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In general, it’s pretty difficult to convey to Malians the fact that despite the truth that Westerners have more money than most Malians that it does not make us into a bunch of rich bigots. A day’s hard field labor … Continue reading →
Bicycles, but neither donkey nor horse carts, must abide to the same laws as motorized vehicles. Thus a bike cannot go the wrong way down a one-way street and must stop and go and yield and otherwise observe all traffic … Continue reading →
Do you recognize the items in the image above? From left to right, we have sweet potato, eggplant, pomegranate, oranges and bananas. It took some getting used to to realize that a green banana here could be just as ripe … Continue reading →
http://www.steelersdepot.com/2011/12/steeler-nation-steeler-world/ A fellow PCV wrote about some of his Peace Corps goal #2 work – sharing American culture with Malians – as Steeler Nation expansion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-lau/what-the-peace-corp-taugh_b_1099202.html?ref=fb&mid=5308&src=sp&comm_ref=false A former PCV in Senegal wrote this article about my generation (and really the whole of America)’s attitude towards failure and how service in PC changed a bit of that.
The Malian economy exists pretty much on cash alone. Most people don’t know what a bank is, much less credit or interest. The currency of West Africa is the franc cfa and was originally based on the French franc such … Continue reading →
I do not believe that I have given Malian names enough mention in this blog. Malians are not unlike China in that the whole country shares a handful of last names. I’m not sure how China treats its first names, … Continue reading →
Peruse a pizza menu. How many different choices are you given? Dozens of toppings, several crust options, cheese choices, even different sauces combine to make well over a zillion unique pizzas. Such variety does not exist when it comes to … Continue reading →
♫ Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes! ♪ It happened! Jason championed the cause to get me a site change, and now it’s going to happen! I will be moving to a site 35km outside of Segou (to be precise, … Continue reading →
My host mother had a baby boy (Ibrahim) early in October. Not only is he exclusively breastfed and up-to-date on his vaccinations, his mother says that this will be her last child. She does everything that we health PCV’s are … Continue reading →
Picture 100 degrees outside and being seated inside a bus with no windows, no a/c and no vent. It is hot; you’re sweating; there’s nothing to relieve the heat despite the oncoming cold season. Imagine being seated very uncomfortably like … Continue reading →
Do you know what it’s like to walk down the street, hearing people chat in half a dozen languages and being able to understand them all?! Not unless you are one of two things: 1) me or 2) living in … Continue reading →
It happened! The squeaky wheel got the grease! PC has granted me a site change to a small village about 30km outside of Segou, a site that belonged to a good friend of mine before she ET’ed* this past July. … Continue reading →
Ok people, it’s not pronounced like some kid stuttering through a literacy exercise. The city I live in is written with the French alphabet, meaning that a “d” in front of a “j” makes the English “j” sound, not the … Continue reading →
October in Mali is never the autumnal glorious month that it is in most of the western world. October is mini hot season. Mini in that it is a merciful thirty-one days and hot in that you have all the … Continue reading →
In the capital city of Bamako, things happen with a sort of punctuality that reminds me of home – not that things happen on time but that they happen at all. As I have passed the one-year mark in my … Continue reading →
The month has been a hot one. Rain has come only three times, so there is never a break from the humidity, nor will there be as we head into October, a.k.a. mini hot season. The rainfall has been so … Continue reading →
30 August 2011 The end of Ramadan means eating meat, dressing up in new clothes (one of only two opportunities in the year for most people), and walking door to door in those clothes giving blessings and asking for money. … Continue reading →
28 August 2011 Elephants. Two adolescent elephants. On the floodplains between Sénossa and Djenné. I had been out in the village with Miranda to take pictures on her last baby weighing day. Everyone dropped everything and started running east, leaving … Continue reading →
20 August 2011 Three weeks into sunkalo (Bambara – lit. fasting month), and though I have not actually fasted every day, I do get up dutifully at 3.30am to have the morning meal with my host family (rice and sauce … Continue reading →
29 July 2011 First the natural gas truck was supposed to come Tuesday. Then it was supposed to come Thursday evening. Then it was supposed to come Friday morning. Then it was supposed to come in two weeks, at which … Continue reading →
Fatuamata the Friend has named her baby girl. Despite a raging storm this morning, a sheep was slaughtered, God’s name was whispered, and the child was deemed Natisa, after Fatumata’s late eldest sister. I stopped by to give her a … Continue reading →
One day I came home to the compound to see my baby sister Fatumata in a blue tunic with a checkered headband and little amulets dangling from her neck. I froze. My worst fear had just possibly been realized for … Continue reading →
My good friend, the one woman whom I was able to convince to go do prenatal consultations, gave birth Tuesday. Baby has not been named yet, and I won’t even tell you the gender, lest a djinn* find it and … Continue reading →
After ten months of my being at site, and more than an entire year that my chef de poste* has been working with Peace Corps Volunteers, it has only just now been made clear to the man exact what PC … Continue reading →
Jason came back from his six-week vacation in America more than a day later than planned due to weather and technical delays, but here he is! The two of us went down to Manantali to enjoy some time by the … Continue reading →
When my chef de poste* isn’t being his usual rude self, he confronts me in front of a huge group of people to tell me that I am not working. This is atypical for Malian behavior and ridiculously untrue to … Continue reading →
This thing is driving me crazy! The Gender and Development (GAD) committee of Mali puts out a cookbook most every year, and this time, I am in charge. After almost 100 collective hours in less than ten days, all recipes … Continue reading →
Well, something has finally come of my efforts. A friend of mine told me that even though she has always given birth at home before, it was a radio emission of mine combined with a talk with Miranda that convinced … Continue reading →
Well, after some time away from site (four free business class flights to and from America!), it was time to get back to work. Problem is, I haven’t really what that work is. Everything that I have attempted has been … Continue reading →
Between ill-goings at site and traveling home to America for two weeks, I realize that there hasn’t been any news. Now I write to let you know that of the six flights taken in the past two weeks, four of … Continue reading →
So the new stage has come and sworn in. Their name – the Kennedys. The reasoning behind this name was not made clear to me, but I think it has something heavily to do with Peace Corps’s 50th anniversary. The … Continue reading →
Hot season. You know it’s here because you stop peeing. Bathing happens before and after every meal because the very act of chewing engages the sweat glands. Heat rash is more prevalent than mosquito bites, and you start to amaze … Continue reading →
Djenné House Tour Y’all can finally look at my house now! It’s a bit outdated, from back in October, but the Internet was never good enough to upload it until now (3am on a Wed). There’s some sniffling from a … Continue reading →
It finally happened. Miranda and I got our SPA request in and approved, we had the money to front it, and after two weeks of running around like chickens with heads cut off, we were able to carry out Bring … Continue reading →
A very good friend of mine brought up that I have not written much about gender here in Mali. Here is the first part of a series entitled WWW – you pick what you think it means. The … Continue reading →
Preparations for Bring Our Daughters to Work Day (BODTWD) have been coming along, slowly but surely. In short, currently I have five women to serve on the panel, fourteen girls to attend and a director of a technical school … Continue reading →
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000166 EndHTML:0000007170 StartFragment:0000002367 EndFragment:0000007134 SourceURL:file://localhost/Documents/Peace%20Corps/blog.doc Back during Christmas, I met a boy named Jason. We are now a couple, and he came to Djenné to visit after the music festival. For seven days he walked the walk and talked … Continue reading →
Travels in and out of Djenné are rarely easy or simple. This morning, I arrived at the gare to “leave” on the “7am” baché heading towards Mopti. 10.30am rolled around, and twenty-seven people were crammed into a seventeen-seater, and the … Continue reading →
7 February A teacher living in the compound is responsible for receiving the monthly utilities bill and dividing it equally among the residents. Water is usually no more than 750cfa and electricity no more than 2000cfa. This week, the teacher … Continue reading →
6 February Segou has an annual music festival. Tickets for Malians cost 10 000cfa and for non-Malians are 65 000cfa. Thankfully, PC worked some magic, and we got tickets for 25 000cfa. Still, the pass is only to get in … Continue reading →
31 January A dear friend, Fatoumata, is convinced that I am in love with her beans. It is not that I don’t like her beans, but I don’t recall ever having gone out of my way to assert my bean-eating … Continue reading →
30 January I’ve gotten awfully domestic lately. Maybe it’s the insane amount of dust that infiltrates my house every day, but I find myself sweeping my porch two or three times a day, the inside of the house every other … Continue reading →
Petty thefts occur so often that we don’t even notice them. Remember that hair tie you lent your friend when she went to the gym? Did you ever see it again? No, but you don’t care either. For me, I … Continue reading →
22 Jan 2011 The past few days have not been terribly eventful, thus the lack of update. Things, in general, have been going well, great actually, but not from any one thing in particular. The CSCom has been rather boring. … Continue reading →
13 Jan 2011 Ameriki, someone would look at me funny if I said to them, “you and the work” as a greeting. Hell, let’s be honest, something like that could get you shot if you were in the right part … Continue reading →
If you’re in my family, you think I’m kind of funny when I get mad. If you’re a Malian, you know that I am raging bag of terror when I get angry. Unfortunately, my domestic counterparts had to see this … Continue reading →
6 January 2011 Greetings from the new year in Mali! My new year’s celebrations took place in Segou, my holiday hub. People went out dancing and drinking and general new year behavior. The next day, some friends and I came … Continue reading →
What could possibly be more festive than pork sandwiches, giant rats, grunting hippos and mischievous monkeys? Nothing, and that was how my Christmas went down. Manantali is a sleepy little town that greatly resembles most of the American South. There’s … Continue reading →
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