village and as I mentioned before, he’s a rockstar. He and his cousins were the only educated kids in his village growing up where there was no school, so they started an organization that sold various things their community made and saved that money to build the first school in their village. He’s still active and extremely motivated at age 65, plus has three wives and 10 plus children!

Peace Corps sent my Language Coordination Facilitator (LCF) to come and stay with me for a week for more intensive language training. I think if there’s a way to “over” integrate, I’ve done it. Not only am I here in this little village in Africa, eating, working and conversing with Malians, but now I have a Malian living with me in my house, and am absolutely comfortable with it, actually I couldn’t be happier. Back at homestay I had joked with my LCF, Yagare, that I was going to take her with me to site, so when Peace Corps set up this extra language training and asked me who I wanted my LCF to be, it was a no-brainer. I keep trying to write about her in my journals or my blog, but I’m without words because Yagare is just… she’s just… amazing! She’s so sweet, funny and incredibly intelligent but is in her own little world sometimes and it brings me the most joy just watching her. She could stare at a flower for many minutes before noticing anything going on around her. Her English is nearly perfect and has little quirks in its syntax that I just cannot correct it because I think it is too adorable and I wish everyone spoke like her. One day, I came to her house after a group yoga session we had after class and she was laying out clothes she had just washed on the rocks around her courtyard. I asked her why she didn’t come do yoga with us and she replied, “Oh! I was laundering.” So many gems like this, it’s hard to pick just one to share with the world. Her voice, with its low dulcet tones is simultaneously light and lofty, like she’s singing to my heart when she speaks! Aside from my inappropriate love for her, I’ve really benefited from this week at my site with her. She has made me much more comfortable with my village and she has helped tweak the things I’ve learned in pre-service training so I can incorporate them into my daily routine: ie. greetings (slightly different dialect in my region from what I learned in training), bossing children around (I cant get them to do pretty much anything for me now) et c. It’s exhausting the lengths Malians go to bless things or greet people, and just when I thought I was doing it enough, I paid attention to Yagare and realized I had to up my game. I now fill about an hour more of my day just going through the same blessings.

There are times when I know that what is coming out of my mouth is pretty accurate Bambara and Malians react in the strangest way. It’s like when David Blaine does a magic trick that totally freaks people out and they kind of scream and run away, but then turn around and slink back to him saying, “how did you do that?” You get the picture. I’m a lot like David Blaine.

So, my mom keeps asking what I’m doing. I guess she means work. But everyone knows I’m no good at that. These first three months as a volunteer are supposed to be devoted purely to language and getting acclimated with my community. I have basic survival language skills now, but I have to improve my vocabulary to start working with Malians in a productive way. A little more than just, “Good afternoon! Are you well? And your family? Did you spend the night in peace? Where are you going? Is your female friend there? How is she? How is her family? (Meaningless word that is very important inserted here) Nse, (literal translation: it’s because I am a woman) May God increase the blessings of this (insert anything here ie: day, afternoon, donkey cart) Amiina, Amiina, Amiina, Amiina. Tomatoes here? Are they good? How much for a pile?” It may seem monotonous, but it’s all very important. As soon as you greet someone, they are instantly your best friend and ally. If I’m going to get anyone to trust me enough to work with me, or think I’m here to help them and not some spy from the US government, then I have to greet and just spend time with as many people as I can. I drink a lot of tea. And I yaala yaala (to walk around and greet) a lot. Yes, there’s a term for “to walk around and greet” and it’s a totally acceptable answer to “where are you going?”

Africa is definitely growing on me. I’m not just talking about the amoebas and jungle funk. The first time I felt that “connection” to Africa that I hear from people who have traveled here, or want to travel here, or love Africa (for whatever reason, I didn’t really get it), was when I noticed my extremely heightened sense of smell. I’m starting to notice things I would never have in the states. The way the breeze wafts over toward me sometimes I can tell exactly what’s going on with my neighbors: tea time, roasting corn over hot coals, making shea or peanut butter, washing clothes. Malians are 90% Muslims, but I know there are Christians in my village because I smelled pork cooking the other day. At first I thought my nostrils were playing a trick on me and I just missed Beach Haven that bad because I was reminded of those mornings I would wake up and know that Biggie was downstairs in the kitchen preparing one of her amazingly sinful breakfasts of fried tomatoes or blueberry pancakes and always bacon…lots of bacon, crispy and charred for everyone, but a special plate of limpy and undercooked pig for Grumpa and Uncle Al. They like their eggs runny too. I confirmed the Christian inhabitants in my village the following day when a light breeze sent the aroma of pork chops over to my concession and I knew it had to be pig. No cow could smell that good and make me wish I had a jar of applesauce at my disposal.

I did something today, Mom! (I know I already called you to tell you all about it, but I thought I’d share this one on the blog too) I set up a time to chat with the women in the Maternity CSCOM (health clinic) in my village and they said they would be more than happy for me to come in and observe/assist them on Sundays and Tuesdays when all the pregnant women come in for their open clinic checkups. I was lucky to have Yagare here with me for my first time going to the clinic so she could fill in the blanks in translation and let them know why I was there and how I could help/observe. I sat in the clinic room while women came in one by one to get their bellies measured, a basic obstetrics exam, and an HIV test. The first test I witnessed was another one of those profound “holy shit I’m in Africa and I’m watching a pregnant woman get an HIV test where she’ll find out in about four minutes whether or not she and possibly her baby have HIV” moments. I felt a little light headed. All the results were negative, I ni ce Allah, because I could not handle that on my first day. Twenty or so women came in, each one climbed up on the rusty metal table, lay their pagnes (cloth wrapped skirt) at their sides, while the Attending, donning a threadbare lab coat, long flowing colorful pagne and matching head wrap examined them. “Is there anything hurting you?” All of them replied with a simple “Nothing at all.” Then women in their last few months were encouraged to come back when they were in labor because it’s safer to give birth in the clinic than at home. They were directed to the male doctor in the adjoining building to get an anti-malarial shot and some prenatal vitamins.

During an examination, I almost missed a woman walk through the room into the back birthing room wearing all black, her face covered. I didn’t think much of it until the midwife turned to me and asked, “Do you want to help deliver her baby? She’s 5 cm dilated right now.” “Right now? She’s delivering right now?” I asked. “Not right now, but soon. Do you want to watch?” I felt so unqualified and nervous and anxious but knew that I desperately wanted to be a part of it, so of course I said “yes.” When the time came, I walked into the adjoining room and felt helpless as I stood behind the once head to toe covered woman splayed out completely naked on a metal table, obviously in pain, but not making a sound. I couldn’t believe how quiet she was, and so was the midwife who was assisting her. I helped swab her leg for an injection then got shuffled around to the receiving end and watched the “miracle of life.” The last thing I remember before passing out was when the midwife tossed the newborn into a dirty sink, then threw some water from a cup onto it and walked away into the next room, the mother still laying on the cold metal table with a bed pan under her, catching the leftovers.

I came to, sitting up in a chair with a cup of water in my hand, the women were chuckling to themselves and I felt like a complete idiot. I can’t wait to go back on Tuesday.

Somatra

“Yesterday, my friend Amanda and I set out on our way to her site, a Victorian style French town 35 km north of Segouville in the Segou region. We had just stayed four days in Segou, swimming in the pool, drinking margaritas and getting ready to leave for our respective sites. I, for one was very anxious about finally riding public transit on my own, since I am notoriously bad at it. I remember being in San Francisco last summer and trying to get a bus to Sacramento when I got all worked up and just stood on the corner and watched busses go by, too afraid to get on. Bush taxis are a whole different animal. Bush taxis (or boches) are old jalopy conversion vans that Malians like to cram at least 2-3 times the maximum intended passengers into it at one time. Sometimes there are original seats in the vans, but they’re usually taken out so they can pile more people/goats/chickens/(insert strange object/animal you never thought would be in a motorized vehicle with you EVER) in their place. Most of the time the doors are off or broken so there’s the added fear of falling out of the boche while en route. I must admit I was petrified. So I thought I’d ride up to Amanda’s site with her for a few days and get my public transit wits about me before heading out to site alone…for three months…

Amanda and I shared a cab to the boche pick up and had thought we agreed on a fare with the driver at 500CFAs per passenger. When we got to the side of the road where the driver dropped us off, the fare had changed. Or at least that’s what I’m thinking happened. When we got out of the cab, we were swarmed with about 15 men, all anxious to know where we were going, grabbing our bags out of the trunk, which included three huge backpacks, a propane tank and stove for Amanda’s new house, plus various kitchen and cleaning supplies in separate and cumbersome plastic bags. While trying to keep track of our belongings, we handed him our 1000CFAs. Apparently that was not enough, and the man started yelling at us and tried to hand the money back. “O ma chan!” (that’s not enough!) Of course all the other men started getting into it with him, and us. I remember in our cross cultural sessions, our trainers stressed that greetings and joking will get you out of most situations like this, so I grabbed at any straws I could. “What’s your last name!? Are you a bean eater?” They just kept yelling and arguing in fast angry muttered Bambara that I couldn’t begin to decode, especially when all my translation skills had just shut down because of pure fear. Our language was just not good enough to get us out of this, so we agreed on an extra 500CFAs and the cab guy finally left us alone. I think I called him a liar (I ye galontige ye) and told him I was “not happy.” So lame. Thinking back on it I put together beautifully poetic Bambara jabs that would have surely gotten the fare lowered, but alas.

The stress didn’t exactly end there. The 15 men swarming us at the cab had scooped up all our bags and carried them across the road to where other men sat and drank tea. We asked if this was where the bush taxis would pick us up and they said, “No, the bush taxis aren’t running today, the gas is bad and we are getting you a private car to take you.” I knew we were being schooled. They kept saying, “I sigi, I sigi” (sit down sit down) but I was so annoyed I kept calling them liars and asking them why they thought I would believe that the bush taxis weren’t running today. Finally, after 20 minutes, the first bush taxis showed up on the other side of the road, FULL of people and goats piled on top. The men were resistant, but grabbed our stuff and headed for the taxi. Then an empty taxi showed up behind that first. Naturally, for comfort and sanity reasons, we wanted to get on the taxi with less people, so that was another round about of arguing price, getting our stuff on the right one. I befriended a Malian woman on the more empty bush taxi to kind of take our side (I think) and get us on the roomy, less expensive bus.

I’ve learned now to always take the bush taxi that is completely full. Otherwise, we’ll in the hot Africa sun for hours waiting for passengers to fill up the empty bus. OR! Drive back into town searching for passengers. At one point we went the wrong way down a one way street, almost bulldozing some donkey carts in the process to find a woman standing on the side of the road. She got right on the bush taxi like it was completely normal. I couldn’t believe it was happening at the time, but find myself saying more frequently, “This is Africa.”

Finally we headed out of Segou and on to Amanda’s town. It was around 5 o’clock and the sun was starting to set over a picturesque African landscape as I reflected over the afternoon’s somewhat hellish events. I was astonishingly relaxed, as I seem to always feel when I’m eventually on public transit. Finally the heat had let up, the sunset was breathtaking as usual and we were finally on our way. After a few stops and a run in with about 200 cows crossing the road, we were dropped off in Amanda’s town. It was dark now and pouring rain, of course. We stood under an awning at the bus stop/market and waited while we thought of the best way to get to her house, two miles away. We called her contact at site, who had picked her up at site visit to take her to her house, but of course his phone was off. Plan B. Well, we didn’t really have one. So we stood there as various people came up to us and asked us what were doing and where we were going. We kept trying to say we were on our way to our house, but had too much stuff to carry if we walked. Mostly we got some blank looks and offers to come drink tea in their house down the street. At this point we just wanted to get to her house, dry off and cook delicious pasta and tomato sauce that we had purchased at the butigi across the street.

Nothing like a two mile walk on a night in the pouring rain through flooded mud streets to work on those muscles! We hoisted our bags on our backs, balanced plastic bags on our arms and carried the propane tank between the two of us and headed toward our house. “We are going to be so much closer after this.” I exclaimed, “Or we’ll be enemies,” Amanda muttered. “Impossible.” I said. We were both impressed by how high our spirits were. There really was no point in being cranky because there was no alternative to getting to her house. We stopped a few times to readjust, fix a broken plastic bag and re-angle my headlamp so we could see the rivers in front of us that we had to navigate around. At this point as I’m writing this, I’m laughing hysterically to keep from crying but wincing from the pain in my ribs because I seriously pulled something last night. As we trudged on, I was afraid to ask how much farther it was to her house. All I know is, we made it, and it really didn’t seem that far once we got to her house, “nsh Allah”.”

Swear-in

We came back to camp early Sunday morning after our last ten days at homestay and an overwhelmingly emotional “final farewell.” It is very taboo for Malians to cry in public, so I was caught off guard when all the women in my family were practically wailing. In what I think was a defense mechanism on my part, I felt nothing and just wanted to get out of that village and on to my site. The last ten days at home stay were definitely the roughest. I had come back on a high from site visit, my language skills had really improved and I felt so integrated that I went practically unnoticed as a Toubab! Well, not really at all, but I was definitely more comfortable with my village, greetings in the local language, and even the food! My digestive system now feels like a tank, ready to take on anything Africa can throw at me, due also in part to the probiotics a little angel sent me in a care package (hi mom!), but I digress.

I would like to take a little time to talk about my host sister, Mama, because I feel that without knowing her, you won’t know anything about me in Africa and the strange personality that I have taken on as this “Alima” character. Mama is a sixteen year old who acts like she is the boss of her village. While at first it was endearing and kind of awesome because she acted as my body guard, she had become increasingly persistent and copped some sort of attitude with me every moment we were together. However, it was in those interactions when she bossed me around, that I developed the greatest cross-cultural asset, “sass.” I guess acting like a puppet by making me dance for other Malians at the market, or eating t’oh over and over again has its advantages. I can confidently say I am ready to take on any kind of crazy, rude, invasive Malian that’s thrown my way because I’m pretty sure I’ve dealt with one of the worst. Not to say that she’s bad, but she’s definitely… sassy. Mama may be the source of most of my frustration with Africa, but she was also my greatest learning tool.

On our last day at home stay, our village had a little party for us. Since it is Ramadan, dancing or partying of any kind is not encouraged, but our 101 year old village chief said “screw it” (loose translation from Bambara) and had a dance party for us anyway. We all gathered in his concession, greeted and thanked and blessed one another in much the same way as the first day we arrived. When I think back to that first day, driving into our village, trash covering the streets, nyegen pools overflowing, hundreds of children with unfamiliar faces, covered in flies, I was petrified. Little did I know that after two short months I wouldn’t notice the trash anymore, I’d be comfortable walking through the streets and the market, and not only know all the children, but like them too! I was sitting next to my host mother, Kyatu, and her little baby boy and had my three favorite gals, Batama, Awa, and Ara standing behind me, listening intently to the village chief and our language facilitators exchange blessings. Batama (my African C.C.) had her hands on my shoulders and would occasionally pick a little pimple off my back. I’d turn around and look at Awa, her big beautiful smile beaming at me and laughing like she would never be able to stop. Sitting there with them was another one of those reflective moments. These past months have been a part of the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life and it definitely sucked at times, but this moment and the way I feel know in Africa has made it all worth it.

I’ve grown not only to like Malians and feel comfortable with them, but I am also growing closer to our group of 66 volunteers. It’s taken a while to get to know them all individually because there are so many, but I can definitely feel some long lasting friendships forming already. Everyone is really respectful and supportive of each other, and we haven’t had anyone “early terminate” yet, which is apparently a huge accomplishment for Peace Corps Mali. Groups from previous years had lost a significant amount of their members by this time in their stages, so we’re all pretty proud of how “die hard” our group is, especially since Mali is a hardship country and the 3rd poorest in the world.

We officially swore in as Peace Corps volunteers on Thursday (I’ve posted new pics of the ceremony and the after party!) I’m now in Segou, and I leave for my village on Tuesday. I’ll be there for the next three months, working on my language, getting to know people in my community and trying to figure out projects I want to work on. Today, I am excited and ready to get to my site. I’m ready for the change of pace and finally getting control over my daily schedule. Training was definitely starting to wear on all of us but the structure and preparation of it all has truly impressed me. Peace Corps is much more organized than I had anticipated and I feel totally taken care of.