Basa Bana!

Happy Thanksgiving yesterday first of all! We went to a hotel for dinner and had some pretty yummy pork, mashed potatoes, and pie! Good stuff.
Until coming in to Sevare for thanksgiving I had been at site for around a month and I think it's possible that my Bambara is finally starting to improve! I've begun weighing babies and doing some other small projects, so I think once everything really gets going it will improve even more. It will also be nice to have a busier schedule.
Now on to more important news and the reason for the title of this blog: a basa is a giant lizard, and they are everywhere here. If something is a bana in Bambara it is dead. This particulary basa became a bana because I killed it in our house with a broom. Normally I really don't mind having the little lizards in our house because I tell myself they eat the mosquitos and other bugs that get in. This particular lizard however, was ENORMOUS and I have no idea how it even got inside the house! I never saw it come in while I was going in or out, so I guess there most be some hole somewhere that it came in through. I think that it also didn't really want to be inside the house, but once it got in it couldn't get back out, so it was just running wildly around the house going in and out of boxes and other stuff and making lots of noise. The first night that I realized it was still inside, it tried to come in my bed, but thanks to my trusty mosquito net being tucked in, it couldn't get me! I thought about trying to chase it out then, but it ran away and I couldn't find it so I went to sleep and hoped it would find its own way out. Sadly (for it), it did not find its way out, and the next night the same thing happened except I actually had been asleep when I heard it running around and getting into things. I tried to look for it, and noticed that it had given up on trying to get in my bed and instead had actually gotten into and standing in the middle of Elizabeth's bed! (she was fortunately not in the bed because she had gone down to Bamako). I decided at that point that I was going to just chase it out or trap it somehow and have the children get it out for me. It wasn't really very afraid of me, so of course it didn't run away until the last minute when it then had to run over my feet to get into the other room. This explanation is getting a little long, so let's just say that I eventually decided there was no way it was going to leave quietly, and I eventually trapped it in a corner and killed it with the broom. The children who came in to get the dead lizard out were in awe when I told them that it was in fact me who had killed it. They then proceeded to tell everyone so that the next morning when I came out for breakfast I had to retell the story to all the people in the concession, all of whom were amazed, but also thought it was hilarious because why would I have a problem with a lizard in my house?

What exactly am I doing here you ask?

I’m finally typing this entry from my house instead of the internet café, thanks to the newly installed battery in my computer! With a little luck, my laptop may actually make it through two years here!
This past week (as well as the week coming up) was pretty eventful. Although we do not have to start any real work or projects for the first three months, there is only so much wandering around and talking to people I can do before I get antsy. I was also getting a little tired of the people in village asking me what I am going to do here for two years. Thus, I did my first animation at the clinic in my old village (which I have still been going to once a week). I talked to a pretty big group of women actually about how to make a rehydration drink that they can give to their kids if they have diarrhea (the drink is really just water with sugar and salt). This may not sound riveting, but it actually is a pretty important topic because many babies and young children die from dehydration caused by diarrhea, which they get all the time. This is partly because they don’t like to wash their hands with soap (which I think will be the topic of my next chat). I taught them how to make it with the help of my homologue, and then I let all of the kids (babies mostly) taste it. It was pretty funny to watch their reactions because some of them cried and spit it out and some of them absolutely loved it! It was also nice to see that almost all the moringa trees I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted! Aside from getting a flat tire on my way home (luckily close enough that I just walked the last little bit as I of course forgot the pump at home) it was a really good trip to the village. Soon the water will have receded enough for me to take the shortcut, but this also means that I will be even more covered in red dust by the time I get there. Between the dryness and the wind, my feet and legs are usually completely red by the time I get to the village! This only adds to the amusement of the health workers at the clinic who already think it’s quite hilarious to see a toubab riding a mountain bike wearing a helmet, backpack, and pants, and now covered in dust. I’m sure if I saw myself like this I would laugh too, but thankfully there are no mirrors at the CSCom, so I can pretend I don’t look completely ridiculous.
This week I am going to paint a mural with another volunteer close by so that when I start weigh babies (which is mainly to check for malnutrition) I can show the moms on a chart on the wall where their child falls and they can see how they are growing. Not a very major project, but at least something to keep me busy, and people really seem to like murals here (we also painted one in our homestay village which everyone loved). After that, I’m off to see some other volunteers for Halloween and then we are having an election watch party here in Djenne! I’m really excited to be able to actually watch the results come in on TV, even though it will be probably 2 or 3am here. Sadly, my absentee ballot never made its way to Mali (not that surprising coming from Florida I suppose) so I didn’t get to vote, but at least I will be able to watch!


PS: I’ve had several people ask me about good things to send, so if you are feeling generous, I’m going to post a list shortly of things I can pretty much always use (or always want!). The best bet so far seems to be the flat rate boxes, because then it doesn’t matter how much it weighs, but for just a few things, envelopes work two because sometimes the post office here will just put them in my box instead of labeling it as a package which I have to ask about and sometimes pay for (not a lot luckily!). Thank you to everyone that has already since something!

Good thing there's a shower in Sevare

In hopes of filling out my absentee ballot this weekend, I came to Sevare, but alas, no ballots to be found. It's still always nice to use the internet and eat good food though, and coming into town worked out especially well for another reason. At my new house, I share a yard with three other families, and in the middle of our yard is the faucet we all use to get water. The payment system for said faucet usually just rotates, so one family pays this month, another the next, and so on. I had noticed that there seemed to be something going on between the families because there was more yelling at night and people seemed to be angry, but of course, with my limited Bambara I pretty much had no idea what was going on. On my way to get water this morning I found out. Apparently, whoever was supposed to have paid the bill this month (I'm assuming not me because no one ever presented me with any sort of bill or mentioned anything about water) decided that it was way to high and something must be wrong, but instead of doing something about it, the decision was made to simply not pay it at all. So this morning, when I went to get water, there was a little box with a lock over the faucet. Thankfully I was planning to shower upon arrival in Sevare (public transport is usually a sweaty, dusty process) so it wasn't that big of a deal, but I do hope it gets turned on by the time I get back! I'm not all that optimistic though because when I was leaving I noticed some of the people in my concession waiting in line to get water from a public faucet where you just pay 25CFA to get water. I hope they aren't just planning on doing this indefinitely, but it wouldn't really surprise me. Soon I too may be waiting in line to get my bucket bath water. At least the public fountain is right outside the door to my yard!
I've adjusted pretty well to life in the city, and I think I am really going to like living there, despite the children constantly asking for my water bottle. Peace Corps sent a tutor to do a week of language training in French so that it would be easier for me to work with my local tutor, and I think I've really improved a lot. Learning two languages at once is a little confusing, but I think it will work out because I'll probably be speaking more French in my work, but I practice Bambara a lot with my host family as well. As for work, I am still going to help out in my old village once a week, and I hope to paint a mural there next week, which I think will help prove to them that I am not totally abandoning them! Things with the Mission Culturelle are also starting to get underway, so that should keep me busy for a while and help me practice French. The Mission Culturelle recently received a grant from the US Embassy, because of the World Heritage Site, to try and promote education about the importance of protecting the city's heritage as well as stopping pillaging. There is an architectural site right outside the city that has lost a lot of interesting artifacts due to pillaging, so hopefully this project will help explain why people should protect these areas instead of stealing things and selling them. I think most of our work (Kate and Elizabeth and I are working together on it) will be with the schools and potentially going to different villages to talk about it. It's not exactly health related, but definitely very interesting, so it should be fun!
In other news, we are all anxiously awaiting election day! I've been listening to the BBC world news most mornings, so we get some updates about the debates and such, but it would be really nice to actually watch the results come in on TV! There are a couple of potential watch-party sites, so hopefully we will be able to work something out, even though it will probably have to be a sleep over because the results won't be in until 3 or 4am here! That's a little past my usual 9pm bed time, but worth it I think!

Movin on Up

Warning: This post is being typed on a French keyboard, so I apologize in advance for the grammar and/or spelling mistakes! After much thought and discussion with my boss in Peace Corps, I have decided to move from the village I was placed in to a bigger town nearby. We are not supposed to say exactly where we live, but lets just say that now I have electricity and a water source that isnt 2k away! There were a lot of factors in my decision to move, but the main problem was language. It turns out that the people in village dont speak as much Bambara as we were told, and as it is not a written language, it would be difficult for me to even learn it. On top of that, I wasnt really thrilled that I would then be trying to learn three new languages at the same time! I am still going to do some work in this village (I will probably ride my bike out once a week or so) but the rest of my time will be spent on projects here in the city. I am really looking forwrd to it because it seems like there will be a lot for me to get involved with here. Im running out of internet time, but I just wanted to post a quick update to let everyone know about the move, and hopefully next week I will be able to post more about what Ive been up to!

Into the Brousse!

A lot has happened in the past three weeks at homestay and few days at Tubaniso, so I'll try to recap some of the highlights. First though, and more importantly, I passed my language test, so all systems are go for me to swear in on Friday and officially become a Peace Corps Volunteer! Following swear in on Friday morning (which will be broadcast on national Malian television!) we are having a little BBQ at a place with a pool in the afternoon and then going out to celebrate that night. They have arranged for us to stay in a hotel in Bamako that night and we have Saturday to get any last minute things we need before heading out on Sunday morning. I will be actually getting installed in my village on Tuesday, so it may be a while before I am able to access internet again, but once I'm settled I'll try and write a little more in detail about my new home!
Some highlights from the last three weeks at homestay:
I was actually able to do some techincal training, and we learned how to weigh babies, make a porridge that helps rehabilitate malnourished children, and animate groups of women on a drink that helps with dehydration. Animations (basically little 10-15 minute talks to small groups) are probably going to be a lot of my job for the next two years, so it was good to practice, especially since I had to give my talk in Bambara! We also visited a malnutrition rehabilitation center, which was of course sad, but it was also upsetting to find that the center is completely supplied by outside sources. The milk, porridge, and other high calorie foods offered to the children are all given to the center for free by NGOs. We spend a lot of time talking about sustainability in PC and to find out that the center would not exist if NGOs decided to leave or ran out of money was a little disheartening. Malnutrition here is an interesting problem because in most cases it isn't the result of a lack of food, but eating the wrong foods or getting sick and not being able to recover. The pediatrician in charge told us this outright and said that sustaining the clinic major concern, which at least demonstrates that she recognizes the problem. A step in the right direction, but they still have a long way to go to function without foreign aid. I also painted a mural with the other girls from my homestay which turned out really well! We did a picture of the food groups (there are only three in Mali) with the foods you would need to eat from each one. Then we had a community leader talk to the village about the importance of eating from all three food groups to be healthy. I'm not sure how much actual health information they got from it, but they really appreciated the mural and it was nice to leave something behind in homestay village.
One funny thing about leaving homestay was an incident with my host family. The entire week before leaving, they kept talking about photos and a camera, and I thought they wanted me to take their pictures. While I did want to take some of my host family and the village, I didn't want to take it out all the time because kids tend to get really crazy when you take their picture! I wasn't exactly sure what they were saying, so I told them that the batteries in my camera were dead, but I would try and get some new ones. Apparently, they were not talking about my camera at all, because a few days later after eating dinner, I was sitting around chatting with my host brother and a "professional" photographer came into the concession! My family hired him I guess, and I had to take a picture with every single member of the family, then me by my house, me sitting in the concession, me with the whole family together, etc. It was quite a photo shoot! Needless to say, I'm sure they'll be showing pictures of the toubab that lived with them to anyone that comes over haha. They also wanted to send me with the lovely parting gift of the rest of the chicken that they killed for my going away breakfast, but I respectfully declined and gave it to the kids to eat. I'm sure my new host family will come with a whole new set of interesting things to write about, which will be in my next post as an official PCV! Wish me luck en brousse!

Now I know how the people on Oregon Trail felt

I made it back from site visit, and mostly in one piece. I am only missing a tiny little piece of my finger where I was bitten by a mouse my first night in village. Lucky me! Two rabies shots and a hamburger in Mopti (to make myself feel better) later, I am fine, and my host dad at site promised to catch the mouse and "take care of it" before I get back. Other volunteers have told me that there are plenty of ways to keep mice out, the easiest one being to get a cat, so I may be inheriting a pet in the future. Getting to site was probably the most eventful part of the whole week as it involved a 10 hour bus ride, followed by a bashee (old station wagon turned taxi) ride through brousse, a river crossing via ferry, and finally a donkey cart adventure to get to my actual village! Riding on a donkey cart was eerily similar to the beloved elementary school game Oregon Trail. I sat on top of the cart on bags of rice with about 10 other women and my bike strapped to the back. We forged a river, lost some bags of rice off the back that we had to go back for, and helped another cart get unstuck from the mud! Thankfully no one got dysentery, at least that I know of. All in all, a memorable trip on public transport in Mali. My site is really great (minus house guest)and I have two rooms, my own nyegen, and my own concession, which is like a little front yard with a tree. My host family (jatigi) is really great; they seem much more excited than my host family at homestay, and they didn't feed me to once so I think we are going to get along quite well! The village itself kind of reminds me of Emerald City in that the road literally ends at the entrance to the village, except its a red dirt road and not yellow brick haha. I do get cell phone service at the clinic where I will be working, but no electricity and no market, so I'll be going into Djenne at least once a week. I think it'll be nice to do this actually because there is another volunteer in Djenne, so it will be fun to get together even for an afternoon. Djenne also has a couple of hotels, restaraunts, and internet cafes since it's pretty tourist-y, so it'll be nice to have access to all that relatively easily. One not so nice thing about it being such a center for tourism is the little kids. They have learned how to say "give me" in french and will ask you for anything from money to your water bottle to presents! This gets annoying pretty fast, especially since they seem to travel in groups of ten and like to tug on your clothes while asking for things. I'm just hoping that since I will be there regularly they will eventually figure out that I am not a tourist and do not want to give them my water bottle haha.
It's really weird to think that I have been in Mali for over a month now! Sometimes it seems like much much longer, but it's also crazy that training is almost over. Let's just hope I can get through the next 20 days at site with my homestay family and not have to eat to every day, inshallah!

Technology Hates Me

So an unfortunate incident occured yesterday...the death of my trusty computer. I think that the battery has simply died, and cannot be recharged so this post is going to be short as the computer's at the training center are rather frustrating to type on. Saturday I leave for my site visit! I have a 10-13 hour bus, taxi, and finally bike ride from the capitol to my site, so I am pretty sure this is going to be quite an adventure! My counterpart is going to be with me, and I am hoping that between French and Bambara we will be able to make it to site! I will be at my actual site for a few days meeting the chief, seeing the clinic where I will work, and hopefully seeing my house! Then I will be in my banking town to set up my account and finally the regional capitol to meet some of the current PCVs before heading back to Bamako. All in all it should be an eventful week, and I will do my best to write all about site when I get back! Until then, I am giving up on this keyboard and going to take a shower (not bucket bath yay!) before bed.

So, although I am sure that Peace Corps was just trying to prepare us for the worst, we arrived back at Tubaniso (training center) yesterday to rumors that there was no internet and the repairs (something had been struck by lightning) would be around $20,000. There was in fact no internet yesterday, but I'm skeptical about the 20 grand as tonight it is back up again and working fine! This made everyone (including me!) extremely happy as we thought it was going to be another week before we could even attempt to check emails, blog, etc. And now I can tell you all about the beginnings of my homestay adventure!
My site is south of Bamako and extremely small (if you want to know exactly where, email me). I got off to a bit of a rough start with my host family, as they had never had a volunteer before (my homestay village is new this year). They seemed to think that the best way to keep me from getting sick was to only feed me to (pronounced tow) with leaf sauce for almost every meal. This is a staple food in Mali, but to be honest, I think I will be avoiding it as much as possible. While they were just trying to protect me I'm sure, they actually made me sick! Since My Bambara skills were nearly non-existent at that point (and are only slightly better now haha) I talked to my teachers in site and they spoke to my family. While things have not gotten a whole lot better, just not being sick any more has really lifted my spirits! You definitely contemplate why you are in Africa though when you are in the nyegen (open air latrine) in the middle of the night with a headlamp and its raining. I figure that if I made it through that, nothing else will seem like that big of a deal haha.
My days at homestay are pretty much filled with language and cultural classes. On breaks for lunch and dinner I attempt to talk to my host family, and then am usually in bed or in my room reading by about 9pm. A rooster (whose demise I am currently plotting) wakes me up at around 5:30am, but I usually don't get up until 6:30ish. I take a bucket bath (my host mom heats the water for me!) eat bread and drink tea for breakfast, and then head off to language class under the mango tree. My host family is incredibly nice (aside from the food miscommunications) and they really try to talk to me even though I usually have no idea what they are saying! It took me about the whole two weeks to figure out the family tree, which was complicated by relatives who are just visiting and some who are out of town, but I finally think I figured it out! They generally refer to any children in the compound as their children, so it took me a long time before I discovered who the biological parents of each kid were! Also, in Mali it is common to send your children to live with other family members, even in different villages, especially if these people have no children of their own. You can also pretty much make any child younger than you do whatever you want, which is really funny to watch among the siblings in my concession. For example, even though one boy is only a year older than the other, he can kick his younger brother out of a chair and take it for himself, which he does every time he gets the chance! Chair possession is a big deal here, as is the age heirarchy. You only need to be a day older than someone to steal their chair, make them get you water, or do other sorts of ridiculous things.
While there are definitely some drawbacks to having a rural homestay site (no electricity or running water relative to one group of people that has a site with flushing toilets and an internet cafe!) I think in the long run it will be for my benefit because if I can make it through this experience, I can definitely handle even the most rural site. And in fact, my site will most likely be slightly bigger than this homestay village because it will have a CSCOM, which is a clinic where I will be working. Thus, pretty much any site will be a step up from homestay! Speaking of sites.....tomorrow we find out!!! I have mixed emotions about this, because while I am incredibly anxious to know where I will be living for the next two years, I still have another week at homestay before I can go to my site visit. I think that we are not allowed to post our actual sites on blogs (some sort of safety and security issue) but I will try and at least post some general details, and if you want the specifics, email me and I'll email you back with my site!

Kan ben sinni! (See you tomorrow, or in this case write tomorrow, in Bambara)

Moving!

Tomorrow is the end of "Camp Mali" and the beginning homestay! We have all felt like summer camp kids since arriving in Mali as we have not left the the compound at the training center and have been eating all three meals in the refectoire (dining hall). Happily, tomorrow we venture out into "real" Mali and move in with a family that will house us for the next two months. My village is very small, I think only about 400 people! The family, and I am assuming most of the people in my town, speak Bambara. This is one of the more prevalent languages spoken in Mali, and the one I will be speaking when I get to my actual site. I actually did much better than I expected on my French language test, but they still said I need some practice (obviously, since I can only speak in the present tense haha) so I will most likely have a French tutor as well, at least for a bit. Bambara is pretty fun to learn, but at this point I can really only say some greetings, goodbyes, and "I'm full". Moving in with an only Bambara speaking family is going to be entertaining to say the least! I most definitely will not have wireless internet (or electricity lol)while at homestay, but I will be coming back and forth to Tubaniso every couple weeks or so, which I think will be a nice break from spending all three meals a day with people who have no idea what you are talking about haha. Other than that, not too much exciting has been happening, which sounds strange, but training is pretty much sessions all day, meals, and sleeping. I have a feeling this will be a little bit different than the happenings in homestay!

In ni su! (goodnight in Bambara!)

The night before...

First of all, welcome to my blog! As you can tell by the URL, I am not usually a huge fan of blogging, but I thought this would be a much more efficient way of letting everyone know what I am up to while I am in Mali, especially since I have no idea what the internet access will be like! I am currently in Philadelphia, where I have just finished staging. This was basically a day and a half of sessions to at least give us some idea as to what living in Mali will be like. I also actually got to meet and somewhat get to know the people I will be spending the next two years of my life with! One interesting thing, at least I thought, is that I am the only person from Florida! How weird. This whole staging thing has only made me even more ridiculously excited to get there, and now it is almost time!!! We are getting up MUCH earlier than I had been before staging haha to go the clinic tomorrow and get a yellow fever shot....WOO HOO! Not. After this wonderful morning activity we will be driving to the airport and waiting around forever until our flight finally leaves and we are on the way! My brilliant plan is to sleep the ENTIRE way so as to not be too tired when I actually get into country, which will actually be on Thursday night (after about 13 hours on planes total, blech). We shall see if this actually works.

Other highlights from Philly: I saw and took my picture with (you should be proud Mom!) the liberty bell, walked past the US Mint, and did a few other touristy things. I did eat a delicious philly cheesesteak too!

I will hopefully be able to update somewhat regularly at least in training as Tubaniso has wireless (yay!). Too bad my giant computer battery only lasts about an hour before death.