"Jam won, janngol wala"

Why Mali is sweet (according to one man in my host family): "Jam won, janngol wala," there is peace, and no cold.

I hit and passed my one month mark at site! It’s amazing how time works here. There are times when the afternoon will fly by or all of a sudden a week has gone by but at the same time my 3.5 months here seem like a lifetime. American life is so far away from anything I know at site.

Last week Peace Corps sent me my language instructor to tutor me at site. It was great. We studied for about 5 or 6 hours a day which would usually include (if I was successful) at least an hour or two of some quality chatting in either French or Fulfulde. My language is definitely improving but I still have a long way to go. Unfortunately the women with whom I should be spending a lot of time, speak Malinke among each other so I don’t understand. Recently I’m feeling more comfortable telling them to speak Fulfulde but they usually revert to Malinke within a couple minutes. It’s funny, in a place where education is next to none and people spend their entire lives in one village farming or cooking, they can speak upwards of 5 languages. In my village alone they speak, Bambara, Fulfulde, Bozo, Chetankore, Malinke and at least two others whose names escape me…  There is definite pride in language. No one asks me to teach them to do math or science or anything like that but EVERYONE asks me to teach them either French or English. If I were here to teach English, the enthusiasm is definitely there…  maybe I’ll talk about health education in French or English… although then they wouldn’t understand… hmmmm.

I cook for myself but en brousse, there are pretty slim pickings. I eat a lot of noodles and tomato sauce and never miss taking my vitamins ;) I’m in Sevare now to bank and go to the post office for some delicious protein powder, and stopped at the market yesterday for some vegetables. I think my body might go into a happy shock with all the tomatoes, cucumber, onion and green peppers I ate but it was amazing. Vegetables are really great. Everyone really likes the fish from the river in my village but unfortunately I haven’t seem to have developed a taste for it…

As for the environment, it’s still pretty hot here. I was recently asked how hot it is and I really don’t know. All I know is I was not a sweater in the US but here I regularly have sweat dripping down my back and take at least two bucket baths a day. Once the rains come the river is going to flood and people will take to the fields. I’ve been promised that I can help in my friend’s rice field which I’m pretty excited about. Some men were building on my neighbor’s house and they told me to join them but when I was coming they freaked out and told me I couldn’t. They were joking but I wasn’t. I was really excited about building a house! They make bricks out of mud, use mud as mortar then cover the whole thing in mud. I haven’t been taking many pictures because everyone already assumes I have copious monies floating around so I am trying to convince them that I don’t before breaking out my new, shiny camera.

There aren’t that many crazy cool Africa animals up here in the north but I live amongst a ton of lizards, cows, donkeys, goats and chickens. Animals are part of the community, they roam the streets, live in the family compound…

I am slowing figuring out what I will be working on… I am currently going to people’s houses to complete my baseline survey where I ask people about their health practices… where they get their water (wells), if they bleach it (rarely), if they wash their hands with soap (rarely).  I talk only to the women because then I ask them if they know SIDA (AIDS) or other sexually transmitted diseases, family planning and contraceptives. That’s pretty interesting because some people have heard of these things but don’t know much about it so I have been telling them about STIs and contraceptive methods. Something’s gotta give with this population (50% Malians are under 15). I’m going to try to be culturally sensitive and all that but I will definitely try to talk about the benefits of fewer kids to anyone who’ll listen.

Otherwise I have been told to fix a well, dig a new well for the women’s garden and build a couple fences. The maternity at site is really nice, built my villagers in November 2010 but funded by Aga Khan Foundation (which the more I learn about the better the organization is). The building has solar panels so I’m also going to try to get them a vaccine refrigerator … Anyways, my plans are big but I need to see what’s actually feasible. In-service training will be very welcome June 13 in Bamako.

New Address

Oooo Quick update on the address change... Now I am:

Susie Vulpas, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 104
Sevare, Mali, West Africa

(I guess the West Africa part is key for postal workers ;)

Naange ana wuli

“Naange ana wuli” translates to “the sun is hot.” Never a more accurate phrase.

I’ve been at site for 2 weeks now and am slowly starting to get used to life here… slowly. To summarize, I live in a mud house in my village which is about 12km from the road. I am, as they say here, “en Brousse,” or in the bush. The village is about 3,000 which is a pretty decent size, but for such a size we have no market or anything like that. I’m still figuring out where people get their food to eat. It seems that everyone has a stack of rice sacks, salt and dried onions and fish in their house that they cook from. Other than that, some people grow food but right now is the hot season which means sweat galore and nothing grows. Not until the rains (and subsequent floods) come!

I haven’t really figured out a daily schedule yet but so far I have been getting up around 6 with the sunrise and running every other day. I run through fields or along some paths which is both exciting and extremely frustrating when the path through the field suddenly ends. I get back, have a little bucket bath, and some breakfast and then mosey over to the bitiki where the men hang out, chat and drink tea. I started teaching one of them English. He’s super nice and gives me fruit and bread when he gets it from Mopti. I head home for lunch and go to my tutor around 2pm, hang out for a while and go around to say hi to various people. It’s a lot of sitting and listening right now. When the sun goes down I generally go back to my house to make dinner, write in my journal, read, sometimes do some yoga and then go to sleep. I generally go to sleep by 9pm and start over all over again in the morning.

Every Sunday is market day at the town at the road so last week I bought a bag of candy and gave it to one of my host brothers to distribute. It was a hit. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing here and I hope that I am able to do something helpful…. Inchallah!

PST (pre-service training) Homestretch

The last two weeks we spent at homestay were fun but this training is not too short. Although site is extremely daunting, some parts of homestay were getting pretty old. Although it was super nice that my host sister would bring me water in the morning to wash, and having all meals prepared for me is definitely appreciated, I look forward to having some more independence at site.

Last Sunday Peace Corps actually took all of us to the museum and the American Club in Bamako. We were picked up from our homestay village at 8am and taken to the natural history museum in Bamako. We had a guide who explained (in French) a bit about the artifacts there… there were a lot of wooden and clay masks and artifacts from all over the country and from all the ethnic groups that are found in Mali. There was another pretty extensive textile exhibit that was super interesting. Mali imports fabric from all over Africa and Europe, in addition to making some here in country. The fancy clothes they wear here are made with Bazan fabric which is super waxy and really stiff. Not really the most comfortable thing but, when in Mali!

We are going to be sworn in on Tuesday at the President of Mali’s house so I got an outfit made out of the super waxy fabric. It’s really stiff but I think after a couple of washes it should loosen up (I can only hope). After that, it’s off to site and then the challenge begins all over again. 

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. 

Homestay part 2, and SITE announcements!

WOOT WHOOOO! Passed the one month date! I’m feeling pretty accomplished now… and significantly less of a silent mute. Not a lot but I have gotten really awesome at the smile, head shake and “mi famay” (I don’t understand). So, an update since the last post… I went back to my home stay site (Niamana, a village of about 3,000, just outside of Bamako) and went back to the daily grind of 6-8 hours of language classes and field trips for various health-related activities and back to my host family at night to sit, watch and occasionally mumble a few somewhat comprehensible words. My family has stopped feeding me toh every  night, which I can’t say I am sorry about, but they still prepare it for themselves so I have become the sifter. To make toh, you have to grind up the millet into a powder and sift the whole thing so you don’t have any big particles. Apparently I have gotten the sifting down so even though I now eat beans (black eyed ) every night for dinner (bought from a man not too far away), I do a lot of millet sifting.

Health Training: Some of the health field trips have been super interesting. We painted a mural on the wall of the nygere (toilet/ hole in the ground/ bathroom)of a school. I think it turned out pretty well; it was a community health message that people should wash their hands with soap, before cooking, before eating and after using the nygere (because somehow people haven’t quite put it together that using your left hand in the nygere and eating with your right might not be a fool proof way to avoid certain illnesses... That and the fly issue… When your hole is left uncovered, or the bathroom is just in the field… flies swarm, right? Well they swarm there and then they also swarm around food… without washing their feet in between… if you catch my drift.

We also had a baby weighing session at the maternity in my village where we weighed 35 babies in a morning (pretty successful with only three babies in the red zone – malnourished). The following day we invited the women back to the maternity where we cooked a gigantic pot of ameliorated porridge comprised of ground millet, ground rice, ground corn, ground peanuts, sugar, salt and limes for the women and their babies to eat.

Okay… the big one…: SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS! We got picked up from homestay sites on Wednesday and found out our sites! I will be going to Kouna, south east of the city of Mopti. Apparently its population is about 3,000 and I will be working at a CSCOM (Community clinic) promoting maternal and child health and nutrition education and I guess there is a woman’s association that wants to garden! I’m really really excited about this prospect.

In addition, our homologues (Malian counterparts at our site) came into Tubaniso yesterday and this morning I met mine! I seem to have the good fortune to be matched up with another extremely old man (probably the same age as my host father… which is pretty old.) He is a relay in Kouna, acting like a health education contact in the village… I’m still a  bit unclear about the job of relays because I know they are unpaid volunteers. His name is Mama Nerakoumana and has one wife and five kids. In terms of appearance, he is about as Fulani as they get (or so I imagine) and while I think he has a few inches on me and more than a few years on me, he is almost certainly lighter than I am.

My village is 38km from my banking town, Severay, and a 12 km bike ride to the main road where there is a daily market. I guess Kouna has a market only on Saturdays. Which should be interesting.

Plan: I’ll stay at Tubaniso until Sunday morning then take public transportation the 675km northeast to Mopti with my homologu, the other volunteers in the region and their homologues, oh, and my BIKE. I expect to come home super buff from tossing my trek mountain bike up on the tops of buses for long and hot and probably unpleasant bus trips. Pretty nervous and also really excited to go to site! I’ll stay there a couple days, meet the dugutiki (village chief, also my new host family) and meet people in the community then I have to be back at Tubaniso by Saturday for another couple days and then back to homestay (Niamana this time) for two more weeks of language training until swear in (when we become actual volunteers instead of mere trainees)… Hopefully I’ll be able to post on my site in about a week! Fingers crossed!

Weather… So I thought I was done… but I can’t end without making a note of how hot it’s getting. I now bathe 2 times a day if you don’t count the bath in my own sweat every night.

Skype name: susiev9

Homestay... part 1

Whew. A whirlwind 12 days at homestay.  Let me see how I can explain it properly.

All 62 (we've lost two trainees already) or us are split into 9 different villages off the road to Segou. Basically the country has the worst roads everrrrr. Which is cool. There's one two lane road going northeast from Bamako and then whenever you turn off it it's all dirt roads of varying smoothness. When I was reading about Mali they said we'd be getting a mountain bike and mountain bike training in country. Little did I know that biking from my homestay family to school would be more like training for mountain biking. Pot holes, rocks, cow pies.... helmets are a must and I have NO intention of breaking that rule. 'cause that'd just be stupid.

My Village:
I'm in Niamana, the first village of the nine, with 7 other PCT (Peace Corps Trainees). Five of us are learning Fulfulde and three are studying Bambara. We have three LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator - Peace Corps is accronym happy) two who are teaching us fulfulde and one for the Bambara students.
The villages itself... is not super picturesque. It's pretty gigantic and every other house (at least) is incomplete. Most of the time it looks like peple starting building a house and got the fuondation and about 10 feet of the outside wall and then called it quits.I talked to Cisse, one of my fulfulde LCFs and he said people come to Bamako to work and they live with other people, make some money and come out to the village, in this case Niamana, start building themselves a house, run out of money, go back to Bamako to get some more, then back to Nimana to work on the house more, etc. I don't think I have nearly enough patience for that... Malians definitely school me in the patience department.

My Family:
WHOA BIRTH CONTROL. I should probably figure out how to put the disclaimer on my blog that it's not Peace Corps approved before writing this but.... I'll do it later ;) So... we got to the village, went to see the dugu tiki (village chief) and give him the colonuts (super bitter nuts that you give people for certain occasions, like asking a father for his daughter, as an apology, or welcoming in 8 toubabs into the village for a couple months) for accepting us into the village. My host mom was there and we walked from the dugu tiki's to their house. Unfortunately no one spoke French so they gave me a chair and I sat... for two hours. Anyways, since then I have my room (all to myself with a door :) and my language classes so I'm slowly starting to figure them out. not completely mind you; my language is still pathetic.My host dad is ancient. I'm terrible at guessing people's ages in general and then in Africa where they spend most of their lives outside... well, I'm going to stop there but let's just say my ability to estimate the ages has not improved. Regardless, my host father has only a couple teeth, is a rail and hobbles on crutches. I'd put him at 75. Funny thing though, his wife is probably in her 40s (confirmed by my LCF - promise) and they have eight or nine kids between the ages of 12 months and probably 23 years. WHOA. Birth control.

The first week was not super exciting. A lot of class (8am-12pm, home for lunch then class from 2:30pm-5pm) and I'd come home to sit and study and just listen to the family talk. There are at least four nuclear families within my compound and I still don't understand who is who so I have been hanging out on my family's pourch with them. One thing at a time. Last week I was getting pretty frustrated though, sitting all day ni class and sitting all night with the family so I asked to help make dinner. Well. I helped for the subsequent 3 meals as well. I don't mind at all and they always ask if I'm tired but if my 16 year old host sister can cook and pound and stir and everything, I can too. And it definitely beats sitting. A lot. Saturday night I asked one of the other old men in my compound (no clue what his relation is) to teach me how to make the rope he was making. Fulanis are herders so I think once they get too old for herding they make the ropes. The man was super nice and showed me breifly then let me twist away. They take these plastic woven rice sacks, cut them apart to get individual plastic strips and twist is into rope. The resulting rope is crazy strong. So, I sat there twisting and twisting while the moon rose and the other men came home. I think I had the same conversation 5 times ... Fulani man: "can you do it?" Me:"Yeah! I'm learning to make rope!" Funlani Man: "do they do this in America?" Me: "No... we buy it, we're too lazy" And then it has to end because, like I mentioned... my language is pretty very extremely limited. Which is both a blessing and a curse.

Food
In a place that a third of children are chronically undernourished and food security is a major issue, there's not a huge food culture.You eat with your hand (RIGHT ONLY) and scoop the food from the communal bowl into your mouth. It's a lot of rice and salty sauce, or toh and slimey okra sauce. Toh... there's a whole different thing. I think the closest thing I can think of is polenta but take away any flavor and add a little slime and that's probably right. It's made by pounding millet into a very fine power, mixing it with a little water to dissolve, pouring it into boiling water and then cok and stir away and it thickens into a clay-like consistany. (This was one of my duties as assistant cook) I actually really liked it when I first got it but I think this is the fastest I have ever gotten sick of eating something. It's usually for dinner. Ah well. I look forward to cooking for myself... Or attempting...

Game plan from here:
Tomorrow we're heading back to the villages for another two weeks of language and living, then we'll come back to Tubaniso for a day of two to find out our sites for the next two years. Every volunteer has a Malian homologue or counterpart who will all be at Tubaniso when we come back in two weeks. Once we meet them, we'll travel via public transportation to our sites to see them for the first time. Because I'm learning a minority language I'll be up in Mopti region, chillin with the camels and probably sweating buckets. The Bambara learners don't have any idea where they'll go... I guess there are some nice mountins up there which I'm really excited about and I guess the Fulani people are really nice too which I think will be really important for my sanity ;)

I'll be back online in a couple of weeks! Probably ;)