5 Months

Salutations,

Hard to believe, but it's been just about 5 months since I arrived in country.  As always, time is flying by and I'm accruing crazy experiences on the reg.  I know it's been awhile since my last update, so let me try to fill you in on some of the highlights from my last 6 weeks...

Malian Transportation:

Bashi  a.k.a. deathbox

So, a little over a month ago, I decided to head to my regional capital, Sikassoville, for a weekend.  Once I bike to a main road and catch a bus, it's about a 3 hour ride to this city.  I made it there uneventfully, and enjoyed a relaxing weekend away from my site.  Come Monday, we (me and the volunteer closest to my site) attempted to head back to our sites.  Malian transportation is always shall we say 'interesting', yet, there are varying levels of 'interesting'. In a previous email, I described Bashi cabs.  They're the gutted vans you can find in most cities, hauling upwards of 20 people at a time about town.  Imagine some p.o.s. vehicle entirely gutted, even the upholstery has been ripped out.  It's really just a metal death box with wooden planks for seats.  If you're on facebook, you can see pictures of it. It's the green van.  So anyways, we had intended on taking an actual bus back to site, but that's not how things worked out. After leaving the transit house in Sikassoville, we found a taxi and had him take us to transportation going to our market town, Kolondieba.  The transportation he found for us was of the Bashi variety.  Now, I don't mind riding in the death box to get from one part of town to another, often it's the only choice, but I try to avoid it for longer travels.  So Thera (the other volunteer) and I decided to head to the bus station and find less direct, yet safer transportation.  After getting to the bus station, we bought tickets and were told the bus would arrive shortly.  Not long after, another taxi showed up and the the bus station guy told us to get in and the taxi would take us to the bus.  So we did, and of course the taxi took us right back across town to the first bashi we turned down.  So, bashi it was.  It took some time to get out of town as we picked up some more people, various sacks of vegetables, and of course livestock.  Once we finally got on the highway, things went pretty smooth. however, the highway connecting sikassoville to my neck of the woods isn't finished yet so at various points vehicles have to take dirt paths running parallel to the highway.  As soon as we got onto one of these dirt paths, the bashi blew a tire.  It took a good couple hours for them to get somebody on a scooter to go find a tire from God knows where. But eventually, they did and we were back on the road. Not long after we got moving again, I noticed we turned off the dirt path leading towards our destination onto something that could only be described as a goat trail heading deep into the sub-saharan bush.  After an hour of some of the roughest terrain I've ever seen a vehicle traverse, we rolled up in some remote shanty town.  Now, my village is poor, but at least they have mud brick huts.  This village had straw huts with bits of garbage tied together for roofs.  It was unlike anything we'd seen in Mali to date.  I was quite certain that it was a Cote d'Ivoirian refugee camp, but I later found out it was a mining camp and my bashi was dropping off some vegetables there.  My bashi also decided to stop there for about 4 hours so they could repair it.  By time we left the mine camp it was already dark and long story short, it took 12 hours to travel a route that should take 3.

Malian Night Clubs:  

Believe it or not they do exist in Mali, and they are hilarious. Most Malians wouldn't go to a nightclub for religious reasons, and even those who do go are still strongly under the influence of cultural norms.  So, public displays of affection don't really exist in Mali.  For that matter, I don't think private displays of affection happen either, but that's a whole 'nother topic.  The point being, Malians' idea of having fun at a night club involve all the men dancing individually into  mirrors on one side of the club and all the women doing the same on the other side of the club.  Priceless.

Malian Music Culture: 

Mali has an incredibly rich musical culture and history (even if they are terrible dancers).  Ali Farka Toure is probably the most famous Malian musician as well as one of the greatest guitarist who ever lived, but he died a few years back.  His son, Vieux Farka is phenomenal as well, and hopefully i'll be able to see him at some point in my service.  I did, however, get to see Baba Salah a couple weeks ago.  He played at an awesome little venue in Bamako.  If you dig roots and blues, you should probably check him out.  

Wildlife:

this is bigger than my itouch

this is as big as my fist

Those of you on Facebook have probably seen the pics of some of my new found Malian friends. Since rainy season started, I've seen scorpions bigger than my iTouch, tarantulas as big as my fist, and swarms upon swarms of flying termites.  Oh, and sun spiders... they can run at speeds of 10 miles an hour.  During our In-Service Training, we had a session on snakes in Mali.  There's a boatload including three venomous families.  There are 4 types of Cobras, a few types of Vipers, and 2 mambas.  I've been told that Cobra bites are seldom fatal and Viper bites, especially the puff adder, are more venomous, but still carry a low fatality rate.  Mambas on the other hand...  Tomorrow I'm heading up to a town called Manantali where there'll be a big 4th of July party.  It's about 10 hours west of my site and there are baboons, hippos, another variety of monkeys, and many snakes.  Hopefully I'll return with some good photos.

Site:

kids from my village

Well, it's been awhile since I've been there and I won't get back till July 7th or 8th. I had two weeks of In-Service Training at Tubani So and since then I've been doing a bit of travelling around the Bamako area before heading towards Mananteli.  Rainy season was just starting as I left so it'll be full on upon my return.  I hope the goats haven't gotten into my garden...but they probably did. Water shouldn't be as much of an issue now that the wells have refilled and that will certainly make life easier.  I have to admit, spending close to a month with other toubabs, travelling about the country, and having some wicked parties makes the thought of returning to site a bit daunting.  There's certainly work to be done though.  One of the first things I'll do (after my language skills allow it) is something called PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action).  It's a series of tools and activities that my village and I will employ to precisely figure out what resources they have, what challenges they face, what they need most, and how they can obtain those needs.  I also want to get our village pump fixed asap, for my own needs as well as theirs.  I'm tired of going 2 k's to the next village just to get drinkable water.

My Outlook:

So, 5 months in and my outlook is a bit more realistic.  When we first arrived in country, we were all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to bring Mali to the 1st world or something, and refused to admit there was any problem in this country that could bring us down even for a minute.  I can tell you, I don't feel that way anymore.  It does require a conscious effort at times to remain positive about accomplishing real development in a place like Mali.  I often ask myself, what the hell am I doing here and will I help anyone during my service?  Sometimes you see things here that are so ass-backwards, it can be a bit demoralizing.  As I get to know my class of volunteers and the older ones, I'm realizing these feelings are all quite normal in the Peace Corps experience.  I also think right now is a particularly difficult time in my service.  After 5 months, I've learned a lot of the language, I'm getting integrated into my village, in short I've done a lot. And yet, there's nothing tangible I can point to and say, "there, I've accomplished that". It will come, I know that. But for the time being it's a bit frustrating.  In development work, I think it helps morale to focus on the individual rather than the society at large.  So here's an anecdote to highlight that point: Most of the Peace Corps administration positions are filled by Malians, including the positions in charge of each sector (environment, health, education, small-enterprise development, and water sanitation).  The person in charge of the small-enterprise development sector is a man named Yacouba.  About 35 years ago, there was a Peace Corps volunteer in Yacouba's village and his father was the volunteer's counterpart.  Of course, Yacouba was just a kid at this point.  I'm not sure what if any physical evidence remains of that volunteer's service. I don't know if he or she helped them build a school or a hospital, improve food security, better water sanitation, etc.  What I do know is that that volunteer left an impact on Yacouba's father.  He realized the importance of an education for his kids.  Now, 35 years later, Yacouba has lived in the States, received a Masters degree in international development, and has returned to his country, working year round to improve Mali's lot.  75% of Mali is illiterate, Imagine how many Malians have a Masters.  I think change of this nature is the cornerstone of any development work, including Peace Corps.  It's slow moving, and often times you can't tell that you've done anything at all.  Then again, it's rather arrogant and patronizing to assume these are my problems to fix.  They aren't.  In the end, Mali's problems need to be fixed by Malians just as America's problems need to be fixed by Americans.  Hopefully, I can help a couple people out during the next two years while not losing sight of the importance of such work.  

I'll leave it there for now.  As always, I hope everything is going well in your lives. 

L&P

Rege