I just got back from a weekend trip to my friend Cassie’s village and a spontaneous trip to Djene. Cassie will leave for America on August 4, as she is finishing up her second year. She invited her closest friends in village for a feast in her concession that we cooked for. Esther, Jen and I all came from San and had a great time at Tene, Cassie’s site. We got to Tene on Saturday afternoon and greeted the necessary people before heading over to the radio station where we acted out a skit on air. One of Cassie’s biggest projects as a volunteer is preparing a 15-20 minute radio broadcast once a week on health topics ranging from birth control to the effects of smoking to AIDS to nutrition. It was really fun and all the people of Tene were taking about how exciting it was to hear all the Americans on the radio. The next morning we headed over to one of Cassie’s friends houses and prepared the meal of rice and peanut butter sauce for 35 people…quite an undertaking. It took several hours to prepare but it was a great time to learn how to cook the sauce which is delicious but pretty expensive to make thus nearly impossible to eat at site. The party was a great success and it gave me a glance to my future a year from now. It was incredibly powerful to hear people talking about Cassie and how much she meant to them. It definitely helped put in perspective the role each of play in our respective communities.
Jen, her friend from home, and I left in the evening on Sunday for Djene. We had to cross the river via ferry, wading through the water to get on and off, but finally made it to our hotel around11pm. Djene is famous for the mosque in the center of village. It is the largest mud building in the world and is an impressive site, especially having lived in a very modest mud hut and knowing the extent of maintenance and upkeep required. In the weeks leading up to rainy season each year the entire city comes together for the very important festival in which all community members help to bring water to make the mud to re-mud the entire mosque. The festival is the one of the most important times of year and the tourist industry is dependent on it. Only Muslim people are allowed in or post menopausal women thus I only got to see it from the inside but it was still in impressive site. Apparently, there are 100 mud pillars in the interior to hold the ceiling up. No building is allowed to be taller than the highest point of the mosque thus you can see it from nearly everywhere in Djene. Just beside the mosque is a UNESCO building that is making huge progress in transferring Ancient Arabic manuscripts onto computers. Most every family in the city has these manuscripts passed down through the generations and have been kept in trunks for years suffering endless termite, mud, rain, heat, etc damage. Becoming a World Heritage Site has increased the tourists in the area which I’ve become torn between loving and hating. They bring a lot of money to the community but they also give handouts thus making our job as Peace Corps volunteers increasingly difficult as people associate being white with giving away money.
It was a great weekend away and I’m being forced now to start saying my goodbyes to some really great friends. On the other hand, I was just assigned to be site buddy for two new volunteers coming up in August so it will be a great chance to get to know the new guys who arrived a few weeks ago. I can’t believe it’s time for me to be doing this. I remember in my site visit how totally terrifying it was and how lost and confused and overwhelming it is, and now, I have to be the site buddy for two others…woah.
Anyways, I’ll be back soon for just a day next week and I’ll try to get a letter out.
Love you all,
Cait
July 13, 2010
I just returned to San for a day before heading home to site but had to come to the internet café to see pictures of my new niece!! I’ve been breezing through phone credit with regular phone calls home to find out when she was born and I was oh so excited to hear on Sunday that mom and baby were healthy. Well worth the expense. Congratulations to the new grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles and of course, mom and dad.
I was at site for the fourth of July which was significantly less anticlimactic than last year when I was preparing for my last days in America, but I left on the 7th for San and then up north to celebrate our 1 year in country anniversary on July 10. When I was in Bandiagara we watched the finale of the World Cup and I was torn if I wanted a bunch of euphoric Netherland fans roaming the streets of Johannesburg post game or distraught fans…
I went to Justin’s site for a night and was fascinated at how different each person’s experience is. We are both in the same country but that is just about where the similarities end. Of course he speaks a minority language, Donoso, while I speak Bambara so that was an adjustment not being able to communicate with the same ease that I’ve developed at my site. The actual physical contrasts between our villages are what really made me realize just how huge this country is. His village is situated on the rocks and absolutely gorgeous. While mine is simple and quaint with mud houses and fences, all the buildings in his village are made of rock. I think I would be in significantly better shape if I lived in Dogon country because to go anywhere in village you essentially have to rock climb. I was there less than 24 hours and my legs were sore for days after…and these people carry buckets of water on their heads and carry heavy loads up these cliffs multiple times a day, it’s incredible. The beauty comes at a significant price though in that water so close to the dessert and in that rocky of a terrain is exceptionally hard to come by and clean water even more so. Thus Justin, as a water and sanitation volunteer has his work cut out for him trying to educate his village on basic sanitation practices. A primary source of dirty water comes from the lack of bathroom facilities. The Malian bathroom, a negen, is hard to dig and build in Dogon due to the rocks so the villagers defecate on the rocks. This is the root cause of much of the water contamination because as the rains come it washes everything right down the cliffs and into the drinking water…
The tenth came as quite a surprise, how could it have already been a year? So much has happened I can’t imagine that I have another year to go. People are already asking my plans about what I want to do when I get home and I can’t believe how fast the time is passing. The one year in country mark is traditionally the hardest time for a volunteer and I’m happy to say that the overwhelming gloom that consumes many volunteers hasn’t hit me and hopefully won’t. I have a strong and stable support group both at home and in country which has proven to keep me grounded. Before I left, I was hoping to learn a thing or two about myself being able to spend a significant amount of time alone at my site, but I’ve come to learn that I need other people in my life to learn about me. It’s been a year full of changes.
I hope everyone is doing well and know that I miss you all like crazy. Time is passing quickly but that doesn’t go to say that it’s not incredibly difficult at times to be so far from home for so long. I love you all and think of you often,
Love always,
Cait
I was at site for the fourth of July which was significantly less anticlimactic than last year when I was preparing for my last days in America, but I left on the 7th for San and then up north to celebrate our 1 year in country anniversary on July 10. When I was in Bandiagara we watched the finale of the World Cup and I was torn if I wanted a bunch of euphoric Netherland fans roaming the streets of Johannesburg post game or distraught fans…
I went to Justin’s site for a night and was fascinated at how different each person’s experience is. We are both in the same country but that is just about where the similarities end. Of course he speaks a minority language, Donoso, while I speak Bambara so that was an adjustment not being able to communicate with the same ease that I’ve developed at my site. The actual physical contrasts between our villages are what really made me realize just how huge this country is. His village is situated on the rocks and absolutely gorgeous. While mine is simple and quaint with mud houses and fences, all the buildings in his village are made of rock. I think I would be in significantly better shape if I lived in Dogon country because to go anywhere in village you essentially have to rock climb. I was there less than 24 hours and my legs were sore for days after…and these people carry buckets of water on their heads and carry heavy loads up these cliffs multiple times a day, it’s incredible. The beauty comes at a significant price though in that water so close to the dessert and in that rocky of a terrain is exceptionally hard to come by and clean water even more so. Thus Justin, as a water and sanitation volunteer has his work cut out for him trying to educate his village on basic sanitation practices. A primary source of dirty water comes from the lack of bathroom facilities. The Malian bathroom, a negen, is hard to dig and build in Dogon due to the rocks so the villagers defecate on the rocks. This is the root cause of much of the water contamination because as the rains come it washes everything right down the cliffs and into the drinking water…
The tenth came as quite a surprise, how could it have already been a year? So much has happened I can’t imagine that I have another year to go. People are already asking my plans about what I want to do when I get home and I can’t believe how fast the time is passing. The one year in country mark is traditionally the hardest time for a volunteer and I’m happy to say that the overwhelming gloom that consumes many volunteers hasn’t hit me and hopefully won’t. I have a strong and stable support group both at home and in country which has proven to keep me grounded. Before I left, I was hoping to learn a thing or two about myself being able to spend a significant amount of time alone at my site, but I’ve come to learn that I need other people in my life to learn about me. It’s been a year full of changes.
I hope everyone is doing well and know that I miss you all like crazy. Time is passing quickly but that doesn’t go to say that it’s not incredibly difficult at times to be so far from home for so long. I love you all and think of you often,
Love always,
Cait
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