School and such

School has finally officially started in Mali, after a little bit of a rough start with the teachers being on strike...again. Luckily though, they've been going to school now for the past three weeks without interuption, so hopefully this means the teachers have worked out most of their issues and will keep on teaching! I've started working at a couple of the schools in Djenne teaching basic health topics to 6th graders, a series of reproductive health classes to ninth graders with another volunteer, and just recently I did an art project with a fourth grade class my friend teaches. We had the students each draw a picture of something that they think represents their lives in Djenne. I supplied the paper and crayons (not every child is required to show up with crayons on the first day of school like in the States!) and they went to work. It was definitely very interesting to see the ideas they came up with. I had to really stress that everyone not make a drawing of the same thing, and some students did get creative, but I also have lots of pictures of the Mali flag or drawings copied from their book. Creativity is just not valued as much here as it is back home, but hopefully this gave them at least one opportunity to do something fun and artsy! I will be mailing the pictures in to OneWorld Classrooms who will then send us back a bunch of drawings done by students from all over the world! I'm excited to see what kind of pictures we'll get, and we're thinking of doing a mural of a world map so that when we get the drawings we can locate the countries (and also clarify that you cannot, in fact, drive in the bashe to get to America!).
Other than that, life in Djenne had been good, Sally is still hanging around (although she seems to have scared her only remaining child away) and it's finally starting to cool off a bit!

Selifitini!

Ramadan has finally come to a close, and I have to say, I was more than ready for it to be over! I believe in Islam they follow the lunar calendar, so for the month of Ramadan they started towards the end of August, and finished up a week or so ago. Every year, it moves up a little bit, but this year luckily it wasn't in the hot season! For the entire month, between sunrise and sunset, you cannot consume anything...no food, no water, and if your mouth is watering you are even supposed to spit that out (which they do!). Since you can't eat after sunrise, everyone wakes up before then to eat some food and drink lots of water and then they all go back to sleep for an hour or so. In the evenings, they would play a special thing on the radio so that everyone would know it was time to break the fast. They drink a certain tea, eat some porridge, and then go to the night prayer before eating a big dinner. I fasted for two whole days this Ramadan, just to get an idea of what is was like, and let me tell you, it's hard! Not so much the no eating part, because around lunch time I got pretty hungry, but after an hour or so of just not eating, I stopped being hungry. I cheated a little bit though because I still drank water (it was too hot not to!), but I definitely didn't drink as much as normal, and even that was difficult! I was ready for it to all be over though because by the end of the month it really seems like people start to get cranky and you can tell they are definitely ready to be done. Seflfishly, I was also ready because it threw off my usual schedule of going to visit people or eating lunch with friends (obviously since they weren't eating at all). I would also eat or drink water in secret, since I didn't want anyone who was fasting to see me eating. They also stayed up much later than usual, because after eating so much and drinking all that tea with sugar, no one was ready for bed around the usual time. At the end of Ramadan though, they usually have a celebration with lots of food and meat. This year, someone told me that for this holiday since it's the small one(seli means prayer in Bambara, and fitini is small), they just buy meat and good ingredients for sauce and then mostly relax. Having to buy good food and lots of sugar all month I guess leaves most people running low on cash, so they don't always have a big celebration. For Tabaski, which is 70 days after the end of Ramadan, they will actually buy a whole sheep to kill and eat (that holiday is seliba, ba meaning big). Everyone does get new clothes for the party though and it was really cute to see all the little kids walking around town all dressed up, with their hair done and all. In Djenne, they would go into people's concessions to sing songs for small change. I didn't have much in the way of small change, so I pretended it was Halloween and gave out candy. This was going really well until word must've gotten around and tons of children started coming to my door! Thankfully my host mom got them under control, but all in all, it was quite the interesting holiday!

Hail!

Even though we should be nearing the end of rainy season, it seems like it's only now really been raining a lot in Djenne. This is going to make for an interesting year in the fields, as so many people in and around Djenne (and pretty much everywhere in Mali) are entirely dependent on their crops for food and money. They've been holding special prayers at the mosque to pray for rain, and they say that Inshallah (god willing) it will come. I'm hoping that this last bit of rainy season will be enough! One interesting thing did happen a few weeks ago. There was a huge storm that we had seen coming towards us practically all day. Finally in the evening it looked like it was going to reach us, but then the wind got so strong that we wondered if it would just blow over. Instead of passing us by, it hailed! It was strange because even though it cools down some in rainy season it didn't seem cool enough for golf ball sized hail! The kids all went wild, running out into the storm to collect the pieces and eat them. I didn't eat any (as most of them were a little muddy) but later a friend at the clinic told me I should have. She claims that if you are having trouble with your heart and the hail comes, it's a sign that things will change and you should eat the hail because it has medicine in it that can cure you. She also said it's good to eat it just in case since it doesn't come very often and you never know when the next time will be. If there is a next time while I'm still here, maybe I'll wash some off and make a cold drink, just in case!

In other news, the new kids had their swearing in ceremony and party and are now getting ready to head out to site to start working! I'm going to help them do some shopping for their houses when they come up to Mopti since a lot of them speak minority languages that you won't necessarily hear in the Mopti market. Also, the volunteers that have been around have a better idea of what the prices of things are supposed to be, so hopefully we can keep them from getting the toubab price on everything! Then it's back to Djenne for hopefully the start of the school year!

1 Year Down, 1 to go!

So hard to believe that the day I flew back to the States for vacation was one year to the day that I was leaving for Mali! I gt back and had to do my mid service medical check up, which was also strange, because that means I have only about one year left here n Mali! While some of the days have maybe been a little long, it seems like the year has just flown by. Hopefully I will be able to get a lot more done this year, since I finally feel like I'm able to work in Bambara and French, but that means this year will go by even faster!
It was nice to come back to Djenne and see that they hadn't forgotten me and were really excited to see me. Also, they were excited to tell me that I was locked out of my own house! I had given my host family the key to my porch in order to watch my cats while I was gone, and apparently somehow the door handle had fallen off but they still managed to lock the door (with the handle inside). Then it finally started raining in true rainy season style, and the door warped so we couldn't get it open! My neighbor was eventually able to pry the door open and I got a new door handle, but it was still pretty funny that before I even made it to my street kids were telling me about it.
Tomorrow I head back to Djenne with the new volunteer who will be living in Senossa, about 7k from me! I hope I can make her site visit a little less traumatic than mine was (ie no mouse bites!). We'll be back in a week for the annual site visit party!

Mudding of the Mosque

This past Thursday, after much speculation about what the actual date was going to be, the mudding of the mosque in Djenne finally happened! Hot season is also construction season in Mali, since people aren’t working in the fields or gardening, and they want to repair/build things before the rain starts. Being the largest mud structure in the world, the mudding has a big tradition in Djenne. Lots of people from the town all get together to help, especially the kids. They started the afternoon before the official day bringing mud up from the riverbanks to the front of the mosque. I was told that each quartier in Djenne is its own “team” and so I think those were the groups I saw that afternoon running with Malian flags, chanting as they went back and forth for mud. Supposedly each quartier team has its own section of the mosque to work on and they kind of have a race to see who will finish their part first. I’m not sure who one this year, but I think they had to switch things up a little since an NGO doing repairs to the inside of the mosque had already done some parts.
The morning of the actual mudding, they started at around 6am (to beat the heat that is pretty intense even by 10am). Boys were in charge of transporting mud, hauling it up and down the sides of the mosque, and mixing it by jumping up and down in it. Girls carried water on their heads to and from wells or the river to mix the mud. Of course, all the children participated in the throwing of mud at each other, which at first seemed mostly to be boys versus girls, but quickly escalated into hit anyone you can (and probably bonus points for getting a toubab, but I’m just guessing). Needless to say, but about 10am everyone was splattered with mud and people were starting to get a little wild, so my friends and I made our escape. I don’t think this blog entry really does the whole day justice; it really was amazing to watch people scaling the walls of the mosque barefoot and throwing baskets of mud up and down to each other. Thus, some pictures hopefully to follow so you can get a better idea of what it was like!

The Cat Came Back

I almost lost a member of my Djenne family this week, but thankfully she narrowly escaped death (but not a traumatizing bath afterwards!). Sally and Jack (mom and one kitten that are left at my house) have been spending more and more time outside when I’m not at the house so they can catch lizards and run around. Usually, they come in when I get home in the early afternoon or evening, since their food and water bowls are on my porch. A few days ago, however, only Jack was waiting by more door when I got in. I figured his mom had probably come while I was still gone, given up, and found somewhere else to hang out. By 10pm though, there was still no sign of her, so I asked the Aminata (woman who lives across from me) if she had seen her. She told me to check the roof, and I knew there was a little room up there where the cats sometimes go, so I headed up. Turns out, she was not in the room or on the roof, but had fallen down the nyegen that’s upstairs! (Note: the nyegen is basically the latrine, and in Djenne most of them are on the second floor. Luckily, this nyegen is not the one that everyone uses, so it was basically just a whole with a dirt floor). I could look down and see her in there, and she didn’t look hurt or even like she really wanted to come out. I went back down, and told Aminata, who seemed to think Sally went down there often and could get out on her own. I figured maybe this was why they didn’t use that nyegen, since there was a hole to the outside or something, so I waited until morning to see if she could escape without help. When Kate and I ventured up the next day though, she was still in there! She wasn’t really crying, but you could tell she was getting hungry and thirsty because she wasn’t moving to fast. We tried everything we could think of to get her out; everything from lowering baskets of fish down to tying a hole in a rope and attempting to loop it over her. After over an hour and one sacrificed basket, we had to give up. It was really hard to do, but we just couldn’t think of anything else. My host family still kept saying she would get out, but we didn’t know how. The next day I spent the day in another village painting a mural, and when I got back everyone was asking about the cat. I was kind of wishing they would stop talking about it because they kept saying how she was probably still alive (which made me think of her starving down there). My host mom told me I could call someone to get her, but I don’t know anyone in Djenne who rescues cats, so they said they would get someone. I really thought there was no way, since Kate and I had tried for so long, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. And lo and behold, after only 5 minutes with a rope and some sort of special knot, Sally was free! She was definitely starving, and still didn’t smell good, but other than that no worse off than before! In fact, I’m pretty sure the bath I gave her (with antibacterial soap!) was more traumatizing than falling down the nyegen. Jack was very happy to have his mom back, and my host family is going to cover the hole so she can’t fall down there again. Always something to keep it exciting here in Djenne!

Wedding Weekend

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but I had typed these entries as they happened so I’ll just post them all!

In between stopping at the med unit in Bamako and heading to Segou for a training session with an NGO, I spent the weekend with another volunteer in her site (rather than come all the way back up to Djenne for just a few days, and also it’s always fun to see everyone else’s villages!). I couldn’t have picked a better time, because it turned out to be wedding weekend! In her village, all the weddings take place on the same weekend. We think this is to prevent each family from having to give money to every griot, because if the weddings are all happening at the same time, they have to split up and can’t all be at the same one. Usually you are born into a griot family here, and they generally attend weddings, naming ceremonies, and other events and give people blessings. They sing songs about the people and how they are going to find money or peace in the future, and then whoever the song was about gives the griot money. In a bigger village, if your wedding was the only one happening, you might have to pay a lot of griots for coming (even though you didn’t invite them!). Anyway, it was really great to be in her village that weekend since a member of her host family was getting married and we got the inside scoop as to weddings in Mali (or at least in her village). Marriages here seem to just be about totally different things than what I was used to in the States. For example, it’s possible that the woman has never met the man she is going to marry, and normally the marriages are arranged by family members. Also, in the case of the man we knew, he was marrying his second wife, who was probably not more than 16 years old. The saddest part for me was that these women are basically leaving their families forever and going to live with someone they maybe don’t know at all. Obviously, that’s pretty upsetting to think about, and the women cry during a lot of the wedding events. I’ve been told that this is what they are supposed to do, because they aren’t supposed to seem excited, but I also think they are probably genuinely sad to be leaving their families and friends. One girl’s husband had even come from a different country just to marry her, and then they were returning, so she may never see her family again.
I don’t want this to sound like weddings are all bad here, but there are definitely some sad parts. There’s tons of eating of good food, dancing, and visiting, and family members travel from far away if they can to be there for the wedding of a relative. The bride also gets to stay inside for at least three days, which might sound boring (and probably is a little) but I think it’s probably also nice for the women to have all their meals cooked, and not have to work so hard for a little while. They also get really dressed up to go to the mayor’s office, and everyone comes and gives blessings and greets the new couple.
All in all, it was definitely interesting to see, and something that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to experience unless someone I knew well in Djenne was getting married (and pretty much everyone I know already is married!).

Timbouctou

Welcome to Timbouctou!

We rode camels out into the desert and spent the night by the sand dunes, then rode the camels back in the next day. Wearing of a turban is apparently required for camel riding!

The lead camel gets to wear a fancy headress!

One of the mosques in the city

The 4x4 that drove us through the desert. They definitely don't make it easy to get there (unless you want to fly directly in but where's the fun in that!?)

Film Festival!

The film festival in Burkina Faso (in the wonderfully named capital of Ouagadougou, actually) was a blast! I don't think I've ever watched that many movies in one week, but it was well worth it (and the 12 hour transport adventure it took us to get there). It was really interesting to see another capital in West Africa to compare to Bamako. We definitely did our share of walking around the city going from one theatre to another so I feel like we got a pretty good feel of things. It was a little weird to be a tourist again though, after constantly telling people in Mali that no, I do actually live here! As for the movies, there were shorts, documentaries, feature length films, etc. Some of my favorites in the feature length/documentary categories (which I've heard can be found online or on netflicks with a little searching were:

La Maison Jaune (in Arabic with French subtitles, but pretty basic French I thought)
The Day After Peace (in English)
Teza (again in local language with French) This won the festival!!

Back in site other than the usual work at school and CSCom the most exciting thing to have happened (for me anyway) was my start of hot season present to myself...a big fan! It definitely makes the house much more bearable during the day...and I think it'll definitely be worth it. I figured, if I have electricity, why not?

Also: I finally downloaded skype to my laptop, so although I don't get to hook it up to internet too often, my skype name is stacyjeanw. Just in case you wanted to call me!

Sira Samake on Air

After a little over a week in Djenne post training in Bamako, I’m getting back into the swing of things. Going from such scheduled days at Tubaniso to the typical two hour lunch/nap break in the middle of the day took some adjusting, but it was also nice to get back to the house and not be living out of a suitcase anymore! I also came back to 6 cats instead of one…Sally had her kittens! I’ve managed to find homes for a couple of them already with other volunteers, so hopefully I won’t be living with 6 cats for the next year and a half!
While at Tubaniso cold season came and went in a flash. There were definitely days when I wore long sleeves all day, but by the time training was over (3 weeks later) it was hot during the day again. Typical desert weather I suppose. Currently, it’s been hot during the day but still nice enough at night that I’ve been able to sleep inside. I hear from the volunteers that lived through hot season last year that by the end of February, it’ll still be 80 or 90 degrees in the evenings…blech. This makes even Florida winters look chilly!
One nice thing since I’ve been back is that I’ve finally started a couple of the things I wanted to do prior to training. The most fun one being a radio broadcast! It looks like I’ll get to have my very own time slot each week to talk about health related topics. The health hour was already on the schedule, but the midwife who used to do it moved away, and no one ever replaced her so they had just been playing music. Perfect for me, since it won’t be a big deal if I can’t make it one week or am out of town. Basically, I write out what I want to say beforehand (since my Bambara isn’t quite up to ad-libbing on air yet) and then I talk a little, the Dj plays a little music, and back and forth like so until I’ve finished my talk. Then of course we have the “shout outs”. I greet my host family, homologue, and the people in the village whose clinic I work at. This seems to be everyone’s favorite part of the broadcast, but hopefully they’re learning a little while they wait to hear their names on the radio. Eventually I’ll probably play some American music and maybe even have a guest speaker or too, but for now I’m content to read my scripts and say a few hellos.
After doing our first lessons on HIV/AIDS at the 9th grade here, it’s been like walking around a whole new town for Kate and me. I don’t know if it’s just wishful thinking, but I do feel like I’ve heard less “Toubab!” and more “Sira!” when I’m in town. Probably that’s because with 80-90 kids per class and the three classes we’ve gone talked to so far, there are a whole lot more kids that recognize me, even if I don’t remember all of them from class. We’ll see what happens after I do my first health lessons at the elementary school this week…I’ll be practically a celebrity haha.

Joking Cousins and other adventures in training

Only three days left of in service training and then it's back to the real world in Djenne. This means no more showers, delicious food, or wireless internet, but I'm suprisingly ready to get back. Being at the training center is a little like what I imagine sleep away summer camp must have been like, with all of us eating meals in the refectoire and sleeping in little huts. All in all, it's been a lot of sitting in sessions learning about health/development, but there are a few things that have kept it interesting.
One being, I learned how to knit! My tentative plan, should I eventually become any good at it, is to knit a whole bunch of baby hats so that after educating women on the importance of going to the doctor to give birth (they currently prefer to do this at home) I can reward them with little knitted hats for their newborns! This may not fall into the category of sustainable projects (as in will be continued after I leave) but I think it will be fun and the women will really like it.
On the subject of joking cousins: In Mali, there are relatively few last names (as your last name usually indicates your ethnic group). In the history of Mali I guess there was a lot of infighting between these groups, and so in order to keep the peace, they developed the joking cousins system. Basically the way it works is this: If two people are fighting, or there is any sort of problem, and it is discovered that they are joking cousins, they immediately begin making fun of each other and the crisis is resolved. It may sound too easy, but I have actually seen it in action and it works! It is also just fun to joke with people, so they do it ALL THE TIME. For example, I was in the doctor's office the other day having some blood drawn (nothing major) and in the middle of everything another guy walks into the room. He of course asks my last name, and lo and behold we are joking cousins! So while the woman fills three vials with blood, he tells me that the reason I am sick must be because I eat SO many beans. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if I had some in my bag right now! I called him a crazy donkey and said yes I do love beans, which he thought was so funny he about died laughing and the nurse almost kicked him out! hehe. Even in the doctor's office you can't escape it. Other common jokes include: "you are my slave" or "you are not a person." What makes it so entertaining, I haven't quite figured out yet, but it is pretty fun, and it never gets old!
One last anecdote from training so far. My homologue, Nana, who I work with in village has been here this last week (as have all the homologues to get some training). Today we were talking about when I first came to Mali, and she finally told me that when I rode up on a donkey cart the first day and all the little kids surrounded me she thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen! A tubab in the middle of a circle of Malians, on a donkey cart, saying "Nana be min?" (where is nana?)and as she claims, looking very scared. I guess it does make for a pretty funny portrait, but I didn't ever realize how funny she thought it was. She then told the story to a bunch of homologues who thought it was equally hilarious! I probably shouldn't have, but I did tell her about a time in village when I had to ask someone where my own house was, because I had gotten lost and I knew they would know where the tubab girl lived (which they did! haha). When we finally got over our laughing fit, she at least did say I never would have been able to tell her that with how horrible my Bambara was before! At least I think that implies it is a little better now, right?

Holidays Mali style

First and foremost, I finally managed to post more pictures! I haven't figured out how to get them on my blog yet, but at least if you click on the link you should be able to find them. I'll work on adding some captions, but for now most are from the hike in Dogon country, Christmas and New Year's, with some of my host family and house thrown in. Also, thank you to everyone who sent christmas cards or packages! It really made my holiday so much better.
Now, since the last post I've mostly been traveling and getting ready for in service training which starts Monday. Over Christmas we hiked in Dogon country to see the villages that have been built up into the cliffs. There are some houses not in use anymore that you can see way high up and I honestly have no idea how the people managed to get up there to live. When we asked our guide, he matter of factly said, "Because they had a sacred language that allowed them to walk like lizards". Oh. It was really interesting to hear about the Dogon and Tellam (people who lived there before the Dogons) culture because they are pretty much the last remaining animists in the area. We had to go with a guide to avoid accidentally stepping on any sacred spots. If you should do this, the price is the sacrifice of a goat or cow (incidentally not cheap). Luckily we managed to hike all around without offending anyone or ruining any sacred spots. It was really amazing to see how these people live in the cliffs though. As we were slowly making our way up the cliff, some men practically ran past us with huge baskets on their heads. Turns out they were bringing our food up to the campement! Women also manage to climb around with buckets of water on their heads. For some of the villages they have to climb all the way down the cliff to get water from a pump at the bottom. Definitely made me appreciate the spicket outside my house.
As for New Year's, I spent it with a bunch of other volunteers in a village in between Gao and Sevare. We all had a good time, but it was a little sad that for the first time I had a little bit of a hard time staying up until midnight! Way past my usual 9pm bed time.
One of the pictures I wanted to add to the blog but unfortunately couldn't get to work was of Sally, the new addition to our household. We inherited her from another volunteer that left early. She is only a year old and pretty small, so we were surprised when we got her home and only a week later she seemed to have gained a lot of weight. Lo and behold, she's pregnant! So now my mission while with other volunteers for IST is to find homes for however many kittens she ends up having. I did find out though that there is cat birth control available at some pharmacies here! I thought she was a little young to be starting that already, but clearly I was wrong. Naive parenting on our part I guess, haha.
I'll be at the training center for the next three weeks, so I'll hopefully be able to post some more and fill everyone in on what else I've been up to since thanksgiving time!