In this Lehman's terms...

Post-Africa

2009-12-19T20:59:00.004-05:00

Ousmane and I spent two months living in the Parcelles neighborhood of Dakar. I guess, I can check another item of my "things to do before 30" list. Dakar was okay, expensive so kind of frustrating to live there, unemployed and on a budget. But I gotta say living right on the beach with my husband for those two months was like an extended honeymoon. On November 6th, exactly one month after our first trip to the embassy, Ousmane received his visa.

After Ousmane got his visa, we decided to high-tail it back to Kedougou to spend the Senegalese holidays there with his family (unfortunately my camera broke before the holidays so no pics). Tabaski was great, the previous volunteer who lived with his family, along with the current volunteer who lives there, were both present. We had a really big sheep and ate meat for a week- yum yum!!

I got back to North Carolina on Dec. 13th after a 9 hr delay (can't complain too much, South Africa put me in first class from DKR to JFK). Ousmane should be here before I start classes next month(Jan. 19). Until then, I'm enjoying my first snow in over three years, hanging out with mom, getting ready for a visit from Kenny, and helping mom with the Christmas baking!

2009-10-04T11:05:00.002-04:00

AT LAST I have put up some photos and actually written on here: I was away from blogging for several reasons, first of all I really had nothing to report since I wasn't really doing anything. Then I got married a few weeks ago, but I didn't have PC permission so I couldn't really tell everyone. But as of September 27th I was finished with Peace Corps (congrats to me!). So now Ousmane and I are in Dakar, living on the beach, applying for a visa, studying calculus (me getting ready for school) and taking driving lessons (that's Oussy), although I might need some practice after so many years of not driving...
so let's see: our first appt at the embassy to drop off the petition to apply for a visa is Tuesday-wish us luck!
I hope you all enjoy the photos! We were married during the month of Ramadan so we couldn't do a big fete (more my style anyway), but the other volunteers all showed up and made it a rememberable wedding. I'm trying to upload a bunch onto facebook, but this cyber cafe isn't too great.
Oh and last night we had our 'wedding cake' (thanks mom and Neda (Mali RPCV living in Dakar)). Mom sent us a cake mix and we went to Neda's yesterday and baked the cake ater which Neda took us out to a lovely dinner at the French Cultural Center, we then returned to her house to frost and eat the cake not forgetting to take pictures of us feeding each other pieces of cake-also look to facebook for those photos.
Missed you all-I hope to be updating more often now!

Mosquito Net Distribution

2009-07-29T09:23:00.010-04:00

Just got back into Kedouogou after spending almost two weeks out 'en brousse' in the area of Saraya. We distributed over 16,000 mosquito nets, and there are still villages we didn't hit. Our estimates for population (based on government info) was way-off. But it looks like we have enough nets coming our way to finish off the distribution in September. I'm not going to lie to you, it was a crazy, trying time for me. I was really disappointed on the commitment levels and participation with some locals in the health infrastructure. People saying they're going to help out in a certain way and then not doing what they said. Anyway what's done is done. Here are some pics of the bad roads we passed, getting stuck in mud, crossing the river to visit Mali for 10 minutes and actually distributing nets. The Senegalese guy in the boat is Gouda (like the cheese), the resident 'f-in badass' ambulance driver in Saraya who was fearless and super helpful on this trip.

In other news, Ousmane just got back from Dakar where he got his passport! yay, the first step done, now we just need to get married and apply for a visa, wait that's a lot of stuff... I'm on it! I'm going to be going to Dakar this weekend for a week or two to work at the Embassy's English camp. Hopefully get the lowdown about visa info from Embassy people. take care y'all!

Another round of Ingly

2009-07-16T06:15:00.004-04:00

As some of you may know, my closest teammate in Mali, Brooke, is here in Senegal doing research on chimpanzees for the summer. In honor of her visit, I wanted to take her out to see some of the coolest, non-touristy part of Kedougou. So we rode over thirty miles on our bikes Tuesday, in order to reach some magnificent waterfalls, rarely seen by outsiders. Ousmane was also there, which was great because this sort of camping adventure is not something Senegalese often do. So we get out to the falls only to find that there wasn't really any falls just a few trickles of water. That changed however after 5 house at the falls- thunderstorm ensued. And it was a big one- we were in tents but that didn't protect us from the lightning and thunder which was right next to us, soooo loud and earth rumbling! Unfortunately, our tent had holes in the bottom which ended up flooding the tent about 10 minutes into the storm! The storm dies down in the night allowing us to get some sleep, and in the morning the falls were full! However, as soon as the morning fire was built more rain clouds moved in, so we moved out. I had to be back in Kedougou by the evening and the non-waterproof tents, pushed up forward, so we ended up riding our bikes in the rain basically all morning trying to get back to Kedougou. It was great! Spending two adventure-filled days with some of my favorite people.

In other news, I don't know if I told you but in addition to my chicks I also have a duck. And she laid her first eggs the other day, not just one but three! I was so proud- had to take a picture!

PS check my post in October for good pictures of the falls...

CHICKENS!!!

2009-06-29T06:22:00.004-04:00

I have chicks! Yes, I became a mother to twenty chicks, sadly only 17 remain ( I later found out from the vet that the chicks I bought were probably rejects brought down from Dakar). Here's some pics of the workers building the house for them, a pic of the house with the chicks in it, me and Ousmane and a pic of me and a baby chick.

Hiatus

2009-06-10T07:31:00.004-04:00

Sorry for going a little AWOL on y'all. I've been kinnda busy here lately. First off, we just did a tour of every middle school in the region of Kedougou in order to conduct interviews for a scholarship that the PCVs of Senegal give out every year to girls in financial need. We were promised 11 scholarships for our region (one for every middle school [although later we found out there are actually thirteen]). I was kinnda heading the scholarship part. We conducted interviews, did house visits and proctored essay writing, all for the application process.

Tacked on to this tour of the region, we used this as an opportunity to start our visual aid campaign against AIDS. We painted a mural at every middle school we visitied, below is an example. Still working on trying to get the billboard part of the campaign finished... Also in line with my AIDS work, we just did another training of over 50 health workers on the promotion of the female condom. And hopefully by next week we'll be starting a training on gardening with the association for people living with HIV/AIDS. We actually have a fairly large bit of land for them, so after the training this is going to turn into a great nutritional supplement for the participants.

I don't talk about my personal life that much here, but I've had a lot of people asking questions, so I must give in: I am engaged. I've been dating Ousmane Kante for about 7 months now and we've decided we want to spend the rest of our lives together. I don't know what else to say besides we love each other and we are really excited about our future together. He's of Bambara origin, but has grown up here in Kedougou. Anyway here's a pic of him and I.

A VERY IMPORTANT PROJECT CLOSE TO MY HEART

2009-04-22T08:35:00.003-04:00

Please visit here to donate money to help build a maternity in Kouoro (my village in Mali).
I did a lot of work to get this project off the ground and am very happy to see it being taken to the next step with Audra, the current volunteer in Kouoro.
Help realize this wonderful project, which works to meet the basic fundamental needs of having a safe place and a trained mid-wife to deliver babies.
Kouoro is a poor village of subsistence farmers who so generously opened their homes and hearts to me for two years.
I know I ask a lot and that times are especially hard in America, but every little bit will help. Just think about how much you spend going out to eat or the movies and think about how much that amount could help to realize the construction of this maternity and impact the health of hundreds of Malians from the village of Kouoro.
Thanks in advance
Peace to all
Michele

2009-04-22T07:51:00.002-04:00

SO the first pic is the hotel at Tubab Dialaw, the second is the beach there and the third pic is us girls looking lovely at the hotel we stayed at in Yoff.

beach

2009-04-22T07:21:00.002-04:00

I went on vacation! I went to Tubab Dialaw and Dakar for about 6 days. I dyed my hair with henna and was trying to capture it for y'all here. I had a great time with Kay a PCV down here and her friend, Tessa, visiting from Spain. I just needed a little break, and that's what I got. Tubab Dialaw was relaxing and the hotel was beautfiul and had delicious food... But it was cold. Now I'm back in Kedougou, suffering in the misery that is hot season, although the juicy mangoes are a refreshing relief.

pics

2009-04-02T06:42:00.005-04:00

The first two pictures are of a training i organized earlier this month. We trained female community health workers in the promotion of female condoms. IT was great, most of the women came into the room that morning not even knowing female condoms existed. by the end of the day they could all giver perfect demonstrations and facilitate discussions about female condoms.
The promotion of female condoms is a really great activity here because 1. they are free, 2. many times the woman wants her partner to wear a condom but he refuses, this way she can still protect herself 3. with the growing AIDS problem in the region every avenue of retarding the spread needs to be examined.

The other pics are in the OR with the American opthamologists. There's me in my scrubs and then the other pic is the actual cataract after being pulled out of the eye, not too clear, but nevertheless I wanted to post it.

FYI it is so much faster to load pics from my phone than my camera. they are lesser quality but i can upload more. enjoy!

shrimp scampi

2009-04-02T06:27:00.002-04:00

Ok I hope you see these pics well. you know sometimes it's good to talk about other things besides peace corps and work:
Yesterday I got a kilo of shrimp. I've never cooked it before but love shrimp and wanted to eat something delicious. So after I got this kilo I called good ol' mom to make sure i knew how to cook it correctly. As you can see from the before and after pics I think i did ok!
I first made some pasta then drained it and put in some butter and herbes de provence. Then I shelled all the shrimp, cleaned it. Sauteed garlic in a lot of butter. Then added chopped green onions, lemon juice, some white wine and the shrimp. Right before taking it off the heat added some salt and pepper. Then threw that over the pasta. Pretty tasty if you ask me.
Enjoy and happy cooking
PS these photos were taken on my phone with the memory card mom sent. I love you mom! sending you shrimp through the web!

malaria again

2009-03-28T07:19:00.001-04:00

Please don't forget about our Malaria net distribution. We're still accepting (and needing donations). Every few bucks can help save LIVES. I don't want to hound you for money but this is a really great project and everyone can help if they want to,so I encourage you to do whatever you can. Thanks and much love

http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/NetLifePCV2009

busy busy

2009-03-28T07:02:00.003-04:00

Life has been busy lately and with the assault that is hot season, it's been crazy for me.
I spent two weeks in the operating room with two visiting American ophthalmologists, while they performed 107 cataract surgeries. It was a very long two weeks but probably the most interesting in my life. I got to do stuff even medical students don't get to do. I wasn't alone however, Kay another Health PCV, and I were in there for the two weeks. I'll try to find some pics to post but as for now go here, and check out the Eye Clinic article. We often worked from 8AM-8PM with an hour break for lunch, so it was really a change from normal Peace Corps work schedule. I helped co-organize the clinic and really feel that this project made my service, it's an amazing gift, giving sight back to people. Thanks to Right to Sight and Health (the name of the group of doctors) for giving sight back to people who would never have gotten the opportunity if not for them and their tireless work.
Now I'm trying to wrap up a bunch of AIDS projects before a Washington deadline... (note to self for future: Washington deadlines=no sense in Africa). That's it for now y'all!

Fight Malaria

2009-03-07T11:42:00.002-05:00

I think that I had mentioned in a previous post about a mosquito net distribution program that all the volunteers in Kedougou are working on.

Last year they did a big comprehensive project covering two arrondissments with universal mosquito net coverage. This year we want to take it up notch and cover the whole health district of Saraya.

Net Life is raising funds to supply the nets to us PCVs here in Kedougou. Now, Against Malaria, a mosquito distributing NGO, is matching any funding the Net Life puts up.

$2.50 is all it takes for a mosquito net.

It's simple to donate - just go here

YOU WILL BE SAVING LIVES

This is a comprehensive, fully transparent project. These nets will not be sold on the black market. They will be delivered directly to villagers by Peace Corps volunteers in conjunction with the local health infrastructure.

It is a tragedy that more isn't being done in the fight against malaria: there is no vaccine for malaria (and with the way the rest of the world contributes to the funding of the search, it doesn't look like there will be one soon). Mosquito nets are a great way to prevent malaria because the mosquitoes that carry the disease only bite at night.

Please tell friends and family about this project, it really is a great way to help SAVE LIVES of thousands of Senegalese men, women and CHILDREN.

Thanks

http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/NetLifePCV2009.

Help Fight Malaria

2009-03-03T10:41:00.001-05:00

http://www.AgainstMalaria.com/NetLifePCV2009
Check this out. I just got the link, will post info tomorrow!

pizza on my birthday

2009-03-02T04:05:00.002-05:00

I had a really nice relaxing weekend to celebrate my birthday. On Saturday after having a tasty lunch of yassa, I went to the river with some friends. It was really nice to just hang out there and swim, since it's been rapidly heating up here in Kedougou (mid-upper 100s)! While we were down by the river banks a friend of a friend came over and started talking to us (he used to run a nearby tourist campement) and he was talking about how he was going to make pizza and bring us some. I laughed it off as if it was just another false commitment people make. then later that evening he showed up at my house with pizza! For those of you who think this is no big deal just some pizza-think again! No restaurants serve pizza here and cheese and ovens are hard to find, so this was a real gem of a present.
Later that night we went to a local dance party and I danced my little heart out so all in all I'd say it was a really nice birthday.
Thanks for all the phone calls, skype calls, emails and facebook messages. I love you all! peace

le mois prochaine

2009-02-22T13:11:00.002-05:00

Hey back in Kedougou, a nice trip down but very long (and I didn't spot any cool animals). It's already really hot here, I'm sweating as I write this email. Now, I'm just getting ready for next month, it's going to be a busy one, with all the projects we got going on. I am not complaining, actually reveling in it!
I got an invitation for my cousin Rog and Annette's wedding in April. Wish I could go, but unless I find a sugar daddy (the tickets are looking around 1,500 USD), it looks unlikely. It will be a lot of fun though, so congratulations to the both of them, two wonderful people.
Well, my time is up, just a quick hello.
Peace

WAIST 2009

2009-02-18T07:14:00.006-05:00

I've been in Dakar last Sunday doing various things but mainly participating in WAIST activities. It was a lot of fun. I played for Tambagou (combined Tambacounda and Kedougou regions), well, more like we goofed off-but it was great. The costume theme was Peace Corporate (think corporate attire with a crazy Peace Corps twist [you can't see my full ensemble in the pic I had hot pink stocking and cut off pinstripe shorts). There was a contingent of about 20 volunteers from Mali, so I had a really good time catching up with some old friends. The only complaint I have about WAIST- it was so COLD. Dakar is on the ocean and all weekend there was crazy cold winds.

The first picture of artisinal items being sold (I loved the photo)
The second pic is the tambagou team doing some pre-dancing before a game
Then there's Katy, Anna and I (Sikasso PCVs)
Lastly, Me, Laura and Ben drinking some champagne on day 2 of WAIST

I stayed with Bernadette and had a really nice time with her. There was a death in the family next door which is also a part of their family. She was a really old woman whom I never even met. So for 7 days there were numerous people coming in and out (which meant delicious food for lunch and dinner everyday), then Monday was the funeral- a very nice service followed by a really big party at the house.

On Tuesday we had an All Volunteers Conference. It was actually really interesting and useful. There are about 150 volunteers in country but we never really get to share our experiences. Each and every volunteer is doing great work and this allowed volunteers to share lessons learned. thanks for setting it up.

I'm headed back to Kedougou tomorrow in a station wagon with 5 other volunteers. Thanks Dakar
Much love y'all

2009-02-05T14:03:00.001-05:00

me and the dog and the monkey

projects

2009-02-05T13:29:00.002-05:00

sorry for the delay in response ya'll. Things have been kind of busy here. so what have i been up to?

Still fighting AIDS. We got a lot of projects planned for the next few months and i believe that I'm going to be even busier than now. First of, lots of meetings have taken place. We're trying to set in place the regional Committee for the Battle against AIDS, the creation and development of this committee has been going on for the past 3 months but I think it is finally working. The committee is set-up to coordinate the activities, share information and collaborate amongst all the different actors in the fight against AIDS here in Kedougou. We PCVs are coordinating projects, with money set aside by USAID, in the fight against AIDS. One project is training radio jockeys on how to communicate information about AIDS to the population. Another project is the training of 60 health relays in the region on better practices of passing information in regards to AIDS. There is a visual marketing campaign in which we are going to set-up billboards along the routes and poster on big cotton trucks that go to every village (these visuals will have messages about AIDS). Also I'm hoping to celebrate international women's day with an AIDS theme, training and educating the female population in Kedougou. And most of this is happening in the next two months.

So that was just AIDS. We just submitted a proposal last week for a project in which we (the PCVs of Kedougou) would distribute mosquito nets to the whole population of the region of Kedougou... yeah, that one is going to be crazy, still waiting to hear back though.

There are some American Ophthalmologists who are coming for two weeks in March in order to conduct cataract surgeries as well as eye check-ups and consultations. This is a really great opportunity for the population of Kedougou; because most people don't have access to eye health care, so many people go blind from cataracts here.

Also still trying to get some things going concerning waste management in hygiene, although it's taking last priority.

Amidst all that next week all volunteers are going to Dakar for WAIST (see last Feb's blog). I'll be there for almost two weeks. It's going to be a crazy two months. But I keep reminding myself that as soon all this stuff is done and I'm less busy, I'm going to take a vacation.... now where to???

Back in Kedougou

2009-01-04T08:36:00.003-05:00

We got the approval to return to Kedougou on Thursday... needless to say I was sleeping in my own bed Thursday night- thankful to have left the mosquitoes and heat behind (my legs are covered in bites [damn Tamba!]). It's nice to be back- Kedougou feels like home already and it sucked having to leave like that, needless to say Michele is in much better spirits now. The day after I got back I made chocolate chip cookies that turned out really well (thanks to mom for the essential ingredients). I shared them with my host family and they all really enjoyed them and then last night we finally had our big Christmas dinner. It was really tasty and I ate A LOT so it was kinnda like Christmas in America. We had couscous with raisins and green beans with yassa (onion sauce) and duck!!! I love duck: it's funny though, I've never eaten duck in America only abroad, it's so tasty. I like to take some credit for the meal, I planned it out and bought the ingredients but all I did to prepare was cut the onions, so props to my host sisters Mami and Sali (allah k'aw son!).

I finally got the assess the damage here in Kedougou after the riots. The government building attacked were burnt out but still in fine shape to me (they're cement buildings), windows were broken and in some cases the exterior walls were torn down and government cars were burnt. The thing that really bothers me is the way the government is handling the situation after, there were a lot of violations of human rights, unwarranted arrests, beatings, all of this taking place at peoples homes when the gendarme stormed houses in the middle of the night. They took people who had no involvement whatsoever in the riots and I have personally heard about people who were camping on the other side of the river waiting it out. We'll see apparently Amnesty International released statement against actions used by the government against the citizens of Kedougou, but I really doubt anything will happen and really its just another things that makes me more pessimistic about development in this area. There were so many reports coming out half of which had no proof. Anyway here's a good article about the events.

I also heard an interesting finding that there is a new virus that may be able to help stop malaria and other disease transmitted by mosquitoes. The virus could be used to kill mosquitoes or make them unable to transmit diseases. Check it out.

the story

2008-12-27T13:42:00.003-05:00

I am currently still in Tambacounda waiting for the approval to go back to Kedougou. I just want to repeat there was and is no danger for us (Peace Corps Volunteers) so I hope they'll let us return tmw or mon.

The basics: three people died, many were injured and most all of the government buildings were either ransacked/burnt/ or looted but I was never in any danger and nothing has happened since tuesday when all the events took place.

It's a really long and complicated story but basically the youth are tired of seeing nothing from all of the natural resources (gold and other minerals, iron, marble) being extracted in the area going back to Kedougou (I think they are justified in being angry about this) but the protest did get out of hand. It started out as a bunch of youth (they did burn tires) but then apparently lots of people came which made more gendarme and military come to the protests with LIVE BULLETS, SHOTING AT THE PEOPLE! So basically everything else that happend was revenge.

Anyway I'm in Tamba not by choice I want to go back (I bought 4 ducks cause I was going to have christmas with my host fam). I tried finding a good article in English and found this. Also, the problem here is that there are so many stories coming out (many untrue) that it's hard to find out exactly what happened if you're on the outside.

ok that's it for now!

Riots in Kedougou

2008-12-25T05:36:00.002-05:00

ok- this was not how I planned to spend my Christmas... I had bought four ducks and me and my host family were going to have a nice Christmas dinner. But on Tuesday riots broke out in Kedougou changing all my plans. I don't have a lot of time so I can't explain it all indepth but I swear I will once everything is settles. Basically student protest got very violent on tuesday and the national gaurd and army was called in, 2-4 people were killed and most all of the government buildings were destroyed.
I was fine-never in any danger but Peace Corps made us come to Tambacounda and I am here until things clear up:

Sorry i couldn't find any articles in English; but these are pretty good summaries of what happened:

http://www.walf.sn/actualites/suite.php?rub=1&id_art=51811

http://www.walf.sn/politique/suite.php?rub=2&id_art=51800

WAD and Tabaski pics

2008-12-22T05:11:00.007-05:00

Ok the first photo is at my house on Tabaski when we killed a sheep (I especially like how everyone puts a hand on the guy slitting the throat- everyone wanted to be in on the action).
Then we got some World AIDS day photos. The first is the march of people that went through town. The second are runners in the race and the third is a winner of the race with a sheep.

shameless request

2008-12-12T08:05:00.003-05:00

ok I'm going to be shameless again, if anyone was thinking of sending me a little something in Africa I had an idea... I would like to have a micro san disk for my telephone. Impossible to find but in Dakar and then they're ridiculously expensive. I'm just putting it out there.

Hope everyone's enjoying the holiday season!

bathroom repairs

2008-12-12T06:14:00.003-05:00

ok here are some pictures from when we redid my 'bathroom'. see that hole? that's my toilet.

weeks later...

2008-12-12T06:07:00.002-05:00

It’s been way too long- my apologies. As you could probably tell by the last post, I’ve been busy. Which feels great (although sometimes I still wished it was a more structured busy and not the kind of busy that feels like you’re going to lose your mind).

Any who- World AIDS day went well. All of the organizations ended up pitching in at the last minute to cover all the costs as far as their means would let them. On Sunday, there were two races with the prize of a sheep (one week before Tabaski). Then on Monday (the actual int’l day) there was a march through town followed by an official ceremony. Then in the evening was a rap-off with six groups of rappers rapping with an aids theme. All the events were held or started at this one central location. Both days there was HIV/AIDS testing. I was really surprised by the turn-out for all the events. The main people targeted were youth and there were indeed those who came out the most. There was a lack of female presence. But we’re hoping to organize activities for the Int’l Women and AIDS day, focusing on them then.

Right after the events I went to Dakar to see Nora (we studied abroad in Dakar together and haven’t seen each other since). She’s great and it was a real pleasure to see here. We had a lot of good memories studying abroad together and it was fun to visit some of the places we were fond of in Dakar (and discover some new ones [‘N’ice Cream’ anyone?]). It was also nice to see my host family in Dakar and get some errands done that can only be done in Dakar. (Hey I finally got all that fabric from Mali to a tailor). But it was a short trip, because I wanted to make it back in time for Tabaski. I would rather skip the 28 hours of my life that was hell nad never relive them again-but I will just say that the trip back makes me want to never return to Dakar by road again…

After my long trip home I went directly to the post office to get a package form Mom (you’re the best!). It really made me happy. The day after I got back was Tabaski. What is Tabaski you may ask? I think I’ve explained it before. But this year was fun. We ate a lot of sheep (which is delicious) and hung out while wearing pretty clothes oh and the second night of Tabaski we went out dancing at a bar that was-PACKED!

PS. Kedougou never ceases to surprise me. It’s such a small town but there seems to be son many. Another thing I learned from working with all the big organizations is that everything is so political in Kedougou; they never covered that in pre-service training.

meetings and planning

2008-11-18T08:27:00.002-05:00

ok i haven't written in a while because I've actually been busy! yay! I really like life here in Kedougou. It's a really laid-back town with all of the big-town conveniences.

I've been in meetings for six of the last seven days. The seventh day I attended the inauguration of the blood bank at the region's hospital (where I've been spending a lot of time [for work]) and then visited a village where they mine for gold. It was a big to-do with the minister of women in attendance as well as many other big wigs from USAID and Family Health international. It was interesting to actually visit a site and see how they mine for gold, since gold is the reason there is a big AIDS problem here in Kedougou.

Three days I was in meetings with an NGO that wants to do more projects down here. And then for another three days I was in a meeting with lots of government officials, NGO workers and private sector partners creating the regional council for the fight against AIDS. IT was interesting but like many meetings in west Africa lacked some direction, a lot of it could have taken place outside the meeting and then presented at the meeting... it's been a long week... and it's still going...

We're in the process of planning something for World AIDS day (Dec 1) although I am becoming increasingly unsure as to whether this will take place or not because no money has been found yet. Hopefully I'll have a better idea tomorrow. What we are planning is a march through town with youth groups leading to a central place near town with lots of music and informational booths, rapid testing, condom demonstrations etc.. followed by a rap-contest (rapping AIDS-themed of course)! Anyway it would be a really good way to raise awareness amongst youth here. So if you know anyone out there want to sponsor a small relatively cheap (~$1000) World AIDS Day event let me know!

And I really tried to put up pics today but they were not going through, the internet sucks here. I saw a sign the other day for internet connections in the home. i bet it's expensive though, I'll check it out.

economics and politics of Senegal

2008-10-28T13:57:00.002-04:00

To answer your question uncle Roger, the economy is getting worse here, but most people here are accustomed to poverty so I don't really know if it's really horrible. Prices are most certainly increasing and if the growing crime rate in Dakar is an indicator, I would say that things are getting worse here. Transport prices, food basics, electricity, housing costs are all on the rise. I feel like I hear about a riot in Dakar every few weeks, protesting the increased costs of living. The electricity situation is crazy. Senegal has a huge river they could be using to create electricity, but that's besides the point. In Dakar the rates are outrageous and there are usually blackouts everyday...

As for the elections people are really interested in them. People bring it up to me every day now, wanting to know who I'm voting for. Everyone I talk to is more interested in Obama. I myself can't wait to see how it goes. I'm going to listen to BBC to find out the results, but I haven't decided whether I will stay up late into the morning (we're 7 hours ahead of California) or just wait till the next morning to tune it..

life

2008-10-28T13:08:00.002-04:00

ok my goal this week is to put up some pictures of my room/place where i live. I've finally got it all fixed up except the bathroom which needs a new cement wall (I have however bought the cement for said project).

Workwise life's been good. Last week there was a fact finding mission from the capitol, Dakar, by USAID and the NGO Family Health International. They came to Kedougou after Matt, a fellow Kedougou PCV brought the AIDS problem to the attention to the director of FHI Senegal. It was a really productive three days involving all of the key players in the region. At the end of the three days we came out with an action plan as to how Kedougou will continue the fight against AIDS. I don't know how much I've talked about it but the things here is that there is a growing prevalence of AIDS cases amongst (mostly migrant) miners who mine for gold around Kedougou. Whole new villages are built at the mining sites, for miners who have left there family behind for a long period, they seek comfort in the arms of a growing number of prostitutes. It's more complex than that, but that's the general picture. So now we're planning a few projects financed entirely by USAID. The first one is a series of interviews the discover the knowledge of AIDS and then create a new pedagogical model to teach about AIDS in junior highs in the area. Another protect is financing some billboards and posters, to encourage people to get tested for AIDS. Hopefully we will also be doing something for world AIS day on December 1st. Tomorrow I'm going to start going the the regional hospital to see how to solve a problem they had with condom distribution. I may end up going there on a regular basis. the head doctor seems very motivated and I think there could be a lot of joint ventures undertaken between us.

Oh yeah during the three day fact finding mission I had to miss out on a day because of an uncomfortable case of pink eye. I am thankfully on the mend, but I've been wearing glasses for the last week which is really annoying.

ok so that's what I've been up to... oh and i got a lot of suggestions on how to deal with annoying guys. I like uncle Roger's idea of showing them a pic of him and my dad...

being hit on in senegal

2008-10-13T06:31:00.004-04:00

I forgot how persistent guys can be here. They were definitely persistent in Mali but I think that in Mali I never really had that problem because I was safe in village where I was an asexual creature and no one looked at me in 'those terms.' But now that I live in a city (I use that term loosely), the boys are eager. They just do not know how to take no for an answer.
There's this guy I got some photos developed from and he keeps inviting me places, his house, a dance... and I keep saying no but he will not stop asking. I feel bad, if he were an American guy I would think he would be humiliated and never want to talk to me again, but no, this guy just wants to know if he can send me text messages. It's like you have to be really really mean in order to get your point across or do what I'm going to do... avoid him at all costs.

pics of the falls

2008-10-09T09:34:00.003-04:00

The waterfalls at Dindefello- they're so tall I couldn't fit them in the pic

kids planting trees for the Gender and Development Camp in Dindefello

Crossing the river on the way to Dindefello

the waterfalls at Ingly

me after the bike ride to the first falls

propane tank near a campfire ... or how we almost died at Ingly

2008-10-09T08:26:00.003-04:00

Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it was kind of a close call. I'll start from the beginning. I went on camping trip starting Monday with some of the people down here. I actually had no idea what I was getting myself into, I originally thought we were going to the Gender and Development camp some volunteers were putting on in that area, but apparently we had other plans to camp at some secret waterfalls the night before heading to the GAD camp. So there's about ten of us going on our bikes, traveling 11 km from a volunteer's village to the falls. The terrain was tough. It's still rainy season here so it's REALLY muddy. So basically it was a hellish bike ride that took forever. At one point we had to cross a river in a hollowed out log-canoe. We had to take 6 or 7 trips across with all of our bikes, people and stuff. So we finally made it to the falls and thankfully it was worth it. BEAUTIFUL. We spent the afternoon swimming, eating, and hanging around. We had an assortment of canned food and camping food to eat for dinner. One of the guys brought a small camping "stove" for two tiny propane tanks to cook some food on. At one point in the night, a PCV who will not be named here (it wasn't me) acidentally knocked over the tank and it started spewing out propane gas. I and many others were sitting right next to it and were like what's that, oh shot that's gas, i get up, one of the guys yells run, and then there's a huge flame that lights up the forest. I turn around and see the whole area where the gas spewed engulfed in flames due to the campfire we had going six feet from the incident. Some people started to douse the fire with water and then someone noticed that there was something flaming that would not die out- it was the extra propane tank (the plastic bag it was in had melted around it). So someone threw it out of the area. The next day we noticed that the tank had imploded like it was about to explode- now that would have been bad. Anyway, it was scary but also cool cause no one got hurt. The falls were great, much more spectacular than the falls at Warani in Sikasso.

The next day we spent six hours going 20 kilometers to Dindelfello, the big tourist attraction around the area. It was a tough ride. At one point we had to cross the same river we crossed the day before (this time we were up river), however, there was no boat here, or bridge for that matter. So we had to cross on our own. The boys took across all the bikes and bags individually. And then I walked/swam across the river that was above my chest. I thought the worst of the ride was over at this point since we covered 10k most of which was mud, haha not yet. The second part of the trip made me wonder what I hated worse mud covered paths or sand pit, then in the last five i wondered what was worse sand or rock or rock and sand?!?!?! It was exhausting. I almost fell over when we arrived in the village. First thing we did was stop at the boutique. I filled up on bread and peanut butter and orange soda... it was a great ride but very very exhausting.

The place we arrived was Dindefello. WE got to hang out there with the kids and counselors for a day. The kids really seemed to be enjoying themselves. I helped when they were planting some trees. In the afternoon we got to visit the waterfalls in Dindefello (two falls in two days-ain't I lucky?). They were really tall and very different but equally beautiful.

Thankfully, a PC car came and picked us up to take us back to Kedougou, sparing us from a 40 k ride in the afternoon heat.

ps aunt Tammy- about the sandwhiches- think pulled pork but ten times more delicious

lists

2008-10-05T12:53:00.002-04:00

ok here's a few shameless lists for you jsut in case anyone was ever wondering:

favorite candies:
apple jolly ranchers
red vines NOT twizzlers- they're nasty
Lindt Milk Chocolate any good milk chocolate really
Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Balls
Reece's Pieces
Reece's Peanut Butter cups
Peanut Butter M&M's

things a lonely volunteer in africa misses:
chai tea
velvetta cheese
parmesean cheese
brown sugar
dill pickles
a book about dreams or a dream dictionary

jsut saying

languages

2008-10-05T12:48:00.002-04:00

the bambara that people speak here isn't really bambara at all. it's a dialect of bambara and i don't understand half of what my host family says to me but they understand me pretty well, although they don't always say the responses I thought normal. Some guy asked me today why I spoke Bambara and not Malinke ( the dialect he speaks although some might consider it a whole nother language). I told him because I am from Mali and I lived in a Bambara village, he didn't think that mattered... Anyway my Bamabra passes here....
I also decided that I'm going to focus on Wolof instead of Peul. Wolof will be more useful in the rest of the country and if I decide to stay another year in Dakar. But I'm going to try and learn some Peul greetings.

adjusting

2008-10-02T09:02:00.002-04:00

I've been in Kedougou since Friday afternoon. It's beautiful here, I definetly lucked out there. It's so green and lush. You have to traverse a Nat'l Park to get here and in the crossing we saw baboons, monkies, a jackal, a gazelle, warthog... i think that's it. The volunteers are all really nice and it seems like I will be busy once the holiday is over and people are back at work (yesterday marked the end of Ramadan).
My house is nice although I'm sure mom would be disappointed... no it's not that bad, it's all cemented with a thatched roof but the best part is I have a FRIDGE!!! The bathroom area needs repairs (ie a wall) but hopefully that will happen soon. I live in a compounbd with a nice family (they speak Bambara so that has been great).
Enjoying the local meats available, I ate warthog sandwhich the other day.
Just trying to get adjusted to life here right now... I'll try to get some pictures up soon. I miss you all- America and Mali la!

new phone number

2008-09-24T06:47:00.002-04:00

ok folks i got a new phone so here's the number 221.77.521.1782
call me yo.
I'm off to Kedougou tomorrow
peace

je suis bien arrivee

2008-09-22T06:02:00.002-04:00

Hey this is just a post to let everyone know that I got here safely. I arrived around 4:30 AM local time and finally got into bed a little after 6. Needless to say, I'm having some serious jet lag. Hopefully I will be feeling better soon. I leave for my site (Kedougou) on Thursday so hopefully I'll be able to post something before then. I don't have a phone yet but hopefully will be getting one today if not tomorrow.
Already saw my host family and they seem to be doing great. My host sister Eleonore that got married last year, just had a baby girl, Maeva (not even a month old yet). She's adorable and it was nice to hang out with them. I hope to go and eat lunch there everyday before I leave- it's nice to have a place to go to where you can relax and feel at home.
So I'm at the Peace Corps bureau here jsut trying to get things ready for my journey to Kedougou. I wish you all the best.

Weirdest Thing I’ve Read About Crickets All Day. So Far.

2008-09-17T22:42:00.001-04:00

Weirdest Thing I’ve Read About Crickets All Day. So Far.

Posted using ShareThis

Our trip to Emerald Isle

2008-09-17T17:31:00.017-04:00

Ermerald Isle was beautiful and thankfully we missed all the bad weather. The water was warm and we were able to get some good sun tanning time in. Here are a few pics.

mom and michael

the beach house

me and mom

Back in America

2008-09-17T17:31:00.009-04:00

In case you haven't figured it out I've been in the good ol' US of A for the past few weeks. I came home for my 30 day leave in-between my service in Mali and Senegal. I've had a great time visiting people, but it definitely wasn't long enough. I haven't got to do a lot of the stuff I wanted to do but I'm thankful for the time I have had here.
I flew into Raleigh and spent a weekend with my mom before heading out to Omaha to visit my older brother Luke. In NC, mom took me to do some things I deemed necessary as part of my re-entry into America: pedicure, buying new contacts and a little shopping. In Omaha Luke and I went and saw The Dark Knight on the IMAX screen- one word: Awesome, and we also saw Pineapple Express- really funny. He let me cook some yummy food, we went to the commissary on base to buy a few things (that place was amazing) and he helped me with my computer.
In California I spent some time in Tahoe, Burney, Mt. Shasta, and Valley Springs. Tahoe was beautiful, most of my family on my dad's side was there so we had a great visit. It was great to be back in Burney-wish it could have been longer, ate some of Dad's good cooking, visited some great friends, and got some relaxing time in the hot tub Dad and Kathy put in after all the kids left home... Emily and I went to a G. Love concert in Jacksonville, OR (near Medford).

I had a great time with her. I also stayed with Aunt Ty and hung out with my mom's side of the fam, also got to visit with my lil bro Kenny.
I'm writing to you from mom's house in NC. We spent several days at the beach in Emerald Isle and now I'm trying to get ready to go back to Senegal on Saturday.
I'm getting kind of nervous, but still excited. I hope that my new position works out, but I love Senegal and am excited to get back. I'll post more soon!

what next?

2008-07-11T11:46:00.003-04:00

You may find yourself thinking, 'Michele, your time in Mali is soon up, what next for you?' Well, ladies and gents, I didn't want to say anything until it's 100% sure, but it looks like it is 99% sure, so I'll tell you... I'm doing a third year with Peace Corps.. in Senegal! Surprised??? I didn't think so...

I decided I want to move to Senegal, so for the past ~3 months, I've been looking and looking for a job.

The outcome: after dozens of positions applied to (all of which I was under-qualified) the only thing I heard back from was a position as a intern with a great NGO, but I would only have board covered, so basically I would have had to spent all of my readjustment allowance (and then some) to live in Dakar for a year. And let me tell you, Dakar is not a fun place to be when poor (well it actually is, but it's torture cause there's so many cool things to do in Dakar, but most need money). So I decided I would see if Peace Corps Senegal could offer me anything (you're allowed to extend for a third year and even transfer to another country ie Jacq in China). What PC Senegal offered me wasn't in Dakar, but it's a really interesting health position, and I think it will be great experience for working in the field of development.

I'm really glad I went through the experience of looking for a job though. I found out that the job market in Senegal is very competitive and you need lots of experience and or a Master's degree. So I'm going to get some really good experience with this job, make contacts, use my French, and hopefully I can find something paying after this.

I accepted a Preventative Health Educator position in the Rural Primary Healthcare Program with Peace Corps Senegal in the town of Kedougou in Southeast Senegal. I'll let you know when I know more details. As of now, I'm planning on going back to the states for a month from Aug 20- Sept 20, then going to Senegal.
peace

trip part 4

2008-07-11T11:05:00.004-04:00

Ok so after Dogon country I went to the desert in northern Mali. It was beautiful, peaceful and definitely different from Sikasso in so many ways. No green, no Bambara speakers, very tranquil atmosphere (in part due to the intense heat I suppose) and people were much lighter skinned. It was fun and I'm glad I went, although it was very far. We took a camel ride and spent the night in the desert. Our guide was really cool and probably one of the most beautiful people I have seen here in Mali.

trip part 3 and rants about development

2008-07-11T08:24:00.004-04:00

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

trip part 2

2008-07-06T06:25:00.004-04:00

So after the concert we caught the PC shuttle to Mopti. I pretended to be the kid in charge of taking money... We spent four nights in Mopti for our COS conference (Close of Service). It was a lot of fun to see people I haven't seen in over a year, exchange stories and find out what everyone is doing. There's actually a large number of us extending, I think it's like 15 out of 50. Oh yeah and the food was really good and there was a pool. One afternoon we took some beers on the Niger river for a pirogue ride dubbed 'the booze cruise.' I bought some turban fabric and that's about it for Mopti.. it was a cool town but very expensive, they get a lot of tourists.

trip part 1

2008-07-06T05:40:00.005-04:00

I'm in Bamako after a trip to the northern parts of Mali. Let me tell you the tale...

First I came to Bamako for one night, to see the Alpha Blondy concert, for those of you who don't know, he is one of the kings of African reggae. It was a really cool concert, about 15 PCVs went. the concert didn't start until around midnight (it was supposed to have started at 10), we had to beat HUGE crowds, gendarmes beating people with batons, but we finally made it to the grass and danced the night away to the funky beats of Alpha. I hadn't heard his new album before this concert, but he played his really cool cover of Pink Floyd's 'I wish you were here' also found on his album.

One of the things I love most about Alpha is how he is an international star, yet you can go to my small village and pop in a tape of his and my homologue's wife, Alima, can sing along.

A Day in the Life

2008-06-03T07:06:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering what a day in the life of Bintu Sogodogo is here ya go:
Up by 6:00. Feed my rabbits millet chafe, feed my cat dried fish, give water to them both as well as my mint plant. Pack up my mosquito net tent and put away bedding. Do yoga or pilates for half an hour. GO into the house and boil some water, while listening to BBC on my shortwave radio. Make oatmeal and tea, eat and play sudoku. Wash face and brush teeth. Read my book for a while, finish book, Black and Blue by Anna Quinlan. My friend, Nu, then comes over to ask for some Meringua tree seeds and then we look at and discuss my rabbits and their tunnel digging habits for a while. Then my other friend Ousmane comes over, asking if we could build his soak pit now instead of after lunch. I got to cut some PVC pipe at my homologue, Abli’s house for the soak pit. Abli is gone and the pipe saw is locked in his house. I find Abli’s dad and he cuts the pipe with some old pipe saw. I bring the cut pipe, some cement and some plastic to Ousmane’s house. We then build a soak pit. Afterwards, Ousmane makes some chicory tea for us to drink, we chat for a little. I go home and then make a quiche! I bathe because it’s hotter than hell, and then I eat my quiche. I start a new book and after awhile I try to take a nap, unsuccessful due to heat. I got to Abli’s- he’s sleeping, go and chat with Diarra instead. We rest and chat until ‘it cools down’ and then go and pick lengue in the bush. Come home, feed and water rabbits, get water from pump, wash dishes, water mint plant, bathe, rest until I leave to eat dinner at my host family’s. After dinner we chat a bit then I got home. Set up my bedding/tent outside. Asleep by 9:30.

Brousse

2008-06-03T07:00:00.005-04:00

One of the things that I will miss most about living in a Malian village in the brousse or ‘bush.’ I love that there are so many different types of fruit found in the bush. Go on any walk in the bush during anytime of the year and you will find at least one edible fruit, maybe more. That doesn’t exist in America, you can just walk into the forest and find delicious fruit trees, safe to eat everywhere. Zaban, tomono, sira, and npeku are just a few names of the tasty fruits found. Npeku’s are in season right now. They’re kind of like really tiny, tiny grapes with a bitter skin, and they grow on these very large trees. My buddy Djibril, came back from the brousse the other day with tons. I hope you enjoy the pics. It was hot….
The other day my homologue’s little sister, Diarra, and I went out into brousse to pick another type of fruit, lengue. Lengue is a sour fruit, with yellow/orange skin found growing on a thorny shrub, not too delicious, but women use the seeds of the lengue fruit to make soap with. So she and I went into brousse one afternoon, each with our own bucket, to collect the fruit. After filling up our buckets, we headed back to village carrying our reapings on our head. On the way back Diarra, climbed a npeku tree to get us some of the tasty fruits before heading back into village. It was one of those experiences I will always remember.

Here's Djibril and I with some npeku,
then there's Djibril posing with npeku

frogs

2008-06-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

An interesting bit for you all. You know how in America everyone, well most people, are scared of or dislike spiders. Well, frogs are the Malian’s equivalent of spiders in terms of phobias. I’ve seen grown men and women shriek at the site of a frog, they will not touch them. However from my observations most Malians have no problem touching spiders, picking live spiders up by their legs or killing scorpions. I’ve asked why about the fear, but I’ve never really gotten a clear answer, just that “they’re bad.”

Bintu

2008-06-03T06:59:00.000-04:00

I was having a conversation with my mom the other week and she said I have never written about Bintu. Bintu is my alternate ending here in Mali. All Malians call me by the name of Bintu, with the exception of my homologue who will call me by Michele sometimes. It’s a common thing to do here in West Africa, give a guest a local name. I guess it’s a way to welcome people into their culture. And also, most village Malians cannot say my real name, it kind of sounds like Me-Shar-ee, when they say it, so Bintu’s just easier. Thus everyone knows me as Bintu, little kids are always yelling it at me “Bintu, Bintu, na na!” (Bintu has come).Oh yeah, I also have a last name, Sogodogo. Everyone laughs when they hear that name because it’s not a very common name and they think it’s funny that I have it. But everyone in my village is a Sogodogo, so I naturally became one too. Sogodogo literally means, hidden meat or little meat, depending on who you ask (dang Coulibalys).

1 wedding, 1 birth, and 2 deaths

2008-06-03T06:55:00.000-04:00

Who knew so much could happen in just one week at site?

I got back from Sikasso to find that there was a big wedding going on in village; two young people from my village got married and that meant 5 days of dancing, eating rice, drinking tea and playing cards.

My homologue’s sister, Jenabu, gave birth to her second child and seven days later they named him Adama. She gave birth last year to first baby, but that baby died two weeks after the birth, he was really tiny. It seems like she got pregnant right after that and already has this new baby. Adama is really small too, and I just hope that he will make it.

My bunny featured in last week’s blog finally parted. He had been sick for like three weeks. I finally took him into my house because I was convinced the other bunnies were hurting him. I decided to take him to the ‘vet’ and by vet I mean a guy in my market town who sells animal meds and never went to school. So anyway I took the little bunny to the vet and the vet gave him a shot. He died later that afternoon- in my hands… He was convulsing and then gasping for breath and I tried to ease his pain but he eventually dies in my hands. I am convinced it was the shot that did it…
The weirdest thing though this week was coming back from Sikasso to find out that this young man from my village died that morning. His name was Sinali and he was not sick at all. He was probably my age and not married and the only young man left working in his family’s fields. Apparently he was chatting late the night before in a nearby village and fell over/passed out, so they took him home, tried going to my market town to get the doctor, but he wasn’t there and by the time they got back he was dead just like that. Everyone was shocked, including I.

female circumcision

2008-05-19T06:53:00.003-04:00

here's a link to an article uncle roger sent me.

it's an interesting story of a Malian woman, fighting to stay in America, citing female circumcision and forced marriage in Mali as a violation of her human rights.

I don't think I've ever talked about it but it is WIDELY practiced in Mali. It's performed differently and at different times depending on where you are from, and it has nothing to do with religion, it's a completely cultural thing. In my village they perform the excision when the girls are around 5-7 years old.

random

2008-05-19T06:15:00.002-04:00

here's Bakary and my sick little bunny in my house the other day.

Other PCVs and I in Sikasso have noticed that there is a hotel in town that advertises a swimming pool. One day I took down their number in order to make sure that this was true (we’re always looking for a new pool [there’s only one working pool in Sikasso and it costs an arm and a leg]). So one day I called to get more info, “Do you have a pool?” “Yes” was the response, and then I thought I should ask the important yet seemingly obvious question “Is there water in the pool?” response, “no.” “Ok, thanks”… gotta love Mali…

Kids here in Mali often run away in search of money. Some kids spend years and years working as hired hands, coming back to village with boom boxes or new bicycles, others are gone for a few months. My homologue’s 15 year-old brother, Sidriki, who ran away more than a year ago, came back this week.
One day I came to my homologue’s concession and the first thing the oldest mother of the concession says is, “Sidriki, ran away.” I didn’t understand, what do you mean, how could he run away? They said they saw him going out towards the road in the early morning before the first prayer call. I was dumbfounded, how can you not be worried or angry? They were indifferent, what can we do, he ran away? I was shocked but got used to not seeing the kid.
So then a week ago, he finally comes back! Apparently, he was in Sikasso the whole time, working as a cart pusher. He came back with a bike and no apologies for leaving without saying a work to anyone, and it was all ok…

Also, living in Mali gives you some interesting perspectives on child rearing and how much kids really need to be protected. I always see little kids playing with knives; sometimes they’re just walking or crawling around with them, but most of the time they’re playing with them and I’ve never seen any of the them get hurt. But the other night I saw a really funny situation that would cause any normal American parents some fright. It was night, and there were these two kids maybe 3 and 4 years old, sitting on a donkey cart tipped at a 45 degree angle, and I noticed a plastic bottle they were fighting over, well in fact they were cutting/scrapping off the top of the bottle with a used razor blade…

2008-05-12T08:04:00.003-04:00

Ok here's some pics of the wedding in Senegal. It was a lot of fun, there were a ton of people and lots of good food and drinks. I had a great time and was sad to leave. Hopefully I will be back later this fall with a job. Anyway I'm back to site this afternoon, but I should be back this weekend for Jacq's going away party... :-(

Here's Eleonore and Sylvain in front of the church after they were married.

That's me and my host-mom

Here's the bride, groom and I at the reception

The bride Eleonore dancing

Breezy Dakar

2008-04-28T06:09:00.006-04:00

Hello again from Dakar, you may be asking yourself what is Michele doing in Dakar again? Well, I'm here for my host-sister's wedding which is this Saturday May 3rd. In addition to that I am beating the heat ofMali, it was getting unbearable there and I needed a break, I'm actually cold here in Senegal...

Let's see back in Mali, things are going ok, the farming season will be here quickly so people are making all their last preparations like finishing new mudbuildings, bringing compost to the fields, etc. things they won't be able to do when work starts. There's also a lot of fish in the river near my house now so I've been eating a lot of fresh fish, mmmm. It was crazy, one day, the boys didn't go fishing so I had dry fish with my to, and I had almost forgotten how gross the dried fish is compared to fresh. Anyway one day they caught this big fish, so here's the pic.

I also went to Tone (pronounced Ton-nay) the village of my homologue's wife Alima. Alima is also one of my best friends here in village. Anyway she was in her village for a few weeks cause she was sick and they thought that if she went to her father's house she would get better. I really missed her and I told here I always wanted to see her village so Abdoulaye and I spent the day at her father's house. It was one of my best days here in Mali, everyone was so nice, she was so happy to see me, and they really spoiled me oranges, mangoes, rice and sauce, all that while just chilling and drinking tea with good friends and nice people. Here's a pic of Alima and I last September for the Malian Independence day celebrations.

I was also going to be looking for jobs while I'm here, but this whole finding a job thing is a lot harder than I thought. Partly because the jobs I'm looking for are usually not listed, you get them by who you know, so you need connections nad unfortunately while I have a lot of friends here I don't know a whole lot of people in high places, so I'm putting the word out in addition to applying to a handful of jobs already and hoping for the best. I'm also applying the extend a third year with Peace Corps in Senegal, at first I was against this because I really want start a job, but if I was here with PC, it would give me the opportunity ot make connections facilitating the finding of a job a year later.

Dear Abby, I will be eating the little bunnies once they are grown up. Why? because rabbit meat is very tasty and nutricious and where I live I don't get any meat, so it will be a special treat for me to eat the bunnies. They are very cute though...

Well, I'll be going but I think I may be online a lot here, it's sooo cheap 1000CFA for 6 hours whereas in Sikasso it's 1000CFA for an hour! So send me comments and I'll reply.

2008-04-06T12:19:00.003-04:00

As the time goes by here in Mali-la I am, finding myself some new projects. I recently attended a Shea Butter formation in Sikasso with a woman from my village. First of all for those of you who don’t know Shea Butter comes from Shea trees found all over our region. Shea butter can be used as an oil to cook food in or it can be made into soap. Shea Butter is also an additive in beauty and cosmetic products all over the world, including American lotion and lip balm products I use (i.e. Burt’s Bees and Hempz). It’s really great for the skin, with natural UV protection properties. Women here use the raw butter as a skin product; I personally, use it and like it except for one thing, the smell… step in Peace Corps volunteers
In other West African countries like Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire the women use an ameliorated method to make their Shea Butter thus producing a smell-free/high quality product that they are able to sell to exporters which gets them a lot more money than they would get at the local market.
Peace Corps along with USAID and other actors are trying to teach rural Malian women a better way to produce Shea Butter and thus more income. My women are interested and I have a potential back that wants to help my women with the infrastructure needed to improve their Shea Butter quality. Thus, a new project in the works.
So here’s the deal, Shea nuts are ready to pick during rainy season, which is also the busiest work season for all Malians. So the women pick the nuts and store them in these deep holes in the ground until they are ready to process the nuts, however during this storage period usually months long the nuts ferment and get a bad smell, this smell makes it all the way to the finished butter. During the processing of the nuts, women in my village also smoke the nuts, which doesn’t evenly ‘cook’ the nuts and the smoke also emits dome kind of carcinogen.
What we want to do is get women to boil the nuts right after they’ve harvested them and then dry them in the sun. But because this is during the rainy season, there is high humidity, not enough sunlight, etc, etc.
In my village the women are hoping to find the money to make some big solar dryers where they can dry the nuts, thus making a better product, thus being able to sell their butter for a much higher price than they would before.
This potential back is also buying schoolbooks for my school, which is really cool, since we wrote up a project months ago only to find that the school could not meet their required contribution. So, this is really cool for the school, which desperately needs a lot of improvements. I think starting with actually having some textbooks is a good first step.
In more personal news this week at site I: roasted cashew nuts, milked a rabbit and improved my tigadegena making skills.
Tigadegena, is a peanut butter sauce that is poured over rice, quite tasty and I made a good batch at site yesterday…
I bought three rabbits in January and now have a total of 8!!! Crazy how they multiply. But one of the mother’s is a first time mom and her tiny baby was getting tinnier by the day so I had to start making her give her baby her breast which included some milking by my fingers. Did you know rabbits have 6 nipples? The little white one on the salt lick is my favorite, he's so sweet and friendly... I hope he tastes good...

I also finally tackled my PC dream about making cashews and teaching people in my village how to do. So cashews are everywhere here, but no one eats cashew nuts because they don’t know how to process them, again you can go over the border to Burkina and find tasty, well processes buts, that find Burkinabes a good profit. The deal is that the shell contains a highly acidic liquid that emits during the opening, making the opening very difficult. I boiled the nuts in Shea oil to release the liquid then dried and cracked open. If any of this seems easy think again. It’s high dangerous when it’s realizing the liquid in the oil and then all the liquid is usually not release and then it’s hard to know when the nuts are ready to be taken out because the lack of a stable hot temperature of the oil. I hardly had any nuts that remained whole after cracking. Then, the nuts are raw and must be cook in oil before being eaten. So my attempt to show the women how to make a sellable product didn’t go to well, because you can’t get a good price for cracked nuts and I basically burnt ¼ of the nuts when I was trying to release all the oil. But not all hope is loss, a minor setback. I will eat the nuts myself and try again with a group of women.

And finally Jacq, one of my best firends here in Mali who I love so much has accepted a transfer/extension to China. She leave Mali around the end of May and will be there for two years. It's a really great opportunity but I'll miss her tons...

6 weeks already?

2008-03-13T03:55:00.004-04:00

I'm back in Bamako (briefly). Sent emily off last night, now just trying to get some computer time before heading back tonight. It was a great time, having Em here in Mali, she really got to see life in village and we also got to travel around and see some cool places. The women really liked here in village, they came around the day before seh left adn sang and danced and played the calabash gourds for her, it was cool, and Emily took lots of pictures, her being good at photography like she is, I can't wait to see some...
It's crazy how time goes by so fast here... do you know what i'm doing today with my precious internet time, i'm going to look at jobs!!! so scary, but I really can't wait. I really want to start working a real job and make some real money, if Peace Corps has taught me anything it's that I don't want to be poor.
Hey Tammy I think the bus is a great idea, you round up the troops and I'm there... tell abby thanks for the message, i miss her!
Ton ton Roger, tu me manques enormenment! I hope you are well and finding some useful occupation...
Nice to hear from you Aunt Tammy, glad to see you're keeping busy. Greet the family for me!
Michele, thanks for being loyal to the blog, i'll make it even better you'll see.

dogon

2008-03-03T06:02:00.005-05:00

ok here are some pics from our dogon hike.. it was amazing, so beautiful... We spent three days hiking around Dogon country, Dogon country is so unlike the rest of Mali. We visited the cliff villages which are way up these cliffs, there's usually only one water source and that's down the cliff, so women have to make a hike up and down a cliff everyday just to get water and becuase they live in cliffs there's few latrines in the village because tehy can't dig holes, they have to build them above ground. Also the kids were really annoying because Dogon country is sooo touristy. I had never seen so many white people in Mali, granted I am in Sikasso, the least touristy city in Mali. Ok so it's back to site for a week....

I didn't take any pics in Senegal, I was too busy ;)

recovery

2008-02-23T04:09:00.002-05:00

I still feel like we're recovering from our whirlwind stay in Dakar, it was a blast and I have absolutely no regrets...

Well, emily's here and I brought her straigth to village for about a week and a half, she had to the first night and everything... Now we're off teh Dogon country later today, inshallah.

I'll put up a more detiled blog when back in Sikasso but that's it for now, I just wanted to let everyone know that I was ok and still alive..

made it to bko

2008-01-30T12:43:00.000-05:00

so my bank finally gets an ATM machine great huh? but it's so Malian. i went to use it for the first time the other day and it literally took 5 min maybe even more for the money to come out. I thought it was broken but no it just takes a while... gotta love Mali

oh here's another gotta love Mali story. last night in celebration of my teammate Brooke's project getting funded we went out for cokes and whiskey. but the whiskey is no ordinary whiskey first of all it comes in a convenient sachet or little plastic bag, but if that doesn't tell you something, they are also imported... from Lome, Togo, who knew that Togo was a brewer of fine liquors??? Well, let me tell you, they're not....

Mali is out of the African cup of Nations (surprise surprise); from our group Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire will continue onto the quarter finals.

Picking emily up tonight... can't wait!!!!

where i have been and what i've been doing

2008-01-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

Ok so it’s been a while, I’m sorry to all of my faithful fans. Life in Mali has been going… Let’s see the last time I updated was after Thanksgiving, since then village life has had it ups and down. My homologue’s wife and probably my best female friend in village, Alima, gave birth to their first child. With the exception of one or two woman people have finally stopped saying it’s my baby, apparently Alima can be pregnant for nine months and endure a morning of labor and because I’m always with Abdoulaye, the baby is mine… also the babies are born very white here so they were like, look she’s white just like you! Anyway I was in Bamako when it happened, so I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to go with her to the clinic when she was in labor but they called me up after in happened. It was funny because before I left Alima said they she would have the baby before I got back and I was like no way, you’re only like 7 months pregnant, she told my calculations were off but by the size of her I didn’t believe it. Sure enough, it happened and the baby, named Masha, was really small, she’s still on the small size but definitely getting bigger, she drinks a lot of breast milk so I think she will be alright. She was born on December 4th.

After that we had seliba, or tabaski, the biggest Muslim fete. It was a lot of fun, three days of non-stop tea drinking, macaroni and meat eating, radio listening, chatting with friends, while in your best duds, fun. I missed out on going to the praying place with all my villagers, apparently the white girl’s absence was noted, when I came around to greet later in the day the really old village chief said he didn’t see me there and had thought I was traveling. No, we were just up till three drinking tea the night before…

Myself and nine other volunteers spent Christmas at a volunteer’s village in the Segou region. Her host family and a lot of the village is Christian, so we ate pig, went to church and us the volunteers had a gift exchange. Big props to Christy for putting up with all of us at site, it’s hard to have so many visitors in village.

New Years I made my first trip to Segou-ville where I visited the lovely riverside home of a fellow volunteer. Lots of fun drinking and dancing, it’s good to get a break from Malian life sometimes. I don’t think I liked Segou too much. People were really rude and the kids were horrible. I guess they get a lot of tourists and are used to harassing tourists. But down here in Sikasso, there are hardly ever any tourists and the people are mainly nice or just apathetic. But I was glad to see another Malian city. I’ve been here over a year and hadn’t seen anything besides Sikasso and Bamako. But that’s all about to change…

Emily is coming to visit in less than 48 hours as we speak. I’m really excited to have a visitor, especially a really cool one like Emily. She’s going to be here for a while so I’m going to introduce here to Malian village life, and finally do a bit of traveling in Mali (dogon country and Gao?), and possibly a trip to Senegal.

So what the heck are you actually working on in Mali, you may be asking yourself right now? Well after many set backs the first part of my sanitation project is finished. We built 45 soak pits in my village. I may have explained it before but basically a soak pit is a big hole filled with rocks that catches all of the dirty run-off water from latrines. It is then covered with plastic and dirt so that the waste cannot be seen. There is also a piece of pvc piping that leads into the pit from the latrine area so the water is completely contained, thus stopping the problem of yucky stagnate sewage water in our streets and behind our houses. What was formerly an eyesore, mosquito breeding ground and health hazard is no longer seen. Next up is building three wash areas. Basically cement slabs with a tiny wall, and a connecting soak pit. These will be located near the pumps so that when women wash their clothes they will have a clean area to do it and a proper sanitary way to dispose of the water. We bought 12 bags of cement and got lots of rocks, sand, and gravel and luckily Emily will get to be here, so she will be able to see how projects work in Mali!!!

I just yesterday got the money to send a woman from our village to school to become a trained matron. This is really exciting for the villagers and Jene herself, who will be spending a year in Sikasso in order to be a certified health aid/matron. She’s been studying since the beginning of the month and seems to be doing well. It’s a big sacrifice on her part, she being the only wife in her concession, has a lot of responsibilities at home, but the village picked her to become our matron and her husband agreed, so she will be here for a year studying. As for the construction of the actual maternity, still no word back, although the word is they committee doesn’t meet till the end of this month. I submitted the project proposal to the US Embassy’s Self-Help project fund. Let’s hope for the best…

I’m still teaching at the school once a week, this has probably been the most rewarding and challenging project, the kids can be really difficult but sometimes they are so bright and beautiful. Still playing soccer with the girls, they love it but they can be a big pain sometimes with the constant bickering. It’s also been kind of difficult explaining techniques and skills to a sport, especially in Bambara.

I’m also trying to get the third pump in our village fixed. The villagers have approached me with their desire for a whole new water system with a water tour and taps. After some research I have decided that it is really not what the village needs, it’s incredibly expensive around 100,000 USD and the village is just not big enough. They can still meet all of their needs with pumps, so I told the chief what we really need to work on is fixing pumps and maintaining them, and maybe adding another pump to the village down the road.

As part of my sanitation project I really wanted to clean up the standing pump run-off water, but there were many things we didn’t think about before we wrote p the project asking for money. Because the area around the pump is all dirt the run off water is a lot of mud, so building a soak pit will not be efficient because it will get clogged up with mud. What we really needed to do was get enough cement to build a wall and floor around the pump to ensure a higher quality of sanitation around the pump itself so that the run off water would be for the most part clean and easily seeps into the ground. I may seek out some extra funs to see if we can get this done before I leave.

I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about the actual school in my village, I’m going to take some pics to show you, it’s really sad and dilapidated, it’s one of those typical schools you see when they show pictures of poor African schools. Three of the buildings are in ruins so a few years back they made a mud brick class room and the first graders meet there. The second graders also meet in a mud brick room, of which I have no clue of its initial purpose. In the existing cement building the third and fourth graders meet in the same classroom and the fifth and sixth graders each meet in their own classrooms. The point of this is that the government has been promising to build a new school for them for several years now. Right before the presidential elections last year ATT(Mali's prez) said the school would be built in 18 months, it's almost been a year now and nothing....

I’m still trying to find a financer to buy books for the school. We wrote up a PC project proposal but my village couldn’t meet the percentage of community contribution required, so let me know if you have any ideas, or know of any project that want to spend about 3,000 USD on school books. It’s really sad at this point, because there are only a few old copies of books and the kids can’t take them home or actually even use them at all, the teachers write the whole text on the board so the kids can copy it into their cahiers (notebooks).

Ok let’s leave this blog entry on a high note. As you may or may have not heard, the African Cup of Nations is well underway. What does his mean you ask? It means that everyday between the hours of 5-9 none of the young men in village are seen in town; they are all located in front of the few black and white (horrible quality) small televisions in town. Tonight will be the decisive match between Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, and will be sure to provide much excitement into Malian village life. Allez les Aigles!!!

Lehman’s Life, according to Jacq.

2008-01-30T12:27:00.000-05:00

Alternative Title: Supermodels Do Africa

Lehman has had an eventful month-Bakary, the eats-better-than-most-Malian-children cat has reached that special point in his life when his body begins changing into a manly, rat-killing machine. What does this mean for Michele? Yes, swatting Bakary and his fully engorged manhood off her arm as he humps her into oblivion. Michele may be hard up for lovin’ here in Mali, but Bakary is NOT going to cut it. Her new plan-RABBITS. They ought to bare the burden of Bakary’s insatiable sexual appetite for at least a few weeks. And when that fails, she can give her cat away to her starved-for-protein neighbors who will not doubt enjoy the tasty feline treat.
While waiting for her rabbit shack to be built, Michele has impressed her village counterparts with her Julia Child’s skills-pumpkin cake and banana breads out the wazoo. Her fellow volunteers worship her kitchen skills, if only all of us had a Lehman around to satisfy our emaciated selves. Cake versus corn mush, hum.

Speaking of food. Shout outs to Lehman’s topnotch mother. Her generous gift of Velveeta cheese was the talk of all Sikasso. So delicious in fact, Michele and two other volunteers were forced to call a three day lockdown where the only source of nourishment came from generous helping of the cheesy product. Quesadillas, ham-egg-and-cheese scambles, burritos, mac-n-cheese-the food of the Gods. Amen momma!

Project wise, Lehman has been hard at work digging soak pits (underground urine and poopy-water catch basins) and designing wash areas to reduce stagnant water. Although she steers clear of the actual manual labor (get dirty? I don’t think so.) she has been known to brew up a mean cup of sugar with a hint of tea flavoring. If every village in Mali had a Lehman, this country would be sending people to the moon.

Michele’s next big adventure? Senegal. Surprised? Not really. What does this put Michele’s “trips to Senegal” count at? Two dozen, three dozen?. Seriously, I thought she was doing Peace Corps Mali…

Thanksgiving fun

2007-11-28T03:53:00.000-05:00

I’m in Sikasso but heading back to site today or tomorrow. I came in to celebrate thanksgiving with PCVs. There was a good deal of volunteers in town and we had a great time, the food was delicious and it was nice to see people I usually don’t see. I helped plan the thing so I was kinnda busy the day of and the day before but we ended up having one of the best meals ever. We actually had turkey (the first ones I’ve had since in Mali) 2 of which were deep fried. There were mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, squash, vegetables, and salad, all of which was homemade. Then we had fruit salad and pies for dessert. The next day we had another incredible meal at Katie Cannon’s house in Sikasso city- it was Mexican, and again everything was fresh and hand made except for the sour cream like yogurt we found at a larger shop in Sikasso, anyway it was great. I also went camping for the first time to Warani. It’s a place about 60km south of Sikasso with really cool waterfalls, that I had yet to visit, so I went along for the first time and we had a blast, I got a lot of pictures and I’ll try to put some up. It was one of the few times I found it hard to believe we were in Mali, it was so beautiful and green and clean, unlike much of Mali and there were no Malians to be found- Malians in general are afraid of the water and I guess they have to sacrifice chickens before they can go in and swim there so as to appease the water monsters, I didn’t see any though.
I did see a monkey the other day. I was waiting on the side of the road to go to Sikasso and low and behold there was a monkey stepping out of the bushes, I was really excited but also wanted to scare him away because if he keeps hanging out there he’d be dead in no time.
Did I mention I ate rat? It was a big field rat not the dirty sewer kind, it was actually pretty tasty. I also had a large wild cat; it was ok, I preferred the rat. Speaking of rats I’ve been having a hell of a rat problem, they’re these nasty smelling rats that are bigger than mice and make a loud squeaking sound and run around my house at night, and they bite so cats won’t touch em, so my homologue, Abli said he was going to set up a trap to catch it while I was gone, let’s hope it worked.
We should be starting our soak pit and wash area project soon in village. Otherwise I’ve just been teaching a health education class to the sixth graders and facilitating soccer with the sixth grade girls. I started weighing babies at the health center in the nearby town, I’m hoping we can start something similar in my village to improve child growth surveillance and nutrition in my village. Oh, I also started tutoring my homologue’s younger sister, Diarrah. She’s in fifth grade and can’t read or even do basic math. It has been the most frustrating experience in Peace Corps, because she is not some freak case, all the kids are in the same boat as her. It really makes me worry about the future of Mali. Even the older people recognize the poor quality of education nowadays as compared to their time. I can speak French to women who have had a sixth grade education in the seventies and they’ll understand me but the kids nowadays don’t understand squat, seventh graders can’t even greet me properly in French.
I’ll be heading to the magical land of Bamako next weekend to turn in two project proposals 1-build a maternity in my village and 2-train a woman from my village to become a matron. I haven’t been to Bamako forever and I hate going because I always spend a lot of money.

balafons

2007-11-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

I experienced my first balafon party on the holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan (I only fasted one day-for solidarity purposes). I was stunned by the similarities between the balafon party and a concert in America. I will recount a few of the details now.

The ‘tour bus’ consisted of no less than ten bikes with balafons and drums attached to the back, traveling 12 kilometers through fields to get to our village, like any good band, six hours after they were scheduled to arrive.

The backstage was a bunch of wooden chairs behind the musicians so they could rest between songs. In stead of chocolate, veggie platters, champagne or other extravagant requests by the musicians, there band was served rice and peanut sauce, with a steady stream of hot sugary tea served throughout the night, oh yeah, also with a side of cigarette.

Cigarettes themselves made the appearance joints usually make at counterpart concerts in America. Perhaps, a handful of men smoke in my village, but on the night of the balafon party it seemed like they were all lighting up. Or sometimes when a guy was doing some really cool dance moves, another guy would run up and give the dancer a lighted cigarette to puff on. And instead of throwing bras onstage, young girls would throw their scarves around the best dancer of the moment.

Refreshments included two women serving deep friend sweet potatoes and little doughnut like things called farini. Also anybody who was not dancing was grouped around a tea set or by a moto.

Lots of people came in on their motos even though it was in short walking distance. As people left they had to show off by doing moto tricks. Here’s some of my friends on a moto, Abli, Mamarie, and Soybu.

My favorite similarity by far, was the bouncers. Two guys with tree branches paced the outer circle of the dancing area ready to whack any kid who tried to dance with the older guys on the floor. Here’s a pic of my friend Mamadou and his kid-whacking branch. Followed by a pic of MaFan, a kid from my host family, waiting on the outskirts of the dance circle.

The most interesting part was the actual process of dancing. My counterpart was telling me about how they were groups and people danced in groups. I asked, why, was there some kind of prize? Response- no they just dance together. Basically a group of 3-5 guys go up together, dance a little, and then they each get their own dance solo provided by the musicians. During this solo, they got to show off their best moves for a minute, while everyone enjoyed watching.

The party lasted until 4 in the morning, when the band packed up and headed back the 12 kilometers on their bikes to their village, Kartiela. And there you have it, my first balafon party, a nice way to spice up village life.

Here’s a pic of Mamadou showing me his moves.

gypsies, bed bugs, and to... oh the pleasures of village

2007-10-30T14:27:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, my village was visited by a group, of what I would call gypsies. Seven or eight groups of these, gawulés, showed up one day and asked for lodging in some of the larger concessions. I arrived at my homologue’s concession as his family of gawulés was unpacking their donkey cart, packed to the brim with all of their belongings. My homologue described them as traveling beggars who ask for a lot and can curse. I looked up gawulé in my Bambara dictionary and it described them as a class of griots with the ability to curse. Apparently the come through every year, they have no permanent home, just travel from village to village. They stay for a week in which they demand lots of stuff, don’t pick up after themselves, are rude to tubabs and Malians alike. When they leave they ask for a cow or some sheep. And apparently if you don’t give them what they want, they can curse you. I tended to avoid them because they were rude to me but it was interesting to know that there is a class of people who can make a life like that.
Waking up in the middle of the night to intense itching in your legs, is no pleasant experience as I found out a few days ago. I was scratching away when I realized that this was no ordinary itch so I turned on my flashlight and saw that I had about a gazillion bites on my legs. My guess was bed bugs, but I have no idea how they got there, since I had been using the same bedding for several days before with no like experience. It was seriously one of my worst nights in Mali, they itched so bad I was considering early termination; waking up to loads of itchy bites on your legs in the middle of the night is no good experience.
I’ve noticed an intere3stign pattern in the way we eat dinner at my djatigi’s house. There’s about 25-30 people who live in the concession and three women who cook for everyone. For two days, one woman will cook (porridge in the morning and tô and sauce for lunch and dinner). Then another woman will cook for two days and so on and so on. Making tô is no easy task especially when you’re cooking for 30 everyday. Anyway after cooking the tô, they will put it into five bowls- there will be five tô eating stations were certain groups of people will gather to eat. I eat tô with Aw (my djatigi) who is the oldest women in the concession also a widow, along with Kadia, the second oldest woman in the concession whose first husband died and is married to her husband’s younger brother, Djakalia. Complicated eh? So then the only three young (ages14-17?) unmarried girls in the whole concession will also eat at this bowl. So it’s the marriageable girls and the elderly matrons every night sharing a bowl of tô. Even though two of the girls are always in another part of the concession, they come every night to eat tô, with the old women.
The realities of life here in west Africa hit you heard every once and a while, seeing a friends newborn die two weeks later because he’s sick gets to you, but what really sucks is waking up one morning and noticing a quiet calm in the village and then discovering a friend of yours is dead. This is what happened the other day in village. When someone dies in village the young men first go out and dig the hole in the cemetery, then young men and old men a like will come and get the body wrapped in white cloth and bring the body to the cemetery. Women are not allowed to enter the cemetery (women are also not allowed to slaughter animals, men are supposed to deal with death while women give life). But anyway they must pass by my house in order to go to the cemetery. So I notice the young guys coming back from the cemetery and then I wait and see that they’re bringing a body out to the cemetery. Dread hits me, usually my homologue comes and informs me when someone in village has died, but today he was out to the fields at the crack of dawn. So I go to the pump and I see that there’s only one woman from the nearby, usually there’s loads of people. I notice she doesn’t look to good, so I prepare myself and ask her what’s happened. She tells me that the wife of Daouda Koné’s (the village president) wife Aby has died. I was just shocked, she was sick but no one thought she was going to die; she was not old or weak. I started crying and made my way home, we weren’t that great of friends it’s just that you had no idea, she just died unexpectedly like that, it’s so terrible. I try to bring myself together and go to their house where I know the people of the village are now congregated waiting for the return of the buriers, so that the imam can say a prayer. So I covered my head in a scarf and went and sat with my djatigi and waited for the men and then heard their prayer, my djatigi told me not to cry, crying is really serious here in Mali, but I couldn’t help it, but I managed to pull myself together, gave the women of her family some blessings and then went to my djatigi’s house. Upon entering her house, I see the kids of Aby’s, they were waiting the burial out at my djatigi’s concession, her oldest daughter is maybe sixteen while her youngest son is maybe three. It’s them I feel for the most, death is so accepted here in Mali, but I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for her children to accept the fact that their mother is gone. Aby was one of the first women in village I remembered, she always gave me a squeezing handshake, indicating respect, and was one of the few women from village to have a stall in market where she sold things. I tried to avoid passing by her booth the other day. She will be missed by many. Rest in peace Aby. Allah k’a hiné a la. Allah k’a da yoro sumana. may god have pity on your soul, may your resting place be cool. Amen

celebrating Malian independence

2007-09-26T11:56:00.000-04:00

ok can someone tell me how to rotate photos on here? I'll try to fix them.
So the 22nd was Mali's independence day so there was lots of partying. I was in village and two of my friends and I pulled our resources together to have a yummy feast of greasy macaroni, beef, and some guinea fowl- it was one of the best meals in Mali. I made some popcorn and banana bread to share. I stayed up the lastest ever in village almost 2:30, just chatting, drinking tea and playing cards. Lots of fun, there's a pic of my homologue's wife Alima making macaroni with papa, the nephew of my homologue. There's another pic of her in I in our fete clothing (notice my cool Mali shirt). Then there's a pic of my homologue posing by his papaya tree. After a one too many rounds of tea things got a little crazy and my friend Ousmane wanted a pic of him with the lantern hanging out of his mouth. The last pic is my buddy Dibri, in my yard.

Still, nothing too new going on. The other day I rode about 40 km to go to a different market, with some friends from village it was a really nice and clean market and the bike ride was great I got kinnda burnt but it was fun to see a new village with Malian friends. It's ramadan nad people are still fasting- not me. I tried last year, but it's too hard to give up water all day when it's so hot, and there's no point in doing the fast if I'm going to do it half-ass.

Bamako was fun, I saw some cool movies that other PCVs had (my favorite being The Departed and the scariest being Jesus Camp), read Harry Potter- excellent and experienced the Bamako nightlife, good times; I think it's better that we only go out once every few months, Bamako can get CRAZY.

The new volunteers are here and I've been helping them out in the city, we have 7 new PCVs in the surrounding area and one new PCV in the city, welcome to Sikasso girls! I'm back to village tomorrow, inshallah!

pics

2007-09-03T10:05:00.000-04:00

Liz, Brooke and I at the river near my village, it's so full now!!

My yard

My house

My garden

my cat, Bakary Koné (he eats beans)

life in village

2007-08-25T10:37:00.000-04:00

I really wanted to put some pictures up but I forgot my camera at site. I always seem to forget one thing at site when I come into Sikasso, anyway I’m in for a few reasons: one, I was really sick and I stopped going to the latrine long enough to come into Sikasso, no I’m actually feeling a lot better thanks to cipro, it was a really bad case of bacterial diarrhea that I could go my whole life without ever experiencing again, so I thought I would finish my recovery in the city. Another reason is that the new trainees are in the region and I want to try and meet them if possible. Crazy to think that that was us a year ago, and now we’re the sophomores.
My concession is looking really great and I took lots of pictures, I’ll put them up next week. I have a few vegetable plots and lots of flowers. That’s basically my life right now, my yard and my cat (I also took some pictures of him). We’re still having some killer rains, and people are still in the fields. A girl from my host family got married so there was a big fete in village, but I was sick and didn’t get to do anything. It was funny, I’ve never been sick in village, and I told, like one or two people, and by the next morning everyone knew and I had all kinds of visitors and well wishers stopping by, even the chief stopped by and was like, ‘why didn’t you tell me you were sick,’ I didn’t know I had to and I was kinnda busy going to the negen.... Anyway I’m on the mend.
Going into Bamako the 5th? to help out with training so I’ll be posting again sometime soon.
Peace and love to all.

one year and going strong!

2007-07-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

I got back to Mali this week, and while it took a few days to readjust to speaking Bambara again, all is well now. There are some changes a-brewing in Sikasso. Two PCVs living in Sikasso city left today. They are extending for a third year in Bamako. Autumn is moving to Kita which really sucks, we'll all miss her. Now we're down to 6 volunteers in the Sikasso region with one, Liz, my teammate, COSing in September and Trinh living in Sikasso-ville.
Rainy season is officially here. It rains just about every day (usually at nite). The new group of trainees are here, but I have yet to see them. I'm supposed to help out with training in September. My group has officially passed 1 year in Mali- I know, crazy, huh? I can't believe how fast it has passed.
I found out today that my project proposal has been approved by Washington to be posted on the peace corps website to start receiving funds. I also found out later today that the project has already been funded by a donor, that was very quick! Thank you very much whoever you are!
After I finished the PHAST training with my sanitation committee we decided to do a few sanitation improvement projects. While the village will be contruibuting a great deal to the project, including all the labor, we applied for a small amount of funding to help with the purchasing of cement and piping. The project includes three tasks: building three wash areas with soask pits, one soak pit for every concession in village, and soak pits for each pump.
Wash areas are cemented areas where women can wash their clothes and dispose of their water in a sanitary matter. Most women wash their clothes near the pumps and then throw their dirty water right there, leaving large amounts of standing greywater, especially during rainy season. Soak pits are basically large holes in the ground filled with rocks and then covered that are connected to a greywater source. For example all the runoff water from a latrine will flow via piping into a large hole so that dirty water is now completely covered instead of sitting in the streets. So these projects will contribute to an improvement in the saniation conditions of the village. Unfortunately we'll have to wait a month or two before we start.

La vie Dakaroise

2007-07-16T16:41:00.000-04:00

It's funny how differently kids are treated here in west africa. raising kids is a communal activity and anyone can discipline them and I mean anyone, and kids have to respect what elders tell them no matter who they are. Kids are always getting threatened with beatings (and many times receive them) for bad behavior. Today I was at the bank and I saw the guardian actually threaten a misbehaving kid (probably 3 years old)with his gun! He didn't pull it out or anything but he pointed to it and told the kid to keep it down, or something to that effect. And it was ok. I know he didn't really mean he would use the gun, but I just thought it was something funny that you would never see in America. Just thought I'd share that with you.

It's hard changing African languages. Before coming back to Senegal I had replaced all of my Wolof with Bambara, but as the time passes here I'm picking it back up. I can understand what's being said around me but I keep wanting to reply in Bambara...

I've been having a great time in Dakar, living it up if you will. My host family has been great. Last weekend two of the kids in my host family were baptized and the evening after there was a HUGE party. It was lots of fun and I'll post some pics when I get back.

I've only been to the beach once but i plan to go again before I leave. It's funny how I missed it so much but haven't really enjoyed it since I've been here. But this could be due to several factors, including the difficulty of finding someone to go with and the problem that it's a whole day thing because you gotta get out of the city to enjoy the nicer beaches.

anyway that's all for now.

vacances

2007-06-27T04:56:00.000-04:00

I'm on vacation, supposed to head out to Dakar this afternoon, but in west African fashion there's a two day strike starting yesterday so my flight has been postponed until Friday.
So I'm taking the extra free time in Bamako to get some important stuff done. Yesterday I went to the medina marché and bought a second hand swimming suit-sounds weird but it's in better condition than my old one. I hung out with some people from my village that live here in Bamako, that was interesting to see them here in a different setting. Today I'm going to meet up with some more people that I've been meaning to see, but never get the free time to while in Bamako.
anyway I'll post from Senegal. take care!

Good News..

2007-06-11T06:20:00.000-04:00

Good news.... the milkman is alive and well in Mali, delivering fresh mil to Malians and Peace Corps Volunteers alike. Here in Mali (and indeed all across West Africa)the Fula or Fulani people are well-known as cow-herders and during the rainy season (when cows have more to eat, thus producing more milk) as sellers of milk. Fula women will show-up sometime in the morning, walking around villages selling their fresh milk. They carry the milk in a big bowl on top of their heads and sell two quantities: a little bowl-full (that will cost you about 25F CFA or $.05) or a liter's worth (200F CFA or $.43). In Mali it's usually good to boil your milk before you drink it because not all cows are vaccinated and TB is often contracted through their milk, so it is therefore important to ask how fresh the milk is, since if it's too old, when boiled it will curdle, making cheese. Some Malians also boil their milk but that's because they say it's easier to digest if boiled.

You can always tell a Fula woman when you wee her. I've been in Mali 11 months now and can easily distinguish the differences between the Fula people and the Bambara(the largest ethnicity found in Mali. Bambara is also the ethnicity of my village). Fula women are strikingly beautiful, usually tall and slim, most women have facial tattoos where the area around the mark is darkened. They also wear colorful clothing; lots of jewelry, and their hair is longer, and usually braided.

My first encounter with a Peul family was in the bush near my village. A family of nine - a father, a mother, 3 daughters, 3 sons, and one hired cow-herder- had walked with all of their possessions (including herds of cows, sheep, and goats) for over a month from a town near Mopti in northern Mali. Apparently they migrate south every dry season where there is more food and water. I was on a mission to buy some goat's milk in order to make goat's cheese. I got the milk on my second visit. But I ended up spending an hour with them under their tree where they ate, cooked and slept. They were a great family with beautiful kids and we tried to communicate as much as possible despite the language barriers. Bambara is their second-language, and usually very accented Bambara, and my Bambara is, well... improving. The mother asked if I could reach my country by car in one day. I tried explaining oceans to her and then airplanes, but I'm not certain it stuck with her. I helped her pound some millet with their large mortar and pestle and then I asked why her daughter (probably around the age of 12)didn't go to school. Well, there would be no one to help the mother look after five kids, the cooking, gathering of firewood, the fetching of water, etc if she was not there. How could you argue with that?

This is an issue I run into a lot of difficulties with in Mali. People usually think of now and not the future. I need help in the fields, let's have more boys; I need help at home, let's have more girls. It's an endless cycle that repeats itself over and over. When entering these discussions with people I try explaining the benefits of having a smaller family or sending children to school. These options present many challenges in the present (not enough workers) but it will benefit the the whole family in the future: healthier kids, all kids in school, kids with good jobs, the family is moving out of poverty. But this is hard to understand when you're a poor subsistence farmer who only knows farming in rural West Africa.

Sometime there is some understanding. My counterpart's family is a good example. Of his 5 siblings 3 are male and 2 female. 1 of his brother's worked the fields and attended Koranic school while my counterpart, Abdoulaye, and two of his brothers went to school. When Abdoulaye was in the ninth grade (at the age of 21), there came a time when there were not enough hands in the fields, and he was asked to return home, get married, and work the fields. In Mali, you can't say no to your elders, so Abdoulaye sadly but willingly gave up his dream of more education and any profession other than farming. His eldest brother finished school, but did not pass the BAC (an exam needed to go to university) but currently works in Bamako. His younger brother, is also in Bamako in the 11th grade. Abdoulaye's two younger sisters attended Koranic school.

This is a story heard too often in Mali. the sacrifice of now, outweighs the non guaranteed benefits of the future. And I empathize with people, it's a difficult decision. When you're a farmer depending on what you grow to feed your family throughout the year, it's difficult to give up that extra set of hands believing that one day your whole family will benefit from the sacrifice.

just some thoughts

Return in Peace Tim and Michele

2007-06-10T12:52:00.000-04:00

this is a shout out to two great PCVs and friends. I'm going to miss you both, it won't be the same without you... greet the people of ameriki. Allah k'aw so numan soro. I've changed my blog's name in honor you guys.

I wrote a long post but after checking all my emails i don't have enough time to post it so I'll be back tomorrow.

It's been awhile, my apologies, but all is well with me. Finished PHAST and the committee wants to do some projects but since it's now rainy season we can't do any work until the harvest is over... so i've been chilling at site, reading a lot of books, gardening, and going in the bush to pick languays (the women use the fruit to make soap). I'll update tomorrow for sure.

pools are nice

2007-04-10T14:24:00.000-04:00

Back from Bamako (where I swam three times in less than a week). How was it? Bamako was great, training was pointless. It happened pretty much just as I planned. I knew training would not be helpful to me and it wasn't. We ended up spending three days doing top well repair- something I have no plans on doing in village. And it was bloddy hot in Bamako. I had to skip out one day to hit the pool in Bamako- and boy did it hit the spot. I didn't realize how much I miss my friends from other regions. It was really nice hanging out with all of them and acting silly for a week. One of the highlights was traveling in Peace Corps transport, so instead of traveling in a hot cramped bus for 8 hours, we spent 4.5 hours in a comfprtable, air-conditioned SUV. Let's see what else... there was a party that the Marine's threw for us, complete with pool, beer and karaoke. Saturday night a bunch of us went out dancing. I'm gonna miss everyone, but it looks like we'll be getting together for the 4th of July.
I had to say goodbye to one volunteer from the Sikasso region today. Sara's going home next week, she was an inspiring volunteer and a great person, I'll miss you Sara.
Going back to site tomorrow.... so yeah.... not really much to say about that. I'm going to get PHAST ready again for this weekend.
I got a package from UOP peeps, thanks you guys, much appreciated!

trying to do something

2007-03-16T06:01:00.000-04:00

I've been kind of busy since the last time I posted. This is the season where you can get work done since no one is in the fields right now. I've had several meetings and lots of discussions and still haven't really done anything. Well, that's not entirely true. We created a health and sanitation committee and had our first intrioduction meeting this week. I'm startung a formation (is that english too?) or a training whioch will last 17 meetings. The training is called PHAST (Participatory Health and Sanition transformation) and is supposed to empower people into being responsible for water ans sanitation features in their community and give peopelk teh self-esteem to figure out how diseases are spread, hopefully leading to behavioral changes. It's supported by WHO and it has worked for other volunteers. I hope it goes well. I'm kinnda nervous about it but I know everyone in the group so I feel comfortable.
What else? Well the big project we're working on is building a maternnity clinic in my village. I'll let you know more details and how you can help, but it's a serious health and security issue that we hope to improve. The other project is going to be trainig a team of pumprepairman because there are none in my village and 1 of 3
pumps are broken. That's what I'm working on now. Hopefully small sanitation projects will come out of the PHAST training.
I had a nice birthday. Thanks for the packages aunt judy, mom, dad and gail, and trisha. really nice. I might be traveling to Bamako pretty soon. There's a in-service training april 2-6, I'll keep you posted.

the beginning of dry season

2007-02-23T05:48:00.000-05:00

The top pic is the river near my village. It's hard to believe it's the same river as when I got here. It used to be super full and now people can walk across. Here are some kids crossing, going back to their village after school.

The second pic is one of the two pools in Sikasso city. Sadly, t's been empty for years.

The bottom pic is at my homologue's house. He's in red. They're making a bunch of mud bricks to build his new house. It's the time of the year when everyone is building houses since there's no work in the fields right now. There's the village's mosque in the background.

videos- lookout tim and michele

2007-02-13T04:28:00.000-05:00

On the way to be installed at site. It felt really surreal with the music and donkey carts. Also I was bored since the PC guy who installed me wasn't much of a talker. This was taken way back in October.

A crazy video of a sudden storm in Kouoro. IT was so loud I couldn't hear myself. Moments later the winds changed, water came inside and the windows were slammed shut. Everything was so green and pretty back during rainy season, now everything is brown and dead.

Randoms of village life

2007-02-12T06:11:00.000-05:00

Despite Mali being so safe and practically no crime in village I am forced by my homologue to keep my bike indoors at night. I wanted to leave it outside in my little concession chained up but he refuses to let me. I compare this to other volunteers who can leave their bike outside all the time without any security measures. I am also forced to lock my door everytime I leave the area. When I know that everyone is watching my house anyway. My neighbors know anytime someone comes into my concession. I feel so safe here, but my homologue insists that occasionally people come from the neighboring town to do crime at night. Culturally, if anything were to happen he would feel responsible and shamed so I gotta keep things locked up even though I feel the safest I've ever felt in life. However I do realize that my bike is nice especially compared to Malian bikes. It's like having a new BMW amidst a sea of jalopies.

Kids in Mali know how to have fun at low costs. Some kids I know have created 'chi-chi'ing machine. It's basically an L shaped piece of metal attached to a stick with some elestic. There's also a piece of elastic with a nail attached that goes from the stick to the metal tip. Kids put match heads in the metal tip and then bang the metal tip/nail on a rock which creates a loud bang similar to a firecracker. Sounds confusing, but it's simple and brilliant. Here are some pics of it.

finally... photos!

2007-01-28T05:42:00.000-05:00

Ok so I can finally add pictures to the blog. here are some random ones.

me and my homologue's wife, Alima, in our Tabaski outfits. This was taken under the tree across from my house.

Michele, Tim, Jamar (my teamate 12K away) and I on Christmas day at the one full pool in Sikasso ville.

Julia, a PCV from the Sikasso region got married in December. Here is the happy bride and her new husband Yaya after they left the Mayor's office.

We attended her wedding in her village, Misirikoro. There are these amazing grottos in her village where the wedding party flocked to take pictures after the ceremony. It was dark in the caves so none of my pics really turned out.

Jack and I on Thanksgiving, I had some cool cornrows in. Jack's south of Sikasso city.

the good times keep coming at tubani so

2007-01-25T04:56:00.000-05:00

Having spent almost three weeks in Bamako, I'm feeling eager to get back to site. Not that these three weeks haven't been useful or exciting, I just miss the comforts of home and living in a small village. Training went well here at Tubani so. Our master water san trainer, Adama, let us get some hands-on experience on building cisterns, latrines, wells, and a clothes washing area. Now I don't know if I'll ever be able to use these skills but at least now I can say I've laid cement, been down a well, and had a lot of fun in the process. Tubani so was full of is usual excitements that happens when you get 62, 20-somethings together in Africa. Some highlights: a trip to Bamako to see a film, to which only 4 of the 20 or so who went actually ended up seeing. I was a part of the contingency who skipped the film and found my way to a bar instead. A mud-wrestling pit was set-up and sports hour took a new turn as PCVs battled in a test of strength. Yours truly competed twice and lost just as many. If your interested check out the pictures on Michele and Tim's site. My homologue came for the last two days of training to do a workshop with us. It went well, and I am encouraged by his motivation. He also quelled my fears by letting me know that my cat is still alive and well.
So there's this cooking show on Malian television that is shown once a week called, 'Bien Mangé.' Training staff decided to bring the ladies from the show out to Tubani so for a few nights to give us cooking lessons. I being the gourmand that I am attended there three lessons, took notes, and made friends with the cooks. A couple of the girls were my age and we got to talking and we ended up exchanging phone numbers. I called her up to let her know I had a free day in Bamako and she was eager to have me over for some zamé. So I went over to her house in the morning and it was a non-stop eating fest. I ate a big lunch of the best zamé (red rice with veggies and fish) I've ever had, followed by hibiscus juice and oranges. Later on they give me a salad with presented beautifully. And before I left they gave me two big bags of degue (it's yummy yogurt with balls of millet). The sweet thing about that was that I told her, Kadie, that my favorite Malian dish was degue when she was at Tubani so and she remembered. In between all of this, they braided my hair and did henna on all four of my limbs (I drew the line at the girls trying to give me a pagne to wear). It was a lot of fun and they were really hospitable. It was nice hanging out with a family in Bamako and seeing the difference in standards of living as compared to en brousse. They also insisted on speaking only Bambara with me even though we all spoke French. Equally nice to actually have girlfriends because all of my Malian friends are male. In village the women my age are all married, thus working to take care of house, husband, and children. And plus with my homologue being male it seems I only meet his other male friends. Anyway that was my experience hanging out with Malians in Bamako.
PCVs from Guinea are being 'evacuated' to Mali after some serious violent strikes. About 25 should be coming in today so I'll be here to welcome them. I stayed in Bamako after training to help with language certification for our language facilitators. I'm leaving tomorrow for Sikasso, hopefully I'll be able to put up some pictures then.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-23T11:20:00.000-05:00

Hello to all. I've made it back to Sikasso after spending a month at site. While this may not seem like a lot, if you lived in Kouoro you would feel like it was. I love Kouoro and I was sad to go but I wanted to come in for Christmas to be around other volunteer friends. Also a volunteer finishing her service in March is getting married in her village on Thursday so we're going to head over there for the celebration. I'll be back to site in time to celebrate Tabaski with the people of Kouoro.
A lot has happened since I last wrote. Firstly, when I got back to my village the day after Thanksgiving I was saddened to discover that my host-dad had died. He was old but I didn't realize that he was so sick. It was sad for me and it was the first time someone I knew and cared about in Mali had passes away. I new something was awry the moment I arrived in my concession. My host-brother who studies at university in Bamako after leaving just weeks before and my host sister didn't answer me when I asked if the 'cekoroba' or old man was there. They told me he was dead and then moments later wanted me to go into the house to greet my host-mom. I was shocked and upset; thus not able to control my emotions and began to cry. I was immediately surrounded by people telling me not to cry (crying is a very serious deal in West Africa-you're not supposed to do it). Anyhow, I cried with my host-mom and tried to gather myself together while my host-bro was like, "don't cry, it was the work of God." I was mad at him and wanted to tell him that I didn't care if it was the work of god, I was sad and I couldn't help crying. After, that I was then brought to greet the new 'cekoroba,' my host-dad's younger brother. All this while I'm trying to recover and give out the proper blessings for death. It was a sad affair and I miss seeing his smiley face. He was very kind, successful, and a well respected-member of the community. To top it all of for fourty days after his death my host-mom has to be in mourning. She wears all blue and has had to be sitting in her room. She can only go out to go to the bathroom and even then someone escorts her. When I get back from Sikasso she should be out of the house!
But let's fill you in on some brighter notes. I biked 60 km the other day, something I never thought I could do in America. Albeit, I was exhausted afterwards, it was fun and challenging. I've been doing yoga and pilates every morning for the past month and I feel great.
Reading the LOTR trilogy-very exciting.
My house is furnished. I bought a canary on Wednesday and now I have cold water at my house! It's so amazing the temperature difference between keeping water in a plastic bucket and a ceramic canary.
A week after my closest teammate Jenn left for America, her village got a replacement. Brooke, who came to Mali in my stage, got a site change to Sokorani; now she's a 20 min bike ride away.
Michele is recovering well from Bell's palsy, despite the setbacks her and Tim have faced in village. Glad to have them around for Christmas.
I made a Water Sanitation survey and went around to every concession in my village. I found there are about 53 concessions and almost 700 people in Kouoro. The outcome of the survey: concrete evidence that the village needs some serious health and sanitation education and training. I asked if people who drank well water treated their wells, it was about 50/50. Someone asked me to come back a few days later to show them how to treat a well with chlorine, so I did. It's nice to have actually done some work even if it wasn't much.
A language professor from Bamako came out to site for a week to work on language and cultural integration. I learned a lot and the villagers enjoyed having him there. I'm doing ok in Bambara and I think even better in integrating. Credits for this must be given to my homologue, Abdulaye. He has helped me so much with language and cultural matters. He's always patient with me and I appreciate all that he has done for me.
It's that time of the year again: markets are PACKED, tailors are busy, and sheep are everywhere, it can only mean one thing- Tabaski. I'm looking forward to slaughtering numerous sheep and eating their yummy meat, while dressed to the nine, followed by dancing to the balafon. It should be a fun two-day celebration and I'll be sure to take pictures.
Well, I'll be headed to Tubaniso for post pre-service training in early January so hopefully I'll be able to post before then. Take care everyone. Happy holidays! Enjoy yourselves and be safe. May the new year be full of health and happiness for each and all of you. I miss you all back in America, my thoughts are with you this holiday season! Call me if you want: 223.515.29.88.

Bamako and back

2006-11-21T04:26:00.000-05:00

It's almost thanksgiving and I'm here in Sikasso city where us Sikasso volunteers are going to celebrate the holiday together. So what have I been up to? I've spent quite a while at site followed by a brief trip to Bamako and now I'm back in Sikasso city. Why was I in Bamako you ask? My APCD (basically my sector boss) invited me to a Water Sanitation Partners meeting with some NGO and government representatives. It was interesting and I ate really well the two days in Bamako so I'd say the trip was a sucess.
In village nothing too exciting is happening right now. It's harvest time so everyone is in the fields everyday. So unless I go to the fields it's a pretty boring day alone with my cat Bakary. I took some pictures of the cotton trucks being loaded. There's so much cotton around right now, it's a pretty cool sight. This year people in my village are gettin 165F CFA per kilo of cotton. That's about 30 cents in America. Most people's livelihood here depends upon the production of cotton. There's a lot more you can read up on fair trade and price dumping and US cotton subsidies if you're interested- I won't get into it here, but OXFAM does a lot of work on this issue. I put some pics of cotton up on my yahoo pics as well as various other pics.
Just wanted to let you all know I'm alive. Nothing new here. I'll be in Sikasso until Saturday but after that I'm off to village until Christmas time.

three weeks and going strong

2006-10-29T10:23:00.000-05:00

I’ve just finished three weeks at site. All is well and I am in very good spirits. I’m in my regional capital for a few days doing banking and using the internet. I also got to talk to some family members yesterday on my cell phone so that was nice. I will have cell phone service whenever I’m in city of Sikasso, but service at site is still finicky. It’s supposed to be better once the line work is done but who knows when that will be. My phone sometimes works better in my market town so for now I will have my cell phone on every Wednesday if anyone needs to reach me.

Ramadan is over and this means villagers are able to eat and drink during the day and that festivities can take place once again in village. Two days after Ramadan ended all the women of the village came in front of my house where we spent three hours singing and dancing in a circle with traditional calabash instruments. It was a lot of fun and I was very honored that the women of the village would welcome me with something like that.

These first three months at site I’m still working on language acquisition and learning about my community. It’s harvest time and in my village where everyone is a farmer- everybody goes to the fields everyday so not much can be done in village anyway. I’ve been to the fields a few times with my counterpart- once to pick cotton and a couple of times harvesting peanuts. Not exactly water sanitation work- but nonetheless interesting. It seems like time has gone by really fast and I can’t believe it’s been a month since we swore-in as volunteers in Bamako.

Tammy you asked about a normal day and I can’t say that I really have normal days but I’ll try to describe one. First, I get up anywhere from 5:30-7:30AM (which most know is much different from mon habitude in America). I usually get up because there are an assortment of loud animals outside my house- goats, sheep, chickens, etc or it’s too hot to sleep or I just feel lazy because I can hear the rest of the village already up; women pounding corn in their large mortars or donkey carts riding past my house to the fields. Then I’ll get up and slowly start my day, making oatmeal and tea for breakfast or bread if it’s a day or two after market day. Then I’ll get dressed, maybe go to the pump to fill up my 20-liter bottle for water and then I’ll head out to greet people. I spend the morning greeting various people in village, my jatigi family that feeds me and then I’m over to the dugutigi’s or village chief then I’ll visit my counterpart’s family although he’s usually gone to the fields. Sometimes I’ll visit neighbors or other important villagers. Then I usually come back to my house when it gets hot around midday so I can rest, study, or read and then I make lunch and then rest or read. Once it cools down I do the day’s dishes before I head back out for some greeting, I might go to one of my regular families or maybe stop by a new concession to visit a new family (although it’s guaranteed they’ll know my name once I show-up). In the late after noon I’ll pour some water into a bucket to take a bucket bath. I’ll go to my jatigi’s house in the evening to eat dinner, which is almost always toh (unless I bought something different from market). But we eat corn toh here instead of millet toh and it’s not that bad- it’s the sauce that makes or breaks the meal. Toh is hard to describe but it’s pretty bland and tasteless and it molds to the shape of the dish it is put in some said it’s kind of like polenta (but I’ve never had I). Then I’ll go to my counterpart’s to visit or he’ll come over and visit me and I’m usually in bed before 10 every night. I’m lucky to have another volunteer only 8 km away from me so she’ll visit me some days or I might visit her on others, but her service is ending in a few months so I‘ll be alone until next year when they get another volunteer. So not too exciting but that’s what normal days are looking like. I’m trying to get used to living here and everything seems to be going well, I’m just taking it day by day. I’m getting a cat once I get back to site, so I’m really excited about having a new friend!
Thanks for all the letters and emails I miss you all and I wish everyone well. I’ll be back in Sikasso for Thanksgiving and tomorrow I’ll be back online to put some pictures up on my yahoo account since I can't figure it out on blogger. Take care!

quoi de neuf?

2006-10-03T12:08:00.000-04:00

So I am oficially a volunteer now. We swore-in on the 29th of September at the Ambassador's house. There were 65 of us swearing-in and there were like 7 volunteers who gave speeches in the seven languages studied during our stage: French, Bambara, Fulfulde, Bomu, Malinke, Khassonke, and Songrai. There were a lot of PCVs and other Americans I've never seen and probably will never see again. But after swear-in we had a BBQ pool party at the Ambassador's house. It was LOVELY! Open bar, pool hamburgers, and 65 volunteers=fun, fun, fun!!! Later that night we went to the Bejing II Chinese restaurant and it was absolutely delicious-seriously some of the best food I've ever eaten. Then we all went out to the Pirate's Club where most of us danced the night away (the Tombuctou volunteers had to leave for an early flight to their site the next morning). It was a lot of fun and i have some good memories. I forgot my camera, but I'll try to do that soon...

The other day in Bamako I saw a man on a moto get hit by a sotrama (or the green beast-it's like a mini-bus thingy). The guy got up but the sotrama didn't even stop- it stalled traffic for a minute or two. But then I saw three policemen sitting under a hangar on the corner just across the street from where the accident took place, and they were just sitting there doing nothing... I was a little disturbed.

We had to take public transport (in this case a big bus)to get to Sikasso and that was a bit of a pain. It was a horribly dusty ride over a pothole-ridden road. And then some guy puked a few seats behind me and his throw-up slid down the aisle onto my shoe and bag. The lady next to me picked up my bag and held it in her lap for the next hour of the ride even though I repeatedly urged her to let me hold it. Then the guy sitting in the row across from me got the driver's assistant to wash my shoe off with water by the bus door. we didn't stop or clean up the mess. We gave the guy a plastic bag and waited for it to dry up. Needless to say that hot shower at the IHKLASS hotel was much appreciated as we arrived in Sikasso.

I'm being installed at my sight tomorrow and I should be there for a few weeks before I come back to Sikasso. I have a cell phone but I'm not sure if I have coverage in my village yet. I have coverage in Sikasso city though. My number is 223.515.29.88. Call me if you want-I'd recommend a phone card.

Dad I got your package. Thank you so much! Dad you got me covered on Beef Jerkey and candy for the next few months. Thanks for the reces pieces Uncle Rog!
I wanted to update my list for care packages now that I have a house and such;
books, magazines, instant oatmeal (maple and brown sugar), sauce mixes for pasta etc., spices, granola bars, gatorade mixes (I like the red and blue kinds), dried fruit. I just wanted to put that up there cause I know mom and dad have both talked about sending me stuff so that's what I see myself needing. I love and miss you all.

life in Missalabougou

2006-09-19T15:53:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling more and more anxious as swear-in approaches. I'm ready to get out on my own and start living. These past weeks in my homestay village have been interesting but I'm ready to live on my own like an adult. I feel like I've gotten enough of the basics in Bamabara to have a good foundation to work on during the first three months at site. Apparently all I'll be doing for those first three months at site is learning Bambara, and that's all I really can see myself doing... It's kinnda scary but I'm ready to get away from schedules and rules.

Tammy, you asked about standards of living so I'll tell you about an example about my homestay village of Missalabougou. School started on Monday in Mali, and three of the kids in my concession went to school. Mandiou who is 12 went to 3rd grade this year, Papa who is 8 went to 2nd and Awa who is 6 went to 1st. Missalabougou has a three-room school they're very proud of. It was built by the government costing aroung 10,000,000 CFA or $20,000. The government built the school but the village of Missalabougou has to pay for the teachers or in their case one teacher because that's all they can afford. It costs about 60,000 CFA or $120 a month for a teacher and Missalabougou can only afford one. So this one teacher is split between three grades each with around 40 kids. There are about 20 concessions in our town and each concession has at least 10 people I would say. Everyone in Miss. are farmers and it doesn't seem to be very profitable income-generator. A lady in my concession just gave birth to her third child- she has a 6 year old daughter who has orange-tinted hair while her 1-2 year old son has a huge belly- but her husband has a motor bike. The orange-tint and big belly are both signs of malnutrition. My 15 year old sister is illiterate and didn't get to go to school but I spent last night teaching her to write numbers. Anyway that's a little gloomy but there's an idea of what life is like here in Miss.

My host family is great and I'm going to miss them. They've been nothing but kind and welcoming to me, but I'm ready to go out on my own and see what happens.
Anyway I'm feeling relatively good. Had a case of strep throat but it was nothing some antibiotics couldn't fix. I actually feel better now that I've ever felt in Mali. Our training group is down to 65 ( we've lost 10 due to Early Termination) but I'm still here and have no plans of leaving. I still don't really need anything-just letters from you--- yes you!!!

here are some shout-outs:
Dad glad to finally hear from you-get a phone card so you can call me when I get a cell phone in the next few weeks! :-)
Aunt Terri thanks for the update glad to hear from you, I'll be in contact with the people you mentioned.
Don and Tammy and Roger and Sue/Alan and Judy -glad to hear from you and I hope you have a great time on your respective vacations.
Loan I wish you were here, I know you would excel and do great things-you have such a good heart.
Aunt Ty thanks for your support.
Mom I loved talking to you!!!!
Trisha live it up for me!
emily i love and miss you!

Kouro, Sikasso, Mali-la

2006-09-01T08:07:00.000-04:00

Hello from the city of Sikasso. I just got back from visiting my site for a few days and I am more excited now than ever about my decision to join the Peace Corps. I live in a small village called Kouoro. It's 1 km from the main road from Sikasso to Koutiala. My banking town is Sikasso and it's about 75 km away from my town.
This is the first time that my village has had a volunteer and they seem really excited. My counterpart also seems very motivated and excited about working together. There are many possible projects I could be working on; one being building soak pits fo standing pools of run-off water near the village's three pumps. Other projects might be health sanitation education in the community and school, community gardening projects, well-building, and other projects with the school. The school in our community has levels 1-6 and the schoolmaster was interested in getting me involved with the students. My house is new and completemy unfurnished, I can't wait to put up pictures, I have plans for a garden and trees for my yard. My region is much greener than other parts of Mali and I hear that we'll never have to buy mangoes, they're so abundant.
This week I stayed with the Dugutigi or village chief, Yaya Sogodogo; he's really great and I'm optimistic about working on any project in the village.
If you want to send me packages or letters my new address will be:

Michele Lehman
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 227
Sikasso, MALI
West Africa

I won't be able to get them until the beginning of October but if you send packages that's when they'll probably get there. Sugesstions, I don't really need anything yet except food: beef jerkey, dried mangoes or apples; apple jolly ranchers and i heard M&Ms and recees pieces make it here ok, they also said the big padded envelopes get here with less problems than boxes. But these are just suggestions, I LOVE getting letters!!!
On the health front, my giarrdiah is better but I had a cold all this week which I'm still getting over.

Giarrdia Is the pits!!!

2006-08-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

I'm back in Tubaniso for a few days and we found out our site placements last night. I will be going to the region of Sikasso to a village called Kourou. It's the first time they've had a volunteer but they seem really motivated adn excited. I head out to site for a week on Sunday, so I'm really anxious about that. I'll know more once I visit, but the Sikasso region was where I was hoping for- there's supposed to be very green and humid with vegtables aplenty- which is great for me since I haven't eaten a vegetable except onions in over a week! It's also real close to Burkina Faso. In addition to working in water sanitation, it also looks like I'll be doing some side gardening projects with the village.

I've come down with a case of giarrdia- nothing too serious, but the sulfuric burps accelerated my nauseau to an uncomfortable degree. I took some medication last night and I'm already feeling better.

Nothing to new, just going to class all day everyday. I placed novice high on my Bambara exam but I'm confident I'll reach the required intermediate high by the end of next month.

Thanks for the emails and letters. Luke, so glad to hear you're home safely! I love getting letters and I'll send more letters and emails after training. Much love to all!!!!

Pre-Service Training

2006-08-14T11:33:00.000-04:00

So this is the first time I've had to go on the internet and I wish I could send out personal emails but time restraints won't allow it.
We're in Pre-Service training and it's pretty intense. We haven't had a day off or a morning to sleep in since we arrived. We spent five days at the training center and then they moved us into our homestay villages where we'll do our trainig. Right now we're doing language and cultural training. Next month it's language adn technical. Everyday we go to class for Bambara. Bambara's not too hard and we're making progress but it's difficult at times because Bambara is our main method of communication. There are seven other volunteers in my village and three language and cultural facilitators.
My host family is really nice and I'm enjoying myself there. The dad in my compound speaks French but he's hardly ever there so I've been speaking Bambara with the mother and kids. There are six kids in my house ranging from 1-15 years of age and I love them all! The moment we arrived in the village we were welcomed with a special masked dance ceremony; this is the first time our village has ever hosted volunteers. Everyone in town knows our names ansd everyone is super nice and welcoming. Missalabougou (our village) is really small approx 300 people and most all are farmers. We're only 20km fron Bamako but it seems a world away. Today's actually our first day in Bamako and we only have like an hour, which some of us are spending in a cyber cafe.
It's the rainy season and I've seen some killer thunder storms. Last week I biked 5km in a rain storm on a muddy road after coming back from a market. Let's see... I plucked a chicken on Friday and last night I killed 3 crickets in my room. It's still really hot here, especially when it doesn't rain for a couple of days.
I don't know how often I'll be able to communicate but swearing-in takes place on September 29th and I should have more free time then. But all is well here, I haven't been sick really (knockin on wood) and I feel great emotionally. Ok that's all for now. Feel free to write me by post. I miss you all! Much love!

chillin in the NC

2006-07-19T23:16:00.000-04:00

I'm here in NC visiting my mother before I head off. We're going to the Carolina coast this weekend. I leave Monday for Philadelphia for Peace Corps staging. All of the volunteers and I will be leaving the country Wednesday afternoon. So that's about all that's new from here.

Some people have asked me if I had an address in Mali yet. Well, I found a temporary address where we will be able to receive mail.

Michele Lehman, PCT
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 85
Bamako, MALI

Facts

2006-07-09T18:34:00.000-04:00

Here's an some interesting facts for those who would like to learn a little about Mali before I go.

According to the United Nation's Human Development Index, Mali ranks 174 with an HDI value of 0.333 followed by Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, while Niger ranks last at 0.281. The HDI ranks nations according to their citizens' quality of life rather than strictly by a nation's traditional economic figures. The criteria for calculating rankings include life expectancy, educational attainment, and adjusted real income.

Numbers on the rise...

2006-07-09T18:14:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting article about the increasing number of volunteers for programs such as AmeriCorps and Peace Corps.

Youssou N'Dour

2006-07-09T04:05:00.000-04:00

The first words that come to mind when I think of Youssou N’Dour are: neex and king. Youssou N’Dour is positively neex (really good in Wolof). He is also the king of music in Senegal in a way that Michael Jackson never could be. Just thinking of Youssou, conjures up images of life at its best- happiness, laughter, dancing. Some of my best memories of Senegal are accompanied by a Youssou N’Dour song playing in the background. If there’s one thing to be said about Youssou, it’s that he knows how to throw a party. And while not only is he a great musician and the richest person in Senegal, he is true to his roots and cares about his people. Often he accompanies the president of Senegal on important affairs of the state. At least once a week I saw Youssou doing some kind of benefit concert, raising awareness to an issue, or donating money to some cause. One of the largest efforts I experienced first-hand was “Africa Live- Roll Back Malaria” a two-day concert with profits going to fight malaria in Senegal, spearheaded by Youssou N’Dour himself.

Song listened to while writing this:
Dem Dem- Youssou N’Dour

pictures

2006-07-09T04:00:00.000-04:00

I added pictures from graduation and France on my yahoo photos feel free to check 'em out.

Back in Burney...

2006-07-02T12:59:00.000-04:00

Back in Burney after a month in Europe. What can I say about my first trip to Europe? I had a great time. It was everything I thought it would be and more. I loved the small French towns and the French countryside. Paris was wondersful and I could see myself there one day. There's so much to do and so many kinds of people and food. So much was happening there. It kind of reminded me of Dakar (now I know why they called Dakar the Paris of Africa). Dakar has the best traits from Paris -lots of great food, music, and culture. I found that the people in France were really nice contrary to what is normally said about the French. I don't know whether that's because I spoke some French or what but people were always friendly and kind to us.

Headed down to the Bay Area and Central Valley for some visits before coming back on Thursday for the annual Burney Falls family Reunion camp-out. God this whole process of getting ready is kinnda getting stressful, but I'll make it. I still haven't received my staging packet and wondering if I should call? I'll add pics of France to my yahoo photos sometime soon.

La Chatte Gitane

2006-06-18T06:40:00.000-04:00

The House and Kerrel the dog

Staying with a couple at their house in the south of France and it's been wonderful. We're actually in the mountains in the Ardeche department of France near a small town of St. Giney's en Coiron (pop 12) complete with a town hall and church. We've been helping maintain their big organic vegetable garden (we even put up a reed fence this week). Patricia and Bert are very nice and we're enjoying ourselves to the fullest. Missing everyone at home though!

The Garden

Bonjour from Paris

2006-06-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

all is well here!
Enjoying our last day in Paris, before we leave for Amsterdam. After walking miles, seeing dozens of historic sights, eaten great food, drunken tons of wine, I can say that Paris is an amazing city- so much to do and see. People have been really nice and while I'll be sad to leave Paris has definetly left a mark in our wallets.
I'll put up pictures when we return. We're off to an African Reggae Festival tonight then we leave tomorrow morning for Amsterdam.
Hope this finds everyone well. much love!

graduation!

2006-05-21T15:04:00.000-04:00

Well, we graduated Saturday. I'm feeling relieved, anxious, excited, and happy all at the same time. I'm finished with one stage of my life but it feels like it's just the beginning.

Nothing too new, getting ready to move out tomorrow morning, just taking a break from the packing and the visiting. I'll be in Burney for a week and then it's off to France next Monday. We're going to a Ben Harper concert in Oregon this weekend, so this is going to be abusy week.

Here's a couple of pics of Alissa, Loan, me and Trisha. And one of mom and dad with me.

tomorrow is dead day

2006-05-09T22:02:00.000-04:00

Jeff got us hoooked on this nerdy website meant for SISers.

Nothing new to report except I am officially finished attending classes in my undergraduate career. There's Pham at the SIS picnic.

Today in French we were talking about the American tendency to hate debating, or at least to take everything personally in a debate. I must say that I perfer the French tendency of having a heated debate where people disagree, but are able to argue and listen to other peoples' points and at the end are still on good terms.

last day of classes

2006-05-09T02:24:00.000-04:00

Last week was pretty stressful, I finished one 17 page research paper for political development and another 12 page research paper for comparative foreign policy. I am really happy to be done needless to say. Now it's time for finals, yay!!!

I've got our trip to France pretty much set out. We'll be heading to Paris on the 29th (ahh!!!) spend a little over a weeke there seeing the sights, eating the food, and going to an African reggae concert with Tiken Jah Fakoly and Dread Maxim (Sedar would be jealous). Then we'll head to The Netherlands where we'll spend a few days in Amsterdam and a few days visiting the sights outside Amsterdam. Then it's off to Montelimar, near Avignon in the Rhone Mountains. We'll be staying there for two weeks on an organic farm in the countryside. Should be interesting. I'm really looking forward to it.

Here's Alissa, Trisha, Me and Loan at the SIS awards dinner:

Me and Loan

paperwork

2006-04-19T14:48:00.000-04:00

I just finished up all the required paperwork that comes after accepting an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. I sent away for my no-fee passport (kinnda like a diplomatic passport) and my via for Mali. Sunday, I emailed my revised Resume and my Aspiration Statement to the Peace Corps staff in Mali.
So, now I just wait and prepare. I'm supposed to leave for staging on July 24. I'm sure I'll have plenty to keep me busy until then.
Right now I'm trying to focus on finishing school and preparing for my trip to France with Emily (29 May- 27 June).