Various Greetings,
I was walking past the American Embassy on Kairaba Avenue yesterday and the smell of fresh cut grass and lawn mower exhaust hit me like a mud-brick wall. There's plenty of grasses to be found in West Africa but not the varieties most commonly found covering your backyard. Pretty much no one aside from embassies, ambassadors and high end politicians can afford the luxury that is a lawn. I honestly cannot remember the last time my olfactories detected this redolent odor and it took me to a state of reminiscence like few things aside from the sense of smell can. All at once I was consumed by the idea of America, home, friends, family, pork, ice cream, pork-flavored ice cream, beer, flying cars (I assume they exist now); ideas that I've become all too good at blocking out because to think of them too long can lead to bleeding orifices and existential crises. Eh, minor hyperbole, but you know, out of sight out of mind and what not. February 2nd marked the end of my second year in Africa and I can't quite grasp how it came to this. Where did those two years go? Did I really do all those weird ass things I remember doing? When did my African life become normal and the idea of American life become borderline terrifying? Well, I still have five weeks left so I won't start waxing philosophic yet. We'll save that for the next and most likely final post of my career as a volunteer. Anyways, here's an update on my happenings and doings over the last couple months...
Guinea
I took a vacation to Guinea Conakry (not to be confused with Guinea Bissau or Equatorial Guinea) towards the end of November. I went with five other volunteers and spent nearly two weeks hiking all over. Guinea was one of the countries I could have transferred to after Mali along with Senegal, Burkina Faso, or Cameroon. It was interesting to think what could have been had I finished my service there. The country is much larger, more diverse ethnically and geographically, and considerably more beautiful than the Gambia. We spent most of our time hiking in different villages throughout the Fouta Djallon Plateau which covers much of central Guinea. It was gorgeous. Incredible vistas, waterfalls everywhere, 3,000 - 5,000 foot cliffs, and no touristy bullshit to deal with. What more can you ask for? The best hiking was in a remote mountain village called Douki. We stayed there for four days at a compound owned by a guy named Hassan Ba.
Born in neighboring Sierra Leone but ethnically Fula with family roots in Guinea, he spent much of his youth traveling all over Africa and Europe. He speaks English, French, and Spanish fluently as well as probably half a dozen local languages. Now in his early 50's, he's finally "retired" to his family's ancestral land where he takes in backpackers from all over and gives them the best tour of his country that can be found. $25 a night will get you a bed in a mud hut, three delicious meals a day cooked by his wife (including local coffee picked and brewed that day...amazing), endless hiking, and Hassan's unique brand of humor. He knows the mountains literally like the back of his hand (except for that one time we got lost) and has a number of planned hikes with names like Indiana Jones, Wet and Wild, Vulture's Rock, and Chutes and Ladders. The difficulty ranges from 'beginner' to 'holy shit I might die'. Chutes and Ladders involves a more or less vertical ascent up the face of a 3 or 4,000 foot cliff using only the local ladders made of tree limbs and vines. A misstep or the untimely breaking of a ladder could easily be fatal. One ladder after another, we climbed our way to the top. And just as we really began to feel like true bad asses, down comes some shoeless 50 year old woman with a baby on her back and a 25K rice bag balanced on her head without breaking a sweat. Africa's always good for reminding me that I'm really not that much of a bad ass. It wasn't all grueling though, just about every hike featured at least one waterfall fed, resplendent pool of refreshing mountain waters, complete with small fish that would nip, not unpleasantly, at our skin while we swam and washed away the day's dust and sweat. After Douki we traveled on to Dalaba and finally to Kindia. Then came the long trek back to the Gambia over some of the worst roads I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of piss poor roads. On my way home I continued to ponder what my life as a volunteer in francophone Guinea would have been like but I kind of doubt I would have made it long had I gone there. The ability to speak English in the Gambia has been a life saver and even with that benefit I was a hair or two away from quitting back in August.
Work
I still have a bit to do before I'm out, but my work is rapidly drawing to an end. My garden design and methods have long been implemented and soon we'll be harvesting carrots, cabbage, cucumber, and hot peppers. We devoted more space, time and energy to tomatoes than anything else in the garden but found out the hard way that the soil was extremely calcium deficient. All of the 300+ tomato plants are suffering from blossom end rot and none will yield fruit worth much of anything. This year's crop is lost but on the bright side, it is a very treatable problem. We'll re-lime the soil with burnt and crushed oyster shells from the coast and that should take care of the deficiency for a couple years to come. The pigeon pea is doing great as well but won't harvest until next year. Our tree nursery is still young but we have healthy moringa, mango, baobab, lime, orange, malaina, and various acacias transplanted and ready for transplanting.
Beekeeping seems to be going well. It's still largely a mystery to me but perhaps that's because the less I'm involved the better. Bees do what they tend to do quite well and I just try to snag some honey every now and then. I haven't been stung since my first outing, the colony is still strong and they're currently laying lots of drones in anticipation of all the virgin queens that are about to hit the market.
I plan on pumping out a world map mural at my school with the help of the teachers, students, and fellow volunteers at the end of this month. I was also supposed to get a visit from acting Peace Corps Director, Carrie Hessler-Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-1983), but her plans changed last minute. She is touring through the West African posts including the Gambia. My site would have been the only volunteer's site she was going to see but now she only has time to hit the capital before moving on to the next country. It would have been nice to host her for an afternoon but at least now I don't have to worry about purchasing new, non-tattered clothing.
Changes
I moved into yet another house about a month ago. This is my 5th residence since being sworn in as a volunteer the April before last. I'm still in Farafenni with the same job and I still take my meals with my former host family. I certainly could have just stayed where I was but with my roof collapsing, petty thievery, and my school offering to put me up in a larger, housier house with electricity and running water, I couldn't resist. Somehow my host mother was never informed of this decision and was unpleasantly surprised when my counterpart from the school showed up with a donkey and cart to move my belongings up the road. She thought I was leaving for America that day; I assured her she'd know when I was leaving for good because Peace Corps would actually send a vehicle to pick me up. This quickly assuaged her concerns and she told me the Domada would be ready around 8 as usual and don't forget to bring my spoon. Mmmm, Domada.
Cold Season, as brief as it is glorious, is ending abruptly. As the Starks never say: Hot Season is Coming. It seems to have been a shorter, hotter cold season than last year's. I've only spent one here and one in Mali so its hard to truly compare. Regardless, I can't even express how glad I am I'll be missing most of this new hot season. It's not just the heat that is coming, but the death as well. Even back in November at the beginning of the cold season, I could already see the first signs of the great purge. It starts slow but then one day you look up and realize all the green is gone. The lush, verdant grasses and bush that flourished from the heavy summer rains are suddenly PPffffftttttttt... going, gone. All the life receding back deep down into the soil, the soil hardening to stone. The colors drain out of this world until we're left with just shades of brown, red, and gold. Soon enough gold will join the others, hibernating in anticipation of June and the next rainy season. Like so many other things, my closest friends here are leaving or have already left. Our service is at an end and we're slowly staggering off to whatever it is that comes next. Those two raucous red silk cotton trees in my host family's backyard stand quiet now. All the birds have gone. They've flown to some place else, somewhere more alive, and soon so shall I.
Peace/Love
Rege
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Fourth Time's the Charm
As-salamu alaykum,
I've been called out by a few for my lack of posting recently. Apologies. I just noticed my last entry was July 30th. Where doth the time go? Truth be told, I've been quite busy the last few months. A welcome change and one that doesn't often happen in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. On that note, I've now been in the Gambia for over 6 months. As you may recall from my last post, the first three or four months were so miserable I nearly called it quits. I've managed to weather the storm however, and am once again doing well in good ol' West Africa.
Rainy Season
Last year's barely existed and another one like it would have been absolutely crippling, not just in the Gambia or Mali but all across the continent. Thankfully, drought has not been an issue this year. From June through early October the rains just did not stop. Sometimes for a week straight it would pour. All the major cities/towns that make up the Kombo region: Banjul, Bakau, Fajara, Serekunda, Brikama were up to their knees in water. Most "disgusting" things have little if any effect on me these days, but every time my foot slipped into a pool of that ruddy brown, stagnant, mosquito laden, fly covered, excrement filled, schistosomiasis producing, old-dying-goat smelling liquid that doesn't even deserve to be called water, I wanted to vomit. Somehow, I managed to avoid any flesh eating plagues or at least ones with immediate, observable effects. Although in all likelihood, I probably do have schisto, if not from stepping in puddles such as the aforementioned then from swimming around in some abhorrent body of water or another. Well, at least I haven't started pissing blood yet. The flies and mosquitoes seemed ten fold what they were last year. September and October were the worst. Middle of the damn day and I'm getting assailed by mosquitoes. Thankfully, no malaria this year, knock on wood. Well, personal grievances aside, the rains were great and a welcome change. In some regions though, they were too much of a good thing. Nigeria had some devastating flooding and even here in the Gambia, the late season, heavy rains did more damage than good to the millet and corn crops. It's amazing how fragile this ecosystem is, precariously balanced between droughts and floods and made all the more vulnerable to either extreme by climate change. And yet the people carry on. At least this year people can take some comfort in knowing that hungry season won't be so hungry. Next year? Who can say?
Farafenni
My newest home, my fourth home, and as the title of this entry suggests, my final home for the duration of my service. Farafenni is a large town on the North Bank, not quite halfway up country. It's one of the largest commerce areas outside of the Kombo region as well as a significant trading hub with Senegal. It's population is about 30,000 making it by far the largest of the four places I've lived in West Africa (M'piebougoula - pop. 600, Kolondieba - pop. 5,000, Somita - pop. 1,000). It's certainly the easiest place I've lived thus far as well. Internet cafes, local restaurants, toubab shops, plenty of transport, paved roads, electricity... yeah man, it's a regular NYC... minus the electricity that is. I don't want to give you the wrong impression when I say things like internet cafes or restaurants. Picture half dilapidated shanties with a corrugate roof that happen to have a few computers and a router inside or a lady with a gas tank and a single burner shelling out egg sandwiches. That's about as sophisticated as we get here.
I am currently living on the outskirts of town with yet another host family. This was supposed to be a temporary housing situation while I looked for a renters compound/apartment elsewhere in town, but surprise surprise, three months later and I'm still here. Slowly slowly as they say. To be honest, my current digs aren't so bad. This host family is very welcoming, accommodating, and friendly just as my previous host families were. Communication is a bit of an issue. The family's first language is Wolof but they also speak Fula and Mandinka. I on the other hand only have the most basic grasp on Mandinka and can't do more than greet in the other two. A couple of the kids speak English but if they're not around I'm down to hand gestures and a pathetic mix of Bambara and Mandinka. I get by though. My actual house has been a bit of an issue. I live in a pentagonal, thatched roof hut. It has a diameter of about 15 feet and I also have my bed, desk, book shelf, and a small couch (all inherited from the previous volunteer) in the hut as well. It's certainly the smallest place I've ever lived. It's also falling apart. My roof has about 8 gaping holes in it now and that was a real bitch throughout rainy season. This is my first time living in a thatched roof hut and holy shit do those things get dank and moldy. It's getting better now that rainy season is over but for awhile there it was pretty gross. Mold everywhere! Mold on my food, mold on my clothes, mold on my bed, mold on my cigarettes, mold on my goat leather bound knives. If something got the least bit damp, it was mold covered within 24 hours, but at least that issue is behind me now. Everything's dried out since the rains have eased off in early October. Still plenty of pests in my house as well. The screens on my windows are falling apart, my back door has a large hole in the screening, made for or by the bastard of a cat I inherited, Toodles. Yeah, that's right. Screw you, Toodles. We're enemies. Spiders and cobwebs everywhere. I sweep them all out one day, they're back the next. Things like this used to bother me once upon a time. Now, it's just par for the course. I guess I'm adaptable.
Not only does my roof have multiple holes but I realized a month or so ago that it's literally being eaten and shat out on top of me. Let me explain... Not so long ago, I was sitting around, reading a book when I heard a conspicuous 'plop' sound. I looked down and found a corpulent white grub about the length of my pinkie finger but fatter which had apparently fallen from my straw ceiling. It had 6 tiny legs but all of them so close to its head that they seemed utterly useless, a mean set of jaws, and its ass-end was somewhat translucent with some sort of dark matter within. I'd never seen such a thing and was quite curious to find out what its writhing, fat ass might become. So I put him in a jar with some of the straw from my ceiling, named him Jerry, and waited. Well, Jerry died not long after and the only thing to come out of him was that mysterious dark stuff inside his ass. It was grub shit and in hindsight I guess that should have been pretty obvious. But I recognized this shit. It was the same stuff I had to sweep off my floor en masse every morning, I had just assumed it was dirt and debris falling from my roof. But no, apparently my roof is awash with Jerry's buddies and they're slowly eating it and shitting all over me. Happy days are here again.
So, those issues aside my arrangements aren't that bad. I have a nice shaded backyard with mango, papaya, and lime trees and I'm afforded a pretty nice view as well. The view is south facing over a nice expanse of bucolic farmland interposed by a grove of baobab trees and two massive, towering red silk cotton trees. The cotton trees are competed for day and night by literally hundreds of birds. In the lower branches you'll find at least a hundred weaver bird nests, the bright yellow males hanging upside-down below their nests attempting to attract mates. The middle branches are run mostly by starlings, metallic blue in color, extended tails, a screechy but not unpleasant call. They seem to swim rather than fly through the air; my favorite birds both in the Gambia and Mali. From time to time I'll spot a lime green parrot or two but they're rather uncommon. The crown, however, is home to most of the action. A slew of fishing birds, cranes, and vultures jockey for the best perches day and night with the losers being relegated to a shameful spot in one of the surrounding baobab trees. These trees are always animated and alive and I can easily pass an hour or two just watching the action. Mmhm, I like my backyard.
Work
Work is going well these days. I'm still at the Anglican Training Centre (ATC) school which is a branch of the Anglican Mission Institute (AMI) in the Gambia. It's an upper basic school and a senior secondary school (junior and senior high school) with a focus on agriculture and other vocational skills. My primary project has been redesigning the school's main garden and making it a classroom of sorts. The garden is 50m x 40m which is about ideal size for my purposes. When I first got there more than half the garden was consumed by weeds and grass taller than me, along with randomly placed beds of sorrel, okra, and cassava. It was in pretty poor shape but then again it wasn't quite gardening season when I arrived so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't always so scrappy. I have three farmhands working with me and I immediately became the boss of sorts, which is something I'm not quite used to. We started by cutting everything down and ploughing the garden ala donkey power. My counterparts only let me play with the donkey and plough for a few minutes, then they politely told me to go sit in the shade before I hurt myself. ...Shucks, really wish I would have gotten more time to toil with 7th century technology under the boiling African sun. After the ploughing we came up with a basic design for the garden, dug out the beds, and made pathways. We got a bunch of compost going, made 18 1.5m x 9m double dug beds (torture) then had to wait around until the rains stopped before we could start planting. The rains have since stopped and we've got tomato, hot and sweet pepper, basil, and cabbage planted in the nursery, the carrots are sown in their permanent beds, just planted the corn with nitrogen fixing pigeon pea. Banana plants are going strong around the perimeter of the garden. We still need to get the potatoes in and I want to start moringa and baobab tree permaculture beds. In fact, I'm trying to introduce a range of permaculture techniques not readily used in the Gambia. Simple stuff really, like proper composting and other natural fertilizers, double digging beds which increases the nutrient content of the soil, integrated pest management such as complimentary planting i.e. basil and tomato, carrot and onion, etc. as well as natural pesticides of which I have at least a dozen recipes for various pests, fallow planting, crop rotation, alley cropping i.e. planting the pigeon pea or other leguminous plants or trees with heavy feeders such as corn or tomatoes to provide more nitrogen in the soil... we have a bunch of stuff going on. Now if I can just get the students more involved. My hope is that these techniques will get picked up leading to better use of farmland, management of soil and resources, higher yields of vegetables without relying on expensive and damaging chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and improved food security all around. Finally, our tree nursery hasn't gone off as well as I would have liked but we still have some acacia senegal and acacia tortillas for live fencing, mango, and some moringa started.
My secondary project is beekeeping and its been a trial by fire thus far. The school already had a few bee suits, smokers, and five Kenya Top Bar hives (KTB). Only one of the KTB hives was colonized and that's still the case although we're trying to capture a few more swarms. In spite of having the tools, nobody at the school had much expertise in bee keeping. Neither did I but there happens to be a fellow pcv, Scott, about 13 K up the road who's been helping us get started. We went out one evening about a month ago to check on our one colonized hive. The dearth period was just ending and the bees were beginning to forage again now that there was something to actually forage for. Since the bees hadn't been disturbed for several months they were just about as aggressive as they could be. As soon as we opened the lid they were all over us. I teetered back and forth at first trying to suppress the urge to run the hell away... which, let me tell you, is a pretty strong urge when there are a couple thousand bees all over you, bee suit or not. Our bee suits weren't that thick so we were getting a lot of false stings as well. You could feel the bees stinging you all over but they couldn't get close enough to really get the venom in. I was just getting acclimated to this sensation when the bees managed to find a hole in my suit... And then shit got real. All of a sudden I had about a dozen bees flying around my face and I'm running around at dusk, tripping over neem trees and the barbed wire fence surrounding our apiary thinking why the fuck is there a goddamn barbed wire fence here?! Really should have done something about that before we went bee keeping. Eventually, I was able to get out of the danger zone and had to repeatedly smack my face to kill the bees under my hood. But not before I took enough stings to make it look as though i got decked in the face. Honestly though, it didn't really even hurt that bad, it was mostly just fear. And thankfully I'm not allergic to bees. And um, that barbed wire fence is still there. But damn, was that honey good, yessir. I got another chance to go out a few days ago, this time at Scott's village, Wallalan. Things went much better. His suits are a lot thicker so no stings of any kind, no holes in my suit this time, and the bees were much calmer. We just did a bit of hive maintenance. Unfortunately there wasn't any honey to take. Beekeeping is pretty awesome though, looking forward to continuing it in the States.
Transport
Still a pain in my ass. Some days its better, some days... it's beyond miserable. If I want to leave Farafenni and go west to the capital/Kombo region, I have two options: North Bank or South Bank. Farafenni is located on the North Bank and Kombo is on the South so at some point I have to cross the Gambia river. If I go South Bank I have to bike 7 or 8k to the ferry crossing between Farafenni and Soma, take the ferry, bike another 7 or 8k to a volunteer's house in Soma and drop off my bike. Then I have to take a gelee (ancient vans packed with 20 - 25 people, super uncomfortable, slow, many stops) the rest of the way including a 50k span of unpaved road until I reach Brikama. Then I take another gelee from Brikama to Westfield and finally, a short taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara. It's the longer route in general. Plus the gelees are notorious for getting flats on that unpaved span. The last time I took this route we got a flat and the driver forgot to fill up his spare tire. I thought I was going to kill him. The other route is usually the better bet. This involves heading to the garage in Farafenni, getting a sept place (station wagon with room for 7 passengers) and driving along the North Bank highway from Farafenni to Barra. Not only is this route shorter, it's completely paved. Once I get to Barra I can either take the ferry or what we call a small boat (large pirogue that should fit 50 people but its usually crammed with about 75 or more, boat has a single outboard motor). Now that I'm at the mouth of the river/Atlantic Ocean it's substantially wider. I think the crossing is about 3 or 4k. The ferry is slow as hell and its engines have a tendency to stop working which can leave you stranded for hours just floating around the mouth of the river. The small boats are a lot faster... but it is a small boat and you probably don't want to be in it when the weather gets rough. Guess who was in a small boat when the weather got rough? Oh yeah, we're coming to that. Anyways, once I cross the river the worst of it is over. Then it's just a short gelee ride from Barra to Westfield and then a shorter taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara were our office and transit house are located. At this point you might be asking yourself, "Why not just cross the bridge?" Well that would be because there is no bridge. Yep, a country that is pretty much all river but doesn't have a bridge. It's grand, let me tell you. So one day I was heading back to Faraefenni from Kombo with Scott during rainy season. I immediately wrote down a thorough description of the small boat crossing once I got to my house. Here is said description (note: I considered editing this but nah, I'm not gonna. I feel that would be a grave disservice to this blog)...
9/05/12
Transport from Kombo to Farafenni today: Took a small boat as usual... Sitting in the sun, relentless fuck that it is, no shade. Captain cramming every last person on that he can. Storm is moving in, waves choppy and growing. Thunder not so distant. Gambians on board start pleading with the captain to go but the boat isn't full to his liking. We wait. I move off the top railing and into the bottom of the pirogue where there is a bit more shade. Immediately realize sea sickness had a much stronger hold on me down here. Immediately lost my previous seat. Time passing, sun burning, nothing happening but more people getting on the boat. Finally, anchor up, motor running, we're off. Propulsion of the boat is mercifully negating worst of the side-to-side assaults of the waves. Sea is still getting rougher though. Down in the bottom everyone is feeling the waves. Little wind down here, less space. They're all doubled over, face in hands. I'm trying to distract myself by looking at the parrots somebody's smuggling to who knows where but I concentrate on them too much. Now I'm feeling it. The man across starts passing around matches. People take them and chew on the non-business end. I don't take one, doubt it'll do anything. Engine stalls out and the rocking of the boat immediately triples. I look up at Scott, still on the top rail and ask how far out we are.
"Half way" he says "or maybe a little more."
An old man jumps off the railing into the bottom of the boat and immediately starts yacking. I can see it all. Looks like he had beans and spaghetti for lunch, must not have been long ago. Gritting my teeth now, really getting pissed. Endless mantra running through my head: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this fucking country! This country is a fucking river with a little land on either side but not one fucking bridge. Oh, oh, Ok there are two bridges but they don't fucking count because they just cross tributaries. Not one fucking bridge connects North bank to South, so there! FUCK! fuck fuck fu... engine rolls over, moving again, about fucking time. Girl directly across from me starts puking. Everyone on top and bottom look ill. Only the apprento seems undisturbed as he collects the fares. No, not undisturbed. He's disgusted by the weak constitutions surrounding him. Still in the bottom. Can't see anything but the sky directly above me. Captain starts cutting the engine off and on. We're slowing down as he maneuvers to dock the boat on the north shore. Somethings wrong though. We're tangled in at least one other pirogue's anchor line, perhaps two. It's hard to tell. The pirogue to my right is being smashed into ours by the waves. Waves still growing. We can't actually dock. Still caught up in the lines and half a length shy from where the operantos can carry us to shore on their shoulders. Over half the passengers storm the boat to the right so they can get out from there but all their weight is on the left side. Now it's hitting about 75 degrees everytime a wave hits it. Thinking for sure this is gonna roll over, top down on my boat. A giant, 120 foot long , mahogany, ocean-going coffin. People on the second boat start distributing their weight more evenly. Boat calms immediately. Standing now. Several operantos are yelling at me at once.
"Come wit me!"
"No, wit me NOW NOW!"
"Take my hand, boy!"
"No dis way! Come come!"
Water isn't deep, but I have my iPod, phone, money, bag full of shit. Boat next door is still crashing into ours with every pounding wave. Could easily get knocked out and go under. Unnoticed in an opaque sea and a sea of people. Shit, could easily get my head crushed like a mellon. I tell all the operantos to fuck off, I'm waiting until things calm down. Captain is finally trying to maneuver the pirogue out of the lines. Ropes are criss crossing over us as he backs the boat back out to sea. Four or Five apprentos from other boats are on board now, everyone's screaming directions at each other and at the passengers still on board. An older man falls down hard from the top railing into the bottom of the boat.
"Watch out!"
"Here! Come over here"
"Grab da rope"
"Get da fuck out da way, man!"
"No, now stay dere, stay dere!"
Same old man falls again, this time into me. Wave hits and we both go down. Right in somebody's vomit. Why the fuck not? Finally, boat is untangled. New problem. The boat is parallel to shore. Gonna tip over for sure. How could it not? Every wave is pushing us closer to 90 degrees. Captain gets us perpendicular again, somehow. Rocking subsides. Neighboring boat is still smacking into us but not as hard. I cross over and move off the left rail towards middle of the boat.
Apprento yells to me, "Hey toubab, you don't get off my boat you owe me 25 Dalasi."
"Fuck you" I throw back. Immediately realize that was a mistake. This guy is fucking jacked. They build these boats by hand, haul anchors up by hand, haul passengers to and from shore on their shoulders, haul 50k rice bags to and fro all day, everyday. Shiiiit. He's too busy to pay me mind though. Lucky. I gain my footing and head towards the nose of the second pirogue. Climb onto an operantos shoulders. Out of the surf, he drops me down and I'm on my feet, on dry land. One more crossing in the books. Don't anybody ever tell me infrastructure isn't worth investing in. I'll kill you.
Summary
So that more or less sums up the last three months. Just under five months to go. As always, I don't know where the time has gone. I still have plenty of work to keep me busy through March. I have a trip planed to Guinea at the end of this month. Mini hot season is about over and cold season is creeping in. I sincerely hope its my last season in Africa... at least this go around. Just can't do another full hot season. That shit sucks. I'm happy I decided to stick with it though. Finally feel like I'm on the verge of accomplishing something here, small as it may be. On top of that, I'm still learning new skills, learning more about myself, meeting great people, and having some awesome adventures, like that boat ride or that beekeeping fiasco... or, wait a minute. Well, some are more awesome than others. Cheers for now.
P&L
Rege
I've been called out by a few for my lack of posting recently. Apologies. I just noticed my last entry was July 30th. Where doth the time go? Truth be told, I've been quite busy the last few months. A welcome change and one that doesn't often happen in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer. On that note, I've now been in the Gambia for over 6 months. As you may recall from my last post, the first three or four months were so miserable I nearly called it quits. I've managed to weather the storm however, and am once again doing well in good ol' West Africa.
Rainy Season
Last year's barely existed and another one like it would have been absolutely crippling, not just in the Gambia or Mali but all across the continent. Thankfully, drought has not been an issue this year. From June through early October the rains just did not stop. Sometimes for a week straight it would pour. All the major cities/towns that make up the Kombo region: Banjul, Bakau, Fajara, Serekunda, Brikama were up to their knees in water. Most "disgusting" things have little if any effect on me these days, but every time my foot slipped into a pool of that ruddy brown, stagnant, mosquito laden, fly covered, excrement filled, schistosomiasis producing, old-dying-goat smelling liquid that doesn't even deserve to be called water, I wanted to vomit. Somehow, I managed to avoid any flesh eating plagues or at least ones with immediate, observable effects. Although in all likelihood, I probably do have schisto, if not from stepping in puddles such as the aforementioned then from swimming around in some abhorrent body of water or another. Well, at least I haven't started pissing blood yet. The flies and mosquitoes seemed ten fold what they were last year. September and October were the worst. Middle of the damn day and I'm getting assailed by mosquitoes. Thankfully, no malaria this year, knock on wood. Well, personal grievances aside, the rains were great and a welcome change. In some regions though, they were too much of a good thing. Nigeria had some devastating flooding and even here in the Gambia, the late season, heavy rains did more damage than good to the millet and corn crops. It's amazing how fragile this ecosystem is, precariously balanced between droughts and floods and made all the more vulnerable to either extreme by climate change. And yet the people carry on. At least this year people can take some comfort in knowing that hungry season won't be so hungry. Next year? Who can say?
Farafenni
My newest home, my fourth home, and as the title of this entry suggests, my final home for the duration of my service. Farafenni is a large town on the North Bank, not quite halfway up country. It's one of the largest commerce areas outside of the Kombo region as well as a significant trading hub with Senegal. It's population is about 30,000 making it by far the largest of the four places I've lived in West Africa (M'piebougoula - pop. 600, Kolondieba - pop. 5,000, Somita - pop. 1,000). It's certainly the easiest place I've lived thus far as well. Internet cafes, local restaurants, toubab shops, plenty of transport, paved roads, electricity... yeah man, it's a regular NYC... minus the electricity that is. I don't want to give you the wrong impression when I say things like internet cafes or restaurants. Picture half dilapidated shanties with a corrugate roof that happen to have a few computers and a router inside or a lady with a gas tank and a single burner shelling out egg sandwiches. That's about as sophisticated as we get here.
I am currently living on the outskirts of town with yet another host family. This was supposed to be a temporary housing situation while I looked for a renters compound/apartment elsewhere in town, but surprise surprise, three months later and I'm still here. Slowly slowly as they say. To be honest, my current digs aren't so bad. This host family is very welcoming, accommodating, and friendly just as my previous host families were. Communication is a bit of an issue. The family's first language is Wolof but they also speak Fula and Mandinka. I on the other hand only have the most basic grasp on Mandinka and can't do more than greet in the other two. A couple of the kids speak English but if they're not around I'm down to hand gestures and a pathetic mix of Bambara and Mandinka. I get by though. My actual house has been a bit of an issue. I live in a pentagonal, thatched roof hut. It has a diameter of about 15 feet and I also have my bed, desk, book shelf, and a small couch (all inherited from the previous volunteer) in the hut as well. It's certainly the smallest place I've ever lived. It's also falling apart. My roof has about 8 gaping holes in it now and that was a real bitch throughout rainy season. This is my first time living in a thatched roof hut and holy shit do those things get dank and moldy. It's getting better now that rainy season is over but for awhile there it was pretty gross. Mold everywhere! Mold on my food, mold on my clothes, mold on my bed, mold on my cigarettes, mold on my goat leather bound knives. If something got the least bit damp, it was mold covered within 24 hours, but at least that issue is behind me now. Everything's dried out since the rains have eased off in early October. Still plenty of pests in my house as well. The screens on my windows are falling apart, my back door has a large hole in the screening, made for or by the bastard of a cat I inherited, Toodles. Yeah, that's right. Screw you, Toodles. We're enemies. Spiders and cobwebs everywhere. I sweep them all out one day, they're back the next. Things like this used to bother me once upon a time. Now, it's just par for the course. I guess I'm adaptable.
Not only does my roof have multiple holes but I realized a month or so ago that it's literally being eaten and shat out on top of me. Let me explain... Not so long ago, I was sitting around, reading a book when I heard a conspicuous 'plop' sound. I looked down and found a corpulent white grub about the length of my pinkie finger but fatter which had apparently fallen from my straw ceiling. It had 6 tiny legs but all of them so close to its head that they seemed utterly useless, a mean set of jaws, and its ass-end was somewhat translucent with some sort of dark matter within. I'd never seen such a thing and was quite curious to find out what its writhing, fat ass might become. So I put him in a jar with some of the straw from my ceiling, named him Jerry, and waited. Well, Jerry died not long after and the only thing to come out of him was that mysterious dark stuff inside his ass. It was grub shit and in hindsight I guess that should have been pretty obvious. But I recognized this shit. It was the same stuff I had to sweep off my floor en masse every morning, I had just assumed it was dirt and debris falling from my roof. But no, apparently my roof is awash with Jerry's buddies and they're slowly eating it and shitting all over me. Happy days are here again.
So, those issues aside my arrangements aren't that bad. I have a nice shaded backyard with mango, papaya, and lime trees and I'm afforded a pretty nice view as well. The view is south facing over a nice expanse of bucolic farmland interposed by a grove of baobab trees and two massive, towering red silk cotton trees. The cotton trees are competed for day and night by literally hundreds of birds. In the lower branches you'll find at least a hundred weaver bird nests, the bright yellow males hanging upside-down below their nests attempting to attract mates. The middle branches are run mostly by starlings, metallic blue in color, extended tails, a screechy but not unpleasant call. They seem to swim rather than fly through the air; my favorite birds both in the Gambia and Mali. From time to time I'll spot a lime green parrot or two but they're rather uncommon. The crown, however, is home to most of the action. A slew of fishing birds, cranes, and vultures jockey for the best perches day and night with the losers being relegated to a shameful spot in one of the surrounding baobab trees. These trees are always animated and alive and I can easily pass an hour or two just watching the action. Mmhm, I like my backyard.
Work
Work is going well these days. I'm still at the Anglican Training Centre (ATC) school which is a branch of the Anglican Mission Institute (AMI) in the Gambia. It's an upper basic school and a senior secondary school (junior and senior high school) with a focus on agriculture and other vocational skills. My primary project has been redesigning the school's main garden and making it a classroom of sorts. The garden is 50m x 40m which is about ideal size for my purposes. When I first got there more than half the garden was consumed by weeds and grass taller than me, along with randomly placed beds of sorrel, okra, and cassava. It was in pretty poor shape but then again it wasn't quite gardening season when I arrived so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't always so scrappy. I have three farmhands working with me and I immediately became the boss of sorts, which is something I'm not quite used to. We started by cutting everything down and ploughing the garden ala donkey power. My counterparts only let me play with the donkey and plough for a few minutes, then they politely told me to go sit in the shade before I hurt myself. ...Shucks, really wish I would have gotten more time to toil with 7th century technology under the boiling African sun. After the ploughing we came up with a basic design for the garden, dug out the beds, and made pathways. We got a bunch of compost going, made 18 1.5m x 9m double dug beds (torture) then had to wait around until the rains stopped before we could start planting. The rains have since stopped and we've got tomato, hot and sweet pepper, basil, and cabbage planted in the nursery, the carrots are sown in their permanent beds, just planted the corn with nitrogen fixing pigeon pea. Banana plants are going strong around the perimeter of the garden. We still need to get the potatoes in and I want to start moringa and baobab tree permaculture beds. In fact, I'm trying to introduce a range of permaculture techniques not readily used in the Gambia. Simple stuff really, like proper composting and other natural fertilizers, double digging beds which increases the nutrient content of the soil, integrated pest management such as complimentary planting i.e. basil and tomato, carrot and onion, etc. as well as natural pesticides of which I have at least a dozen recipes for various pests, fallow planting, crop rotation, alley cropping i.e. planting the pigeon pea or other leguminous plants or trees with heavy feeders such as corn or tomatoes to provide more nitrogen in the soil... we have a bunch of stuff going on. Now if I can just get the students more involved. My hope is that these techniques will get picked up leading to better use of farmland, management of soil and resources, higher yields of vegetables without relying on expensive and damaging chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and improved food security all around. Finally, our tree nursery hasn't gone off as well as I would have liked but we still have some acacia senegal and acacia tortillas for live fencing, mango, and some moringa started.
My secondary project is beekeeping and its been a trial by fire thus far. The school already had a few bee suits, smokers, and five Kenya Top Bar hives (KTB). Only one of the KTB hives was colonized and that's still the case although we're trying to capture a few more swarms. In spite of having the tools, nobody at the school had much expertise in bee keeping. Neither did I but there happens to be a fellow pcv, Scott, about 13 K up the road who's been helping us get started. We went out one evening about a month ago to check on our one colonized hive. The dearth period was just ending and the bees were beginning to forage again now that there was something to actually forage for. Since the bees hadn't been disturbed for several months they were just about as aggressive as they could be. As soon as we opened the lid they were all over us. I teetered back and forth at first trying to suppress the urge to run the hell away... which, let me tell you, is a pretty strong urge when there are a couple thousand bees all over you, bee suit or not. Our bee suits weren't that thick so we were getting a lot of false stings as well. You could feel the bees stinging you all over but they couldn't get close enough to really get the venom in. I was just getting acclimated to this sensation when the bees managed to find a hole in my suit... And then shit got real. All of a sudden I had about a dozen bees flying around my face and I'm running around at dusk, tripping over neem trees and the barbed wire fence surrounding our apiary thinking why the fuck is there a goddamn barbed wire fence here?! Really should have done something about that before we went bee keeping. Eventually, I was able to get out of the danger zone and had to repeatedly smack my face to kill the bees under my hood. But not before I took enough stings to make it look as though i got decked in the face. Honestly though, it didn't really even hurt that bad, it was mostly just fear. And thankfully I'm not allergic to bees. And um, that barbed wire fence is still there. But damn, was that honey good, yessir. I got another chance to go out a few days ago, this time at Scott's village, Wallalan. Things went much better. His suits are a lot thicker so no stings of any kind, no holes in my suit this time, and the bees were much calmer. We just did a bit of hive maintenance. Unfortunately there wasn't any honey to take. Beekeeping is pretty awesome though, looking forward to continuing it in the States.
Transport
Still a pain in my ass. Some days its better, some days... it's beyond miserable. If I want to leave Farafenni and go west to the capital/Kombo region, I have two options: North Bank or South Bank. Farafenni is located on the North Bank and Kombo is on the South so at some point I have to cross the Gambia river. If I go South Bank I have to bike 7 or 8k to the ferry crossing between Farafenni and Soma, take the ferry, bike another 7 or 8k to a volunteer's house in Soma and drop off my bike. Then I have to take a gelee (ancient vans packed with 20 - 25 people, super uncomfortable, slow, many stops) the rest of the way including a 50k span of unpaved road until I reach Brikama. Then I take another gelee from Brikama to Westfield and finally, a short taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara. It's the longer route in general. Plus the gelees are notorious for getting flats on that unpaved span. The last time I took this route we got a flat and the driver forgot to fill up his spare tire. I thought I was going to kill him. The other route is usually the better bet. This involves heading to the garage in Farafenni, getting a sept place (station wagon with room for 7 passengers) and driving along the North Bank highway from Farafenni to Barra. Not only is this route shorter, it's completely paved. Once I get to Barra I can either take the ferry or what we call a small boat (large pirogue that should fit 50 people but its usually crammed with about 75 or more, boat has a single outboard motor). Now that I'm at the mouth of the river/Atlantic Ocean it's substantially wider. I think the crossing is about 3 or 4k. The ferry is slow as hell and its engines have a tendency to stop working which can leave you stranded for hours just floating around the mouth of the river. The small boats are a lot faster... but it is a small boat and you probably don't want to be in it when the weather gets rough. Guess who was in a small boat when the weather got rough? Oh yeah, we're coming to that. Anyways, once I cross the river the worst of it is over. Then it's just a short gelee ride from Barra to Westfield and then a shorter taxi ride from Westfield to Fajara were our office and transit house are located. At this point you might be asking yourself, "Why not just cross the bridge?" Well that would be because there is no bridge. Yep, a country that is pretty much all river but doesn't have a bridge. It's grand, let me tell you. So one day I was heading back to Faraefenni from Kombo with Scott during rainy season. I immediately wrote down a thorough description of the small boat crossing once I got to my house. Here is said description (note: I considered editing this but nah, I'm not gonna. I feel that would be a grave disservice to this blog)...
9/05/12
Transport from Kombo to Farafenni today: Took a small boat as usual... Sitting in the sun, relentless fuck that it is, no shade. Captain cramming every last person on that he can. Storm is moving in, waves choppy and growing. Thunder not so distant. Gambians on board start pleading with the captain to go but the boat isn't full to his liking. We wait. I move off the top railing and into the bottom of the pirogue where there is a bit more shade. Immediately realize sea sickness had a much stronger hold on me down here. Immediately lost my previous seat. Time passing, sun burning, nothing happening but more people getting on the boat. Finally, anchor up, motor running, we're off. Propulsion of the boat is mercifully negating worst of the side-to-side assaults of the waves. Sea is still getting rougher though. Down in the bottom everyone is feeling the waves. Little wind down here, less space. They're all doubled over, face in hands. I'm trying to distract myself by looking at the parrots somebody's smuggling to who knows where but I concentrate on them too much. Now I'm feeling it. The man across starts passing around matches. People take them and chew on the non-business end. I don't take one, doubt it'll do anything. Engine stalls out and the rocking of the boat immediately triples. I look up at Scott, still on the top rail and ask how far out we are.
"Half way" he says "or maybe a little more."
An old man jumps off the railing into the bottom of the boat and immediately starts yacking. I can see it all. Looks like he had beans and spaghetti for lunch, must not have been long ago. Gritting my teeth now, really getting pissed. Endless mantra running through my head: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this fucking country! This country is a fucking river with a little land on either side but not one fucking bridge. Oh, oh, Ok there are two bridges but they don't fucking count because they just cross tributaries. Not one fucking bridge connects North bank to South, so there! FUCK! fuck fuck fu... engine rolls over, moving again, about fucking time. Girl directly across from me starts puking. Everyone on top and bottom look ill. Only the apprento seems undisturbed as he collects the fares. No, not undisturbed. He's disgusted by the weak constitutions surrounding him. Still in the bottom. Can't see anything but the sky directly above me. Captain starts cutting the engine off and on. We're slowing down as he maneuvers to dock the boat on the north shore. Somethings wrong though. We're tangled in at least one other pirogue's anchor line, perhaps two. It's hard to tell. The pirogue to my right is being smashed into ours by the waves. Waves still growing. We can't actually dock. Still caught up in the lines and half a length shy from where the operantos can carry us to shore on their shoulders. Over half the passengers storm the boat to the right so they can get out from there but all their weight is on the left side. Now it's hitting about 75 degrees everytime a wave hits it. Thinking for sure this is gonna roll over, top down on my boat. A giant, 120 foot long , mahogany, ocean-going coffin. People on the second boat start distributing their weight more evenly. Boat calms immediately. Standing now. Several operantos are yelling at me at once.
"Come wit me!"
"No, wit me NOW NOW!"
"Take my hand, boy!"
"No dis way! Come come!"
Water isn't deep, but I have my iPod, phone, money, bag full of shit. Boat next door is still crashing into ours with every pounding wave. Could easily get knocked out and go under. Unnoticed in an opaque sea and a sea of people. Shit, could easily get my head crushed like a mellon. I tell all the operantos to fuck off, I'm waiting until things calm down. Captain is finally trying to maneuver the pirogue out of the lines. Ropes are criss crossing over us as he backs the boat back out to sea. Four or Five apprentos from other boats are on board now, everyone's screaming directions at each other and at the passengers still on board. An older man falls down hard from the top railing into the bottom of the boat.
"Watch out!"
"Here! Come over here"
"Grab da rope"
"Get da fuck out da way, man!"
"No, now stay dere, stay dere!"
Same old man falls again, this time into me. Wave hits and we both go down. Right in somebody's vomit. Why the fuck not? Finally, boat is untangled. New problem. The boat is parallel to shore. Gonna tip over for sure. How could it not? Every wave is pushing us closer to 90 degrees. Captain gets us perpendicular again, somehow. Rocking subsides. Neighboring boat is still smacking into us but not as hard. I cross over and move off the left rail towards middle of the boat.
Apprento yells to me, "Hey toubab, you don't get off my boat you owe me 25 Dalasi."
"Fuck you" I throw back. Immediately realize that was a mistake. This guy is fucking jacked. They build these boats by hand, haul anchors up by hand, haul passengers to and from shore on their shoulders, haul 50k rice bags to and fro all day, everyday. Shiiiit. He's too busy to pay me mind though. Lucky. I gain my footing and head towards the nose of the second pirogue. Climb onto an operantos shoulders. Out of the surf, he drops me down and I'm on my feet, on dry land. One more crossing in the books. Don't anybody ever tell me infrastructure isn't worth investing in. I'll kill you.
Summary
So that more or less sums up the last three months. Just under five months to go. As always, I don't know where the time has gone. I still have plenty of work to keep me busy through March. I have a trip planed to Guinea at the end of this month. Mini hot season is about over and cold season is creeping in. I sincerely hope its my last season in Africa... at least this go around. Just can't do another full hot season. That shit sucks. I'm happy I decided to stick with it though. Finally feel like I'm on the verge of accomplishing something here, small as it may be. On top of that, I'm still learning new skills, learning more about myself, meeting great people, and having some awesome adventures, like that boat ride or that beekeeping fiasco... or, wait a minute. Well, some are more awesome than others. Cheers for now.
P&L
Rege
Monday, July 30, 2012
Where To From Here?
Greetings,
It's been almost three months since my last post. The reason being that this period of my service has been quite miserable and I was interested neither in incurring your concerns and worries, nor sugar coating my time here. But alas, I do my best to keep an honest portrayal of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer and it's past time I fill you in. I'm yet to even describe The Gambia to you so allow me to start there.
This sliver of a country I'm living in is the smallest on continental Africa. It's literally just The Gambia river and the immediate lands north and south there of. I've heard it's roughly the size of Connecticut, I'm not certain but that sounds about right. It borders the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast and is surrounded by Senegal on all other sides. It was initially a British colony as opposed to French controlled Senegal. Although I'm not sure how Senegal didn't manage to annex it once the two countries gained independence, especially given the fact that the Gambia is more fertile than most of Senegal and the Gambia river is also the largest, most navigable river between the two countries. I understand there was a loose confederation between the two states known as Senegambia. It lasted from 1982 to 1989 when the two countries rather peacefully decided it wasn't worth their time. Another interesting fact, Kunta Kinte, central character of Roots, as well as a whole lot of other West Africans were abducted into slavery from The Gambia.
For the last 18 years, The Gambia has been blessedly guided under the impeccable stewardship of "His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhagi Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh Nassiru Deen, President of The Gambia, Commander-In-Chief of The Armed Forces, and Chief Custodian of The Sacred Constitution of The Gambia". But you can just call him Jammeh for short. He just won another landslide "election" last year so hooray for him. And if that wasn't awesome enough, he can also cure AIDS and asthma with natural herbs! ...erhm. Anyways, The Gambia is culturally very similar to Mali and the rest of Muslim West Africa. The major language spoken here is Mandinka, a derivative of Bambara. Wollof and Fula are the other common languages in addition to pockets of Jola, Sarahole, and others. English is the administrative language and one of the main reasons I chose to finish my service here rather than Francophone Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, or Cameroon. Perhaps I'm biased, but I have to say, the Gambia cannot touch Mali when it comes to culture. Then again, no country really can seeing as how Mali is the heart of West Africa. Geographically, however, The Gambia does have quite a bit to offer. It has a much wider variety of flora and fauna than Mali as well as a more tropical climate. It's access to the ocean and the Gambia river act as a corridor for an incredible variety of birds. Indeed, it is a bird watcher's paradise. During my first week here I did a 12 K hike around the west coast area. I got to see grasslands, marshes, mangroves, salt flats, and old growth forest all within that range. Monkeys, baboons, hippos, crocodiles and boars are also far more common here than in Mali. It's a pretty beautiful place.
When I first met with my program manager and administration upon coming to The Gambia, I specifically requested a site where I wouldn't need to use local languages and that had projects ready to roll. Having already spent more than half of my service in Mali, I do not have the time to both learn a new language and build up a project or two from scratch. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, I was given pretty much the opposite of my request. I was placed in a town called Somita. It's part of the West Coast Region and not far from the capital, Banjul. If I had a full 27 months to spend there, I think it would have been a great site for me but given my aforementioned restrictions, I felt rather useless. In fact, I've been down about a lot of things since coming here. Yes, yes boo-hoo for poor old me. Bare with me as I describe the shit storm that's been my life for the last couple months before we get to my current, slightly more positive outlook... I imagined the transition from Mali would be rough but I didn't realize to what extent. Like any volunteer, I've had my share of challenges throughout my service, but this period has undoubtedly been the hardest yet. I miss Mali a good deal and all my friends there, both nationals and other volunteers. I was hitting a good stride in Mali just before the coup happened with some promising projects in the works. I thought I'd be able to keep that motivation coming here but it quickly vanished. There's good reason we're given 2+ years to work as volunteers. It takes at least a year to reach the point where you feel comfortable not only with the language but also the community you've been placed with. You need to learn which community members you can trust and rely on and the community needs to be able to trust the volunteer. On top of that, it takes a lot of time just to be able to develop a personality within your community. Something obviously taken for granted but rather difficult when you have the vocabulary of a 4 year old. Moreover, volunteers are supposed to have one site throughout their service. Somita was my third and it seems it won't be my last. I have just about no patience or motivation left to go through the customary meet and greet phase of being a volunteer. That should all take place during the first couple months after training ends. August 2nd will mark a year and a half since coming to Africa, and yet here I am, still meeting and greeting yet another new community, in a different country from which i started, and in a new language. Finally, after 18 months of being here, a lot of the adventure's lustre has waned. It's becoming more challenging to deal with the realities of living in the 3rd world. I'm tired of shit food, shitty living conditions, shittier transport and people literally shitting wherever they damn well please.
So what am I still doing here? That's a question I've asked myself ad nauseam. I've been on the verge of quitting a few times. I even went so far as to tell some friends and family as well as my program manager that I wanted to quit. And just when I was absolutely certain I was going to go through with it, I found that I couldn't. Mostly I think it comes down to pride. I signed up for 27 months and I want to see it through. Given how little time I've spent at any one site, I don't feel I've accomplished anything yet. Plus it's not like they're just handing out jobs in America right now. In fact, a lot of the volunteers who went home after Mali say they wish more than anything they could go back to the Peace Corps life. Despite all the stress and frustrations I just described, it's still a pretty amazing way of life I get to enjoy. Perhaps tomorrow I'll wake up and decide I want to travel up country, visit some other volunteers, maybe try to go find some hippos or something. Perhaps I'll save up some of my monthly allowance and take a trip through Guinea and Sierra Leone in the next few months. Or maybe I'll just sit and knock out War & Peace over the next 3 days. There won't be much stopping me.
Immediately after telling my program manager I wanted to leave, I offered the caveat that if he could find a site like the one I initially requested, I might just continue to grace him and The Gambia with my awesome presence... or something along those lines. Luckily, there happened to be such a site. I'll be moving to a nice sized town called Farafenni. It's located about halfway up country on the north bank and is just a couple k from the Senegalese border. I'll be working at a vocational school called the Anglican Training Centre. They focus heavily on sustainable agriculture. I was impressed with their grounds and ambitions. They're clearly motivated and invested. English is pretty much the only language spoken on their campus. They have a couple demo gardens going, a tree nursery, honey cultivation, and poultry production among other projects. Most of these projects are in their infancy and there seems to be ample opportunity for me to assist in and improve the work they are doing. The notion of tackling my 4th site is more than daunting but it does seem that this is perhaps the work opportunity I've been waiting for since coming to Africa. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.
P&L
Rege
It's been almost three months since my last post. The reason being that this period of my service has been quite miserable and I was interested neither in incurring your concerns and worries, nor sugar coating my time here. But alas, I do my best to keep an honest portrayal of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer and it's past time I fill you in. I'm yet to even describe The Gambia to you so allow me to start there.
This sliver of a country I'm living in is the smallest on continental Africa. It's literally just The Gambia river and the immediate lands north and south there of. I've heard it's roughly the size of Connecticut, I'm not certain but that sounds about right. It borders the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast and is surrounded by Senegal on all other sides. It was initially a British colony as opposed to French controlled Senegal. Although I'm not sure how Senegal didn't manage to annex it once the two countries gained independence, especially given the fact that the Gambia is more fertile than most of Senegal and the Gambia river is also the largest, most navigable river between the two countries. I understand there was a loose confederation between the two states known as Senegambia. It lasted from 1982 to 1989 when the two countries rather peacefully decided it wasn't worth their time. Another interesting fact, Kunta Kinte, central character of Roots, as well as a whole lot of other West Africans were abducted into slavery from The Gambia.
For the last 18 years, The Gambia has been blessedly guided under the impeccable stewardship of "His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhagi Dr. Yahya Abdul-Azziz Jemus Junkung Jammeh Nassiru Deen, President of The Gambia, Commander-In-Chief of The Armed Forces, and Chief Custodian of The Sacred Constitution of The Gambia". But you can just call him Jammeh for short. He just won another landslide "election" last year so hooray for him. And if that wasn't awesome enough, he can also cure AIDS and asthma with natural herbs! ...erhm. Anyways, The Gambia is culturally very similar to Mali and the rest of Muslim West Africa. The major language spoken here is Mandinka, a derivative of Bambara. Wollof and Fula are the other common languages in addition to pockets of Jola, Sarahole, and others. English is the administrative language and one of the main reasons I chose to finish my service here rather than Francophone Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea, or Cameroon. Perhaps I'm biased, but I have to say, the Gambia cannot touch Mali when it comes to culture. Then again, no country really can seeing as how Mali is the heart of West Africa. Geographically, however, The Gambia does have quite a bit to offer. It has a much wider variety of flora and fauna than Mali as well as a more tropical climate. It's access to the ocean and the Gambia river act as a corridor for an incredible variety of birds. Indeed, it is a bird watcher's paradise. During my first week here I did a 12 K hike around the west coast area. I got to see grasslands, marshes, mangroves, salt flats, and old growth forest all within that range. Monkeys, baboons, hippos, crocodiles and boars are also far more common here than in Mali. It's a pretty beautiful place.
When I first met with my program manager and administration upon coming to The Gambia, I specifically requested a site where I wouldn't need to use local languages and that had projects ready to roll. Having already spent more than half of my service in Mali, I do not have the time to both learn a new language and build up a project or two from scratch. Unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly, I was given pretty much the opposite of my request. I was placed in a town called Somita. It's part of the West Coast Region and not far from the capital, Banjul. If I had a full 27 months to spend there, I think it would have been a great site for me but given my aforementioned restrictions, I felt rather useless. In fact, I've been down about a lot of things since coming here. Yes, yes boo-hoo for poor old me. Bare with me as I describe the shit storm that's been my life for the last couple months before we get to my current, slightly more positive outlook... I imagined the transition from Mali would be rough but I didn't realize to what extent. Like any volunteer, I've had my share of challenges throughout my service, but this period has undoubtedly been the hardest yet. I miss Mali a good deal and all my friends there, both nationals and other volunteers. I was hitting a good stride in Mali just before the coup happened with some promising projects in the works. I thought I'd be able to keep that motivation coming here but it quickly vanished. There's good reason we're given 2+ years to work as volunteers. It takes at least a year to reach the point where you feel comfortable not only with the language but also the community you've been placed with. You need to learn which community members you can trust and rely on and the community needs to be able to trust the volunteer. On top of that, it takes a lot of time just to be able to develop a personality within your community. Something obviously taken for granted but rather difficult when you have the vocabulary of a 4 year old. Moreover, volunteers are supposed to have one site throughout their service. Somita was my third and it seems it won't be my last. I have just about no patience or motivation left to go through the customary meet and greet phase of being a volunteer. That should all take place during the first couple months after training ends. August 2nd will mark a year and a half since coming to Africa, and yet here I am, still meeting and greeting yet another new community, in a different country from which i started, and in a new language. Finally, after 18 months of being here, a lot of the adventure's lustre has waned. It's becoming more challenging to deal with the realities of living in the 3rd world. I'm tired of shit food, shitty living conditions, shittier transport and people literally shitting wherever they damn well please.
So what am I still doing here? That's a question I've asked myself ad nauseam. I've been on the verge of quitting a few times. I even went so far as to tell some friends and family as well as my program manager that I wanted to quit. And just when I was absolutely certain I was going to go through with it, I found that I couldn't. Mostly I think it comes down to pride. I signed up for 27 months and I want to see it through. Given how little time I've spent at any one site, I don't feel I've accomplished anything yet. Plus it's not like they're just handing out jobs in America right now. In fact, a lot of the volunteers who went home after Mali say they wish more than anything they could go back to the Peace Corps life. Despite all the stress and frustrations I just described, it's still a pretty amazing way of life I get to enjoy. Perhaps tomorrow I'll wake up and decide I want to travel up country, visit some other volunteers, maybe try to go find some hippos or something. Perhaps I'll save up some of my monthly allowance and take a trip through Guinea and Sierra Leone in the next few months. Or maybe I'll just sit and knock out War & Peace over the next 3 days. There won't be much stopping me.
Immediately after telling my program manager I wanted to leave, I offered the caveat that if he could find a site like the one I initially requested, I might just continue to grace him and The Gambia with my awesome presence... or something along those lines. Luckily, there happened to be such a site. I'll be moving to a nice sized town called Farafenni. It's located about halfway up country on the north bank and is just a couple k from the Senegalese border. I'll be working at a vocational school called the Anglican Training Centre. They focus heavily on sustainable agriculture. I was impressed with their grounds and ambitions. They're clearly motivated and invested. English is pretty much the only language spoken on their campus. They have a couple demo gardens going, a tree nursery, honey cultivation, and poultry production among other projects. Most of these projects are in their infancy and there seems to be ample opportunity for me to assist in and improve the work they are doing. The notion of tackling my 4th site is more than daunting but it does seem that this is perhaps the work opportunity I've been waiting for since coming to Africa. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.
P&L
Rege
Thursday, May 10, 2012
COUP-OCALYPSE NOW or How I Came to be a Volunteer in The Gambia
Shalom,
This post is past due. I've been meaning to get around to it for a minute but there have been quite a few distractions over the past several weeks. That and I've needed a modicum of perspective to help process this whole, um, Mali meltdown thing. So I suppose I'll start from the beginning. Make yourself a tea and get comfy.
I'm going to assume ya'll know there was a coup d'état in Mali about seven weeks ago. Here's a bit of Malian history to catch you up. There's an ethnic minority, the Tuaregs, that have dwelled in the wastelands/Sahara desert for just about ever. They are Arab rather than Black African, nomadic pastoralists, and like many such groups have a colorful and bellicose history full of violent land seizures, rebellions, and general bad-assedness. Not that I want to generalize them too much. They're certainly not all war-mongers. But let's say when you have a group of people marching their camels and cattle through the Sahara, travelling at times hundreds of kilometers in search of a single well or grazing lands, it's not hard to see how a particular environment can mold such an identity. It also didn't help that last year's rainy season was miserable and their part of the country is now drought and famine stricken, even by their standards. So with that in mind, let's turn our attention to Libya.
Yes Libya. You see, before Mali's dear friend and investor, Col. Gaddafi, was torn to pieces by his people this past October, he had managed to recruit a large number of Malian Tuaregs to fight for his side. So after that fizzled a bunch of them returned, largely unwanted, to a famine and drought stricken country with a shit ton of arms. Trouble ensues. Tuaregs, specifically the MLNA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad [or colloquialy referred to as Ass-wad] ), moved south from the Kidal region bordering Algeria and have proceeded to advance town by town, humiliating and allegedly massacring the Malian military along the way. Enter the Coup.
On March 21st, a small faction of the military led by a 39 year old Capt. Amadou Sanogo bloodlessly ousted the sitting President, ATT (Amadou Toumani Touré) and proclaimed himself head of state. The reason being: Sanogo felt ATT was corrupt, incompetent, and purposefully allowing the Tuaregs to advance as a ploy to remain President for an unconstitutional third term. All of which is bullshit. ATT's second term was set to expire barely a month after the coup d'état took place and there was little if any indication he was interested in power grabs or extending his reign. In fact, it was ATT who led a rebellion over two decades ago, ending a dictatorship, leading an interim government, refraining from contesting in the country's first two elections and then winning two fair elections as President in 2002 and 2007. He essentially began the strongest democratic movement in Mali's history and what was a shining example of home grown democracy in West Africa up until now. Which of course makes his ouster that much more infuriating and depressing.
Anyways, imagine my surprise the morning of March 21st when I woke up to the news that the country I've been living in for the past 14 months just kicked out its sitting President and was under the command of a military junta. I immediately ran over to Daoda's house (my counterpart) and asked him if he knew what was up. He rather calmly said, "Oh yeah, ATT is on the run, they cut the radio and tv, and the borders are probably closed... So how was your morning? Did you sleep in peace? How is your family? How was your breakfast? What are we gonna do today? What?! You didn't eat breakfast yet? Oh this is very bad, here have some of mine." Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, given the checkered political history of many African states, but it seemed I thought this was a bigger deal than anyone else in my village. For the next four or five days, all volunteers were ordered to stay at their villages and keep a low profile. After that, we were consolidated to our regional capitals indefinitely. I spent the following 11 days sharing a tiny transit house with about 13 or so other volunteers. Amazingly, we didn't kill each other, nor was there any sign of coup activity or anything resembling chaos in my region of Mali. Still, spending every waking minute over-analyzing peace corps emails, embassy texts, and international news updates provided plenty of stress. One day we'd interpret the signs to say we were all going to be evacuated and sent home, then duly tried to get our heads in that mind frame. But then the next day brought seven black crows flying to the west and clearly this meant things would blow over and we'd be able to finish our service in Mali, so we duly put our heads back into that mind frame. Day after day, group think and ridiculous analysis of the most minute and seemingly meaningless updates dominated conversation. After day four or so I did my best to say fuck it, let whatever comes come, but I don't have the energy to try to read tea leaves every five minutes. Although, I will say that for the most part I was of the opinion that our time in Mali was quickly coming to an end. I was right... hooray (or not).
Of course the Tuaregs, being of at least average intelligence and reason, took this opportunity of mayhem and disorder in Bamako to strengthen their position in the North. As we read updates about the coup leadership and threats of sanctions from other West African states, we also noticed that the MNLA had sacked the entire northern half of the country including the 3 major cities of Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu. Additionally, there were reports of fighting as far south as the Mopti region (central Mali) where volunteers were posted. Great job Capt. Sanogo on restoring pride and honor to Mali and the military! Furthermore an organization known as ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) was threatening to freeze Mali out of the community's shared currency, the cfa, as well as cut off all oil imports. Want to see a landlocked member of a monetary union come to a screeching halt? Just cut off the money and the gas. Sanogo was given a few days to step down an peacefully transfer power back to duly elected officials or said sanctions would go into effect. Big surprise, Sanogo didn't abide by any of the terms. With the sanctions going into effect, political instability in Bamako and a burdgeoning civil war in the North, our administration both in Mali and Washington decided it was time to go. I am proud to say we were the last international aid organization out of Mali, even some embassies had already closed before our organization decided to pull out. There really isn't any other development program like Peace Corps. Yeah, we're badasses, and we know it.
Next up, we were all (190 of us) consolidated to our training compound, Tubani So, outside of Bamako to prepare for our evacutaion. I think we were there for four or five days and they were my last in Mali. Surreal for too many reasons. We left Tubani So on April 18th for the Bamako airport and arrived in Ghana that evening. We were flown to Ghana so that we could do our COS (Close of Service) conference in a country that wasn't falling apart. Normally, one does this conference right before COSing, crazy right? Regardless of whether we were going to end our service in Mali, transfer to a new post, or take one of the other options, everybody had to do all of the COS paperwork, medical exams, description of service, close bank accounts, financial rigamarole, exit interviews, etc. The whole process went a lot smoother than I thought it would, at least from the business end. It wasn't much fun, however, saying goodbye to the people who at times got me through the last 14 months. We stay in touch though, still have that network. And of course, I had about 24 hours to decide if I wanted to return home or head straight to The Gambia. There were a slew of seemingly major decisions popping up over those five days, but that one was the cheddar (pretty sure I made the right call though). I spent another five days in Ghana doing a bit of travelling. Got to do some rainforest walks, hiked barefoot to the highest waterfalls in West Africa and paddled up the Volta River. Spent those days with some good friends from Mali to boot. And then it was Air Nigeria to Banjul, The Gambia, smallest country on the African mainland.
Seeing as how I've already written half a novel, I'll skim on The Gambia details for now. Suffice it to say that it's a very likeable place in spite of the circumstances in which I entered it. More to come on that later. I'm still transitioning, probably gonna hit a couple more lows before I really feel like a part of things here, but I am feeling better everyday. I move into my permanent site on Monday and can barely wait. Seven weeks of complete upheaval, watching a country I've come to love crumble, endless mind games as to what tomorrow will bring, losing my Malian family and my Peace Corps family, leaving work unfinished, knowing how much this turmoil is going to hurt everyday Malians, reading about new terrorist organizations entering Mali... It's fucked up, simple as that. Timbuktu, a city with one of the most robust cultural heritages in West Africa has succumbed to sharia law. I don't know. It's certainly not the way I envisioned my time ending in Mali, but it is what it is. In spite of this whole shit storm Mali has suffered, I've met enough of them to know that they will overcome. Unnaturally formed from French colonialism, half in the desert, plagued by drought, famine, and malaria, the gateway from Arab to Black Africa, Mali has always been a hard place and a fascinating one. People here have seen worse and carried on. There's no reason to think they'll give up now. So there it is. My favorite Malian saying goes as such: I taara i ka so, I naana i ka so -- You left your home to come to your home. Nothing could be more true. So many Malians I've met, some of the poorest people on this planet, welcomed me without question and made me a part of their family from day one. It's often been embarrassing and humbling how generous they've been to me. I'm so lucky I got to spend time in this part of the world and I can only hope I'll be able to return some day. But for now, let's see what The Gambia has to offer.
Peace and Love,
Rege
This post is past due. I've been meaning to get around to it for a minute but there have been quite a few distractions over the past several weeks. That and I've needed a modicum of perspective to help process this whole, um, Mali meltdown thing. So I suppose I'll start from the beginning. Make yourself a tea and get comfy.
I'm going to assume ya'll know there was a coup d'état in Mali about seven weeks ago. Here's a bit of Malian history to catch you up. There's an ethnic minority, the Tuaregs, that have dwelled in the wastelands/Sahara desert for just about ever. They are Arab rather than Black African, nomadic pastoralists, and like many such groups have a colorful and bellicose history full of violent land seizures, rebellions, and general bad-assedness. Not that I want to generalize them too much. They're certainly not all war-mongers. But let's say when you have a group of people marching their camels and cattle through the Sahara, travelling at times hundreds of kilometers in search of a single well or grazing lands, it's not hard to see how a particular environment can mold such an identity. It also didn't help that last year's rainy season was miserable and their part of the country is now drought and famine stricken, even by their standards. So with that in mind, let's turn our attention to Libya.
Yes Libya. You see, before Mali's dear friend and investor, Col. Gaddafi, was torn to pieces by his people this past October, he had managed to recruit a large number of Malian Tuaregs to fight for his side. So after that fizzled a bunch of them returned, largely unwanted, to a famine and drought stricken country with a shit ton of arms. Trouble ensues. Tuaregs, specifically the MLNA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad [or colloquialy referred to as Ass-wad] ), moved south from the Kidal region bordering Algeria and have proceeded to advance town by town, humiliating and allegedly massacring the Malian military along the way. Enter the Coup.
On March 21st, a small faction of the military led by a 39 year old Capt. Amadou Sanogo bloodlessly ousted the sitting President, ATT (Amadou Toumani Touré) and proclaimed himself head of state. The reason being: Sanogo felt ATT was corrupt, incompetent, and purposefully allowing the Tuaregs to advance as a ploy to remain President for an unconstitutional third term. All of which is bullshit. ATT's second term was set to expire barely a month after the coup d'état took place and there was little if any indication he was interested in power grabs or extending his reign. In fact, it was ATT who led a rebellion over two decades ago, ending a dictatorship, leading an interim government, refraining from contesting in the country's first two elections and then winning two fair elections as President in 2002 and 2007. He essentially began the strongest democratic movement in Mali's history and what was a shining example of home grown democracy in West Africa up until now. Which of course makes his ouster that much more infuriating and depressing.
Anyways, imagine my surprise the morning of March 21st when I woke up to the news that the country I've been living in for the past 14 months just kicked out its sitting President and was under the command of a military junta. I immediately ran over to Daoda's house (my counterpart) and asked him if he knew what was up. He rather calmly said, "Oh yeah, ATT is on the run, they cut the radio and tv, and the borders are probably closed... So how was your morning? Did you sleep in peace? How is your family? How was your breakfast? What are we gonna do today? What?! You didn't eat breakfast yet? Oh this is very bad, here have some of mine." Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, given the checkered political history of many African states, but it seemed I thought this was a bigger deal than anyone else in my village. For the next four or five days, all volunteers were ordered to stay at their villages and keep a low profile. After that, we were consolidated to our regional capitals indefinitely. I spent the following 11 days sharing a tiny transit house with about 13 or so other volunteers. Amazingly, we didn't kill each other, nor was there any sign of coup activity or anything resembling chaos in my region of Mali. Still, spending every waking minute over-analyzing peace corps emails, embassy texts, and international news updates provided plenty of stress. One day we'd interpret the signs to say we were all going to be evacuated and sent home, then duly tried to get our heads in that mind frame. But then the next day brought seven black crows flying to the west and clearly this meant things would blow over and we'd be able to finish our service in Mali, so we duly put our heads back into that mind frame. Day after day, group think and ridiculous analysis of the most minute and seemingly meaningless updates dominated conversation. After day four or so I did my best to say fuck it, let whatever comes come, but I don't have the energy to try to read tea leaves every five minutes. Although, I will say that for the most part I was of the opinion that our time in Mali was quickly coming to an end. I was right... hooray (or not).
Of course the Tuaregs, being of at least average intelligence and reason, took this opportunity of mayhem and disorder in Bamako to strengthen their position in the North. As we read updates about the coup leadership and threats of sanctions from other West African states, we also noticed that the MNLA had sacked the entire northern half of the country including the 3 major cities of Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu. Additionally, there were reports of fighting as far south as the Mopti region (central Mali) where volunteers were posted. Great job Capt. Sanogo on restoring pride and honor to Mali and the military! Furthermore an organization known as ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) was threatening to freeze Mali out of the community's shared currency, the cfa, as well as cut off all oil imports. Want to see a landlocked member of a monetary union come to a screeching halt? Just cut off the money and the gas. Sanogo was given a few days to step down an peacefully transfer power back to duly elected officials or said sanctions would go into effect. Big surprise, Sanogo didn't abide by any of the terms. With the sanctions going into effect, political instability in Bamako and a burdgeoning civil war in the North, our administration both in Mali and Washington decided it was time to go. I am proud to say we were the last international aid organization out of Mali, even some embassies had already closed before our organization decided to pull out. There really isn't any other development program like Peace Corps. Yeah, we're badasses, and we know it.
Next up, we were all (190 of us) consolidated to our training compound, Tubani So, outside of Bamako to prepare for our evacutaion. I think we were there for four or five days and they were my last in Mali. Surreal for too many reasons. We left Tubani So on April 18th for the Bamako airport and arrived in Ghana that evening. We were flown to Ghana so that we could do our COS (Close of Service) conference in a country that wasn't falling apart. Normally, one does this conference right before COSing, crazy right? Regardless of whether we were going to end our service in Mali, transfer to a new post, or take one of the other options, everybody had to do all of the COS paperwork, medical exams, description of service, close bank accounts, financial rigamarole, exit interviews, etc. The whole process went a lot smoother than I thought it would, at least from the business end. It wasn't much fun, however, saying goodbye to the people who at times got me through the last 14 months. We stay in touch though, still have that network. And of course, I had about 24 hours to decide if I wanted to return home or head straight to The Gambia. There were a slew of seemingly major decisions popping up over those five days, but that one was the cheddar (pretty sure I made the right call though). I spent another five days in Ghana doing a bit of travelling. Got to do some rainforest walks, hiked barefoot to the highest waterfalls in West Africa and paddled up the Volta River. Spent those days with some good friends from Mali to boot. And then it was Air Nigeria to Banjul, The Gambia, smallest country on the African mainland.
Seeing as how I've already written half a novel, I'll skim on The Gambia details for now. Suffice it to say that it's a very likeable place in spite of the circumstances in which I entered it. More to come on that later. I'm still transitioning, probably gonna hit a couple more lows before I really feel like a part of things here, but I am feeling better everyday. I move into my permanent site on Monday and can barely wait. Seven weeks of complete upheaval, watching a country I've come to love crumble, endless mind games as to what tomorrow will bring, losing my Malian family and my Peace Corps family, leaving work unfinished, knowing how much this turmoil is going to hurt everyday Malians, reading about new terrorist organizations entering Mali... It's fucked up, simple as that. Timbuktu, a city with one of the most robust cultural heritages in West Africa has succumbed to sharia law. I don't know. It's certainly not the way I envisioned my time ending in Mali, but it is what it is. In spite of this whole shit storm Mali has suffered, I've met enough of them to know that they will overcome. Unnaturally formed from French colonialism, half in the desert, plagued by drought, famine, and malaria, the gateway from Arab to Black Africa, Mali has always been a hard place and a fascinating one. People here have seen worse and carried on. There's no reason to think they'll give up now. So there it is. My favorite Malian saying goes as such: I taara i ka so, I naana i ka so -- You left your home to come to your home. Nothing could be more true. So many Malians I've met, some of the poorest people on this planet, welcomed me without question and made me a part of their family from day one. It's often been embarrassing and humbling how generous they've been to me. I'm so lucky I got to spend time in this part of the world and I can only hope I'll be able to return some day. But for now, let's see what The Gambia has to offer.
Peace and Love,
Rege
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Festival sur le Niger, Market Days & Winemaking
Aw ne che,
Hope everyone is doing well. It's been a great month and I have a few stories to tell. About 140 of my best volunteer friends and I, as well as thousands of Malians, West Africans, and other travelers descended on Ségou, the old capitol of the Bambara Kingdom, for the Festival sur le Niger. The music and cultural festival is an annual event in its eighth year and featured some of Mali's and Africa's best musicians. Admittedly, this year missed a few of the biggest headliners (eg. Vieux Farka Toure, Baba Salla, and Amadou & Miriam). Regardless, it was still a great time with some awesome performances especially from Salif Keita and Rokia Traore. The main stage was literally built in the shallows of the Niger River, the largest river in West Africa and 3rd largest in Africa after the Nile and Congo rivers. There were beer gardens set up above the river banks where we'd take breathers from dancing front stage on the shore, enjoying sunsets on the Niger and partying on through the wee hours of the night. I don't think the music stopped for 96 hours. In addition to the four days of non stop live music were art shows, cultural demonstrations, and an amazing artisan market featuring traditional clothing, sculptures, fabrics, jewelry, foods, musical instruments, and other wears from across Mali, Ghana, Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mauritania, Guinea, Senegal, and Cote d'Ivoire. I was able to pick up a few souvenirs and perhaps a gift or two. Ségou is a large fishing center and home to the Bozo ethnic minority group, themselves being renowned fishermen and masters of the Niger. Throughout the week traditional pirogue fishing boats, oftened manned by only a boy, carried on as usual fishing for a living. We took a boat ride one of the days and spent about 4 hours cruising around the river, unfortunately my camera was (and still is) out of commission. As is often the case in Mali, I'm ever thankful that my sense of smell dies after about three minutes of exposure to whatever the aroma du jour may be, in this case the lovely bouquet of dead fish and human feces strewn around the Niger. In any case, the festival was amazing and I look forward to next years as it'll be one of the last things I do in Mali.
The day of the festival's opening ceremonies, I hosted a hāngi (traditional New Zealand method of cooking in the ground with hot rocks) at a local bar, Espace Mierra. We ended up having about 70 volunteers and 10 or 15 Malians. Putting it together was a lot more stress and work than I anticipated but everything came out awesome and who knows, perhaps this is the first hāngi Mali has ever seen. With some help, I spent the day before digging out a meter deep pit, finding plenty of wood and rocks, and some last minute haggling for pigs and vegetables. The morning of the hāngi I built up a huge fire with about 10 rocks the size of soccer balls in the middle and kept it aflame for 2 and a half hours. Afterwards we spread the rocks out, wrapped the dressed and shaved pigs, two of them, in soaking wet, white, cotton sheets to keep the dirt off, placed them in baskets made of chicken wire and placed them on the rocks. Next I had 10 k's of potatoes, 10 k's of onions, 5 k's of carrots and 5 k's of yams wrapped in the same manner and placed on top of the pigs. We covered everything back up with dirt and let it cook in the ground for 5 hours or so. I'd also made a couple of bbq sauces. We feasted on delicious pork flesh and drank shitty beer for hours as I cemented my legend into the annals of Peace Corps Mali history. Churs to my New Zealand friends, especially Kai Waka for giving me the inspiration!
I've really come to appreciate market days in Kolondieba. It's the capitol of a cercle (roughly analogous to an American county) and home to about five or six thousand people. It's one of the brusse-est (in the freaken' bush) of cercle capitols. In fact, I believe it's the only one left in Mali that doesn't have a paved road. Moreover, it's a 60 k trek down a dirt road/dried river bed from the paved road. Nevertheless, every Monday Kolondieba comes alive. The market, normally quite empty, is overflowing with vendors and customers from all over the cercle. I like to get there early with my homologue and sit with a couple friends, usually right outside the food area of the market, drink tea, exchange stories, and watch the day unfold. After awhile, I usually roam about a bit, greet friends and members of my women's association, and see if any of the fabrics or clothings catch my eye. In spite of hot season being underway, there's still a great selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. Women meander through the crowd selling ginger juice from huge bowls balanced on their heads, the butchers chop away with their machetes at indiscernible flanks of raw animal as their young apprentices keep flies at bay. Tailors take seats under the shade with their foot powered sowing machines. The smells of street food, fish, and livestock abound. Fried plantains, yams, and dough balls, fish heads, fresh bread, and ground cassava are always in abundance. Other venders are selling metal cauldrons or clay water canneries, freshly made in town. Along the main road is where you can find all your hardware and farming equipment needs. You can even stock up on all your favorite West African aphrodisiacs. Vendor and customer haggling for a better deal whether it be for a new dress or a half k of dried fish. Mangoes ripening overhead as the sun beats down. Ah Mali, it's not the worst place to be, ya know?
After a bit of a hiatus I've finally started another batch of wine. This is batch number 3 after successful experiments with mango and garlic wines. I told my homologue that I made wine and much to my surprise he was so excited about it he suggested I teach the women's association and see if they can start selling wine in addition to their shea products... a most obvious of product combinations. So last week I held a formation where I started a batch of papaya and ginger wine. I kinda made this one up as I went along so we'll see how it turns out. Even though Mali is 90% Muslim they're very open to a lot of ideas including alcohol. This could be a great opportunity for my women to hit an untapped, niche market. Hopefully it'll work out and they can earn a bit more money for themselves with an unusual skill set for Mali.
The oldest class of volunteers currently in Mali are coming to the end of their service. In a few months I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of great friends whom I've only have known for 17 or so months but in many cases feel like I've known far longer. Weirder yet, that'll mean that in a few months my class will be the oldest remaining in Mali. I know I say it in just about every blog post but it's crazy how quickly the time is passing. Just the other day, it hit in for the first time that I'm already on the back end of my service. Feels like I was just bumbling about here in my first week, absolutely dumbstruck and trying to figure out how I'd spend the next 2+ years in one of the poorest of countries. Now in June, the 3rd new class since I came in to country will arrive... Damn newbies. But, it's a bit early to start reminiscing just yet. Without a doubt, the past two months have been my best in country. But I'm finally gonna get a well deserved break from Mali. I have a 16 day vacation in Morocco coming up April 16th. Can't wait.
That's me for now,
Peace & Love
Rege
Hope everyone is doing well. It's been a great month and I have a few stories to tell. About 140 of my best volunteer friends and I, as well as thousands of Malians, West Africans, and other travelers descended on Ségou, the old capitol of the Bambara Kingdom, for the Festival sur le Niger. The music and cultural festival is an annual event in its eighth year and featured some of Mali's and Africa's best musicians. Admittedly, this year missed a few of the biggest headliners (eg. Vieux Farka Toure, Baba Salla, and Amadou & Miriam). Regardless, it was still a great time with some awesome performances especially from Salif Keita and Rokia Traore. The main stage was literally built in the shallows of the Niger River, the largest river in West Africa and 3rd largest in Africa after the Nile and Congo rivers. There were beer gardens set up above the river banks where we'd take breathers from dancing front stage on the shore, enjoying sunsets on the Niger and partying on through the wee hours of the night. I don't think the music stopped for 96 hours. In addition to the four days of non stop live music were art shows, cultural demonstrations, and an amazing artisan market featuring traditional clothing, sculptures, fabrics, jewelry, foods, musical instruments, and other wears from across Mali, Ghana, Niger, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mauritania, Guinea, Senegal, and Cote d'Ivoire. I was able to pick up a few souvenirs and perhaps a gift or two. Ségou is a large fishing center and home to the Bozo ethnic minority group, themselves being renowned fishermen and masters of the Niger. Throughout the week traditional pirogue fishing boats, oftened manned by only a boy, carried on as usual fishing for a living. We took a boat ride one of the days and spent about 4 hours cruising around the river, unfortunately my camera was (and still is) out of commission. As is often the case in Mali, I'm ever thankful that my sense of smell dies after about three minutes of exposure to whatever the aroma du jour may be, in this case the lovely bouquet of dead fish and human feces strewn around the Niger. In any case, the festival was amazing and I look forward to next years as it'll be one of the last things I do in Mali.
The day of the festival's opening ceremonies, I hosted a hāngi (traditional New Zealand method of cooking in the ground with hot rocks) at a local bar, Espace Mierra. We ended up having about 70 volunteers and 10 or 15 Malians. Putting it together was a lot more stress and work than I anticipated but everything came out awesome and who knows, perhaps this is the first hāngi Mali has ever seen. With some help, I spent the day before digging out a meter deep pit, finding plenty of wood and rocks, and some last minute haggling for pigs and vegetables. The morning of the hāngi I built up a huge fire with about 10 rocks the size of soccer balls in the middle and kept it aflame for 2 and a half hours. Afterwards we spread the rocks out, wrapped the dressed and shaved pigs, two of them, in soaking wet, white, cotton sheets to keep the dirt off, placed them in baskets made of chicken wire and placed them on the rocks. Next I had 10 k's of potatoes, 10 k's of onions, 5 k's of carrots and 5 k's of yams wrapped in the same manner and placed on top of the pigs. We covered everything back up with dirt and let it cook in the ground for 5 hours or so. I'd also made a couple of bbq sauces. We feasted on delicious pork flesh and drank shitty beer for hours as I cemented my legend into the annals of Peace Corps Mali history. Churs to my New Zealand friends, especially Kai Waka for giving me the inspiration!
I've really come to appreciate market days in Kolondieba. It's the capitol of a cercle (roughly analogous to an American county) and home to about five or six thousand people. It's one of the brusse-est (in the freaken' bush) of cercle capitols. In fact, I believe it's the only one left in Mali that doesn't have a paved road. Moreover, it's a 60 k trek down a dirt road/dried river bed from the paved road. Nevertheless, every Monday Kolondieba comes alive. The market, normally quite empty, is overflowing with vendors and customers from all over the cercle. I like to get there early with my homologue and sit with a couple friends, usually right outside the food area of the market, drink tea, exchange stories, and watch the day unfold. After awhile, I usually roam about a bit, greet friends and members of my women's association, and see if any of the fabrics or clothings catch my eye. In spite of hot season being underway, there's still a great selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. Women meander through the crowd selling ginger juice from huge bowls balanced on their heads, the butchers chop away with their machetes at indiscernible flanks of raw animal as their young apprentices keep flies at bay. Tailors take seats under the shade with their foot powered sowing machines. The smells of street food, fish, and livestock abound. Fried plantains, yams, and dough balls, fish heads, fresh bread, and ground cassava are always in abundance. Other venders are selling metal cauldrons or clay water canneries, freshly made in town. Along the main road is where you can find all your hardware and farming equipment needs. You can even stock up on all your favorite West African aphrodisiacs. Vendor and customer haggling for a better deal whether it be for a new dress or a half k of dried fish. Mangoes ripening overhead as the sun beats down. Ah Mali, it's not the worst place to be, ya know?
After a bit of a hiatus I've finally started another batch of wine. This is batch number 3 after successful experiments with mango and garlic wines. I told my homologue that I made wine and much to my surprise he was so excited about it he suggested I teach the women's association and see if they can start selling wine in addition to their shea products... a most obvious of product combinations. So last week I held a formation where I started a batch of papaya and ginger wine. I kinda made this one up as I went along so we'll see how it turns out. Even though Mali is 90% Muslim they're very open to a lot of ideas including alcohol. This could be a great opportunity for my women to hit an untapped, niche market. Hopefully it'll work out and they can earn a bit more money for themselves with an unusual skill set for Mali.
The oldest class of volunteers currently in Mali are coming to the end of their service. In a few months I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of great friends whom I've only have known for 17 or so months but in many cases feel like I've known far longer. Weirder yet, that'll mean that in a few months my class will be the oldest remaining in Mali. I know I say it in just about every blog post but it's crazy how quickly the time is passing. Just the other day, it hit in for the first time that I'm already on the back end of my service. Feels like I was just bumbling about here in my first week, absolutely dumbstruck and trying to figure out how I'd spend the next 2+ years in one of the poorest of countries. Now in June, the 3rd new class since I came in to country will arrive... Damn newbies. But, it's a bit early to start reminiscing just yet. Without a doubt, the past two months have been my best in country. But I'm finally gonna get a well deserved break from Mali. I have a 16 day vacation in Morocco coming up April 16th. Can't wait.
That's me for now,
Peace & Love
Rege
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Kolondieba
Hello again,
Just finished up my first 2 weeks at my new site in Kolondieba. My living arrangements have improved markedly and it looks as though this year will be much more productive than last. My role as an environment volunteer has shifted to that of a small enterprise development (SED) volunteer. In that regard, I'm working with a womens association based in Kolondieba. They produce shea products, mostly soap, and are working on a 1 hectare garden which will be used exclusively by association members. I have a new homologue, Daoda Mariko. He's the husband of one of the association members as well as the association's book keeper. Unfortunately, all of the women are illiterate. I also have a host family (finally), easy access to potable water, a good market right down the road, and a much more vibrant community in general.
My house is worlds better as well. It's a cement structure rather than mud brick so I haven't had any of the old pest problems. Goodbye rats, bats, and scorpions. It's a bit bigger as well; I have 15 ft high ceilings but still just two rooms. Still don't have electricity or running water. Although, many people around me have electricity. In fact, I've been watching the Africa Cup with my neighbors every night... Mali's national team is doing pretty well. After they beat Botswana last night they'll definitely make it out of the group stage. Anyways, there's a water pump 100 feet outside of my concession, so again, life is a lot easier in that regard as well.
The host family is great. There are a couple older women, a few younger women, three or four boys in their teens and three or four kids under the age of four. Still trying to figure out who really does live there and what the actual relationships are. Malians call everyone their brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers out of respect so it's often hard to figure out and remember the real family tree. Obviously it's a pretty big concession to handle that many people. I feel like I went from one extreme to another: no host family and nobody in my concession to a huge host family and me sharing their concession. It can certainly be aggravating; like when I'm sitting outside reading my book and a kid decides to pop a squat 5 feet to my left and take a piss, then 5 minutes later another kid does the same thing 10 feet in front of me, or the constant crying and yelling that comes with four kids under the age of four. All in all, it's certainly a net positive though.
I've long since known that women pull far more than their fair share of the work in this country. Living with a Malian family, however, has really defined that for me. Whether they're crushing shea nuts, pounding corn or millet into flour, washing clothes by hand, looking after the children, making the meals, or whatever they never get a break. I must agree with Mr. Sapolsky: "If I had to make a list of who does the work in this country from most to least, it would go like this: Women > Children > Donkeys > Dogs > Men." Yes, it's good to be a man in Mali. But hey, all that tea isn't gonna drink itself, is it? Somebody's got to do it, as well as smoke those cigarettes (can't be a woman, that certainly means she's a prostitute) and keep Mali at the cutting edge of the fine art of conversation. My, they can talk a long time about nothing at all.
Going back to my women's association, I've observed and participated in 3rd world shea oil production. Shea is arguably the most important product in Mali and Senegal with some of the most potential to pull people out of poverty. After collecting nuts (Shea trees are everywhere in this country) they're left to dry under the sun for a couple days, then they're pounded with a machine into a syrup like liquid (the only machine that my women have at their disposal in the whole process). From there, it's a repetitive process of adding water, hand beating, and heating the product until they've reduced the nuts to their essential oil. After that, the oil gets added to whatever the final product is. In my women's case: soap. When I asked the women how I could best help them, they told me they wanted more machines. While at first this sounds like a good idea (and I certainly can't blame the women for wanting to lighten the work load a bit) I've realized that at this point with my women's association (they're pretty small time and unsophisticated just yet) they would never be able to turn a profit after buying the machines, even with Peace Corps paying for 70% which is our policy. Just paying for the gas to run the machine and general upkeep would probably negate any profits. I've been informed that I could be much more helpful if I work with them on improving the quality of their product and their marketing approach. Since I know very little about shea production and business in general, I'm going to do a tech exchange with another volunteer and members of his/her community. So, lot's of exciting stuff going on.
Well, I gotta go catch a bus back to my site so I'm out for now.
Oh yeah, today is one year to the day since I've come to Mali.
Hi-ho.
Peace and Love yo
Rege
Just finished up my first 2 weeks at my new site in Kolondieba. My living arrangements have improved markedly and it looks as though this year will be much more productive than last. My role as an environment volunteer has shifted to that of a small enterprise development (SED) volunteer. In that regard, I'm working with a womens association based in Kolondieba. They produce shea products, mostly soap, and are working on a 1 hectare garden which will be used exclusively by association members. I have a new homologue, Daoda Mariko. He's the husband of one of the association members as well as the association's book keeper. Unfortunately, all of the women are illiterate. I also have a host family (finally), easy access to potable water, a good market right down the road, and a much more vibrant community in general.
My house is worlds better as well. It's a cement structure rather than mud brick so I haven't had any of the old pest problems. Goodbye rats, bats, and scorpions. It's a bit bigger as well; I have 15 ft high ceilings but still just two rooms. Still don't have electricity or running water. Although, many people around me have electricity. In fact, I've been watching the Africa Cup with my neighbors every night... Mali's national team is doing pretty well. After they beat Botswana last night they'll definitely make it out of the group stage. Anyways, there's a water pump 100 feet outside of my concession, so again, life is a lot easier in that regard as well.
The host family is great. There are a couple older women, a few younger women, three or four boys in their teens and three or four kids under the age of four. Still trying to figure out who really does live there and what the actual relationships are. Malians call everyone their brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers out of respect so it's often hard to figure out and remember the real family tree. Obviously it's a pretty big concession to handle that many people. I feel like I went from one extreme to another: no host family and nobody in my concession to a huge host family and me sharing their concession. It can certainly be aggravating; like when I'm sitting outside reading my book and a kid decides to pop a squat 5 feet to my left and take a piss, then 5 minutes later another kid does the same thing 10 feet in front of me, or the constant crying and yelling that comes with four kids under the age of four. All in all, it's certainly a net positive though.
I've long since known that women pull far more than their fair share of the work in this country. Living with a Malian family, however, has really defined that for me. Whether they're crushing shea nuts, pounding corn or millet into flour, washing clothes by hand, looking after the children, making the meals, or whatever they never get a break. I must agree with Mr. Sapolsky: "If I had to make a list of who does the work in this country from most to least, it would go like this: Women > Children > Donkeys > Dogs > Men." Yes, it's good to be a man in Mali. But hey, all that tea isn't gonna drink itself, is it? Somebody's got to do it, as well as smoke those cigarettes (can't be a woman, that certainly means she's a prostitute) and keep Mali at the cutting edge of the fine art of conversation. My, they can talk a long time about nothing at all.
Going back to my women's association, I've observed and participated in 3rd world shea oil production. Shea is arguably the most important product in Mali and Senegal with some of the most potential to pull people out of poverty. After collecting nuts (Shea trees are everywhere in this country) they're left to dry under the sun for a couple days, then they're pounded with a machine into a syrup like liquid (the only machine that my women have at their disposal in the whole process). From there, it's a repetitive process of adding water, hand beating, and heating the product until they've reduced the nuts to their essential oil. After that, the oil gets added to whatever the final product is. In my women's case: soap. When I asked the women how I could best help them, they told me they wanted more machines. While at first this sounds like a good idea (and I certainly can't blame the women for wanting to lighten the work load a bit) I've realized that at this point with my women's association (they're pretty small time and unsophisticated just yet) they would never be able to turn a profit after buying the machines, even with Peace Corps paying for 70% which is our policy. Just paying for the gas to run the machine and general upkeep would probably negate any profits. I've been informed that I could be much more helpful if I work with them on improving the quality of their product and their marketing approach. Since I know very little about shea production and business in general, I'm going to do a tech exchange with another volunteer and members of his/her community. So, lot's of exciting stuff going on.
Well, I gotta go catch a bus back to my site so I'm out for now.
Oh yeah, today is one year to the day since I've come to Mali.
Hi-ho.
Peace and Love yo
Rege
Sunday, January 15, 2012
1 Year Mark
Greetings all,
Where doth the time go? Hard to believe but February 2nd will mark my first year in country. I suppose I'm now one of the old heads in country as two classes of volunteers have been sworn in since I've arrived in Mali. Weirder yet, in 6 months my class will be the oldest one left in Mali. Anyways, let me catch you up on the last month or two.
I spent the holidays up in Mopti region which lies on the southern edge of the Sahara. Three fellow volunteers and I did a three day hike through the Bandiagara escarpment. The escarpment is part of "Dogon country" where the Dogon people, one of the most distinct ethnic minorities in Mali, have historically dwelt. This is my second trip up to this part of the country and it's undoubtedly my favorite part of Mali. I believe we covered about 35 k's over the 3 days. We started at the top of the Dogon plateau, hiked down through the escarpment, and then worked our way back up to the top. A man named Bebe, one of the locals, served as our guide. We spent our 2 nights sleeping in campements within villages we passed along the way. This area is Mali's biggest tourist attraction so it was quite easy finding a guide, who spoke English no less, and places to sleep. Campement is French for encampment and that's more or less what these places were. The word, however, is often used to describe hostels, eco-stays, and even hotels. The campements were quite basic in amenities, lacking even electricity and running water, but more than made up for it in character. Besides, fancy things like electricity would be more than out of place in this little corner of the world. It's a beautiful part of Mali and I hope I'll have another chance to hike through the area again.
New Year's is a big holiday here and we celebrated in fashion. About a dozen volunteers, myself included, rented a traditional river boat and floated around the Niger for a few hours, drinking beer and whiskey, shooting off fireworks, ringing in the new year, and of course almost blowing each other up. Nothing goes together like booze and explosives.
I suppose the biggest news I have to share is that I'm getting a new site on Monday. Site changes are quite common in Peace Corps as initial sites often don't work out for one reason or another. I realized when I first got to my old site back in April that it would provide more challenges than most volunteers encounter. I stuck it out until about mid November, but finally had to request a new site. Among other issues, my old site was a 46 K round trip (on my bike) from food, 4 K's from drinkable water, 23 K's from transport 15 K's from the next volunteer, and the water wells were empty for about 5 months out of the year. The final straw was when my counterpart moved to a different village to be with his wife and kids. Of course, I didn't come to Mali to keep anyone from their family but he obviously shouldn't have been my counterpart to begin with. So it took about two months from my initial request to actually get a new site, which is pretty standard. I'm moving to Kolondieba which was my market/post town. My best Malian friend lives in this town as well. All in all, I think it's a great opportunity and I'm excited to get a project or two underway before I'm out of here.
You may recall I had been planning a trip to Senegal for January but I've decided to scrap that even before I got a site change. Big events coming up though include the Festival sur le Niger; an annual, five day, West African, music and cultural festival in the old capital city, Segou. Some of the bigger acts include Babba Salla, Vieux Farka Toure, and Amadou & Miriam. That starts on February 15th. Then in April or May I'll be spending a couple weeks in Morocco. It's been far too long since I've seen an ocean and it'll be more than welcome come hot season. I'm currently savoring the last month or month and a half of cold season. It's generally in the low 80's during the day and drops down to the mid 50's at night. These days mid 50's is frigid for me.
Another bit of unfortunate news, I had my wallet stolen in Bamako about ten days ago. Most of the volunteers were at a bar called La Terrace for the newbies' swear in party. I had my wallet in a friend's purse which she left laying around somewhere. I lost about 27,000 cfa (about $50) some bank cards, ID, and what not. The worst part was having to file a police report and getting the bank cards and ID replaced. All in all, I didn't lose that much and worse things could happen. So, not that big of a deal.
Finally, for all the Steelers fans out there, I want to share a post with you from my fellow volunteer and good friend, Cary Fontana. All though he's from South Carolina, his family roots are in Pittsburgh and he's as big a Steeler fan as I've ever met. I know we're all still lamenting our early playoff exodus, but hopefully this story of Cary's attempts to extend Steeler Nation to West Africa will ease the pain. http://www.steelersdepot.com/2011/12/steeler-nation-steeler-world/
p.s. here are some links to the photos from my Dogon hike:
Where doth the time go? Hard to believe but February 2nd will mark my first year in country. I suppose I'm now one of the old heads in country as two classes of volunteers have been sworn in since I've arrived in Mali. Weirder yet, in 6 months my class will be the oldest one left in Mali. Anyways, let me catch you up on the last month or two.
I spent the holidays up in Mopti region which lies on the southern edge of the Sahara. Three fellow volunteers and I did a three day hike through the Bandiagara escarpment. The escarpment is part of "Dogon country" where the Dogon people, one of the most distinct ethnic minorities in Mali, have historically dwelt. This is my second trip up to this part of the country and it's undoubtedly my favorite part of Mali. I believe we covered about 35 k's over the 3 days. We started at the top of the Dogon plateau, hiked down through the escarpment, and then worked our way back up to the top. A man named Bebe, one of the locals, served as our guide. We spent our 2 nights sleeping in campements within villages we passed along the way. This area is Mali's biggest tourist attraction so it was quite easy finding a guide, who spoke English no less, and places to sleep. Campement is French for encampment and that's more or less what these places were. The word, however, is often used to describe hostels, eco-stays, and even hotels. The campements were quite basic in amenities, lacking even electricity and running water, but more than made up for it in character. Besides, fancy things like electricity would be more than out of place in this little corner of the world. It's a beautiful part of Mali and I hope I'll have another chance to hike through the area again.
New Year's is a big holiday here and we celebrated in fashion. About a dozen volunteers, myself included, rented a traditional river boat and floated around the Niger for a few hours, drinking beer and whiskey, shooting off fireworks, ringing in the new year, and of course almost blowing each other up. Nothing goes together like booze and explosives.
I suppose the biggest news I have to share is that I'm getting a new site on Monday. Site changes are quite common in Peace Corps as initial sites often don't work out for one reason or another. I realized when I first got to my old site back in April that it would provide more challenges than most volunteers encounter. I stuck it out until about mid November, but finally had to request a new site. Among other issues, my old site was a 46 K round trip (on my bike) from food, 4 K's from drinkable water, 23 K's from transport 15 K's from the next volunteer, and the water wells were empty for about 5 months out of the year. The final straw was when my counterpart moved to a different village to be with his wife and kids. Of course, I didn't come to Mali to keep anyone from their family but he obviously shouldn't have been my counterpart to begin with. So it took about two months from my initial request to actually get a new site, which is pretty standard. I'm moving to Kolondieba which was my market/post town. My best Malian friend lives in this town as well. All in all, I think it's a great opportunity and I'm excited to get a project or two underway before I'm out of here.
You may recall I had been planning a trip to Senegal for January but I've decided to scrap that even before I got a site change. Big events coming up though include the Festival sur le Niger; an annual, five day, West African, music and cultural festival in the old capital city, Segou. Some of the bigger acts include Babba Salla, Vieux Farka Toure, and Amadou & Miriam. That starts on February 15th. Then in April or May I'll be spending a couple weeks in Morocco. It's been far too long since I've seen an ocean and it'll be more than welcome come hot season. I'm currently savoring the last month or month and a half of cold season. It's generally in the low 80's during the day and drops down to the mid 50's at night. These days mid 50's is frigid for me.
Another bit of unfortunate news, I had my wallet stolen in Bamako about ten days ago. Most of the volunteers were at a bar called La Terrace for the newbies' swear in party. I had my wallet in a friend's purse which she left laying around somewhere. I lost about 27,000 cfa (about $50) some bank cards, ID, and what not. The worst part was having to file a police report and getting the bank cards and ID replaced. All in all, I didn't lose that much and worse things could happen. So, not that big of a deal.
Finally, for all the Steelers fans out there, I want to share a post with you from my fellow volunteer and good friend, Cary Fontana. All though he's from South Carolina, his family roots are in Pittsburgh and he's as big a Steeler fan as I've ever met. I know we're all still lamenting our early playoff exodus, but hopefully this story of Cary's attempts to extend Steeler Nation to West Africa will ease the pain. http://www.steelersdepot.com/2011/12/steeler-nation-steeler-world/
p.s. here are some links to the photos from my Dogon hike:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2955767779547.153124.1422031646&type=3&l=cfabde922d
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2957199775346.153160.1422031646&type=3&l=98d5b1882d
That's all I got for now. Uhhhh see ya.
P&L,
Rege
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)