I’ve come to San for just two days to say good bye to one of the volunteers whose COS (close of service) date has finally arrived after 3 ½ years of service in Mali. I’ll be back again for a night before leaving for Bamako on the ninth but not sure if I’ll get a letter out before I leave for Senegal.
My plan was to come in on Saturday, but I was roused early to find that my host family grandmother had passed away early that morning. I was surprised by the way Malians approach death. It was much more a celebration of her life than it was mourning her death. The women spent the morning preparing food for my host family as hundreds of people came to great the family throughout the morning. I sat for a few minutes with the women who sit inside the house with the body and sprayed the body with perfume before I left. The rest of the morning things continued as normal doing chores about the house that I thought that might be all. Around 4pm my homologue came to get me and we went to the common area where the service was held. The body was laying in the center of a wide circle of people and there were people singing and drumming for a while before the Pasteur performed a memorial service. All the while, women came to perfume the body as several men led prayers and hymns. When the service was over the attendants (I’m guessing about 700 men women and children) rushed out to the fields were the burial would take place. The hole was already dug by the men of the family and they climbed into the hole and were handed the body which they proceeded to use mud bricks and mud to seal the grave. A prayer was said then all the men of the village took turns shoveling dirt into the grave. Tree limbs and more mud bricks were the final step to keep animals from digging at the grave. we all went back to my host families house where we danced and sang and played the drums for a few minutes. People then went home and ate dinner until about 9pm when the music started again and people met at the common area for dancing that lasted quite literally until Sunday morning at around 6am. Before leaving Sunday morning, I went to great my host dad and still hundreds of women were gathered eating breakfast with the family. In all of this I never saw any tears shed, only smiles and celebrations. My homologue told me that her death was an opportunity to bring the community together to celebrate her life and that there is no reason to mourn when we will all die one day. Blunt, but a lovely way to approach death.
In other news, my homologues nephew planted some flowers in my garden...which is very hard to keep alive in Africa. Baba, one of the other boys told me that Seni just planted the flowers so he could spend more time with me because he has a crush on me, haha. My afternoons are still spent watering the garden and my arms are becoming quite toned due to the work. I’ve also enjoyed helping cook with some of the women in the mornings and am mortified that I ate Toh voluntarily for the first time upon coming to Africa and found it good. Wouldn’t want to eat it every day, but considering a few months ago I quite literally gagged myself when eating it, this is absolutely unprecedented. I’ve bonded with the family dog which I’m constantly being made fun of for. But I started to regret this development when he came prancing into my concession holding the bloody neck and head of a baby lamb and proceeded to eat it in my yard. Talk about reminders of my new life in Africa. I managed to give myself a fat lip when I went to get my water from the pump. I was tying the 20 liter water container to my bike rack with the rubber tie like always when the tie snapped and smacked me in the face. With half a dozen kids gasping at my rapidly swelling and bleeding lip I had to finish tying the container and rode home with very little dignity left. My Peace Corps doctor came to my site for site visit just to make sure everything was up to par and she gave me a flu shot. I have a love hate relationship with my doctor. She acts quickly to get us healthy but I’ve yet to see her without getting a shot. In the past year since I found out I was nominated for a position, I‘ve lost track but can only assume I’m well over 25 shots I’ve had to get, plus having to take malaria medicine every week for the next 2-3 years.
Love,
Cait
January 18, 2010
It is rare that I get the chance to send emails so closely together but I doubt it will happen enough for anyone to become spoiled by it.
In answer to a question Uncle Larry in particular asked, there is bee keeping in Mali. Honey is available in Bamako and some of the regional capitals though it is much harder to come by in village. As a potential project I’m trying to feel out my village for anyone interested in being trained as a beekeeper and thus introducing honey into the market. I think it would be a great opportunity for someone to start their own business or at least add to their income. The APCD (the head of every sector) of the environment sector is a beekeeper and would be more than willing to come to my village for training if I can find someone willing to take on the risk of learning a new trade (MUCH easier said than done)
I’ve returned to the local school (grades 7-9) a few times and assist in the English classes which is really fun and the kids seem to really enjoy it, that might be due to me not beating them when they get a question wrong, but I like to think that I’m a decent teacher. After working at summer camps for two summers, I’ve become more comfortable and enjoy working with kids who used to really intimidate me. I helped grade some papers from the final exam of the fall semester and the average of the English exam for the 7th grade was about 35%. Talk about discouraging. It makes me realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by highly motivated kids in my concession. My homologue’s kids get back from school around 5pm and then help with the cooking and bathing of younger kids then they spend much of the rest of the evening studying (at least Monday through Thursday). I guess I didn’t realize that study time is actually a luxury here and if my homologue didn’t make time for it, they could easily fill the evening doing more chores which are truly endless.
As far as my village I’ve only just realized that I’ve given few details about it. Sebanso is one of 7 villages making up the commune N’torosso. The so called “capital” of my commune is the village of Bolokalaso where the school I work with is located as well as the mayor’s office. The local doctor’s office is about 3 kilometers from my village and the maternity is situated directly across from it near the village of Sokoroni where the local tailor lives. My village, Sebanso, has about 650 people. It is a Christian village and next to my Chief of Village, the Pasteur is probably the most respected man in village. The dugutigi (chief of village) is kind of royalty and the title is passed down to the oldest son upon death. My dugutigi resets broken bones and works with traditional medicine which is pretty cool to see him brewing sometimes. My village is quite well off, relatively speaking, I have reasons to believe due in part to it being a Christian instead of a Muslim village that I’ll discuss later. Sebanso is very fortunate in that we have an wide array of resources such as an adult literacy program, a school (pre-K to 6th grade), a mill grinder, a cereal bank, and financial bank, a butiki aka the Wal-Mart of my village, well builders, animal raisers (and a veterinarian who lives in a neighboring village. Someone I’ve come to know quite well seeing as my homologue is president of the animal raisers association), an established women’s garden, basket weavers, and a tanteen (a women’s group that collects money each month from its members and every month a woman from the group gets to keep the money as a sort of personal savings).
Now, you might be curious as to my hypothesis that Christian villages financially are better off than Muslim villages or animist villages for that matter. It’s actually a very rational and logical conclusion that I’ve come to. The Muslim religion allows and some might argue promote polygamy allowing men to take up to four wives. When these men take multiple wives, with it come multiples sets of children and as all parents will attest, children are expensive. This also demands more housing among other things and nothing comes free. Christian families are still relatively large, most families I know have at least 6 kids but, when compared to some Muslim families where they have 20 or more children supported by one man, you can do the math for yourselves. Often these families are forced to take the older children out of school to work in the fields and take care of the younger children thus depriving them of much needed education, poor quality though it may be. I can’t reiterate enough how important I think improving the education system is to providing sustainable economic growth.
I’ve just returned from my first visit up north which I’m sure will have many more to come. I caught a bus to Sevrae on Thursday and arrived around 6:30 pm…about a three hour bus ride which was incredibly quick by Malian standards. I stayed in sevrae for the night then went to Bandiagara for a day before returning to sevrae on Saturday afternoon and now I’ve just returned to San. Bandiagara was absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to go on a hike through Dogon country. The cliffs, unlike the rest of Mali, are very picturesque and scenic (in the dry desert kind of way of course). Saturday afternoon was leisurely spent by the pool of a local hotel; I however refused to swim when I could not see the bottom on the pool. I did get to enjoy a cold apple juice while reading a magazine and listening to my ipod which was delightful. My friend and I ate dinner at a local restaurant that who he knew well and we were chatting with the owner seeing as we were the only customers. He was complaining about the affects terrorism and al-Qaida is having on his business. In fact, much of the tourism industry in the north has all but disappeared with Americans and most all western tourists having been advised/forbidden on going to Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. It’s so sad to see what might have been a great chance of development absolutely destroyed.
Love,
Cait
In answer to a question Uncle Larry in particular asked, there is bee keeping in Mali. Honey is available in Bamako and some of the regional capitals though it is much harder to come by in village. As a potential project I’m trying to feel out my village for anyone interested in being trained as a beekeeper and thus introducing honey into the market. I think it would be a great opportunity for someone to start their own business or at least add to their income. The APCD (the head of every sector) of the environment sector is a beekeeper and would be more than willing to come to my village for training if I can find someone willing to take on the risk of learning a new trade (MUCH easier said than done)
I’ve returned to the local school (grades 7-9) a few times and assist in the English classes which is really fun and the kids seem to really enjoy it, that might be due to me not beating them when they get a question wrong, but I like to think that I’m a decent teacher. After working at summer camps for two summers, I’ve become more comfortable and enjoy working with kids who used to really intimidate me. I helped grade some papers from the final exam of the fall semester and the average of the English exam for the 7th grade was about 35%. Talk about discouraging. It makes me realize how lucky I am to be surrounded by highly motivated kids in my concession. My homologue’s kids get back from school around 5pm and then help with the cooking and bathing of younger kids then they spend much of the rest of the evening studying (at least Monday through Thursday). I guess I didn’t realize that study time is actually a luxury here and if my homologue didn’t make time for it, they could easily fill the evening doing more chores which are truly endless.
As far as my village I’ve only just realized that I’ve given few details about it. Sebanso is one of 7 villages making up the commune N’torosso. The so called “capital” of my commune is the village of Bolokalaso where the school I work with is located as well as the mayor’s office. The local doctor’s office is about 3 kilometers from my village and the maternity is situated directly across from it near the village of Sokoroni where the local tailor lives. My village, Sebanso, has about 650 people. It is a Christian village and next to my Chief of Village, the Pasteur is probably the most respected man in village. The dugutigi (chief of village) is kind of royalty and the title is passed down to the oldest son upon death. My dugutigi resets broken bones and works with traditional medicine which is pretty cool to see him brewing sometimes. My village is quite well off, relatively speaking, I have reasons to believe due in part to it being a Christian instead of a Muslim village that I’ll discuss later. Sebanso is very fortunate in that we have an wide array of resources such as an adult literacy program, a school (pre-K to 6th grade), a mill grinder, a cereal bank, and financial bank, a butiki aka the Wal-Mart of my village, well builders, animal raisers (and a veterinarian who lives in a neighboring village. Someone I’ve come to know quite well seeing as my homologue is president of the animal raisers association), an established women’s garden, basket weavers, and a tanteen (a women’s group that collects money each month from its members and every month a woman from the group gets to keep the money as a sort of personal savings).
Now, you might be curious as to my hypothesis that Christian villages financially are better off than Muslim villages or animist villages for that matter. It’s actually a very rational and logical conclusion that I’ve come to. The Muslim religion allows and some might argue promote polygamy allowing men to take up to four wives. When these men take multiple wives, with it come multiples sets of children and as all parents will attest, children are expensive. This also demands more housing among other things and nothing comes free. Christian families are still relatively large, most families I know have at least 6 kids but, when compared to some Muslim families where they have 20 or more children supported by one man, you can do the math for yourselves. Often these families are forced to take the older children out of school to work in the fields and take care of the younger children thus depriving them of much needed education, poor quality though it may be. I can’t reiterate enough how important I think improving the education system is to providing sustainable economic growth.
I’ve just returned from my first visit up north which I’m sure will have many more to come. I caught a bus to Sevrae on Thursday and arrived around 6:30 pm…about a three hour bus ride which was incredibly quick by Malian standards. I stayed in sevrae for the night then went to Bandiagara for a day before returning to sevrae on Saturday afternoon and now I’ve just returned to San. Bandiagara was absolutely gorgeous and I can’t wait to go on a hike through Dogon country. The cliffs, unlike the rest of Mali, are very picturesque and scenic (in the dry desert kind of way of course). Saturday afternoon was leisurely spent by the pool of a local hotel; I however refused to swim when I could not see the bottom on the pool. I did get to enjoy a cold apple juice while reading a magazine and listening to my ipod which was delightful. My friend and I ate dinner at a local restaurant that who he knew well and we were chatting with the owner seeing as we were the only customers. He was complaining about the affects terrorism and al-Qaida is having on his business. In fact, much of the tourism industry in the north has all but disappeared with Americans and most all western tourists having been advised/forbidden on going to Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. It’s so sad to see what might have been a great chance of development absolutely destroyed.
Love,
Cait
January 14, 2010
I’ve just spent about three weeks at site without much reprieve and am thus thoroughly enjoying my trip to San. Of course, my trip was made even better because I didn’t have to bike in. My APCD (“my boss”) came to my site for a surprise visit to check on everything and he ended giving me a lift to San which was awesome, getting to ride in a car is always a treat.
My mailbox was inundated with letters that have arrived over the past few weeks and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. The holidays were anything but “normal” for me this year and it was so nice to hear things are still going on as “normal” back home. I had lots of questions asked in the letters so I’ll do my best to answer as many as possible without boring you too bad.
My past few weeks have been consumed with gardening, which is the primary activity during cold season. In the mornings I help in the women’s garden and in the afternoon I help in the family garden of my homologue. We currently are growing onions, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, some vegetable resembling an eggplant, beans, and we have several papaya trees that are just coming into season. In the women’s garden, we also have some trees in which we eat the roots of. I’m pushing for green beans and carrots next year, but it will take some convincing (there is not much of a demand in market for them). Gardening is incredibly demanding work. All the actual planting and tilling is done with hand held hoes made with a piece of metal wedged into a chunk of wood, kind of primitive but quite effective. Of course, this means that to garden you have to be bent over (there is no sitting or kneeling here; it’s always bending at the waist so that they’re pretty much doubled over). Of course, like most things in Mali I’m completely inadequate at gardening but I can help water the garden so in the afternoon, the young boys in the family draw the water from the well and fill the women’s watering cans and we water the whole garden. It takes about an hour every afternoon to water and then they have to weed and tend to the garden. We go to market every Thursday in a town about 10k from my village and then my homologue goes to San every Monday for market because he has a moto. I always ride my bike to market with Kari, my homologues best friend because he only has a bike too, and nearly all the women take donkey or horse drawn carts with their goods to sell. I can find pretty much everything I need at market as far as food goes, bread is always a treat because I don’t really get it any other time. The fish section of the market is downright foul smelling but the Malians sure do love their dried fish, I however tend to stick to the fruits and veggies. Watermelon season has just ended, sad to say, but we still have bananas and a cross between an orange and a lemon. There are “booths” set up everywhere selling everything you can image from nails to clothes to baskets and jewelry. The booths are actually just tarps tied together and to tree posts in attempt to block the sun, however, the ropes often hang low and more than once I’ve close lined myself while trying to navigate the chaos of hundreds of people bargaining and selling around me.
I’ve learned so much about reusing since coming to Mali. Potato sacks have absolutely unbounded possibilities. They’re used for storage, for sack gardening in houses for herbs, they can be shredded into individual threads and made into rope which is thus used to tie the animals up, pull water from the well, as clothes lines, “bungee cords” for loading goods on the donkey carts, etc, the threads of sack are also used to mend clothes as well as sew together leaking/broken gourd baskets. No waste.
I’ve learned how to make mud bricks which are incredibly heavy, and then made mud fences and houses from the bricks. I’ve learned how to make peanut butter, which is incredibly labor intensive and I’ll never be able to eat it as casually again without remembering what all went into making it. I help with the cooking and have learned to make toh, a classic Malian dish I choose not to eat on a daily basis as the Malians do. It too is very labor intensive. The millet has to be pounded, then sifted and pounded and sifted then cooked over a wood fire while stirring constantly at a consistency of cement. None of this is made any easier by cooking over a wood fire that causes my eyes to absolutely burn and tear and nose to run so that I’m blinded and stuffy by the end.
Our bank in village is surprisingly sophisticated in that we give out loans. We are only open Friday mornings, but last Friday alone we gave four loans. There is also a “savings account” so people quit tucking their money under their mattress, though the majority of people still do. Most people’s guarantees for their loans are a specified number of goats, cows or donkeys which I found pretty entertaining. Though not very long ago the primary punishment for people defaulting on a loan was to make them stand in the sun for two days and if the still wouldn’t pay, they’d go to jail, so I was very impressed to see this improvement in just a few years.
The African Cup of Nations is going on in Angola right now. I don’t know how much US coverage it’s getting, but there is such passion for soccer here that it’s all my village can talk about. The tournament actually started with Mali vs. Angola and it looked like it was all over when ten minutes to go, Angola was up 4-0, yet somehow, the final score was 4-4. I’ve never seen anything like it. The fact that the tournament is being held in Angola is pretty controversial and has been made more so by the recent attack on the Togolese team, killing three on their way to the tournament and causing them to drop out and return to Togo. The bus had just crossed into Angola from Congo when they were attacked by a local rebel group and the bus went under gun fire for nearly half an hour. Angola is also not a particularly easy place to get too and thus very expensive so not many fans get to go to the tournament though millions of dollars went into infrastructure and stadiums (remember that over half the population in Angola is living on less than a dollar a day). Also, Angola only ended their 27 year long civil war in 2002 and are still very much recovering in every imaginable context.
If anyone is interested, I have successfully defeated my sand trap when biking, though the count was lost well after it won for the 30th time. I figured it’s all about speed and leaving early in the morning before the sand has had time to loosen up and suck me in like quick sand. It’s been pointed out to me too that I hold my handle bars of my bike unusually and I realized that I hold onto my handle bars like I would hold the reins while riding with my pinky and thumb on the underneath of the handle. Americans and Malians both have commented on it and I’ve tried to change but to no avail.
Love,
Cait
My mailbox was inundated with letters that have arrived over the past few weeks and I can’t tell you how much it means to me. The holidays were anything but “normal” for me this year and it was so nice to hear things are still going on as “normal” back home. I had lots of questions asked in the letters so I’ll do my best to answer as many as possible without boring you too bad.
My past few weeks have been consumed with gardening, which is the primary activity during cold season. In the mornings I help in the women’s garden and in the afternoon I help in the family garden of my homologue. We currently are growing onions, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, some vegetable resembling an eggplant, beans, and we have several papaya trees that are just coming into season. In the women’s garden, we also have some trees in which we eat the roots of. I’m pushing for green beans and carrots next year, but it will take some convincing (there is not much of a demand in market for them). Gardening is incredibly demanding work. All the actual planting and tilling is done with hand held hoes made with a piece of metal wedged into a chunk of wood, kind of primitive but quite effective. Of course, this means that to garden you have to be bent over (there is no sitting or kneeling here; it’s always bending at the waist so that they’re pretty much doubled over). Of course, like most things in Mali I’m completely inadequate at gardening but I can help water the garden so in the afternoon, the young boys in the family draw the water from the well and fill the women’s watering cans and we water the whole garden. It takes about an hour every afternoon to water and then they have to weed and tend to the garden. We go to market every Thursday in a town about 10k from my village and then my homologue goes to San every Monday for market because he has a moto. I always ride my bike to market with Kari, my homologues best friend because he only has a bike too, and nearly all the women take donkey or horse drawn carts with their goods to sell. I can find pretty much everything I need at market as far as food goes, bread is always a treat because I don’t really get it any other time. The fish section of the market is downright foul smelling but the Malians sure do love their dried fish, I however tend to stick to the fruits and veggies. Watermelon season has just ended, sad to say, but we still have bananas and a cross between an orange and a lemon. There are “booths” set up everywhere selling everything you can image from nails to clothes to baskets and jewelry. The booths are actually just tarps tied together and to tree posts in attempt to block the sun, however, the ropes often hang low and more than once I’ve close lined myself while trying to navigate the chaos of hundreds of people bargaining and selling around me.
I’ve learned so much about reusing since coming to Mali. Potato sacks have absolutely unbounded possibilities. They’re used for storage, for sack gardening in houses for herbs, they can be shredded into individual threads and made into rope which is thus used to tie the animals up, pull water from the well, as clothes lines, “bungee cords” for loading goods on the donkey carts, etc, the threads of sack are also used to mend clothes as well as sew together leaking/broken gourd baskets. No waste.
I’ve learned how to make mud bricks which are incredibly heavy, and then made mud fences and houses from the bricks. I’ve learned how to make peanut butter, which is incredibly labor intensive and I’ll never be able to eat it as casually again without remembering what all went into making it. I help with the cooking and have learned to make toh, a classic Malian dish I choose not to eat on a daily basis as the Malians do. It too is very labor intensive. The millet has to be pounded, then sifted and pounded and sifted then cooked over a wood fire while stirring constantly at a consistency of cement. None of this is made any easier by cooking over a wood fire that causes my eyes to absolutely burn and tear and nose to run so that I’m blinded and stuffy by the end.
Our bank in village is surprisingly sophisticated in that we give out loans. We are only open Friday mornings, but last Friday alone we gave four loans. There is also a “savings account” so people quit tucking their money under their mattress, though the majority of people still do. Most people’s guarantees for their loans are a specified number of goats, cows or donkeys which I found pretty entertaining. Though not very long ago the primary punishment for people defaulting on a loan was to make them stand in the sun for two days and if the still wouldn’t pay, they’d go to jail, so I was very impressed to see this improvement in just a few years.
The African Cup of Nations is going on in Angola right now. I don’t know how much US coverage it’s getting, but there is such passion for soccer here that it’s all my village can talk about. The tournament actually started with Mali vs. Angola and it looked like it was all over when ten minutes to go, Angola was up 4-0, yet somehow, the final score was 4-4. I’ve never seen anything like it. The fact that the tournament is being held in Angola is pretty controversial and has been made more so by the recent attack on the Togolese team, killing three on their way to the tournament and causing them to drop out and return to Togo. The bus had just crossed into Angola from Congo when they were attacked by a local rebel group and the bus went under gun fire for nearly half an hour. Angola is also not a particularly easy place to get too and thus very expensive so not many fans get to go to the tournament though millions of dollars went into infrastructure and stadiums (remember that over half the population in Angola is living on less than a dollar a day). Also, Angola only ended their 27 year long civil war in 2002 and are still very much recovering in every imaginable context.
If anyone is interested, I have successfully defeated my sand trap when biking, though the count was lost well after it won for the 30th time. I figured it’s all about speed and leaving early in the morning before the sand has had time to loosen up and suck me in like quick sand. It’s been pointed out to me too that I hold my handle bars of my bike unusually and I realized that I hold onto my handle bars like I would hold the reins while riding with my pinky and thumb on the underneath of the handle. Americans and Malians both have commented on it and I’ve tried to change but to no avail.
Love,
Cait
December 31, 2009
Happy New Years Eve!!! I hope 2010 gets off to a good start. This New Years Eve won’t be quite as glamorous as last year on Halong Bay, Vietnam, but I’m excited to get it started none the less
My past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. IST technically ended on the 19th, but I opted to stay until the 23rd for a workshop with an NGO called Right to Play. It uses sports and games to educate students on AIDS. There were about 25 of us who stayed and other sectors had field trips as well, so it turned to be most of our STAGE that stayed the extra two days and then got to take Peace Corps transport out on Wednesday. I left for San on Thursday, Christmas Eve, and had my first Malian outfit made. Christian villages have a fabric printed every year so my homologue really wanted me to wear it for the Christmas service. As it turns out, they celebrate Christmas for three days 24-26, so basically a never ending feast. They killed several pigs which was a pleasant surprise after not having seen pork in months.
While in San I was able to pick up some packages and the Christmas tree and decorations you sent mom absolutely made my Christmas. I’m sure I looked ridiculous riding back with a mountain of boxes on my bike but I wanted take everything home. I turned on my ipod and listened to Christmas music and decorated my tree while snacking on the cookies and goodies. It was very special and I even had three wrapped presents to put “under” the tree plus my stocking, all of which I saved for Christmas morning. Christmas day was reserved primarily for a 4 hour church service with tons of singing and some dancing then chatting and relaxing the rest of the day while the 26th was the all night dance party. There is no way I can keep up with those dancers so I stuck with the old ladies who were much more my speed.
Since then, things calmed down a little. It is Christmas break so all the kids are home all day which I’ve never really experienced so it’s been fun playing with them, and I’ll try to send a video or two of them singing and dancing. Most of the youth my age also returned from Bamako and other regional capitals from school so it was nice to see them and I’ve had more visitors this past week than most my time here added together. My homologue must have told our Pasteur that all my friends were in Mopti or Bamako for Christmas but I had come to site, so Daniel (Pasteur) announced it on Christmas morning to the whole village so they were all smiling at me kind of awkwardly for the rest of the day, very embarrassing.
The kids have been my constant companions as of late and I’ve had the chance to see how they entertain themselves. Two boys, Izac and Etienne, were bowling one afternoon. They each lined up 4 old D batteries and then used a ninth battery as the bowling ball. This entertained them for hours. The girls have their version of rind around the rosy as well as patty cake so it’s been fun watching them play that too. I brought a nerf football and they’ve taken to playing soccer with it which has turned out to be incredibly entertaining seeing as a football has really awkward bounces that they way over/under estimate when to kick. Whenever I’m having a bad day I just have to spend a few minutes with the kids (certain kids of course drive me absolutely crazy so I’m kind of selective who gets to play in my yard) to make me feel better.
Love,
Cait
My past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. IST technically ended on the 19th, but I opted to stay until the 23rd for a workshop with an NGO called Right to Play. It uses sports and games to educate students on AIDS. There were about 25 of us who stayed and other sectors had field trips as well, so it turned to be most of our STAGE that stayed the extra two days and then got to take Peace Corps transport out on Wednesday. I left for San on Thursday, Christmas Eve, and had my first Malian outfit made. Christian villages have a fabric printed every year so my homologue really wanted me to wear it for the Christmas service. As it turns out, they celebrate Christmas for three days 24-26, so basically a never ending feast. They killed several pigs which was a pleasant surprise after not having seen pork in months.
While in San I was able to pick up some packages and the Christmas tree and decorations you sent mom absolutely made my Christmas. I’m sure I looked ridiculous riding back with a mountain of boxes on my bike but I wanted take everything home. I turned on my ipod and listened to Christmas music and decorated my tree while snacking on the cookies and goodies. It was very special and I even had three wrapped presents to put “under” the tree plus my stocking, all of which I saved for Christmas morning. Christmas day was reserved primarily for a 4 hour church service with tons of singing and some dancing then chatting and relaxing the rest of the day while the 26th was the all night dance party. There is no way I can keep up with those dancers so I stuck with the old ladies who were much more my speed.
Since then, things calmed down a little. It is Christmas break so all the kids are home all day which I’ve never really experienced so it’s been fun playing with them, and I’ll try to send a video or two of them singing and dancing. Most of the youth my age also returned from Bamako and other regional capitals from school so it was nice to see them and I’ve had more visitors this past week than most my time here added together. My homologue must have told our Pasteur that all my friends were in Mopti or Bamako for Christmas but I had come to site, so Daniel (Pasteur) announced it on Christmas morning to the whole village so they were all smiling at me kind of awkwardly for the rest of the day, very embarrassing.
The kids have been my constant companions as of late and I’ve had the chance to see how they entertain themselves. Two boys, Izac and Etienne, were bowling one afternoon. They each lined up 4 old D batteries and then used a ninth battery as the bowling ball. This entertained them for hours. The girls have their version of rind around the rosy as well as patty cake so it’s been fun watching them play that too. I brought a nerf football and they’ve taken to playing soccer with it which has turned out to be incredibly entertaining seeing as a football has really awkward bounces that they way over/under estimate when to kick. Whenever I’m having a bad day I just have to spend a few minutes with the kids (certain kids of course drive me absolutely crazy so I’m kind of selective who gets to play in my yard) to make me feel better.
Love,
Cait
December 23, 2009
This is probably the last chance I’ll get to write before Christmas so I wanted to was you to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and I’m so sad that I won’t be there celebrating with you, but I’ll be thinking about you all day. Apparently Malian Christians celebrate Christmas by eating all day and dancing all night which will be very interesting considering that I have no ability to dance…at least I should be a source of entertainment, not that this is anything new here. I’ve bought some Christmas fabric that hopefully can be made into an outfit before Christmas because the whole village buys the same print for the holiday.
I’m not really sure on your plans for the holidays, the last I heard, Becky and Phil are going to Philadelphia and Molly and Chad will be spending much of their day at the Evely’s but I hope that papa can make it out or you and dad can make it out to Frankfort. I’m not going totally without Christmas either, we had a white elephant gift exchange and yummy dinner a few nights ago at Tubaniso which will have to suffice for my American fix. We decorated the “mess hall” with paper snowflakes and drawings of reindeer and Christmas trees. It was nice to be able to just immerse ourselves not matter how brief in some American culture.
IST has been totally draining, but at the same time has flown by and I can’t believe that I’m heading back to site for what feels like an indeterminate amount of time. I know that I’ll be leaving in February for Senegal and the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). Most all of my stage is going so that will be a nice reunion of sorts especially because some of the people who have left I might not see again until my close of service in 2011, so surreal. I’ve definitely been able to reconnect with my two best friends Rose and Emily so I have no doubts that I’ll be keeping in touch with them especially because Emily is only in Mopti thus not too far away and Rose is just outside of Bamako and I have to come into Bamako several times a year.
Another highlight of IST was going to my first Malian concert. The singer was a guitarist named Habib Kote and he was fabulous. We had a pretty big crowd of volunteer who went and the venue was exclusively American and European so we got to really be ourselves. Living with Malians all the time can be exhausting; constantly having to be on guard and making sure you’re always abiding by their culture. It was the first time I really got to meet some of the Malian ex-pats and NGO workers…many of which were old Peace Corps volunteers. It was cool, but I’m so happy to be able to return to my village. I wouldn’t want to be with them too much because it’s pretty much like a mini America. A few friends and I stayed at one of the ex-pats houses and it felt utterly bizarre. AC, frig, stove, coffee machine, flowers, beds, couches, counters, good food…it felt like I was cheating. It was definitely nice to be reminded that I will one day be able to return to my so called life of luxury but for the time being I’m perfectly content in my mud hut.
I had a pretty awesome day the other day with my homologue where we set up a temporary plan for work projects and he is so excited to get started. He has a pretty awesome garden and is respected in the community so I had wanted to introduce the urine fertilization technique we learned about but most Malians are pretty averse to it. He brought it up to me and asked me to help him organize a training/demonstration for the village. It’s a great technique to increase dramatically production of all garden products so he is really excited to try it out. If he has any success I have no doubt that the other villagers will jump on the band wagon.
Love,
Cait
I’m not really sure on your plans for the holidays, the last I heard, Becky and Phil are going to Philadelphia and Molly and Chad will be spending much of their day at the Evely’s but I hope that papa can make it out or you and dad can make it out to Frankfort. I’m not going totally without Christmas either, we had a white elephant gift exchange and yummy dinner a few nights ago at Tubaniso which will have to suffice for my American fix. We decorated the “mess hall” with paper snowflakes and drawings of reindeer and Christmas trees. It was nice to be able to just immerse ourselves not matter how brief in some American culture.
IST has been totally draining, but at the same time has flown by and I can’t believe that I’m heading back to site for what feels like an indeterminate amount of time. I know that I’ll be leaving in February for Senegal and the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). Most all of my stage is going so that will be a nice reunion of sorts especially because some of the people who have left I might not see again until my close of service in 2011, so surreal. I’ve definitely been able to reconnect with my two best friends Rose and Emily so I have no doubts that I’ll be keeping in touch with them especially because Emily is only in Mopti thus not too far away and Rose is just outside of Bamako and I have to come into Bamako several times a year.
Another highlight of IST was going to my first Malian concert. The singer was a guitarist named Habib Kote and he was fabulous. We had a pretty big crowd of volunteer who went and the venue was exclusively American and European so we got to really be ourselves. Living with Malians all the time can be exhausting; constantly having to be on guard and making sure you’re always abiding by their culture. It was the first time I really got to meet some of the Malian ex-pats and NGO workers…many of which were old Peace Corps volunteers. It was cool, but I’m so happy to be able to return to my village. I wouldn’t want to be with them too much because it’s pretty much like a mini America. A few friends and I stayed at one of the ex-pats houses and it felt utterly bizarre. AC, frig, stove, coffee machine, flowers, beds, couches, counters, good food…it felt like I was cheating. It was definitely nice to be reminded that I will one day be able to return to my so called life of luxury but for the time being I’m perfectly content in my mud hut.
I had a pretty awesome day the other day with my homologue where we set up a temporary plan for work projects and he is so excited to get started. He has a pretty awesome garden and is respected in the community so I had wanted to introduce the urine fertilization technique we learned about but most Malians are pretty averse to it. He brought it up to me and asked me to help him organize a training/demonstration for the village. It’s a great technique to increase dramatically production of all garden products so he is really excited to try it out. If he has any success I have no doubt that the other villagers will jump on the band wagon.
Love,
Cait
December 11, 2009
IST is going well and I’m having a great time and for once, really feel like I’m learning at lot from my sessions. Today we had several hours of HIV courses and local language vocabulary as well as possible methods to raise AIDS awareness back at our sites.
My most influential class I ever had in college was economic development where every day we would study a different factor contributing to the poverty cycle and analyze its affects. I remember the day we spent on AIDS, but now having lived in Africa for several months (which I still can’t really believe), I can actually see how AIDS is in fact contributing to cyclical poverty. Part of my job as a volunteer is to try to help Americans understand the culture where I’m living, daily life, interesting beliefs/traditions, etc. Thus I’m going to start writing about some of the issues I’ve been forced to deal with everyday while living here in hopes of explaining why Mali is in fact one of the five economically poorest countries in the world. Today, thanks to my morning sessions, I’m writing about AIDS and their role in perpetuating the poverty cycle in Mali.
-68% of people in the world suffering from AIDS live in Sub-Saharan West Africa, 90% of infants with AIDS live in Sub-Saharan West Africa
-As men and women are infected with the disease, they become less productive in both their physical ability to produce on the small scale as well as their life expectancy and the loss of production associated with a shorter lifespan.
-Myths exist in Mali that mosquitoes are the only way to contract AIDS. Another popular myth is that Americans are always pushing for condom use because they’ve put AIDS in the condoms thus gains financially as people have to buy our medicine.
-Education is the best means to fight AIDS but teachers are often victims, leaving their students without teachers. Additionally, as parents get AIDS, children (especially young women) are pulled out of school so as to take care of the other children and house hold responsibilities. Often, these young girls are forced into prostitution to contribute financially, which of course only exacerbates the spread of AIDS.
-Mali is a Muslim country and most families are polygamist, so when if a man contracts the disease, he is likely to spread it to each of his four wives (four is generally the most wives one man will have).
-As countries develop, their roads and infrastructure develop internationally; however truck stops are a huge source of AIDS spread and with more international traffic, countries like Mali, who have relatively low levels of AIDS become inundated with a disease they don’t have the ability to contain.
-Mali provides everyone with AIDS with medicine, however it is hard to be tested and harder to have access to hospitals or local doctors in which they can receive the required meds daily or weekly.
-Governments are forced to spend an enormous amount of resources on caring for orphans and treating the disease itself that they don’t have the ability to test everyone, thus allowing for decreased production from workers, and again you can see the cycle…children having to leave school uneducated about how AIDS is actually contracted, etc.
-Sex is also an extremely culturally sensitive topic. For example, in Mali you are not to talk about a woman if she is pregnant because it insinuates that she has had sex, thus sex education is almost nonexistent in the schools. Along similar lines but another topic for another day, 90% of Malian women are forced to have genital mutilation.
-Another Malian specific problem is that it is the woman’s responsibility to provide protection via condoms, birth control, etc. However, many women don’t have any source of income in which to purchase these or the education to know that they have options.
This is definitely the hardest part of development work. So much of what we learn is on a large scale and absolutely impossible to see a silver lining. The only way I can maintain my sanity is to try to focus on one person or one day and try to make a difference in one life. We talked today about how important options are and that we have to focus on giving people information they wouldn’t have otherwise. We can’t make a person make the decision we want, but we can let them know all the information. It’s so hard to take that stance because you can see people making the wrong choice in your village even after you’ve done your best to lead them in the direction you want them to take yet there is nothing you can do. In these circumstances you just have to keep talking and hope that someone else is listening.
Hope you all got something out of this email, I know it helps me just writing things down, so this email has at least helped me articulate some things that have been on my mind recently. If you want any details about anything in particular about life in Mali or Africa, let me know and I’ll try to give you a firsthand account. I know many people have questions about my opinion on why Africa never seems to be able to develop and I’m learning more everyday about the causes that seem to inhibit development here.
Love,
Cait
My most influential class I ever had in college was economic development where every day we would study a different factor contributing to the poverty cycle and analyze its affects. I remember the day we spent on AIDS, but now having lived in Africa for several months (which I still can’t really believe), I can actually see how AIDS is in fact contributing to cyclical poverty. Part of my job as a volunteer is to try to help Americans understand the culture where I’m living, daily life, interesting beliefs/traditions, etc. Thus I’m going to start writing about some of the issues I’ve been forced to deal with everyday while living here in hopes of explaining why Mali is in fact one of the five economically poorest countries in the world. Today, thanks to my morning sessions, I’m writing about AIDS and their role in perpetuating the poverty cycle in Mali.
-68% of people in the world suffering from AIDS live in Sub-Saharan West Africa, 90% of infants with AIDS live in Sub-Saharan West Africa
-As men and women are infected with the disease, they become less productive in both their physical ability to produce on the small scale as well as their life expectancy and the loss of production associated with a shorter lifespan.
-Myths exist in Mali that mosquitoes are the only way to contract AIDS. Another popular myth is that Americans are always pushing for condom use because they’ve put AIDS in the condoms thus gains financially as people have to buy our medicine.
-Education is the best means to fight AIDS but teachers are often victims, leaving their students without teachers. Additionally, as parents get AIDS, children (especially young women) are pulled out of school so as to take care of the other children and house hold responsibilities. Often, these young girls are forced into prostitution to contribute financially, which of course only exacerbates the spread of AIDS.
-Mali is a Muslim country and most families are polygamist, so when if a man contracts the disease, he is likely to spread it to each of his four wives (four is generally the most wives one man will have).
-As countries develop, their roads and infrastructure develop internationally; however truck stops are a huge source of AIDS spread and with more international traffic, countries like Mali, who have relatively low levels of AIDS become inundated with a disease they don’t have the ability to contain.
-Mali provides everyone with AIDS with medicine, however it is hard to be tested and harder to have access to hospitals or local doctors in which they can receive the required meds daily or weekly.
-Governments are forced to spend an enormous amount of resources on caring for orphans and treating the disease itself that they don’t have the ability to test everyone, thus allowing for decreased production from workers, and again you can see the cycle…children having to leave school uneducated about how AIDS is actually contracted, etc.
-Sex is also an extremely culturally sensitive topic. For example, in Mali you are not to talk about a woman if she is pregnant because it insinuates that she has had sex, thus sex education is almost nonexistent in the schools. Along similar lines but another topic for another day, 90% of Malian women are forced to have genital mutilation.
-Another Malian specific problem is that it is the woman’s responsibility to provide protection via condoms, birth control, etc. However, many women don’t have any source of income in which to purchase these or the education to know that they have options.
This is definitely the hardest part of development work. So much of what we learn is on a large scale and absolutely impossible to see a silver lining. The only way I can maintain my sanity is to try to focus on one person or one day and try to make a difference in one life. We talked today about how important options are and that we have to focus on giving people information they wouldn’t have otherwise. We can’t make a person make the decision we want, but we can let them know all the information. It’s so hard to take that stance because you can see people making the wrong choice in your village even after you’ve done your best to lead them in the direction you want them to take yet there is nothing you can do. In these circumstances you just have to keep talking and hope that someone else is listening.
Hope you all got something out of this email, I know it helps me just writing things down, so this email has at least helped me articulate some things that have been on my mind recently. If you want any details about anything in particular about life in Mali or Africa, let me know and I’ll try to give you a firsthand account. I know many people have questions about my opinion on why Africa never seems to be able to develop and I’m learning more everyday about the causes that seem to inhibit development here.
Love,
Cait
December 7, 2009
I’ve arrived safely at Tubaniso and it is surreal to say the least. It’s amazing that I met all these people five months ago, hung out for random days for two months, and disappeared to site for three months and now thrown together again like nothing has changed. The crazier part is, I’m so excited to see people I know that it doesn’t seem weird that I’ve only known them a few days. I’ve been given more hugs in the past 24 hours by what would under normal situations be with relative strangers, but when you have to discuss in detail your medical and personal problems with complete strangers, it’s quite the bonding experience.
I got to take Peace Corps transit to Bamako which was awesome because it’s free, reliable, and has air conditioning. We spent the evening chatting and catching up with everyone and better news…I got a new room that’s bigger and has a thatched roof!! I hate tin roofs; they’re so loud, though of course there is not too much rain these days to make a racket. I have a whole new respect for Becky and Phil adjusting to Florida, because I don’t know the temperature last night, but I was in two sweatshirts and sweatpants and socks and still freezing! Who knew I’d be cold in Mali.
This morning was delightful to have my water heated for me to take my bucket bath and bread for breakfast. We don’t have bread in my village so I only get to eat it once a week at market, thus every morning for breakfast here I make a pb&j sandwich. I just had a great session where I debriefed all the SED’s and trainers about my site and what I hope to accomplish etc, and it was nice to hear other people were having the same questions and concerns as me. I’ve got a language test coming up in a few minutes which I’m terrified for…I don’t think I speak bad bambara, but it surely isn’t great and I hate oral exams anyways.
I forgot how structured our days at Tubaniso are so that will be an adjustment for sure considering pretty much every hour of my next two weeks is planned out for me. Fortunately, we have a week here by ourselves before our homologues come for a week which I’m dreading. It gets so crowded with them here and makes lines at dinner a logistical nightmare. The sessions look pretty interesting though and tell Uncle Larry that I’m going to a beekeeping session and we have killer bees here! I’ll take some pictures and send them along in a few days.
I just loaded up on my malaria meds which I have to take every Sunday which is particularly annoying because the side effects never seem to really end. Some weeks are worse than others, but Sunday nights I’m pretty much guaranteed to have nightmares or extremely vivid dreams at the very least. Fortunately, insomnia is a common side effect that I haven’t had since the first few weeks and I never got sick which is lucky because most people taking Mefloquine would get bad cramps and nausea.
Love,
Cait
I got to take Peace Corps transit to Bamako which was awesome because it’s free, reliable, and has air conditioning. We spent the evening chatting and catching up with everyone and better news…I got a new room that’s bigger and has a thatched roof!! I hate tin roofs; they’re so loud, though of course there is not too much rain these days to make a racket. I have a whole new respect for Becky and Phil adjusting to Florida, because I don’t know the temperature last night, but I was in two sweatshirts and sweatpants and socks and still freezing! Who knew I’d be cold in Mali.
This morning was delightful to have my water heated for me to take my bucket bath and bread for breakfast. We don’t have bread in my village so I only get to eat it once a week at market, thus every morning for breakfast here I make a pb&j sandwich. I just had a great session where I debriefed all the SED’s and trainers about my site and what I hope to accomplish etc, and it was nice to hear other people were having the same questions and concerns as me. I’ve got a language test coming up in a few minutes which I’m terrified for…I don’t think I speak bad bambara, but it surely isn’t great and I hate oral exams anyways.
I forgot how structured our days at Tubaniso are so that will be an adjustment for sure considering pretty much every hour of my next two weeks is planned out for me. Fortunately, we have a week here by ourselves before our homologues come for a week which I’m dreading. It gets so crowded with them here and makes lines at dinner a logistical nightmare. The sessions look pretty interesting though and tell Uncle Larry that I’m going to a beekeeping session and we have killer bees here! I’ll take some pictures and send them along in a few days.
I just loaded up on my malaria meds which I have to take every Sunday which is particularly annoying because the side effects never seem to really end. Some weeks are worse than others, but Sunday nights I’m pretty much guaranteed to have nightmares or extremely vivid dreams at the very least. Fortunately, insomnia is a common side effect that I haven’t had since the first few weeks and I never got sick which is lucky because most people taking Mefloquine would get bad cramps and nausea.
Love,
Cait
November 24, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!!! I’m writing because I wanted to let you all know that I have in fact successfully survived my 97 kilometer bike ride to San on Tuesday. I’m a little sore, but all in all, it was a fun day…it took about 6 hours but I’m confident I could have done it in five if I do it again. The four of us who rode, received the most bizarre reactions from the Malians who just could not understand why we would do such a thing when we could afford bus tickets. Regardless, we set out early and it made for a lovely day…long, but fun.
Today there are eight of us cooking up a storm for Thanksgiving and it’s going to be great! My next several weeks are going to be incredibly busy so I’m just trying to enjoy the holidays and get wrapped up in what I’m doing so I don’t have to think about what I’m missing at home. It doesn’t really feel like Thanksgiving so it’s not too sad, the 80 degrees and nice breeze probably have something to do with weirdness of holidays. The saddest part of the day is that when we’re done eating, I won’t be decorating the house for Christmas.
December 1 is world AIDS day and Peace Corps San has sponsored a soccer game and dance on the 1st. I’m going home quickly on the 27th and then coming back to san on the 1st then back home on the second and back to San on the 5th to leave for Bamako on the 6th. I’m not sure if I’ll actually go back and forth both times, when I come up Tuesday, I might just stay until I leave for Bamako and just take a month off from site. I suppose it will be a good opportunity to reinvigorate myself and allow me to get my thoughts together and project ideas started.
Love,
Cait
Today there are eight of us cooking up a storm for Thanksgiving and it’s going to be great! My next several weeks are going to be incredibly busy so I’m just trying to enjoy the holidays and get wrapped up in what I’m doing so I don’t have to think about what I’m missing at home. It doesn’t really feel like Thanksgiving so it’s not too sad, the 80 degrees and nice breeze probably have something to do with weirdness of holidays. The saddest part of the day is that when we’re done eating, I won’t be decorating the house for Christmas.
December 1 is world AIDS day and Peace Corps San has sponsored a soccer game and dance on the 1st. I’m going home quickly on the 27th and then coming back to san on the 1st then back home on the second and back to San on the 5th to leave for Bamako on the 6th. I’m not sure if I’ll actually go back and forth both times, when I come up Tuesday, I might just stay until I leave for Bamako and just take a month off from site. I suppose it will be a good opportunity to reinvigorate myself and allow me to get my thoughts together and project ideas started.
Love,
Cait
November 21, 2009
I hope you all are getting ready for yummy thanksgiving food…I will miss you all tremendously, but at least I will be with a big group of friends coming into san. Additionally, in order to work up an appetitive (not too hard in Africa) I’m biking 90 kilometers on Tuesday from a friends site. I think I’m nearing insanity for even contemplating this, but it should be a good experience none the less and I’ll quite literally get my butt in shape. It takes me about 2 hours to bike 30 k, so this will be quite a demanding day, but I’m looking forward to the challenge. I’m actually quite proficient at biking now. While sand has proven to be tricky to navigate, I’ve nearly mastered how to approach it. This one sand trap I have to cross to get to the road though, has been the vain of my existence. Right now the current score stands, sand tap :11, Caitlin: 0… I’m working on a new plan of attack, but now it’s war.
I’ve had a fairly demanding few days at site. On Thursday night, my homologues wife’s brother came over and we chatted for a bit then the next morning, one of his kids died. I’ve only seen the kid in passing and he never stood out amongst the dozens of kids constantly running around, but it was a shock, and jolt back to reality. Then, yesterday morning, I was counting literally hundreds of goats and sheep as they were loaded into huge vans heading for Bamako when one villager came up one goat short. He was supposed to have 27 goats but I only counted 26 loaded (they’re all spray painted in a certain color or design to denote ownership). The 30 or so men all started to search frantically through their goats but no one could find the missing goat. My homologue told me later that when they were herding the goats to the trucks in the morning the missing goat apparently fell down a well… thus, well covers will probably be an up and coming project for me to work on getting funding for.
Peace Corps volunteers have now been evacuated from Mauritania, Guinea and volunteers in Niger are being consolidated and I’ll keep you updated on their security status as we hear about it. Right now, Mali is still perfectly safe and stable (with the exception of the north-Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal) but with all of our neighbors being evacuated I wanted you all to rest assured that every precaution is being made regarding our safety and if there Is the slightest threat we’ll be removed with efficiency. On the other hand, Mali now ranks first in the most demanding country of service among all countries volunteers are present in. Kind of vain, but volunteers pride themselves on their rank… some kind of twisted logic that makes us feel better when we get overwhelmed by our day to day life.
My best friend here is Holly (Holly and Brad are the two from my stage in San joining 7 others from the Stage before us). Holly and I have gotten very close and our villages are only about 10 kilometers away. Unfortunately she has been complaining about numbness in her right foot and despite a week of tests in Bamako she was just sent to Washington DC for further treatment. Her return flight is scheduled for the 6th of December, but she’s pretty bummed to be alone on Thanksgiving… she’s from Seattle and her parents are coming to Mali in January so who knows if they’ll make a trip to the east coast. Needless to say, this has been a pretty crazy past few days.
Despite all the craziness surrounding me, I’m doing really well and have absolutely thrown our doctor here for a loop. She actually called me to make sure I was doing all right because I was one of three volunteers who hasn’t sent in medical complaints…I’m kind of an anomaly and the source of outrageous jealousy from my friends who don’t understand how I haven’t been sick (with the exception of car sick and a migraine). I just try to enjoy being healthy and fear the day that it all catches up to me. My homologue is also very protective of me, he won’t let anyone give me water, I have to always have two of my own water bottles with me and he’ll only let people eat with me if they’ve washed their hands with soap. At first I think he was really intimidated by me, but now he’s learned how to talk to me and gives me things to do that most of the men can’t do well, like reading and writing in Bambara. Now if someone tries to speak to me and I don’t understand, Bah will come over and rephrase the question in a way that I understand. I’ve also taken up studying with the kids. Two of his kids are old enough to study English so we study together and I’ve also started giving some math lessons to random village children who come knocking at my door. It’s been fun working with the kids and so refreshing to see them get excited to study. Natalie, Bah’s second oldest, is in 9th grade and has already told me that she wants desperately to go to Bamako to study like her sister, but she wants to study English so she is always asking me to edit her dialogues and homework.
Love,
Cait
I’ve had a fairly demanding few days at site. On Thursday night, my homologues wife’s brother came over and we chatted for a bit then the next morning, one of his kids died. I’ve only seen the kid in passing and he never stood out amongst the dozens of kids constantly running around, but it was a shock, and jolt back to reality. Then, yesterday morning, I was counting literally hundreds of goats and sheep as they were loaded into huge vans heading for Bamako when one villager came up one goat short. He was supposed to have 27 goats but I only counted 26 loaded (they’re all spray painted in a certain color or design to denote ownership). The 30 or so men all started to search frantically through their goats but no one could find the missing goat. My homologue told me later that when they were herding the goats to the trucks in the morning the missing goat apparently fell down a well… thus, well covers will probably be an up and coming project for me to work on getting funding for.
Peace Corps volunteers have now been evacuated from Mauritania, Guinea and volunteers in Niger are being consolidated and I’ll keep you updated on their security status as we hear about it. Right now, Mali is still perfectly safe and stable (with the exception of the north-Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal) but with all of our neighbors being evacuated I wanted you all to rest assured that every precaution is being made regarding our safety and if there Is the slightest threat we’ll be removed with efficiency. On the other hand, Mali now ranks first in the most demanding country of service among all countries volunteers are present in. Kind of vain, but volunteers pride themselves on their rank… some kind of twisted logic that makes us feel better when we get overwhelmed by our day to day life.
My best friend here is Holly (Holly and Brad are the two from my stage in San joining 7 others from the Stage before us). Holly and I have gotten very close and our villages are only about 10 kilometers away. Unfortunately she has been complaining about numbness in her right foot and despite a week of tests in Bamako she was just sent to Washington DC for further treatment. Her return flight is scheduled for the 6th of December, but she’s pretty bummed to be alone on Thanksgiving… she’s from Seattle and her parents are coming to Mali in January so who knows if they’ll make a trip to the east coast. Needless to say, this has been a pretty crazy past few days.
Despite all the craziness surrounding me, I’m doing really well and have absolutely thrown our doctor here for a loop. She actually called me to make sure I was doing all right because I was one of three volunteers who hasn’t sent in medical complaints…I’m kind of an anomaly and the source of outrageous jealousy from my friends who don’t understand how I haven’t been sick (with the exception of car sick and a migraine). I just try to enjoy being healthy and fear the day that it all catches up to me. My homologue is also very protective of me, he won’t let anyone give me water, I have to always have two of my own water bottles with me and he’ll only let people eat with me if they’ve washed their hands with soap. At first I think he was really intimidated by me, but now he’s learned how to talk to me and gives me things to do that most of the men can’t do well, like reading and writing in Bambara. Now if someone tries to speak to me and I don’t understand, Bah will come over and rephrase the question in a way that I understand. I’ve also taken up studying with the kids. Two of his kids are old enough to study English so we study together and I’ve also started giving some math lessons to random village children who come knocking at my door. It’s been fun working with the kids and so refreshing to see them get excited to study. Natalie, Bah’s second oldest, is in 9th grade and has already told me that she wants desperately to go to Bamako to study like her sister, but she wants to study English so she is always asking me to edit her dialogues and homework.
Love,
Cait
November 15, 2009
Hope all is well and everyone is getting ready for thanksgiving, I’m so sad I won’t be there but you better believe I’ll be eating well, a feast is planned!!
Just after Halloween I experienced my first bashe ride (Malian public taxis) which consisted of a van gutted of all the insides and stuffed with about 25 Malians and my two friends (Alaric and Shelby). We were going to Fangasso which is Shelby’s site about two hour bashe ride north to spend the day. Of course this is Mali so we blew a tire about an hour into the trip which was actually a blessing because my butt was numb and I really wanted to stretch. When we made it Fangasso we wondered the market for a bit then spent the day with her homologue and family before heading back to san.
Nothing too exciting has happened at site over the past two weeks. I took a bit of a tumble one morning while running which the kids found absolutely hilarious. The incident did involve an exposed tree root and a low hanging branch… I’m fine, just a few bumps and bruises, but I had to take a few days off running to try to heal my knees and hands and my pride. Fortunately, because rainy season is over, flesh wounds heal really quickly without too much concern for infections. Unfortunately, with rainy season ending, I can already see in increase in the level of dust in the air. Apparently during hot season in May, there is so much dust in the air you can’t even see the stars at night, which is a real shame because there is no light traffic to inhibit my view of the sky at night which is one of my favorite parts of my nightly routine.
I spent a day in the garden trying to learn some of the trees and fruits here but Malians don’t really understand that their trees don’t exist in the US and that the average American doesn’t have to know about agriculture to survive. I pulled water from the well for the first time and I have an all knew respect for how strong these women are who have to water the entire garden every day from the well, my arms were burning after two buckets from the well.
I got a hold a week old baby a few days ago which was terrifying. I love kids from about 6 and older, but babies are one of the scariest things imaginable for me. I was so afraid I was going to break him but at the same time I was entranced by him. Babies have their eyebrows drawn on by eyeliner and also wear eyeliner then they all covered in white powdery stuff so it was exactly the cutest baby in the world, but it was pretty amazing to be able to hold him.
The hardest part of the past time at site was when I went to the schools for the first time. It was both exciting and totally overwhelming and unbelievably frustrating. I met the director and 6 teachers after the 45 minute walk to the school with two of my host sisters. The school in itself was really nice cement building with big windows for a nice cross ventilation. It was approximately 7-9th grade but the kids aged from about 14 to 20. At 7:45 there was a flag raising ceremony where they sang their national anthem then the school director took me to each of the three classrooms and introduced me to the students and that was the overwhelming part. I walked in and was greeted with 130 smiling kids. 130 kids in a classroom no bigger than my classrooms in the US… Kids were sitting five to a bench that should have only seated two, some were on the floor and others sitting on the window sills for class. Totally unable to process the 130:1 student teacher ratio I was talking to the English teacher who confesses that the teachers know the problems raised with the unfair ratio but there is nothing they can do because they can’t afford more teachers or more classrooms. Talk about frustrating.
Days pass both painfully slowly and quickly just as days pass at home and it’s a comfort to know that my bad days are always followed by good ones.
Love,
Cait
Just after Halloween I experienced my first bashe ride (Malian public taxis) which consisted of a van gutted of all the insides and stuffed with about 25 Malians and my two friends (Alaric and Shelby). We were going to Fangasso which is Shelby’s site about two hour bashe ride north to spend the day. Of course this is Mali so we blew a tire about an hour into the trip which was actually a blessing because my butt was numb and I really wanted to stretch. When we made it Fangasso we wondered the market for a bit then spent the day with her homologue and family before heading back to san.
Nothing too exciting has happened at site over the past two weeks. I took a bit of a tumble one morning while running which the kids found absolutely hilarious. The incident did involve an exposed tree root and a low hanging branch… I’m fine, just a few bumps and bruises, but I had to take a few days off running to try to heal my knees and hands and my pride. Fortunately, because rainy season is over, flesh wounds heal really quickly without too much concern for infections. Unfortunately, with rainy season ending, I can already see in increase in the level of dust in the air. Apparently during hot season in May, there is so much dust in the air you can’t even see the stars at night, which is a real shame because there is no light traffic to inhibit my view of the sky at night which is one of my favorite parts of my nightly routine.
I spent a day in the garden trying to learn some of the trees and fruits here but Malians don’t really understand that their trees don’t exist in the US and that the average American doesn’t have to know about agriculture to survive. I pulled water from the well for the first time and I have an all knew respect for how strong these women are who have to water the entire garden every day from the well, my arms were burning after two buckets from the well.
I got a hold a week old baby a few days ago which was terrifying. I love kids from about 6 and older, but babies are one of the scariest things imaginable for me. I was so afraid I was going to break him but at the same time I was entranced by him. Babies have their eyebrows drawn on by eyeliner and also wear eyeliner then they all covered in white powdery stuff so it was exactly the cutest baby in the world, but it was pretty amazing to be able to hold him.
The hardest part of the past time at site was when I went to the schools for the first time. It was both exciting and totally overwhelming and unbelievably frustrating. I met the director and 6 teachers after the 45 minute walk to the school with two of my host sisters. The school in itself was really nice cement building with big windows for a nice cross ventilation. It was approximately 7-9th grade but the kids aged from about 14 to 20. At 7:45 there was a flag raising ceremony where they sang their national anthem then the school director took me to each of the three classrooms and introduced me to the students and that was the overwhelming part. I walked in and was greeted with 130 smiling kids. 130 kids in a classroom no bigger than my classrooms in the US… Kids were sitting five to a bench that should have only seated two, some were on the floor and others sitting on the window sills for class. Totally unable to process the 130:1 student teacher ratio I was talking to the English teacher who confesses that the teachers know the problems raised with the unfair ratio but there is nothing they can do because they can’t afford more teachers or more classrooms. Talk about frustrating.
Days pass both painfully slowly and quickly just as days pass at home and it’s a comfort to know that my bad days are always followed by good ones.
Love,
Cait
Halloween 2009
I hope you are all ready for Halloween and the upcoming holiday season, I know I am.
Thanks so much for the letters and packages, it’s so nice to come into san and have letters to read, it’s really easy at site to feel a bit disconnected from the…world.
I’m absolutely falling in love with my site and some of the kids especially have already worked their ways into my heart. While days certainly can creep by, the weeks since I last came to san have absolutely flown by.
I led a short meeting the other day because my community had established the problems they faced to improve their animal raising and one of theirs one a lack of water. So I asked why they didn’t fix their pump and the next day my homologue came back to me with a committee they had formed…unfortunately I can’t really help much until after IST but it’s awesome that I’ve got such a motivated village to work with. Other good news, I’ve really started to develop a good relationship with the school director so I hope I can work with him. He wants me to paint a world map and a map of mali in the schools.
Apparently a dog just had a litter of puppies and both my homologue and my host family have taken on new puppies so that has filled my life with a sort of happiness that only puppies can bring and I have to admit, they are so cute. They offered to give me one and you will all be proud to know that I turned it down. I want to travel with the burden of having a dog plus, can you imagine the tears when I’d have to leave it. So, now I have the best of both worlds because I’ve got puppies everywhere and not the responsibility of taking care of one of them.
I helped my host sister the other day with her English homework which was really awesome because she had a lot of fun and has come to me with questions not even related to school work. All the young girls in village want to braid my hair so after a few days of taking out my braids I’m swarmed. Young kids especially still stare and often poke me…too make sure I’m real I think. It’s also really funny to great people I don’t know in bambara and watch their faces contort as they process the fact that I can speak, or try to speak, their language.
It’s harvest season right now which means my days are absolutely filled with helping the women work. It’s mostly peanuts that they’re harvesting right now so I pick the peanuts from about 9am until 4pm… it makes for long days but they go by fast always having something to do and the women love it! Pretty much everyday about 40 women go to a different house and work all day making big bowls of porridge or toh (both make me gag thus I go home for lunch to eat) but it’s pretty cool to see the strong ties of the community. The men are gone from about dawn until dust at the fields working so everyone is generally exhausted at night which is great for me because now they don’t look at me quite so strange when I go to bed at 9pm.
I’ve started running in the mornings (they find this very entertaining too) so I’m up around 5:30am and belive it or not, it’s almost brisk, for about 5 minutes until I’m sweaty, but I’ve found some gorgeous trails to run on. There are some huge trees that I’ve come to love and use as land marks, if you’ve seen the lion king and can imagine the big tree that rafiki lives in you can imagine the magnitude of these trees. It’s gorgeous to run and it’s such a nice escape to be out in my own without having to think about work or bambara or life as a volunteer.
Love,
Cait
Thanks so much for the letters and packages, it’s so nice to come into san and have letters to read, it’s really easy at site to feel a bit disconnected from the…world.
I’m absolutely falling in love with my site and some of the kids especially have already worked their ways into my heart. While days certainly can creep by, the weeks since I last came to san have absolutely flown by.
I led a short meeting the other day because my community had established the problems they faced to improve their animal raising and one of theirs one a lack of water. So I asked why they didn’t fix their pump and the next day my homologue came back to me with a committee they had formed…unfortunately I can’t really help much until after IST but it’s awesome that I’ve got such a motivated village to work with. Other good news, I’ve really started to develop a good relationship with the school director so I hope I can work with him. He wants me to paint a world map and a map of mali in the schools.
Apparently a dog just had a litter of puppies and both my homologue and my host family have taken on new puppies so that has filled my life with a sort of happiness that only puppies can bring and I have to admit, they are so cute. They offered to give me one and you will all be proud to know that I turned it down. I want to travel with the burden of having a dog plus, can you imagine the tears when I’d have to leave it. So, now I have the best of both worlds because I’ve got puppies everywhere and not the responsibility of taking care of one of them.
I helped my host sister the other day with her English homework which was really awesome because she had a lot of fun and has come to me with questions not even related to school work. All the young girls in village want to braid my hair so after a few days of taking out my braids I’m swarmed. Young kids especially still stare and often poke me…too make sure I’m real I think. It’s also really funny to great people I don’t know in bambara and watch their faces contort as they process the fact that I can speak, or try to speak, their language.
It’s harvest season right now which means my days are absolutely filled with helping the women work. It’s mostly peanuts that they’re harvesting right now so I pick the peanuts from about 9am until 4pm… it makes for long days but they go by fast always having something to do and the women love it! Pretty much everyday about 40 women go to a different house and work all day making big bowls of porridge or toh (both make me gag thus I go home for lunch to eat) but it’s pretty cool to see the strong ties of the community. The men are gone from about dawn until dust at the fields working so everyone is generally exhausted at night which is great for me because now they don’t look at me quite so strange when I go to bed at 9pm.
I’ve started running in the mornings (they find this very entertaining too) so I’m up around 5:30am and belive it or not, it’s almost brisk, for about 5 minutes until I’m sweaty, but I’ve found some gorgeous trails to run on. There are some huge trees that I’ve come to love and use as land marks, if you’ve seen the lion king and can imagine the big tree that rafiki lives in you can imagine the magnitude of these trees. It’s gorgeous to run and it’s such a nice escape to be out in my own without having to think about work or bambara or life as a volunteer.
Love,
Cait
October 10, 2009
I’ve successfully managed to survive another two weeks at site. I was surprised last Saturday when my LCF (Malian teacher during pre-service training) Salifou Bengaly showed up at my house two days early for a week of intensive one-on-one language training. Not only did it prove to assist in my language level, but it also gave me some credibility among the village people because they would come sit in on my lessons and hear that I can in-fact speak Bambara just slowly and very directly. Since Salifou left a few days ago I’ve inherited a whole village of teachers who speak to me very slowly and enunciate absolutely everything (for some reason they think they can talk about anything and I’ll understand if they just speak slowly enough) so it’s been pretty entertaining.
My homologue has discovered my love of soccer so when Mali plays he gears up his tv and about 30 men huddle around the tv to watch the game and then there’s me…the lone girl. I’ve tried to enlist my host sisters to come watch with me but they get nervous being on the same level as the men in village so they won’t stay for more than a few minutes. I guess that’s one more thing I can work on during the next two years. Most of the women are painfully subservient and inferior to the men, so I’m doing my best to encourage my girls to stay in school and not get married when they're 16.
I’ve had a little success already in my village. My homologue is the head of the mens association and they want to improve their animal raising. One of their problems was that there was no one to take care of the animals during the day while the men were in the fields and the women are working in the house except for the children. School started last week and I noticed that everyday one of the kids didn’t go, so salif explained to me that the kids would rotate the days they took care of the animals so we suggested to my homologue that they hire an older boy who had either finished or already dropped out of school. This way the kids get to go to school and we’ve created a job for someone who wouldn’t otherwise have one.
I love nights here! Because there's no electricity people chat and everyone is welcome in everyone's house so the whole community is very tightly knit. Plus the sky isn’t tainted by lights so the stars are very crisp and clear and shooting stars are absolutely everywhere. Friday nights, the choir at church meets at the church for rehersal and dance and sing along with the drums and guitars and that has quickly become one of my favorite weekly routines. This past Sunday the church gave me a hymnal so I can sing along even if I can’t understand what I’m singing and that makes the village people pretty excited.
I just passed my three month anniversary in country (10-10-09) which is pretty crazy because it has absolutely flown by…well, most days have flown by, and others have been so painfully slow that I’ve had to check to make sure that my watch was working. I’ve noticed that time is a very loose term here; it’s like an electrician when they say they’ll be at your house between 8 am and 5pm…great, really helpful.
The rainy season is winding down thus harvest season has started and fortunately the hungry season is also winding down. Watermelon just started and while the interior of the watermelon is a shade of pink that could pass as white, it’s still delicious and a nice change. My diet is regrettable in that protein and fiber are hard to come by. Peace Corps makes us take iron daily and I’ve taken to cooking my own breakfasts and lunches because I can’t stomach some of their foods and I’d rather cook for myself then force down food that has literally gagged me.
Love,
Cait
My homologue has discovered my love of soccer so when Mali plays he gears up his tv and about 30 men huddle around the tv to watch the game and then there’s me…the lone girl. I’ve tried to enlist my host sisters to come watch with me but they get nervous being on the same level as the men in village so they won’t stay for more than a few minutes. I guess that’s one more thing I can work on during the next two years. Most of the women are painfully subservient and inferior to the men, so I’m doing my best to encourage my girls to stay in school and not get married when they're 16.
I’ve had a little success already in my village. My homologue is the head of the mens association and they want to improve their animal raising. One of their problems was that there was no one to take care of the animals during the day while the men were in the fields and the women are working in the house except for the children. School started last week and I noticed that everyday one of the kids didn’t go, so salif explained to me that the kids would rotate the days they took care of the animals so we suggested to my homologue that they hire an older boy who had either finished or already dropped out of school. This way the kids get to go to school and we’ve created a job for someone who wouldn’t otherwise have one.
I love nights here! Because there's no electricity people chat and everyone is welcome in everyone's house so the whole community is very tightly knit. Plus the sky isn’t tainted by lights so the stars are very crisp and clear and shooting stars are absolutely everywhere. Friday nights, the choir at church meets at the church for rehersal and dance and sing along with the drums and guitars and that has quickly become one of my favorite weekly routines. This past Sunday the church gave me a hymnal so I can sing along even if I can’t understand what I’m singing and that makes the village people pretty excited.
I just passed my three month anniversary in country (10-10-09) which is pretty crazy because it has absolutely flown by…well, most days have flown by, and others have been so painfully slow that I’ve had to check to make sure that my watch was working. I’ve noticed that time is a very loose term here; it’s like an electrician when they say they’ll be at your house between 8 am and 5pm…great, really helpful.
The rainy season is winding down thus harvest season has started and fortunately the hungry season is also winding down. Watermelon just started and while the interior of the watermelon is a shade of pink that could pass as white, it’s still delicious and a nice change. My diet is regrettable in that protein and fiber are hard to come by. Peace Corps makes us take iron daily and I’ve taken to cooking my own breakfasts and lunches because I can’t stomach some of their foods and I’d rather cook for myself then force down food that has literally gagged me.
Love,
Cait
New Blog
Due to popular demand, I've decided to start a blog in attempt to stay better connected to my family and friends. As internet access is limited and updates few and far between, I hope this will allow you to read at your leisure and I'll do my best to keep you informed. It will be impossible to encapsulate my past six months in one entry, so I've decided to post some of my past letters I wrote home and will, from now on, update my blog each time I come to San. .
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