Site Visit

Last Sunday we got up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a 10 hour bus ride up to Mopti from Bamako. All in all the bus was pretty good, just really, REALLY hot. We took a nice bus up to Mopti, one that passed out juice boxes and a sweet bread/ cake thing in the morning. It was also equipped with a thermometer to remind us of the heat and fact we did not have air conditioning, nor windows… I think we maxed out at 54 degrees Celsius… I haven’t done the conversion but it was hot. Lots of stops with snacks along the route broke up the journey. The only unplanned stop was for a flat in the morning but the driver was quick to change the tire and we kept on our way. We got into Sevare (the transit house for Mopti region) around 6pm so I stayed the night in the breeze on the roof of the house. The next morning I got a ride from Peace Corps to my site and got the keys to my house! It's a two room mud house with a private yard....

Kouna (Koo-nah) is 12km from the road to Bamako. There’s a somewhat decent gravel road leading out to the village which I assume will become shorter and shorter as I get better at the ride. I met my homologue at my house and spent the rest of the day hanging around with some other men in front of the bikiti (little convenience store) behind my house. From wanderings on foot and by bike both alone and with my homologue, I got a little idea of the surrounding area. There’s a river 1-2km away right now but I understand that come rainy season (June- Septemberish) the river floods and will be almost right behind my village.

There is no market in my town except a small Saturday market which I didn’t see because I was there only from Monday to Friday, and a large market on Sundays at Soumandougou, the village 12km away from me on the road to Bamako. There are a few gardens in the village, as well as a school, new maternity (finished in November 2010 and powered with solar and batteries) and a mango tree orchard. Mangoes are becoming more and more accessible but I have yet to see anything but small, green unripe mangoes on the trees nearby.

Friday I rode with my homologue to Soumandougou where I caught public transport (crowded white van) to Sevare to meet up with the other PCTrainees and Volunteers in the area. From the transit house we walked to a hotel maybe 2 km away and paid 2000 (4 dollars or so) to swim in the pool all afternoon. There was no one in the hotel so it definitely felt like a private party. Pools are amazing. As is sunscreen.

The next morning we got onto another bus for the 10 hour trip back to Bamako and Tubaniso. Yesterday, Sunday, we had a completely free day here so I went into Bamako in the afternoon with three friends. The visit consisted mainly of wandering around, eating ice cream and pizza and finally ending up at a Toubab store. Our taxi driver on the way back tried to rip us off royally but with the help of two security guards at Tubaniso and a PC Volunteer Trainer we were able to avoid most of it. In short, we agreed on 5,000 CFA for the driver to take us to Tubaniso. It’s pretty expensive but Tubaniso is pretty far from downtown Bamako, where we were, and this was the second cab to give us that price and would not negotiate any lower (although we definitely  tried…). We stopped on the way to get gas and the driver asked for us to give him the money then. We did. When we arrived at Tubaniso he got out of the car with us and said we still owed him 10,000 CFA! Just to put this into perspective, I bought a ticket for the 10 hour bus ride to Mopti for 7,000 CFA. Basically, I could have gone to Mopti and back for the price he was asking! It was ridiculous. The guards tried to help us out but they wouldn’t give us any advice, they merely translated. We called a PCV who came out and finally negotiated it so we gave him an extra 1,000 CFA to appease him. The whole negotiation took about half an hour but in the end it turned out fine. After he left I asked the guard what he thought and he said the driver was just trying to rip us off because we were white… Ah, what a trip. (Just a quick note though… this was my first instance of a Malian triy9ing to royally rip me off and the other cab driver we had was really nice and Fulani so I left the car with a new friend! Mali, as is in the US and everywhere, is comprised of soooo very many personalities and I don’t mean to give a bad impression!)

Tomorrow we head back to our homestay families and villages for 2 more weeks of language classes before swearing in and actual Peace Corps service begins and I begin the quest to balance cultural integration and maintaining myself as an individual.