March is absolutely flying by and I can’t believe it’s almost April. I have a regional IST for a few days in Segou from the 28-3 then I’m heading back to site for Easter. I celebrated St Patrick’s Day in San with a bunch of friends where we started a new tradition with a new name, dubbed San Patrick’s Day. It was a great success and there were about 20 people here. We killed a pig and had the butcher cook it then we made yummy BBQ sauce and Cole slaw and salad…No green beer but we all rocked out green clothes. Hosting an event can be exhausting and I apologize for not getting an update out around the 17th but I knew I’d be back soon so I hope this will suffice.
As painful as hot season is, it’s more the dust storms that’s really getting to me. Sometimes when I’m walking through village and I see a tornado of dust come barreling towards me and I just put my head down in a fairly futile attempt to inhale as little dust as possible. Regardless, when I return home I have to brush my teeth to get the grime out of my mouth and shake out my clothes after my bucket bath. While my village is very dry, I have an all new respect for northern Mali and any dessert residents…it can be downright difficult to breathe in this environment. One of my friends from up north has been forced to wear his turban all day just to breathe.
My bike ride in today was anything but pleasant but I won’t bore you with the details, except that I left my house at 6am and arrived in San (should be 1:45 minutes later) at 11:15am…
On the other hand, I’ve had a great week at site. There was a wedding I returned just in time for from San Patrick’s Day. It was someone somehow related to my host family (the groom that is to say) and for days in advance extended family was arriving from Bamako. I’m not sure exactly how many sheep and goats and cows were killed for the festivities but needless to say I ate really well for a few days. The evening before the wedding there was a sort of rehearsal dinner were essentially everyone gathered at the host house and ate and danced till late into the night. In the morning it was super busy. The bride and groom went to mayors office to sign the marriage papers and all the men and women were eating and drinking tea all dressed in their best at the host families house. I found out the families tended to wear the same fabrics. For example, all the “bridal party” was in one of two fabric designs. All the Bamako women on the grooms side were in a fabric and another fabric for the Sebanso women on grooms side, etc. It was fascinating to watch. This was my first Christian wedding and I can’t get over some of the similarities. The bride wore a beautiful white dress and the groom a nice suit. There was a maid of honor and a best man that sat with the bride and groom for the THREE hour service. That was a little excessive and I have to admit that I fell asleep more than once. The singing was incredible though. Three choirs came (two in addition to Sebanso’s) and you couldn’t help but get totally caught up in their music. Several ministers led worship and there were some friends who did readings, there were vows made and I do’s said and rings exchanged. It was truly bizarre. Afterwords there was of course dancing and eating for the rest of the day and again late into the night.
One of my favorite moments since I last wrote actually took place during the socials at night. A lot of the young men and women my age all returned for the wedding and I was able to chat with them increasingly more. People who used to speak and I would stare at dumbly I could now have a semi intelligent conversation with. It was incredibly exciting and when I went to market on Thursday I had a similar experience. I was sitting with my friend Enice who was making and selling little cakes and I was playing with her son Kardi (almost a year old and so darn cute…I ‘ve sent pictures of him before). We were chatting and of course when people walk by and see a white person speaking Bambara they freak out and come joke with me. I’m definitely getting better at my communication (though I have so much to still learn) and it was the first time I really understood just how far I’ve come in the past nine months. I know have a new appreciation for why Peace Corps is a 27 month service…your first year is simply trying to survive. On the other hand, I had my first run in with a really mad Malian at market and I definitely could not keep up with his angry words (I have a feeling Peace Corps didn’t teach the kind of language he was using). From what I could gather it was a dispute about the price of something but these two guys decided to duke it out while we were biking home…My homologue's friend with whom I always ride to and from market with was the so called third party used to keep disputes under control and thus I spent much of the ride stopping and going trying to keep up yet not get caught in the middle of weaving bikes and angry fists. It was a bit of an adrenaline rush and made the 45 minute trip home fly by.
I’ll be leaving in the morning for Segou for a regional In Service Training with all the volunteers in the Segou region and I’ll return next Saturday and try to get another email out for the Easter holiday! March has been a whirlwind and I apologize that I couldn’t get to San more often. I’ll be in San briefly mid April before heading up north for a few days and I’ll be leaving for Bamako on the 30th of April for a Kentucky Derby party at the pool in Bamako. In the middle of hot season, I can think of nothing better (though there’s not really much worse than the transport to get down there…oh well).
Love,
Cait
March 8, 2010
Hope all is well and everyone is enjoying March and the welcome break of spring. I am currently adjusting to the heat of hot season and I have to admit, it’s really hot. It’s only reached 108 degrees thus far, but apparently in April and May it can reach almost 130 degrees…sometimes I wonder if people were actually meant to live on this land, or any extreme climate like this. At least I’ve been here long enough now that my body has started to acclimate and the 90’s are actually the equivalent of a perfectly lovely day.
I’m mildly embarrassed to confess that I didn’t really need to come into san today, but I have quite literally been dreaming about a cold sprite at night and thus made the trip to San. Most of the time I can deal with drinking what I can most accurately describe as bath temperature water, but at a certain point in time, it just doesn’t cut it. Plus, my good luck finally ran out and I’m sick…you don’t want to know the details but I figured I wanted access to both cold water and a real toilet over the next few days.
Site has gone well since I last wrote; Senegal was a delightful break from the day to day grind. I’ve been attending the secondary school several times over the past two weeks and working with the female English teacher. It’s pretty much unheard of for a woman to teach English in such a small bruce community and she has thus far served as a valuable resource to me. She is helping me plan a monthly workshop for the 8th grade girls about some life skills…relationships, decision making, peer pressure, fighting with friends, etc. As frustrating as it is, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that as much as I work with the older generation, they are “stuck in their ways” so to speak and the only way to make significant behavior change is to work with the younger kids and hope it carries through to the next generation.
I’ve had my first run in of the season with a scorpion and I’m sad to say that this most certainly will not be the last. Apparently during hot season they are absolutely everywhere. This scorpion was huge but they say that that’s good because it’s the little ones that can kill you…oh joy. On the bright side, I have yet to deal with rats and mice thanks in large part to the local cats and my homologues dog, whom I’ve named Duke.
I’ve now been here long enough that when I greet people in village I can’t really ask names anymore because I should know them, but learning a few hundred names is hard for anyone let alone when their names are impossible for me to pronounce in the first place. Fortunately, it’s a compliment to call people by their last names and nearly everyone in my village is a Coulibaly, so I get by most of the time calling people Coulibaly. Even if it’s not their last name, the Malians just laugh because a huge part of Malian culture is joking cousins. Mali is full of ethnicities and minority tribes so Joking cousins are used as a kind of tension breaker. Coulibalys are known to be bean eaters thus calling someone a Coulibaly who isn’t insinuates that they stink because they eat beans all the time. Other joking cousins involve calling someone a donkey, a blacksmith, a younger sibling (age is a huge status symbol here), your slave, etc. There are quite literally about 20 last names in Mali and certain last names joke with others, except for Coulibalys who can generally joke with everyone. A typical greeting in my market village goes something like this
I ni ce (hey)
Nsay (doesn’t translate but can kind be the answer to anything…men say “nbah”)
I ni sogoma (good morning)
Nsay I ni sogoma (good morning)
I ka kene (how are you)
Torotay (great)
Somogow be di (how is your family)
Bashi te (no problems)
Somogow dun (and your family…yes, you must ask about the family twice…I don’t know why)
Toro tu la (they are great)
I Coulibaly (you Coulibaly)
Nsay (you bet)
Hahhahaha, I be sho dun, hahaha (hahahaha, you bean eater, hahaha)
Hahaha, I ye Fali ye (hahaha, you donkey)
Then repeat asking the questions…this is an extremely simplified version of a greeting; I’ve often greeted someone for at least 5 minutes because there were countless benedictions and blessings to accompany the standard greeting.
I hope you all are all doing well; I’m sad to say that I’m suffering another bought of illness though I’m waiting for my medicine to arrive from Bamako and am anxious to start feeling better. I miss you and think of you often, especially when I’m sick and I long to be home the most. Your thoughts and well wishes help get me through these harder days and I can’t thank you enough.
Love,
Cait
I’m mildly embarrassed to confess that I didn’t really need to come into san today, but I have quite literally been dreaming about a cold sprite at night and thus made the trip to San. Most of the time I can deal with drinking what I can most accurately describe as bath temperature water, but at a certain point in time, it just doesn’t cut it. Plus, my good luck finally ran out and I’m sick…you don’t want to know the details but I figured I wanted access to both cold water and a real toilet over the next few days.
Site has gone well since I last wrote; Senegal was a delightful break from the day to day grind. I’ve been attending the secondary school several times over the past two weeks and working with the female English teacher. It’s pretty much unheard of for a woman to teach English in such a small bruce community and she has thus far served as a valuable resource to me. She is helping me plan a monthly workshop for the 8th grade girls about some life skills…relationships, decision making, peer pressure, fighting with friends, etc. As frustrating as it is, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that as much as I work with the older generation, they are “stuck in their ways” so to speak and the only way to make significant behavior change is to work with the younger kids and hope it carries through to the next generation.
I’ve had my first run in of the season with a scorpion and I’m sad to say that this most certainly will not be the last. Apparently during hot season they are absolutely everywhere. This scorpion was huge but they say that that’s good because it’s the little ones that can kill you…oh joy. On the bright side, I have yet to deal with rats and mice thanks in large part to the local cats and my homologues dog, whom I’ve named Duke.
I’ve now been here long enough that when I greet people in village I can’t really ask names anymore because I should know them, but learning a few hundred names is hard for anyone let alone when their names are impossible for me to pronounce in the first place. Fortunately, it’s a compliment to call people by their last names and nearly everyone in my village is a Coulibaly, so I get by most of the time calling people Coulibaly. Even if it’s not their last name, the Malians just laugh because a huge part of Malian culture is joking cousins. Mali is full of ethnicities and minority tribes so Joking cousins are used as a kind of tension breaker. Coulibalys are known to be bean eaters thus calling someone a Coulibaly who isn’t insinuates that they stink because they eat beans all the time. Other joking cousins involve calling someone a donkey, a blacksmith, a younger sibling (age is a huge status symbol here), your slave, etc. There are quite literally about 20 last names in Mali and certain last names joke with others, except for Coulibalys who can generally joke with everyone. A typical greeting in my market village goes something like this
I ni ce (hey)
Nsay (doesn’t translate but can kind be the answer to anything…men say “nbah”)
I ni sogoma (good morning)
Nsay I ni sogoma (good morning)
I ka kene (how are you)
Torotay (great)
Somogow be di (how is your family)
Bashi te (no problems)
Somogow dun (and your family…yes, you must ask about the family twice…I don’t know why)
Toro tu la (they are great)
I Coulibaly (you Coulibaly)
Nsay (you bet)
Hahhahaha, I be sho dun, hahaha (hahahaha, you bean eater, hahaha)
Hahaha, I ye Fali ye (hahaha, you donkey)
Then repeat asking the questions…this is an extremely simplified version of a greeting; I’ve often greeted someone for at least 5 minutes because there were countless benedictions and blessings to accompany the standard greeting.
I hope you all are all doing well; I’m sad to say that I’m suffering another bought of illness though I’m waiting for my medicine to arrive from Bamako and am anxious to start feeling better. I miss you and think of you often, especially when I’m sick and I long to be home the most. Your thoughts and well wishes help get me through these harder days and I can’t thank you enough.
Love,
Cait
Feburary 23, 2010
I just got back from Senegal and spent a few days in Bamako before returning to San. I hope to get back to site this afternoon. Cold season was all too brief however and the days are already becoming incredibly hot so we’ll see what this afternoon brings.
Dakar was unlike anything I have seen in Africa thus far. The vast majority of the time I thought I was in Western Europe. There are developed roads with street signs that people actually follow, all the stores have windows and air conditioning and there are credit card machines and ATMs everywhere. It was the most bizarre feeling and I have to admit I’m glad Bamako is not Dakar because I would be hard pressed to leave.
WAIST overall was really fun. We had three softball teams and none of them made it to the finals but it was fun none the less. It was actually kind of eye opening seeing volunteers from other countries. I know I’m a little prejudiced because I am a Mali volunteer, but the first time I saw the Gambia volunteers I was struck by how healthy their team looked. Our guys can’t stop losing weight, but I swear some of those guys almost had guts on them…no wonder we couldn’t win a game. This is totally me trying to justify our terrible softball skills but it still makes me feel a little better. Speaking of food, I’m pretty sure I put on a few pounds over the past two weeks. I ate well in Dakar. There was ice cream.
The more time I spend in Mali and having the chance to travel a little outside of Mali to other developing countries I’ve started to find some untraditional poverty indicators. There is the obvious infant mortality rates literacy rates used to measure poverty but I’ve come to find some other measures. For example, you don’t see many joggers in Bamako but there were men and women constantly running near the beach (of course if Mali was as cool and breezy as Dakar we might have more runners too). Another was the moto-car ratio. In Mali only the most wealthy drive motos thus they are the main means of transport you see by Malians other than bikes and donkey carts. In Dakar I rarely saw motos because everyone was driving cars.
The American club in Dakar, which is where the softball tournament took place, was beautiful with a huge pool and yummy delicious food. Needless to say my days were not spent sightseeing but relaxing by the pool with grilled cheese in hand…Cheese, it’s been 8 months since I have had cheese!! Part of me regretted not seeing much of Dakar but I’ve come to really value what a difference knowing a local language makes in getting around a foreign town. I hate getting ripped off and hassled thus I much preferred hanging out with friends by the pool. I did hike up to the light house and had an incredible view of the city and coast which I’ll send pictures of soon.
The bus ride to and from Senegal was exhausting. Spending 30 hours on a bus with no AC and very little leg room probably gives the impression that it was a miserable trip, and I assure you, it was. Fortunately I have medicine for motion sickness that has the lovely side effect of knocking me out. Thus I would wake up at the check points and show my passport, wipe the sweat from my face and fall asleep again. All in all, not a bad trip.
I came back to Bamako on the night of the 17th and spent a few days in Bamako. The Peace Corps bureau moved over the weekend so I went to visit the new bureau which was gorgeous and so nice and clean! We have a stage house in Bamako that I stayed in while in town. I came back to San on the 20th with my friend Justin who stayed until this morning when he left for home in Mopti. It’s been relatively uneventful so I’ve been enjoying the break and soaking up the luxury of San for the day. I am however, sad to say that hot season is arriving with vengeance and it’s a pretty formidable forerunner of what’s to come. I’ll keep you updated.
I’ll probably be at site for the next two or three weeks but I’ll try to write again when I come into San for St. Patrick's Day. A bunch of people are coming into san which will be nice. I like the people in my stage a lot but only in small doses and while I was ready to leave Dakar, it will be nice to see some of them again in a few weeks. I hope you all are doing well and can’t wait to hear from you all soon.
Love,
Cait
Dakar was unlike anything I have seen in Africa thus far. The vast majority of the time I thought I was in Western Europe. There are developed roads with street signs that people actually follow, all the stores have windows and air conditioning and there are credit card machines and ATMs everywhere. It was the most bizarre feeling and I have to admit I’m glad Bamako is not Dakar because I would be hard pressed to leave.
WAIST overall was really fun. We had three softball teams and none of them made it to the finals but it was fun none the less. It was actually kind of eye opening seeing volunteers from other countries. I know I’m a little prejudiced because I am a Mali volunteer, but the first time I saw the Gambia volunteers I was struck by how healthy their team looked. Our guys can’t stop losing weight, but I swear some of those guys almost had guts on them…no wonder we couldn’t win a game. This is totally me trying to justify our terrible softball skills but it still makes me feel a little better. Speaking of food, I’m pretty sure I put on a few pounds over the past two weeks. I ate well in Dakar. There was ice cream.
The more time I spend in Mali and having the chance to travel a little outside of Mali to other developing countries I’ve started to find some untraditional poverty indicators. There is the obvious infant mortality rates literacy rates used to measure poverty but I’ve come to find some other measures. For example, you don’t see many joggers in Bamako but there were men and women constantly running near the beach (of course if Mali was as cool and breezy as Dakar we might have more runners too). Another was the moto-car ratio. In Mali only the most wealthy drive motos thus they are the main means of transport you see by Malians other than bikes and donkey carts. In Dakar I rarely saw motos because everyone was driving cars.
The American club in Dakar, which is where the softball tournament took place, was beautiful with a huge pool and yummy delicious food. Needless to say my days were not spent sightseeing but relaxing by the pool with grilled cheese in hand…Cheese, it’s been 8 months since I have had cheese!! Part of me regretted not seeing much of Dakar but I’ve come to really value what a difference knowing a local language makes in getting around a foreign town. I hate getting ripped off and hassled thus I much preferred hanging out with friends by the pool. I did hike up to the light house and had an incredible view of the city and coast which I’ll send pictures of soon.
The bus ride to and from Senegal was exhausting. Spending 30 hours on a bus with no AC and very little leg room probably gives the impression that it was a miserable trip, and I assure you, it was. Fortunately I have medicine for motion sickness that has the lovely side effect of knocking me out. Thus I would wake up at the check points and show my passport, wipe the sweat from my face and fall asleep again. All in all, not a bad trip.
I came back to Bamako on the night of the 17th and spent a few days in Bamako. The Peace Corps bureau moved over the weekend so I went to visit the new bureau which was gorgeous and so nice and clean! We have a stage house in Bamako that I stayed in while in town. I came back to San on the 20th with my friend Justin who stayed until this morning when he left for home in Mopti. It’s been relatively uneventful so I’ve been enjoying the break and soaking up the luxury of San for the day. I am however, sad to say that hot season is arriving with vengeance and it’s a pretty formidable forerunner of what’s to come. I’ll keep you updated.
I’ll probably be at site for the next two or three weeks but I’ll try to write again when I come into San for St. Patrick's Day. A bunch of people are coming into san which will be nice. I like the people in my stage a lot but only in small doses and while I was ready to leave Dakar, it will be nice to see some of them again in a few weeks. I hope you all are doing well and can’t wait to hear from you all soon.
Love,
Cait
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