So much has happened over the last couple of months. I'm hanging in transition waiting to settle down again but my time here makes me wonder if I ever will "settle down" somewhere again.

something i wrote a couple days ago....

How many times in your life do you leave a place you love behind? I don’t mean places like a beautiful beach you visited on vacation or an overlook that you passed on a trip somewhere that you took out your camera and took lots of pictures of. I don’t even mean a city that you fell in love with on a trip, an exotic place unlike any you’d visited before and became one of your favorite places. I’m talking about the places that have hurt you, where you’ve fallen and almost couldn’t get up, but when you did you came to like yourself and the place that much more for challenging you; or a place where you have memories of joy and sadness, where you’ve cried your eyes out and also laughed with abandon until you almost cried as well. These are places where one might have relationships with street corners or trees or maybe a library carrel. Maybe it’s a home where you lived growing up, a school or university where you attended or a neighborhood block where you bought your first home or where your first boyfriend lived.

I left one of my places two weeks ago. My town in Mali has become a place I love but from now on only a place I will visit. I’ll admit, I cried pulling away as I looked down on my family and town through the wide stained glass of the dirty fogged bus window, fuzzing my last image of my village.

I’ve been in Bamako several weeks now, and other volunteers and friends have asked if I will go back before I leave Mali the first week in September. There’s no way I could I reply. To cut the ties again like that and feel another empty hole near my stomach, that I try to hold in by wrapping my arms around my middle?

I’ve called a couple times and they’re happy to hear from me. Have they already moved on? Yes. Absolutely. It would be naïve to think that people who have been moving and watching people leave their whole lives wouldn’t be able to adjust to my absence, I who had only ever promised that I would be there two years. They knew all along I would leave them, just as every other white person has. And I wonder if they doubt my commitment to stay in touch, for which I wouldn’t blame them either.

I can already hear myself starting to lose the language so I seek out other people who speak it. Friends probably think I’m showing off but really what I want is for someone to appreciate and jabber away with me. Just like a toddler makes noises to hear himself speak:

No matter where I am here, I don’t want this part of me to leave; The brain that has to translate and gets frustrated sometimes when it cant make the sentence it wants perfect, the humor I can instantly invoke or the conversation I can strike up with anyone and their appreciation for my effort to speak their language, even if I use the wrong words and phrases, the kamikaze smile- here we go who knows what will happen attitude, the irony of the most simple situations and the smiles it brings out in me, my patience and the people who refuse to be discouraged so they bring it out in me, the random friends I make each day women, men taxi drivers, and the small high it gives me and even the frustration I tackle each day, absorb, acknowledge and let simmer and sometimes even boil over if the jerk on the corner deserves it for being really impolite, even though he probably meant well in the end. I enjoy the challenge because the happiness is so accessible if you’re just willing to play along.

I thank my village and this country for all they’ve given me; Not for the 15 keychains or the interesting neon thread wall hangings (I cant really even describe) or even the jewelry, cultural experiences, friendships although I appreciate them all. It’s the challenges they forced upon me, the questions they made me ask and the lifestyle I’ll hopefully now be able to live, wherever I am.

pictures and videos from my last months at site. leaving our gao house, leaving site and the family

Our youth center and library!

getting my hair braided and xadijatu's new bear strapped to her back

as i am not doing a good job of updating my blog ive put some links up to other people's in the hopes that you will keep coming to mine to connect to theirs when I'm being negligent.

post tomorrow

Please read the following article

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/05/18/mali.drought.elephants/index.html

this is absolutely heartbreaking. I'm in the states for vacation but wish I was back and able to help in some way.

so

its been awhile again..... i have my excuses tho. the whole no internet thing in Gao is part of it and i was studying to take the gmats in Dakar. heres a cute video of xadi and the kids dancing to some awful american music. and some photos. its hot and really horrible here so I won't go into detail. Mangos are in abundance tho and that makes hot season well, actually not bearable at all. But mangos are delicious.

I spent yesterday and the day before on the long voyage down to Bamako from Gao, a trip of about 20 hours by bus but by Peace Corps shuttle 15 hours or less. The change of the landscape over the trip is drastic. The dry desert of Gao and the sand dunes pockmarked with shrubs change to the high cliffs and mesa of Hombori and Boni in Mopti Region. The outcroppings of rocks gradually diminish to fields, deforested and eroded by slash and burn techniques. Then town after town crowds along the guidron , the main highway down from the north, and the women and children of each little seemingly identical village lines up the tomatoes or cassava roots or peanuts, piles and piles, attempting to sell whatever they can to the passing cars and buses. I see encouraging signs of development projects including community gardens and woodlots, filled with tall eucalyptus trees shivering in the wind. I also see discouraging signs of poverty in these “cookie cutter” villages south of Sevare, trying to scrape a living off the land, but slowly being buried in trash. Cookie cutter is obviously not the appropriate term.

It may be because I’m unfamiliar with the cultures of the South, their history and lifestyles, but I think I’ve been spoiled by the cultural diversity of the north and its rich traditions. When I head down to this region of the country, the view out the window becomes boring and even depressing and I truly feel separated from the people in our air conditioned car, speeding by, only slowed down by the speed bumps they’ve placed at the entrance and exit of the town, a protective measure for the children and adults running back and forth across the highway on their daily errands.

In the beginning of the trip, I enjoyed watching the camels reaching up, bending their necks like a pool noodle, eating the few leaves remaining on the trees as hot season approaches and food becomes scarce. The elephants have evolved in the same way, using their trunks and tusks to shake leaves off the trees. The goats gathered beneath them benefit from the leaves the elephants have missed, a symbiotic relationship, one of many in the Gourma. On my trip down yesterday I started to think about the dependent relationships including those that exist between humans and animals here.

In the states, unless you are a farmer or a rancher, you are disconnected from the animals that provide us with our food and products of daily life. Here, I walk out my front door every morning and have to dodge cows and goats to just get to the bathroom. My family spends a good part of their day, preparing and setting out the food for their animals and for this work, they get some milk and occasionally some meat, when they slaughter a goat.

Their animals are like their bank account, when they need money they sell a cow or goat, and when holidays come and its time to celebrate they tap into their funds, and have a special meal, one goat or two eaten over three days, meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Their choice of investment is not necessarily the most secure option with the threats of drought and desertification but banking isn’t readily available. The nearest caisse de credit and savings system I know of is 3 hours away.

Even between the elephants and the humans there are numerous connections and relations, although some growing increasingly complicated and negative. With dwindling resources and easy access to the farmers’ fields of millet and sorghum, an elephant will sometimes serve him or herself from the storage granaries located in the fields. As they pass through these increasingly agricultural areas in the southern part of their range they are put at risk of falling into the large, deep watering holes that farmers dig to water their fields. If they fall in, they can’t get out on their own, and if the government is unable to get a crane there in time, the elephant may die. The elephants for the most part have started avoiding large population areas, choosing to “streak” through areas where there are human settlements, to get through as quickly as possible. Females and Calves are especially wary of humans, and tourists are advised to stay far from them. Near Gossi, my site, there is a group of males who brave Gossi mare, a heavily populated zone for the region, and where most of the rest of the herd will not come. When you go to see them, they are aware of you but don’t hurry off and continue on with their business.

It can be a tense relationship at times, especially when an elephant has just eaten someone’s reserves for hot season. Yet the people here appreciate and claim the elephants as their own and I have confidence that with education and discussion this relationship can continue to be a positive one and just as the humans here get along with their own herd they can also share the land with a much bigger herd that we all own.

happy almost inauguration day. I'm beaming from ear to ear even if I know i'm missing out on most of the festivities in DC, across the country and on TV. I have to ask you all if i can leave vicariously through you so if you have pictures, videos experiences from the mall please email them to me so I can share in the experience. I'll be looking for you all on CNN international!

Its a busy time of year here because the temperature is actually reasonable enough to do things. Lots of volunteers have been stopping by in Gossi over the past month as parents, friends and families come to Mali to visit during the cold season and come to see our elephants. We’ve been playing host and enjoying the opportunities to share our experiences and meet people back from the states. We went out with a couple from the new training group and the wife’s brother who was visiting to get our fix and see the elephants for ourselves this year. Each time I see them is more exciting than the last time. They’re simply majestic and truly captivating. When I get the chance to head out in the brousse around Gossi or talk about my site with other volunteers and see it through their eyes, I realize how lucky I am in my site placement, which I think is one of the best in Mali.

I just came from another one of the most beautiful locations in Mali. All the northern volunteers attended a wedding in Hombori of two of our fellow volunteers who met during our training, fell in love and decided that since they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together they might as well start now. It was an absolutely beautiful ceremony in a stunning setting and the bride and groom were so in love. I experienced renewed hope in the promise of love in relationships and marriages, something practically non-existent in Mali. The marriages I’ve witnessed in Mali have often featured a sobbing woman or young girl being taken or dragged to the home of a much older man. There’s no big ceremony, only the signing of a declaration at the mayors, which is then posted so that those who might already be married to the woman can claim her before the wedding day, and then another marriage contract with an imam or marabou, the religious commitment. I have met maybe three couples my whole time here who actually married their spouse because they were in love with them. Can one grow to love their spouse? From what I’ve seen here I would say yes, but in what capacity and what kind of love? Friendship and support certainly. Maybe even a little bit of affection but deep undying romance, would do anything for you and thank god every day I wake up next to you love? Not once have I seen that here. We are so spoiled in America. Yet at the same time we are cheated. One expects the deep undying love but forgets the friendship and support have to be maintained and nurtured and so we have the divorce rate we do. When the marriage is arranged you just make it work, and it seems to make you grow as a person, your spouse can become your best friend. You might also be miserable your whole life but the same can be sad for some American relationships or marriages that were by choice or love. funny enough its probably a lot higher that the rate here, even though marriages are arranged and divorce isn’t necessarily discouraged at all- My host father has been married four times.

Its been really cold here. by cold I mean 60 degrees somedays. I’m not freezing thanks to the warm fleeces and sweatshirts my new England knowledgeable about the cold family sent me. My blood has definitely thinned since I came here and 60 really does make me uncomfortable enough to wrap myself up in several blankets. I have always been the person who would sneak over to the thermostat and turn it up a couple degrees rather than put on a sweater and then hear it from a certain father who had to pay the heating bill. I can’t imagine how ill cope with snow and ice when right now 65 feels like a fall day with a promise of snow.

With the chilly wind blowing in my face today I spent two hours handwashing laundry and it got me to thinking about activites and things I will NOT miss from mali. Guess what the first one was? It also made me think about the things I will miss so much that my daydreams may get me into trouble, as I salivate over the thought of mangos or alienate friends with my wistful descriptions of how much more I enjoyed designing my own clothes in mali and working with my own tailor. To follow a more complete list of the things with which I am glad I’ll have finished my tenure and those that I’ll be very sad to leave.

Love it or leave it

Camels- love. I love looking out my door and seeing a man bob by over our concession wall seemingly floating on air, as he heads back to brousse on his camel. They make the coolest sounds, walk and run unlike any other animal ive seen and the men and women look so awesome riding them

Goats and cows- leave. I will never understand why my family doesn’t tie up their cows at night rather than dealing with them bothering us several times during dinner as they attempt to walk through our dinner party, break into the kitchen hut or escape through the open concession door. I’ve also awoken at night inside my mosquito net staring straight into the flank of a meter and a half tall cow. Their horns (on the female cows as well) are nothing to be laughed at. The goats I can also do without, always getting into everyone’s business although the baby goats are probably the most adorable things in the world. They are capable of these amazing high kick jumps in the air where they actually float for a minute and then come back down, wobbly but landing on two feet. Cuter than baby kittens. I promise.

Green snot sauce- LEAVE I hope you’ve watched the video I uploaded awhile back of my little sister devouring green sauce that sort of looks like a combination of vomit and snot. I will not miss eating this four to five times a week when im at site. Its not even close to as good as xadijatu makes it look as she slurps it up. Don’t tell my family but, when they serve gossum or to ,the green doughy starch we dip in the green sauce, I sometimes pretend to dip in the sauce, watch their eyes and quickly stuff the to in my mouth so as not to offend.

Mangos- love-I have already committed myself to spending this hot season eating mangos for four meals a day. I will not eat anything else so as to maximize my mango intake to the highest level I can attain. And no I will not tire of it. Why does florida grow oranges? After being so fortunate as to live through 2 mango seasons I will never understand this.

Markets- love and leave- salt blocks, turbaned men, veiled women, dates, piles of spices and warm bread. I too often pass through not appreciating how exotic and beautiful our markets are. Why? I often have my head down to avoid the leers of the men and the shouts and calls for attention from women and children. Some days I come home from the market beaming, pleased with my purchases and the friends I’m fortunate to have. Others I hold back tears after a particularly frustrating trip, where someone insulted my language skills, my work, my country etc.

Handwashing laundry-leave- although it did give me great perspective into the chores and work the women must slough through each day, I will definitely smile every time I close the lid of a washing machine back home and thank Mr. Kenmore or Mr. whirlpool for his fabulous invention.

Bus rides- love and leave- im grateful to mali and the distance between my site and Bamako because now I can handle any car trip of any distance. It won’t compare to what I’ve lived through. I love the bus rides for the changing face and appearance of the collective passenger population as we make our way north. More and more turbans pop up above the head rest as you make your way towards gao. You almost always make friends with some of the passengers who love that you speak a local language, even if it isn’t theirs. I also hate bus rides. I will admit there have been times when I have feared for my life. Some drivers go way too fast in a country where a camel, cow or even child can suddenly run across the road. Public transportation here is dangerous and I’ve witnessed crashes that I will not recount here for fear giving myself more nightmares.

Headwraps/veils- love- I will try to sport them back in the states, you may tell me I look like an idiot, but now I feel like I can pull them off. Try and stop me. They keep you cool under the heat of the sun’s rays and noticeably deter attention from me as I walk through the market. I understand much more now the other side of the head scarf controversy. You maintain your dignity in a culture where men are allowed to leer and catcall and yet are taking pride in your appearance at the same time. This does not legitimize the men’s behaviour by any means, to say that you deserve to be leered at if you don’t cover your hair is absurd. Yet the situation is what it is at the moment and you can certainly feel beautiful- covered, protected and mysterious. I feel beautiful wearing the ekarshe, or the traditional tammsheq and arab dress here, a piece of fabric draped to be a dress and wrap over your head as a veil. The shape of my body doesn’t show yet the fabric flows and swishes around me, like the petals around a flower and I feel like the little girl trying on oversize dress up clothes, mascarading as a princess or bride to be. Girls wearing mini-skirts and tube tops and posing for pictures back in the west aren’t helping the situation. You’re asking to be objectified in my opinion. There’s something to be said for taking pride in your appearance and wearing beautiful clothes, but have some taste. Bottom line I’m of the opinion that the veil is a cultural development brought on by the climactic environment. It really does keep you cooler just like the turban.

Burquas- leave- I saw two women in the market today completely covered and actually wearing socks and gloves so that no skin was showing besides their eyes. I wanted to run over and rip the veil off hiding their face and free them from their jail. What do they have to be ashamed of? What are their husbands, fathers or brothers afraid of, that if they show the skin on their ankle their overt sex appeal will bring shame up on their family? Shame on these men for degrading women to the point that they are third class citizens, below the men and children and so what(?) that they must appear like this.

Dust- leave- I will not miss the thin layer of dust that appears every day on everything and slowly accumulates no matter how much you dust and sweep. Dust storms are pretty cool though and I’m glad I experienced them. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

(id hoped to post pîctures but the internet is too slow...next time)

May you share this holiday season with those you love and may the new year bring you much joy and fulfilment in all you do!!

I just spent a wonderful couple days here in Gao with my Malian Peace Corps family to celebrate the holiday. Not all of Gao bori (Songhai for people of) was here but we had guests including parents, girlfriends and friends who joined us and shared the holiday. We had a cocktail party on Christmas eve. Everyone dressed up and we drank mulled wine, mojitos and Scottish whiskey! We also had quite the spread of desserts and appetizers to munch on and great music to dance the night away to. WE went to Church on Xmas day and although the mass was mostly in Frnech and Bambara there were some songs the choir sang that we knew some of the words too. It gave me a warm feeling just to be in a place that had some Christmas decorations and Christmas songs. This year has been harder than last in terms of nostalgia and missing you all. It got bad enough that I decorated my house back home with snowflake cut outs and stars made out of pictures from magazines (see picture) and even taught my little sister how to make them as well. My walls are now covered in square snowflakes made by her and I’ll have some explaining to do before I can take them down. I received lots of delicious foods and warm clothes in packages from my family so I was able to open presents just like we do at home.

While in Gao we also held a bachelorette party for our friend who is marrying a fellow volunteer in Hombori. We went on a scavenger hunt through the Malian market, our bride to be adorned in tinsel and fairy star headband. We actually got less catcalls and harassment than normal because I think we left them all in shock ! We were telling those who asked that in our culture every new married woman has to go out on the town, dressed up to the nines on the day after Christmas to bless her marriage. Then we came back to the house for food and pedicures. It was my first bachelorette party ever and considering the circumstances, I think we had a pretty good time.

Before we came to Gao for Christmas, Bess, Rachel, a fellow volunteer from Gao region and I held a Girls empowerment and HIV/AIDS education camp over three days. All the girls worked really hard, paid attention and contributed in all of the sessions. We had a the local clinic nurse come to speak about AIDS and a visiting doctor from Gao talked to the girls about her life career and striving towards your goals and fulfilling your dreams. I believe that it was the first itme that many of the girls in the room had learned any of the stuff we talked about, and certainly the first time a fellow Malian woman had told them they had to take control of their own lives, work to pursue their dreams and make choices for themselves. She talked about waiting until after you’ve finished your schooling to marry, a very uncommon suggestion and path in my village and in the country. The girls were truly in awe of her and I’ll feel enormously happy if even one girl in our group decides to continue on to high school and even university.

At the camp we also presented on health and nutrition, hand-washing and talked about role models and women in African history. The last day the girls divided into three groups and created skits that they will present at local schools and on the radio. They also decided to have a “soiree” night at the local youth center and a traditional music night which they will use as an opportunity to educate the audience about HIV/AIDS. We’ve got some giggling fits we have to get past before we’ll be ready to present but there are some true leaders among the girls, who set a great example (except when anyone has to say les relations sexuelle non-protegees!). Check out the pictures of them doing team-building activities like the human web.

Our work with these girls has truly been some of the most fulfilling I’ve done here and reinforced my commitment to the youth in village. As I wrote last time, all the funding has come through for our youth center project and we’ll start construction in the coming month! Giving these girls, and the boys too!, a chance to know the world outside the village and actually develop dreams beyond the daily grind of life here is so important and I thank you all once again for your support and commitment to my work!

Now for some stories of the past month. To get to Gao from site we have to wait on the roadside for buses coming from Bamako to pass. They can come any time from 4am to 12 noon sometimes even later and we’ve had days where we’ve waited hours to catch a bus. As I described before, I was very anxious to get to Gao to celebrate Xmas as were my fellow volunteers so as the hours passed on December 23 and no buses were passing we were considering everything that passed a transportation option, except donkey carts of course. We were settling in for a long day, Jared had his guitar out serenading the children, women roadside vendors and store owners and Bess, Rachel and I were striking up conversations with anyone who would listen to us talk about our wonderful fete (holiday) coming up. Then a blue midsize truck pulls up, one you might see making deliveries to Staples or a small size moving truck. Out climbs three white people, a middle aged man, and two women, one in her late twenties, the other maybe her mother?(always exciting to see “takafarts”-we’re as bad as the Malians when we see white people now, exclaiming and pointing and forgetting that they might speak English) and we strike up a conversation. They’d travelled all the way from France in this truck to bring supplies to their “adopted” Malian friend/brother/son who lived south of Gao. The inside of the bed of their truck was converted into a little house, with a kitchen, bed shower couch etc but was also crammed with all the stuff they were bringing in no discernible system of organization. It looked like they were bringing some computers, clothes chairs and other miscellaneous items They offered us a free ride to Gao and being the cheap PCV’s we are we all climbed in discovering the mess that comes with bumpy roads, not tying or nailing things down and the carefree lifestyle that allows one to take off however many months from work to travel down to Africa by truck. There were some tipsy moments in the back during our two hour ride, mainly because there weren’t seats per se to sit in. Jared made himself quite comfortable, climbing up into their bed and taking a nap, but the rest of us were too busy avoiding falling light bulbs and catching ourselves so that we didn’t fall into sharp objects. In retrospect it may not have been the safest thing I’ve done but I also have never ridden in the back of a truck before (well at least an enclosed one), so now I can cross that off my list of life things to do. We decided that the people with whom we were riding could be categorized as modern travelling people—they certainly embraced an out of the ordinary lifestyle; the man had even adopted Toureg dress yet refused to conform to Malian standards of footwear, opting instead for bare feet and challenging the thorns to prove him otherwise. We never did figure out what the relationship was between all three of them but they were exceptionally kind to us and it was an honor to meet them and hear about the selfless adventure they were taking over the holidays. The way they lived also made me think about living simply and remembering what’s really important about the journey.

Two days before our trip to Gao, on the last day of our AIDS camp, I came out of my house in the morning to two other white people greeting my host family and asking for Raisha. They turned out to be two archaeologists, one a college professor and the other her doctoral student who was looking for a spot to do her fieldwork for her thesis. They inquired after artifacts in the area and I helped them as much as I could with contacts, maps and info that I knew. I also brought them out what I had believed to merely be a rock with which a young Toureg man had attempted to woo me, proclaiming it an object from the paleological era. I’m ashamed to say I’d laughed it off with my Malian brother, wondering how this guy could think I was such a sucker and was he really trying to curry favour by giving me a ROCK? The doctor and her student took one look at it and confirmed it to be a tool from 4000 years ago and within the hour off to the town where it had come from. When they came back that night they had found all sorts of tools and objects and now the doctoral student is considering returning here for her studies. Sharing a meal with them and discussing Mali in a totally new and interesting way was really enjoyable and had us all intrigued by the geological and ancient history of the region. The doctor has already done a lot of work in Djenne and now some of her students are working in Gao as well tracing back the culture and history of the trans-saharan trade routes and other interactions between the different communities. The doctor and her partner’s work has served to prove that major trade was occurring along the Niger, long before scholars had previously believed, prior to the beginning of the trans-Saharan trade. If anyone is interested in reading more about it, I can send you articles about it. It was also neat to hear about Africa from a academic scholars perspective, who could look at the society objectively and not through a development social responsibility lense. While I’m sure they notice the poverty and difficulties this country faces, they’re see the geological fixtures and the rocks beneath our feet and the stories they tell and have dedicated their life to these studies. Of course it made me want to be an archaeologist haha so tack that on to my list of things to do.

Here’s another article that was just in the new york times about mali, security and radical Islam. (see below) Its hard to judge what really is going on up there in the desert but I can certainly speak for Timbuktu region and gao and say that there is none to VERY little danger of radical islam or al-quaeda taking hold here. They make a very good point about the lack of jobs for young men and the new mosques springing up. But that’s for another blog post-read the article and ask me questions if you have them and ill write more next time.

U.S. Training in Africa Aims to Deter Extremists

By ERIC SCHMITT

KATI, Mali — Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, another side of America’s fight against terrorism is unfolding in this remote corner of West Africa. American Green Berets are training African armies to guard their borders and patrol vast desolate expanses against infiltration by Al Qaeda’s militants, so the United States does not have to.

A recent exercise by the United States military here was part of a wide-ranging plan, developed after the Sept. 11 attacks, to take counterterrorism training and assistance to places outside the Middle East, like the Philippines and Indonesia. In Africa, a five-year, $500 million partnership between the State and Defense Departments includes Algeria, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia, and Libya is on the verge of joining.

American efforts to fight terrorism in the region also include nonmilitary programs, like instruction for teachers and job training for young Muslim men who could be singled out by militants’ recruiting campaigns.

One goal of the program is to act quickly in these countries before terrorism becomes as entrenched as it is in Somalia, an East African nation where there is a heightened militant threat. And unlike Somalia, Mali is willing and able to have dozens of American and European military trainers conduct exercises here, and its leaders are plainly worried about militants who have taken refuge in its vast Saharan north.

“Mali does not have the means to control its borders without the cooperation of the United States,” Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister, said in an interview.

Mali, a landlocked former French colony that is nearly twice the size of Texas with roughly half the population, has a relatively stable, though still fragile, democracy. But it borders Algeria, whose well-equipped military has chased Qaeda militants into northern Mali, where they have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, making them even more difficult to track.

With only 10,000 people in its military and other security forces, and just two working helicopters and a few airplanes, Mali acknowledges how daunting a task it is to try to drive out the militants.

The biggest potential threat comes from as many as 200 fighters from an offshoot of Al Qaeda called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which uses the northern Malian desert as a staging area and support base, American and Malian officials say.

About three months ago, the Qaeda affiliate threatened to attack American forces that operated north of Timbuktu (or Tombouctou) in Mali’s desert, three Defense Department officials said. One military official said the threat contributed to a decision to shift part of the recent training exercise out of that area.

The government of neighboring Mauritania said 12 of its soldiers were killed in an attack there by militants in September. By some accounts, the soldiers were beheaded and their bodies were booby-trapped with explosives.

Two Defense Department officials expressed fear that a main leader of the Qaeda affiliate in Mali, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was under growing pressure to carry out a large-scale attack, possibly in Algeria or Mauritania, to establish his leadership credentials within the organization.

Members of the Qaeda affiliate have not attacked Malian forces, and American and Malian officials privately acknowledge that military officials here have adopted a live-and-let-live approach to the Qaeda threat, focusing instead on rebellious Tuareg tribesmen, who also live in the sparsely populated north.

To finance their operations, the militants exact tolls from smugglers whose routes traverse the Qaeda sanctuary, and collect ransoms in kidnappings. In late October, two Austrians were released after a ransom of more than $2 million was reportedly paid. They had been held in northern Mali after being seized in southern Tunisia in February.

Because of the militants’ activities, American officials eye the largely ungoverned spaces of Mali’s northern desert with concern.

This year, the United States Agency for International Development is spending about $9 million on counterterrorism measures here. Some of the money will expand an existing job training program for women to provide young Malian men in the north with the basic skills to set up businesses like tiny flour mills or cattle enterprises. Some aid will train teachers in Muslim parochial schools in an effort to prevent them from becoming incubators of anti-American vitriol.

The agency is also building 12 FM radio stations in the north to link far-flung villages to an early-warning network that sends bulletins on bandits and other threats. Financing from the Pentagon will produce, in four national languages, radio soap operas promoting peace and tolerance.

“Young men in the north are looking for jobs or something to do with their lives,” said Alexander D. Newton, the director of A.I.D.’s mission in Mali. “These are the same people who could be susceptible to other messages of economic security.”

Concern about Mali’s vulnerability also brought a dozen Army Green Berets from the 10th Special Forces Group in Germany, as well as several Dutch and German military instructors, to Mali for the two-week training exercise that ended last month.

Just before noon on a recent sunny, breezy day, Malian troops swept onto a training range here on the savannah north of Bamako, the capital, aboard two CV-22 Ospreys, rotor-blade transport aircraft flown by Air Force Special Operations crews from Hurlburt Field, Fla.

As the dull-gray aircraft landed in a swirling cloud of dust, rotors whomp-whomping, the Malians disembarked single file from the rear ramp in dark-green camouflage uniforms and helmets, M-4 assault rifles at the ready. (The Malians normally use AK-47s, but used American-issue M-4’s for this exercise.)

After a mile-long march through savannah grass, the troops walked down a hill into a small valley. Their target — the mock hide-out of the insurgents — was in sight. But what the Malians did not know was that their American instructors were lying in wait, and suddenly attacked the troops with a sharp staccato of small-arms fire (plastic paint bullets), with red flares soaring high overhead.

The make-believe skirmish lasted just a few minutes. The Malians, shouting to one another and firing at their attackers, retreated from the ambush rather than try to fight through it.

“We’re still learning,” said Capt. Yossouf Traore, a 28-year-old commander, speaking in English that he learned in Texas and at Fort Benning, Ga., as a visiting officer. “We’re getting a lot of experience in leadership skills and making decisions on the spot.”

Even more significant, Captain Traore said, was that the exercise gave his troops an unusual opportunity to train with soldiers from neighboring Senegal. Soon after the Ospreys returned to whisk the Malian soldiers from the training range, two planeloads of Senegalese troops arrived to carry out the same maneuvers.

Still, worrisome indicators are giving some Malian government and religious leaders, as well as American officials, pause about the country’s ability to deal with security risks.

Mali is the world’s fifth-poorest country and, according to some statistics from the United Nations and the State Department, is getting poorer. One in five Malian children dies before age 5. The average Malian does not live to celebrate a 50th birthday. The country’s population, now at 12 million, is doubling nearly every 20 years. Literacy rates hover around 30 percent and are much lower in rural areas.

There are also small signs that radical clerics are beginning to make inroads into the tolerant form of Islam practiced here for centuries by Sunni Muslims. The number of Malian women wearing all-enveloping burqas is still small, but the increase in the past few years is noticeable, religious leaders say.

New mosques are springing up, financed by conservative religious organizations in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran, and scholarships offered to young Malian men to study in those countries are on the rise, Malian officials say.

In Imam Mahamadou Diallo’s neighborhood in Bamako, a congested, fume-choked city on the Niger River, a simmering debate is under way. Imam Diallo, 48, said that two new mosques had been built in his area with financing from Wahhabi extremist groups in Saudi Arabia, and that they were drawing away some members of his mosque.

“Many people here are poor and don’t have work,” Imam Diallo said through an interpreter in Bambara, one of the local languages. “They’re potentially vulnerable to these Wahhabi people coming in with money.”

Just down a bumpy, reddish dirt road, however, the leader of one of these newer mosques, Al Nour, quarreled with Imam Diallo’s characterization. Ali Abdourohmome Cisse, the imam since Al Nour opened in 2002, said he did not know who had financed its construction. He added that no one on his staff, including an Egyptian assistant who helps conduct Friday Prayer in Arabic, advocated any form of extremism.

At El Mouhamadiya, an Islamic school in the neighborhood, more than 700 students, ages 4 to 25, take classes including math, physics and Arabic. “But we don’t train them in terrorism,” said Broulaye Sylla, 25, an administrator. “We don’t talk about jihad.”

Mahmoud Dicko, president of the High Council of Islam in Bamako, acknowledged over soft drinks in his second-story office that the influence of conservative Sunni and even Shiite groups had become more visible, but he said they did not pose a serious threat to Malian society.

“Their influence has limits because of the importance of cultural ties here in Mali,” he said. “We have a tolerant Islam here, a pacifist Islam.”

American and African diplomats here said Mali was one of the few countries in the region that had good relations with most neighbors, making it a likely catalyst for the broader regional security cooperation the United States is trying to foster. American commanders expressed confidence that by training together, the African forces might work together against transnational threats like Al Qaeda. While Mali has no effective helicopter fleet, for instance, it could team up its soldiers with better-equipped neighboring armies, like Algeria’s, to combat a common threat.

“If we don’t help these countries work together, it becomes a much more difficult problem,” said Lt. Col. Jay Connors, the senior American Special Forces officer on the ground here during the exercise.

American and Malian officials acknowledged that there were other hurdles to overcome. The Pentagon needs to better explain the role of its new Africa Command, created in October to oversee military activities on the continent, and to dispel fears that the United States is militarizing its foreign policy, Malian officials said.

American officials say their strategy is to contain the Qaeda threat and train the African armies, a process that will take years. The nonmilitary counterterrorism programs are just starting, and it is too early to gauge results.

“This is a long-term effort,” said Colonel Connors, 45, an Africa specialist from Burlington, Vt., who speaks French and Portuguese. “This is crawl, walk, run, and right now, we’re still in the crawl phase.”

Eric Schmitt reported from Mali in November, and did additional reporting from Washington

Happy thanksgiving from Mali!! We're heading out in a couple hours for a big thanksgiving meal in Sevare with duck, pie and ice cream. This may sound unhealthy but I've been almost starving myself all day so I can eat as much as possible tonight!

First off...THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! The youth center project has been funded and when the money arrives sometime this month we should be able to start construction on the building. I really can't express how much it means to me that you all supported my project. he only thing we're lacking now for the space is the books to put in our library. I'm trying to find French or English organizations that donate books so if you know of any please let me know! or if you have any old books in English or French that you'd like to get rid of please leave me a comment and I can send you an address to send them to. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I feel so grateful for the amazing friends and family I've been given and it makes me so proud in village to tell people that my amazing friends and family care about them! I'm so lucky for the friends and family I have. AND not only for the money but for the love and support i get everyday. I always know they're will be a facebook message, email, letter or package waiting for me and although it sounds silly, a letter makes my week!

Weeks have been flying by lately and I can't believe its almost Christmas. After Halloween and the election I had lots of work to do at site before heading down to Sevarre and Bamako for Thanksgiving and meetings. Bess and I are planning a gender and development camp for young women in our village. We're focusing on AIDS/HIV prevention, child and maternal health and girls empowerment. At the end of the three day camp the girls will write a play or radio broadcast to present to the community and then we'll have a party. Its been really fun to plan and the doctor's helping us and the girls we've invited are really enthusiastic and motivated.

The tree pepiniere association has grown again, adding several new members and having discussions about finding a bigger space to work in. We've faced some obstacles in selling the trees and deciding how to market them. I'm hoping that another volunteer will be placed at my site so that they can continue to help them.

Its almost time for the elephants to arrive in Gossi so tourists will start coming soon. We're in the midst of setting up a guide office/info center and artisan room at the local lodge and I'm hoping to collaborate soon with another volunteer on a gourma region biodiversity website too to raise awareness internationally.

Its almost time for Tabaski also known as Eid al-adha(i think i've talked about this holiday in another post) so everyone is buying ram and fattening them up for slaughter to honor Abraham's devotion and willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Allah intervened and offered a lamb to sacrifice instead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Adha

We've been seeing buses going by, their roofs packed with a hundred or so sheep heading south. ITs really a site to see. It seems like rams are appearing everywhere now. Im looking out the window at three in our peace corps concession that the guards are keeping here before the fete. Eveyrone buys the rams ahead of time because the price climbs high the week or two before. Last year by day three of the celebration Bess Jared and I were acutally getting sick of meat, which considering how little we get usually is pretty shocking. Its a fun time for everyone, children get all dressed up in new cloths, and women (who can afford it) decorate their houses with new drapes etc. My host mom is putting in new plastic flooring that i bought for her in gao, kind of like fake tile? She's very excited. im kind of on holiday overload, with thanksgiving, tabaski, christmas new years etc.

Thats pretty much it in terms of a quick update. Ill try to get some funny stories down over the next couple days since i have wireless access.

love to everyone!

ps--I wanted to post some pictures from the last couple months to share with you all. From the election party we had in gao and from a trip to the dune rose- a beautiful huge sand dune located next to the Niger near Gao.

obama WINS!!!

the dune rose

I wrote these entries before the internet broke the last time I was in gao. Nothing new to report; things here are great and its actually CHILLY in the morning. Making preparations to ehad down south for thanksgiving and my vac meeting and another volunteer is coming to our site to paint murals at our school. Shes going to let me help, which for those of you who know my artistic skills, she’s really being very kind and taking a big risk putting a paintbrush in my hand.

I also need to ask for all your help. The funding for the youth center library has almost all come in but I still need to fill it with books. If you have any books you would like to donate, French preferably but we’ll take English too for any age group, please contact ldf@flournoylaw.com, my momma, and she can give you the address to send the book too. Also, If you know of anyone who has an old computer or laptop too that they don’t need or are looking to get rid of/donate to an excellent cause, and only basically functions, we would put it to good use. Please contact me on the comments section of the blog. Thank you notes are on the way to everyone who donated! Thank you all so much for helping us to make this happen.

November 3, 2008

It’s the day before the biggest day of the year. This could be better than Christmas birthday and St patrick’s day combined. Ive made sure that I’m with friends so that if in the two possible alternate scenarios, I can either be put on suicide watch or supported as I have seizures of joy. I’m sure in the states its been nothing but election coverage 24/7 and every possible argument and conjecture has been made, analyzed and then made again on another cable channel five minutes later—and I kind of miss that, just a little. I mean I was the fifth grader who had a map set up next to me in front of the tv to keep track of the electoral college. But even here in the land of the midnight sun, as we affectionately call this remote corner of the world, there’s been a lot of election excitement- the mayor of Gossi holding us hostage in his office for half an hour sharing with us everything he knows about barrack and emphasizing how important the American election is to the entire world and expecially mali (he had some good reasoning) or the old man seated outside the gendarme station, asking us if we knew how long obama would be visiting his sick grandma in Hawaii, or the man coming up to us at the track in gao, pleading us to vote for obama and then pumping his fist in triumph when we let him know we’d already sent in our ballots. The rest of the world is pretty invested in this America. So please don’t mess it up.

My only excuse for not writing for over a month is actually a really good one. We haven’t had internet. Its back up now, kind of, so if you’ve sent me emails etc I apologize for my lack of response. We did manage to get out an email to invite all the volunteers in the country up here for Halloween. This past week Gao has had the highest concentration of white people in mali apart from maybe Bamako, and certainly the highest concentration of crazy white people. We had a our party visited the tourist sites of gao, and pretty much overwhelmed the populace with our 35+ group of white people trekking through town. It was nice to see people from down south that I haven’t seen since april but its incredible to realize how close you become to your teammates just out of proximity and sad how much you miss being separated from the people you were close to in training but who are now on the other side of the country. Its given me a new perspective on friendships and meeting people. I absolutely love my teammates and I think we might get along better than if I had to choose 10 people to work live and have fun with. We even each other out. We’re funny, calm, sarcastic, spiritual, hilarious, serious and almost uniformly goofy. They’re my family right now and im grateful for such an amazing group of individuals.

We’re on another positive upswing in gossi, we’ve decided to give work another chance. (not to be sarcastic, ok maybe it leaks out once in a while but you would understand when you’ve shown up for a meeting three days in a row or four weeks in a row, waited an hour, used up your phone credit and then returned back to your house to try to find something to do since you’ve already read the five books you brought to site with you—im exaggerating, about the books). Our ongoing conservation efforts with the elephants and the gourma biodiversity have been receiving lots of support and help from the USFS and it looks like we’re going to be able to collaborate on some small projects including environmental education and handouts of educational materials. The members of my tree association planted new seeds for trees to sell the other day that we think will be more marketable including more fruit trees. I’m trying to be more and more hands-off so the project is sustainable. A friend from Gao has offered to come and paint murals at our school too. She hopes to do a sign and a world map on the wall. Besides that it’s the day to day grind, going to market, greeting people, maybe starting up some plots to grow flowers for Rachel and kevin’s wedding (two volunteers from our stage, met here, fell in love, and are going to get married here in mali in January.) I wish I was there to watch the election but I think we’re going to have a good time here too.

I wrote the following after no sleep… I felt the moment needed to be recorded but maybe I should have taken a nap first. My apologies….

November 5

I’ve been hit by an emotional truck of joy. Ive cried, wept, cried again, sang, kissed the tv, laughed hysterically at how destiny likes to play funny tricks on us (joe biden is from the hometown of the office, Scranton pa-maybe jim will be secretary of the treasury) and ive woken up with a huge grin still plastered on my face. I will remember where I was at that moment for the rest of my life, who I was with and how surreal I felt the next day. We didn’t sleep but spent the night watching our future unfold in front of our eyes. And so when that beautiful family walked on to the stage my face flooded and didn’t let up until joe biden’s grandma practically fist pumped.

This means a lot for volunteers. We were proud to serve our society, our nation but now we’re proud to serve the administration, to represent our government. No more qualifiers necessary (“I support democracy but I don’t support our president”, Malians don’t get that). Thank you everyone back home who voted and Congratulations!!

Our pepiniere!!

planting with my women from our tree nursery training

theres a tree underneath the sac, they're protecting it from the inevitable goat

there's also a tree in this picture, i swear we actually planted.

Almost one official year! October 1 will mark the one year anniversary of my arrival at site. I however have not been at site recently! I've just returned from my wonderful ten days in tunisia where I was happily reunited with Kate and Miche. We had a really relaxing and fun time and it was so good to be with friends who have known you at your best and worst(ex: right before a econ final, not having slept for 36 hours). it was like no time had passed, although i did show my ignorance on the past year's pop culture on several occasions.

Tunisia is like a islamic french greece. how so you ask?

Islamic- We were traveling during Rammadan which made it difficult some days to find an open restaurant during the day and a glass of wine at night. We saw several beautiful mosques, although we couldn't go inside and their calls to pray are sung by muezzins, not recordings, so they were really beautiful to hear. There's a large population of women who choose to wear the hijab, but also a population that chooses not to. I would estimate it to be 50-50.

French- Tunisia is a former french colony so not only do tunisians speak french (and with pretty god accents I might add) but they've also picked up on alot of aspects of french culture like cuisine (crepes! pain au chocolat!), but also often mixing it with their own mediterranean dishes. We had amazing seafood and some traditional dishes too, like the pastries Muslims eat when breaking their fast during Ramaddan. There are streets in Tunis that look just like Paris, one is actually called the Champs Elysses of Tunis.

Greece- When flying over Tunis, it looked like someone had dropped a big can of white paint and just coated the city. When you get closer on the ground, you see the blue accents on the doors and windows. Sidi Bou Siad is a beautiful town outside of Tunis that we visited and I posted some of the pictures below. We stayed at an apt building on the water in the beach resort town of Hammamet which was also very beautiful. The water was crystal clear and warm (most days). A mediterranean paradise!

Here's some pictures, you'll understand the greece thing from these?

Sidi bou Said

Sidi Bou Said

more sidi bou

on our apt balcony--she came with the house

carthage ruins

full moon on the water

view from our balcony

miche and Kate thanks for an amazing vacation. it was just what i needed! where to next?

Im up at 439 unable to sleep after the dust wind storm woke us up and moved us inside and then the heat pushed us right back outside. the sheet over my head didn’t keep much of the sand out of my hair and with the mosquitos buzzing intermittenly between wind gusts outside my mosquito net I eventually gave in, planning instead on sleeping in the car today down to Bamako. Iv'e written some blogposts at site jsut on paper that i type up later so I can share more with you when i do get to internet.

Fadi

I sat outside of the Gao house today talking with Fadi, the girl who comes here to wash dishes and do laundry and whose family has helped us out for years of volunteers. Because there’s so many of us sort of living here and moving in and out its nice to pay someone to help us with stuff so that it doesn’t pile up and fall on one person to do three days of dishes and this way a malian earns an income. She was sad that James and Dave, two volunteers who are just finishing up their service, had left and that she didn’t have a photo of them. It really touched me because even though sometimes the only interaction we have with her is a quick hello as we catch her on her way out of the concession and shes seen a lot of volunteers come and go, she still really valued our friendship and just wanted a picture to remember them by. I promised to find her one.

Earlier on she’d confided in me that she was pregnant and asked if I would have children a question I often get here. I told her someday I would but not while in Mali- and would it be a boy or girl that I wanted she asked. I told her a girl and asked her in turn. She said a girl and joked she would name the baby Aisha, my malian name. While sometimes I grasp for conversation topics with my limited vocabulary, Fadi seemed content to just sit next to me even in silence enjoying my company and my friendship. This wise young girl, my age or younger, expecting her second kid, and never having attended school, agreed the kids in Gao could be rude and mean to us. After all she professed, all that was different about us white people was that we wore white people clothes. I loved that. Although she used a major physical feature, our skin color, to differentiate as to whom she was referring, she didn’t recognize it as a divisive characteristic. Only our white people clothes gave us away as “white people”. We were all of one god, so what was the big deal? I usually try to avoid conversations around this topic, religion can be tough to navigate without the words to describe. But fadi understood so much more, so much more simply.

Some noises

One night when Bess was sleeping over (its considered indecent for a woman to sleep at home by herself if her husband is our of town) a huge chorus of children yelling banging pots plastic whatever they could get their hands on broke out all around us. Now this sort of noise is not unprecedented but usually the racket follows the curve of the passing of a speeding train, rising and falling quickly as the group of people celebrating a marriage birth etc. turns the corner around our concession.

This time the noise started in my own concession, Suleiman and Moussa on a chore to bang out a piece of metal, I thought on the border of sleep. But why did they have to do it now and right next to my house. The protests of an old man visiting to watch it TV in my concession pushed them outside the concession door and it was then that I realized behind me, in the gendarmes concession, across the street where the Bambara functionaries family lives and from down the street where a group of children must have gathered came the sounds of banging plastic bottles shouting singing pots being smacked with wooden sticks. It was truly a cacophony and wasn’t dying down anytime soon. I peeled my fatigued, nearly asleep body out of bed and trudged to the front of the concession to inquire as to the purpose of these sounds. My mom pointed at the almost full moon nearly obscured byt the clouds and said “because the moon is being taken” I immediatesly thought of an eclipse which made perfest sense. Even in the US I’ve heard of superstitions surrpuonding lunar and solar eclipses but as I quickly turned to look at the moon again it appeared as it had earlier that night—nearly full and partially obscured by clouds. I protested to her that there was still a little bit showing, that it wasn’t completely gone but that didn’t matter to her nor the kids. As I walked back up to my house, having resister the urge to commence a lecture on lunar cycles and to exact an explanation as to why the amount of moon showing now was any different from when we had a quarter moon or even a sliver, I glanced back at the cloud cover and knew the noise wouldn’t stop until the kids fell asleep drumming, sticks in hand, heads on pots or pans serving as pillows. The clouds would certainly win this match. Bess explained to me that she’d just heard the other day that they believe the moon is being stolen by a car and so they bang the pots and pans to scare it away. Eventualy the banging just faded into all the other noise I’ve grown accustomed to, singing me to sleep.

When I was talking to my mom on the phone last week we had one of those annoying echoing connections where you’re forced to hear the sound of your own voice after everything you say, which if you’re anything like me causes you to change your pitch and tone to be super feminine and upbeat, like some over caffeinated female news morning news anchor. After several minutes of wondering if my voice really was that deep, I noted an imperceptible noise echoing alongside our conversation. It had to be coming from my end. As I looked around I realized the goats had come home from the garden and their babies were bleating for milk. I had become so accustomed to the background noise that I only noticed it because it was coming back at me thru the phone. Its decibel level had to be greater or equal to my (by now) singsongy cheer and I suddenly realized how terrible it must be for the person talking to me on the phone, wondering if I’m actually trying to stand around as many animals as possible.I started giggling which turned into full on laughter at my situation and how genuinely oblivious I’ve become.

Several nights later, most of my family ahd left the concession to go watch the feuilleton and only tekmanit, my host mom, and my two little brothers, the baby (the three noise culprits) and myself were left in the concession. My host mom went inside to help my little brother find his mattress and sheet with the aide of her flashlight and my baby sister quickly gave chase, her little feet barely keeping up with the forward movement of her body. Oumar, not to be left out, leaped up from his mattress and ran after her, courteously notifying me that as to his current destination. And then there it was. Silence. I hadn’t heard it since when? I couldn’t recall. I aly my head back and enjoyed the stars and my thoughts for a moment until the pitter patter of feet announced their arrival and the return of the noises that I’ve come to know and love.

Now, I’m in bamako leaving for vacation on Saturday. the first time ive left mali in over a year other than to go to burkina for a couple days to pick up my parents. I’m a little nervous about how it will feel. Will I like it too much, remember and savor my dependence on first world goods and services? Will the vacation ive built up towards for a year be anticlimactic? Or will it be a glimpse of the existential crisis I imagine myself to have whenever I think about going back in another year? Or will I just enjoy the break and then be prepared to come back and start fresh after being worn thin from a year of extreme ups and downs

A couple days ago I was talking with another volunteer about how transitory our lives are. We’ve only know just started to really become close with the group who came in a year before us and now they’re leaving us and a whole new batch to get to know is coming in now that we’ll only have a year to share our experience with. And even with the people who are in your year, only a quarter of them you see regularly. The close friends you make during training may end up on the opposite side of the country from you and you only see them occasionally if ever when you’re passing through Bamako or you can coordinate your schedules to vacation together. Then there’s the transition you make every two or three weeks when you leave site, come into the regional capitol for banking internet and a beer or two and before you know it site is calling you back for work, a baptism, a wedding….I sometimes allow my mind to catch up with my body and I realize where I am and this isn’t some dream life I’m living for someone else for two years. Its just that I have changed so much that I feel like this is a different life and I’m a different person living it, constantly adapting changing. This is most likely not making any sense to the reader at this point but as my friend said the other day; you can’t really talk about it with someone who hasn’t done Peace Corps. You can certainly have an amazing conversation, but they won’t truly understand. They can only imagine and these conversations loom over my head a year from now, wanting to make you understand but wondering if I’m wasting your time.

This constant change- even when you’re sitting at site in the middle of the day, waiting for the heat to break and your mind is turning over things you’ve never had or thought to think about before—this questioning, trying to reorganize the way things have always been arranged and explained in my head—or the random dreams about people from high school you haven’t seen and won’t see for years that you wake up from like you’d just been there but find yourself in a different time, in a different spirit and mind amd wondering where and why that person is buried in your subconscious. And that’s what’s weird. You can separate your dreams from reality; you wake up from sleep and know that was a dream. Yet sometimes in the middle of the day as I’m walking down the street in broad daylight I wake up—I wake up but not from sleep and realize this all isn’t a dream. And then I’m leaving again to go to Bamako or somewhere else with each day passing drawing me closer to the biggest transition of them all. What happens when these two people with two different lives merge?

more later

Some of you have been asking abotu the food situation in Mali with the food crisis going on. Mali is self-sufficient in millet and sorghum so the prices haven't gone up too much here for thost staples, but the price for a sack of rice has gone up alot. Here's an article our country director just sent us that you might find interesting.

MALI: Food situation looks positive

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79197

GAO, 11 July 2008 (IRIN) - Despite high global food prices, conflict in the north and the onset of the lean season which lasts from July to September, the food security situation in the north and elsewhere, looks positive this year in Mali.

"[Food] prices are going up, but it's normal; stocks are good and the cereal is available. We think overall, the harvest will be good," said Alice Martin-Diahirou, director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Mali.

"There are pockets of concern for us around the towns of Bourem and Ansongo, near Gao, but the situation this year is not serious like in previous years," she said.

The positive outlook for food security in the north comes despite the recent insecurity in the region. A number of violent raids and clashes have caused more than 50 deaths over the past few months as the Touareg rebellion has escalated.

Gao, 1,200 km north of the capital, Bamako, is currently under an unofficial curfew, and many people fear the rebels have laid landmines on the road up to Kidal.

However, aid agencies said so far this was having little effect on their ability to operate. "Although Gao is classified by the UN as facing a security threat, we are not seeing any interruptions to our work here," said Mohammed Ag Hamalouta, from WFP in Gao. "This year is quite a normal one for us."

Rains good so far

The rainy season in the Malian Sahel appears to have started well. "Although we have to treat first predictions with caution, it seems like the rainy season in the Gao and Timbuktu regions will be good," Dirama Diarra, head of research and the development of rainfall prediction at the National Meteorological Office, told IRIN. "We think it will be humid with more rains than normal."

This is welcome news for farmers in and around Gao which lies deep in the Sahelian belt. Mostly they rely on rain-fed agriculture. Even in a good year, it only rains about 10 times in Gao.

Self-sufficient in millet, sorghum

Mali has been more protected than some of its neighbours by global food price rises because it is self-sufficient in millet and sorghum, the staple food of 80 percent of its population, and it exports these grains to its West African neighbours, including Mauritania, Senegal and Burkina Faso.

But the country has not been entirely insulated from global food price rises, particularly when it comes to rice. Mali produces on average half of its total annual rice consumption, importing the rest mostly from Asia. "We have seen some rises in the price of local rice," said Christian Bren from the non-governmental organisation Action contre la Faim in Gao, "but Mali has better managed the high prices than the other countries."

High rice prices mainly affect urban residents who prefer to eat it rather than traditional grains. Consumer rice prices in Bamako were 27 percent higher than the five-year average in March 2008, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Government action

To cushion the blow, the government has levied import taxes on rice, and heavily subsidises fuel costs, making them among the lowest in West Africa. The ministries of economy and finance also introduced additional regulations for imported rice in March: "Any businessman who benefits from tax exemptions on rice imports has to sell it at a fixed price to consumers," said Mahaman Assouma Touré, the national director of commerce.

Because of these measures the government has so far succeeded in stabilising the price of rice at about 70 US cents per kilogram.

The government has also adopted the 2008-2009 Rice Initiative, in which it commits to setting aside land and providing agricultural equipment to increase its rice paddy fields by half, bringing production up to 1.6 million tonnes per year.

The next step, according to Touré, is for Mali to increase its self-sufficiency in other basic products. Mali is still heavily reliant on imports of basic necessities, importing 70 percent of products such as cooking oil and dairy products, but there are as yet no concrete schemes in place to improve yields for any of these products.

According to a World Bank official who preferred anonymity, with the right investment Mali could go even further - moving beyond self-sufficiency to becoming a major exporter.

"Mali has to get over its addiction to rice and start growing other crops in higher quantities - sesame seeds, dates, potatoes, bananas, and mangoes," the official told IRIN. "Mali could become a major bread-basket in West Africa if it plays its cards right."

on the way to fourth of july

it was a little cramped

the participants in my formations

monkey

hippo, little ot sticking up

sandstorm

I am very very tired. I just got off a bus that left from Kita at 2am and got into bamako at 5am, making this the 5 or 6 night in a row I haven't gotten my regular 9-10hours of sleep. This past week I've been on a little mini adventure for the fourth of July and got to see a drastically different side of Mali, so different I felt as if I was in a different country. Several volunteers got together in Manantali, a small town/city in the southwest corner of Mali for the fourth of July. In addition to the good food and cool weather, there is an amazing river that passes right next to the volunteer house which is home to hippos and monkeys! Needless to say I was in heaven. I couldn't get over how drastically different two different parts of the country could be. Granted you find this in the United States and other countries I've been to before, but I think because I've been getting so used to the desert, coming to this green paradise was so refreshing and it was really tough to leave! The river reminded me so much of New England in the summer. I've posted some pictures of the festivities, monkeys and one of the hippos. I was much closer to both during my stay there but didn't have my camera on hand.

My trip down to Manatali was pretty long too. My fellow gao PCV, Sarah and I arrived in Bamako on Wednesday morning after a 20 hour bus ride and then upon discovering that everyone else was leaving for Manantali that day, we grabbed egg sandwiches and hopped on another bus for another 4 and a half hours. We had a night's rest in kita and then all 23 of us packed into a bachee and headed off for a bumpy ride through the bush. When we got there though, it was totally worth it and now I know a place to go when I need to remember what water looks like.

Since I last wrote in I've started my tree nursery formations with a great group of motivated women and men who seem genuinely interested in what they're learning; how to plant a tree, how to plant seeds and care for them after germination, how to make a compost, relationship of trees and nutrition (vitamins and nutrients from tree leaves, fruits), agroforestry techniques and grafting. Each participating association has to do a public tree planting somewhere in town and they will also recieve saplings they can take home or to their association garden. At the end of the formations, they will also decide how they want to proceed with the nursery we've started, whether it be as a large cooperative, sharing work, or just one individual person who wants to run it independently. I think by leaving the decision up to them of how to continue, it creates a sense of ownership and pride and will help the project's sustainability. When I have pictures of the public plantings, I'll let you know and put them up!

Bess and Jared just got back from America last week and had a great time. They gave alot of presentations back in the states (one at my worldwise school, Abington Friends). One of the things they noticed being there was how little we had told people about our every day lives, mostly because we've become so accustomed to it. So i made a list of interesting/strange things that I don't think I've shared with you but that now are a normal part of my life!

Top ten things "you think you know but you have no idea" (in no particular order):

1) Malians don't celebrate birthdays.

Most Malians don't even know their ages. In the past births haven't been registered, most people don't have birth certificates. When a kid gives you his age, he could be off by several years. We had an interesting conversation several weeks ago about whether Oumar was 4 or 5.

2)There are alot of big scary bugs.

The other day there was a spider on my screen door that was 3/4 the size of my hand and looked mad. I've also seen scorpions in my house, although not as big thankfully. I also have a couple lizards that show themselves once in a while and scurry fast enough to scare me.

3) I sleep outside with cows and goats.

My family has alot of sheep, goats, and cows some of which just hang out at night around the concession. Sometimes at night I'll wake up to a cow munching away on smoething only a couple feet away from me.

4)A sea of mangos!

Its mango season right now in Mali and everywhere you go, all you see are mangos, even up north. I mean everywhere--You're hardpressed to walk a blcok without someone walking by with a bunch on their head or comnig across someone selling them in front of their house. On the way down here to Bamako, I saw thousands of mangos waiting to be purchased in a 500 meter stretch along the road. I've never been a huge mango fan, maybe i'd eaten one before i came here but now that I've been here I'm obsessed. There's all sorts of different varities, big, small, grafted, non-grafted, American (? no idea why its called this). You can buy a huge delicious one for 100 cfa, about the same as a Us quarter. The best way to eat them is like an apple, skin and all. i suggest you all come over and eat some.....

5)At lunch and dinner we all eat with our hands

Speaking of eating, when i eat with my family we use our hands to scoop up rice or to, form it into a ball by squeezing it and then take a bite. WE wash our hands before and after, although soap was only just introduced by me when I arrived and I think when I'm not there, soap is mysteriously absent. Some Malian ethnicites beleive soap is bad luck

6)Mali is polygamous.

My host father has two wives, which I only recently found out. One lives out en brousse and he goes to visit her occasionally. Bess and Jared's host dad has three wives, all who live within a three block radius of each other. Usually in my village they don't all live in the same concession, like is the case in other polygamous societies in Africa. I've heard of both cases in Mali but at site the women each have their own house. I'm not going to speak about this more now because my opinions/feelings are a bit too strong.

7)There is no trash collection in this country.

ok to be fair there is some trash collection in Bamako and other cities as well, but nothing city wide or really organized. Trash is everywhere in the streets and people litter everywhere (even in my house, although we're working on this). Bess is getting a trash collection service started in Gossi though! Her plan is really great. You can donate to help the project get started at www.peacecorps.gov, then click on the donate now link.

8)Everyone has the same names.

There are some people with uncommon names (Jared's tammasheq name, Iknet, is fairly uncommon, he's the only iknet we've met) but alot of people share the same name. I've met countless girls named Aisha and Assahara in Gossi (my name and bess' name in Mali) and there are alot of men who are named mohammed, mohamet, mohammad etc. but who have nicknames so that people can tell them apart. The most common names: Mohammed, Abdoulaye, Souleymane, Fadimatah, Zeinaba, Sidi, Bobacar

9)12-3 Siesta

The middle of the day is too hot to do anything other than lie around and rest. At this point of the year its too hot to try to really sleep but you can certainly get a little bit of a cat nap in. So the middle of the day is just a nice relaxing time, except really really hot!

10) I live with an extended extended family.

Most family units include some combination of moms, dads, brothers, sisters, wives, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews. We've got five cousins living with us now, one grandson and a second cousin. In addition every market day, there are any number of people, family and friends, who come to stay for the night in the concession unannounced. Sometimes my host mom has to make extra food at the last minute, no easy task in mali

Dear Friends and Fam,

Hello from Mali! I can't believe time has gone by so fast but in about a month I'll be celebrating my one-year anniversary here. It has certainly been a year of amazing experiences, surprises and fun and I hope alot of you have been able to read my blog and check out my pictures to see what I've been up to (www.nataliegrillon.blogspot.com). Bess, Jared (my sitemates) and I have been really fortunate to have been placed in a community with a lot of motivated individuals and we're looking forward to accomplishing as much as we can in the year we have left.

I wanted to first express my appreciation for the postive feedback from emails, letters and facebook and all of the questions about my work and my life here. I hope this interest that people have expressed can now be extended to helping Gossi with a project important to the youth and the population of my village as a whole. In my work with the youth here and in conversations with various members of the community, it became apparent that the youth lacked an adequate space to come together, where they could organize events and meetings or a space to expand their learning with tutoring, lessons and books outside of a school setting. Currently the youth center is not much more than a courtyard with a stage. Groups occasionally hold dances and kids come by once in awhile to play cards but with no electricity, few chairs and tables, and crumbling walls the space is in neglect and its hard to arrange events or develop new activites. Bess, Jared and I thought that one of the most important things we could do while here was to give the youth a space to call their own and where they could discover more about the world and their community.

We want to start out by building a library with a small snack stand and a computer(both to lure people in to the library!). If we can find the funding we might even be able to bring internet to the village. The library will not only give the community a place to learn and discover individually but also to meet and offer classes. We're also hoping to buy sound equipment for dances, outdoor chairs and tables and a projector to hook up to the computer to have movie nights, which will generate income for the youth activites in addition to the small charge for computer use and the snack stand. The total project cost, without the books and computer, is around $8,000 but we're hoping to find other sources of in-kind donations for the books and computer.

I'm writing to ask for your help in the hope that each of you might be willing to make a small contribution towards the project. I've posted the project online on the Peace Corps website and donations can be made electronically. The website is www.peacecorps.gov and you click on the "donate now" link and then "donate to volunteer projects" and then under the africa section you'll find my project "community youth center" under the title of Mali. Here's also a direct link that might work https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-257 .

I realize its a tough time financially in the US right now, but if you can even make a donation of $5, it would be greatly appreciated. Please feel free to pass on to people I've left off on accident or other family and friends - we need all the help we can get! I also apologize for sending out a mass donation soliciting email--forgive me--but I unfortunately don't have unlimited access to internet to write individual emails out.

Any questions or comments, please send along or post on the blog and I thank you in advance!

Natalie

I know i've said that it was hot before but I didnt really know what i was talking about. now its hot. I can just be sitting in a room and im baking. i have a sweat sheen on my skin, sort of like beyonce in her baby boy video except not. Its scary how much the environment here effects your daily decisions and activities. its not like al(my climate change advisor dad) telling me "dont forget your raincoat natalie" and me thinking..... pshawww i wont really need it and then i regret it when im drenched later on in a downpour (al always knows the weather). here its more of a sickness , living dying thing. It is literally a health hazard to be out too long in the middle of the day and you absolutely can't forget water when you travel, even at night. When i came into gao several days ago, I left my water bottle at home on accident and even though it was night time and cooler, I was dehydrated and desperate for water when I arrived. it was really stupid and dangerous of me. People here are always willing to offer water to you because it would really be making someone suffer and risk illness if you didn't. There are days in gossi where in the middle of the day, where the only thing to do is sleep, you cant even sleep because its like trying to fall asleep in a sauna.

I came to gao to escape the heat of the day and find some ice and fans and ive also been getting some work done for the ecotourism projects im working on. A team from the us forest service is coming up to conduct a feasibility study on tourism in the region im stationed based on the elephants and the other biodiveristy in the region. It will be interesting to introduce them to my community and the projects we have going on.

I've started working with the middle school kids more, who have shown such amazing enthusiasm in writing letters to their new penpals at Abington Friends School in Pennsylvania and with whom i've started my environmental education club. Their project for next time is to either draw a comic strip or a before and after picture telling the story of their local environment based on interviews with family members. We're also hoping to arrange some activities for earth and environment week, the first week in june here. I really enjoy working with the kids because they are so motivated. I think adults here have come across many dissapointments and have lost some of their hope and drive, just like you can sometimes find in the US. The kids and I are able to work right now without thinking off all the negative things that could set us back and without getting discouraged. Its refreshing. One obstacle for the youth in Gossi is there is no high school for them to continue their studies. They have to go to Gao, timbuktu or sevarre to purue their bac and I think the cost of this prevents some students from continuing. An increasing problem in Mali at large is that even students with a high school and even university degree find it difficult to find employment. There are not many large companies in Mali and government bureaucracies already seem to be overpopulated. Many young people leave their villages to pursue employment or their education in Bamako or another city but many find themselves unemployed and as a result the villages have also lost their working age population.

quick update but better than none?

some pictures above of my classes, my little brothers with their clay animals, the garden etc.

I'm sharing this letter I wrote to my worldwise schools class in the US with you all because I relized as I answered their excellent questions that it had a lot of info in it that I hadn't shared before. They just sent a wonderful package to the kids of Gossi with letters, candy, pencils and paper that I'm going to distribute when i return to site tomorrow.

I just returned from a week long training in Bamako where we learned alot and got to see everyone from all over Mali. It was nice to be reunited with everyone but tough because it was our last time all together at Tubaniso. I cant believe a new stage of volunteers is coming in the first week of July. We Won't be the least experienced ones anymore. time here goes by so fast... fourth of july is right around the corner and then ill have been here a whole year.

no more internet time but If any of you all have any questions like my students I'm more than happy to answer them. Happy Spring!

HI guys!

Thank you so much for the package! I just reached Gao today and received it and I will be bringing it back to Gossi tomorrow. Im going to distribute the pencils to the upperschool kids who are approximately the same age as you guys, 6-9 grade, and the candy to kids in the lower (elementary) and upper schools. As for your letters (all of which were fantastic by the way!), I’m going to try to respond to them to the best of my ability in this email and if I forget anything or skip it, I will write it up in my next letter. Its so wonderful of you all to contribute and I hope you realize how much they will appreciate your gifts. I think that establishing connectiosn like this is so important and I think you all can learn so much from each other.

A quick update on what I’ve been up to in the last couple months as I realize my two letters may not have reached you yet. Its getting really hot here as “la saison chaude” begins. Its easily 110 degrees each day but because I’ve been in country for almost nine months now I’ve (kind of) habituated to it. However, its nice and cool at night because it’s the desert, like Arizona or New Mexico, which is more than I can say for the southern part of Mali where its so humid, like you might find in the southeastern US. Apart from trying to stay cool, I’ve been working on my work with the elephants and ecotourism, which is tourism that promotes conservation and appreciation for the natural habitats it focuses on and that operates in a sustainable and responsible manner to protect the environment in which it operates. I’m also going to be starting an environmental club with the upper school kids to educate the students on their environment and the biodiversity of their region and of the world. We’re also going to be planting a bunch of trees as soon as hot season is over. Are you guys doing anything for earth day? We’ve also submitted a proposal for a new library for the youth/community center in Gossi. Hopefully we will have a computer there and my BIG goal before I leave is that the kids will even be able to communicate with you by email!

Ok so let me get down to your questions. I’m really impressed with what you came up with and I apologize for not addressing these questions before, but its all become so normal to me, I forget these sorts of things are all interesting to you guys.

1) what kind of currency is used? How much can you buy with one dollar?

Mali is part of West African States Central Bank System. Their currency is the CFA , which stands for “Colonies des Francs Africains”, indicating their former currency the franc, used when the French colonized the region. The CFA is used in many countries in West Africa, all former French colonies, like Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger etc. Right now about 400 CFA is equal to 1$, a change from when I first arrived and 500 CFA was equal to one dollar. With 400 CFA you can buy a soda, but thats considered a BIG luxury here, because 400 cfa could also buy ingredients for rice and suace for a family.

2) Are the kids there similar to kids here?

Here’s a blog post I wrote on this recently.

I think some of my most enjoyable moments as a child were out catching frogs in our pond or playing tag in the woods. But how many times have you sat around with a group of friends, admitting to remembering the theme song to Captain Planet or having snap bracelets and pogs. Our generation and those younger than us define ourselves by the TV characters we loved and the toys that if we didn’t get them for Christmas we would most certainly meet an untimely death. For the children in my town here in Mali, I see as much excitement in their eyes when I give them a plastic soda bottle as I remember seeing in my little brother when he got a snowboard one Christmas. Granted they lose interest in the bottle about as quickly as Evan did in snowboarding, but children in Mali have more fun with that bottle than you would think possible. It’s a pretty general theme when it comes to the kids I see everyday. Even the dirtiest children, wearing the rattiest clothes have huge grins on their faces, shrieking at me and laughing at my responses or just running through the streets, racing their bike tires or, if they’re really lucky, car tires. A new pen or the very rare new notebook is as exciting here as it is buying the cartload of back to school stuff at staples (or was that just me? I really loved getting new notebooks and pencils even in college….).

Chores don’t ever need to be yelled or reminded about, they’re just done. Milking the cow, washing the baby’s clothes or watering the garden gets done every day without any complaining or griping. Once, out on a visit with my little sister, I was reminded that we needed to get home because she had dishes to do. To be fair, I’ve seen my fair share of tantrums and the hitting, biting and kicking still goes on and I get asked for money or gifts every time I leave the house. But kids here do make more with less, because they have to. In my experience, not all the kids are ready to burst into tears because they have no food, like the children in those Christian children’s fund tv commericials, but with the little they have, they are so happy.

We’re very lucky to have schools in my town and the surrounding villages, but all of the classes are overcrowded, 60 plus per class, and although the fee to attend is minimal, less than $4 dollars a year and its obligatory, many parents don’t send their kids to school. Many of the kids who are lucky enough to attend school struggle with their studies and paying attention, just as some do back home. My heart broke when the English teacher told me he had trouble getting a lot of the kids to pay attention because they hadn’t eaten breakfast and probably wouldn’t get much for lunch either. Most don’t have text books or pretty displays on their classroom walls. Yet when we go in to teach English to the seventh and eighth grade, almost everyone tries to participate and my brothers are eager to practice their French and English with me whenever they can or show me their drawings of the human body. These classes more than make up for the harassment we can sometimes put up with from adults and teenagers asking for the shirt off my back or my telephone. I say this to emphasize that no, these kids aren’t perfect but I guess to make my point I’ll share this story.

My little sister Zeinaba was given 50 cfa (about 10 cents) the other day when she returned a lost item to a neighbor and trying to suppress her obvious glee, asked if I would walk with her to buy candy at the boutique down the street. She, of course offered me three (I took one, its insulting not to and they’re really quite good), ate one herself and saved the rest to share with her two little brothers. The thought of saving them for herself never even crossed her mind. I feel like I have more than a thing or two to learn from a six-year old.

3) Host family names and ages

These are approximations on age because most Malians don’t know really their birthdays for several reasons. A lot of people are illiterate so they can’t write down births or important days and a lot of babies aren’t born in clinics so they don’t have birth certificates. A lot of this is changing with the new health clinics called CESCOMS which ask that babies come in to have their umbilical cord treated and to get vaccinated, so many more people are getting registered now. Also only recently has the country started using the roman calendar like we use. Previously they used no calendar or the Muslim Calendar, which is based completely on the moon.

Aguissa (father)- 50’s-60’s

Tekamanit (mother)- early 40’s

Assahara (sister) – 23, educated in Gao and Bamako, she knows her birthday and her age. She just got married and is finishing her secretarial studies in Bamako.

El-Mehdi (brother)- 18, studying at a high school in a town 3 hours north of Gossi. There is no high school in Gossi so if you want to continue your education you must move to Gao, Sevarre, Bamako or Timbuktu and stay with family or friends.

Alxamis (cousin) - 16-20, student in upper school

Abubacrin (brother - 16-18

Abdoulay (cousin) - 14-15

Suleyman (brother) - 14-15 Abdoulay and Suley are both students in the lower school

Ousman (brother)-10-12

Moussa (brother) 9-10

Zeinaba (sister) 7-8

Harunna (cousin) 5

Oumar (brother) 4-5

Xadijatu (sister) 1, she just learned to walk!

4) Population of town

The village around the mare is about 8-9,000 people but with the surrounding towns which are included in the commune, the population all together is over 20,000 but spread out over a very large region.

5) What kinds of stores are there? Any big companies?

In my town there are only little stores, like a corner store you might find in city, selling tea, flour, pasta, coffee, sugar, soap, fabric to make clothes, candy, peanuts, dates and some other basic hygiene products. Some stores also sell batteries or cell phone chargers and there is one or two pharmacies in the town. Two days a week there’s a big market, where everyone from out of town comes in to sell and buy things. These are the days where you can find small electronics and household goods, like pots pans and buckets for sale in Gossi. In bigger towns like Gao or Sevarre, there are more and varied stores, including places that sell American style clothes, electronics, gardening equipment and other household items. In Bamako, you can find almost anything you can find in America but only if you’re willing to go on a hunt. There’s a grand marche (big market) in Bamako, which is insane to navigate- the only thing I can compare it to that you might have seen is the market in the movie Aladdin? There’s thousands of people moving, shouting and selling things and its semi-divided by products-for instance all the food things are sold in one area, and clothes or electronics in another section. Bamako also has stores like you would find in the United States for clothing and electronics but the average Malian can’t afford to shop there.

In terms of big companies, there are several native to Mali. There are companies whose factories I’ve seen in Bamako like the company who makes powdered Milk (Vivalait), and another which makes sodas. There’s also companies that make ciment and other construction supplies. There’s also the two major cell phone companies in Mali, Orange (a frnech company) and Malitel.

6) What kind of food do they eat daily? What is considered a delicacy?

Most Malians subsist on a diet of a starch, like rice or to (kind of like a cross between dough and mashed potatoes made out of corn or millet that they dip into sauces) served with a veggie based sauce that too often doesn’t have many veggies in it. The sauce will also have some pieces of meat in it but if you’re eating with twelve people, you may not get one. This definitely depends on income and ethnicity. In some parts of the country, near the river, they eat a lot more fish, and with the tammasheq, you eat a lot more meat, because it is so important to their culture. A delicacy definitely is meat but also cookies and candy. My family hadn’t ever eaten cake until I made them one. In the big cities theres more variety but food that we take for granted in the states is very expensive here. A small pizza can be over 12 dollars way too much for a typical malian.

7) Is there any technology? What kind?

In Gossi the extent of technology is cellphones -almost every male and now lots of females have one- and televisions and DVD players, which only the wealthiest families can afford to have. There’s no electricity in Gossi so if people want to run lights or their TV’s they have to use a solar panel or a generator. They used to have some electricity so some people have refridgerators left over from this time, but now no one is using them because they can’t afford to power them. There are also a couple of computers in Gossi but not that are accessible to the public.

8) Whose cell phone in the photos on the blog?

Hmmm good question? Its either mine, my host dad’s or my mom’s? All PCV’s have cellphones and I charge it at my families house when they run their generator to watch TV.

9) How long, which days do kids attend school

The calendar for school here is approximately the same as in the states. They start in late September and go through to the middle of June with the same vacations public schools in the states usually have, except for February vacation. Kdis go to school from 8-12, have a break for lunch, where they go home to eat with their families in the heat of the day, and then return for a second session from 3-5. They go to school Monday –Friday with one afternoon a week off.

10) What is the housing like?

In town, people mostly live in houses made of mud bricks, although the wealthier families have concrete walls and floors. The mud houses have to be repaired every couple of years or each year from wear and tear from the rains. The houses are too hot at night to sleep in now, so people sleep outside sometimes under small “hangars” kind of like pavilions or shade gazebos, but all homemade from sticks and grass. During the day they also sit under these structures. Out in the bush, people live in huts made from sticks and grass or in tents made from animal skins.

11) What is your daily routine?

That can depend ont he day but usually after I get up, do some chores, go for a run, and eat breakfast I have a meeting or I head to the market for supplies, food that I need. After lunch with my family, which we all share from big bowls and eat with out hands, its too hot to go anywhere so i do paperwork, read or color with the kids. then i usually head to my garden in the afternoon to water or do other work there. Some days are full of meetings, other days are full of reading books!! I come into Gao, the hearest big city, about every three weeks, to use the internet go to the bank and see other volunteers. I jsut returned from bamako where i attended a training and got to eat real american food like pizza!!!

12) What is the temperature now?

Now that its hot season, its up to 115-120 degrees each day. At night up north its cooler and gets down to 75-80.

13) What activites and sports do kids do in their free time?

Kids here love soccer which they call football. I always see at least one game going on in a square or in the street. I also saw some kids playing volleyball the other day in village which was astounding! I haven’t seen it played anywhere else in Mali. We also have a bball court in Gossi but not too many people use it or know how to play. Bess and I are working on that! The little kids also have a game that’s like duck duck goose and another that’s like red rover. There are also songs and fortune telling games too. A lot of kids don’t have too much free time because they have so many chores to help out with! Herding animals, working in the garden, pounding millet or cleaning leaves them with little time for school work or fun.

So i hope that gives you guys some more background. Look for individual responses to letters in the mail soon and I'll try to get some pictures taken of the stuff you guys asked about including the students with their new supplies! i willa lso ask them for questions they have abou tyoua ll and America and maybe you can help them out!

Happy happy Easter.

Im in gao, land of fans, internet and kiddie pools for a couple days before I head back to site for one last stretch before another trip down to Bamako for another week long training. Im actually kind of anxious not to leave site because I’ve got so much going on in terms of projects and I don’t want to delay it more than it already delays itself. A lot of volunteers are headed home after this IST and while I’m jealous and think it would be really fun to go home, I think the idea scares me as well. The thought of getting off the plane in the United States, when even the streets of Bamako are too much for me to handle right, makes me wonder about what the adjustment back into my old life would be like. And then having to leave the hot showers, starbucks, cool summer breezes would take another detox. I’m not saying that I wont come home. But I don’t think I’ve come to the place yet where I could go and come back in a healthy way. Besides the heat here is doing wonders for my complexion.

The tree nursery project is funded and underway. We have baby moringa, neem, and guava all coming up now as well as mango, citrus lemon and baobab planted. The idea is to get a tree nursery going, teach a bunch of people over several formations in june and july info on trees in general, their importance and benefits and a bunch of techniques in agroforestry and grafting. Then some of the participants will take over the management of the nursery and be able to maintain it as a business so there’s always baby trees ready to be bought and planted. The participants as part of their training also have to do several tree plantings each around town in public places, or homes while sharing some of the new knowledge they’ve gained from the formation.

The work for the community center is slowly but surely moving along well too. We decided to start out with making the repairs needed on the current structure, getting some electrical wiring set up and building one new big room to house the library and the buvette for now. That way the room will make some money in selling cold drinks and snacks that can then be turned around to make more improvements, while also providing a service and benefit to the community with books and computers to use. Then farther down the line if that all turns out well we can continue to make other improvements. I’m hoping to get books and other supplies for the library donated as gifts in kind so if anyone knows a way to find french and english books or wants to donate some please let me know.

I’m also continuing my work on ecotourism with the elephants. I’m holding a big meeting coming up next week with all parties concerned to try to hash out goals, objectives on how best to manage the potential they have and the economic benefits without negatively affecting the environment or the community. One elephant tried to come into town yesterday. My host mom said that he’s checking the place out for his friends and then will come back with them. Hopefully before I go to bamako!

My cousin had a baby boy a week ago, and he’s happy and healthy although very very tiny- maybe a little premature. They always have the baptism here seven days after the birth so he’ll officially be named tomorrow. The woman and the baby are also not supposed to be outside or show themselves for the first week so Roqqi has been staying inside a mosquito net/hanging sheet, resting and getting to know her new born. Her husband is in Cote d’ivoire working, which is not too uncommon. It seems like a lot of Malians work in “abidja” but Im unsure as to what the migrant work is or how of if its regulated at all.

I apologize again for my neglect in posting, I try to find interesting stuff to talk about—im not even sure how many people even bother to check anymore! Ill post pictures soon when I get down to Bamako and actually have a strong enough connection. If anyone from Georgetown is reading this, Im so jealous of you all soon to be lounging on the lawn with the cherry blossoms. Have fun in the upcoming weeks.

Some picture to come in the near future.

As i rack my brain every time I'm near Internet to try to think of something interesting to write about, I always feel like I have nothing new to share with anyone who's reading. When my parents and little brother visited for two weeks, I got to see Mali through fresh eyes again and I felt it was really beneficial to my commitment to working here and my inspiration.

Lee Al and Evan arrived in Burkina Faso on the 14 and had lots of valentines goodies for me. Their first experience of an African city was slightly muted because they were in the center of town but they still faced the constant and persistent barrage of vendors, selling sunglasses, phone cards and magazines. They also had their first test of patience in waiting for food at a restaurant near by. Waiting for things and the slow pace of life here is a standard every day fact of life for me but they hadn't adjusted from the American frame of mind yet. My counterpart in Gossi often jokes around with people working with us, that "time is money" to remind them that they need to get to the meeting less than an hour late but its true that in the US, a meeting is supposed to start when its scheduled to start and its your responsibility to get there. Here everything is "inshalla" or godwilling, so you get there when you get there and you leave when you want. Its just a more relaxed way of taking things and realizing that money, meetings whatever isn't everything. If it takes you extra time to greet everyone you know on your way, then so be it. Its more important to check in with your friends and family than to "be on time" for a meeting we've got all day for.

We left for Mali after two days in burkina and after the five different border control stops (3 on the burkina side, 2 on the Malian)they got their first taste of Mali as we drove through Dogon country. I'd seen it for the first time a few days before on my way to pick them up and I would gladly go through again and again. Its reminds me alot of Arizona and New Mexico and then other parts remind me of what I think the badlands of South Dakota would look like. Pictures to come... (I left my camera cord at site!)

We stayed overnight in Douentza which I think is hands down the most beautiful part of Mali (the northern part of the cliffs that also pass through southern dogon country)Evan was taking lots of pictures from the car trying to capture the immensity of these cliffs which just rise out of nowhere to huge heights. Id been told on the bus on my journey down that there was a village on top of one of the cliffs, that they access by climbing up a steep ravine, so we spent some time trying to look for little people scaling cliffs.

Gossi was so incredibly welcoming to my family and i was so proud of my village and both my families. We were there only two days and everyone wanted to stay longer. the funniest part of the trip was the boat trip on Gossi's lake. We were supposed to be going "birdwatching", a gift from me to al for xmas, but unfortunately something was lost in translation. As we get farther and farther from land, i discover that the boat driver can't speak French or tammasheq so we're literally up a creek without a paddle. I made a complete idiot out of myself flapping my arms to try to indicate that we wanted to see brids. by the end of the trip we will have seen three, two of which were next to the place where we'd initially launched the boat. The wind picked up from the direction we'd come from after about twenty minutes on the lake, making it virtually impossible to backtrack. We had to go over to the other side of this huge mare with waves pouring into this small wooden boat powered by a man with a stick and two bailers ( dad with my water bottle and the other boat guy, who only knew two more words in french than the first guy, neither of which were oiseau or retourner). Apart from the disappointment in not being able to come through on the Xmas present, we were soaked and freezing but laughing hysterically. definitely the highlight of the trip. We also saw the elephants and rode a camel. I thought i might buy one ( a camel that is) after, but the logistics would be a pain.

We headed out to Dogon country and had a great time hiking there, although ev and mom did get sick so we got to do less than we'd planned. We got harrassed a fair amount by the vendors again, selling Dogon and other crafts, which is an unfortunate turnoff to the area, but the natural beauty of the region and its people makes up for it. I want to write more about this but I'm running out of time here n bko so i'll fill in more on their trip with pictures when i get my camera cord.

I see as much excitement in the kids of Gossi's eyes when I give them a plastic soda bottle as I remember seeing in my little brother when he got a snowboard one Christmas. Granted they lose interest in the bottle about as quickly as Evan did in snowboarding, but children in Mali have more fun with that bottle than you would think possible. It’s a pretty general theme when it comes to the kids I see everyday. Even the dirtiest children, wearing the rattiest clothes have huge grins on their faces, shrieking at me and laughing at my responses or just running through the streets, racing their bike tires or, if they’re really lucky, car tires. A new pen or the very rare new notebook is as exciting here as it is buying the cartload of back to school stuff at staples (or was that just me? I really loved getting new notebooks and pencils even in college….).

Chores don’t ever need to be yelled about, they’re just done. Milking the cow, washing the baby’s clothes or watering the garden gets done every day without any complaining or griping. Once, out on a visit with my little sister, I was reminded that we needed to get home because she had dishes to do. To be fair, I’ve seen my fair share of tantrums and the hitting, biting and kicking still goes on and I get asked for money or gifts every time I leave the house. But kids here do make more with less, because they have to. In my experience, not all the kids are ready to burst into tears because they have no food, like the children in those Christian children’s fund tv commericials, but with the little they have, they are so happy.

We’re very lucky to have schools in my town and the surrounding villages, but all of the classes are overcrowded, 60 plus per class, and although the fee to attend is minimal, less than $4 dollars a year and its obligatory, many parents don’t send their kids to school. Many of the kids who are lucky enough to attend school struggle with their studies and paying attention, just as some do back home. My heart broke when the English teacher told me he had trouble getting a lot of the kids to pay attention because they hadn’t eaten breakfast and probably wouldn’t get much for lunch either. Most don’t have text books or pretty displays on their classroom walls. Yet when we go in to teach English to the seventh and eighth grade, almost everyone tries to participate and my brothers are eager to practice their French and English with me whenever they can or show me their drawings of the human body. These classes more than make up for the harassment we can sometimes put up with from adults and teenagers asking for the shirt off my back or my telephone. I say this to emphasize that no, these kids aren’t perfect but I guess to make my point I’ll share this story.

My little sister Zeinaba was given 50 cfa (about 10 cents) the other day when she returned a lost item to a neighbor and trying to suppress her obvious glee, asked if I would walk with her to buy candy at the boutique down the street. She, of course offered me three (I took one, its insulting not to and they’re really quite good), ate one herself and saved the rest to share with her two little brothers. The thought of saving them for herself never even crossed her mind. I feel like I have more than a thing or two to learn from a six-year old

i have a new picture website where i uploaded a bunch of pictures from the first three months. go wild.

http://picasaweb.google.com/natalie.grillon/MaliSeptDec

I'm here in Bamako, still cooling my heels waiting for some tests. I feel 100% better but they want to make sure they know what it was before they send me back. I'm quite content with a diet coke and a twix right now-doesn't take much to make me happy.

First let me say, "Issalan" (tammasheq for what's up) or "Bonjour" to Ms. Betz's french class in Pennsylvania. I'm really excited to be your pen-pal and am ready to help you in any way I can. Please check out the pictures and posts I have up that will give you an idea of what I'm doing here and where I'm living and let me know if you have any questions or ideas that you want to share.

I'm enjoying a nice respite from Malian food here in Bamako where they have all sorts of restaurants and grocery stores with things like cereal,cookies and candy bars. We made pasta and sauce last night at the med office and for not having all the ingredients you would normally expect, it was actually pretty good. The best part about being here is there is a patesserie not far away that has Cafe au lait like you would find in France. It made my week yesterday.

However, I'm making it sound like we don't have food at site when we're actually pretty lucky when it comes to variety. My town being fairly large there's almost always fruits and veggies each day at the market, usually bananas and oranges but somtimes guavas and mangoes. From what I understand they come all the way from Sikasso, the southern most region in Mali that has fruits and veggies year round. For veggies there's always sweet potatoes, onions and usually cucumbers. There's also a woman who sells salad and tomato from Gao when its available. Gao is along the Niger river so they're able to grow rice and veggies in the desert. Usually its only us and some of the fonctionaires that I've seen by the salad and tomatoes. Fruits and Veggies are expensive and hard to find up here and so they aren't a big part of the diet. There's a bunch of big gardens that surround my town too but people mainly grow onions, okra and hot pepper all to sell. Gardening up here is hard with no rain and poor soil and very labor intensive. We're growing our own little garden right now and having loads of problems with water, soil and too much sun. I can't encourage others to garden more until I've figured out how to do it myself.

When i eat with my family its always rice or eesink(called "to" in the bamabara speaking mali but eesink in tammasheq, which roughly translates to "food")which is a doughy substance made from millet. The rice of eesink is always served with a sauce that is spread ove rthe rice or that you dip the to in. Sauces vary from tomatoey ones to fakoy(sp?) which is a leafy green sauce and there's even a peanut sauce. Because there's so many of us in our family, usually there is only a little bit-size piece of meat for everyone. While the tammasheq people raise cattle, goat and camels for their livelihood they don't eat it as much as we do in the states. Its expensive and usually big pieces of meat are reserved for holidays or special occasions, when they will slaughter a goat or sheep or even more than one. Their herds of animals are like their bank accounts. When they need money, they bring in an animal to sell at the livestock market. Otherwise, they're kept out in huge herds in the bush with someone in the family or a group of the family who lives with them. The Muslim holiday of Tabaski is right around the corner (on the 20 of decemeber this year) and its traditional to slaughter a sheep or more than one to commemorate Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son for Allah. All the prices on sheep have skyrocketed (this is what i hear, i haven't exactly been out looking for one myself)in the last couple weeks, as everyone secures their sheep. Because the islamic lunar calendar is much different from our roman calendar, its a coincidence that tabaski is so close to christmas this year but its nice that we all have a holiday coming up at the same time and can celebrate together. Bess and I (if i get back in time) are going to bake cookies and cakes in our solar ovens in celebration of both holidays!

While I just made it sound like my daily life revolves around nothing but food, I do have other things I do each day.Apart from chores around the house, which take up more then you'd think (I wash my laundry by hand once or twice a week and dishes the same way when I have made myself or my family something.), I've been conducting interviews and attending meetings around town, trying to find out as much as I can before we start work on projects. I'm focusing on Biodiversity and reforestation as one project and eco-tourism as another. I won't bore you with the details now but rest assured I will get into it later on and probably won't stop talking about it. I'm also working with the Women's associations and the union with organizational stuff and teaching english with Bess and Jared. Bess and I also want to start a girl's bball team although its tough because the court is so far away from the rest of the town. We've also been kicking aruond the idea of expanding Bess' original idea of a library to a whole youth/community center type thing. more details on that too. The last couple months we've been having Tammasheq lessons at my house with our tutor and then our LCF came for a week and gave us intensive training the week after Thanksgiving. It just takes time with language but I do feel like I'm understanding more of what's said to me and learning some new phrases.

Outside of site, not too much new info. I'm spending Xmas in Gao with the other volunteers that live on teh dark side of the moon. We're having a bbq with a kiddie pool and slip and slide and we'll be exchanging gifts through white elephant. I believe we'll also be having our own version of the "dundys" (just like the office) including a best couple prize (wonder who that will go to....).After christmas and New year's, I'll be back here in Bamako at Tubaniso for two weeks of training which I'm semi-looking forward to. I don't want to be away from site for so long!

Mom Dad and Evan are coming to AFRICA! in February and I can't wait for their arrival. Al is going to love the birds and wildlife and lee will get to use her french. Evan will keep me sane. (just kidding!) They're going to see my town, Gao and maybe dogon country too over a two week span.

I hope everyone has a very happy holiday, i love and miss you all very much! Check out more pictures on facebook as well. And if anyone knows anything about skype forwarding to international cellphones let me know. i might be able to get a US skype number that's cheap to call from the us but i think its really expensive on my end to forward. Anyone know?

Evan-congratulations on the win! get dad to take more pictures at your races so i can see you in action!

Mike and Caroline, i hope you get my letters soon. I'm constantly thinking of you and hope that you're doing ok. Carla, Aunt Mims and Aunt Anne, thanks for your posts! hope you're doing ok too. You're all in my prayers. Please give all of the family my love, especially Gogo.

Ladies of cedar turret around the world, Happy Holidays! I love and miss you all terribly!

Hey yall

the last post was a check to make sure things were working. here are pics

etc from the last three months. This is the first time ive had a fast enough internet connection to get things up. Im down in Bamako because I was pretty sick last week and they couldn't figure out what it was over the phone so im down here for a BRIEF stay, hopefully out of here on Monday. Im feeling great now so hopefully whatever it is is gone.

Ill write a long update tomorrow on projects etc and how everythings going but i wanted to get these pictures up.

They include, camels at the Gossi livestock market, bess with camels, pictures of the family, halloween etc.

Hey friends and fam!

Happy THANKSGIVING!!! I’m here in Gao where the internet is finally working so I’m able to respond to emails and “fingers crossed” post some pictures. I should have internet regularly from now on as I’ve made some new friends who have wireless, but I may also be jinxing myself right now.

We’re celebrating tomorrow with Turkey and all the fixings including pies and mashed potatoes. Almost all the volunteers in the region have come to town and we’re also having a bunch of ex-pats over as well to celebrate with us. Bess and I are going to try to make a pumpkin pie( fingers crossed) and scalloped potatoes and stuffing are already in the process of being made. Its amazing what you can find and make here if you put your mind to it. We’ve had Mexican, Indian, Mac and cheese all in Gao and in village we’ve figured out how to make cakes and cookies in our solar cookers and have also had some delicious meals of tortillas, cucumbers, onions and meat! I usually eat lunch and dinner with my family, which is usually rice or to with a sauce and a little bit of meat. Malians do not get close to enough fruit and veggies and meat but when you’re cooking and buying for twelve, you have to stay in budget and rice is cheap. I’ve been trying to buy my family what’s missing from their diet when I can and they’ve graciously chowing down. Can you tell I have food on the mind??

Site is good and I’m really coming to love it here. My language is actually improving and I’m understanding around 20-30 percent of what is said to me (to be fair this is a high estimate). Either way I’m feeling better about it and im thinking that I may actually be able to communicate with people in two years in tammsheq. However, I am so grateful to have my French because I think its kept me sane .

Work is also going well and I’ll definitely write more about it next time. I’m learning a lot about all the different associations and projects that are already up and running in town and the possibilities of expansion or new projects. The elephants are just getting to the mare now, so hopefully I’ll have pictures of them as well as some other spots in town for next time.

Promise you won’t tell my village—but I’m actually not married. The marriage proposal thing was really starting to irk me so I made up a husband in America. His name is alternately Michael or John, depending on what comes to me, and i tell everyone that he will be really upset if I had a husband in Mali. To which the response usually is," oh he won’t know, you must have a husband here in Mali." I’ve been trying to explain how there’s laws against this but its just not getting across. A lot of other volunteers, both male and female, have been facing the same problems and they’ve advised me to try the “you can’t afford me” response, which refers to the large dowry that my family would obviously demand. I’m not sure if I’m going to take that route as I don’t want to come off as perpetuating any sense of superiority so I’ll just have to get more creative.

So im sorry this is a short post, but I’ve got more emails to tackle! I miss you all very much and thank you for the bday wishes! I wish you all a very happy thanksgiving and hope you’re with the ones you love.

Here’s a post I wrote two weeks ago…..

So internet up here isn’t really… per se…reliable. Its been out for the past month and as I’m writing this on my laptop, I don’t know when I’ll be able to post it. If you want to reach me, or really love me a lot, you might have more success in sending me a letter or oreo cookies.

I’m enjoying life here with new surprises around the corner every day, whether it be a new word in Tammasheq or the climax of a four hour long Union meeting, where the two eldest gentlemen erupted in insults at each other, which seemed like it came out of nowhere, but I may have missed something, as I don’t really speak the language. I now have a cat, named “Ma Moos a wa”, which translates to “what is this” in Tammasheq and Bess and Jared have a dog, which they gave the more traditional name of “Chewy”. My family is awesome. My dad is named Aguissa (prounounced Reesa), mom Tuckamanit (spelled phonetically), oldest sister Asahara 23, followed by, in order by age, El-Mehdi20 or 19, Abubacrin(abu) 16/15, Suleyman14/13, Ousman13/12, Moussa10/9, Zeinaba (6 or 7 girl, also my bff) Oumar 3/4 and baby Xadijatu who is about 8 or 9 months. Two of my cousins also live with us, Alxamis (says he’s 23 but not a day over 20) and Abdoulay(14), so that they can go to school in Gossi. Their families are living out in the bush with their animals and there isn’t any yellow school bus to pick up the nomadic kids Harunna my eldest sister’s son also lives with us—he’s 5 but acts like he’s a 75 year old man. Its in his walk and attitude. I guess you have to see it. . My family is without a doubt the best they could possibly be. My dad LOVES his kids so much, especially his baby girl and my mom doesn’t take crap from anybody—how could you with 12 kids? She also loves to laugh and has learned to say “hey Raisha, whatsh up” after we taught this, the most important of all American phrases, to Zeinaba, Harunna and Oumar. Everyone has chores to do which include feeding the goats, milking the goats, washing tons of dishes, cooking (often done by Abu, who prefers to stay at home and cook rather than going to school and he’s realllly good at it!), fixing dad’s moto, working in one of four gardens, getting Raisha’s water….etc. When the kids aren’t doing chores, they’re usually off running around town or hanging out in our concession and most of them are very good students as well, practicing their lessons on the giant chalkboard we keep around. Oumar Harunna and Zeinaba have taken a particular liking to hanging outside my house, under my hangar, watching whatever I’m doing, talking to me or to each other about whatever I’m doing, and occasionally helping me with whatever I’m doing if they’re not climbing on me. Recently when we were having one of our hang out sessions, Oumar and Harunna started a really interesting conversation prompted by my question about what the word for stick was again. They talked for five minutes about what all the different words for wood were of which I believe there were about 8 or 9. It was so funny to watch a 3 and 4 year old discuss the different words for the different lengths and sizes of wood, as if they were having a frank political conversation. The discussion was frequently punctuated with exclamations of “BAHU-NES” which roughly translates to “FALSE” or maybe even a “NO WAY”.

Getting back to Gao two weeks ago was another interesting trip and I’ll spare you all the details—I’m sure you’re sick of hearing transportation story that gave me laughing in church syndrome for a good half hour of the trip. To set the scene—it was the second day of the “emeut” or end of Ramaddan holiday so there were no big regular buses coming up from Bamako towards Gao. Just as we were absorbing this news and wondering how we were going to get to Gao, a form of transportation arrived in the form of a small bachee van packed with 25 people (this van would hold ten people tops in the US). After hour and a half long customs difficulties (customs checkpoints are stationed across the country along the big highways, sort of like weigh stations in the US, except these are manned by customs officials and military guys who sometimes check ID’s) we finally pulled away from Gossi and the gentlemen seated next to me reached into his knapsack and pulled out a clicker counter, like the Amtrak or Metro North conductors use to count the number of people on the train. He starts clicking away vigorously every few seconds leading me to believe, ok gov’t official, counting houses or people or goats along the side of the road(there’s NOTHING else he could have been counting). Yet as we continue past Gossi, he keeps up this pace and there’s nothing left he could be counting other than trees or bushes, but they’re going by way too fast. This keeps up for a good half hour and then he stops, puts it back in his pack, rummages around, pulls out an apple, looks at it almost fondly and filled with satisfaction bites in. Now I wouldn’t have thought this was strange if the exact same actions hadn’t been repeated about three hours later and as he rummaged around this second time, I couldn’t help but think of that sex and the city episode where Carrie has jury duty and one of her fellow jurors has that briefcase from which each day he pulls out a different kind of tropical fruit. I honestly was hoping that this the second time around my fellow bache rider would pull out a pineapple or coconut. No such luck tho. Also on this strange ride---our “chauffeur” could have been Ben Twoomey’s African Twin (Jackie or jackie’s family if you’re reading this, feel free to pass this info onto Ben- if he ever wants to come to Mali, he has a twin and subsequently most likely a place to stay.

The end of Rammadan holiday was really very nice. You could feel it was a holiday, the feeling in the air was sort of like that of Thanksgiving or Fourth of July. For the whole month prior, Men and women, who weren’t sick or nursing had been fasting during the day, only eating before sunrise and after sunset. Rammadan represents the days that Muhammed spent in the cave outside Medina when he received his visions from Allah that would become the teachings of Islam. So the “emut” is a celebration of the end of an intense month of prayer and fasting. Everyone wears their nicest clothes and visits family and friends in the village or town. My family slaughtered a goat for the special occasion-I didn’t watch-and we had grilled meat and couscous for a special meal. My little sister, Zeinaba, my big sister, Asahara, and I went and visited the Mayor, my teacher and my homologue in our new duds, henna and our braids. Bess and I had spent the whole day before-at least 5 or 6 hours- at the Malian equivalent of “the spa” or sitting on a mat in a concession, having our hair braided and our feet and hands hennaed. We looked about as Malian as we could but it was tough sitting still all day and we were both anxious by the end to get the plastic bags off our hands and feet and to get to a mirror to see whether the compliments of “a wa ihooskat” were really true.

So to sum up I really miss you all and would love to hear about how everything is going over there.

The saying, “hotter than hell” was coined in Gao, in case you weren’t aware. Its day four here of waiting to be installed and we’ve all established a routine. Wake up at 6-6:30 ish, when the sun rises just high enough and the bright light and white heat start to hit where we’re sleeping. We all sleep outside at night on the roof under the stars because its too hot inside the house, --ironically enough this is where we will spend most of the day seeking refuge from the heat. After I’ve tried to fall back asleep a couple times, all vain attempts because the heat is so permeating already, we head into town to the market to do our shopping for the items we’ll need for the next two years. By 10 am its gotten so hot that the sweat starts dripping down my face and I can see it pooling on the faces of the other volunteers shopping with me—disgusting, I know, but I don’t know how else to convey this massive all encompassing behemoth that controls our lives. We come back to the house and then wait around, reading, finishing season 1 of Buffy the vampire slayer or passed out on the floor or mat until it finally cools down a little in the afternoon. Then, we venture out again to barter and do more shopping. I’ve bartered in Tammasheq and have talked people down a couple times. We all have this immense source of pride when we think we’ve gotten a good price, when in reality there’s definitely a foreign and a native price- I’m happy to pay it as long as I feel that I’m not being 100 percent ripped off. So far I’ve bought a big bucket for doing dishes and laundry in, a big cooking pot, frying pan and a charcoal stove, sort of like a miniature weber grill, except you can put pots and pans on it. I’ve also bought bowls, cups, forks, spoons and a big cutting knife in the cooking department as well as a mirror and two beautiful fabrics in the “don’t let yourself go” department.

There was some extra furniture lying around the Gao stage house, which is where all the volunteers in this region stay at when they come to town for banking and mail, so the volunteers who’ve been here a year decided to have a competition to give them away. I happened to win the big ticket item, a large red table about four and a half feet tall, in an intense rock paper scissors tournament… I know, I know I make you all so proud. Im going to get some stools made in Gossi to go with it so I’ll actually have a work/cooking/dining/writing letters table in my house and wont have to do everything from the floor.

So far in Gao other than shopping, we've met the deputy governor and the police chief as well as the immigration people when there was a little cofusion about whether we were all set with our paperwork. The driver for the police cheif is this really fun dude who likes to wear a cowboy hat and randomly shows up around town to chat with us. We've also made friends with some of the market people and the fabric sellers. Its nice to have people who recognize you and smile rather than staring at you or shouting at you. Alot of the people here are so incredible too, most of them speaking at least 2 or 3 languages and sometimes 4, 5 or 6. Walking down the street ive had more whoa i'm in africa moments, with everyone in turbans or flowing ekarshes (the traditional dress of the tammasheq women) and this amazing multicultural, multiethnic mix all living together, tammasheq, songhai, bambara, arab...

I’m really excited to get to Gossi and start using my tammasheq more and really getting to know the town and its people. I have a lot of research and interviewing to do, although I’m pretty sure the first few weeks I’m there I’ll have no idea what anyone is saying to me. I’m fortunate to have my French to fall back on but I’m going to try to resist. I plan on conducting a biodiversity survey in the first three months, along with doing my NatCat, which is the Peace Corps Natural Resources Management sector’s assessment tool that helps the volunteer to figure out what has been done, what needs to be done and what can be done over the next two years in terms of projects. Bess Jared and I feel very fortunate in that there are three of us in one town with the potential to be a peace corps dream team and accomplish so much in so many different areas. We’re already thinking about starting a public trash cans program and maybe teaching basketball along with the eco-tourism and organizational development stuff I’ll also be doing.

For a good laugh I have to fill you in on the trip up here--You all will probably become used to these stories but each time I think I’ve seen (or heard) everything, it turns out I’m wrong. We left the training center at about 6:30 am and as the bus pulls away with all the volunteers headed north of Segou, the driver of our chartered bus puts a tape in and out comes, blasting from the old bus sound system, the most fitting soundtrack for our departure- Tracey Chapman. It was one of the best laughs I’ve had so far in Africa. I was almost crying . And then after we’ve listened to side a and b and then the first two songs of side a again, the bus driver decided to switch it up and what luck—it was Phil Collins. We were only ten minutes into this album, I believe it was song two, “another day in paradise”, when the horn blaring from our driver went on a little bit longer than usual and we had to slam on the brakes and veer off the road to avoid another vehicle and a moto carrying bags of onions. No one was hurt although we were a little shooken up but we did have to switch buses and in the process, lost our driver and his great taste in music, who had to stay behind with his bus and the gendarmes who had showed up to assess the situation. This essentially consisted of them taking out a measuring tape and measuring everything—from the bus to the car, from the onions to the bus, from the front of the bus to the back of the bus and from their head to their toes. It reminded me of those activities in elementary school when we were all learning the metric system and had to go around measuring everything in the school yard and classroom. To their credit they arrived pretty swiftly and all the Malians handled themselves with much more composure than any Americans I’ve seen in the same situation. They realize yelling at each other won’t accomplish anything—that and its just too hot. The rest of the trip was a breeze in comparison but I’m taking public transport to Gossi tomorrow so I’m sure in two weeks I’ll have something more to share. Until then….

braxton, jared and dave

Sorry to keep you in suspense but I'm still alive. I keep saying to myself that I dont have anything new or exciting to share when in reality almost every day is another adventure. But these daily surprises and adventures are just that--daily--and so I've begun to normalize them.

So a quick update on the last several weeks in a fun backwards format, im hoping that this will jog my memory. We swore in as official volunteers on Friday at a very nice cermony at the American embassy in Bamako. Most of the volunteers wore Malian outfits and there were speeches by the Ambassador etc and volunteers who gave short speeches in each of the languages we've all been learning, bambara, french, fulfide, songrai, dosono (one of the dialects that the dogon people speak). Jared in full ceremonial attire tore down the house with the speech that we had all written for the Tamasheq group and our homestay families were very happy and proud, although Bess, Susmita and I all got questions about why we weren't wearing our ekarshe's. After that we went to a reception at the Ambassador's house and from what I've heard the food was excellent. Of all the times to get sick, my body decided to pick the worst and so for the festivities of the last several days, I've been running a fever and unable to really eat. I did my best to try and get through it and actually felt ok at the picnic later on in the afternoon.

the new volunteers

The volunteers arranged a party for us in Bamako last night and we had a hotel to stay at with a POOL! I think everyone had a really great time, perhaps maybe even a little too much. I managed to dance for a couple songs but when i woke up the next morning I went straight to the medical office down the street and now I'm waiting to hear back as to whether or not I have amoebas. It should be an interesting trip up to Gao tomorrow but hopefully the medicine I'm taking will make it bearable.

The week before swear-in was more training at Tubaniso including natural resources stuff, health , safety and even a session with snakes, which i did not attend. I passed my test in Tamasheq too, although now without having spoken it for the last week I feel like I'm losing it all. Its weird to think that the routine that has been my life for the last two months is finished. To be honest though hardly anything surprises me or throws me anymore and I almost expect constant change and adventure. A regular day now involves ensuring I have safe water, having an upset stomach, seeing a 6 inch long millipede, being enveloped in the smell of the trashpile I'm walking next to, the constant mental struggle over how to possibly help EVERYONE around me and then the frustration in the moments that pass where I've missed my chance or where there's been nothing I can do.

Before we came back to Tubaniso, we all said our goodbyes to our homestay families at which I of course cried and which they of course had no idea what to make of. In just that short period of time that I was living with them and in the very little that we could communicate to each other, I really felt as if I was a member of the family, even if at times I served as entertainment or as a distraction for the kids. My mother, Xedijetu, gave me a beautiful little bag and a key chain as goodbye gifts, both of which she made and both of which I've fallen in love with. The touregs use such beautiful colors and paints in their crafts , deep purple, light blue, pink gold etc .

i officially leave for my site tomorrow to spend the next three months interviewing community members and conducting other research, assessing the work they've already done and the work they want me to help with and working on language. I also hope to maybe start from small projects to get a scope of how the people and associations work together. This week I'll be in Gao to buy new things for my house which Im very excited about- market shopping is my new favorite thing.

I hope everyone is doing well back in the states, sorry again for the long delay in my post. If you're in New England, drink some apple cider for me. I'm very nostalgic for the fall! Also my address has changed it is now,Natalie Grillon Corps de La Paix, BP119, Gao Mali, West AfricaAlso i dont know if ive said this before but for even more pictures and stories you should check out jared and bess's blog, the link is on the side bar. He's a great photographer and is a more dedicated blogger than I.

The latest pictures i took from my site visit won't upload so here are Jared's. crazy story follows below.

Walking through the town in the am

The lake surrounding the town and some of its inhabitants

My HOUSE!!! Im going to put a little hanger/tent out front just like.....

...this one! THis is the huge hanger my host family has in our concession

My host brother and his posse. Our house was party central while my family was out in the bush.

Bess and I in front of one part of the lake. Its 46 km long.

The market on an off day.

in mopti on the road to my site

on the Road to my site

Part of the Gao region group

The landscape near my site

More landscape near my site

I'm not really sure how I can begin to describe the insanity that was my trip to my site. The first bus ride up there was long but absolutely beautiful as you can see from some of the pictures. The Mopti region reminds me alot of the Southwest in the United States except more green and with CAMELS! I saw my first one two days ago and then saw 20 more immediately after both in the Gao and Mopti region. We left Bamako at 3 in the afternoon after a day long wait at the training center. Bess, Jared and I finally arrived at our site the next day at 10:30 am. We were exhausted but after a rest and seeing our future houses, we met the mayor, police chief/military chief, government rep, chief of the village, secretary general etc. They were all really motivated and optimistic and it seems like there is so much potential for positive and sustainable development in a lot of different ways. Bess and Jared stayed at my house because the house that was selected for them had too many problems, the major one being termites in the roof. We slept under my families hanger, because its too hot to sleep inside my house, but our first night in our town also happened to be a windy one--aka a mini-sandstorm. I woke up with a coat of sand on my face, arms and legs and a small pile of sand around me in my mosquito net. We soon came to discover that sand is everywhere-shoes, clothes, soap, BREAD, sauce etc. Its really satisfying to bite into a piece of bread and get a nice big grain of sand in there too. The next day we had more meetings to meet more people around town and to pick out Bess and Jared's new house. Then that night we went to a wedding, were introduced to all 200 people and then pushed out into the middle of the circle to show off our tammasheq dance moves. Up until then we'd only danced sitting down, but up north they actually dance standing up and less conservatively so we now have some new moves to practice. I forgot to bring my camera so I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of me making a fool of myself.

The next day was our last full day at site. We had some language class with our language tutor Moussa, who is going to be really helpful once we get to site. Then we toured the gardens (pictures above) around the town. There's alot of great land right there next to the lake and the town has already started some gardens and fields but for the most part, because these people are traditionally herders, they haven't had much experience with agriculture. We talked a lot about looking into drip irrigation from the lake into the fields, as well as setting up co-op wells out near the fields. We visited the hospital in the afternoon which is located across the lake. Its run by a french nun named Anne-Marie who has been serving as a doctor for 20 years here to the nomadic people. They've set up several clinics out in the bush and the main hospital in our town serves as the headquarters for births and other things that can't be treated "en brosse". It was really motivating and inspiring to see a woman who had dedicated her entire life to living in a different culture and serving others. The town has really welcomed her and is so appreciative of her work that they've named the quarter where she lives after her, as well as the school that she helped found in the town. That night we had spaghetti with a yummy sauce which Jared's homologue, Bobacar, brought over for us. His wife is a great cook and Bess and I are hoping to take lessons from her. It was some of the most delicious pasta I'd ever had and was an improvement from the night before when dinner had been forgotten about and we ate the cornflakes we had left over from the trip up.

The next day was when the real adventure began. We left early in the morning to head to Gao but about an hour into our trip we pulled over to the side of the road next to four other buses and dozens of people hanging out on the side of the road. We learned from some french tourists and others on our bus that the road up ahead had been washed out and that we had to wait for transport. This was at 7:30 am. We spent the next several hours watching transports arrive (really small pick-up trucks or suv's), only to watch them take away passengers from the other bus companies or luggage and whisk them away on a dirt road into the bush. For the first couple hours it was amusing to be stuck out in the bush without a cellphone signal and without any idea of when we would be getting out of there. But by noon, when bess was really starting to feel sick, when I was beginning to get frustrated with everyone I asked telling me that the transport for our bus really was on its way, even though half of our male passengers had just been whisked away in a pickup truck, and when Jared had taken all the fun pictures he could, this was when I started to worry just a little bit about the water situation and dreaming of a Peace Corps vehicle coming around the bend. Fortunately, not soon after a huge dump truck showed up and after another round of questioning anyone who would entertain the white people's questions, we discovered this was our ticket to another bus waiting on the other side of the washed out road. All the luggage from two buses, including a motorcycle, boxes of food, some mattresses etc. was piled into the dump truck and then, even though we'd initially been told they'd come back or passengers, we watched everyone start climbing on top of it so we joined them. By one pm, after traversing the bush and unloading all the luggage, we were back in a bus on the paved road and on our way to Gao. We were all definitely dehydrated especially Bess, but we got some much needed r&r at the Peace Corps house in Gao and got to see all the gao volunteers bright shining faces! We've definitely learned our lesson about water and also calling Peace Corps before we leave Gossi.

the line...waiting....

We did our banking in Gao the next morning- a three hour long process. The most time consuming part was the laminating of the account card but it was great to see that alot of people were in using the bank and actually keeping their money in an account. Anytime I need to get money its going to be at least a couple hours in line, but I guess it will be great people watching, right?

We started our trip back to Gao at 12 pm and would finally arrive in Bamako the next day at noon. The road was still out on our way back, so we did the dump truck trip again, this time fortunately much quicker because they had one waiting for us. While bess jared and I were seasoned pros, the other Gao voolunteers hadn't experienced it yet.. I think they enjoyed it but personally two dump truck rides is enough for me for the time being. We made it all the way to Sevre without incident but then once again, pulled over to the side of the road without an explanation. This time it was armed bandits ahead on the road, no im not kidding, so we had to wait for enough trucks and buses to come so that we could form a convoy. The Malians on the bus started pulling sheets out of their luggage and mats from below the bus so that they could sleep on the side of the road. We were not as well prepared but instead actually a little scared, but really so tired because by this point it was midnight and we'd already been on the crowded bus for a long time. We finally started out again later that night and arrived in Bamako, gross and tired, but happy to be back with all the other trainees.

Today we went on a eco-tourism fieldtrip and went hiking near by Tubaniso. We saw some beautiful stuff and I'll post some pictures here. I'm really happy that all the stuff I'm learning in technical training is really going to be applicable to my site. Also being at site also made me feel more optimistic about learning Tammasheq. Everyone there is so enthusiastic about helping us and being immersed in it really forces us to push ourselves.

I took some really pretty photos today on our trip...

a little friend that followed us on the trail

Hiking up to the cave!

from inside the cave

Me and AMY!

The waterfall

sorry its unedited and poor grammar! love and miss everyone and looking forward to hearing from you! thanks for the letters, packages, emails, facebook messages!