trip part 3 and rants about development

Since we were already in Mopti (in the northern half of the country), we decided to take the opportunity to see what else the north has to offer.

After COS conference a bunch of us went to Dogon country to hike around for a few days. You may remember I visited Dogon country when Emily was here, and we had such a good time I was eager to go back. I was not disappointed.

The rainy season has started so things were beginning to be green, there was a small waterfall; we even had to hike one morning in light rain... it was beautiful and really fun to hang out with old friends. We went to the southern part of Dogon near Bankass, I don't think it was as beautiful as the Youga's (where I went with Em) but it was great.

Dogon country is so nice and beautiful but there are so many tourists and it's really weird for me because the tourist industry in Sikasso is non existent, and then you go somewhere like Dogon country and all the kids follow you around saying "ca va, le bon bon" or "ca va, le bic" meaning how goes it the candy, pen, bottle, basically any object they want, then sometimes the kids don't even greet they just want the stuff, and the thing that got me was that even the old people would ask for kola nuts without any kind of greeting. Maybe I sound bitter, and maybe I've been here too long, but people are just so used to foreigners coming here and dropping loads of cash. Most Dogon there don't see the beauty and think foreigners are crazy just to come and see these villages and drop all this money on tourism, so obviously they have money to spare to give me candy, kola nuts, or a school. Which happens a lot in Dogon country. A lot of villages have churches or schools, built by tourists left with a strong impression of Dogon country. Anyway I have a lot of things going through my mind, a lot of this has to do with the bigger impact of development work in places like Mali. In my experience most people just expect foreigners to give them stuff without working for it, which makes the work of Peace Corps volunteers so hard. We have to compete with NGOs with a big bankroll who just drop cash and buildings etc. Overall I think that the work PCVs do is more sustainable, but definitely more difficult.

ok the first pic is of Rob and I, the second is a village where we spent one night