http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/jonathan-kalan/africa-media-coverage_b_1195435.html

This is an article an RPCV Dan Evans posted on his facebook and agree with what is written. Although there is financial and social disparity in Africa, there is also great potential. There isn't a single answer or a single problem, and in reality it tends to be a vicious cycle that involves cultural and social impasses. In Peace Corps, we try to emphasize hand-washing, talking about AIDS, and other problems that can be solved either with an increase in knowledge or a behavioral change. Unfortunately, I find that more and more we sound like a broken record. Just about everybody knows and understands the arguments given by NGOs and foreigners about hand-washing. When people go in and explain hand-washing, people do it right and give many explanations. Malians know the key words and phrases that will make development workers happy or that will get UNICEF to provide funding (I once barely suppressed laughing at a Malian who submitted to me a proposal to have food and gifts given for an event teaching about AIDS and child sex trafficking in my area - it sounds bad, but although I agreed with the AIDS issue, it was clear that the man I was speaking with knew exactly what to include to get funding especially because although sex trafficking may be an issue in some parts of Mali where there are gold mines and such, I know for a fact that sex trafficking is not an issue where I am, some 500 km or more from any gold mine). It's funny when people try to provoke a response from me. They will say things like, "I plan on marrying 4 wives. Is that bad?" or "I want 10 children per wife". They say these things because they have experience with other development workers who get excited or angry and try to change their minds. For me, as long as it's cultural, I tell them that it's not a problem and that they should invite me to their wedding or baptism. But with issues like hand-washing, I try to explain to them my reasoning. Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend (the accountant at the IFM so clearly educated) about hand-washing and tried to explain to him that water wasn't enough. After a long debate, with me saying that in the past the death rate was higher, at a younger age, and him saying that as long as children lived past the age of 10 they survived until 100 we clearly weren't getting anywhere. So I asked him why people die early now and he said it was because of all kinds of new diseases that occur because of living closer together and brought by foreigners. Some of this was true, but the idea that malaria was new and the fact that they say malaria for almost all illnesses because it's so common frustrated me. The decisive factor was using his own cultural ideas to my advantage. I told him, "Ok, say I'm wrong, malaria is brand new to Mali along with a crazy number of diseases that were never around to kill or weaken your ancestors, but NOW, there are all these crazy diseases, and they cannot be washed away simply with water, and maybe they didn't need to protect themselves before but clearly now things are different and soap is necessary." I felt bad putting it this way because I felt like I was lying, but it at least put things into perspective for him. I also might have just uninstalled my director's keyboard on his laptop... so I need to fix that. I'll finish this post later...

It has been a long time since I blogged even though I have internet just about every day, but daily busy work isn't very interesting. But! From the 12th to the 16th, I broke the mold. I believe I've spoken about stage houses/transit houses, but as a reminder, stage houses are houses owned by Peace Corps in larger towns that act as safety houses and allow volunteers who are far from a bank to spend the night when they need to come in. All volunteers are assigned a house, and I'm assigned to the San house. Everybody that is assigned to San is referred to as San Kaw. So among San Kaw, there are only 3 of us on the Mopti road, and I have been to see them during their village's market days, but the rest of the volunteers in our Kaw are between the Segou road (going directly West out of San), and the Koutiala road (going directly South out of San. They are all clustered and I figured I could easily bike from one site to the other and getting to see 8 villages in 5 days. On top of that, there is a new group of volunteers (a stage) that arrived a month or so ago and their site visit was planned for that week giving me the opportunity to see their sites as well. Their arrival also meant that most volunteers would be at their sites to get as much time in before the site visit party which happens for every new stage that arrives. Overall I biked about 200 km with the longest trip in 1 day being 80 km. I was very happy with myself, because I was going at a speed of roughly 25-30 km per hour on a mountain bike. It was great to see all the volunteers one on one and see how they behave at site or what they're working on. I also confirmed that I really did want to be in a small village. Visiting friends who live in villages of less than 400 people was awesome. Life is more difficult in those villages but the atmosphere is different and there is a level of community that seems to be degraded in bigger towns. The culture is also more traditional, making it more apparent in everyday life. Here in Tominian, it's very difficult to break into the traditional culture, especially because I don't speak Bomu. This doesn’t mean that I do not enjoy where I am nor that being in a bigger town prevents me from getting work done. Actually, I often feel that being in a bigger town gives me more options and opportunities to have an impact on a greater number of people than I might have in a small village. It just goes to show that every Peace Corps Volunteers experience is different. In other news, Merry Christmas! Last year I went hiking in Dogon country with other volunteers so I didn’t get to experience a Malian Christmas. I have to say that it was definitely an experience. It was basically exactly like Tabaski (besides the ritualization of the slaughter), but with beer. I originally thought the families would kill a pig, but almost everybody killed a sheep because most of the families have Muslim friends who they invited to celebrate and in order for them to participate, they couldn’t kill a pig. My host dad actually asked a Muslim butcher to come the day before to properly kill the sheep so that he could invite his Muslim friends. For me, this emphasized the solidarity and tolerance among Malians. Regardless of whether a person is Muslim or Christian or Animist, everybody celebrates each other’s festivals. As Malians say, “An be nyogonfe” (We are together). Everybody celebrates together, everybody suffers together, everybody helps each other out. Everybody is together. Besides Tabaski, or maybe a French wedding, I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten so much before and everywhere I went I was given an entire meal, a beer or a coke or two, and tea. So for most of the day I made the rounds of town greeting people and refusing, in vain, the food and drinks they were trying to give me. It was a lot of fun, and although it was very different from Christmas' in the past, I really enjoyed myself.

My homologue (Youssouf), his wife, and their son.

Find Mario!

From left to right: Youssouf's brother, his wife, his son, his mom, Youssouf

Kader (Youssouf's son)

Malian BBQ

Youssouf's mom

Left overs. We had the head for breakfast the next morning.

The skins.

The women preparing lunch.

Snacks! Liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, etc, all the good stuff.

Preparing to kill the sheep (I took a picture of the actual cutting and blood being drained into the hole but figured not everyone wanted to see that).

Lunch! ... and dinner... and breakfast... and tomorrow's lunch.

Siby!

Tom

Lucas

Hanging out

Repelling off the arch, with all the trees it was hard to get a better picture.

The pictures ended up coming out backwards but this is the rock in the first climbing picture.

A week and a half ago, I decided to take a little trip. Halloween was coming up, and besides making sure everything was organized, things were going smoothly at site. So, I packed up some clothes, packed my bug hut and went to San. It turns out Mali is an amazing place to find or make clothes for a Halloween costume. There are fabric stores everywhere and tailors that can make anything you want. On top of that, there are stores selling old clothes so you can find all kinds of qwerky things, kind of like a bunch of large goodwill stores which we call “Dead Toubab Stores” (There is a box or a set of drawers at each stage house that we call “Dead Toubab” too because people leave clothes they don’t want while they’re still in country or that they leave behind for other volunteers once they end their service). In San, I looked around for some semi-fancy fabric for Tabaski, took it to the tailor and told him I’d be back in a week to pick it up. Then I went trawling through the old clothes and found myself cheap black slacks and since I couldn’t find a ruffled shirt, I settled for a red lace-up shirt, perfect for a pirate costume. At the stage house, I picked up a pirate hat from the house’s Dead Toubab (I can’t imagine how many Peace Corps Mali Halloweens it’s seen), and grabbed the sword I had bought last Christmas in Dogon country. The next day I jumped on a bus, sword, pirate hat, and all, and rode out to Bamako. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and got a good bus (last time I went to Bamako it took me 11 hours), so 6 hours later, I was in the Bamako stage house meeting up with 3 other guys to go to a town called Siby 2 hours south of Bamako where there’s some good climbing and a tall rock arch. In the morning, we grabbed climbing gear from the rental place and hiked up to the rocks overlooking the town. For the next couple days we climbed around the rocks. Although I really enjoy rock climbing, I’ve never had a chance to climb outdoors on real rocks. Routes had been set up by some experienced climbers before so all the anchor points were in securely and all we had to do was set the rope to the top anchor. On the last day, we decided to repel, because even though the view from the top of the arch was excellent, there was something amazing about being suspended 50 feet in mid-air. Halloween was fun. A large group of volunteers went to Bougouni where we invaded a local hotel with crazy costumes. I can only imagine what the Malians were thinking when they saw everybody going down the street as Lady Gaga or every character in Mario Kart. Lots of fun, and made me look forward to Thanksgiving. Tabaski in a nutshell: Tabaski, also known as Seliba in Bambara (big party) is to celebrate the day when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to him. So Abraham took his son off to demonstrate his devotion and loyalty to God. Then, just before he was about to sacrifice him, God switched his son with a ram and so Abraham sacrificed the ram. Now, every year for Tabaski, Muslims kill a male sheep to show their loyalty to God. So Saturday I went to the town of Bla to celebrate with my homologue’s family. Sunday morning my homologue went to the mosque and as soon as he got back, we changed out of our nice clothes and took pictures with the sheep. He had bought one recently, and the second he had bought almost a year ago and tied up in his backyard to let it grow and fatten. With his younger brothers and his son, they dug a small hole, held down the sheep and cut its throat, letting as much blood as possible out into the hole. Then, we set the sheep aside and let me help to skin it. After setting the skin aside to dry, we removed all the organs, and butchered the rest of the animal. Together with Youssouf, my homologue, we grilled the liver, kidneys, lungs, and other insides as the first course/snack. While we were grilling, the women were preparing rice, boiling meat, and cleaning the stomach and intestines to be eaten later. So then we snacked on liver, and sheep ribs and all the good stuff. After that we sat around and drank tea for a bit before lunch was ready. Once everybody was completely full from eating more meat, we drank more tea. During the first day of Tabaski (there are technically 3 but the 1st is the biggest), you are expected to go greet everybody in town that you know. So for the next 5 hours or so, I biked behind Youssouf’s motorcycle as we went from concession to concession greeting, including the head of the Peace Corps education sector Yaya Bouare who is originally in Bla. By the time we got back it was night, and so we had a some dinner, another couple cups of tea, and I went to my friend Max’s place to crash for the night. While all these adventures were happening, things were busy at my site. Reminder: I’m working on a subsidy program where the parents of students pay 1000 CFA per month and community donations cover 700 CFA per month to allow the student to eat a meal 4 days a week all month long. 30 more students decided to participate in the lunch subsidies so we now have over 120 students split into two groups eating lunch together. Community interest is growing and so we are getting more and more donations including the Conseil du Cercle, who are technically in charge of the middle schools, who have pledged to cover half of the cost for the year. I’m not sure if they will actually give that much, or have that much to give in the first place but I am hopeful. For a while, I was feeling like a sell-out because I was going to have to rely on a local NGO to help fund part of it, even if it was only $60 a month, but if the Conseil du Cercle actually provides the funds that they were talking about, then I won’t have to. Also, I realized that I wasn’t selling out, I was just buying myself more time to wean the program off of NGOs and turn it over to the community little by little. By involving the NGO, I would be giving myself more time to find local donors and prevent being thought of as a liar, which I have to say I was very much afraid of. I originally didn’t expect so much interest so quickly. I was prepared for 50 at least, and knew I would have to scramble to find the rest. When I saw that 95 had already paid, I was very nervous until people started expressing how much they wanted to help. With that knowledge, I knew I could go climbing and go to Halloween without stressing too much (the Prefet had offered $100, which immediately covered the first month). When I was gone I heard about the additional 30, but also heard about an local organization donating another $100, giving me even more than enough time to either make sure money was coming in from the big donors or to find other means. Regardless, the worst thing I could do was promise something and not be able to deliver. Not only would this destroy the project but it would damage any reputation I had, preventing me from doing the majority of what I had planned in the future. If you want to know how we avoid corruption, here it is: Money is given to a representative (at this point basically only me but will include other soon) and these donors are given a receipt. The money is then put in a bank account. The bank account belongs to the CAP (commune school organizational body government run) and the CGS (school board), but they cannot actually remove money. For money to be removed, the cantine (restaurant-ish place) women have to go see the CAP treasurer, who writes out a check for the amount of money that needs to be withdrawn according to the number of students eating at her cantine (this is tallied by the school directors when the children bring him their parent’s money). Once the CAP treasurer has written the check, the cantine owner takes it to the CGS treasurer, who then signs the check. Now the cantine owner can go to the bank to make the withdrawal. The next couple months aren’t supposed to be that busy, but since I’ll be doing a lot of traveling, I have to cram that much more into the time that I’m here. I also have internet at site now, and I’m on almost every day, but it’s not fast enough for me to use gchat.

This is the end of the last post. It was a bit long so I didn't want it to get lost.

Katharine Needham (Kate), a current Peace Corps Volunteer in a town called Touna (pronounced Tohna), decided to build a set of 3 classrooms for her school to serve as a new middle school. I was skeptical at first because of what they had taught us in PST about how unsustainable it was. But, when we got to talking about it, she explained that it was what the community really needed. Malian schools are generally over capacity, but her community in particular has a problem. She did a long Needs Assessment session with her school and it was overwhelming that they need a new school. Peace Corps approved a PCPP for her which is where volunteers can raise money from friends and family in the States. I am trying as hard as possible not to use any funds that are not directly from the community, but if you would like to support a Peace Corps Volunteer I would highly encourage you to donate to her school, any amount would help her. The community is donating almost 40% of the project, so what she is asking for is what remains.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-360

As many of you know, I read a lot while I'm here. Most recently I read a book called "Three Cups of Tea" (another of the many books my dad always told me to read but that I never got around to until I got here), and I have to say I was pretty motivated by the drive that Greg Mortenson has to improve the lives of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His philosophy is right on point, in that he understands that in the best way to help someone improve his/her life is to provide hir (gender neutral pronoun) with an education, and a way to jumpstart that education is by providing a place in the community for education to take place. He also does a great job explaining how ignorance and violence is what leads to hatred and religious extremism. Nobody is born a priori with hatred towards an ethnic group, a country, or a religion, it is taught or experienced. Before joining the Peace Corps, I had lost a lot of my faith in the United States. I can't say that I've always been very patriotic, but reading the books I did, seeing what was on the news, taking the classes that I did, I had developed some very pessimistic views on the world and especially the States. Since coming to Mali, things have changed. I still follow the views I had because I consider them realistic, but I see that individuals can make a difference and that the efforts made by individuals are recognized by thousands of people that will never be heard. The individuals that make the difference don't need 10 degrees from the Ivy League schools or have millions of dollars. Everyone says this, and I know I'm not saying anything new, but it makes me optimistic. As I was saying, since I've joined Peace Corps, I've become more patriotic. After answering questions about women's rights, gay rights, the amount of religions and different ethnic groups in the US, I think back and I have to remind myself that the US faar from a perfect country but it is pretty awesome. People here have an incredible amount of respect for the United States (or Ameriki as they like to call it). Many of them understand the catch 22 they are stuck in, where they are given loans and can never imagine paying it back, and that wealthy people in France, the US, and many other "developed" countries want Mali to remain in it's state of perpetual development, but they respect this. (This is an observation made by many Malians) Mali has always been ruled by different ethnic groups at different periods of history, and while a specific ethnic group is taking over, everybody fights tooth and nail, but as soon as the most powerful gains control, everybody accepts their new leader, gets back to living day to day. They say this is exactly what happens during presidential elections (which is basically the opposite of what happens in our supposedly democratic country where elected officials are then politically torpedoed by a small group of people won't profit for that election). So for the US (some mythical country too far away for the majority of Malians to imagine), to be the most powerful country in the world and make the overall decisions for them is perfectly natural. Again I went on a tangent. The communities where Peace Corps volunteers come in, where NGOs come in, and where anybody else comes in to help remember. They remember the name of the first volunteer that came 10+ years ago and brought the first iodized salt and goiters started disappearing. They will remember that you took tea and spent an hour chatting. To them, this is what the real America is. They hear things on the news about America bombing Iraq or Afghanistan, and they think it's terrible, but what they are judging the United States on and who Americans are, are those they come in contact with on a day to day basis. One of my village's favorite things to do is talk about previous volunteers that were either in Tominian or in surrounding villages. Half the time they don't know what the volunteer was really doing but they do know, that this person went halfway around the world to come learn their language and their culture, was willing to chat with them on an equal footing and share their knowledge, all with the intention of helping. Greg Mortenson works in countries that supposedly hate us like Afghanistan and Pakistan, but when he goes in to build a school, those people know that he is not the man dropping bombs or torturing people in Guantanomo Bay. This is what people judge Americans on. This demonstrates a shameful division between us and them. Compared to many Americans, the educated, powerful, democratic Americans, that blanket every Muslim as a terrorist, in most countries that we destroy and never bother to rebuild properly, where they supposedly hate Americans, they are making a distinct difference between the American People, and the American Government. The supposedly uneducated are able to understand that those acts are not done by the will of the American People, but by the American Government. It is the American Government they hate, not us. Believe me, without individuals like Greg Mortenson, we would have a much angrier world on our hands.

According to the Peace Corps philosophy, building schools is not necessarily "sustainable". I agree in the sense that unless there is a committee that is committed to taking care of the school and it's desks, helping students find proper materials etc, it isn't very sustainable. But two distinct events have helped change my mind. The second was reading "Three Cups of Tea" where although he seems to throw money at problems, Greg Mortenson only goes to schools that are willing to build the schools themselves. There is a clear motivation on the part of the community to educate their children and Greg gives them the starting push. The first thing that happened was when my good friend Katharine Needham (Kate), a current Peace Corps Volunteer in a town called Touna (pronounced Tohna), decided to build a set of 3 classrooms for her school to serve as a new middle school. I was skeptical at first because of what they had taught us in PST about how unsustainable it was. But, when we got to talking about it, she explained that it was what the community really needed. Malian schools are generally over capacity, but her community in particular has a problem. She did a long Needs Assessment session with her school and it was overwhelming that they need a new school. Peace Corps approved a PCPP for her which is where volunteers can raise money from friends and family in the States. I am trying as hard as possible not to use any funds that are not directly from the community, but if you would like to support a Peace Corps Volunteer I would highly encourage you to donate to her school, any amount would help her. The community is donating almost 40% of the project, so what she is asking for is what remains.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-360

The Peace Corps Mali Food Security Taskforce has planned this event in order to raise awareness and personal understanding among Peace Corps volunteers and their friends and families in the United States of the difficulties Malians and millions around the world who live below the line of poverty ($1 a day) face daily combating food insecurity.

In Mali, where rain only falls during a single season, food security is a very serious problem, particularly during the rainy season when food stored from the previous year, if not properly rationed, is scarce and planting has begun. The rainy season and therefore the planting season is often know as "hunger season" and occur during the months of June through October. Often there is less of everything from fruits and vegetables to grains such as millet and rice. The food that is available is often more expensive due to its scarcity. Due to the limited amount of rain and the lack of preparation with regards to food storage, droughts can have devastating affects. Such a drought occurred in Mali in the early 1970’s caused thousands of deaths and political turmoil and another is currently happening in Somalia.

Rules:

The Hunger Awareness Week will begin at 12:01 AM Sunday September 11th and will last until 11:59 PM September 17th.

Peace Corps Volunteers

For one week, all participants are asked to live with only $1. Due to fluctuations in the FCFA, we will use 500 FCFA/person as the established $1/person a day.

Those volunteers that eat with a host family are asked to:

- inform their family

- try not to surpass the 500 FCFA quantity

- or abstain from eating with their family and cook for themselves as this will be easier to control.

For those that will cook and want to be strict with themselves, remember that gas used for cooking, soap bought for laundry, or any activity that involves spending additional money should be included in the 500 FCFA.

Participants with electricity and running water are asked to limit this use.

All food and consumed throughout the day should be estimated as closely as possible within the 500 FCFA (including food from care packages).

Participants in the United States

It is understood that it is significantly easier for volunteers in Mali to follow the under $1 a day rule because food is cheaper and it is easier for us to monitor our electricity and water usage.

For participants in the U.S., we would like to challenge you to eat with under $10 a day for a week.

The electricity and running water rules do not apply to you and neither does driving affect your $10/person a day allotment.

* The degree of strictness to the 500 FCFA (or $10) rule is left to the discretion of the participant. Remember that the health and welfare of the participant is our top priority and recommend that if a participant is feeling ill or is finding that participating in the event is compromising their health to stop altogether or reschedule a personal Hunger Awareness Week.

We are also encouraging participants to write stories, blogs, or poetry about their participation and submit it to mariofromero@gmail.com to be added to our Peace Corps Mali monthly newspaper or on our blog.

http://pcmalifoodsecurity.tumblr.com/

This is a slew of pictures that I'm not sure I'll be able to post in one post, but they are an assorted group of events from the fishing festival I was talking about to sand storms/regular storms. Not much time so I won't be able to put a caption for each. Things are going well, very busy right now with networking and getting people on board with my projects and stuff.Here I was just taking pictures of lightning because I thought it was cool. Malians were terrified that the camera would attract the lightning and I would get hurt so it took a little bit of convincing.

Right before a sandstorm! Quickly get inside! (or put on your turban) I'm glad the color came out right, because it's just a weird orange color and you see the sand coming, it's very cool.

Mud on my face... apparently I'm fertile and with give birth to many children.

Very fertile women...

Racing donkey carts!

I thought this was worth posting. I'm cold and it makes me happy. When I'm cold here I try to make it last as long as possible because it's awesome! There was a big storm today which cooled things off, but then there was wind afterwards, so with the windchill at 85 degrees F I was cold and it was great. Currently working on a website for the Bwa Cultural Festival that I'm helping out with. I really don't have anything to do since everyone is gone but this seemed like a good enough reason to grab internet from one of the local NGOs. Otherwise, today I did laundry and installed these cool programs that my friend found for me when I was in Bamako. He is working somewhere where they have computers and he figured he could find educational games. Well I found out and he passed a couple of them along to me. So I installed them in the computer lab at the IFM. The games include a basic english vocab game with cute pictures; an Africa geography game where you have to properly match the names to the the map and then add the capitals which isn't easy but I know the geography students will have a blast; a very cool molecule creator game which looks rather complicated but I haven't played with it enough; and the most useful game being a typing game which teaches you where to properly put your hands when typing (something I need to work on myself) and times you to see how fast you can type phrases. All these were free games he found online and I think I'll try to find some other ones do that there are more subjects. So those installations took the better part of a half hour, and then it started raining so I had to go back home. Yesterday I finished my 46th book (an excellent historical fiction novel about the battle of Gettysburg called The Killer Angels) in the 12 months that I've been here, I need to catch up on my goal of reading 1 book a week but Tolstoy has slowed me down. If anybody has book recommendations, I've read just about every genre from science fiction and russian literature to books on genocide, democracy and science fiction.

Didn't really post on the 4th of July, but I went to Manantali and celebrated our Independence Day and my 1 year anniversary in country. This doesn't mean I'm halfway done yet, that doesn't happen until September when I officially swore in, but it is a milestone. Manantali is amazing. It doesn't look like Mali. It's this green paradise where you can sit by the river (and not go in because that's against Peace Corps policy because you could get Shistosomiasis and that's bad) and see hippos or hang out by the stage house and watch a huge troupe of monkeys swing by from tree to tree. It almost felt surreal but it was very cool and nice to get away with other volunteers for a bit. Unfortunately no pictures of the monkeys because they were terrified of cameras. And I didn't see any hippos, some did but it seemed like I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I'll be on between 3pm and 6pm my time regularly this week.

So, part of my service is working with IEP which is the Institute for Popular Education and it teaches teachers how to teach in the national languages such as Bomu, Bambara, Fulani, and about 6 others. So depending on the area they have IEPs with different languages. So schools that have IEP trained teachers begin teaching students how to read in the local language before getting into French using the theory that if you can read in one language, reading in another language should come more easily (their results show this is the case. Also, I'm living proof that it's possible because I can easily read in Bomu and Bambara... I just don't understand it). The argument against it is that in the end the students don't actually learn one language and fully as they could have if they had started only in French. Regardless, one of the things they do is they write short little books in the local language and then give them to as many students as possible. This is where I come in, I have written a small story on nutrition that I hope presents it in a fun way. As you're reading, think of it as a children's book with lots of pretty illustrations.

Les Petits Poussins One day there was a hen, a very proud hen who could lay 3 eggs at a time. One day, this hen laid 4 eggs and 4 very different chicks were born. The chicks played all day and night and followed their mother everywhere she went. But each chick was very picky. The first chick found that he was afraid of being sick, so he went to the wise rabbit flying in the sky and asked him, “Wise rabbit, I have seen you flying around and never getting sick, how do you avoid becoming sick and live so long?” To which the rabbit replied, “Well, I never get sick because of what I eat. I only eat fruits and vegetables because fruit fights diseases.” So the little chick decided that for the rest of his life, he would only eat fruits and vegetables. The second chick wandered off one day and saw a lion. The chick was terrified but was amazed at the strength of the lion. So, overcoming his fear, he approached him and very cautiously asked, “Mr. Lion, you are so strong and so big, one day I want to be as big and as strong as you, how can I do that?” To which the lion replied, “Well, as a lion, I only eat meat, and this makes me very strong and has allowed me to grow. If you want to be big and strong like me, you need to eat lots of meat, peanuts, beans and drink only milk, this way you will grow big muscles.” So the second little chick decided that for the rest of his life, he would only eat meat and drink milk. The third chick was happily running around the concession when he saw a goat race past at an incredible speed, jumping very high and full of energy. The chick watched in amazement as the goat raced through the fields and nobody could catch it, even the fastest dogs. So one day the little chick went to the goat’s house and asked him, “Goat, how is it that you can run so fast? It’s amazing, if only I could run that fast I would be the champion of all chickens and nobody could stop me.” To which Goat replied, “Well, I only eat millet, corn, and rice and nothing else. These foods give me lots of energy which make me go really fast.” So the chick decided that he would only eat millet, corn, and rice for the rest of his life. The fourth chick was not picky, and ate anything he found. As they grew up, the four chicks became famous in the community. The first chick became a doctor who was famous for he himself never becoming sick, but often took naps and was not very strong. The second chick grew huge and strong and always won the wrestling competitions, but he often took naps and had to go see his brother the doctor often. The third chick won all the races and was never tired. There wasn’t a single animal in the community that could catch him or outrun him in a race, but he was not as strong as his brother and went to see his brother the doctor very often. The fourth chick was known for being good at everything. He was only second fastest to his third brother, he was only second strongest to his second brother, and the only animal that got sick less than he did was his oldest brother. But the fourth chick rarely ate at home. On one day he would go to his oldest brother and only eat fruits and vegetables, on the next day he would visit his second brother and eat only meat, and on the third day he would go visit his third brother and eat only millet or corn or rice. He always ate a balanced diet that allowed him to be strong, fast, intelligent, and to never become sick. One day during planting season, the four brothers were out working hard in the field. But after a time, the first chick and the second chick began to get tired and had to stop often. The fourth chick and the third chick however, did not seem to get tired, but kept working. The first and second chick could not believe it so they asked the fourth chick, “How is it that you can keep working so hard without getting tired?” To which the fourth chick replied, “Come eat with us when I go visit out brother the third chick and you will see why.” So the next day they went to visit the third chick and ate only millet and corn and rice. The next time they went to the fields, the first and second chicks were able to work all day from sun-up to sun-down without getting tired. So the first and second chicks decided that they would include rice and millet and corn in their meals so that they would not get tired. One day during cold season, the fourth chick went to eat at his second brother’s house. It was cold at night and the second chick had fallen ill. The second brother asked his fourth brother, “Brother, how are you not sick when it is so cold outside, I am always sick and cannot perform in competitions anymore.” The fourth brother told him, that next time he should come eat at the first brother’s house. Then the fourth brother went to see the third chick. The third chick was also sick and exclaimed, “Brother, how are you not sick when it is so cold outside, I am always sick and therefore I cannot race or work anymore.” To which the fourth brother replied, “Come eat with me at our first brother’s house and you will see why.” So the next day, the four brothers met at the first brother’s house to eat, and they only ate fruits and vegetables. The next day, the second and third brother’s were not sick and they were amazed that their muscles and bodies did not ache as they had before. So they decided to include fruits and vegetables in the meals. One day during hot season, the four brothers were helping build a new house for their mother. But the first and third chick could no not lift the big bricks while the second and fourth brother lifted even the largest bricks easily. So they asked the fourth brother, “How can you be so strong and lift such big bricks? We are full of energy and are not tired, but we can only lift the small bricks.” To which the fourth brother said, “Come eat at our second brother’s house tomorrow and you will see.” So the next day the four chicks went to eat at the second brother’s house and ate only meat and drank only milk. The next day, all the brothers were able to lift the big bricks and build the house together. And so the four little chicks learned that to stay healthy, strong, and energetic they must each all kinds of foods.

Other updates, I played with a monkey on market day. He was trying to sell it to me, but not only is it against Peace Corps policy, but monkey trafficking is bad! If you buy a monkey or ape you are encouraging people to catch more monkeys and apes in order to sell them, endangering the already dangerously low population of monkeys and especially apes. Also, I started working in the fields. I was helping one of my friends start his fonio fields. The first morning we didn't do very much, but the second morning we did half a hectare in a 2.5 hours just the two of us. It's a great work out but it tears your hands apart. Almost all farming here is done by hand and only wealthy people have the opportunity to buy a plow. Once the big rains come and I'm back in village they'll be planting peanuts I'll take pictures to post. If you have the opportunity to see the second episode of Human Planet, it's basically half about Mali. They show images of Dogon country and Hombri (where there are elephants). Also, when he pronounces the work Diallo, it's pronounce Jallo and it's a typical Fulani name, the same ethnic group as the child herding the cows. When they are showing images of the children in Dogon country all happy about the rain, it's true, rain is good because it means that it's finally cooling down and planting season will start, we have to remember a couple things. 1) Heavy rains are often terrifying for Malians. Their houses are primarily made of mud and especially near the end of rainy season it's not uncommon for houses to collapse and that becomes very bad if it's at night and people are in these houses. 2) Particularly in Dogon country where this footage was shot, latrines are in poor condition and most children and all animals defecate outside, so all the water washing down through the villages, especially during the first rains are full of bacteria and fun stuff. The images of the people fishing (also in Dogon) is done in many parts of Mali including San. I went to a festival called Sangue Mo (also known as Bobe), and although I missed the beginning, I saw thousands and thousands of people doing exactly that. Apparently they begin not with a gun shot, but an elder goes to the middle of the river, puts his basket in, and as soon as he pulls out a fish, everybody rushes in. It was really an awesome festival, I'll post pictures. Currently on my way to Manantali to celebrate the 4th of July and my 1 year in country mark!

A Malian festival not far from my village where they take a statue of the Virgin Mary to all the wells and bless them so that they will be full during rainy season and give good crops.

Riding donkeys with clothes on them.

Partying Malian style, on donkeys and with guns.

Everybody is drunk off millet beer! I felt like I was walking to the big house, and did yell "Go Blue" a couple times. I saw this with a Peace Corps Response Volunteer who is now near my site, and she had done 2 years of Peace Corps in the Kayes region so seeing drunken Malians was incredibly strange to her and she didn't know how to act. It's more common in my area because they are primarily Christian/Animist, and because they are Bwa (who really like millet beer).

The Virgin Mary dressed in Malian fabric with her face on it for the celebration.

Besides the obvious holidays like Christmas and Easter and such, it was cool to see how Christians have incorporated a traditional holiday like blessing wells, which has nothing to do with the Virgin Mary, into a Christian holiday and therefore converted more people. I always knew that it was done, it was just interesting to see it in a place where Christianity came only within the last couple hundred years and people still understand the true reason (and care about the true reason) for doing what they do, unlike the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause.

This is my house, very fancy for a Malian house. There's also my iron horse (my bike), my mini compost pile on the left which I used to restart my moringa trees, and my tippy- tap on the right (which I talked about in my last blog post). The blue jug is filled with water and has a string connecting it to the stick on the ground. When you step on the stick it causes the water to fall. Also in the purple cup on the right is soap which is on a rope so that it doesn't fall off during high winds and rains.

Public transportation! I rode this guy for 2 hours on my way to visit another volunteer during her market day. Those big baskets on the back are filled with mangos on the way out and the truck is packed with bags of rice and millet and other grains. There was a guy on the edge that had hid leg dangling off and he fell asleep for a good 10 minutes, needless to say, without a seatbelt. I have no idea how he didn't fall off. They also pack goats and sheep with us on top.

Sarah, my griot friend's daughter, who has heat rash and so was covered in baby powder.

This is my griot friend that has been teaching me how to play the "talking drum" that you can squeeze to change the pitch. I'm wearing my crazy pants.

Camel Spider!! On the prowl!! Not nearly as big as the ones you see from Iraq but still pretty big and creepy, and they move really fast too. This one isn't quite the size of my hand. We also valiantly battled one at my house (my homologue took his flip-flop off and beat it to death), then looked at me and said "A ma ni de, a be se ka mogo kin." (Translation: Very bad, it can bite people)

Since getting back from the States I’ve spent the last 5 weeks at site without leaving. It was something I felt that I needed to do because since I’ve moved to this site I haven’t had a chance to spend a long stretch of time without leaving. When I was in Nioro I only left once and it makes a huge difference in terms of integration and getting work done. One thing that I’m doing that isn’t very difficult but very time consuming and hopefully helpful, is going to every house that is currently housing a student teacher and asking them if I can include them in a list with their name, the number of rooms, the number of students that can stay per room, the price, whether or not there is electricity and whether they have to draw water from a well (there is no running water anywhere in Tominian but there are spigots around the town where people can get treated water). This will allow new students to find a place more easily and give them bargaining power for a house. Not all students can afford to pay a lot of money, and so some are willing to rent houses that don’t have electricity and spigots outside. It will also help the house owners to find students to rent the houses because by being on the list, students will know that they exist. Unfortunately I have gotten resistance from some house owners for writing their names down. More often than not, they think I’m going to give it to the government and that they’ll then have to pay taxes on their houses (almost all houses look unfinished because the law says you only have to pay taxes on finished houses). Many times I’ll find the women at home, and they’ll say they are the house owners, but as soon as I tell them my purpose, they tell me no, they aren’t house owners, their husbands are, or that the house owner died (that was a funny one because I then asked her if she buries the money she receives for the house). Also, most of the house owners don’t actually live in or around the houses that they are renting, so finding them has been a challenge. I’m worked on this off and on for about 2 weeks and I’m still not done. The students themselves love the idea and feel like it will definitely be help, which has kept me motivated. Also, it’s has really improved my Bambara because I have to talk with so many different people and has gotten me out in the community getting to know a lot of people. This is an example of a project where if I couldn’t speak the local language, there would be absolutely no way for me to do it, much less on my own. As I said, they become very suspicious of my motives, and the fact that I speak Bambara makes them trust me and understand me more easily. Most of these people are uneducated and so maybe 10% have been able to speak French. Although spending 5 weeks at site was fun and good for work, but I also had frustrating moments, especially around week 3. One of the things that gets to me is when they tell me how useless my work is. It seems like more so recently, but a couple people have tried explaining to me the difficulties and make it sound as if what I am doing won’t work. This takes a lot of patience to listen to and explain my motives, especially when it happens more than once a day. I built a tippy-tap, which is a handwashing station, I’ll post pictures, and a student from the professional school asked what it was for, and when I told him, he proceeded to tell me that nobody wants to wash their hands like that because of cultural norms and that nobody will ever change that and regardless of what I was saying he was extremely pessimistic about it. I understand these cultural problems, partly because every time I explain things I hear the same cultural explanations all over again, but my stance on it, and what I try to tell them, is that if I don’t even try to change something, nobody will ever change anything anyways. So yes, most people will not begin washing their hands this way, but I understand this and the only way to begin something is to try, and if I don’t try, then I might as well go home. The other time (in the same day) was when I went to the assistant director of the CAP (the center for pedagogy who takes care of problems within the schools and gives advice), to ask him what kind of solutions or ideas he had about a problem I was trying to overcome. The problem being that many of the middle school kids come from villages around Tominian and have to walk 3-10 km each day to do so. Well, if their families are too poor, or don’t care, they don’t eat breakfast or lunch and still have to study all day. So the only meal they eat during the entire day for the entire school year is dinner. I have been trying to come up with a sustainable solution to this problem but it’s not easy, so I went to ask his opinion. For the next half hour, I listened to him tell me how poor everyone is and how difficult life is Mali is and how everybody in this town is lazy and nobody is going to do anything. Very productive in my opinion… I understand that Mali is poor, I understand that it isn’t easy, I understand that the students parents are poor, I understand that nobody wants to help these children individually, I understand that other students and parents will not necessarily be nice to these students or their parents because they will feel a sense of ownership and un-payable debt and that there might not be a single solution to this problem, but if I don’t even try to find a solution, then these kids will continue to be hungry for 9 months out of the year… during the day at least. I might have found a small solution but it will also be time consuming and I have to make sure that there isn’t any corruption. There are many associations or groups in town, and each of these associations or groups gather money either every week or every month depending on how often they meet. My idea, is to find one association that will take this on as their project and be like a “leader” association. I’ve identified one, but they have been slow getting back to me. Anyways, what they would do, is ask different association if they would be willing to increase their contributions to the group by 100 CFA or 20 cents (typically if they meet once a week they collect 500-1000 CFA, and if they meet once a month they collect 1000-2000 CFA), so adding another 100 CFA wouldn’t be that big a deal for an individual. However if these groups have 30 members and meet once a week, it means that they could pay for the lunch of 4 students for a month. That’s if they pay the minimum and the students receive a minimum. This also does not take into account weekends. Anyways, this is much easier than asking a single individual to pay for a student to eat lunch. We’ll see, but if I can get this properly organized which implies sustainability, and accounts for the 100 students that can’t eat lunch, then I would be very happy with my service. With the rains coming, everybody is getting their fields ready but this also means that hungry season is coming. There period of planting and harvesting is usually a very difficult one because not only is everybody working very hard in the fields, but there is very little food left over from the year before. I also just realized that I have spent my last 3 birthdays out of the country and will have spent a fourth by the time my service is over.

Since getting back from the States I’ve spent the last 5 weeks at site without leaving. It was something I felt that I needed to do because since I’ve moved to this site I haven’t had a chance to spend a long stretch of time without leaving. When I was in Nioro I only left once and it makes a huge difference in terms of integration and getting work done. One thing that I’m doing that isn’t very difficult but very time consuming and hopefully helpful, is going to every house that is currently housing a student teacher and asking them if I can include them in a list with their name, the number of rooms, the number of students that can stay per room, the price, whether or not there is electricity and whether they have to draw water from a well (there is no running water anywhere in Tominian but there are spigots around the town where people can get treated water). This will allow new students to find a place more easily and give them bargaining power for a house. Not all students can afford to pay a lot of money, and so some are willing to rent houses that don’t have electricity and spigots outside. It will also help the house owners to find students to rent the houses because by being on the list, students will know that they exist. Unfortunately I have gotten resistance from some house owners for writing their names down. More often than not, they think I’m going to give it to the government and that they’ll then have to pay taxes on their houses (almost all houses look unfinished because the law says you only have to pay taxes on finished houses). Many times I’ll find the women at home, and they’ll say they are the house owners, but as soon as I tell them my purpose, they tell me no, they aren’t house owners, their husbands are, or that the house owner died (that was a funny one because I then asked her if she buries the money she receives for the house). Also, most of the house owners don’t actually live in or around the houses that they are renting, so finding them has been a challenge. I’m worked on this off and on for about 2 weeks and I’m still not done. The students themselves love the idea and feel like it will definitely be help, which has kept me motivated. Also, it’s has really improved my Bambara because I have to talk with so many different people and has gotten me out in the community getting to know a lot of people. This is an example of a project where if I couldn’t speak the local language, there would be absolutely no way for me to do it, much less on my own. As I said, they become very suspicious of my motives, and the fact that I speak Bambara makes them trust me and understand me more easily. Most of these people are uneducated and so maybe 10% have been able to speak French. Although spending 5 weeks at site was fun and good for work, but I also had frustrating moments, especially around week 3. One of the things that gets to me is when they tell me how useless my work is. It seems like more so recently, but a couple people have tried explaining to me the difficulties and make it sound as if what I am doing won’t work. This takes a lot of patience to listen to and explain my motives, especially when it happens more than once a day. I built a tippy-tap, which is a handwashing station, I’ll post pictures, and a student from the professional school asked what it was for, and when I told him, he proceeded to tell me that nobody wants to wash their hands like that because of cultural norms and that nobody will ever change that and regardless of what I was saying he was extremely pessimistic about it. I understand these cultural problems, partly because every time I explain things I hear the same cultural explanations all over again, but my stance on it, and what I try to tell them, is that if I don’t even try to change something, nobody will ever change anything anyways. So yes, most people will not begin washing their hands this way, but I understand this and the only way to begin something is to try, and if I don’t try, then I might as well go home. The other time (in the same day) was when I went to the assistant director of the CAP (the center for pedagogy who takes care of problems within the schools and gives advice), to ask him what kind of solutions or ideas he had about a problem I was trying to overcome. The problem being that many of the middle school kids come from villages around Tominian and have to walk 3-10 km each day to do so. Well, if their families are too poor, or don’t care, they don’t eat breakfast or lunch and still have to study all day. So the only meal they eat during the entire day for the entire school year is dinner. I have been trying to come up with a sustainable solution to this problem but it’s not easy, so I went to ask his opinion. For the next half hour, I listened to him tell me how poor everyone is and how difficult life is Mali is and how everybody in this town is lazy and nobody is going to do anything. Very productive in my opinion… I understand that Mali is poor, I understand that it isn’t easy, I understand that the students parents are poor, I understand that nobody wants to help these children individually, I understand that other students and parents will not necessarily be nice to these students or their parents because they will feel a sense of ownership and un-payable debt and that there might not be a single solution to this problem, but if I don’t even try to find a solution, then these kids will continue to be hungry for 9 months out of the year… during the day at least. I might have found a small solution but it will also be time consuming and I have to make sure that there isn’t any corruption. There are many associations or groups in town, and each of these associations or groups gather money either every week or every month depending on how often they meet. My idea, is to find one association that will take this on as their project and be like a “leader” association. I’ve identified one, but they have been slow getting back to me. Anyways, what they would do, is ask different association if they would be willing to increase their contributions to the group by 100 CFA or 20 cents (typically if they meet once a week they collect 500-1000 CFA, and if they meet once a month they collect 1000-2000 CFA), so adding another 100 CFA wouldn’t be that big a deal for an individual. However if these groups have 30 members and meet once a week, it means that they could pay for the lunch of 4 students for a month. That’s if they pay the minimum and the students receive a minimum. This also does not take into account weekends. Anyways, this is much easier than asking a single individual to pay for a student to eat lunch. We’ll see, but if I can get this properly organized which implies sustainability, and accounts for the 100 students that can’t eat lunch, then I would be very happy with my service. With the rains coming, everybody is getting their fields ready but this also means that hungry season is coming. There period of planting and harvesting is usually a very difficult one because not only is everybody working very hard in the fields, but there is very little food left over from the year before. I also just realized that I have spent my last 3 birthdays out of the country and will have spent a fourth by the time my service is over.

It has been a while since I posted, but a combination of not having enough time, and a mouse chewing through our internet cord made things a bit more complicated than I anticipated. For 15 days I was back in the States and got a chance to see family and friends, including a stop in Texas to see my brother. Family from France, El Salvador, and California were in town and it was a good time to come home. Although when I first started I hadn't anticipated going back to visit, it did feel good to come home for a bit, and in terms of events and people being in town, it was perfect timing. The UofM Fencing Club continued their record of never placing lower than 3rd since the creation of Fencing Club Nationals about 7 or 8 years ago by placing 3rd overall with outstanding individual performances by certain teammates including Lindsey Balfour and Jacob Trithart. I also had an opportunity to speak to a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who had served in Madagascar and is currently my sister's high school French teacher. Everybody had questions, and although I found myself repeating myself over and over again, each time I spoke about what I am doing and my experiences, I understood more and more what I am really doing and why I am doing it, so although for the most part I was repeating myself, each repetition was unique according to the person I was speaking to and what I had been speaking about in the past conversation. Either way, I was incorporating the 2nd Peace Corps objective, which is to bring the culture and experiences back to the United States. A perk of coming back was being cold again. The temperature in Texas was perfect, around 80/85 but it was funny to see myself switching roles in Michigan. Whereas before, after a long winter, I would feel good and wear only a t-shirt in 45 degree weather and be amused by those wearing large coats and gloves, now, my body seems to be acclimated to 90 degrees, and I had to wear 2 jackets and kept a cap in my pocket just in case. Unfortunately, I hadn't fully experienced true hot season, and coming back to Mali was intense. Probably one of the most energy sapping things I have ever done is taking a bus from Bamako to San, which I got on at 7:00am and got off at 1:00pm. There was a thermometer on the bus, as with the other volunteer traveling with me, we slowly watched as the temperature climbed from 90 to 115. Even though the two of us slept almost the entire bus ride, we both crashed after arriving at the stage house and I ended up taking a 3 hour nap later. But by far the best part of the trip was spending time with friends and family. Although I know I don't always express it as well as I should, I feel incredibly lucky to have the people around me that I do. The friends that I have made, especially those in Ann Arbor, are people for whom I'd do anything. I might be repeating one of my first blog posts, but coming back and leaving again really demonstrated how fortunate I am. Not everyone has parents that are willing to support them in every endeavor or go to such lengths as mine. Expressing this appreciation isn't my forte, and unfortunately I drop the ball... seemingly regularly, but that doesn't change the way I feel. Anyways, excited to get back, I'm attending a traditional Bwa (the primary ethnic group in the area) wedding tomorrow and there's a week-long cultural festival around May 15th. Hopefully I can start my garden and get some other work done before the students leave for their summer break (harvest season).

2 weeks ago, I was in Bamako for the Food Security Taskforce meeting. I'm the representative for the San area. Technically San is in the Segou region, but because the regions are so big, we split them up in two parts- San and Segou. For a country to be "food secure", it's population must have access all year round to food of both caloric and nutritious quantities for daily activity. Most parts of Mali are not food secure. There is a period in the year known as the "starvation" period, where all the grain harvested at the previous harvest season is gone, this usually coincides with the period of farming. Throughout the rest of the year, many parts of Mali is also considered "food insecure" because they do not receive the proper amounts of nutrients in their diet. Malian cuisine is about quantity, not quality. You will never see a Malian eat a salad, regardless of the quantity, and then say that they are full. For them, lettuce, tomatoes, etc... are considered Toubab food and have no affect on their meal. If they have not eaten rice, millet, or couscous, they have not eaten. Often their caloric intake may be substantial, but they rarely eat meat (it's expensive), and will almost never have vegetables, so they are susceptible to disease and malnutrition. Adding ground baobab leaves to their sauces is the most common way to add nutrients and minerals to their diet. So the Taskforce, is a group of volunteers that have gotten together (this was started a couple years ago) to work on compiling information/projects, and resources, as well as advising the Peace Corps Mali administration on what aspects to train volunteers. Being rather new, we had to essentially define our role and figure out the next few steps and increase enthusiasm with volunteers to work on food security projects. USAID is working with Peace Corps and providing a substantial amount of financial support for Peace Corps projects in this area. The thing about food security, is that it transcends the "sector" boundaries. In Peace Corps Mali there are sectors: education, water sanitation, health education, environment, and small/medium enterprise development. Yet food security involves every sector. If people do not know how to properly wash their hands or use soap, they may not be food secure. By getting an association of women together to make a community garden you are working on food security on two fronts. In one sense you are helping increase the amount of vitamins that can be locally bought and consumed, and another sense, you are increasing the income of women which will allow them to buy imported rice or food during hungry season. A project that could involve education is a cereal bank. This is a project that I hope to do in the future with a CGS (school board). A cereal bank is where a group buys grain during the harvest when it's cheap and resells it during hungry season where grain is scarce for a profit. They can then use the profits for buying school materials or improving the quality of the classrooms. This project can also be sustainable because theoretically they should be able to buy grain again soon after selling it and slowly grow in the amount of grain they buy and the profit they make. But to do this, they need to have access to a good granary, ensure proper accountability among members as to where funds and how funds are used, and get members involved with the selling of the grain at the proper time. Anyways, it was a productive meeting, and outlined a couple key things for us and the administration. What I will be planning is what we're calling the "Poverty Fast". Not sure when it is, but what it is, is a week, or a couple weeks, where we (any volunteer), or anybody back home, live under the level of poverty, which I believe is defined as living with under $1 a day. For me that represents 450-500 CFA. When I do it, I'll definitely let everyone know. It'll be much more difficult for everyone in the States, but if you want to try you'd be more than welcome to join us.

The past week though was really crazy. I made my own world map mural. Doing it by myself took a really long time. I spent at least 3 hours making the grid, 3 hours drawing, and then more like 7 or 8 to paint, label, and touch it up. Fortunately I had access to the room at night, so I worked on it then. They really appreciated it and think it's really pretty. I plan on later showing the history/geography student teachers how to make the map themselves and going to the high school where they can practice it. The ones that come, will get a photo copy of the instructions. This will allow them to reproduce it in school rooms when they go elsewhere in Mali to teach. Mali has a lack of resources, and if they can learn how to make a map that stays on the wall, they no longer have to give a copy of the world to every student, they can just point to the map and explain their lesson. This was at night. During the day, I was planning a massive tree planting on the grounds of the IFM. I went to each class and explained that they had a choice of 5 trees for their class and gave them a list of trees, and told them they would receive a small plot of land where they were to dig thee 5 holes and plant the trees and told them what day/time we would start. The traditional way of doing things here, is that the administration organizes something, then one or two people plan it out, and then the day of, they tell the students as they finish classes that they have to go plant these trees. The students are never asked their opinion, if it's what they want, or told in advance. As a result, the students later complain about how the administration does things and never takes them into account even though they are the ones expected to do the work. This is the way they wanted me to do this. I refused and I originally wanted to take my time, where we would have several days, or over a period of several weeks where we would have a session on how to do the PLASA method (an amazing way of planting trees that allows us to plant trees in the middle of hot season and only have to give a liter of water a week to the plant), and a session on how to properly make fencing with branches (because animals eat the trees since they aren't tied up), and then dig the holes, water/fertilize them for a while and then plant the trees. Buuuttt... they told me to accelerate the project. They wanted to do it as soon as possible, but I'm going on a trip (which I just started today and will talk about in a bit). Therefore, if I wanted to be involved and have the students properly involved, I had to do it Thursday. So Wednesday, we went and bought the trees, I made out a list for the time slot the classes could have so that everyone had time with the dabas (digging tools), and so that things would run smoothly. Buuuuttt.... more than half the professors left for a training session that day, so very few classes had class, and of course they didn't want to leave and come back, so they said they wanted to dig the holes immediately. And the ones that did have class didn't listen to the time slots anyways. So I had 10 dabas for over 70 people all trying to get their holes together at the same time. For the next 3 hours, I ran around the IFM grounds telling classes where to dig, assigning jobs for people to get branches for fencing, rocks for the PLASA method, explaining the PLASA method as quickly as possible, making sure the dabas got to the next group as quickly as possible, making sure each class (the classes that didn't specifically ask for trees didn't get any, we're planning on doing another planting later with 40 more trees) got the trees they asked for, trying to explain to classes why they didn't have tree (because they didn't respond), checking the holes, answering questions about taking care of the trees afterwards, and at the same time receiving criticism by the administration who said that the fencing was bad and the animals would eat all the trees, and that we should have dug the holes, watered and fertilized for a week before actual planting and because we didn't all the trees would die and all the IFM money was wasted. Anyways, it was a very hectic day, but I think overall it went well. The students were very enthusiastic and felt invested because the 5 trees they planted "belonged" to them which means that they will be more willing to take care of the trees in the future. Last night, at least 8 of the trees had been completely stripped of leaves, which is rather disheartening, but they were in a very vulnerable position on the grounds, and I think with enough watering they should survive. My moringa trees (the magic tree that will save the world, I'll post more about this later when I'm not as tired and I'll post a powerpoint presentation about it another time) are growing alright, so I'll do a proper PLASA training when I plant those.

So right now I'm on my way to Senegal for WAIST - the West Africa International Softball Tournament which is just a big gathering for all Americans ex-pats. Hopefully I can stop by the Gambia at some point as well. Should be back at site by the end of February. Also stopping by Nioro for the festivities of Mohammed's birthday and hang out with my old host family for a couple days. So many travels ahead, should be fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wDq17zyN0&feature=player_embedded

Probably not as funny to those who aren't volunteers, but we had a good laugh when we found it with our new awesome internet capabilities that loads videos super-fast.

So, I've been saying that I would have more regular internet, and every time I say that, it doesn't happen. But now it's true!! My regional capital is San, which is 45km from my site (2.5 hours on my bike, 1 hour by public transport assuming everything goes well) and in which the Peace Corps has a house, just had internet installed! San is also my banking town (my town doesn't have banks), so I come in regularly to withdraw money. Today was market day at my site and tomorrow is San's market day, so when I jumped on the bus to go to San, I wasn't very surprised when there were more goats in the bus (tied up and placed under the seats) than there were humans (some of them hanging onto the back door). Normally the goats and sheep go on top, but on top of the car were quite a few crates of chickens and rice sacks. When goats are tied up, shoved under seats, and terrified of the humans stepping really close to their faces, they get scared and results in a very loud bus ride.

I realize that I didn't clarify. The reason I'll have access more regularly is because there are internet cafes in San, which is either a 1 hour drive, or a 3 hour bike ride from my site.

Before leaving my site, I finally felt comfortable with the community. Before language IST, I did not feel integrated and that bothered me, but after another 2 weeks, I realized that the community did understand what I wanted to do and why I was there. I can't say that I was fully integrated, but my days were packed with meeting with people, chatting, and making time for cooking. Whereas at the beginning I felt overwhelmed with boredom and felt slight animosity from certain people, particularly kids who wanted (and didn't receive) gifts, I felt a lot more at home and it was very nice to be back. I had begun to eat a lot more with Ede Haidara (the man who I adopted as my host dad) and his family who accepted me as their son, and having adopted a dog, I felt really comfortable. I did unfortunately have to leave the dog back in Nioro, and I'm sad to say that less than a week ago I got a phone call saying he had died after eating something weird.

The kids were much more agreeable when they realized that I was there to stay and that I really did want to work with them. Actually, they began helping me out with things. One time there was a kid who stole a pen after coming over for tutoring, and the other kids saw him using it in class, so they stole the pen back and gave it to me the next day.

Actually, one day two girls came up to me and told me there was a guy who wanted to break in an steal some of my stuff (this was when I had first gotten to Nioro). So, rather than get scared, I decided to diffuse the situation. I asked them the name of the man who wanted to break in, his name was LK. I asked them where he lived and if they could take me there. I followed them to his house and began chatting with him and his siblings and his aunt. After a couple hours of chatting about nothing in particular, I told him I had to go. So he walked me back to my house and insisted that I was his great friend and that we had to chat more often. From then on, he was very happy to see me and never tried to break in.

The work I was doing in Nioro:

My primary work was integrating into the community and improving my Bambara. But every day I went to the CAP (an organization established for helping the schools with organization) and hung out for a bit. There I found a French version of the Koran, so I started reading that. Otherwise, occasionally I would go to a school or two and chat with the director. One of the schools, I was working with to help them enclose the school and I was planning on painting a world map. Monday-Friday I was having kids over for tutoring, and Saturdays I had English teachers come over in order to form an "English Club for Teachers" to improve teacher solidarity and English pronounciation. Interestingly, the teachers in Nioro were not very close and were actually competing against one another. Malians love demonstrating their knowledge, and if they can speak English, they do so in order to show other Malians that they are more educated. So teachers do not have the same friendships as in the States. We were working on pronounciation because Malians have never learned English from an English speaker, and so their pronounciation is terrible because the teachers they learned from didn't have the knowledge to teach them properly.

I had also found an organization called the Association for the Sustainable Development of Niorodu Sahel, which was an incredible find! I was super excited to find them because this was exactly what I was trying to do. It was also run by the richest and most involved citizens of Nioro and so they were willing to spend a little more to create change. One of the things they wanted to do was become sustainable as an organization. This is extremely important, because it's very difficult to continue funding something when you don't see results yourself, and it is frustrating and unreliable to constantly ask NGOs and external organizations for funding. Therefore, I was very supportive of this. But what they wanted to do was start a modern restaurant, which is a really good idea since there are no restaurants in Nioro, but I tried pointing out to them that restaurants are very risky and it would take a long time before they began to see a profit. Although it will help, they should start with something smaller. So I met with some of them individually to propose a hookah cafe. I figured this would be a good idea because it incorporates everything that Malians already do, and add a certain degree of novelty. Malians already, 1) sit around not doing much, 2) chat, 3) smoke... a lot, and 4) drink tea... even more than smoking, and 5) I had been talking to a lot of young people, and they were complaining that they did not have a location where they could go to hang out. Hookahs are significantly less expensive, more easily maintained, and there aren't any in Nioro, but I have seen some in Bamako. The demand is there, and the novelty of hookahs would attract the young crowd. So I thought this could be a cool enterprise that I could guide them through and try to develop to support this group. Not sure yet if they followed through, but I really hope that they don't give up on it because I'm not there anymore. There was also a member of the organization who wanted to start a fish farm, which is an excellent idea because there aren't any rivers around and so fish is very hard to come by if it isn't dry, and even then, it's very expensive.

Another guy I met was extremely enthusiastic about 2 things: planting trees, and building sink pits. Sink pits are holes that has certain stones in them that help absorb water that drains out of the nyegens (bathrooms), which cuts down on standing water (reducing the mosquito population and the transmition of malaria) and human excrement in the streets (usually nyegens drain out of the house and into the streets). He is currently applying for a PCV but I was really looking forward to working with him. I was also trying to get him and a school director together to plant trees in the school yard because the school doesn't have any shade and all the trees the school director tries to plant get eaten by the animals since the school isn't surrounded.

Please understand that the amount of work I was doing or had planned is very unusual, and none of it had come to fruition. My ability to speak French was the reason I was able to express myself and properly understand the needs of the community. Generally Peace Corps volunteers do not begin significant work in their first 3 months at site, and although I was working on the ground work, nothing had actually gone beyond discussing it with the appropriate people.

Leaving Nioro was definitely a mixed blessing. I left a place that was very welcoming and had an awesome energy in terms of development and wanted to improve their city and came to a very quiet town that everybody has said is lazy and unmotivated. I have to learn another language and restart completely. But, I do get to restart, and Nioro wasn't perfect. I was isolated from other volunteers and in a very conservative Islamic culture that sometimes pushed my patience when getting into religious discussions (which I tried to avoid, but was impossible). The Bobo people are a bit more reclusive, but that could also be because it is so much smaller. Definitely looking forward to getting to know the site and get started. But before I do, I'll be going to Dogon country for Christmas, and then Segou for New Years. This is resulting in a bit of what we call "site guilt", but I know that I want to spend Christmas and New Years with volunteers since it will be my first Christmas/New Years away from home. Also, going back to site for a few days and then leaving, and then going back to site for a few days, and then leaving is extremely difficult for the community because it confuses them and does not make it look like I am serious about working with them.

Also, if anybody is interested in my post a while back about first world countries and companies making third world countries dependent on them, read the book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and/or An Economist's Tale. Good books that kind of go into what I was talking about with Malians being dependent on NGOs, only I was talking more about a psychological and cultural dependency rather than strictly an economic dependency. Oh, and if anybody wants a souvenir with Barack Obama's face on the front let me know. There are backpacks, belts, duffel bags, cookies, flip flops, all with Obama's face on the front. And if you didn't know, Obama is Malian, he is also Fulani (an ethnic group), he is Muslim and he is president of Africa and the world.... according to Malians.

Currently back in Tubaniso for IST (In-Service Training). From now on, I'll have more regular internet access because my world was essentially flipped upside down about 4 weeks ago. I received a call roughly 4.5 weeks ago telling me that the American Government had lowered the limit of operations for Peace Corps staff. This meant that they believed Nioro du Sahel to be too far North and that they would have to change my site, which was an incredible shock to me. I had spent 2 months trying as hard as possible to integrate into my site and was really getting to know the community when I got this call. Basically, they believe that Al Qaeda is too active in Mauritania and since I was a half hour drive from the border, they decided to move me for security issues. This happened at a time when I was finally getting work done and feeling like a part of the community. I was mentally prepared to stay there for 2 years, and all that changed in the matter of minutes. They let me stay until Tabaski or Seliba (literally big party as opposed to selifitini which is little party which occurs after Ramadan) in Bambara. I had gotten to know some of the Sherif's family really well and insisted that I stay because there were a lot of foreigners coming into town to celebrate and I really wanted to see how it happened in a conservative Muslim town. So I got to celebrate with my host family. The way they celebrate this holiday is by killing a goat, cooking the meat in various ways and feasting for the next 3 days. Everybody makes jokes about how they are going to eat meat until they have diahrrea, which is funny until it actually happens to you. Now I am in the Segou region, near the city of San. I also have to learn Bomu, the language of the Bobo people who are primarily farmers. I have changed my name again, it is now Motien Diarra, which means "the man who does not lie"/"the man who only tells the truth", which I figured would help me earn trust in the community. Most people that I met wanted me to take on the last name Diassana, which is the last name of the people who founded Tominian (my new site), and the name of the currently dugutigi. It also means leader, but I already get a lot of people calling me leader or important person, and so I really don't want to perpetuate that thought and so I kept Diarra. Also, Diassana is a very Bobo name, and currently, I can't speak Bomu, so by keeping Diarra I'm trying to demonstrate that I am not fully Bobo and that I can speak Bambara... kind of.

So in reality there is an obscene amount of information I want to post, so I'll post little bits at a time.

Now, if you want to mail things to me, please mail them to:

Mario Romero

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 75

San, Mali

I am now significantly closer to other volunteers and it is absolutely true when they say that every Peace Corps volunteer has a different experience. Already, in the 2 weeks I was at my new site, I have had an entirely different experience and developed a new perspective on Mali as a whole.

Since I’ve been in Mali, I’ve met a lot of different people. Since I greet just about everybody I pass by in the street, I meet some interesting people and some that are not so interesting. Some just ask me for money, some pass by me just after greeting, and others are genuinely interested in why I’m in Mali, what I plan to do, and where I come from. Daily, I pass by store owners, butchers, street food vendors, tailorers, taxi drivers, bums, imams, bread sellers, the entire market, students, many people who have jobs I don’t recognize, many others that I question whether or not they actually have a job, and quite a few that actually tell me they don't have a job.

One of the more memorable people I’ve met in Mohammed Mahoud Haidara. The last name Haidara implies that he is a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. He lives across the street from my concession and has a store connected to his own concession. We chat often and I’d say I hang out more with him and his son than anybody else. Knowing him has led to more than I would have realized before. He had told me many times that Boue Haidara was a Sherif (I hope I spelled it properly). This means that he is an Islamic leader. It turns out that he is the most prominent Islamic leader in all of Mali, Mauritania, and essentially all the countries around Mali. One day I was having a bad day and I spent almost all day in the house. I came out to hang out a bit and Mr. Haidara flags down a car. He introduces me to this guy named Cheik Haidara, a direct son of the Sherif, and tells me that he spent time in the States. After talking about where I was from, I find out that he’s a wolverine and did both his bachelor’s and his master’s degree at the UofM. He spent 15 years in the States and is currently working in Bamako. The only reason he was in Nioro was to visit his father, or his “old man” as he liked to put it. So for the next week we’d hang out for a few hours at night. I took the opportunity of knowing somebody who spoke English to propose going to meet the Sherif himself. I put on the duloki-ba (literally large shirt, but it’s the robe that the Moors wear) that the Hairdaras gave me and met one of the most influential religious leader in Mali. I essentially just told him who I was, what I was doing and that I had come just to greet him and tell him that I was there. He seemed very happy with that and told me that I was now under his protection and that if I had any questions or any problems, to come talk to him and he would help me out. I expected him to give off a presence or an aura, but he felt like a regular 75 year old man. He was very calm and reserved and very tolerant. It seemed that he would legitimately answer any questions with understanding and never get offended. But it was the people around him that were taking in every word he said, that had this constant awe when around him, and could not wait to have the honor of speaking to him that demonstrated the respect and influence he carried. I had never been in front of a religious leader and was very nervous because I didn’t want to make any cultural mistakes and really didn’t know what to ask although I was assured many times that he wouldn’t get offended and would be more than willing to ask anything I wanted.

I’ve met a guy that only speaks to me in Spanish. He claims to have been to Spain and lists off the cities where he was, but everybody says he’s crazy. The weird thing is that I’ve been focusing so much on Bambara that even though I understand everything he is saying, I can’t think of words or respond in Spanish (rather embarrassing). Another guy I’ve met that everybody says is crazy is this guy who thinks he’s a king. He comes to the store across the street every afternoon and hangs out with Mr. Haidara. While there he likes to mumble to himself, often talking about how all the vendors at the market stole everything from him and that they refuse to compensate him for their wrongdoing.

I have met Fulani, Bambara, Moors, people from Mauritania, Ghanaians, people from the Ivory Coast, Senegalese, people from Burkina Faso, a Frenchman, a Belgian, people from every region of Mali, a Prime Minister, the U.S. Ambassador to Mali at swear-in, and lots and lots of kids.

Working with the CAP, I’ve met a lot of mayors and even more school directors. Every year the Prime Minister of Mali goes to a different city to make a big show of starting the school year. This year he chose Nioro. Although we didn’t get to have a prolonged conversation, I did get to meet and shake the Prime Minister’s hand, which was pretty cool and he seemed genuinely pleased that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer.

One time, during my first week or two at site, two girls came to my concession and told me that there was someone planning on breaking in to my house to steal my tv. I responded by telling them I didn’t have a tv and why would be want to rob me? They didn’t really have an answer and my Bambara wasn’t good enough so they just repeated that he said he was going to break in. So I asked them what his name was and where he lived. Then I asked if they could take me to his house. Once I got to his concession I walked in and greeted everybody and we just started chatting. We talked for the next 3 hours and then he walked me back to my house and said that we were good friends and had to talk again. For the next week or two I made a point of stopping by his house every once in a while to chat and brought him tea once. My original plan had been to confront him and ask him why he wanted to rob me, but he never brought it up and I realized that there wasn’t really a point so I left it alone. But just by going over and meeting this guy I was able to diffuse a situation that could have led to a lot of frustration, a really scary night, and possible later isolation in the community depending on my reaction and how easy it was for him to break in.

The social culture here essentially forces me to greet many people every day. For the most part it’s integration and just trying to get to know the community, but every once in a while, someone says something or is part of an organization that I will work with in the future, or that I understand is necessary to my safety in a foreign community. When I tell the people here that we don’t greet strangers in the states just in passing, they always comment on how lonely it is. We always seem to be running around in the States so it’s hard, but you never know who you’ll meet just by saying hi.

Rocks outside Soundougouba. These in particular I liked becasue they overlooked the whole village, so it was a great place to read or write in my journal. Unfortunately I always forgot to bring my camera.

The mosque at the edge of town.

Wotoro (cart) pulled by a fali (donkey)

Fanta and her daughter Kadri.

Kids in the family.

Part of my room. My water filter on the right, shoes, plastic bowl with food (one of the rare days I was given food in my room, probably because it had rained), the plastic bucket in the corner was where I would put the water to take bucket baths.

Quick run in the morning.

Ryan! My running buddy.

There are 4 volunteers in our stage that graduated from the University of Michigan. All of us are in the education sector. Also, our country director is a wolverine, so of course we had to leave our mark :)

We painted this world map mural in one of the schools in Baguineda Camp. Although it may not last forever and may not seem effective, the people here have very little understanding of the world outside of their village. They believe that there are only 5 continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas). As purely an image, it demonstrates how much more is in the world and that Mali is just a small part of that world. For the most part, Malians know their village and Bamako, but otherwise have no concept of the world.

Another image outside my door.

The soccer field. Play the game "where's the goal post?"

Kadri!

My host family - my host dad, his first wife sitting down, and his second wife on the left.

My nyegen!

Daow. This is one of my host brothers. I hung out with him a lot and we chatted in French. He's at the University of Bamako studying pre-law and owns a store in a town nearby. When I asked him what he wanted to do getting his degree, he wasn't sure, but thought maybe he would either study more, keep working in the store, or work in the fields. His older brother has a degree in marketing and now owns a few hectacres of corn field.

Everything a Malian woman needs to pound millet, toh, and shea butter.

The girls eating dinner of toh and okra sauce.

This is my host dad's mother, Tieman (my host dad's father) Diarra's 1st wife. She hangs out under her gwa all day and takes care of the little girls. My room is in the back left of the picture.

Kadi is Fanta's daughter, in her terrrible twos, has been learning how to pound since she could walk, and probably the chubbiest baby in Mali. Fanta is 17 years old and her husband died while she was still pregnant with kadri.

My host dad's house is the white one and his wives' house is on the right. They aren't so much houses as they are sleeping rooms since everyone just spends time outside.

The water pump

Normally breakfast wasn't this good, but I had to take a picture of this one where Ryan brought over an egg sandwich with fries and oranges. I also included a full pack of 10 gazelle tea packages, the best tea in Mali according to my host family.

What I see outside my window. Including my 5:00am alarm clock, the family donkey...

The Michigan bear studying Bambara with his water bottle

My bed under the mosquito net.

Baby goat

The kids of Soundougouba during the full moon.

This is what I like to call the full moon rabbit costume. The kids get underneath and dance around going from concession to concession getting small change and snacks. Kate (the other volunteer in the picture), and I got under the rabbit at one point and danced around a bit.

Rocks by Soundougouba

School started!!!! I was so excited! I was asking every kid I met if they were going to school. I have found out a few things that is extremely disheartening. In Nioro, only 16% of all students who took the DF, which is the high school entrance exam, actually passed. This means that 8th grade classes are going to be even more packed than usual and for a large number of these students, it was their second time attempting to get into high school, which means that unless they go to private schools they are officially out of the Malian school system and have to find jobs which are already almost non-existent. When I found this out, I had my first moment of shock and realization that I might really not be able to do anything substantial. I couldn't really believe that it could be so low. I heard this during a meeting with all the school directors and the CAP and had to mentally remind myself that this is why I was here and that if I joined the people that thought it was hopeless and wouldn't bother adding the drop of water, then the glass would never become full anyways. Unfortunately, it's so hot here, sometimes that drop of water just evaporates haha. It was rough to hear, but it just means that I have a lot to do, and I've already started by creating a sort of tutoring session with students in my neighborhood. One of the toughest parts of this was that I'm trying to gain their respect and show them how to properly behave when they're in my house so that they can learn effectively and efficiently. I've only been doing this for about 2 weeks, but there are some kids that are really motivated. Eventually I'm hoping to turn this over to actual teachers who will take on the role of supervising the students while the older students help the younger ones. This will allow a precedent where students come to reinforce their knowledge, help each other out and study outside of class. The thing is, is that the children here really are motivated. For the most part they want to learn. They are tired of their parents telling them they are good for nothing. They see education as a means to get out of their town and move on to a better life, and they see that reading and learning is fun. I remember when I first learned to read all I wanted to do was devour books. I also remember when my brother first learned how to read, and I hadn't yet, I was confused and frustrated with the fact that he was being boring and reading all the time instead of playing with me. The teaching/tutoring has been entertaining and frustrating. From what I've been able to see, the way they learn is almost entirely about memorizing lines and phrases, without necessarily creating an association to what it means. Because there are 70+ students per class, the teacher can't focus on a single student or the meaning behind what they are instructing. So one thing I've been doing is asking "why" to everything I do. Also, my parents sent me some Sudoku books, so I've been using the easy puzzles to get them to think using logic and reason. This requires a lot of patience and having to explain things over and over again. I'm not sure how to explain that they don't have analytical skills or association from one subject to another, but I see it most often with regards to math problems and when I teach them English. Interestingly, even though their learning method has always been memorization, they have an extremely low retention rate. I think that might be because of the lack of reasoning. They don't seem to understand why things are the way they are. They just accept them. Similar to the way they accept things in the Islamic religion without understanding the true purpose behind it. There have been some fun parts, such as when, in the middle of talking, one of the students jumped up and said "You know what we want to do!! We want to sing the Malian national anthem!" This was when we were working on the pronunciation of "How are you?". So for the next 2 minutes they stood up with their hands over their hearts and sung the Malian national anthem. Very entertaining until they told me to sing the American national anthem.

Before school started I went to a few of the schools to find out what kind of issues they were having. For one, it was several things. This is in the very religious district so parents have very little interest in formal education and believe that it's just colonial brainwashing that will drive them away from a strict Islamic lifestyle. So the parents are not very involved in getting their kids to school and many of them are against their daughters going to school. The school director has been talking about how parents aren't motivated and don't really care and stated this as one of his major concerns and frustrations. Without parent involvement, kids don't go to school and the school board is financially static. Another problem was that the school wasn't surrounded by a wall. Now cloistering a school may not seem like a pressing concern, and I personally didn't think much about it. But, when you are trying to plant trees because the students don't have any shade when they go outside in 100+ degree weather and the saplings keep getting eaten by roaming sheep, goats, and donkeys, and also when motos fly through the school yard because they think it saves them time, and when the kids get distracted by things outside, surrounding the school becomes a relevant concern. The other thing is that there isn't a good water source near the school. The only source is a pump (which isn't very sanitary because it hasn't been treated) about 400ft away. While I was there I joined in with the kids to help surround the school with rocks we found in the area so that the motos wouldn't come in. I expect that if I went back today they would already be gone, or the drivers decided it wouldn't actually damage their bikes and now drive over the rocks. Fortunately the school director is very good and very motivated. He doesn't seem to give up and tries to plant trees annually, tries to get parents involved, and has a good relationship with his teachers.

With regards to informal education, this has been a challenge to watch and not react. Malian families are big. According to Shariah law, men can marry up to 4 women. Any children that your brothers or sisters have you refer to as your children and your friend's children are basically your children. Anybody is allowed to reprimand any child that they see doing something wrong. This can be anything from a verbal scolding to beating the child with stick. As a result of such big families, the children take care of themselves. They do whatever the parents tell them to do, they eat what the parents give them, but when it comes to general day to day things, the kids help each other out. Parents don't have time to explain things and properly discipline their children for something they've done wrong. So they resort to the quickest way of punishment they can think of, which is to either tell the kid he/she is stupid and good for nothing, or hit them and scream at them. Watching this is not fun. But of course I can't tell a parent that they are wrong and ruining their child or that this will mean their child will beat their children in the future. There are several reasons why I can't do this: 1) My language isn't good enough, 2) if I did I would be the crazy Toubab who thinks that he knows better would therefore alienate myself from the community, 3) they were beaten by their parents and this is all they know, plus they are angry with the fact that they were beaten before and take it out on their kids, and 4) "it isn't bad to beat your kid, it's necessary because things here aren't the way they are over there and just talking to these kids isn't enough, they only understand if they are hurt, and anyways, this will make them fear you and respect you so that they won't do it again" - Local Malian. Unfortunately for this local Malian, I had just been told by his son a few days before that one time he was hit by his dad and then immediately did the same thing a few hours later just out of spite. I remember, before I left I had a conversation with my good friend, Denise Rowe about disciplining children. Denise was a Child Behavioral Psychology major a the University of Michigan. We had a mutual friend who said that as a kid, her parents had a track outside their house and the way they punished her was that they would make her either run or walk laps. I thought it was a pretty cool idea because it was a good way for the children to stay active and use up that pent up angry energy to vent. Even walking allowed the child to think about what had happened. She disagreed and said that any punishment had a backlash and consequences contrary to the intentions of the parents. She said instead, the parents should get their children to open up by talking to them, getting them to explain their feelings and really understand why it was that what they did was bad. She said that making them exercise as punishment would actually make them resent exercise and dislike it in the end. I've thought a lot about this and I think I agree, especially with the style of informal education I've seen here. I have never been against physical abuse towards kids, but this has really shown me that it is almost completely ineffective and only causes a perpetual cycle of pain, anger and frustration. More about informal education later.

One things that I found out, which I will expand on in the future, is that when a conservative culture such as Nioro crumbles, it collapses completely in an extremely shocking way.

Ramadan started while I was in Nioro during site visit. This means that all Muslims must fast, so they can’t eat, drink water, smoke, or drink tea which is really funny because this might be the hardest part for them. Not drinking tea makes them jittery and some were irritated during the first week or two before they got used to not being constantly caffeinated. Other than eating breakfast at 4 in the morning before the sun goes up, life goes on as usual. The women still pound millet, corn or shea, do laundry, cook, fetch water, and take care of the kids all day. The men still go out to the fields, and as difficult as I thought it might be, they sit around and take naps even more than before (I think a result of not drinking tea). At around 6:30 or 7:00pm, the Imams on the radio begin to announce the end of the fast. The women break out the monni (millet cooked in water with lime juice and sugar). I think that this is to cut the thirst, because with enough lime juice it is refreshing. A few times they had a ginger juice which was good, but rather spicy. After the bucket bath, my host father dresses in a nice full length boubou and sits down in his new bamboo recliner. He listens carefully to the radio and although it doesn’t show, I know his stomach is pounding, his head is light from dehydration, and I can almost visualize his thumb striking the lighter while his fingers itch for the feel of a cigarette to rest lightly between them. The air explodes with the sound of prayer as the sun dips slightly behind the horizon. Every concession has a radio tuned in to the same program, and the mosque’s sound system begins the chants that proceed the break of fast. After ensuring that the men have everything they need, the women can finally sit down for a few minutes. The children are eating, and the food is ready, they only have to wait for my host dad to grunt or say a barely intelligible word for them to get the bowl and set it in front of his chair. After going to mosque one more time, the family will stay up late, sometimes until 2:00am before going to bed. The whole time they eat corn on the cob, monni, and whatever has been prepared. Then they wake up at 4:30am to eat before the sun rises again.The month of fasting ended when I got back to Nioro as a volunteer. It was pretty fun because everyone enjoyed their day off by killing a sheep, roasting it and spent the whole day eating and drinking tea. The kids also go around and bless everyone wishing them a good year for them and their family and in exchange you give them a little gift. This is the only time I have given a gift, but I still avoided giving money and only gave them little things I had brought specifically to give as gifts such as pencils or stickers (they really didn't like the stickers and found them boring). Ramadan is really an awesome month. It really helps the Muslim community understand what it's like for a large portion of the world. Many people do not have the luxury of eating all day or even eating 3 full meals a day. So for a month the Islamic community joins these people in fasting and understanding what it's really like not to have food or water in their stomachs for a whole day. Of course some people cheat and just about everybody has a day or two where they are very irritable, but for them it's spiritual and brings them closer to their families and every human being in their community. They create the support network of understanding that nobody else is eating or drinking and help eat other through the day.

In Kayes for Language In-Service Training. This means that I come in to my regional capital for a week to work with one of the Peace Corps language trainers and get to take a break with some other PCV's. Besides this, I'm technically not allowed to leave my site until December. But I'm taking advantage of it to post here and update myself on world news/Michigan football/respond to e-mails.

I'll be posting 2 or 3 blog posts to cover my absence and not to make one single post too long. This will cover different topics individually although with my line of thinking they'll probably get intertwined, but I'll try to keep things separate and organized.

I split my post into 2 so that it was more manageable. This is something I've been meaning to talk about, but don't forget about the previous, more day to day post I made just seconds before.

I am so frustrated with the degree of dependency that this culture has! Everything has been given to them by NGOs, government aid, and people coming to “help out”. Not only this, but this is compounded by their colonization. They have become so dependent on foreign and external aid, that they are almost incapable of helping themselves. Money is necessary to help people, but unless something remains sustainable by the local community, it basically becomes pointless once said organization or people leave. Every time we go to an organization that is working in the education sector, they are always talking about how they are getting funding from external sources whether it’s an NGO in Italy, France, the US, they think that their solutions are based in financial support from outside Mali. I understand that Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world, and I’m not arguing that financial aid isn’t necessary or doesn’t help, but when a country has become so saturated with external funding that their very first solution to a local problem is to try to find a partner NGO in another country that can fund any project, they cannot be considered an independent country. Mali may have gained it’s independence 50 years ago, but it is currently just as dependent, if not more dependent on external powers than it was under French colonization. I asked someone at Soundougouba what he would do to try to make a difference in Mali, and he said that his dream is create an orphanage program that would take children off the streets of Bamako and have them work. When I asked him who would provide the infrastructure and food for these orphans, he talked about an NGO in Italy. If I could have expressed myself in Bambara, I probably would have exploded about how he’s perpetuating a system that is keeping Mali in a state of submission and dependency. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I don’t, so I had to calmly and slowly explain a simplified version of my feelings in French so that he would understand. This mentality of being given things can be directly shown in the fact that the kids sit there and demand gifts.

This is what I like about the Peace Corps system. The volunteers are placed in a country where they are given language lessons, taught to “Teach people to fish for themselves, not give them fish” and live among the people they are helping while receiving a stipend that is the average for the country. All of this done with the intention of creating a sustainable organization or program that the locals have expressed desire to initiate and continue. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but it’s much better than religious missions or NGOs coming in for a few months, building a well, not teaching the locals how to fix the well once it breaks, or throwing money at a problem where half of it disappears in the maze of corruption. (I know NGOs do a lot of good, and so do missions, but when the sustainability doesn’t exist, then the solution is temporary.) If money and external aid could help a country like Mali develop without the locals being invested and helping themselves, the billions of dollars and resources that have been thrown at the country in the past 50 years would have made Mali one of the top developed countries in the world. But as it is, there is still a huge food security problem, not even half the population can read and write, and sanitation/health issues are a major concern.

(I'd like to know people's opinions on these things.)

Also, when I bring up cultural issues. Please do not think that I dislike the culture or that I'm not integrating. I'm just stating differences that to me are difficult to relate to. I've always felt that I come from a rich cultural background and that I've had friends from all over the world, so I have never had trouble relating to people. So when I come to a country (and this also depends on the region of Mali) that does not have a strong food culture (they don't even like their "national" food: toh), there are almost no visuals besides henna and fabric (part of this could be a result of the Islamic faith ensuring little representation of Mohammed and such), and no reading/writing, I have been a bit thrown off. I'm using this blog to explain how it is as bluntly as possible, which may make people think I am not enjoying myself or that I feel like I will be ineffective. I only write this because I haven't realized how blunt I've been until I started receiving e-mails and I want everyone to understand that what I say about the country here does not necessarily reflect how I interact with the people.

With that happy note, I hope you enjoyed my novel, and now I’m off to homestay. Give me a call if you want more in depth news about my site visit/travels around Mali.

Messages/e-mails are always really fun, even if it’s something like: Went to the movies today, saw X Movie. Actually that would be sweet, because I have no clue what movies are out right now. Or how sports are going.

Also, congratulations on getting your driver's license Isabelle!

I'll be back in 2 weeks.

First of all, there are a lot of things to talk about, so I’m going to try to keep the site information brief and tell a few stories instead. I know this blog is long, the next post I find to be the most important thing I have to say.

Fortunately, I got to take Peace Corps transport up to my site, which meant that I got to take extra luggage up without having to put it on public transportation, which I’ll have to do when I fully install. My site buddy (a previous volunteer who knows the area) names Alyssa Mouton was awesome and showed me around the areas that she knew, but since she had only been to my site to visit a fellow PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer), she only knew the market area where the previous volunteer lived. However, it was extremely relieving how comfortable she felt as a woman in a large city, and also very comforting to have her there when my housing situation went awry. Basically, my housing was a complete fiasco. Just a quick note: Peace Corps is excellent about finding people housing and counterparts to work with… I just fell through the cracks. Anyways, my house wasn’t ready (I was about to stay there for 5 days) because it wasn’t clean, not up to Peace Corps regulations, and occupied…. So, they found me another place while they told the entire family to move out, which, apparently they hadn’t paid rent for over a year, but I didn’t come here to displace families.

Long story short, my 5 days at my future 2 year site was rather chaotic but is currently being taken care of and I will have a place to live that is secure and up to Peace Corps regulations within the next 3 weeks which is when I swear in, become an official volunteer, and then move to my site for the next 2 years.

Ok, so I know that details are warranted. My first thing is that my site is pretty cool. I understand that I might have said, and will say things that make it sound negative, but there are many things that factor into that appearance through words. First of all, I expected a small village. All the programs I had considered or thought about were around this thought. I was chosen for my site for very legitimate reasons, I understand and agree with them. I am looking forward to living there and I plan on doing the best I can to improve their education system among other things. First of all, the site is not pretty. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just isn’t attractive. The land in incredibly flat, very sandy, shrubs thrive (at least in the rainy season), very little grass, and some trees. There is river that goes through the Northern part of town, but we’re in the rainy season… and it’s still barely a creek (and creek is the wrong word, because that makes it sound cute, and green, but it’s just sand). The streets aren’t paved, there is a big market, and very few multi-story buildings. Essentially, imagine Ann Arbor without the greenery, all the houses are made of mud and not more than 1 story, and the streets are all mud except for main street. So it feels like a very large, slightly disorganized sprawl. I will be living in a private walled concession with my own house of 4 rooms (one of which is a bathroom), a separated kitchen, and a separated single room. I have 2 trees within the walls of my compound, and some dirt where I plan on making a garden with lots of vegetables.

City life is very different from my small town of Soundougouba. First of all, I have electricity and running water (internet is supposedly at the new high school, but since school isn’t in session right now, I can’t really use it). I don’t have to greet everyone, but I am the really weird white guy, so I say hi to as many people as possible in order to make friends and establish more security. I know I said last time that my Bambara might be useless. This was much to strong, and I understood that when I wrote it. I was just frustrated at the time, but although French is the “official” language, Bambara is the “national” language, and even if they don’t speak the language, they understand what I’m saying. My favorite part about this city is actually the fact that there aren’t only Bambara people here. There are Sonninke, Bambara, Malenke, Fulani, Moors, and Mauritians. All have their own features, language, and dress that I’m starting to learn to recognize. Definitely excited to start dressing like a Moor, because their fabric designs are awesome! Anyways, all kinds of different cultures coming together and once I get language down, I’m going to have a field day. I was extremely happy to find out that I can understand a good deal of Bambara as long as I know the context. If I know where the person is going with their story or what they are trying to tell me (which when I meet people it’s almost always the same 4 or 5 questions), I can respond appropriately. And many people speak French and they all think I’m French. I actually made a point of when people spoke to me and I had the ability to speak in Bambara, I would. This way, they would understand that I understood them and was willing to meet them halfway/speak their language and not only were they more receptive to that, but they were more friendly. Of course, usually this led to me saying, I only speak a little Bambara, and as the conversation progressed, we would switch to a mixture of Bambara and French. So I answer anything I can in Bambara, and use French as a crutch, which hopefully won’t stunt my Bambara. Anyways, as I said, there are an incredible number of cultures here, and so my homologue told me that my name, Tieman Diarra, was too obviously from the Segou region, and that I would have to get a new name. So I told him to start listing first names. He couldn’t think of enough, so I decided that I would go with Shek. This is a much more Muslim name and since the city is more conservative and Muslim, I thought it would be appropriate. Most of the people I speak to know me as Tieman, but now I’m using both names.

But!!!!! Then I was hit with an amazing idea. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to implement it because I thought of this the last day and didn’t get to introduce myself enough. My new name, it sounds very Arabic, I know, but bear with me, it’s basically perfect. My new name, is now Saiph Diarra. This only means something to a few people back home, but it’s one of the best names ever regardless of what people working at the planetarium might think, it’s an awesome name that means “The Sword”. I mean, thinking about it, being a Peace Corps volunteer, and the fact that Diarras are known as lions, the most appropriate name would be Mebsuta (the outstretched paw), but I’m a big fan of Saiph. Plus, it’s a sweet star that is part of the Orion constellation. So, we’ll see, I’m not 100% sure I’ll keep it because so many people know me as Tieman now, but whatever, it’s all good.

Also, you know how I spoke about joking cousins? Well, my favorite is the Traore – Diarra relationship. Maybe it’s just because it was the first joking cousin I learned about, but they seem to have an exceptional joking attitude towards one another. My favorite joke, which is a huge hit among Malians, is that Diarra (known as the lion), is a walaba (very strong lion), and that Traore is a jakuma fitini (very small cat). This is an awesome way to gain someone’s friendship and one that I exploit as often as possible.

Please excuse the typos, I wrote this rather late last night.

So guess what!!

I just found out where I'll be spending the next 2 years of my life! And it turns out, that it's in one of the hottest, if not, IS, the hottest place on earth! I'm off to the Kaye region of Mali! Unfortunately, I can't blog about where I'm actually going to be due to Peace Corps regulations, but I am willing to tell people individually, actually, many of you will probably already know by the time you read this, but I don't have everyone's e-mail groups, so please request it from me if you are really curious. The crazy thing, is by public transportation, the closest other volunteer will be about a 6 hour bus ride. It's not that I'm out in the middle of nowhere, it's just that I am that far removed from other sites. I have been told that there will be 2 health volunteers somewhere on the way from Bamako to my site, but probably not any closer to 3 hours away. Pictures of me riding a camel cannot be too far in the future, also, I need good camel names just in case the opportunity arises where I either need to name a camel or buy one, so feel free to let me know. Another thing, I spoke to my homologue today (this is the guy that is assigned to be my initial contact when I get to site, so he's basically like a host dad but he doesn't take care of me, just make sure I know someone there), and he speaks English which is nice, but I really want to speak to him in French or Bambara so that I can practice. But he told me that I will most likely have to learn Sonninke or Fulani... which means that the past 5 weeks of Bambara lessons were almost useless in the sense that I will have to restart. I mean, they weren't useless because for the most part people will have a working comprehension of Bambara and I'll be able to use my Bambara when I'm in other parts of Mali, but I'm still not too happy about having to start all over again.

Also, I'm kind of stealing this idea from another trainee. But, just a challenge to those who are reading this. Throughout your day, try to focus on and remember the number of different things you read. This could literally be anything from this post, a newspaper article, your phone settings, the ingredients on the back of a cereal box, street signs, books, etc... I had mentioned in my previous post that the education system in Mali is pretty bad and that the number of literate/educated people is very low. To give you an idea, in the village I live in called Soundougouba, on average, I read about 3 things that are not either my book, my notes/Peace Corps papers. One of these, is the name of my host dad which is written upside down on the inside of my screen door for when it was delivered to the family, another is a sign that says "Attention!" to warn about the speed bump as you come into the village from the north (I read this on on my way back to school, so it should count as 2), and the name of my host dad again written on the donkey cart which is in my concession. Occasionally I pass or notice the faded lettering indicating the name of the road where my host family lives. Other than this, I read my bambara notes, my phone every once in a while, my book(s), the names of the artists on my ipod, and Peace Corps notes on NGOs in Mali. Oh! and when I had a bout of diahrrea, I read the package of the pepto bismal pills they gave us from our medical kit, that was very exciting.

Rain is probably my favorite thing ever right now. Whenever it rains, I can finally cool down, and it feels good. I did find a great spot on the rocks overlooking Soundougouba, that is well shaded. On my way to this spot, I startled an owl from it's tree. Very big white spotted owl, not sure what species but it was gorgeous and seeing it fly was pretty awesome. For the most part Mali is very flat. The terrain is very rough, with almost no grass and mostly rocks and sand. Shrubs and certain trees have no problem growing, but it's just a tough place. I don't mean this in a negative way, I was just asked about the terrain and there isn't any other way to describe it. Near Soundougouba, and apparently in other areas near Bamako, there are there rock outcroppings formed by large boulders. Not sure how to describe these because they aren't gradual slopes, but rock suddenly jutting upwards. The rock is been shaped into boulders by the rain, so it makes for good for climbing.

Starting a short story/graphic novel with an artist from the UofM that will be titled "Negen Man".

Off to bed, I'll post more tomorrow.

So I go back to homestay tomorrow afternoon. The visit to Tubaniso was short but excellent. It was a great chance to talk to the other trainees and exchange stories. Personally I've really enjoyed my experience, but others have been having a tough time dealing with their host families. We've had some good sessions including cross cultural, security, and health talks.

I'm living in Soundougouba, which is about an hour and a half northeast of Bamako.

One thing I forgot to mention last night, is that I get woken up every morning at 5:00am because of a cacophony of sounds. About 15 feet outside my door, is a family of chickens with their rooster who starts going just before 5. The donkey, who likes to sleep next to the chickens, then starts braying at around 5:30, and it seriously sounds like it could be dying. Then the mosque begins calling everyone to prayer around 5:45, so all these sounds are going at once. For all of you who know me to sleep in and never wake up so early, this is my explanation. So Kristen, the next time you want to wake me up from a happy sleep at 7:00am, just remember to bring a chicken, a donkey, and a microphone, and I will very happily grab breakfast with you. I also think the donkey has it out for me, because he brays whenever I step out of my room, and whenever I'm eating breakfast. Then as soon as I glare at him he stops and bares his teeth a little bit.

Anyways, things are good. Toilets are a hole in the ground, everything is made out of mud brick, including my room, which combined with a tin roof, makes it almost literally an oven.

Family culture is interesting. The men have almost all the power and the kids follow the adult's lead in this sense. Mali is apparently the most illiterate country in the world, and has extremely low rate of education, particularly for women. Chores/jobs for men and women are almost strictly defined. As of now, it's been a challenge getting my own water, and it's completely out of the question for me to do my own laundry. At site, I'm planning on doing my own laundry and cook my own food to demonstrate that men can also cook and do laundry, regardless of what they might believe. I've already gotten into very calm, simple conversations in French about marriage. The men are allowed to marry up to 4 wives, but they laugh and appear very confused when I ask (knowing the answer) whether or not women are allowed to have more than 1 husband. To them, this is incomprehensible and rather amusing for me. Malians have the most amazing sense of humor. Literally everything is funny to them. Actually, they have this culture called "joking cousins" where different family groups are allowed to make fun of other, specific families. As a Diarra, I have free reign to make fun of any Traore, Coulibali, and quite a few others. This is an amazing form of conflict resolution and social lubricant. Basically, it works like this: I greet the person, they say hi back, and then I can tell them that they eat beans, and fart a lot, or that they speak donkey language. I can even tell them that they are stupid or that they should change their name, and all they do is laugh and insult me back, which is hilarious. Often, if a couple is having marital problems, one of the joking cousins will go over and joke with the husband or wife in order to calm them down or diffuse the situation.

Anyways, they are some of the most welcoming, happy people I have ever met, and all they do is laugh at just about everything I do or say whether it's right or not. I'm kind of like a pet, which is entertaining... for now. They tell me when to sleep, they tell me when to wash myself, they tell me when to eat, the kids pet my arm hair, they yell my name all the time (probably the kid's favorite past time), and they bring me a chair every time I want to sit with them. It's pretty funny.

Also, they absolutely love frisbees. I threw one, and they get super excited and chase it, and squeal. Even the boys my age squeal like little girls, duck out of the way and jump around. It's really funny.

Anyways, it's been fun. I'm observing a lot, and I hope this is satisfying everyone's curiosity. I know I didn't include specific stories, but you can take my word for it that I've been having a good time.

I do have a lot of time to think because I still can't quite communicate, so I've been thinking a lot about the education problem here in Mali. As an education volunteer, I do feel overwhelmed because there is so much to fix. I know I can't solve everything, and I don't expect to, but regardless, I really hope that the programs that I begin will become self-sustainable after I'm gone. At this point, that's just about all I can hope for, and the Peace Corps definitely emphasizes celebrating the small victories and that what we're really here to do is be the catalysis that will eventually result in larger developmental changes. Development takes a really long time, and 2 years in 1 village is far from enough, but we'll see how it turns out.

Staying positive :)

Back from my 1st 2 weeks at homestay. The Malian people are phenomenal. Everyone is extraordinarily welcoming and you really are a king, which makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time provides me with incredible security. This will probably be a rather short post for everything I have to say, but I'll post longer tomorrow.

So, first of all, I agree with Kristen about the soap thing and alientating my host family, but there are a few things that work in my favor. First of all, these families choose to have me there, the Peace Corps pays them well to take care of me, feed me, and put up with all the cultural/language faux-pas I make. They themselves were trained to recieve me and understand that I am very susceptible to diseases that they can brush off due to the fact that they've lived with the bacteria all their lives and their immune systems are equiped to deal with it. So they agreed to follow certain regulations in order to have me, and part of these included washing their hands. Also, I apologize and understand that some are culturally supersticious, but they do wipe with their left hand, and I refuse to contract some kind of permanent or potentially serious disease because of this. One of the objectives of the Peace Corps is to provide health education and teaching them to wash their hands is an easy, effective, and straightforward method of minimizing the spread of bacteria.

Anyways, homestay is awesome. A typical day involves me waking up at 5:45am, going for a 3-5 mile run with other trainees. Then I get back, greet the members of my family starting with the oldest woman. I live in a concession with about 100 people. I only have to greet those who are older than me, but it still takes me about a half hour. I have been given a Malian name, and I've been named after the father of my host father, so my name is Tiemen Diarra (pronounced Che Man Jarra) and basically means "man" which is really funny because I'm the only male trainee at my homestay. Diarra is the last name. Tiemen had 42 grandkids, all of which live in my concession, and some of which have children of their own. So then I take a bucket bath - water is pumped from the well into a bucket, then I take a cup and pour the water over me little by little. Definitely an experience haha. Then I go to my room, change, then they bring my breakfast, which involves a loaf of bread, some coffee, and a rice pourridge. Then I go to school. The children walk with me, usually holding my hand and asking to carry my backpack. Due to the village mentality, it's rude not to greet people, so the 5 minute walk to school usually takes me 20+ minutes because I have to say hi to everyone, ask them how their night was, how their family is, and then answer the questions right back.

Then I have class from 8-12, go back, have lunch, then usually I'll sit and talk with the women and have tea, sometimes taking a nap and/or a bucket bath. Then I go back to class from 3-5. I come back, then my day loses it's routine. Sometimes I get the soccer ball or the frisbee and play with the kids, sometimes I go for a walk, sometimes I just sit and chat. I'll take another bucket bath, go out and hang out with my host dad until around 8:30 or 9 when we have dinner. Then I sit around while the children teach me Bambara vocabularly or I speak in French with some of the older kids. Then I go to bed sometime around 10-10:30.

Anyways, that ended up being longer than I thought it would. I'll make sure to post again tomorrow, and I'll be using my computer so I'll actually be able to type quickly.

If you want to reach me, apparently you have to type 011 or something before doing 223. I'm not sure if international texts work, but give it a try if you want. Also, it is A LOT cheaper if you call my cell phone using skype - also, with skype, you don't need to put in the 011.

I did get sick, it's actually a pretty funny story, but feeling much better. Peace Corps takes excellent care of me. I'll make sure to include more details tomorrow.

Also, my phone is charged again, and I'll be keeping it on all day.

Best,

- Mario Felix Tiemen Romero Diarra... among other things.

My Orange phone number is actually 70.01.09.25

Leaving in a few hours.

I realize my last post wasn't very detailed, but the internet is frustratingly slow and only gets worse as more people get online at once.The Peace Corps works like this: Essentially, the mission is to help the people of the country where they are staged to become self-sustainable while creating a degree of understanding between both Americans and the people they serve. As a result, there is a 3 month training session where the first 4 days involve being in Tubaniso, the Peace Corps training center in Mali, which is about 45 minutes outside of Bamako, the capital of Mali (I can't remember in which direction, but I want to say south...east?). After the 4 days, which I complete today, I will be going to a site, I don't know where yet, to stay with a host family (this is called the Home-stay period), where internet will probably not be available, and electricity is questionable. From here, I'll be going to and from Tubaniso and my Home-Stay site, spending 2 weeks with my host family, and 3-4 days in Tubaniso. At the Home-Stay I'll be taking language classes for about 7 hours a day and just learning the culture with the family. After this 3 training period, we swear in and officially become Peace Corps Volunteers. Then we go to our actual site, about which I again, know nothing about. From there, I'll be living by myself with a neighboring family assigned to me for the next two years.

We've been given a medical kit (which includes, but is not limited to, cypro, gauze, band aids, neosporin etc...), a bug net, a water filter, malaria medication, and a cocktail of vaccinations (Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Rabies, Hep A, Hep B etc...) and still more to come. Fortunately, I already had some of these so I'm in and out of the medical hut rather quickly.

I have been assigned to the education sector, which used to be where volunteers directly taught the local community. However, last year this focus changed when Peace Corps joined up with USAID. Now, my objective is essentially community development, which means I will be working with the community, such as the mayor's office in order to organize programs (that will hopefully become self-sustainable once I'm gone) that are oriented towards women's education (there's a big gender social disparity issue in Mali), youth education, and other things like that.

I've been playing soccer for the past two days, definitely a lot of fun, and also started playing soccer-volleyball with the clothes line as a net. We have been able to watch the World Cup on a really small tv. It's pretty funny to see 20+ Malians and tubobs (the Malian word for gringo) watching on a tv screen that is maybe twice the size of my computer screen. I'm extremely excited for the finals, because neither the Netherlands nor Spain have ever won the Cup, and both are going to be going all out. Both are awesome teams, and although I think Spain might be the more well rounded team, I think I'll be cheering for the Dutch to get their first win, they deserve it so much and have beaten some really good teams. On another note, it's crazy that so many South American teams made it to the quarterfinals, and only Uraguay barely made it out. By the way, the Malians hate the vuvuzelas, and they have a very strong culture of joking, so they get a kick out of us giving them a hard time about how they have bad referees.

Food here isn't bad, but I can't say that it's very flavorful or varied. We often feel lucky if we find a piece of meat in the sauce. Lots of potatos, some bananas, and lots of grains. Also, the method of eating is interesting. What they do, is they place a communal bowl (men eat out of one bowl, women eat out of another) on mats. You then sit on the mat, without shoes, and ONLY using your right hand, you reach in and grab the rice. Then, you ball the rice up in your hand (it usually has a sauce), and lick your hand to put the ball of rice in your hand. Sucking your fingers is polite because it shows that you like the food.

Also, one of the few things that makes me nervous, is that they believe that washing your hands with soap makes you lose all your luck, or that it makes the food taste bad. Fortunately, the Malian people are extremely receptive to guests and apparently treat them like kings, so we will basically have the highest status in the household. I am planning on asking my host family to wash their hands by explaining (probably through gestures unless they speak French), that I am not only here to partake in their culture, but to show them a part of mine, and in the same way as they pray 5 times a day, it is essential, and extremely important for me that not only do I wash my hands with soap before eating, but that they do as well.

It should be a really interesting experience tomorrow, because my only Bambara skills involve the greeting (which is extremely long, and must be done to everyone in the room unless there are too many), thank you, please, and the few soccer terms, such as "out of bounds" and "goal", I managed to pick up while playing around.

The training here is awesome, and extremely comprehensive. The language training is easily the best I've ever had even though I've only had one language class so far. Part of this is because Bambara is a purely spoken language, but also because the teachers have the time and the hands on experience to teach us. I also realized one of my mistakes when I was trying to teach myself some Bambara in the States. When I was there, I was trying to memorize the words by thinking of it's relationship with the English word (this is what I did with my Italian class and it was easy), but of course this would have forced me to learn the entire language through memorization because there is absolutely no relation to any of the languages I know. So what I did, not sure how yet, is that I changed my thought process to compartmentalize the words and phrases I was learning as the words and phrases that they were and not what they translated to in English or French or Spanish or whatever. This was an awesome epiphany, and I'm hoping to use it later.

If you want to reach me, I have 2 phone numbers here (I'll have a different SIM card in according to where I get service). My Orange number is 70010997 and my Malitel number is 66346209 and the country code is 223. If you call me, it won't cost me anything, but be careful because it could get expensive. I don't know if international texts work, but if you want, feel free to give that a try. I should be up tonight if anyone wants to try calling.

It's a very long post, but quite a bit has happened, and I probably won't be able to blog for the next 2 weeks, so I'll make sure to keep a journal, because this is when the real experience begins, and it's going to be crazy!

P.S. Timbuctu is off limits for now, because apparently an Al Qaeda group has declared that they will kidnap Americans in Northern Mali. All good for now, won't go up any time soon.

Already spent a few days at the Peace Corps training center. Spent 4th of July at the America club. Very hot and humid because it's the rainy season. Went with a group of volunteers on a 3 mile run this morning. Getting more vaccinations and our bikes today. We are living in mud huts, which stay really cool during the night and most of the day, but for the most part I only go back to the hut to grab something I forgot. Slowly picking up some Bambara and learning where to put the emphasis on syllables. We go to our homestay on the 8th, where we are living with a host family and essentially on our own except for language/cultural classes.

Just finished lunch, time to get more shots.

Just landed in Paris. 10 minutes of free internet. I leave for Bamako in about 3 hours.

HUP HOLLAND! Netherlands wins 2-1, go Orangje! It was a bit of a dirty game, but they were pretty equally matched and it looked like the Netherlands just managed to get the edge. Anyways, as sad as it is to see Brazil fall, the Netherlands deserve a World Cup win after all these years.

Leaving Philly today, went out and had a philly cheese steak and probably the last beer I'll be allowed to drink for the next 3 months. From here I'll be taking a bus to New York, then fly to France at 11:00pm, hang out there for a few hours and then take a flight to Bamako (the capital of Mali). Should arrive around 8:00pm their time.

There are 80 trainees in my group and slowly getting to know some of them. Lots of michiganders, and at least 5 wolverines so that's pretty cool.

Staging involved getting some basic knowledge about what we should encounter for the next few days, and a lot of getting to know one another and what everybody plans to accomplish/are anxious to encounter.

This is my last night in Ann Arbor, and I just wanted to thank everyone that has gotten to know me and who I've met these past four years. All of my friend are amazing, and your friendships are something that I will never take for granted and has helped me get through even the most difficult times. There isn't much I can't do with the friends I've made and I realize that wherever we go and whatever we do, we'll always be able to pick up right where we left off. I can't begin to express how much the UofM has changed my life in the best possible ways.

Anyways, it's very late, and I have to wake up in just under 4 hours, so I should probably be in bed, but thank you to everyone who has been supportive of my decisions and been there for me. I originally planned on thanking everyone individually, but I realize that this blog post would be incredibly long. So special thanks to:

Dr. Kat Brown

Dr. Jason Yaeger

Dr. Eric Nielsen and Sungjin Park

Dr. Matthew Hull

UofM Fencing Club - Best club ever and easily one of the best decisions I ever made was to join this club, it's led to great friendships and amazing memories. Keep up the good work.

HSSP people (extra special thanks to 5th Kleinsdale, there will never be a hall like ours, freshman year was phenomenal, and regardless of what JFB says, it's always getting better, 909 was just an example of the awesomeness in the future) "To good times and no bad memories!"

Of course, my family is to thank for all the support they've shown me in all my decisions, I feel very lucky and could not ask for anything for from anybody.

Stay Saiph everyone.

With love and service for the maize and blue, see you in two years,

Go Blue!

- Mario

This is a test to see how this blog works. Getting ready to go to Mali with the Peace Corps. I leave July 1st for orientation in Philadelphia. Very excited.