I'm in Bamako for a few days to get some paperwork done and to do a one day training module on hand-drilling boreholes for water wells. So far I've used my time effectively by going to the bar, paying the PC medical officer a visit to poop in a cup, having a conversation with a staff person in which I failed to find any logic, and watching two documentaries that recently came out. "Gasland" and "Restrepo". The first is about the terrible detrimental effects gas exploration is having on the environment in the US. The second is about a platoon of US soldiers that were deployed in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, said to be one of the most deadly places on earth.

As you can imagine, neither of these documentaries do much to create a mood of happiness and joy. Rather, they are much the opposite, and present a message of how ridiculous and terrible humanity can be sometimes. It got me to thinking about my present situation and the world in general.

Let's start with sugar. It's something most people in the past few hundred years have come to enjoy, and the story is no different in Mali. In fact, sugar is actually produced in Mali. You can take a drive a little over an hour north of my village and find yourself in massive sugar cane fields, which is a little weird when you first see it after seeing much of the rest of the region. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that up until fairly recently, even though sugar was literally produced just up the road from me, all the sugar sold in my village (a lot btw) actually came from other African countries or continents (Brazil mostly). This was because the imported sugar was actually selling at a lower price, and this would still probably be the case if merchants and other interests in Mali hadn't finally sat down and discussed that it might make sense for the country to consume something it was producing itself rather than have it shipped over from South America. Something about that just doesn't seem right. I know it all comes down to economics, etc., but still... And the thing is stuff like this is happening all over the world with lots of different things (mostly commodities).

Moving on... how about foreign aid. I have to be honest, but as an aid worker myself, I'm really starting to loose faith in the system. We in the West are so caught up with having measurable results and concrete examples of work done that I think we've lost focus. We now go for what looks good, not what is actually doing any good. What do I mean? Every project funding proposal or report I've had to fill out here always asks in meticulous detail how many kids, women, men, community leaders, goats, etc. that my work is engaging. Yes, it's good to have statistics and keep track of things, but I think all aid organizations really care about saying these days is things like, "We've distributed 100,000 mosquito nets in the past 5 years" or "We've educated over 50,000 women on the importance of early childhood nutrition". Yeah, they want to help people, but it's also about who has the biggest bragging rights. I'd like to know how many of those mosquito nets are actually being used and how many mothers actually make any serious attempt to provide their children with more nutritious meals. It seems that once the aid is distributed, the organization responsible feels their work is done, and doesn't pay much attention to the aid's actual effectiveness or retention.

A perfect example... A major NGO in my area recently built a new road to connect several villages in order to improve transportation of goods and to link up several health clinics that they've built in recent years. At several points along the road there are culverts or paved depressions for water to cross over or under the road during rainy season to prevent the road from washing away. They also planted thousands of trees along the road so that eventually they will provide shade and a wind break. Since then several people have thought it would be a good idea to intentionally drive their ox carts over all the trees, repeatedly, which are now obviously destroyed. And, no one uses the culverts or paved depressions. They literally drive off the road and go around them. I find that fabulous. And as a side note icing on the cake... all the health clinics are supplied with a product called Plumpy Nut, which is intended to be distributed for free as a dietary supplement for severely malnourished children, but at least in my village the doctors don't distribute it and eat it themselves... but I'm willing to guess the clinic's supply inventory simply shows that the product is being consumed, which of course to the funding agency means that they've just helped X number of malnourished children.

I'll even take a turn to be critical of myself. I was recently talking with one of my sisters who inquired what exactly I was up to these days in village. I explained that I am building several wells and two dozen latrines, both of which are lined with concrete bricks to keep them from collapsing. My sister then asked if this is work that will be continued once I am gone. I unfortunately had to admit that I don't think so. It's not because the villagers I am working with don't see the merit of lining a latrine or well with concrete so it doesn't collapse on them... they just don't see any value in prioritizing how they spend, or more importantly save what little money they are able to earn. The result is that most likely no one in village will utilize the construction techniques I am introducing simply because they will never save up enough money to do it themselves. I am essentially teaching people how to fish who never have any intention of buying a fishing pole. But at least the kinds of structures I am building will have a significant impact on the community for the next decade or so, which is a bit of a consolation.

The epic saga of work in village continues. Last year at this time I built a soak pit (small drain field) which epically failed, and so, not to be outdone by hardpan Malian clay, I soldiered on and built a much bigger, more expensive, "stick that in you pipe and smoke it" soak pit that is lined with bricks and is essentially way over done. I figured my work there was complete, but fate had another idea and decided to clog the pipe leading from the water source (a pump) to the pit with small bits of straw that are presently blowing all over village. My solution to this problem was to cover the inlet of the pipe with a wire screen... but it just got clogged with animal hair. Things at this point were starting to get a bit ridiculous.

So... my latest solution to the infiltration dilemma was to construct a settling chamber that would be all at once straw proof, animal hair proof, and child proof. In order to make such a chamber, I enlisted the help of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of the pump. On Friday I asked him what day we could do the improvements. He said, "Monday morning at 8 am". I said, "OK". Sunday night I double checked with him and confirmed Monday morning at 8 am. His reply was in the affirmative. Monday morning at 7:55 am I arrive at his house so we can get work started only to be informed that he had gone to Segou for the day. I don't know why I didn't just plan for this to happen because it seems to occur every time I try to schedule anything. I'm not so much mad at the guy as disappointed in myself for not having figured out this little Malian cultural quirk by now.

This past week a bunch of Volunteers and I from the Segou region jumped in a mini-bus and took a 5 hour ride to a fellow Volunteer's site in Dogofry, north of Segou. She had organized an AIDS awareness bike tour and asked other Volunteers to come up and help spread the good news about a terrible disease.

An AIDS awareness bike tour works exactly how you would imagine it to. A bunch of people jump on bikes and ride around to different villages and talk to people about sex, condoms, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome... or SIDA as it's known in French.

Ok. It's actually a bit more elaborate than than. Here's how ours worked. The bike tour lasted four days. Each day our group of nine Volunteers visited three different villages. We biked to each location, with most villages typically being three or four kilometers apart from each other. To help facilitate communication a DJ (and his sound equipment) came along. We also had a health extension agent (doctor-ish person) who explained what AIDS was, an actual doctor who tested people for HIV, and a Volunteer counterpart. (All people involved were Malian except the Volunteers.)

For each village our small parade of 10 bikes, 2 motorcycles, and a hand tractor and cart laden with sound equipment and mobile medical unit (a Coleman tent) would roll in and draw as much attention as possible. After setting up the sound equipment and med tent the DJ would blast music and some of the Volunteers would get up and start dancing, which had the effect of getting even more people's attention. After a decent crowd was formed the presentation would begin. We all introduced ourselves and then the extension agent would ramble on and on and on about what AIDS is and how people get it. Then there would be a small break with music where Volunteers would dance again to entertain the crowd. Then the counterpart would do a small skit demonstrating how AIDS "sickness" affects a person's immune system. Then more dancing and a song in the local language which had a chorus that simply repeated the words "SIDA sickness is bad" over and over and over. Then a question and answer time. Then we would pack up and leave. The whole time people who wanted to be tested for HIV could do so at the med tent.

I think over 200 people ended up getting tested for HIV and only one person came up positive. Not exactly numbers indicative of the "AIDS epidemic" that is supposedly ravaging Africa, but then you have to take into consideration that Mali does not have a terribly high incidence of AIDS and the area where we did the testing is fairly rural and not near a major transportation route (although one is being built in the area right now). So, its not surprising that we didn't find a lot of cases, which is something to be thankful for, and hopefully with a better understanding of the disease people in the area will be able to prevent it from becoming a major health problem.

***

I thought I would also share some observations we made while on the tour that most people found rather funny.

As most people know, the first rule about sound equipment is that you never put a microphone in front of a giant speaker. And the second rule is much the same... you never put a microphone in front of a giant speaker. So imagine our amusement (and frustration) when every time our "professional" DJ set up his sound equipment he insisted on placing his massive speakers about 15 meters apart, facing each other, with his mixing station and microphone directly in between. The result was feedback so terrible it would have made any amateur sound person in the US seem like a triple Ph.D in electrical and acoustical engineering. And of course any suggestion from we, the foreigners, went unheeded because why would we know more than the "professionals" who do this kind of thing for a living?

As most people who have been to a developing country know, most unwanted clothing from developed countries usually go to places like Mali to end their days. And for whatever reason, a lot of old clothing from the US in particular makes it to Mali. At one of the villages on the tour there was a woman wearing a black t-shirt that had the words "F*** & Forget" in giant pink lettering on the front. We all thought that rather ironic given the topic of the presentation. Equally as funny was that the woman and everyone around her had no idea what the t-shirt said since no one understands English, but would probably have been just as offended by the shirt's message as when the extension agent showed a condom to one of the villages we visited..

I had my third wat/san committee meeting today. It was definitely the most substantial, but at the same time I also found it to be full of oddities. On paper an American would think the first and second meeting to be highly productive and meaningful (and they were, somewhat). But in a Malian village context, meeting number three has been the real "fish head in the bowl of peanut sauce" so to speak. Here's what I mean:

Meeting 1: About 50 people show up including the village chief, the council of elders, the imam, several men and women from each section of the village, and even a few folks from another community down the road. We talked about what the new committee would do and discussed the need for a list of names of people from every "quartier" to serve officially on the committee. Pretty nice right? Big turnout. Made some progress for a first meeting... on paper.

Meeting 2: About 1/4 of the people named to serve on the committee show up. Not a big deal as I understand it is farming time and people have work to do. A bunch of others show up though. We discuss changing out meeting venue to a different location to help facilitate future training sessions. We also go over how to treat drinking water with bleach and get a little distracted about pump problems, which was a topic scheduled for the following week.

Meeting 3: By far the lowest turnout of all the meetings. Maybe 15 people total. We were at out new venue, an adult training center build by the regional agriculture extension agency, which is hardly ever used. It's a one room school house complete with a chalk board and desks! And no one bothered to tell me about this virtually unused resource until about two weeks ago!

When I arrived to set up for the meeting I find that a team of laborers was using the building as their sleeping quarters while they were building a kindergarten & playground next door.

***

Aside: I'm a bit flabbergasted. I live in a village in the po-dunk middle of nowhere. The main form of transportation is ox cart. Several dozen kids a year die from easily preventable diseases such as diarrhea. Milk is a luxury. There is no running water or electricity. Despite the presence of a school most residents can't read... yet some NGO has decided that what the village really needs is a playground. Seriously?

***

We gently moved the workers things to the side and clean the place up for the meeting. We wait for about 30 minutes for everyone to show up. Then, suddenly my counterpart gets up and actually starts leading the meeting. Usually when it comes to this sort of thing he wants me, the guy who no one can understand, to lead. But no, he takes charge and we actually got things accomplished, albeit nothing I had scheduled for the day. The meeting went something like this:

"Alright. It's our third meeting. We're having trouble getting people to show up, we haven't picked officers or assigned committee jobs to anyone yet and we're not going to get anywhere if we keep having meetings and just wait for the day when everyone finally decides to show up."

"So. Who's gonna be president? How about you Bakoray? Everyone okay with Bakoray being president?" (Quiet mumbling) (Sure.) "Okay. Bakoray is president. Now who's gonna be vice president. They'll be in charge if Bakoray can't be here... and it has to be a woman. Anyone opposed to Mbai being VP?" (Quiet mumbling) (Sure) "Okay. Mbai is VP."

And so it went.

Secretary - person who writes things down

Treasurers - people who count the money

Town Criers - the person who makes talk

Auditors/Fee Collectors - people who test the treasurers

Pump Monitors - people who guard the pumps

When it came time to pick the pump monitors we first put forth names and then someone suggested that these people should be folks that actually use the pumps regularly. So then we went back and edited our list.Then we talked about what the monitors would do to protect the pumps. Things to look out for included:

-Kids trying to see how hard they can slam the pump lever

-People washing clothes or dishes at the pump (Don't wash your dirty laundry in public they cried)

- People bathing at the pumps (Again, keep your dirt at home people!)

(And yes, I see all of these often)

At this point the meeting had gone for an hour and a half and it was about lunch time. We dismissed for the week with the homework assignment of getting those who were absent to show up next time. I say meeting number 3 was the best because we actually got something meaningful accomplished. It was led by a local in a local context, and done in a way that everyone understood what their job was.

(written 11-11-10)

Today marks a 10th consecutive day at site. Ever since getting back from the US I've been in a rather chipper mood and have found myself in an uncharacteristically optimistic attitude regarding my current situation. However, I think this run of positiveness is finally beginning to fizzle... something, to be honest, that I'm not too broken up about given my identity as a pessimist. One of the many things I've discovered in PC is that after 10 days at site I "hit the wall" so to speak. I'm ready to go back to the warm embrace of Segou... if for no reason other than it's possible to get a salad almost any time of the year.

So. In any case. I'm at day 10. I'm losing my optimism. This is how my day has gone thus far (it's about 2 pm)...

Last night we had a noticeable dip in temperature to officially kick off cold season. It was down in the upper 70's and I was told a few dozen people in village just about froze to death in their houses despite sweatshirts, parkas (yes, parkas), and blankets. Meanwhile I spent the night comfortably outside with nothing but a t-shirt and pajama pants and a table cloth. (What? You were expecting a cashmere wool comforter? I'm in PC.) I slept wonderfully... until 4:30 am when the call to prayer of air-raid siren loudness went off as it does every morning...

I went back to sleep until 6:30 am, when the cooking and baby crying noises coming from next door were too much to ignore. I breakfasted on cornflakes with warm powdered milk and a cup of "Liption"... which you should never confuse here with "tea". Pas la même chose I tell you!

Anyway, at 7 a woman politely invited herself into my front yard to ask for some bleach. At least she asked instead of telling me to give her some, but as I was feeling miserly this morning I told her to go buy her own bleach. After reminding me how poor she was I went back inside and resumed listening to the BBC.

After the BBC I got dressed for the day, brushed my teeth ("Lipton" will stain your chompers kids), cut myself while shaving, and then left the house. On the short trip from my house to the butiki (50 meters) I discovered termites had decided to take up residence in the wall of my latrine. I also saw a little girl peeing in the middle of the street and I almost got run over by one of the many young men around here who choose to ride their motorcycles without actually paying attention to where they are going.

At the butiki (50 meters later) I got the morning greetings and hand shakes out of the way and helped myself to a bowl of peanuts. As I was munching away I noticed a little boy to my left about 4 or 5 years old trying to play "paper shredder" with an old cigarette package and a discarded razor blade. Nothing to worry about there... Then one of the sheep from next door wandered over and helped itself to the bowl of peanuts before being shooed off. Oh, those sheep. A bit later I noticed an empty plastic tube that said "effervescent codine". I asked the shop keeper what the stuff was (even though I knew) and he said it was medicine for malaria. I guess you could use codine to relieve the fever or splitting headaches that can come from malaria... but it certainly won't cure you... But hey, at least you don't need a prescription for it in Mali even though it said right on the packaging in big, bold letters "by prescription only".

Later on I decided to take in some dusty air from a different part of town, so I went for a walk to my buddy Sala's butiki. There I ran into my counterpart as he was toying with a fluorescent light fixture powered off a car battery. I hadn't seen one in village before, so I asked what the fixture was called. The response I got was "ampule" as he pointed to the bulb. "Yes", I said, "But what is that?", pointing to the actual fixture. "Ampule", he said. "But there are two things and they aren't the same", I said. "Well, it's all 'ampule'", he said. Now I'm trying to figure out how you would explain changing an "ampule" in an "ampule"...

After my counterpart left another guy showed up that I've seen before, but I have no idea what his name is. He asked me how my American friend is and when he is coming to village. I had no idea what he was talking about as I've never mentioned a friend coming to visit. To solve this riddle I tried to get some more specific information. "Who?" "What's his name?" Unidentified villager's response: "You know. Your American friend." Oh. Well that clears that up. For a second there I wasn't sure if he was talking about the only other person in America that I happen to know, or another Volunteer. After several long seconds with a dumbfounded look on my face the conversation took a different direction.

...Which is when a woman showed up at the butiki and exclaimed, "Ah! The Tubab speaks Bambara!" and then right in front of me she turns to Sala the butiki owner and asks, "What's his name?". Ok. Seriously? I've been in Koila for 14 months now. I'm the only white guy. How haven't you learned my name yet? And how exactly do you think I've gotten by thus far in a community that only speaks Bambara? Come on woman! Use that gray mass between your ears that Allah gave you! The worst part is... I get this from someone probably every other day! Still!

After that I resigned myself to going back home to get some work done, but not before buying one of several kinds of "biskiti". They don't have names, one is jut more expensive than the other, so you say the price you want. I''d be like going to the bakery to buy a donut, but instead of saying "I'd like a honey-glazed", you simply say "Donut. Seventy-nine cents". Sometimes I'm amazed that I can communicate here at all.

(Written 11-11-10)

It's a little less than a week until what I consider to be the Islamic equivalent of what Christmas is for Christians... What is known as Seliba (big prayer) here. I personally haven't been very preoccupied with it because I've actually been "working" lately, but "Seli" is being referred to more and more as the day approaches. As I believe I've mentioned in previous posts, one of the main things you do for Seliba is buy a big male sheep and eat it. Sheep are to Seliba what turkeys are to Thanksgiving.

But Seliba isn't what I want to bring up. I want to highlight something near and dear to the hearts of most Americans... something according to Malians we white people (stereotype) have in great abundance... Money! And I want to begin with my conclusion... That compared to the world I'm presently living in, yes, Americans generally do have money coming out of their ears, noses, and places the sun doesn't manage to find regularly. Sure, we Americans have all heard this before, but I'm under the impression that it doesn't truly resonate. In fact, I'm certain that after you read this it still probably won't. I mean, it's taken me 16 months of being here to realize what I'm about to say. Ok. Here goes.

Some general base facts first. The majority of Malians survive on subsistence agriculture. They grow their own food, raise their own animals for food and labor, and sell what they can to have some source of monetary income. I believe the AVERAGE farming household rakes in a whopping $250 a year (don't quote me on that). Not month. YEAR. Less than a dollar a day. The majority of that money comes all at one time when crops are sold. And that's for the family. Not the individual. Ok. $250. Remember that.

Now let's switch gears to something near and dear to my heart as a civil engineer / water sanitation extension agent / whatever I am in PC. Pump repair! I've been trying to stress for a year now the importance of maintaining the pumps in my village to the residents. This means collecting user fees to fix the pumps when they break or wear down... Which does happen because the kids beat the snot out of them. By my calculations each of the four most commonly used pumps in village need repairs ranging from $100 -150 immediately and $200 -300 for long term use. That's anywhere from half to a full years total income for a household to fix each pump. Think about that in US terms.

At present I'm doing some prep work in Kolomy for the projects I want to do next year. We want to build two new wells there because Kolomy only has one, yes one, functioning water source during the hot season for the whole village (~ 700 people). Kolomy has two pumps that are currently broken. In a setup meeting I had there the other day I told the village leaders they need to get at least one of the pumps working again before we start construction on these new wells because I am concerned that the combined demand of an entire village's water needs AND the amount of water that is required to mix and cure concrete for the new wells will cause the one functioning well to go dry, which would leave the village with a total of zero water sources during hot season.

I estimated that the cheaper of the two pumps to fix would cost about $120... which comes out to a per household contribution of about $1. After doing this very simple math on my very sophisticated looking calculator one old man at the meeting cried out "One dollar! That's impossible!", whereas other people in attendance didn't seem to be so shocked.

Now, like most Americans, $1 doesn't seem like hardly anything. In fact, to me, this man's outburst translated as "One two-hundred-fiftieth of my annual income! Never!", which seemed rather silly to me. It felt like he was just trying to put up an artificial tantrum to make the white guy feel bad so he would give the village an even bigger hand-out. But then I got back to Koila and had several conversations with people about Seliba and how they are unable to buy a sheep this year. A sheep after all goes for about $50 - 60, which is an enormous sum for a family only pulling in $250/yr. This made me realize that here, in Koila, $1 really is a lot of money.

When you start adding everything up, that $250 has to buy everyone in the family clothes, shoes, school supplies, cooking supplies, food, tools, medicines, and take care of things like taxes and land lease agreements for using farm land. And when you think about a Malian household... A husband, one or two or three wives, five or six kids... suddenly $1 is a considerable amount of cash.

The other day I took my laundry over to the neighbors to be washed and apparently left a 1000 CFA note ($2) in one of my pants pockets. My neighbor's wife found it while washing the pants and put the money aside, intending to give it to me when she returned my clothes, but somehow lost it. My neighbor said she was so upset that she cried for much of that evening thinking that I would be very, very mad with her because of the loss of so much money. That's how valuable $1 is here... and I just shrugged it off thinking "I've got plenty more of those back at the house." To me, that in essence sums up the American and Malian view of money in relative quantities.

I'm gearing up for my final "push" in PC. My last project . It won't begin until next February or March, but planning must happen now in order to secure project funds and to make sure that my villagers get all their ducks in a row. I assure you the former is infinitely more simply than the latter.

I'm happy to say that despite all of the frustration that plagued me last year during my well project the overall result was a resounding success. Surrounding villages are now requesting me to come build wells in their communities and the lessons learned last year are now serving to make me better prepared for this upcoming project.

What is this project you ask? Well, as of this moment it looks like I'm going to make an attempt at building four wells and 25 latrines. All in about three months. This might not seem like a lot to the average, industrious American, but consider that each of the wells I built last year took over three weeks to construct... and these new wells will be deeper and in more difficult soil conditions. And, on top of the wells, 25 latrines is nothing to sneeze at. I figure if we end up doing all the work that has been proposed I will be employing two masons on an almost continuous basis for 90 days. This is not common where I'm at. By the end we will have cast over 4,300 concrete bricks by hand, moved over 55 cubic meters of gravel over 12 km with nothing but donkey and ox carts, and dug up over 80 cubic meters of earth with nothing but shovels, picks, and buckets. If those units don't mean anything to you... it's a lot. Especially when you consider none of the work is being done with mechanized equipment. It's like my own little version of building a pyramid or something.

***

I think it's also worth while to provide some more commentary on water availability in my area. My village, Koila, seems to have found itself in an area of Mali with an uncharacteristically high groundwater table. In wet season water is only about 2 meters below the surface. In hot season 5 or 6 meters. On top of that, the soil is sandy clay or loamy clay, so it is very stable when you are digging a well. People can dig wells quickly and easily and only have to include a thing concrete lining to shore up the walls of the well in many places. The result: there is a well in roughly 75% of the 250 household compounds in Koila.

The situation in Koila, however, is in stark contrast to the realities in villages just down the road. In Kolomy, water is at a depth of 15 meters in hot season. That's three times what it is in Koila. That translates into three times as much time, money, and effort into building one well. In another village, Chanty Were ("where-eh"), you have to dig down 8 meters and the soil is sandy and unstable. This translates to a slower, more rugged construction process that also means a much higher cost per well. These higher costs mean fewer water sources have been developed in those villages, and therefore people have to go much further every day to collect water. In Chanty Were there are four wells and one pump for roughly 600 people. My guess is Koila has about 200 wells and 6 pumps for about 2500 people. Who has more access to water? You do the math...

***

Something I also found amusing is that Kolomy is getting two new pumps. That in itself isn't noteworthy, but I find the situation to be of interest and yet another example of how ridiculous things can be here at times. For starters, let me point out that Kolomy already has two pumps. Both are broken. The village is responsible for repairing these pumps and at present hasn't done anything with them for some time. Now an NGO (name unknown to the villagers) has sent a drilling team to the village to put in two new pumps in other sections of the community. This confounds me. Why would an NGO decide to give new pumps to a village if that community is presently demonstrating that it is incapable of taking care of the ones it is now responsible for? Would it not make more sense to first organize the village and get it's members to maintain it's own infrastructure first, not to mention make sure the community knows what NGO you are?...

The thing is though, I see this all the time. I'd venture to say about 50% of the time my inquiries into who funded/built something is usually answered with "?". (Granted, it is hard to keep up with all the names given the number of NGOs operating here.) I find that the only reason a name is put forth the other 50% of the time is that someone had the brilliant idea to leave a sign behind to remind everyone who was responsible.

The most amusing part about the Kolomy pump story thus far, however, is that the drilling team has been trying to cover a distance of approximately 10 km for the last 4 days and has failed in epic fashion. I was returning to Koila from my market town the other day and ran into a caravan of 5 vehicles, including a drill rig on the road past my village on it's way to Kolomy. They had totally obstructed the one lane road and were just getting the drill rig free from a deep, muddy pot hole when I pulled up. I followed the trucks as far as Koila and watched them attempt to continue on to Kolomy. Apparently they got close enough to see Kolomy's school (where one of the pumps is being put) before having to turn around because the road (more like a path between millet fields) was too muddy. The caravan thus turned around and spent the night in Koila.

The next day they got up and decided on a different, much longer route to Kolomy that followed "better" roads, but would first take them through Babugu, Sama, Dioro, and Tibi before finally getting to Kolomy... A journey of about 35 km. However, somewhere between Koila and Babugu the main drill rig again got stuck in mud, but this time they couldn't get it free. This now meant that a large tractor, bull dozer, or other large and typically unavailable machine would need to be brought in to get the drill rig free. Two days later it still wasn't free. Talk about a delay. And to think... they could see the drill site at one point before having to turn back.

The last few days have been the end of an era in PC Mali. Two third-year Volunteers (Kyle and Mary) are finishing up their last days of service this week, so to celebrate their successes and departure we've had a few things scheduled the last few days. The main event was the opening of the school at Mary's site that they both have been working on for the past few years. They invited all the other Volunteers in the Segou area to come and party at Mary's site for an afternoon with the rest of her village. But before I jump right into that, let me go back a bit and give some background details.

Kyle and Mary both came to Mali over three years ago. Kyle actually got here several months before Mary, but had to go back to the US for a while after breaking his leg soon after arriving... yet he came back. They ended up being placed about 20 km apart and got to know eachother fairly well during the first year of their service while doing projects at their own sites. Then somehow they got this crazy idea to build a school at Mary's site, and an entirely new kind of PC experience began for them both. They initially planned on having the school designed and built by the end of their two year service commitment, but after countless delays, miscommunications, unkept promises, lack of local government support, and challenges in acquiring funds they have had to stay in Mali for over three years to see the successful completion of the school.

To celebrate, Kyle and Mary and about a dozen other Volunteers jumped in a minibus and set out on a Sunday morning for Tongo, Mary's village, for an afternoon celebration with her village to officially open the new school... despite the fact that it's still being painted and the mayor's office hasn't purchased desks yet. Mary wasn't expecting a large turnout... Maybe her counterpart, some village elders, and the mayor of the local government district.

As our minibus rumbled down the red gravel road into Tongo we were met with an amazing surprise. Hundreds of children and every man and woman of Tongo were lining the road up to the school along with the mayor, a rep from the governors office, dozens of people from other villages, education officials from Segou, and anyone else who had gotten word of the celebration that day. As Kyle and Mary got out of the minibus they were met with the hundreds of children chanting "Bashi-ba, Mali, Bashi-ba, Mali", and a 12-shotgun salute from the local bush hunters. (Bashi-ba being Mary's Malian name.) There was singing and dancing and speeches and picture-taking and lunch. The chief even donated a whole cow to be slaughtered which is a pretty big deal. It was a truly wonderful way for a Volunteer to close out their service and say goodbye to their community.

And to celebrate Kyle and Mary's last days in Segou we had a pig roast (one of Kyle's favorite things to do). It was truly a team effort that took much of the day. Various people were sent throughout the city to buy a pig, lots of charcoal, rebar and chicken wire for a grill, ingredients for bbq sauce, sodas and other drinks, and food for other dishes including baked mac & cheese, deviled eggs, tortilla chips & salsa, and Funfetti cake. As these supplies slowly trickled in other people were put in charge of building a fire pit and grill rack, roasting the pig, making the food, washing dishes, watching movies, eating the food, and fixing the sink in the kitchen that got clogged.

We had wanted to roast the pig with an apple in it's mouth, but it apparently died with a last wish to have a mouth that refused to open. After several hours of contemplation over a bed of hot coals the pig was ready for the dissection table. After cooling down a bit, half a dozen Volunteers gathered around the kitchen table that had been covered with a black plastic sheet and ceremoniously and unmercilessly ripped the pig limb from limb in an effort to extract every piece of delicious, juicy meat from the corpse. All the heat from the fire had loosened up muscles in the head, so after it was removed from the spinal column... and after the tongue had been pushed to the side, we finally got the apple in the mouth! Now, several hours later, after everyone has consumed more food than is healthy in a day, it is dark as we all sit and try to digest the day's plunder and the kitchen table has been left outside as a greasy mess piled with bones, pig fat, and a head with an apple stuffed in it's mouth like some kind of ripened ovary gag. I'm sure when the night guard shows up to keep us all safe he's going to wonder if he shouldn't have come sooner...

Kyle and Mary are the last people to be leaving Segou this year. We've already seen the departure of several others including Megan, Monica, Markham, and Therese. They will all be terribly missed. A new chapter in my PC experience has now begun as I have become an "upperclassmen" of sorts. It feels funny. But regardless of titles, I still have to get up in the morning and clean up the fire pit and figure out what to do with the pig head...

Another Volunteer mentioned the other day that Malians know about things like mermaids, vampires, etc. To verify this I recently asked my village counterpart if there were any magical beings in Mali. His response was an emphatic "yes". Apparently there are a whole host of spirits wandering around as well as mermaids, vampires, and leprechauns. (I have a feeling these concepts are still strongly tied to remnants of animist beliefs that are still widely prevalent here.)

So... spirits. I've been told they're all over and you typically can't see them, but if you see a small whirlwind... that's actually a spirit making it's way through the neighborhood. A lot of times they will "possess" people or try to scare people.

Evidently mermaids aren't the friendly, topless half woman / half fish creatures that Walt Disney would have us believe. Depending on who you ask they live in rivers, oceans, and possibly even ponds or wells. They're quite unfriendly when it comes to humans and are known for taking away people's air while they're swimming, which leads to drowning. My counterpart says its very dangerous to swim in bigs rivers or oceans as that's where most mermaids are. Apparently these harpy-fish never went on play dates with Ariel.

The vampires in Mali do not originate from Transylvania. Rather, they come from the Sikasso region of Mali and northern Côte d'Ivoire, which is where, I've been told, they prefer to stay. (Don't worry mom, I'm not at risk of attack by vampires in my current location.) They tend to stay in trees and will descend down on people and then kill them and drink their blood. Not entirely sure if they can change into bats or not. People don't know a ton about them in Segou since they're not up here.

Leprechauns seem to be the worst of the bunch, and the most understood in my corner of the country. They're really short, have dark skin, beards, may have backwards feet, and can't really be seen by people. They only come out at night and love to jump out and bash people on the head as they travel on roads. And... if you are lucky enough to catch one they will give you lots and lots of things and lots of money. My counterpart says he's seen one or two before and knows someone who caught one once and now is really rich. He also refuses to leave village at night and has forbidden me from traveling on the road to my market town once it's dark out.

I've explained to my counterpart that I think he's totally full of crap and that these "beings" only exist because he thinks they do. His response was to say that the Volunteer who lived in my village in 2006 went up to Bankass once and while there another Volunteer and a bunch of other people saw a giant spirit on the road that was scaring the tô right out of people. "So there!" he declared. My retort was that in America lots and lot of people swim in the ocean every day and we haven't found any mermaids yet, nor has anyone drowned as a result of a mermaid... to which my counterpart replied, "How is that possible?!"

So, either spirits, mermaids, vampires, and leprechauns don't exist, or they are just as geographically uninformed as most Malians and haven't figured out how to get to America yet.

I'm sitting in Terminal 2E at the Paris - Charles de Gaulle airport right now, trying to distract myself so the eight hour layover doesn't take so long on my way back to Mali. There are some American girls to my right who appear to be in college. One is wearing a bright yellow shirt and those black spandex pants that make any woman's features appear favorable. To my left there's an assorted mix of Africans who I presume are on their way to Togo based on the destination displayed on the screen for Gate 42. I'm in for an exciting day of people watching as there are two international flights scheduled to depart from my gate before my own. And there's no use trying to sleep for any of those eight hours thanks to the combination of the PA system going off every ten minutes giving the same security alert and the fact that whatever interior designer chose the seating accommodations for this terminal managed to pick chairs that are anything but a pleasant sitting experience.

And can I just take a moment before I get to the real topic of the entry to mention one of my airport pet peeves? Ok. So you know when you go to the airport and you're by yourself and you're not exactly interested in sitting next to a bunch of strangers. You've got a long wait before your flight because you got to the airport early or you have a layover and all you are interested in doing is finding a quiet place to sit and be by yourself for a while before you are herded back on a plane and stuffed in a seat in between a bunch of people you've never met before... who may possibly carry an odor based on the culture they come from. You pick a spot that is sufficiently far away from the next waiting passenger and get comfortable. You're happy. Then some guy walks up and sits down right next to you even though there are literally hundreds of other seats to choose from, and he's listening to an Ipod with the volume turned up so loud that you have no trouble hearing his music over whatever you happen to be listening to on your own Ipod. I HATE THAT!!! Seriously dude, take a different seat on our otherwise entirely unoccupied row and leave me alone!

(Hey, what do you know. That guy must have read my mind. He just got up and went to go board the plane to Togo. Excellent.)

Ok. So the reason I'm in CDG is I'm on my way back to Mali after two weeks back in America. I hadn't planned on going back to the US while in PC, but my sister had a baby and I figured it would be nice to be around for the arrival of my parents first grandchild. My sister also had the amazing foresight to schedule her baby's due date around the time of my own birthday, which also happens to be my favorite time of year... Fall. When all the trees have decided to get dressed up and look decent for once. I got to see parents, siblings, in-laws, grandparents, friends, professors, and the family dog. It was great.

However, one thing that everyone asked me (with the dog as an exception) was what is something that I like/enjoy about Mali. That should be a pretty simple question to answer, yet I had great difficulty with it. In fact, at first I really didn't have an answer. My reply was: "nothing". Sure, that's not entirely true, but nothing seemed to jump out at me. And while I felt like that was (and is) my truthful answer, I didn't like giving it. It made me feel like a downer. An un-happy person. I felt like I was telling people that I was living in a situation without any enjoyment. And now, after two weeks in the US and an eight hour plane ride, I think I have a better answer. Although, it's still not all sunshine and rainbows.

So, what do I like about Mali? That is a simple question with a complicated answer. From the things I've experienced across Mali as a whole (so far) some of the things I like include: bogolan (mud cloth), traditional music (djembes, balafons, and STRING INSTRUMENT), and the incredible friendliness of the people. However, I rarely ever experience the first two things things. There are no artisans in my village, so there's no bogolan, and people don't know how to play musical instruments let alone make them or have money to buy them. What I'm saying is the things I like most about Mali are the exceptions to what is normal about my Mali experience. Most of what I encounter on a daily basis may be amusing at times, but mostly I'm indifferent to it.

I can't really say I like the food. Most Americans I know don't particularly enjoy eating bird seed (millet), and rice and peanut sauce is alright, but not if you eat it for dinner every night of the year. The cloth used for traditional clothing is neat, but I'd never wear a traditional Malian outfit. I am not a fan of the hot, flat Sahel. They don't play any traditional music on the radio near my village (only bad pop music that uses the same drum machine beat for every song). The mint tea is pretty good, but I don't drink it because the water is contaminated. Etc, etc, etc. These are the realities of everyday life for me. I don't dislike them, but I don't necessarily enjoy them either. Much of what is around me simply "is", and that's where I leave it.

And let me also say that I haven't seen the things that most tourists come to see in Mali: Dogon country and the elephants in Hombori (and to a much lesser extent the Hippos in Manatali). I'm sure once I've had a chance to experience some of those things I'll have formulated a different answer to the question in question.

Recently there's been a lot of hub-ub in the news about some cranky old white guy down in Florida named Terry Jones who woke up one morning and thought it would be a good idea to burn Qur'ans as a demonstration of his faith in Christianity. Whereas the 50 or so people that follow this curmudgeon found his proposal to be full of all kinds of good merit, most people around the world were under the impression that this demonstration of paper's ability to burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit would be better suited if some other feedstock could be substituted as fuel. Generally speaking, when you live in a country that is already in a sticky situation with a group of people professing belief in a religion that makes up about 1/6 of the world's population, it's a good idea to NOT do something that is going to exacerbate those circumstances by lets say... oh... desecrating the written record of all they hold to be true in life and in the realm beyond.

And by the way... where were all the books for that proposed barbecue going to come from? Wouldn't Mr. Jones first have to go out and either buy (more likely) or steal (less likely, being a "true" Christian) a bunch of copies? Wouldn't that mean that by spitting on Islam he would first have to support it by purchasing books that were most likely produced by a business that operates in support of Islam? I find that kind of funny.

Ok. But so what? What are the real implications from all of this for me. Matt. The guy writing this? Here's the "so what":

I'm currently working in a country where Islam is kind of a big deal. I get woken up every morning, not by roosters or my alarm clock, but from the blaring sound of the call to prayer at 4:30 am. If I'm traveling anywhere in late afternoon the bus will undoubtedly stop so people can pray. Daily, people ask me to go to mosque with them and pray. You can't find pork most places. I could say more, but I think you get the idea.

And not only is Mali a Muslim country, but it comes with two varieties of people. The well-behaving ones, and the poorly-behaving ones. Sadly, the poorly behaving ones happen to be men who have started a little boys club called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They even have secret little club houses up in the Sahara Desert in the northern part of Mali. If you haven't heard of them, they're the guys who have been kidnapping westerners in Niger, Mali, and Mauritania over the past couple of years and bringing them back to the desert to hang out (not a lot of folks in the desert to hang out with typically). And when they're not actively kidnapping people, they're talking about doing so, or being mad at the French for spoiling all their fun after an attempted rescue mission of an abducted Frenchman.

This makes certain parts of Mali a less favorable destination than others for people like me... A white Christian from the US. I consider my neck of the woods (rice field really) to be safe an free of un-do-gooders by the way (don't worry mom). But here's the kicker... there are Americans in lots of other places around the world where the majority of the local population is Muslim and the local sentiment towards people from the US is less than cordial. So... when you're overseas in a place like that, it is not exactly welcome news to hear that folks back home have decided to pick a fight with people you call your neighbors or you local shop keeper or your barber or the guy cooking your food. You're making what is already a difficult situation for a lot of American ex-patriots an even more difficult one.

Alright. Conclusion. In the most politically sensitive way I can think of I'd like to give a shout out to Terry Jones and friends...

Dear Terry,

I find your epiphany to burn a certain religious text to be... unhelpful, not in my best interest, bad for America, silly, petty, stupid. Have a nice day.

I went out to eat in Segou yesterday with all the new Volunteers being placed in the Segou region. After waiting over an hour for our food to arrive, we still didn't have what we ordered, but a band showed up and started playing Malian music. One guy was on a balaphone (like a xylophone), and three others were playing djembes (drums) of different shapes/configurations. After a while the "lead singer" of the band pulled out a plate and started mingling with us in an effort to collect tips (it worked).

It's hard to distinguish because of the poor video quality, but what the guy is doing is actually pretty cool, although subtle. First off, he's playing so fast that the camera can't pair up the sound with the motion of his hands. Second, in the middle of the video he's able to play while balancing the tip plate on his head. Lastly, towards the end of the video he's able to make the djembe produce different sounds even though it looks like he's hitting the djembe the same every time.

Listening and watching to the band was a nice distraction from the fact that it took almost two hours from the time we ordered until we actually got out food. I feel as if there should be a band situated near most things in Mali to make the incredibly long waiting time for most daily tasks seem to pass more quickly.

Some of you may have forgotten that on top of being in Peace Corps, I am also in grad school at the moment at Michigan Tech. I'm working on my Master's in environmental engineering and am doing my research while in Peace Corps. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do my research on, but I think I finally have something to look into at least. My idea is to look at drinking water quality from a bacteriological perspective at different sources and points of use to determine if aid agencies should promote source technology or point of use treatment.

So far my "research" has included sampling water at different sources (bore hole pumps and hand dug wells) and points of use (household clay pots) to test for bacteria. I'm using a very simple test medium (3M Petrifilm) which detects total coliforms and E. coli. To do a test you simply apply 1 ml of water onto the petrifilm, let it sit for 24 hours in a warm place, and then count the number of "dots" that show up on the film. Each red or blue dot indicates a CFU (colony forming unit), red for total coliform and blue for E. coli. Each CFU is typically made up of many, many individual bacteria cells.

In the US, the EPA water quality standard for municipal drinking water is 0 cfu/ml (ie. nothing!). We Americans have decided that the water coming out of the tap should be pathogen free. How nice.

The results for water in my village thus far are nothing to celebrate. I tested 3 pumps, 6 wells, and 45 household clay pots. Every single sample I took was contaminated except for two of the pumps. Most with a bacteria count over 100 cfu/ml. Many were over the detectable limit of the petrifilms.

The pictures below are of three different samples that were tested. "P4" is from one of the pumps. It's clean. No bugs to be found. "L2" is a well. Lots of nasties. "HL11" is a household clay pot. Bunches and bunches of yuckiness. The two contaminated films both have over 400 cfu/ml.

If you're wondering why there are air bubbles on the contaminated slides... that's because the bacteria on those films have been gorging themselves on growth media and are now belching and farting out waste products all over the place. (Coliform bacteria aren't known to be the tidiest organisms, which is why we don't want them in our drinking water.)

I got up the other day in Segou and like every other day decided that I wanted breakfast. The remedy to this problem was quite simple. I could go to the patisserie next door and buy a pastry for a dollar, or I could walk down the street to the nearest full service boutique and grab some yogurt, eggs, powdered milk, and bread for less than a dollar. I opted for the less costly, more diverse option that morning and headed to the boutique.

When I get there I grabbed a sachet of strawberry Yoplait out of the fridge outside and then headed inside for the rest of my supplies. It was 8:30 am, and per usual, the boutique owner was in a semi-comatosed state of utter stupidity. I don't know if he was dropped on his head repeatedly as a child (possible), has a substance abuse problem (unlikely), or if his brain cells are slowly being destroyed from the fumes of the gasoline drums stored in the back (probable), but getting this guy to do anything with any sort of urgency or intelligence is on the same level as attempting to have a donkey do cartwheels.

Conversation...

Me: I want 2 eggs.

Him: Here are your 3 eggs.

Me: I said 2.

Him: ...

Me: I want a really small packet of powdered milk.

Him: This one? (holding 20g packet)

Me: No. Smaller. A really small packet.

Him: This one? (holding different 20g packet)

Me: No. Really, really small.

Him: This one? (holding 100g packet)

Me: No!!! Super, teeny-tiny, miniscule in size small!

Him: This one? (holding 5 gram packet)

Me: Yes!!!

Me: I'm done. I want to pay.

Him: (blank stare)

Me: Hey. Give me my change.

Him: Huh?

Me: Change.

Him: (gives me my change)

***

When my stimulating conversation with the shop owner was just about over I started to feel some kind of liquid dripping down the back of my leg. I though maybe I had backed into something in the overstuffed boutique and had spilled something. To my surprise, what I found behind me was a girl of about six holding a little boy less than a year old who had no pants on and was pissing all over me. Needless to say I was very angry (pissed if you will) and wanted to do something terrible to those children. However, common sense thankfully got the best of me and I realized that it was pointless to be mad at a kid who was too young to even know that he was pissing, let along all over the back of my leg. Instead, I stormed out of the boutique, went home, changed, and had breakfast in a bad mood.

It was a rainy day in Segou today, so I thought it would be a good time to get a hair cut. I've only had my hair cut one other time in country so far, and the experience was fine, so I figured if I went to the same place I'd come home a happy customer. That was fatal assumption number one.

Since I can't really explain how I want my hair cut in Bamabara and the barbers here don't cut white guy's hair too often, my strategy in the past was to just point at one of the soccer players on a wall poster and say "do that". Last time I got the "Wayne Rooney". This time I was going for more of a "Steven Gerrard" look.

At first the barber had the right idea... except instead of bringing the clipper up to cut, he brought it down my head, which is a terribly inefficient way to cut straight hair. It's like trying to cut wet, matted down grass with a lawn mower. Doesn't work well. But, after a while "the look" started to take form. However, when nearing completion I pointed out that one side of my head was still longer than the other.

Instead of simply repeating the procedure he had been following up to that point, he chose to use an upward cutting motion this time, which left a giant divot on the left side of my forehead. I now had more of a "crater" look going on. There's no way a pair of paramecia sharing a brain cell wouldn't have been able to figure out why I was displeased with the result. Yet the barber seemed dumbfounded as to why I had become so disgruntled after what he had just done.

He then attempted to correct his colossal error and ended up shaving my hair all the same length in a buzz cut. Now I was mad. I could have done what this guy did blindfolded with my non-dominant hand after consuming copious amounts of alcohol, but apparently I decided to bike to the barbers in the rain and pair full price for work that I wouldn't even tolerate for my dog back in the States. AAaarrrgg!

A known fact about modern agriculture is that most farming operations these days rely on synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Even in a subsistence agriculture society like Mali where manure and other organic refuse is hauled out to fields every year, inter-cropping with nitrogen fixating plants is practiced, and the majority of fields are still plowed with a team of oxen does modern agricultural chemistry reside. In my neck of the woods the primary products being used are herbicides and urea based nitrogen fertilizers for cultivating hundreds of thousands of hectares of rice.

There are several problems with modernizing subsistence agriculture. The biggest of which, in my opinion, is that the farmers are illiterate. Illiteracy only prolongs the other problems I've noticed which include over application of agricultural chemicals, overuse of land (nothing goes fallow), and poor soil conservation practices. People aren't able to educate/inform themselves.

The over application of chemicals results in higher costs to the farmer and a degradation to local ecology in the form of groundwater/surface water contamination and the promotion of algal blooms and other water flora which degrade water quality in surface waters. Water contamination from nitrogen fertilizers can lead to blue baby syndrome, which is pretty tough to catch when all the babies here have dark skin to begin with. Degradation of water quality in surface waters reduces fish populations, which diminishes available food supplies and a good source of protein.

Overuse of land and poor soil conservation practices go hand in hand. Overusing land depletes the soil of organic matter and nutrients, which makes growing more difficult in subsequent years and increases the reliance on synthetic organic fertilizers. Lack of organic material in soil also leads to soil loss and desertification caused by winds blowing away the remaining inorganic minerals. Poor soil conservation is manifested by farmers not constructing wind rows or erosion barriers to prevent soil from being carried off fields by wind or storm water.

***These are not problems specific to developing countries either. The US deals with the same things, but educated farmers and stricter, enforced laws mean these problems are much less common.

I recently had a conversation with my counterpart about spraying herbicides on fields. My concern was that people were applying excessive amounts of herbicides on their fields, which I felt could lead to groundwater contamination. (The fields which are treated are flooded for several months after spraying, and the waters from those fields help recharge the aquifers in and around my village.) At first my counterpart basically laughed at the idea, but when I started asking him where all the well water came from and made the link between rain water, irrigation waters, and groundwater recharge I saw the light click on in his mind. When he understood he said he thought everyone in village should stop drinking well water and only get drinking water from the pumps in town. I then had to calm him down by pointing out that if there was a significant problem a lot of people would be getting sick, which isn't happening, although this doesn't mean that people could still be at risk in the area.

It's funny. People here know that herbicides and pesticides are dangerous chemicals. They buy them in bottles of highly concentrated liquid or granules, which they then mix with water and apply with a hand sprayer. They wash their hands with soap after spraying (but not after pooping?....) and try to keep people away when they are using the chemicals. However, they don't wear gloves, boots, eye protection, or a face mask when spraying (which is indicated on all the packaging with pictures), and they let kids play with the empty containers after they've been rinsed out with water. They also use/mix all the chemicals the same way even though they come in different concentrations. Of course most people don't know this because the directions are in French of English, which they can't read even if they did understand those languages. I've even seen some people using herbicides in hand sprayers that are intended to be applied with an airplane.

I'm also a little miffed that people can't make the connection between a herbicide being bad for a person and an insecticide being bad for an animal. My counterpart's dog had open wounds on both ears the other day that were covered in flies. To "help" the dog out he wanted to dust the dog's head with an insecticide used to kill flies and other household creepy-crawlies. He seemed to have no idea that this might not be the wisest course of action.

We've had a decent dry spell in village considering that it's supposed to be prime time for rain. The last few weeks have brought clouds, wind, lighting, and thunder, but no rain. This means most people have been sitting around a lot waiting for the rains to show up so they can plant millet.

Fortunately on Friday Allah decided to ease the people's disgruntlement and sent rain. Not the righteous fury that usually shows up... but a nice, long, soaking rain that started at 2 am and went until 2 pm. Now everything is wet, muddy, and damp. But at least the crops are finally getting in.

However, the rain has annoyingly found it's way back into my house through the roof again. I woke up to a small puddle and gobs of mud on the floor. This means that once again I'll have to go borrow someone's tree-trunk-turned ladder, climb up on the roof with a bucket of dirt and stop around barefoot to pack the mud roof down, hoping all the while the "soft spot" that has developed isn't too soft. One thing American and African cultures share in common is a desire NOT to come crashing through one's own roof into the living room.

I've also discovered that I'm going to have to fix the hangar/awning in front of my house. This is the same hangar that, as you may recall, was built by my counterpart without doing any measuring or strategizing before hand. As a result, the crossbeam that supports most of the weight of the roof is terribly undersized and is now sagging considerably under the weight of all the rain that the straw roofing has soaked up. My front door only opens half way without me having to push the hangar up. So, at present I've had to add additional reinforcement in the form of some leftover pvc pipe and a stack of bricks. Doing so has reduced my fear of the whole thing coming crashing down in front of my door, which would leave me trapped inside.

Waking up on a rainy day is something I enjoy here because it means that I have some extra time to myself in my house to read, clean, write, or do whatever I want without feeling like I have to mingle with people in the community right away. It's like a snow day. However, this Friday was an exception. At 8 am a neighbor came over to inform me that a baby naming ceremony was happening across the street. There was no backing out of this invitation even if I wanted to because the celebration was for someone in my "family", the chief was there, and it was directly across from my front door so everyone knew where I was and what I had been up to that morning. Just once though I wish I would be informed about these things before they actually started. I need time to get my party ensemble together and run down to Walgreens to by a "congratulations" card before I can show up... obviously.

In any case, I threw on some nice clothes and a rain coat and went across the street for the celebration. I slipped my way through the mud and arrived just in time to hear the end of the blessing which was being given by the imam with six fingers on one hand. After the prayer I found a place to sit on the ground (like everyone else) inside a tiny little room right in front of the chief and right next to a guy who works at one of the mills in town and has the middle finger on his right hand broken so he's always "flipping the bird". Fortunately that gesture doesn't mean anything here.

Once the "cafe" had been brought out, and after someone fished the leaves out of it, and after it had been spilled all over me by kids attempting to pass cups all over the room, we had a meal. Effectively lunch at 9 am. All the kids and young men left to go eat elsewhere, so I essentially got to eat at the "big kids table" with the chief, which was really a communal bowl on the floor.

After the meal I decided to venture over to the butiki to see what everyone else in town was doing. (Butikis being the main social gathering point in village.) I found the rest of the kids and young men from the baby naming ceremony. They were waiting for their food to be brought to them. Apparently the butiki was serving as a satellite celebration site.

The young men ate at the butiki and the kids ate at a house next door. At the butiki several huge bowls of rice were brought and men gathered around them under the awning of the shop. Some held empty rice sacks over their heads to block rain that was leaking in through holes in the plastic that covered the butiki awning.

Apparently there was a mixup with the food and the kids ended up with a giant bowl of scalding hot rice, but no bowl of sauce to put on it. After waiting patiently for several minutes they decided to take matters into their own hands and came parading out into the muddy, rain filled street carrying the bowl of rice and making a lot of noise. The young men asked what was up and the boys replied that they had no sauce and were going in search of some at the neighbors. I assume they found what they wanted because the noise died down soon thereafter. I think the closest American equivalent would be a cake showing up at a birthday party without frosting and all the young party-goers decided to take matters into their own hands by hauling the cake all over the neighborhood until frosting was discovered.

As I've said before, a big part of Malian culture is greetings. I think I've also made mention of my thoughts about how Bambara as a language seems to be a lot less complex than English. As a result, this seems to provide opportunities to mix things up when I get bored giving the same greetings all the time. My site mate, Therese, who is just finishing up her two years here recently remarked that she spends roughly 39.8% of her day greeting and sometimes she can't help but be inventive to keep things interesting.

So... Standard greetings are typically as follows. There's a lot to say and people usually speak quickly, which means you have to be on your A game if you want to be sharp about it.

"Good morning. How was your night?"

"Was the night peaceful?"

"How are the people of your house?"

"Is your father well?" (Then mother, wife, kids, siblings, etc)

"Are you well?"

"Is there peace?"

"There aren't any problems?"

Then you interject statements of goodwill. Since I'm white the ones people say to me are usually related to money.

"You and wealth."

"You and rest / easy times."

"You and work."

"You and a long time." ("It's been a while.")

I have to give a reply to all of this and offer it back to whoever is greeting me, and vice versa. When it's feeling like a particularly slow day and I need to entertain myself I'll add a few extra greetings for good measure.

"How are your cows?" (Then chickens, donkeys, sheep, and goats.)

"Is your motorcycle well?"

"There is peace in your pit latrine?"

...To which people reply with:

"How is your notebook?"

"Is your pen well?"

"There are no problems with your bicycle?"

And then I'll offer some statements of goodwill that are specific to what a person is doing... so "You and work" becomes:

"You and washing dishes"

"You and getting water"

"You and fixing a motorcycle"

"You and selling things"

"You and drinking tea"

"You and sitting"

"You and driving an ox cart"

You can do this with whatever a person is doing. For example: you and reading my blog. To which you reply "Nba" or "Nse" depending on which set of chromosomes you drew at the conception lottery.

While I intend on finding some kind of desk job when I finish up with PC, in the past I've had a fair amount of work experience in the realm of non-desk job / OSHA regulated stuff. If you don't know (or have forgotten), OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It's Uncle Sam's workplace watchdog that makes sure people aren't chopping their fingers off or running people over with forklifts when at work. I do feel that OSHA is a good thing, but often times people in the construction, manufacturing, and risk averse industries feel that OSHA rules with a heavy hand. There are often complaints that OSHA's regulations are overly conservative or completely unnecessary, and having worked in the construction and engineering fields, I can understand these complaints.

But I also see why OSHA is a good thing. Take Mali as a case study for example... People using grinders and welders without any kind of protective equipment. People lighting cigarettes off the arc of a welder. People working in unventilated spaces or in excavations that haven't been shored up. No closed-toed shoes. No helmets. No guards on machinery with exposed moving parts. I see a lot of people with massive scars from severe wounds on hands, arms, legs, and feet.

As I've mentioned before, my latest project has been well construction. I've found that on top of teaching the villagers a new method for well construction, I've also had to dedicate a fair bit of time to safety lessons... even concepts that seem fairly obvious to me. For example...

- You shouldn't lower heavy objects into a well directly above someone standing in the bottom of the well. What happens if you drop the heavy object?

- You should make sure that the rope, poles, and beams you are going to use to lower someone into a well can actually support the weight of the workers.

- You should use a rope when going up and down a well shaft, instead of trying to play "Cliffhanger" by scaling directly up and down the loose earth wall of the well.

- You should anchor your rope to something that won't move instead of having someone hold it while a person dangles suspended several meters above the bottom of a well shaft.

I also had a bit of a scare recently with the second well I built in village. My counterpart and a mason were working in the well about three meters above the water surface and 2 meters below the top of the well. My counterpart had been doing some strenuous work in the well and was standing on top of the bricks making up the well lining, in between vertical strands of rebar sticking up about 2 feet out of the bricks. All of a sudden he stopped talking as if to catch his breath, was quite for a few moments and then slumped over between the vertical rebar and the well wall. He fainted. For a second I was seriously freaking out. My counterpart is in his 50's and I thought he was having a heart attack or something.

Fortunately he became conscious soon after, but was pretty weak for a while. The mason in the well, another laborer and I had to pull him out of the well so he could recover. He could have easily been seriously injured by falling onto one of the vertical strands of rebar or by falling into the well where he could have broken something or potentially drowned before anyone would have been able to pull him out.

My counterpart is fine now. I suspect that he was just very dehydrated, low on electrolytes, and... old. I think he forgot that he can't do things like he did when he was in his 20's.

Apparently workers fainting in wells is not uncommon in Mali either. In many places the water table is several dozen meters below the surface, which means men are working in enclosed, unventilated spaces. They end up fainting because air isn't circulating to the bottom of the well fast enough and the workers end up using all the oxygen and pass out. This was not the case for my counterpart, who was only a few feet below the surface.

But the lesson here is that well construction has very real risks and can be dangerous. I've heard stories in the past of people not putting any merit into safety and having a well cave in on workers, resulting in severe injury or death. I find that it is impossible to to eliminate all potential hazards in a workplace, but at least in the US we are very aware of workplace safety. In Mali it's not on the horizon of consideration. I've been here for a year and still don't even know the word for "safety" in Bambara.

Here's a little video showing all the key steps in the construction of my first well project in April.

First we had to cast all the concrete bricks by hand. Ox carts brought sand from the river 10 km away and we used buckets and shovels to mix the concrete on the ground before casting the bricks over a period of about two weeks. At the same time we had two guys dig the well down to the water table, and once there we constructed a cutting ring in the bottom of the well using rebar, bricks, and concrete.

After waiting a week for the concrete to dry, we continued to increase the depth of the well by digging earth out from underneath the cutting ring, which would slowly sink down as soil was removed. We managed to gain an additional meter of depth before we had to stop because soil conditions became unfavorable. We then started lining the well with the concrete bricks and backfilling between the bricks and the exposed well wall. The final step was to cast a cover for the well which would prevent debris, animals, or kids from falling in and contaminating the water.

Along the way we had several things to watch out for. Of main importance was getting the cutting ring level before we started laying bricks so that the well shaft wouldn't end up crooked. Then we had to make sure all the bricks were placed snugly together to maintain the circular shape of the shaft so not to compromise structural integrity. Vertical rebar was incorporated through the entire well and people had to be very careful not to injure themselves getting in an out of the hole. The bricks also presented issues. For instance, I found a snake curled up in the midst of the brick pile one day. Also, no one wore closed toed shoes, so everyone needed to be careful not to drop anything heavy on their feet.

There were challenges and frustrations throughout the project, but the work is done, and now the village school has a safe and reliable source of water for the kids.

I should also mention that my "job" in all of this was to help get funding, organize the project, and introduce the construction technique being used (build technical capacity). I had a guy come in from Bamako to teach the villagers how to do the work, but apart from the trainer, everyone else in the pictures was doing this kind of work for the first time.

The biggest thing to happen in the international soccer community in the last four years is going on at the moment if you haven't heard. It's kind of a big deal, yet somehow Americans still refuse to embrace this, the favorite sport of the world, en masse. This is a part of my own culture I don't understand. To me the "true" American way would be to get thoroughly invested in the world of soccer and completely dominate it, to the frustration and consternation of all others.

World Cup fever, unsurprisingly, has also made it to rural Mali. Despite the fact that I live in a mud house, take bucket baths outside, use a pit latrine with no roof every day, have to carry water to my house, and don't have electricity, I can still ride my bike to the edge of my village and watch all the World Cup games via satellite TV powered off solar panels and car batteries at the doctor's house at the village health center. I find strange paradoxes like this a lot out here...

Obviously I'm cheering for the US and my other favorite teams. I even have a little US flag to wave around when the Etats Unis are playing, which the villagers think is the most amusing thing since someone decided that humans could actually be amused. It's that popular.

When I'm not cheering for the US, I'm rooting for one of the teams in my "World Cup Bracket", which unfortunately had to include North Korea. Uhh! That, or I'm going for teams that I generally consider to be good or have good players. Interestingly this has led me to cheer mostly for teams from Europe and South America. This is in stark contrast to the Malian philosophy of World Cup enthusiasm.

Sadly, Mali didn't qualify for the World Cup. (But they did send a referee squad which ended up shafting the US out of a goal against Slovenia... Coulibaly!!!) Therefore, the locals have had to choose other countries to adopt as their own for the next few weeks. I'll give you a hint... the World Cup is in Africa for the first time.

That's right. They're supporting the African teams. If the team is all black players, they've got the confidence of Mali behind them. It doesn't matter if the team is considered "good" or not. Apparently hope and magical fairy dust are all you need for success. And since magical fairy dust doesn't exists, it's not surprising (to me) that out of the six African teams in the Cup this year, only one is going to make it past the initial group stage.

Needless to say, I get a lot of playful harassment when I cheer for a team opposing a one of the African nations. They tell me that I'm African now, so I have to support African teams.

I find this somewhat interesting. It seems that my soccer enthusiast friends and I will support teams that we regard as good, or the team of our nationality. Race or skin color or geographic location doesn't really play into it. I like Uruguay as much as I like Spain for the same reasons that I don't like South Africa or France. This concept is starkly in contrast to the general order of things here, which is to first cheer for anyone who is the same racially.

The viewing experience is also a bit different compared to the US. Since televisions are few and far between outside the city (literally, satellite even more so), any working television usually draws a crowd. I'm usually watching a game with 30 or 40 other men, who are all packed closely together in order to see what's happening on the 17 inch screen. If anything interesting were to happen... say a shot in the general direction of the goal, or a cross that happens to find no one... there are wild outbursts of enthusiasm. Hands raise up and wave frantically in the air. Sounds of high pitched screaming. A collective leaning in towards the TV. Yelling "Goal" even if the ball sails 18 million miles over the net. And then after the moment of excitement is over there's a nice long group discussion in which everyone simultaneously expresses their opinion on what just happened and then people start yelling at each other if they think it was a bad play. Sure, this is kind of like how a sports bar feels in the US, but without the alcohol and a lot more animated.

I've tried to keep all my posts up this point as positive as I can. Sure, I hint at things and mention my frustrations, but I've been trying to paint everything is a positive light. Not today. I've got a few annoyances to share, which I feel is appropriate to write about now that I've been here for a year.

You know what grinds my gears about Mali...

When kids see me and they stop what they are doing and start jumping up and down yelling "Too-baa-boo" over and over and over and over and over and over.

When I'm riding my bike in the city and someone sitting on the side of the road starts yelling at me come over to him for no other reason than I'm white.

When people tell me to give them my stuff.

When people tell me to go into my house and get the loads of cash I obviously have... or to send home for money for them.

When I try to take a bus between cities and I hear the baggage handlers tell each other to charge me a lot for baggage because I'm white.

That nothing ever happens "on time".

That community leaders in my village make agreements with me all the time that they don't keep.

That I have to greet everyone all the time... or I'm a jerk.

When people come to the bureau in Segou looking for the tailor shop next door and then can't figure out why there aren't any sewing machines in our room.

Beggars.

When people say "bon soir" (good evening) to me at 7 in the morning.

When my counterpart laughs at me when I explain to him that something that he or others in the village are doing is bad for reasons that seem quite obvious to me (not washing hands, not treating water, not beating kids or wives, not using safety equipment in dangerous situations, having dozens of people share the same drinking cup, the advantages of plates and forks, to name a few).

When people continue to speak to me in French when I tell them I only speak Bambara or English.

When people tell me to get them papers and money to go to America.

When people give me a blank look when I tell them Spain and America aren't connected.

When kids poop in the street outside my concession gate.

The wait at the bank (minimum 3 hours).

Street vendors who try to sell me stuff because they think I'm a tourist. (I am not their friend, which they claim with some insistence)

Gendarmes.

That my counterpart asks me every day if I want to eat some of his moni (millet porridge), which I hate and refuse to eat... and he knows it.

That people will pick up a large spoon and start eating with it when 10 seconds earlier it had been entirely covered with flies.

That bad rap music and pro wrestling are a big portion of the American pop culture that makes it over here.

That my counterpart's radio seems to have two settings... off, or deafeningly loud. He lives next door.

Most music played on the radio.

The lady that tries to see me bread every time I go from Segou to my village... and I NEVER buy anything from her.

That when I try to buy things at most corner stores it often seems that me trying to give the shop some business is more of an annoyance to the shop owner than anything else. Apparently I've interrupted them from the whole lot of nothing they were doing beforehand.

That no one ever has change! (shops, market, bars, taxis, etc.)

I stayed in another Volunteer's village a few days ago and got to experience an animist spiritual ceremony. I guess I would say it was what most people probably think of when they imagine what African ceremonies might look like.

The ceremony took place at night in a large, walled-in courtyard. In the middle of the yard was an open dancing area about 20 feet square. All around this people were seated at least three rows deep on the ground and on chairs or benches. On one side of the open area there was a animist leader/guru/shaman seated in a large chair with several layers of cushions. He was wearing a tunic made out of what looked like white burlap or rough cotton and had scenes hand painted on it. On another side of the area there were some singers, a sound system, and someone playing some kind of wind instrument. In the middle of the open area five men were playing different kinds of drums (all standing).

The drummers would play songs that started out somewhat slowly and then built in intensity to a final peak, and then stopped. After a few minutes break the whole thing started over again.

During the songs men and women would go over to the guru, crouch down, touch his foot with their right hand, and then walk around the perimeter of the open area in a crouched stance holding their right hand out to the feet of all the people seated around the edge of the area. After circling the edge of the area these people would then walk around the circle standing up doing a little dance (think conga line). When the music would begin to pick up in tempo the line would break up and people would move to the center of the open area and begin to dance in one place.

At this point I think they were supposed to be being inhibited by an animist spirit. Their feet would remain on one spot while the rest of their body would whirl around and contort wildly... to the extent that women's head scarves would come flying off. (Think whirling dervishes) After a while if someone else wanted to come in, they would approach someone on the dance floor and touch them on the ankle. The dancer would then stop, walk back into the crowd, and the new person would take their spot.

Some people were "overtaken" more by the spirit than others. Sometimes when a person would get "tagged out" they wouldn't stop dancing. When the music stopped people would have to almost carry the person off the dance floor because they seemed to have lost control of their own body.

The music was really good and it was neat to see people practicing a spiritual element of their lives that is so different from either Christianity or Islam. It was strange and unfamiliar and different.

This is for a young student out in Washington state somewhere who wants to know what kids in Mali look like. Sorry the photo quality isn't the best.

Pic 1: A group of girls (sisters and cousins) in their nice clothes for Tabaski

Pic 2: A bunch of boys doing their best karate poses (karate is HUGE here)

Pic 3: Kids at school. The cloth around the girls waists are their "backpacks"

Pic 4: Two sisters, Worokia and Kaja

I'm going to state something obvious. Ready? People in Mali are poor. Not all, but most. If you didn't know that already, please, by all means continue to live in a bubble of isolation and ignorance.

Now for something less obvious... What does it mean to be poor in Mali and be able to support oneself?

I had a conversation with my dad last night about the economy and job market back home. He pointed out that things in the US are still not good and lots of people still can't find work or are in danger of loosing their jobs. In addition, promises made by politicians to improve the state of economic affairs still haven't been realized by the masses. Officially the unemployment rate in Wisconsin is at about 10% and Michigan is about 15% right now. The overall rate is about 9.5%. In reality those numbers are probably much higher, but have been "massaged" based on how the statistics are reported/interpreted. However, he also pointed out that despite this, the US still is much better off than a place like Mali. With that said, I thought I would provide a little explanation of the job situation in Mali.

Officially, the unemployment rate in Mali is 30%, although to me this number is about as arbitrary as saying that the global temperature will rise by 2.1 degrees over the next 10 years because there has been a 4.6% increase in the number of Big Macs consumed in the last 36 months. It's basically meaningless. Why? Because something like 80% of the population busies itself with subsistence agriculture or nomadic herding for much of the year and then struggles to find something else to do when not engaged in their primary occupation.

If you are a man born in a village, you are most likely destined to be a farmer. You start herding animals about 10 minutes after you learn to walk and then start working "full time" in the fields after 5th or 6th grade. From June to September you cultivate and plant fields. Then from November to March you harvest your crops and sell what you can at market. From April to June there isn't much to do, so you either make repairs to your house or try to find other work.

Since you're a farmer living out in the sticks there's not a lot of jobs to be found in village and not a lot of money to be paid if you could find something. Therefore, you pack a bag, wave goodbye to family and friends, and head to Bamako or a regional capital to find work for a few months. As you are essentially uneducated, you have no valuable work skills. Also, everybody else has had the same idea, so there's more workers than there are jobs. This means that you are limited to very simple jobs that don't pay well because employers don't have any trouble filling employment vacancies. If you do find a job, it will probably be something like unskilled construction labor, pushing a hand cart for local deliveries, selling bottles of water or juice on the street, or loading and unloading trucks. And it will only pay about $2 a day if you're lucky.

You'll probably be living with a relative or family friend or may possibly pay to board at someone's house. You live as meagerly as possible so that you save all the money you can for when you return to your village for the next planting season. If things are really bad, you may even move to Ivory Coast and try to find similar work in one of the port cities and the send money back home. This migration of people makes it very difficult to establish official population and employment statistics because people are constantly moving back and forth between city and village.

Also, there are no government services to act as a safety net. No social security. No health insurance. No unemployment benefits from the government or employers. No retirement funds. No occupational safety regulations. You're on your own. If you can't find work, well that's just too bad. And if you get injured and can't work... I guess you should have been more careful when using a grinding wheel without any safety glasses...

Rainy season is almost upon us. Hopefully a drop in temperatures will also be included in the bargain. Unfortunately, I also have it on good authority that there will be a rise in humidity and a topographical transformation in which the landscape will become much more muddy.

Rain in Mali is not like rain in the US. Rain here takes it's job much more seriously. It doesn't just simply roll in, provide a light sprinkle to moisten the area, and move on. No. It barges in like a woman scorned. All wind and dust and lightning and thunder and water in intense volumes. Heaven hath no fury like a Malian rainstorm.

In its wake the land is temporarily transformed. Hills are left cut with deep gullies. Village streets turn to chocolate pudding and are inundated with water. (It gives new meaning to "taking the high road".) Every depression becomes a shallow pond or lake. Because the land is so flat, the stormwater simply has no place to go to, so it remains where God has deemed it appropriate to fall.

When it's raining, everyone obviously stays inside. Ordinarily, this is the place to be during a storm, but what do you do if your mud house with a mud roof develops a leak? Well, then you enjoy the rain's company indoors and try to dodge the globs of mud that will inevitably be dropping from the ceiling every so often until the rain stops. Then you wait for your roof to dry out for a bit, find a ladder, get on top of your house and walk around barefoot until you find the "soft spots" where the roof is slowly caving in from the inside. Then you pile fresh dirt over the soft spots and stomp it down with your feet as you feel the wood beams holding the roof up underneath you flex up and down with every forceful application of your foot.

The arrival of the rains also means the start of the new farming season. The first serious rain the other day meant a complete shift in daily village life. On Tuesday everyone was busy making repairs to their homes and relaxing under shade trees drinking tea. After the rain finished on Wednesday morning all the men had their work clothes on and were out in the fields ploughing the soft soil for planting. Since all cultivation is done with a team of oxen and a steel plough it is important to capitalize on the time available so that the rains can be maximized.

In my part of the country the first thing to be planted is millet. Then peanuts and rice. Several people in my village have told me that I should get a plot of land and farm rice this year. I told them that probably wouldn't be such a great idea since I don't know how to farm rice and I don't own any farming implements. That and I just don't want to. I've got more important things to do like read a book or stew in frustration when no one comes to meetings I've organized. But then again... I can't be that mad as now they're all out trying to grow enough food to feed their enormous families and earn a small amount of income for the remainder of the year.

Most hostels offer private rooms at a high price and dorm style rooms for a low price. Typically the dorm rooms have four to eight beds in them, meaning if you travel alone or in a small group you're likely to have some roommates wherever you go. I had my first experience staying in a hostel dorm room by myself in Bern... and it left a lasting impression.

While depositing my things in my room after dinner I discovered several things. I had been assigned to a room with six beds (three bunks). The first set of bunks was occupied by a college couple from Colorado. The second by two girls from Austria who spoke minimal English. The third belonged to me and a guy that wasn't around at the time. I discovered, however, that he had found my bed a convenient place to let his wet laundry dry... which was a nice welcoming touch I have to admit. As I had just run into a cute Australian my mind was elsewhere focusing on trying to get back downstairs so I could get a drink with her, so I didn't think much of it.

The next morning I woke up in a rather unusual, but effective way. I was on the bottom bunk and the unknown guy above me apparently needed to be up early to go who knows where. After rummaging through his stuff (waking me and the Austrian girls up) he left to go down the hall to take a shower. I promptly fell back asleep.

When I woke up again I had a bit of a surprise. The unknown guy was back from the shower and collecting some of his things from the bunk above me. This meant that he was literally standing right in front of my face. He was also quite naked. "And a good morning to you too, sir", I wanted to say. Instead I decided to roll over and think of more pleasant things such as my dog dying or eating a jar of mayonnaise.

Moral of the story: A hostel might have more to offer than it advertises...

I just got back to Mali after a much needed three week vacation to Europe... The place Eddie Izzard refers to as "where the history comes from". I had an amazing time and fell in love with Switzerland in particular. My only regret is that I can't speak German, otherwise I probably wouldn't have come back... Here are a few stories and highlights from my trip. Be amused, entertained, or informed. You'll probably get a bit of all three.

The genesis of this trip began with the prodding of my friends Julie and Steph wanting to visit me and have an excuse to go to Italy. They also managed to drag our friend Sam into the mix, and so we made plans for nine days in Italy. After I did the math I realized it made sense to stay in Europe as long as possible since it is still quite hot in Mali at the moment. So, I decided to make my dollar/euro/CFA go as far as possible. I made plans for an additional five days on my own and six days with a friend, Paige, who I had met at Tech last year. One of her roommates, Alex, also came along. They had both been studying in Helsinki this past semester.

Italy

My time in Italy included stops in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Cinque Terre. I won't bother listing everything that we saw. Just think of everything typical of Italy. We did that.

Favorite part of Italy:

Hearing a priest perform mass at San Miniato al Monte on a hill overlooking Florence and then going to dinner at a wine bar down the hill just outside the old city wall.

Tips on Italy:

If you buy a Gelato, don't expect to be able to eat it in the shop unless you pay for a table. Tap water doesn't exists in Italy, it's a myth. Be quiet while in the Sistine Chapel or you will be loudly "sshhh-ed" by the Vatican guards. Try the house wine. Not all gnocchi is created equal. A menu may translate something to English as "sweet pepper" when it should actually read "spinach". Even with a railpass, you still have to pay a 10 euro seat reservation fee for the good trains. Your hostel room might not be close to the hostel office, so wear walking shoes. Your hostel may or may not change your sheets/towels every night if the room even comes with them. Toast in a bag - embrace it.

Switzerland

My favorite part of the trip took place in the magical land of hope and wonder that the locals have dubbed Switzerland. Snow capped mountains, forests, rivers, lakes. Integrated transportation that incorporates bikes, buses, boats, trains, and trams! And because of the difficult terrain... amazing feats of engineering! The longest, deepest tunnel in the world! Flow control structures on rivers that act as weirs for the drainage of entire mountain valleys! Mandatory separation of municipal waste (paper, plastic, metals, glass, organic/compost, other)! Fine chocolates! The list could go on forever.

I spent time in Lucerne, Interlaken, Bern, and Zurich. I couch surfed for the first time in Lucerne and met some great people. One of my hosts was a civil engineer, another a chef, and the third a conference organizer for international pharmaceutical companies. I got to talk about nerdy engineering stuff, eat great home-cooked food, and learn a lot about Switzerland, Europe, and the other places they had been to.

Tips on Switzerland:

You can rent bikes for free in most major cities for up to four hours. With a rail pass you don't have to make seat reservations for any trains. They prefer Swiss francs, but a lot of places will also take euros or even dollars! English is widely spoken, so fear not unschooled American travelers who don't speak French, German, or Italian (all national Swiss languages). Weird fountains are everywhere. Things cost more, but like anything, a higher price usually indicates better quality, which is what the Swiss are all about. You can't throw a stick and not hit a watch store.

Germany

I spent time in Munich, Heidelberg, Freiburg, and was in Frankfurt for about 2 hours. Among other things I went to a castle, saw a concentration camp, hiked around in the Black Forest, went to a few beer gardens, and had more bratwurst, schnitzel, potato pancakes, and sauerkraut than is healthy for one person in such a short amount of time.

Tips on Germany:

Despite being famous for cars, the Germans have truly embraced the bicycle. They're everywhere and sidewalks are divided into pedestrian and bike lanes. Make sure you're in in the appropriate one or the consequences could be disastrous. In the Black Forest area, make sure to try Black Forest Cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte). Germans do pain au chocolat better than the French. You can order beer by the liter (~ 2 pints). Sauerkraut is a winter food, making it difficult to find in warm months. If a menu lists an item, but precedes it with the prefix "mega", the menu is not joking. Example: "mega-schnitzel" comes as a large plate of fried potatoes that is overlaid with a plate-sized schnitzel. The Germans don't mess around when it comes to meals.

France

I spent less than 72 hours in the French Republic, but hit all the important stuff. By that I mean I went to Strasbourg and Paris. Strasbourg is the seat of the European Parliament (European Union) and Paris has been described to me by a Frenchman in Segou as "the only real France". I saw all the famous stuff in Paris and added the Paris Sewer Museum into the mix. That one is a "must see" and "must smell" if you ask me. I took a ride on a high speed TGV train to get from Strasbourg to Paris, but in the best of French traditions it broke down three times on the way. Despite this, I did manage to become one of the fastest moving objects on the planet at the time for about an hour when the train did manage to reach an average speed of over 280 km/h (175 mph).

Tips on Europe:

If you order a "coffee" you are not going to get not so much coffee as you are going to get the thought of a coffee in the American context. Rather, you will get a shot of expresso that will last about 4 seconds. If you order a "water" you are going to get a bottle of water that has gas in it... not a glass of tap water. This you must specify. If staying in hostels, bring a lock and bedding as some places only provide these at an additional cost. Don't be surprised if you get incredulous looks from people that are sitting in your assigned train seat when you ask them to move (Italy especially). You can spot a Canadian backpacker in Europe a mile away as they all have Canadian flag patches on their packs. I assume this is to done to identify themselves as persons who will freely give out hugs and good-natured accompaniment as I think it is genetically impossible for a Canadian to be of an ill disposition.

Food Security

One of the biggest problems in Mali is food shortages across the country despite the fact that the majority of society is involved in subsistence agriculture or commercial farming. One of the nights Shaka (the tech trainer) was in my village he decided to take a walk around the edge of my village. When he came back he mentioned that he was amazed at how much farmland there was in the area and how big our community garden is. He remarked that he was baffled at the fact that Mali experiences food shortages every year despite the amount/potential of food production. When I ask him to explain why he thinks this is he makes a hand motion to indicate the villagers and then points to his head and says, "no good". His point was that the farmers are capable of producing enough food for themselves and city dwellers, but don't understand the economics of farming or how important it is to store grains.

A Slithering Surprise

During the brick making process for the school well we ended up stacking the bricks into a large block for curing and so that it would be easier to spray them with water. When it came time to put them into the well we had to brush off excess concrete and dirt from each brick before carrying them to the well hole. While picking up one of the bricks I discovered a snake several feet long that had made its home between two bricks. I asked Shaka to take a look at it and he said to stay away. I had no idea if it was dangerous or not, but we both decided to err on the side of caution and not find out. So, I grabbed a nice long piece of rebar and effectively made sure there was one less snake to be found in the world. And if it's any consolation to the snake, it wasn't personal... it just gave both Shaka and I the hibbly-jibblies.

A Work Ethic Story

There are many times when Mali is a very confusing, frustrating place for me. One of the things I don't quite understand is the work ethic of villagers. When they do work, they do so with incredible vigor. However, actually getting men to come out of the shade where they have been drinking tea often proves to be very difficult. For example... My counterpart won't work in the afternoon. And he won't try to look for other people to work in the afternoon either... because people don't do work in the afternoon... apparently. Also, if there is a wedding... you get the day off. And since everyone goes to everyone else's wedding, you get a lot of days off. The same is true of baby naming ceremonies and funerals. All said and done, I'm surprised any work gets done in village most days. Clearly this is a work to live culture, not one in which people live to work. You are not defined by what you do, but simply by your existence and your interactions with others.

This is difficult for me. I come from the upper mid-west. A very German sort of place where what you do with yourself is important. You live to work. Productivity is valuable. Time spent sitting around with friends not "doing" anything is viewed as time wasted... and there's nothing worse than wasting time in America.

In village there is very much an attitude of "We'll get to it... eventually". I operate more under the premise of "Let's get to it now".

I spent the past month at site with the exception of a 12 hour trip to Segou to get my hair cut and swap my old, broken bike for a new, totally righteous one (it came with a water bottle, wow!). I used the month to execute the first half of my second PC project: well construction. I also had a visit from my PC boss and my grad school adviser on separate days.

My second PC funded project includes the construction of two wells and village training on how to use a new well construction technique. One well is being put at the village school, and the other is in the community garden. The training involved having a PC technical trainer come to my site from Bamako for about 10 days to help construct the first well at the school and use the time to explain how things are done. The idea was that the villagers would then be able to construct the well in the garden using the new technique on their own.

This entry is a daily accounting of what turned out to be a very frustrating few weeks. Regular text is a literal description of what happened or what was said. Text in italics is my own personal narrative of what I was thinking at the time.

A Brief Background

The common well construction practice in my part of Mali is to dig a hole in the ground as far down as possible into to water table and then lower 1/2 meter tall reinforced concrete cylinders into the well by hand to prevent the well walls from collapsing later on. Lowering the cylinders is extremely dangerous as they weigh several hundred pounds each and villagers often use old or damaged rope/rigging which sometimes breaks. This can lead to injuries or cylinders being dropped in the well shaft where they can break or become stuck in odd positions.

The new construction technique that we are using for this project uses circular (curved) bricks to line the well and a cutting ring to extend the well deeper than would be possible with the traditional method. This method is a lot safer because the weight of the bricks is far less than the cylinders and you have the ability to make the well deeper to ensure it doesn't dry up as easily.

The process involved is as follows. First, start making concrete bricks. While these are drying dig the well down to just above the water table. (if the soil is stable, you don't have to worry about lining the shaft as you dig, which is the case in my village.) Then you cast a concrete cutting ring in the bottom of the well. (This is a concrete ring with a triangular bottom that acts as a blade. All the bricks lining the well are placed on top of it.) Once the cutting has cured you start digging soil out from underneath it while placing bricks on top. By doing this the cutting ring will sink into the water table and the well shaft will be lined, which prevents the much more unstable, saturated soil from collapsing. When you have gone deep enough into the water table where water is preventing further excavation you line the rest of the well with bricks and backfill the lower half of the well with gravel. Finally you pour a concrete splash pad around the well head and cast a concrete cover with a door to keep things from falling into the well.

Early April

I had a meeting with my counterpart and the village elders to discuss the logistics of the project. We agreed that PC would supply funds to pay for skilled labor, the technical trainer, cement, rebar, and special construction tools. The village's contribution will be aggregate for making bricks and concrete (sand, gravel), materials transportation, unskilled labor, a barrel of water every day, general construction tools, and food/lodging for the technical trainer. The elders pointed out that I have budgeted too little money to pay the well digger. This is something my counterpart should have caught when we met with the well digger to discuss pricing.

From step one the project began on the wrong foot with my counterpart not doing his part to make sure everything was accounted for. As a result, we were beginning the project without enough funds according to our budget. Fortunately I over estimated on some things so I wasn't too worried about that.

Wednesday, 4/7

I ask my counterpart to arrange to have sand brought to the construction site at the school. He says sand will come tomorrow

Thursday, 4/8

I talk with Madu, who is the head of the village school committee, and ask if sand has arrived. We find out that four carts of sand (of an estimated 20 required) came that morning, but two we taken to the garden, not the school.

Friday, 4/9

I go to Dioro, our market town, to buy cement, rebar, and special tools, which are then brought back by villagers.

Saturday, 4/10

We start making curved concrete bricks (we need about 350 total). My counterpart told me several people were coming to help, but my counterpart and I were the only people to show up. I had also asked for more sand to be delivered, but none came. We make about 50 bricks, but our cement to aggregate ratio got messed up, so the bricks ended up being very poor. I ask for a barrel of water to be brought, but it shows up after we finish working. We end up getting all our water for making bricks from the old school well. Madu and Abudu (the school administrator) come to see our work and are very critical.

The well digger was supposed to start digging, but he and my counterpart got into a huge argument over the amount of money that should be paid to begin work. My counterpart refused to pay the digger's starting price, so we find a different well digger. He can't start until Monday.

Sunday, 4/11

I ask for sand and water, which is promised, but neither comes. I wanted to make bricks, but no one could work (all day apparently) because there was a wedding that day. I also ask my counterpart to have rigging and a pulley system set up for the well excavation. He says he'll take care of it.

Monday, 4/12

I again ask for sand and water. One cart of sand arrives, no water. Only my counterpart and I show up at the job site to make more bricks. The new well digger begins working. The well rigging doesn't show up. I ask my counterpart, he says he'll take care of it.

Tuesday, 4/13

I ask for sand, rigging and water. None comes. No reason given. I express my frustrations to my counterpart. He says tomorrow will be a productive day and that having water brought to the site is not a big priority because the old school well has water in it.

Wednesday, 4/14

I ask for sand, rigging, and water. Several carts of sand come. No water, no rigging. My counterpart tells me that rigging is not necessary because we aren't digging a well "that" deep. I tell him to get the rigging set up by tomorrow in anticipation for the technical trainer's arrival. Three villagers come to help make bricks. We end up using so much water that the old school well goes dry (which is why I wanted water brought to the site in the first place). At this point we have made about a third of the total number of bricks we need.

Thursday, 4/15

I ask for sand, rigging, water. Nothing comes. The well digger is now at a depth of 4 meters. So far the soil has been nothing but hardpan clay which is so difficult to dig through that the well digger has had to replace the handle on his pick axe multiple times because he keeps breaking it. The digger and my counterpart have a discussion in which the digger expresses his concern that we might hit a confined aquifer. If this is the case, when we hit water, instead of simply finding mud, it would be like punching a hole into a container under pressure. The result being that the well could flood several meters deep with water before we would have lined it with bricks to prevent a future collapse. My counterpart tells me that sometimes when digging wells they encounter a confined aquifer... something he neglected to tell me earlier, which would have been very good to know. Later that day the digger hit water at 4.5 meters, but the aquifer was unconfined... Thankfully.

The technical trainer (Shaka) came to my village. The plan was for him to take a bus from Bamako to Dioro and then have someone pick him up in Dioro with a motorcycle and bring him to village. The bus ended up running late and arriving at 10 pm. My counterpart's son went to pick him up, but after waiting for a while and getting confused about which bus to look for he came back to village without Shaka. We then had to scramble to find someone to go back to Dioro to get Shaka, who at this point was waiting in the dark in an unfamiliar place. He ended up arriving in village at 11 pm.

Friday, 4/16

I ask for sand, rigging, water. A few carts of sand arrive. No water. No rigging. Shaka asks me why there's no rigging set up at the well. I explain to him that I have had difficulty getting any kind of village participation on the project and that rigging had been promised the day before. Shaka's purpose for coming was to construct the cutting ring and then go back to Bamako while it cured. I thought we would be able to do all the work in one day, but because of a lack of village help that day we ended up only doing prep work on Friday.

Saturday, 4/17

We cast the cutting ring in the bottom of the well and made some bricks. More villagers show up to help and watch after Shaka complained to my counterpart. Shaka tells me that with all the difficulties I have had up to this point he doesn't think I should start any other projects like this once the current project is completed. After work that day Shaka went back to Bamako. His plan was to come back on Monday, the 26th, to help sink the cutting ring and line the well with bricks.

Sunday, 4/18

I ask for sand, rigging, water. Nothing comes. No work done.

At this point I'm starting to get very frustrated with my counterpart and village.

Monday, 4/19

Same as Sunday. Wedding given as the reason for now work or supplies. I ask my counterpart why barrels of water aren't coming to the job site. We need water there every day for making bricks and to pour on the bricks that have been made already to help them cure in the hot weather. (My counterpart is aware of this.)

My counterpart asks what we need water at the school for. I remind him.

Deep down I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, "What have we needed water at the job site every other day for up to this point?!" Unbelievable!!!

Tuesday, 4/20

I ask for sand, rigging, water. I actually got a barrel of water. No rigging, no sand. The plan was to make 200 bricks that day. The idea was to cast the rest of the bricks needed that day so that we would have a week for them to cure before Shaka would be back to start putting bricks in the well. Several people showed up to help, but after lunch we ran out of sand and only ended up with 120 bricks.

My PC boss did a site visit that afternoon to see how I was doing. I explained that up to that point I was having a very difficult time getting my village to commit to their end of the bargain with the project. After giving several examples of my frustrations, my boss (who is Malian btw) came to the conclusion that my counterpart was the cause of most of the problems. We ended up having a meeting with key members in the village where my boss explained that I was very unhappy with the way things were going.

During the course of the meeting my boss and I discovered that there are two committees governing business related to the school. Apparently the people in charge of these committees were not communicating with each other and as a result a lot of things were falling through the cracks. My counterpart was also organizing certain things on his own which were not being followed up by one of the committees. I had no idea about any of this before hand. I didn't even know there were two school committees. All of this was stuff that my counterpart should have communicated with me.

Wednesday, 4/21

I ask for sand, water, rigging. A few carts of sand show up. We need to make about 100 bricks today. We can't make bricks later on because they wouldn't have had enough time to cure. My counterpart and I are the only people who show up to work. We make 60 bricks by lunch time. My counterpart then says that he's tired and that we should stop for the day and make the rest of the bricks on Thursday. I explain that this is unacceptable and that I'm coming back that afternoon to make the other 40 bricks regardless if anyone else shows up, but that I expect him to find some people to help me. My counterpart explains to me that people in village don't work in the afternoon in hot season. When I ask why he is unable to give a legitimate explanation. I come back that afternoon with one other person and finish making bricks.

At this point I am absolutely furious with my counterpart and have no desire to work with him, but have to in order to keep this project going. I need to keep things moving to get ready for Shaka's return and ensure that all work on the first well is completed before I leave village for a few weeks of vacation in Europe.

Thursday to Sunday, 4/22 to 4/25

I ask for sand, rigging, water. Sand and rigging finally come Sunday... the day before Shaka is to return. The rigging my counterpart brings to the job site is undersized and inadequate. A few carts of the sand that showed up were not the kind we needed.

Monday, 4/26

Shaka returns. Same bus fiasco occurs. Bus runs late. Someone goes to Dioro to pick him up but gets tired of waiting and comes back without him. Shaka ends up waiting in the dark alone. When my counterpart finds out about this he has absolutely no urgency to remedy the situation. He doesn't even explain to Shaka what is going on when we call him. My counterpart takes the phone, asks where Shaka is, says the motorcycle came back to village and then hangs up. Doesn't say we're sending someone else or anything like that. Shaka calls his boss who calls me asking what the hell is going on at 10:30 at night and why don't we have our act together. All I can say is my village has dropped the ball yet again.

Tuesday, 4/27

We sink the cutting ring. The well digger comes to help with this. After about 1/4 meter of digging we hit a saturated sand layer. The sand was so plastic that it was seeping into the well under the cutting ring faster than gravity's ability to push the cutting ring down. As a result a cavern about 1.5 meters deep formed around the entire circumference of the bottom of the well. Essentially all the working area up on the surface at this point was suspended as a cantilevered ledge around the well. Not good. We had to stop digging and start putting bricks into the well and backfill immediately to safeguard against a possible collapse.

Wednesday to Sunday, 4/28 to 5/2

We line the well. The well ended up being about 5 meters deep and we were only able to lay about 1 meter of masonry a day because we had to wait for the mortar to dry before moving our work platform up the well shaft.

Monday, 5/3

We pour the concrete pad around the top of the well and cast the well cover. After 10 days of curing we'll put the cover on the well and shock the well with bleach to eliminate any contamination that might have occurred during construction.

Project Summary

Despite the frustrations, mistakes, and delays we got the first well finished on the last day I was in village before leaving for vacation. The new well has about 3/4 meter of water in the bottom and the water is clear, which is good. The day before I leave for vacation the well digger begins the second well. I leave the fate of the second well in the hands of my counterpart and another villager who helped with the school well. I'm honestly not expecting the second well to be finished by the time I get back to site (even though they will have plenty of time to do the work)... but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I think that statement should be revised to read "It's the heat AND the humidity".

Hot season is definitely in full swing and the daily temperature average is expected to continue to rise. Yesterday it was 116 degrees F in my village... in the shade. Good news is it's not terribly humid... only about 72% humidity or so.

But that doesn't stop me from sweating while doing the simplest of tasks. Sleep, sweat. Wake up, sweat. Eat breakfast, sweat more because I'm cooking inside. Run an errand across village, loose a quart. Take a nap after lunch, shake off afterward. Sometimes I think my sweat is actually sweating as well. This is all terribly taxing on my integumentary system (which contains the skin and sweat glands).

I'm guessing right now I go through at least 4 liters of water a day. This makes for a somewhat vicious cycle as well because it means I am drinking more water than I used to every day, which means more trips to the pump, which means more sweating, which means more drinking, which means more trips to the pump, etc., etc.

All this sweating also means that I need to make sure I am getting enough electrolytes. Especially if I do something physically strenuous like make a 35 km round trip to my market town or help cast several hundred concrete blocks for a new well that's being put in at the school.

I have found changing clothes throughout the day is also smart... and not simply to avoid that "soggy" feeling. Wearing damp clothing in temperatures like these is a good way to develop heat rash or other skin maladies.

While it is definitely hot, it's not unbearable. I've gotten used to things by now. If anything it's more of an annoyance. Manual laborers only work about four hours a day now because it's so hot during mid-day. This means construction projects take longer to complete, and right now I'm trying to get two wells put in before May 1st. Easier said than done I'm finding out.

**Warning: This entry is going to contain more engineering lingo than the average lay person hears in a lifetime. Prepare to learn something.

I went to the Segou mayor's office the other day with another Volunteer and a PC water/sanitation program assistant to discuss the possibility of a wat/san Volunteer working for the city in the future. Specifically, the mayor wants a Volunteer to help the city deal with trash. Segou used to be known as "the cleanest city in Mali", but now that it has become home to over 100,000 people... without much improvement to the city's waste management infrastructure... things have become somewhat messy. This is a concern to the mayor because a lot of tourists come through Segou, so first impressions are important.

Our discussion with the mayor taught me a lot about waste management in Mali and showed me that things here work about the same as in the US (with the exception that environmental hazards aren't considered). The waste stream has the same beginning... someone's house. From there, garbage men come with a donkey cart, pick up the trash, and take it to one of several trash depots (transfer stations) throughout the city. These depots are simply vacant lots where trash is dumped. There is no fencing to enclose the land, and no sort of impermeable clay or concrete "floor" to prevent hazardous liquids from seeping into the ground, which results in soil and groundwater contamination. There also aren't any restrictions or separations to remove certain hazardous materials such as car batteries, pharmaceuticals, oils, industrial wastes, or leftover mayonnaise.

From the depots, city dump trucks take the waste to a landfill several kilometers outside of town. At present, the "landfill" the city uses is actually an old excavation from a large building project that was never finished. Essentially it's a giant hole in the ground that is being filled with trash. There is no sort of impermeable layer to prevent environmental contamination. The good news is that the area is elevated enough that it doesn't experience flooding during the rainy season. That would mean all kinds of nastiness spilling out all over the place. However, since the waste is being put in a depression, all the rain that falls on the "landfill" gets soaked into the ground with whatever goodies it has managed to wash off.

The good news is that the city is currently building a new landfill about 12 km outside of town. The bad news is that they've run out of money and can't finish the project. I have no details on the design specifics of that project.

With this said, the city currently has several problems with waste management. There is trash everywhere! There are several reasons for this. One is that the population of the city has grown tremendously in the past few decades. This means a lot of people now live in Segou who are not traditionally from the area, and thus do not have the same attachment to the city as older residents. Many of these people come from villages where having trash laying all over the place is the norm, so they don't place as much importance on waste removal.

Another problem is that many people don't pay for trash pick up. They are supposed to, but don't. As a result, the garbage men don't come and people begin throwing trash in the streets. The system for collecting fees is also very inefficient and poorly set up, so many people are able to avoid paying for service. The result is that the city is short on funds.

Being short on funds means the city can't afford to pay all the personnel they need and there no money to make repairs to vehicles when they break. The mayor is also unwilling to raise taxes to solve this problem as raising taxes is not a very popular thing to do. It's also not practical to enforce payment for waste removal because if they did half the city would be in jail... this place isn't overflowing with cash.

On a slightly different note, a major liquid waste problem the city is currently facing is the failure of the city's septic tank pumping truck. There is one truck for the whole city and they can't fix it because they don't have enough money. Everyone here either has a pit latrine or septic tank. There are no piped sewers. Right now, to solve this problem, there are guys going around with tanks on donkey carts that are operated by hand crank pumps. So, the septic tanks are getting pumped, but not as quickly. And... where do you suppose the septage is dumped? Yep, you guessed it... into the river! There is a reason the PC medical officer forbids Volunteers from swimming in surface waters.

I guess the good news about all of this is that when I first came to Segou my first thought was "wow, it's so clean compared to other places in Mali". And that's still true. Despite problems, the city is still relatively clean, but something does need to be done to prevent the situation from becoming worse... and that means finding more money for the municipal government.

It seems like it's been a while since I've discussed the regular goings-ons of village life.

When I first got to Mali it was rainy season. This meant most people were out plowing and planting fields. December was cold season, which meant harvest time.

Now it's hot season. How hot? Over 105 degrees Fahrenheit every day. A cool dip into the 80s at night. At this point it hasn't rained consistently since early October, so it's been pretty dry. Everything is brown. Rivers and ponds have significantly shrunk or disappeared altogether. There is no agricultural activity aside from herding cows. Dust abounds. Sun is abundant when not obscured by the aforementioned dust clouds.

What do people do you might ask? This part of hot season might be more appropriately labeled "home improvement" season. It's all about fixing up or building houses...Unfortunately it's a little low tech for Bob Vila or Tim Taylor.

How does "house building season" work exactly? Well, first you need to hitch up a team of cows to your cart, head out to the fields and bring back a couple cart loads of nice, clayey soil. Then grab a couple of old oil drums, fire up that trusty cow cart, and head out of town to the irrigation canal for the rice fields and grab a few barrels of water. (You do this by simply backing the whole cart into the canal... water up to the cows noses.) When you get back into town, start making mud. Add some straw to the mud. Then grab your favorite brick mold and start making mud bricks like it's 1999 and there's about to be a firesale on home masonry to get ready for the Y2K glitch.

Stack the bricks and let them dry in the sun. Once dried, make some mud mortar and begin making the walls for your new house, concession enclosure, negen, shower area, sheep pen, or ice hockey arena. (The thermal properties of mud bricks are truly astounding. What an R-value!) When it's time to start thinking about a roof, find some large cross beams and throw those on top of the walls. Then lay a dense latticework of two-inch diameter sticks across the beams, coating the entire ensemble thoroughly with about a foot of mud. Let dry. (If you've got some extra cash laying around you can splurge on a tin roof.)

If you're not building a new house you'll probably still be interested in doing some fix up work. You'd be surprised at how easily a house made out of sun-baked mud can come apart once it's endured a few rainy seasons. Solution: some mud and a mason's trowel. Apply a liberal coat of mud to whatever wall or roof is in need of some patch work. Then find your favorite shady spot and drink tea for the rest of the day.

I want to start this entry out by paying tribute to those prodigal sages of wisdom... Bert and Ernie. How else would generations of Americans have learned about the necessary equipment for bath time or the most effective strategies for catching fish?

Last week I spent a few afternoons and an evening at my "site mate's" village helping to build a fish pond and soak pit. But first, to clarify, my "site mate" is in a village about 12 km from mine. She's the closest Volunteer to me, so we see each other fairly often, thus the term site mate.

The Volunteer that was at her site before her had arranged to have an Engineers Without Borders (EWB) student chapter from the University of Pittsburgh come and build a large fish pond in the village. They have visited the village a few times already, but last week was their actual implementation trip. They had an excavator and front end loader brought out from Segou to have a 120m x 30m fish pond dug in the middle of the village. It was like playing with giant toys in a giant sand box.

The point of the fish pond is to create... well... a pond to raise fish in. The village will then sell the fish at market or use it as a food source.

I'd say overall the project was a success, but there were a few snags along the way. The front end loader showed up a day late and then after a few days of work broke a large pin that prevented the machine from doing what it does best... picking up

copious amounts of soil.

Once that was fixed the translator that was working with the EWB students told us that there was a bit of a conflict in the village. Apparently the village chief and elders had approved areas of land to be dug up for the pond that other village members did not want disturbed. Fortunately this land was included in the portion of work that had been filed under "we'll get to it if we have enough time", and there didn't end up being enough time, so the land was left undisturbed. Just goes to show that community politics in Africa work the same way as they do in the US.

I ended up doing a bit of "consulting work" with the professional engineer that was with the EWB group while visiting the project and helped the group design and put together a soak pit. It ended up being a slow sand filter that drained into the fish pond, but who's really keeping track of specifics? In any case it ended up being a very "frumbling" experience.

In case you're not familiar with that term - it's a hybrid between frustrating and humbling. Frustrating because I was trying to get a bunch of unskilled village volunteers to help dig trenches, lay pipe, and move large amounts of soil and sand. They had no real concept of how the thing we were building would actually work, but still let us know that what we were doing wouldn't work. That was frustrating. So much so that after I while I just decided that everyone around me was an idiot and there was no point trying to explain anything. All I needed to do was coldly direct people to do what I wanted.

Fortunately my site mate had the presence of mind to tell me to stop being an ass-hole to her villagers and explain what was going on. This was humbling, but she was right. What's the point of doing a bunch of development work if you're not going to get the people who are using it to understand what is happening? There isn't one.

And for those would-be engineers out there... remember this fundamental truth. Water is lazy. It prefers going down hill. I'm not sure if that bit of knowledge just isn't understood as well here, or if people think they can just will the unlikely into happening, or if people are just wearing really unevenly souled shoes... but the idea of laying pipe so that water would flow though it in the desired direction took a bit of talking through.

The true test of success for this project won't come for about a year though. The water for the pond will come from the rains in a few months. There is some concern that a berm that was put in around one end of the pond will limit the amount of water that will get to it. There is also a concern about water quality. This pond will be a very tempting place for women to come wash clothes and animals to come drink. The soap from clothes washing and manure from animals could saturate the stagnant water with nutrients, which could cause algal blooms, which would result in depleted oxygen levels in the water, which would result in a poor living environment for the fishes. Only time will truly tell.

This entry is the story of my first funded PC project. Before I get too far though, I should preface with this background information... Last year in one of my grad school classes that was specifically designed to prepare for PC my professor walked into the room, turned on the projector, and put up a slide that said, "Every village has a son of a bitch. Your job is to find out who that person is.".

My first PC project is a combination of hand pump repair and soak pit construction. The hand pumps are India/Mali Mark II and are about 20 years old. I think they were put in back when the Malian government was involved in a massive pump installment campaign funded by the World Bank. There are four pumps in my village. One was broken when I arrived. One broke in January.

To paint a better picture, the hand pumps are really important for the village. Most people have a hand-dug well in their compound or nearby, but many of these wells go dry during the hot season. Also, these wells are not lined or protected from contamination, so the water from them is often not safe if not treated... which no one does here. The hand pumps go much deeper into the shallow aquifer in the area, thus providing a constant source of water throughout the year and the water at these pumps is also much safer to drink.

If you don't know what a soak pit is... its basically a big, covered hole that water drains to so that it can soak into the ground without being a nuisance to the public in the process. A lot of people do their laundry at the pumps, and there is always water spilled when people fill buckets, which results in large pools of standing water next to the pumps. The soak pits are being built to get rid of this water to help "clean up the streets". (For those of you who care, the "soak pits" for this project are actually small drain fields that use a sand backfill and perforated pipe because the soil in my area has consolidated clays and a high groundwater table.)

As I said, when I arrived in my village in September 2009 one of the pumps was already broken. When the second one broke in January 2010 the village and I decided to remedy the situation. After several meetings with key village members we came up with a plan. The village would pay to have a pump repairman come from Dioro to look at the pumps and provide an estimate of the cost for repairs. I would then write a grant proposal to PC for money to fix the pumps and buy materials for the soak pits. The village would contribute some money for the pumps and labor and materials for the soak pits.

When the pump repairman came in late January he was able to assess the situation pretty quickly. He was even able to fix the pump that had been broken since I had arrived. Turns out a $0.25 link for the pump chain was missing. The repairman fixed the problem on the spot. This is something the guy in my village that is in charge of the pumps (pump tigi) could have fixed on his own... but he didn't. I asked the repairman if he would disassemble the whole pump to make sure the actual water lifting mechanism (piston) was in good shape, but he told me that since the pump was now lifting water everything was fine. He didn't need to take everything apart.

Then, when it came time for the repairman to get paid the pump tigi told me to pay. I said that the village agreed to pay for this (meaning the pump tigi). After a bit of "back and forth" the pump tigi finally paid the repairman, but not before I was pretty annoyed.

After the repairman left I had more meetings with my village counterpart, the village chief, the pump tigi, and other key persons in the village. I laid out a plan for fixing the pumps, building the soak pits, and how we were going to pay for all of it. Everyone signed off so I went to Segou, wrote a project proposal, submitted it to PC, and waited for the funds to show up from USAID about five weeks later.

During the waiting period we had a little work to get done. The village agreed to contribute the rest of the money needed to pay for the pump repairs. They did not have the cash readily available for this. The plan was for my work counterpart and the pump tigi to go ask each household that used the pumps for money to pay for the repairs. I expected to encounter some problems with this, so for two weeks before the pump repairman was scheduled to come back I asked my counterpart if they had collected the money. At first the answer was "We'll collect it tomorrow". Then after a while the answer was "Yes"... for several days in a row.

A few days before the pump repairman was scheduled to return my counterpart told me the pump that had been fixed during the repairman's first visit was broken again. When I went to examine it, it felt as though part of the pump cylinder was broken... something the repairman did not look at during his first visit because "everything was fine". The next day I went to Segou to get the PC funds to buy pump parts and soak pit materials.

When I returned to village I discovered that some preliminary work that the pump tigi was supposed to have done before the repairman came back was not finished. This delayed the repairman's arrival by a day.

The day the repairman finally came started off well enough. It was a cloudy morning, so it stayed cool longer than usual. While waiting for the repairman to arrive I overheard my counterpart asking everyone he encountered for money to fix the pump. Obviously the money he said was on hand to pay the repairman was not, in fact, on hand. I didn't worry too much though as it has his problem for not collecting the money beforehand despite a two week barrage of interrogation by myself.

While waiting I also went all over town making sure things were ready and that all the pump parts were accounted for. (When we took the pump apart to look at it we never put it back together and stored everything at someone's house). I discovered that some important bolts were not with the rest of the parts. When I asked the pump tigi about these he told me I needed to buy new bolts. I asked where the old ones were, but got no answer. This conversation was cut short by the arrival of the repairman.

We quickly got to work and had the first pump working again in about an hour. Miraculously the pump tigi showed up with the bolts I had asked him about... I could tell that he had come from his house. My guess is he wanted to keep them for himself.

When we had finished work on the first pump I told the repairman that the pump he had previously fixed was broken again. He agreed to take a look at it, so we went across town and took it apart. We discovered that the pump cups inside the cylinder had come unscrewed (this is unusual). No parts had failed. They had just come undone.

After tightening everything up and putting everything back down the well borehole we discovered that the plunger was not going back down after being pumped. This was a problem. Solution: disassemble the entire pump for a second time, go to the exact place where we had tightened everything, and replace two rubber pump cups that were a little "stiff".

During this process the repairman had gotten grease all over his hands from the pump chain and I had to suggest to him that he wash off his hands before handling the internal parts of a pump that provides drinking water to lots of people. Some things are just not as obvious to some as they are to others.

When we had finished, the next logical step was for the village to pay the repairman (pump tigi's job). The pump tigi told me to pay. I said that the village had agreed to pay. The pump tigi told me that the village was getting all the sand needed for the soak pits and that paying the repairman was too much... that I should pay.

I had just heard the most annoying sound in the world. The sound of a man 50 years+ complaining and refusing to do what he agreed to. This may not sound like a big deal, but in a culture where most people are illiterate, your word is your contract, and this guy was breaking the terms of our deal and essentially telling me it was my fault.

After going back and forth with this (in front of the repairman) I realized I wasn't going to get anywhere and needed to seek a higher authority. We ended up at the chief's house and interrupted a meeting he was having. The pump tigi did all the talking. Parts of the conversation I didn't understand, but at first they wanted me to pay the repairman right then and the village would pay me back a few days later. I said no deal. I told my side of the story. The chief then told the pump tigi he had to pay the repairman.

It became clear to me that the pump tigi had not collected the money needed to pay the repairman and therefore was not able to pay. It was important for me not to give in at this point, so I simply sat down and chatted with the repairman while the pump tigi went door to door to collect the money.

I was annoyed and incredibly embarrassed. The pump repairman ended up having to wait for an hour to get paid. That's not cool.

Obviously, after all this transpired I was more than a little upset with the pump tigi. He had balked at every stage of the project and tried to get me to foot the bill for things twice. Later that same day he even had the nerve to tell me that the next time I went to Segou I need to buy him new sandals. He wears size 11 incidentally. Ladies and gentlemen... I have found my village's "son of a bitch".

The worst part is I know I have to work with this guy in the future. He is an important person in the village and my counterpart hangs out with him all the time. There is no way I can avoid dealing with him and because he is much older than me I can't "bust his chops" so to speak without causing more problems for myself. I talked to my counterpart about this and told him that he needs to intervene the next time something like this happens and he agreed.

But, the good news is everything worked out. The pumps got fixed. The repairman got paid. The village paid their share. I was able to show that I can't be bullied into just throwing money at the village's problems. And... I found the son of a bitch.

I just got back to Segou after taking a two week excursion through western Africa. The purpose: WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament). For those of you who have never heard of WAIST, which is basically everybody, it's an event that happens every Presidents Day weekend in Dakar, Senegal. Expatriates from all over West Africa come for a few days of softball, good food, social networking, and possibly to attend a conference. Traditionally, Peace Corps Volunteers from most West African countries participate along with several other groups that are based out of the Dakar area. Most PC countries have so many people show up that they are able to field several softball teams. PC Mali had roughly 90 people attend, with three teams participating in the tournament.

Typically PC Volunteers will remain in Senegal for a few days after WAIST is officially over in order to soak up as much of the ocean air as possible. Plus, the bus ride to Dakar is anything but a pleasant experience, so most people need a decent amount of time to recuperate before heading back home.

I'm breaking this entry up into parts, otherwise it would be enormous. This way you can get through it all in bits.

The origination point for the majority of PC Mali Volunteers going to WAIST was Bamako. Since we had roughly 90 people going, we had to rent out one entire tour bus and filled half of another. This may not sound like a big deal, but when you have to cover 750 miles of poorly paved roads, cross an international border, and endure a bus without air conditioning or a lavatory, you want things to be as simple as possible. Having a chartered PC-only bus meant we could stop whenever we wanted/needed, and in theory we would get to Dakar faster because we would not be stopping along the way to try an find more passengers.

The buses were scheduled to leave at 6 am, which meant everyone needed to be at the bus station at about 5 am, which meant everyone had to come in the day before and spend the night in Bamako. Some of us decided to go to a restaurant near our new bureau called West African Fried Chicken (hole in the wall KFC of Mali) for dinner and then went around the corner for soft serve ice cream before getting a few hours of sleep. Others decided to just stay up all night, have a few drinks, and then sleep for much of the anticipated 30+ hour bus ride.

When it came time to head to the bus station, we called a taxi at 4:30 am and were on our way. Interestingly, my car got "lost" for a little bit on the way to the station. The bus company we were using was called Sonef. When our taxi came to a stop we found ourselves in front of a gas station called SNF. Needless to say our taxi driver was confused as to why we wanted to go to a gas station at 4:30 in the morning and we were confused as to why our taxi driver brought us to a "bus station" that had no buses. Nonetheless, it was a situation remedied easy enough.

I was on the PC only bus. It looked great from the outside, but the inside was not so great for one small reason. The seats had been intended for someone no taller than four feet, weighing no more than fifty-five pounds. Or so it seemed. And the seat backs were positioned at almost a ninety degree angle. Also, there were three seats on one side of the aisle, two on the other. Needless to say this bus was not the shining example of cross-contiental luxury touring. We were crammed in like sardines.

The first leg of our trek went smoothly. We made it to the bus company's station in Kayes in about eight hours. It usually takes over ten. Then our bus broke in Kayes and we had to wait two hours while repairs were being made. Of course, no one at the bus company told us this. They just pulled the bus to the side of the road, opened the hood, and started pulling pieces out.

When moving once again, it took about ninety minutes to reach the Senegal border. First we had to get our passports stamped to leave Mali, and then stamped to enter Senegal. At the border town in Senegal the bus broke down again, which delayed our journey another hour.

At this point it was starting to get dark and people were starting to think about dinner. We drove for another two hours or so before stopping in Tambacounda for food. Everyone was tired, hungry, and a little crabby from being on an uncomfortable bus all day, but still in relatively good spirits. Not for long.

***

Before going any further I should say that when traveling overland in West Africa it is advised to keep your wits about you. Always make sure you know where your valuables are. People get pick-pocketed at bus stops and there are many instances of people having stuff stolen out of their carry-on bags by other passengers after they have fallen asleep on a bus.

***

Since we had the whole bus to ourselves we let our guard down a little. When people got off the bus in Tambacounda they left valuables on the bus in plain sight. Who wouldn't? We all knew eachother. It was safe. Or so we thought.

After having been stopped for about 20 minutes something weird happened. All of a sudden about a dozen Senegalese men started sprinting down a dark alley next to one of boutiques we were stopped in front of and were yelling. Obviously this startled all the Volunteers. We quickly realized that these men were in pursuit of a thief. This could mean trouble as vigilantism is still common here.

A few minutes after the commotion started one of the bus employees started yelling at us (PCVs) while holding two backpacks from our bus. We soon discovered that while people were out using the bathroom and finding food, a thief had gone onto our bus, grabbed a few bags off seats by the door, and then took off. He dropped two bags, but got away with one. The scary part is that there were people sleeping on the bus when this happened.

Obviously this changed the mood of the evening. We had to call the police. File a report. Delay our journey another two hours.

We travelled almost non-stop for the rest of the night and got into the Dakar area the next morning about 9 am. At first the general mood was not good. The edge of Dakar is a dirty, industrial wasteland without much vegetation and a Philip Morris factory. The mood of everyone on the bus was "we spent over an entire day on a bus to come to a place that looks worse than Mali?". We didn't realize that our journey wasn't quite over.

After a few hours in really bad Dakar morning traffic we made it to the ocean side of town. Our opinion quickly changed. Tall buildings. Paved streets. Urban vegetation. Developed oceanside properties. Clean streets. Sidewalks. Piped sewers. It felt like America.

Our journey ended 28 hours after it began, at the front door of the Club Atlantique (American Club) in Dakar, where WAIST is held. We scrambled off the bus, grabbed our bags, grabbed a cold beer, changed into swimming suites, and jumped into the most beautiful pool that has ever existed.

Side note: When I took a little "rinse off shower" before going into the pool the water that swirled down the drain was brown. When it came out of the shower head it had been clear. It gets dusty out there on the open road...

The softball tournament covered three days, had a social and competitive league, and was held on four different fields all located around the Club Atlantique. All the PC teams were in the social league. Why? Because the purpose of WAIST is not only to play softball, but also to to get intoxicated while doing so. At least that's the philosophy of most Volunteers. Everyone involved, including staff at the Club Atlantique, knows this, which means everyone has a good time.

The beer was donated and sold at a reduced price. The profits go to help local non-profits in Dakar. Delicious American food including hot-dogs and Doritos were all the rave. There was even a boy scout troop selling baked goods to raise money.

PC Senegal helps arrange homestays for all the "out-of-town" Volunteers. About half the Volunteers who showed up got to stay at the homes of various expatriates. The other half were put up in two large houses a short walk from the softball fields. This was great because it meant no one had to find a hotel during WAIST.

The PC countries represented at the tournament included Senegal, Mali, and The Gambia. There was also a "refugee" team made up of Volunteers that had been evacuated from Mauritania and Guinea that are now serving in one of the other countries mentioned. A small group from Benin also came to watch.

When we weren't playing softball, people hung out at the pool or went exploring in Dakar. Several people ended up coming to the conclusion that if Dakar were a beer, it would be more like "Africa Lite" than anything else. I felt like I was in the US. Nice stores. Big buildings. Western restaurants. A fancy ice cream shop that would have no problem competing with Cold Stone in the US.

One day I went to Goree Island. It's an old colonial remnant that has a fort that used to be used in the slave trade. Very cool place. If you're ever in Dakar, go there. My last night in Dakar I went to a place called the Almadies for sea food. It's the farthest point in continental Africa. Not super-awesome, but while eating dinner the ocean swells were so large that they were washing up onto the patio of the restaurant I was at and began washing chairs and tables back out to sea. That was interesting.

The was a lot of stuff to like about Dakar. Fresh fruit stands everywhere. Clementines. Mellon. Bananas. Apples. Etc. Better organized boutiques. Decent transportation system and road conditions.

While at WAIST I stayed in one of the PC Senegal houses with about 30 other Volunteers, some of which were from The Gambia. When I mentioned that I was thinking about going to The Gambia after WAIST for a few days they mentioned that they had some extra seats open on the bus they had chartered back to Banjul. One thing led to another and a whole bunch of Mali Volunteers ended up in The Gambia for a few days, myself included.

Most Mali Volunteers ended up staying at a PC transit house in Banjul, but I was in a group of four that stayed at a Gambia Volunteer's house. It was great. She took us all over the Banjul area. We went to the beach, fish market, and an old growth forest that has wild monkeys that will come right up to you. We also went to a toga party, ate at a nice restaurant, and cooked for ourselves a few nights.

Some things to note about the Banjul area are as follows. There is one kind of beer in The Gambia: Julbrew. The supermarkets are better than those in Mali, but not as nice as Dakar. One supermarket is actually called "Safeway", but I don't think there is a connection with the US chain. Since it was colonized by the British, everything in The Gambia is in English! I had the best burger yet in West Africa in Banjul. There is a mini-mart in Banjul that the Gambian Volunteers call "Wal-Mart" because it sells all American goods. Ironically they use Wal-Mart bags, but most of the stuff they sell is actually from Aldi. Most of the touristy stuff and everything I have just mentioned are not found in Banjul, but in the area immediately to the west, called Kombo.

One of my favorite things to see was a restaurant we went to that had a balcony overlooking the fish market. It was the definition of kitsch. Not a single inch of wall space was left un-occupied. Fountains. Giant wooden sculptures. Christmas lights. Large mirrors. You could even buy a lot of what was on the walls. It put places like Applebee's to shame. None of it followed any particular theme.

The beaches were fantastic. Lots of clean sand. Warm water. Only problem was the presence of several dozen "bumpsters". These are young men in their late teens, early twenties that are essentially gigolos. They run up and down the beach and solicit the tourist women. Usually they come up and try talking to women, but sometimes they'll just stop near you and start doing push-ups or something masculine...

Our PC Gambia host liked to joke that the Volunteers unofficial motto is "PC Gambia, where change is a problem". This is meant to play off the fact that no one is ever able to make change for purchases. It's also an interesting parody off of Obama's campaign slogan... "Change we can believe in".

When it came time to say goodbye to The Gambia I had several days of travel ahead of me. Most of the Volunteers from Mali that went to Banjul chose to retrace their steps through most of Senegal in order to get home. The group of four that I was part of decided to go "up country" through all of The Gambia, then up through the back half of Senegal to Tambacounda where we got back on the main road to Bamako.

We set out from Banjul at 6 am with two Gambia Volunteers who were going back to their sites up country. We got on the ferry in Banjul and crossed to the north side of the Gambia River where we hired a "sept-place" (seven seater station wagon) to take us to Basse, the a main town on the eastern end of the country. We lucked out and got a really nice car. Most sept-places in West Africa have been operating about 10 years longer than is physically possible. They truly are a modern marvel.

We left the north bank relatively quickly and drove up country for about six hours to Basse. Along the way we passed through about twenty police check points, which in my point is utterly ridiculous. About 45 minutes before our final destination we had to cross back to the south bank of the river. Here the river was much narrower and the ferry much less sophisticated. So basic in fact, that we actually had to pull the ferry across the river by hand with a steel cable. The "ferry" was basically a large pontoon that could carry two cars. In Basse we had dinner and stayed the night at a PC transit house.

The next morning we were up at 7 am and in a crappy, old sept-place by 8 am. We drove for about an hour before reaching the Gambia/Senegal border. Here, again, we had to get out passport stamped to leave and enter. All the locals had their bags searched for drugs at the Senegal post. The white people were apparently carrying invisible "we don't need to be searched" cards that we weren't aware of.

(Exhibit A: A typcial sept-place)

Now in Senegal, we had to change sept-places in Velingara. We ran into a bit of trouble when the guy in charge of the car tried to charge us a huge amount of money for each of our bags and wouldn't budge on the price. Then, amazingly, an English speaking Gambian that we had never talked to before (and was in our car) came to our rescue and got in the car drivers face, laid down the law and got us a fair price for our baggage. It was sweet. Our next stop was Tambacounda. You'll remember this is where the bus had been robbed on our way to Dakar.

When we got into town we told our driver we wanted to go to the bus station that would take us to Kayes (in Mali). He didn't know where it was, so he pulled off on the main road next to a taxi and let us out. We told the taxi driver the same thing and negotiated a price. The car started taking us back the way we had come. Then it turned and we started running parallel to where we had been dropped off. Then the car turned again and we came out exactly where we had been picked up. The car went about 200 ft down the road to the exact spot where the bus had previously been robbed. The taxi driver had played us for out-of-towners. What the crap!

We tried shaming the guy by telling all the people at the shops along the road what had happened. They all just kind of shrugged... Apparently they all knew the driver. Also, we had not been dropped off at a bus station, but rather a gas station. This was somewhat troubling, but some guys said they would get a bus for us. This might sound weird, but it happens everywhere in West Africa, so we weren't worried.

The remainder of this section is scripted out, or it would be very confusing...

Us: We want a bus to Kayes.

Guys: Ok. There is a bus to Kayes in an hour or a bus direct to Bamako in five hours.

Us: We want the bus to Kayes. No, Bamako. No Kayes.

Guys: Ok. While you wait, come to our friends house. The taxi will take you there and back and only charge for the return trip.

Us: Sounds shady. No thanks. We'll eat lunch here and wait.

...a bit later.

Us: Where's the bus?

Guys: Down the road a bit. The taxi will take you. The only want one million dollars to take you a few blocks.

Us: Thanks. We'll walk.

Guys: Ok. We'll show you the way.

...walk a little bit. Arrive at someone's house.

Guys: Ok. Have a seat.

Us: Where's the bus. It's supposed to leave in ten minutes.

Guys: The ticket guy is coming. Have a seat.

Us: Where is the mother-f-ing bus?

Ticket Guy: You want tickets?

Us: Yes. But where is the bus. Its supposed to leave in less than five minutes.

Ticket Guy: It's coming. It will be here in four hours.

Us: Four hours? The bus to Kayes? It leaves now.

Ticket Guy: These are tickets for the bus to Bamako. It goes through Kayes though.

Us: We're outa here!

...walk to the main road. Guys follow us.

Guys: Come this way. The buses are over here.

...we follow, quite annoyed. We come to a bus that we had passed on our way to the random dude's house.

Us: Does this bus go to Kayes?

Bus Driver: It goes to the border. We leave in five minutes.

Us: Good enough. We'll get something else there. (We just wanted to leave Tambacounda at this point)

Bus Driver: It's 5000 CFA per person for this bus.

Us: The ticket sign next to you says it's 2500 CFA per person.

Bus Driver: Not for you.

Us: Horse apples! Cows dung! Bull shit it does!

...after much protesting.

Bus Driver: 2500 per person.

Us: That's what we thought!

Luggage Guys: It's 500 CFA per bag

First group of Guys that brought us to the bus: It's 1000 CFA per bag!

Us: It's 500 CFA for all the bags put together!!!! Gaaaah!

When we finally got on the bus we were so furious we could hardly speak. We just wanted to be moving. We kept looking out the windows to make sure our bags had actually been loaded on the bus. We had survived being ripped off by a taxi, a run-around by some dudes who just wanted to hang out with white people for an afternoon, a bus driver who tried to rip us off, luggage handlers who tried to get money out of us, and the malice of the first group of guys who tried to get the baggage price even higher in order to collect a "finders fee" for brining us to the bus in the first place.

Evidently fate had gotten wind of our good fortune from the morning in Velingara and sought to even things out in the afternoon.

We made it to Kayes that night without much more trouble, spent the night in Kayes and made it to Bamako the following evening where more fun was in store.

When making it down the home stretch to Bamako someone called us and said there was trouble in the city and that we should be careful when we arrived. Apparently that afternoon a sotrama (bus) driver was shot and killed at a gendarme checkpoint in the city when his vehicle was stopped and he tried to flee. This upset the other taxi and sotrama drivers in the city and they started to strike. The reason we were called is that apparently a Volunteer had been in a taxi that was stopped and he was removed from the taxi by angry demonstrators. (He was fine.) We ended up having a PC car come get us at the bus station to avoid any potential problems because it was dark when we got into town. We stayed at the PC transit house in Bamako that night.

The next morning I tried to get back to Segou with a few other people. We couldn't find taxis hardly anywhere, and the ones that did stop for us would not cross the river to the other side of town where all the bus stations to Segou are located. We went to the PC bureau to see what was going on and got some not-so-good news. We were told that no taxis were crossing the river. Most taxis and sotramas were striking to demonstrate "solidarity" for the driver that was killed. Some taxis that were striking were preventing large buses from leaving the city by blocking the roads at the edge of town. Some PC staff members had seen people throwing rocks and police using tear gas. I personally had seen a truck full of police in full riot gear with face masks, body armor, and shields the night before.

Since a decent amount of people wanted to leave the city, our safety and security officer got a PC van to take a handful of people, including myself, to the edge of town to try to find a bus leaving the city. No luck. In fact, it ended up becoming a rescue mission of sorts. Several PCVs had been near the bus stations that morning and got on buses that were eventually stopped at the edge of town by the protesters. They were stranded out there with no way to get back in town. We went and got them. One of the guys said people had stopped his bus by running alongside it, opening the luggage bays, and pulling out baggage. They almost started throwing rocks at the bus. He said he could also see char marks on the pavement where people had previously been burning things in the street. Obviously not the best situation ever.

So, we concluded that we would just have to wait out the strike in Bamako. No one knew when it would be over. I might only last a day. Might be a few. Who knew... The worst part is that it meant that we could go to the American Club, have burgers and cold sodas, go swimming, and watch movies. We were roughing it for sure. The strike ended that night and I was in Segou the next day by lunch time.

At this point I better clear up a few things for all the mothers out there who are by now pulling their hair out. Yes, there was a strike. Yes, someone died. Yes, there was civil unrest for about 36 hours. However, the incident was limited to only a few areas in Bamako and only concerned public transportation. People in private vehicles were left alone. Probably the biggest problem was that since no one was able to leave the city via public transport (what most Malians use), all the hotels filled up, so the city had a little less elbow room than usual. The areas where people were causing trouble were well known and easily avoided, so Volunteers were not in danger and the PC staff did what it could to ensure Volunteer safety. When I was in the PC car that day I went through most of the city and didn't see problems anywhere I went, but I did see a lot of extra police out, which indicated that the local government was taking steps to handle the situation. Everything is now back to normal.

Yesterday was the last day of the Segou Music Festival. It's the second largest festival in Mali after The Festival In The Desert (which traditionally happens outside Timbuktu... in the desert). It's one of the major tourist events in Mali and people come from all over the world to enjoy the sights and sounds. Fortunately for me, I call Segou my "second home" in Mali, so I've been able to experience all the festival has to offer and see the before and after effects it has on the city.

The festival is "small" by US standards, but very unique. The main stage is set up on a barge on the Niger River. There are pavilions set up for various vendors and aid groups. An exhibition hall displaying art from all over the world. Cultural exhibition tents where different ethnic groups perform dances. Beer gardens.

One of the main differences that stood out to me was the aggressive tactic adopted by the street vendors. Some have booths set up in the festival. Some walk around inside and outside the festival grounds. Some have booths set up outside the festival (so they don't have to pay a booth fee). They don't wait for you to come to them. They come to you. "My friend, you buy my postcards". "Bonjour Monsieur, you see my nice cloth". "Ttssstt. I have the marijuana. How much you buy?" (For the record, I didn't buy "the marijuana". It's illegal)

The street vendors sell all the typical stuff you think of. Wooden carvings. Drums. Earrings. Necklaces. Bracelets. Clothing. Turbans. Ridiculous inflatable animals that come from China. CDs. Sunglasses. Postcards.

There are also a host of women set up outside the festival grounds on the side of the roads selling street food. Common items include fried egg sandwiches, seasoned grilled meat sandwiches, or assorted veggies, fries, beans, etc. Conditions are less than sanitary by US standards. I ordered a grilled meat sandwich the other day. The lady took the meat which was on metal kabobs, put it on the bread, then dipped a spoon into a bowl of raw meat to get some of that tasty raw meat juice for extra flavor. Why did we bother to cook the meat again?...

Inside the actual festival ground there is plenty to see. During the day its mostly just exhibition stuff. Tribal dances. Local musicians. Food. One day there was a boat race on the river using traditional pirogues (canoes). The race was done in two heats. In the first heat two of the five boats sank during the race because the 20 or so men in each boat were paddling so furiously that they inundated their vessels with water. In the second heat there was a boat with a bunch of white foreigners. Of course their boat sank about 20 yards before the finish line. The crowd loved it.

The tribal dances were pretty neat. Lots of different masks and costumes. One group was demonstrating what appeared to be a ritual dance that men do before going out to hunt. They all had shotguns which were loaded with blanks and every now and then one of them would fire a gun in the middle of the crowd. Sure, they were using blank shells... but still, it was a little unnerving at first.

People attended the concert from all over the world. There were plenty of Malians, which I hate to say surprised me a little. I initially thought the crowd would have been composed mostly of foreigners, but actually the majority of people were nationals, which was nice to see. Of course, there were plenty of people from France, Great Britain, the US, and other parts of Europe as well. I also ran into several Peace Corps Volunteers that had made their way from Ghana and Benin. There might have been some Togo folks as well. I can't remember. There were also people from many other West African countries in attendance. This truly is an international festival, even if its not super huge in terms of attendance.

However, there were enough people in town to completely take down the telecommunications infrastructure of the city. For two or three days you couldn't make calls, send texts, or get on the web. A lot of the foreigners were freaking out thinking that something was wrong with their phone in particular. Some of the local Volunteers graciously explained that this problem was a city wide phenomenon, and not isolated to particular individuals.

The nicer restaurants and hotels in the area also changed things up a bit for the festival. Strangely, room prices went up a bit. Restaurant menus also got a lot shorter to make things easier on the cooks. My favorite place in town, lovingly referred to as "The Shack", reduced its menu down to two items. Fish or Beef. No salads. No sandwiches. When my friends and I inquired if we could order from the "regular menu" since we are regulars to this particular establishment and the cook knows us, we were greeted with a rather Seinfeldesque Soup Nazi "no soup for you" response. Clearly the goings-ons of the festival are a source of additional stress for local businessmen.

One thing I found especially interesting about the past week was the placement of one particular beer garden outside the festival grounds. There's not a lot of real estate available on the side of the roads in town, so one intrepid individual thought he would set up a beer garden in the middle of a round point intersection. The concept of having people come to the literal center of a poorly lit, busy intersection median to consume copious amounts of fermented drink seems less than wise to me. But then again, this is just one man's opinion.

In all, I would say the festival was a success. Everyone I was with seemed to have a good time and there was plenty to see and do. So in conclusion, if you happen to be in the Segou area in early February... come check out the music festival. It only costs about $US 140 for all four days for foreigners.

Here's a bunch of random thoughts/observations I've had over the past few weeks.

Hazards of Traveling to Work

I was going out to the fields the other day to help one of my neighbors harvest his rice. We rode out together in his cow cart (village version of carpooling). Now normally in the US the typical hazard associated with going to work is a car accident of some sort. Not as much so in village. No... the big risk is getting cow diarrhea all over your foot when you let your legs dangle over the front of the cart... right behind the cow... Fortunately I anticipated this risk and kept my legs up. My neighbor was not as lucky.

Garden Frustrations

Most people here do not have gardens. Why? Because the idea of a flower garden is a rather silly notion when all your time is taken up toiling away in the fields or doing other manual labor all day. Plus there are no sprinkler systems for watering plants. The village version: a rope, a bucket, and a well. Veggie gardens are an equally futile endeavor as the biological equivalent of a lawn mower, manifested in the form of a herd of goats, is ever present and devours anything in its path.

Unconventional Tourists

I rode my bike 17 km to the market recently. On the way I was stopped by a French couple in a Land Rover camper (yes, camper), trying to find their way to Djenne, a major tourist attraction in Mali that's a short 150 km from my village... straight through the bush on roads cut through fields by cow carts. A short time after the French couple I came across three white guys on motorcycles fully decked out in gear. It appeared that they were going across Mali "the back way" with motorcycles.

Utilities

Some people in village inquired about my habit of cooking for myself everyday. They wanted to know how I did this. I said I used a gas tank. Then I told them that in the US people don't buy tanks of gas... it gets piped straight into the house for cooking AND heating. They found this incredible, especially the part about heating one's house. Then I explained that water goes straight to everyone's house as well. Villagers conclusion: America is a good place.

Inflation

Today I was in Segou for the annual music festival. I was with some other PCVs and on our way into the festival grounds we bought some food from a girl near the festival entrance. After a few hours we went back to the same stand to buy the exact same food item. This time the girl's mother was there and the price had doubled... that's what I call sudden inflation. Curiously, our appetites were quelled with the adjustment in price.

Deja Vu

While at the music festival I sat down at a pavilion with a few other people for a while to soak in the atmosphere of the festival. About every 3 minutes another vendor would approach our table trying to sell something. Post cards. A shoe shine. Leather goods. Knives. Some would even come back later trying to sell the exact same stuff. I wonder if many foreigners end up buying things after the second attempt...

Advertising Strategy

My friends and I also noticed some advertisements for a particular brand of beer while at the pavilion where we were seated. There were signs plastered all over the place. They would have been impossible to avoid. We were intrigued because we had never heard of this brand of beer before, so asked if we could have some to try. Ironically they didn't sell that particular beer. They just had lots of ads for it, but sold something else.

I already wrote this entry once, but scrapped the first draft after putting more consideration into what I wanted to say. This article isn't about Mali. It's about the US. I'm probably won't end up writing something entirely cohesive, but that's because how I feel and what I think aren't in complete agreement. Once again I find myself waffling.

I watched a documentary entitled "Food, Inc." this morning. It had the familiar message that big corporations are the devil and the system is corrupt and bla bla bla. However, it also offered some constructive criticism. I suggest watching it if you have some spare time.

The main points of the film included:

1. The American public's general lack of any understanding of where their food actually comes from or what's in it.

2. The increasing consolidation and control of the American food industry by a few large multinational conglomerates.

3. The blurring of the lines between corporations and government regulatory agencies due to personnel from each moving from one to the other.

4. The increasing impotence of government regulation on industry due to court decisions ruling in favor of corporate interests.

5. Government agriculture subsidies favoring certain major cash crops which has resulted in virtual insolvency for local farmers.

6. Corporate abuse of intellectual property rights in order to attain almost complete control of an industry, which then results in little or no competition in the market place.

7. Corporations taking advantage of and abusing immigrant workers.

8. The disparity between immigrants, companies, and the government. Corporations bring immigrant workers to the US, but it is the workers who are punished for entering the country illegally, not the companies that brought them here or employed them.

9. The food industry's insistence on combating new problems that arise with new, advanced technologies instead of simply solving the root problem. (i.e. giving cattle massive amounts of antibiotics instead of improving the diet of the animal)

10. The un-sustainable nature of a globalized food industry that is totally dependent on oil and does not promote local production or distribution of products.

11. The unfairness and ease of bringing forth a lawsuit inherent in the US legal system that essentially favors whoever is able to afford long legal battles (i.e. not small farmers or workers).

12. The poverty created in foreign countries due to US agriculture subsidies. Farmers in other countries are unable to sell their own crops in their own countries because government subsidies allow American farmers to sell their crops below production costs.

13. The fact that it is now much more expensive to eat healthy than eat poorly, which causes the poor to become unhealthy and sick, which in turn creates a whole host of problems including more poverty, reliance on government aid, healthcare issues, etc.

So what am I trying to get at here? I feel conflicted. My heart says that what we are doing is wrong. My mind wonders how we can "right" all the "wrongs" and still have things like food availability, low food costs, food variety, and the convenience that is currently enjoyed. To me it seems that in order to "right" the "wrongs" we have to adopt a more socialist attitude, but at the same time I like the independence I have with a more capitalist attitude. I guess I'm wondering if there is a way to combine the two. You know... Social capitalism. Capital socialism. Suffice it to say I don't have the answers and I'm left scratching my head wondering where the time warp portal is that will take me to that magical land of hope and wonder where everything I want is possible simultaneously.

In any case, I find myself turning to what is quickly becoming my favorite phrase: "Be the change you want to see". I'm also learning that doing this means not always taking the easy route or going with my first choice. By being the change I want to see I force myself to consider the long term future and think about where I (and everyone around me) am headed, and that has caused me to do things I might not have otherwise. Do you think you, the reader, can do the same?

If you're interested in what I've been talking about and want to learn more, or want to study the message of the "flaming liberals" in order to defeat them, check out the following documentaries:

Food, Inc. (food industry, politics, social justice)

The Future of Food (food industry, corporate greed)

Flow (water crisis)

King Corn (everything you ever wanted to know about the corn industry)

The Corporation (unsavory corporate practices/policies)

What Would Jesus Buy? (problems with American consumerism)

Roger and Me (negative affects corporations can have on communities)

The phrase "this is Africa", or "TIA" is mentioned here from time to time. I find it hard to explain exactly what these three words mean, but I think that the following examples will paint a picture of the spirit of TIA. Also, keep in mind what I describe is not indicative of every single person or place on the continent. If anything, they're just funny stories that seem to recur when I'm around. Also, I can sometimes be a bit dramatic with my sarcasm...

Sports Announcers

The Africa Cup of Nations is going on in Angola at the moment. Mali participated, but was eliminated in bracket play. Naturally, when the team was playing, everyone around here was really excited and large groups could be found congregated around TVs and radios whenever there was a game being broadcast. Thanks to French colonization, all national broadcasts are done in French. However, not many people in village speak French, so the local radio station by me rebroadcasts the games in the local language, Bambara. How they do this is somewhat interesting...

There are two guys who sit in the radio booth and watch the game who speak both French and Bambara. They forward the events of the game on over the radio to listeners. There is often a lot of semi-dead air time followed by exuberant exclamations by one or both men who literally yell into the mics as loud as they can when something exciting happens. In American terms it would be like someone watching a basketball game on TV with the volume down and dictating what was happening to someone else in another room... and doing so with a lot of personal celebration included in the commentary. TIA

Water Tower

I learned the other day that some time in the future my village and the neighboring village are supposed to be getting a water tower and several distribution lines put in, courtesy of the local government. Nobody knows when, but someone already came out and drilled a borehole and installed an India-Mali pump for the time being.

As a civil engineer I'm rather intrigued by decisions that have been made thus far in this project. The borehole was put in on the north-east corner of my village in the middle of a field next to the main road that passes on the outer east side of town. Also, the other village that the future tower is supposed to serve is located south-west of my village, i.e.. on the exact opposite side of town and about 2 km beyond. Thirdly, the borehole appears to be located in one of the low spots in the area (granted, it's pretty flat overall).

Why is this interesting to me? The fact that there's currently a pump on the borehole doesn't seem to mean much as it is nowhere near any houses, so the only people getting water from it are the people using that field and passers-by on the road. Also, it would have made more sense to me to locate the borehole/tower between the two villages, thus necessitating less pipe, which translates into less cost for distribution. Lastly, it's a fairly common practice to locate water towers at locations that are "up hill", since the towers rely on gravity to do all the work. Putting one in a low spot is slightly counterproductive.

I will admit, I haven't talked to anyone who is actually responsible for this project so I do not have a full understanding of why things have been done the way that they have been thus far, and I am not aware of the exact plans for the future. However, at first glance, to me it looks like someone decided these communities should get a water distribution system and then paid a well driller to go out and poke a hole in the ground... not really giving much thought about the specifics. The reason I have this first impression is because stuff like that has happened here before. TIA

Making Change

Often in village people need change back when they buy something. This might seem like a simple endeavor, but when one or both people involved in the transaction do not have a lot of math skills this can become tricky. Sometimes there can be lengthy discussions about one's total bill and the perceived amount of money that should be returned from the larger denomination first given. These disputes are often settled by bringing in a third or sometimes fourth party to help smooth out the numbers. TIA

Unwanted Business

I was in a boutique the other day trying to buy eggs or powdered milk or something, but was unable, because the shop keeper had stepped out for a few minutes. Rather, I should say the head shop keeper. There were two other people at the boutique who "worked" there that, in my opinion, should have been able to sell me what I wanted to buy. They told me that I couldn't buy anything right now because the shop keeper wasn't around and that I should go to another shop. When I asked why they couldn't sell me stuff they simply told me to go somewhere else. This sort of thing has happened to me several times here in different places. I think it might have something to do with the previous paragraphs subject. TIA

Family Planning

Women here have a lot of kids (on average 5 or 6), and men have a lot of wives (2 or three is desirable in many places). There is a perception here that having a lot of kids is good. As a result, the head of household (typically a man) has a lot of mouths to feed. I've had conversations about this with people before and asked them if they thought that they would have more disposable income if they had fewer children. Everyone questioned pointed this out as being fairly obvious. Then I asked if people thought that many Malians are poor. Again, this was considered obviously. Then I asked why, if people recognized that having fewer children would result in few "bills", did they continue to procreate so vigorously. The responses were either a shrug of the shoulders or a reminder that having a lot of kids was a good thing. Personally, I think reducing the number of births per woman here would be a good thing on many levels... but then again, as is the case in most agrarian societies, the more hands you have harvesting the better. Right? TIA

It's Not Broke. Don't Fix It

When I first moved to my village I noticed that the water pump by my house was in disrepair and mentioned this to the people responsible for the pumps health and safety. They said that the pump wasn't "broken" and in any case there wasn't any money to fix the pump at that time. Now the pump has completely ceased to fulfill its primary purpose: to lift water.

What I didn't understand when I first got here is that things don't need to be repaired until they stop functioning in every possible capacity. Sure, when I first arrived in village the aforementioned pump had ball bearings with no balls in them, a head cover that was so warped and bent that it was allowing the pump piston to smash into the head of the cylinder, and no washers on the handle axle in order to prevent horizontal handle movement which resulted in a complete stripping of the threads on the axle... but it still produced water. So yeah, while none of those things kept the pump from producing water, they all caused more destruction of other parts of the pump, so now much of it has to be replaced or refabricated, resulting in a much, much higher repair bill than if individual parts had been taken care of when they failed.

While I have used the example of my pump here, this stuff happens all over. Garden fences, cars, motorcycles, chairs, walls of houses, well casings, generators, roads, doors, etc. It's not fixed until it's broken. Got it? I'm discovering that the concept of preventive maintenance is not well understood here. TIA

Dryer Sheets

You know how people in the US will use dryer sheets to make laundry nice and soft and fluffy and smell nice? We don't have those here. We don't even have clothes dryers. We have a precursor technology... the clothes line. And when that is not available, bushes, trees, and solar panels. Yes. Solar panels. They're great for hanging clothes on... apparently.

I have a lady down the street wash my clothes for me. She hangs them up to dry on a line in her concession (compound). It's been windy here recently. The other day she washed my clothes in late afternoon and then hung them to dry before starting to cook dinner for her family. Because her "kitchen" is upwind of the clothes line, and because everyone here cooks with wood, my latest batch of laundry had that ever-popular "just come out of the wash" smell of wood smoke. Mmmmm. Love it! But at least they're clean. TIA

F.O.R.D

As everyone knows, this stands for "fix or repair daily", or "found on roadside dead". While I've only seen one or two actual Ford vehicles in Mali, I see a lot of 25 year old Mercedes-Benzs masquerading as FORDs. An example is the minibus I take to get from Segou back to Dioro every time I return to village. When I pull up to the bus station I will typically find my bus waiting with the hood open or on a jack stand with a wheel taken off and one of the front control arms being worked on. This of course is normal and doesn't stop anyone from loading stuff onto the bus or sitting it it while it's up on a jack. I guess it's comforting to know that the bus is being fixed before we leave as opposed to in the middle of the bush where there aren't as many people around to help push. TIA

There are many kinds of domesticated animals in Mali. Sheep. Goats. Horses. Dogs. Cats. Cows... and Chickens. There are chickens running throughout the villages of Mali, but for some reason its impossible to find chicken eggs. This has been a source of frustration for me as I enjoy eggs and they are one of the better sources of protein available, but I have to bring them in from my market town... 17 km away, because you literally can't find chicken eggs in village. You'd have more luck searching for a needle in a haystack.

I decided to ask a few questions to figure out why this is. After all, there are chickens all over the place... They have to come from somewhere. I decided to interview my language tutor. He usually has pretty succinct answers to my questions.

Q1: Why doesn't anyone in village sell eggs?

A1: People can't find the eggs. The chickens run all over and we don't know where they lay. Plus, most people want to eat chicken meat, not the eggs.

Q2: Why do people let the chickens go wherever they want?

A2: They have to look for food (i.e. trash).

Q3: Couldn't people make simple pens for the chickens? That way they could sell eggs for people who want them and fatten them up faster?

A3: Sure. But then people would have to feed the chickens.

Q4: Why don't people what to feed their chickens?

A4: They eat the trash.

Conclusion: People can't find eggs because the chickens aren't penned up. They aren't penned up because they are looking for food. They are looking for food because people don't feed them. Because people don't feed/coop up their chickens they can't find the eggs.

My point to this story is that when I point out something to people here that I think could be done better they will acknowledge that making a change would offer an opportunity... but it would mean doing things differently than they've been done in the past... and that is not going to happen. At first I was tempted to think that this proved a stereotype of the ignorance and stubbornness of people living in rural villages, but then I realized it proved a different stereotype... It proved that people everywhere are unwilling to change a situation that they have become comfortable with.

Discussing anything physically located outside of Mali is difficult in village. Why? Because not many people here have seen a map. The idea that the world is round is still pretty groundbreaking to some folks. As a result, most villager's idea of how the world is laid out is somewhat misguided.

Here are the basics. Black people live in Africa. Arab people live in northern Africa/ the east. Mecca is to the east in Saudi Arabia. China is east. White people typically come from France, Spain, or America. Where these latter three lie out in space is a bit of a guess. Also, there is only one America. There is no Canada, United States, Mexico, or North/South America. There is only one America... and it's big and it's where all the money is. Everyone knows that.

On a few occasions, when trying to explain that "America" is made up of many countries and peoples, I've been told that those are just "regions" in "America". South America is pretty much an enigma. When I've brought up places like Brazil, Venezuela, or Columbia, people typically shake their head in an understanding manner and say "Ah yes, Brazil", which means they have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

Sometimes even the basics get mixed up. The Africa Cup of Nations (soccer) is going on right now and has been one of the major talking points in town. Keep in mind... this is the AFRICA Cup of Nations. The countries only come from one continent. A man of about 50 the other day asked me if Angola is next to "America". I honestly didn't know what else to say other than "No, America is not in Africa... it's over there (pointing northwest)", which of course was met with an "Ah yes, Africa".

I just want to say thank you to every teacher who has ever given a geography lesson. You have made the world a less confusing place for some of us.

This is a stop motion video I put together of the traffic passing by the intersection near my house. The infamous cow incident is included. Enjoy. (music by Spoon)

December has been a bit of a blur. It seems like yesterday was November and now December is almost over. I’ve spent the last three weeks away from my site, mostly at Tubaniso for two weeks of In-Service Training (IST). The rest of the time was spent getting to the training center and relaxing for a few days in Segou after the training. Right now I’m in Segou and have every intention of spending my Boxing Day in a hotel room watching English Premiere League soccer games all day. It’s going to be awesome. But now for a summary of IST. Unlike Pre-Service Training (PST), IST has been more focused on technical training and overviews of how PC Mali administration works. The first week of IST was just for the new Volunteers that came over with me in July. The second week also included the Malian counterparts from our respective villages. Since I’m in the Water/Sanitation sector, my technical sessions included topics such as: digging wells/ well masonry, well masonry repair, India-Mali pump repair, treadle pump irrigation, cistern construction, drip irrigation, hand washing station construction, latrine pit construction, latrine superstructure construction, and a field trip to see rainwater harvesting tanks and composting latrines. All the training sessions were very helpful, but sometimes they could be a bit frustrating. A lot of the sessions were “hands-on activities” where we actually built the things we were talking about. The frustrating part was when our Malian counterparts were around. There is clearly an American way to do things and a Malian way to do things. In my opinion the American way is faster and better. But that also might come from the fact that the Malians were learning a lot of this stuff for the first time, whereas the Americans already understood what was going on for the most part. Something as simple as laying out a rebar grid 15 cm on center for a latrine floor slab was incredibly complicated for some reason… During one of the days that the counterparts were around we had a bunch of booths set up to show off different kinds of income generating activities (IGAs) that could be done to help families generate more income. These included making soap, sun-drying fruit, mud-dying cloth, making shea butter, and making neem cream (natural mosquito repellent). My counterpart was really excited about everything and was scolding me for not writing everything down. He saw a lot of value in what was being demonstrated. I didn’t (sorry PC). The reason being that I am here do water/sanitation work AND come up with something in that field to do my Master’s report on. I think IGAs are a great thing if you can get them to work… but that’s the tough part. Getting them to work. Sure. I could teach people how to make soap and dry fruit and what not. What I’m not so sure I could do is find a place or a demand for people so sell their products. I’m not sure how to explain this to my counterpart. Suffice it to say, I think I am going to focus on water/sanitation stuff for now. Lastly, I want to talk about something that has once again reminded me that I’m in Africa. A few days ago I went on a field trip to look at rainwater harvesting systems and composting latrines. Both of these systems were providing limited if any actual positive benefit. Mostly because the people using them didn’t fully understand the technology. Aid agencies just came in, dumped this stuff on a community and then left. This happens all the time over here. On the way back from the field trip our bus had to stop because there was a sheep in the middle of the road that had either been hit by a car or fallen off the top of a bus. It wasn’t dead, but it had some pretty serious head injuries. Our driver got out and pulled it off the road, and then someone in our group decided that it would be a good idea to bring the sheep back with us and cook it up for dinner. So… we ended up eating half-dead road kill that night. Friends, I’m in Africa.