Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
So I know I said I wouldn't have internet anymore . . .
But apparently access is available here at the missionary in Koutiala, at least if you have a computer, which I do via fellow PCV Amanda. Thought I'd take advantage to post some pictures.
Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Bess on the rope at Tubaniso.
On the way to swear-in.
Roomies Lindsey and Stephanie at the embassy.
Jared gives his Tamasheq speech.
Sinsina kow.
"Swearing in."
Sikasso kow.
Dinner in Sikasso.
Blurry volunteers in the kitchen: Michele and Trinh.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sikasso
Right now, I'm hanging out at an internet café in Sikasso ville. I arrived here yesterday in the company of eight other volunteers. Tomorrow I'll be going to Koutiala with fellow volunteers Ben and Amanda, where we'll hang out for a day or to to buy stuff for our houses before being installed on Thursday. I'm looking forward to installation, since it means the beginning of my actual service and the end of being shepherded around by the PC. On the other hand, it might end up being a bit anti climatic, after the past week or so.
I've pretty much been hanging out with other PCVs since swear-in on Friday. Friday evening, we had a party at the Pirates club, which went on until the wee hours of the morning. It was really a lot of fun; I haven't really had a chance to let loose since I got to Mali, and spending the night dancing was just what I needed. The day after, we entertained ourselves by swimming in the hotel pool (we spent the night in Bamako in a hotel) and eating as much 'toubab' food as possible (lots of ice cream, chocolate, and burgers- my vegetarianism seems to have gone down the tube for now).
Yesterday morning we left for Sikasso around 6 am, arriving just around 2 in the afternoon. We met up with some of the resident volunteers, Trinh, Michelle, and Jack, and spent the evening walking around, eating, and watching a few movies. Sikasso is the second largest city in Mali, followed by Segou, and then Koutiala. Although I'm not sure how often I'll be coming here, since Segou and Koutiala are both significantly closer, it is nice to have gotten the lay of the land and to have met some more Sikasso volunteers.
Anyway, think that's all I'll write for now. Wish me luck with installation. I'll hopefully be able to update again in a few weeks.
I've pretty much been hanging out with other PCVs since swear-in on Friday. Friday evening, we had a party at the Pirates club, which went on until the wee hours of the morning. It was really a lot of fun; I haven't really had a chance to let loose since I got to Mali, and spending the night dancing was just what I needed. The day after, we entertained ourselves by swimming in the hotel pool (we spent the night in Bamako in a hotel) and eating as much 'toubab' food as possible (lots of ice cream, chocolate, and burgers- my vegetarianism seems to have gone down the tube for now).
Yesterday morning we left for Sikasso around 6 am, arriving just around 2 in the afternoon. We met up with some of the resident volunteers, Trinh, Michelle, and Jack, and spent the evening walking around, eating, and watching a few movies. Sikasso is the second largest city in Mali, followed by Segou, and then Koutiala. Although I'm not sure how often I'll be coming here, since Segou and Koutiala are both significantly closer, it is nice to have gotten the lay of the land and to have met some more Sikasso volunteers.
Anyway, think that's all I'll write for now. Wish me luck with installation. I'll hopefully be able to update again in a few weeks.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
This evening I watched Singing in the Rain in the refectoire with Emily (a current PCV) and some of my fellow trainees. I used to watch Singing in the Rain my freshman year of college whenever I was feeling homesick. Somehow, seeing Gene Kelly do his rain dance inspires a certain kind of joy in me. Seeing him lose himself to childish leaps and twirls and stomps is a little like losing the part of myself that is so grounded in my worries and fears.
Some of my homesickness has faded in the past week or so. The first few days back at Sinsina were hard again, but sometime in the middle of the week, my bad mood broke and somewhere in there I reached a tentative inner peace about being here, resolving to think about what is at hand instead of how long I've committed to being here or what else I could be doing.
Some of my homesickness has faded in the past week or so. The first few days back at Sinsina were hard again, but sometime in the middle of the week, my bad mood broke and somewhere in there I reached a tentative inner peace about being here, resolving to think about what is at hand instead of how long I've committed to being here or what else I could be doing.
There's a lot going on right now. On Sunday morning I said goodbye to my family in Sinsina. It was the end of a series of goodbyes, first on Wednesday when we had a party with the villagers. The party was attended by a lot of children, and some of the adults who were associated with our families. At the party, we presented some gifts to our families and Bocar, the language coordiator at Tubani So, came by to help with this and to give our families certificates of thanks for hosting us. Afterwards, we had a dance party. My "little girls," as I think of them- my host sisters Nayima, Batama, Ajara, Konimba, and our two neighbor Fatimis- were all very excited about dancing, as was Jeneba. They were especially excited to see me dance, and informed me afterward that I knew how to dance kosebe kosebe (very well).
Friday I took my language test, passing with a score of Intermediate Mid. Saturday, I said goodbye to my host father, Sine Doumbia, since he had to go to Bamako to work for a few days. I gave him a few small gifts- a pack of cards and a drawing book for the kids as well as a snow globe I had bought in the Milwaukee airport before leaving. Satuday evening was pretty low-key, but in a really nice way. After dinner I made tea for the family, which was exciting, since I've watched Malians make tea many times now but haven't gotten a chance to do it myself. Making tea in Mali is something of an art, involving pouring tea from the pot to the cup and back to the pot many times, reheating the tea in-between to mix the tea and the sugar in just the right quantities. The result is a very sweet green tea that is served in small glasses.
Sunday morning goodbyes flew by quickly. I woke up in the morning to my usual routine, going to Kajatu's kitchen hut to get hot water for my bath, eating my bread and peanut butter with tea for breakfast, and cleaning up my room a bit before taking a number of pictures and heading to the school to catch the Peace Corps vehicle back to Tubani So.
At the moment, I'm back at Tubani So, eating copious amounts of chocolate, doing some last-minute training on everything from sex education to chicken raising and waiting for our swear-in ceremony on Friday. We've had a bit more time off lately. Monday afternoon, there was nothing to do so I went off with Jared and Bess, two of the other trainees (soon to be volunteers) on a bike ride to some cliffs that aren't too far from Tubani So. We climbed up to the top to take some pictures and enjoy the view. Speaking of pictures, I put some more up online. You can check them out at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016383&l=be921&id=10301328.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Homesickness
They continued across the desert. With every day that passed, the boy's heart became more and more silent. It no longer wanted to know about things of the past or future; it was content simply to contemplate the desert, to drink with the boy from the soul of the world. The boy and his heart had become friends, and neither was capable of betraying the other.
When his heart spoke to him, it was to provide a stimulus to the boy, and to give him strength, because the days of silence there in the desert were wearisome. His heart told the boy what his strongest qualities were: his courage in having given up his sheep and trying to live out his Personal Legend, and his enthusiasm during the time he had worked in the crystal shop.
I wrote this quotation from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho in my journal a couple of weeks ago. My fellow PCT, Rachel, had lent it to me, and it seemed very topical for what I was experiencing. Ever since I got here, my emotional state has been majorly fluctuating. There's been so much stuff to take in- new language, new food, endless training sessions, all new people, etc. A lot of this stuff has been good, but it has also been quite a shock- l'expérience m'a boulversée. The first week or so in Sinsina was really hard because this shock sort of took over, and all I could think about most of the time was how cool the weather was at home or some such thing. Since then, things have been up or down- one moment I'll be giddy and excited, the next moment planning my escape.
This past week in Sinsina, I was feeling pretty negative most of the time. There was a lot of good stuff about the week- I hung out with my host family a fair amount, reread a good book, worked (kind of) on my Bambara. But at the same time, I couldn't help myself from conjuring up images of my life as it might be right now if I were at home.
Hm, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this, but whenever I read that quote from the Alchemist in my journal, I feel like someone out there must understand how I'm feeling about being in Mali- it's like this basic conflict between knowing what I want for myself in my life right now and what will make me happier and more self-actualized in the long run and wanting at the same time the safety, security, and familiarity of home.
On the one hand, I've basically gotten everything I wanted in being here. Already, this experience has been unlike any other experience I've ever had and I can only think that completing two years of service will continue to expand my understanding of some issues I feel are really important to me (understanding and respecting other cultures, learning about poverty, working with nutrition issues).
This morning the agricultural volunteers took a trip to the International Crop Research Insitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conveniently has a center right next door to Tubaniso. We got a tour and some explanation of what the center works on as well as a similar presentation of two other organizations, ICRAFT and the Asian Vegetable and Somethingoranother Research Center, that are situated on the grounds. Er, sorry I can't remember the names of the last two there, but at any rate . . . The first part of the tour was with the people from ICRAFT, which is a research institute that does stuff with agroforestry. We learned about tree grafting, which is really cool and seems like a great way of getting fruitful trees to communities faster. By grafting the branch of a tree that's already making fruit onto a younger tree, you can greatly decrease the amount of time before that tree begins flowering- for example, they showed us a baobab tree (sira in Bambara)- which normally takes 18 years of growing before it begins to produce fruit- if grafted, it only takes 5-10 years (may have these figures mixed up a bit, but you get the basic idea). In the case of the baobab, what's also cool is that a grafted tree is much shorter than a regularly-grown tree, which is good because it means villagers can more easily reach the fruit and there's less chance of accidents.
We also got a chance to talk to the people at ICRISAT. They told us a bit about some of the varieties of crops they are experimenting with- a variety of peanut that is resistent to two particular illnesses, a couple of varieties of sorghum, etc. There was also a woman who works on nutritional issues who was telling us about how she was working on developing new ways of food processing that would help fight anemia and other nutritional deficiencies in children. The Asiain Vegetable people showed us around their garden, pointing out some varieties of leafy vegetable that they were trying to encourage comsumption of for nutritional reasons, and over to their tomato crops- apparently there's a particular virus that attacks tomato plants in Mali- they were experimenting with different varieties of tomatos to see if any of them would be resistant to the virus (none of them seemed to be as far as I could tell).
Anyway, it was a really interesting morning, and I found myself feeling more enthusiasm for this undertaking than I've felt for a week anyway. There's so much to learn here, so much I could do, but it all seems so daunting, and being away from everything familiar makes it seemt that much more difficult. It's easy to be positive right now, somehow, at Tubaniso, but, well, I don't know. I hope it gets better.
Send me letters, anyway, and M&Ms.
When his heart spoke to him, it was to provide a stimulus to the boy, and to give him strength, because the days of silence there in the desert were wearisome. His heart told the boy what his strongest qualities were: his courage in having given up his sheep and trying to live out his Personal Legend, and his enthusiasm during the time he had worked in the crystal shop.
I wrote this quotation from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho in my journal a couple of weeks ago. My fellow PCT, Rachel, had lent it to me, and it seemed very topical for what I was experiencing. Ever since I got here, my emotional state has been majorly fluctuating. There's been so much stuff to take in- new language, new food, endless training sessions, all new people, etc. A lot of this stuff has been good, but it has also been quite a shock- l'expérience m'a boulversée. The first week or so in Sinsina was really hard because this shock sort of took over, and all I could think about most of the time was how cool the weather was at home or some such thing. Since then, things have been up or down- one moment I'll be giddy and excited, the next moment planning my escape.
This past week in Sinsina, I was feeling pretty negative most of the time. There was a lot of good stuff about the week- I hung out with my host family a fair amount, reread a good book, worked (kind of) on my Bambara. But at the same time, I couldn't help myself from conjuring up images of my life as it might be right now if I were at home.
Hm, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this, but whenever I read that quote from the Alchemist in my journal, I feel like someone out there must understand how I'm feeling about being in Mali- it's like this basic conflict between knowing what I want for myself in my life right now and what will make me happier and more self-actualized in the long run and wanting at the same time the safety, security, and familiarity of home.
On the one hand, I've basically gotten everything I wanted in being here. Already, this experience has been unlike any other experience I've ever had and I can only think that completing two years of service will continue to expand my understanding of some issues I feel are really important to me (understanding and respecting other cultures, learning about poverty, working with nutrition issues).
This morning the agricultural volunteers took a trip to the International Crop Research Insitute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conveniently has a center right next door to Tubaniso. We got a tour and some explanation of what the center works on as well as a similar presentation of two other organizations, ICRAFT and the Asian Vegetable and Somethingoranother Research Center, that are situated on the grounds. Er, sorry I can't remember the names of the last two there, but at any rate . . . The first part of the tour was with the people from ICRAFT, which is a research institute that does stuff with agroforestry. We learned about tree grafting, which is really cool and seems like a great way of getting fruitful trees to communities faster. By grafting the branch of a tree that's already making fruit onto a younger tree, you can greatly decrease the amount of time before that tree begins flowering- for example, they showed us a baobab tree (sira in Bambara)- which normally takes 18 years of growing before it begins to produce fruit- if grafted, it only takes 5-10 years (may have these figures mixed up a bit, but you get the basic idea). In the case of the baobab, what's also cool is that a grafted tree is much shorter than a regularly-grown tree, which is good because it means villagers can more easily reach the fruit and there's less chance of accidents.
We also got a chance to talk to the people at ICRISAT. They told us a bit about some of the varieties of crops they are experimenting with- a variety of peanut that is resistent to two particular illnesses, a couple of varieties of sorghum, etc. There was also a woman who works on nutritional issues who was telling us about how she was working on developing new ways of food processing that would help fight anemia and other nutritional deficiencies in children. The Asiain Vegetable people showed us around their garden, pointing out some varieties of leafy vegetable that they were trying to encourage comsumption of for nutritional reasons, and over to their tomato crops- apparently there's a particular virus that attacks tomato plants in Mali- they were experimenting with different varieties of tomatos to see if any of them would be resistant to the virus (none of them seemed to be as far as I could tell).
Anyway, it was a really interesting morning, and I found myself feeling more enthusiasm for this undertaking than I've felt for a week anyway. There's so much to learn here, so much I could do, but it all seems so daunting, and being away from everything familiar makes it seemt that much more difficult. It's easy to be positive right now, somehow, at Tubaniso, but, well, I don't know. I hope it gets better.
Send me letters, anyway, and M&Ms.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
M'Pessoba Ferme
I returned to Bamako yesterday from a five-day visit to the site where I will spend the next two years of my service, M'Pessoba Ferme, or Feremuna. It was an interesting five days, full of meetings, exploration, and a bit of welcome relaxation.
My journey began last Wednesday, when I set off from Tubaniso with my homologue (the person in my community who will help me figure out projects to work on and connect to people in the community), Soulemane Dao, at 5:30 in the morning. The day before, Dao had arrived to participate in the "homologue workshop" where everyone's homologues came to learn about the mission of the Peace Corps and what would be expected of them as homologues. This was business as usual for Dao, who has been acting as a homologue for the past five years. There were two volunteers in my village before me, Jenn (Jeneba) and Michelle (Aissita), and he had also had the opportunity to work with volunteers in another village before this. Luckily, he speaks very good French, so when my broken Bambara isn't good enough (frequently), he can clarify in French.
The journey on Wednesday to Feremuna was fairly uneventful. I boarded a bus with Dao and another volunteer, Amanda Jackson, and her homologue, which took us straight to M'Pessoba (where Amanda is stationed) and then to Feremuna, 5-6 km down the road. Feremuna is the home of the Centre d'Apprentissage Agricole, a three-year agricultural school where Dao works as a veteranarain and a professor. The school, and a large part of the village, is located along a wide dirt road lined with mangoe trees that is immediately off the main paved road from M'Pessoba. My house is at the end of this road, a three-room house with a small yard and a private nyegan.
When we arrived, there was a group of women from the women's cooperative waiting to greet me. Unfortunately, I didn't spend as much time talking with them as I would have liked to in retrospect, but we exchanged greetings and names and talked for a few minutes. My host mother, Djelika, and her husband Drissa were also there, and served lunch to Dao and myself. I spent the afternoon hanging around with my host mother for a while asking questions about the women's cooperative, and then Dao arrived to take me around the village and greet many of the profesors and meet the director of the school (who is technically my supervisor, though I'm not sure how much involvement he'll have in my work).
Thursday, I found myself largely without things to do. I spent part of the morning studying Bambara and thinking of some questions to ask the women in the village about the garden (which Dao had showed me the day before). In the afternoon, I decided to go for a walk alone and see what there was to see, maybe check out the garden by myself again. As I walked towards the garden, I met a number of village inhabitants and was invited to chat for a while. Everyone was friendly, and patient with my elementary Bambara skills. When I arrived in the garden, I ran into Kassoum, Dao's oldest son, who went around the garden with me and told me the names of all the crops being grown. The garden looked pretty well established.
I'm still trying to figure out precisely what my role will be in the community. The previous volunteers helped out in the garden, helped the women's cooperative with cloth dying and soap making, and also helped out at the local maternity and a maternity in a neighboring town weighing children and giving vaccinations (though not the actual needle sticking part). There seems to be an endless number of things I could get involved with.
The next couple of days I spent meeting up with local volunteers Merv and Greg and with Amanda as well. On Saturday we took a trip to Koutiala, a city about 45 minutes-1 hour down the road that has about 100,000 inhabitants. I have a feeling I'll be going down there once every two weeks or so; we have a house rented out in a coupound downtown that we can spend the night in and there is a rather large market and a restaurant or two. We hung out Saturday night and returned to the M'Pessoba area around 1 pm the next day.
Now I'm back at Tubaniso, anticipating going back to Sinsina on Thursday. Most recent news: got one of the other volunteers to cut my hair for me and it is now back to the length it was when I was in Paris, a few inches above my shoulders. It feels good- lighter, and I'm sure it will be much easier to take care of. That's it for now, folks.
My journey began last Wednesday, when I set off from Tubaniso with my homologue (the person in my community who will help me figure out projects to work on and connect to people in the community), Soulemane Dao, at 5:30 in the morning. The day before, Dao had arrived to participate in the "homologue workshop" where everyone's homologues came to learn about the mission of the Peace Corps and what would be expected of them as homologues. This was business as usual for Dao, who has been acting as a homologue for the past five years. There were two volunteers in my village before me, Jenn (Jeneba) and Michelle (Aissita), and he had also had the opportunity to work with volunteers in another village before this. Luckily, he speaks very good French, so when my broken Bambara isn't good enough (frequently), he can clarify in French.
The journey on Wednesday to Feremuna was fairly uneventful. I boarded a bus with Dao and another volunteer, Amanda Jackson, and her homologue, which took us straight to M'Pessoba (where Amanda is stationed) and then to Feremuna, 5-6 km down the road. Feremuna is the home of the Centre d'Apprentissage Agricole, a three-year agricultural school where Dao works as a veteranarain and a professor. The school, and a large part of the village, is located along a wide dirt road lined with mangoe trees that is immediately off the main paved road from M'Pessoba. My house is at the end of this road, a three-room house with a small yard and a private nyegan.
When we arrived, there was a group of women from the women's cooperative waiting to greet me. Unfortunately, I didn't spend as much time talking with them as I would have liked to in retrospect, but we exchanged greetings and names and talked for a few minutes. My host mother, Djelika, and her husband Drissa were also there, and served lunch to Dao and myself. I spent the afternoon hanging around with my host mother for a while asking questions about the women's cooperative, and then Dao arrived to take me around the village and greet many of the profesors and meet the director of the school (who is technically my supervisor, though I'm not sure how much involvement he'll have in my work).
Thursday, I found myself largely without things to do. I spent part of the morning studying Bambara and thinking of some questions to ask the women in the village about the garden (which Dao had showed me the day before). In the afternoon, I decided to go for a walk alone and see what there was to see, maybe check out the garden by myself again. As I walked towards the garden, I met a number of village inhabitants and was invited to chat for a while. Everyone was friendly, and patient with my elementary Bambara skills. When I arrived in the garden, I ran into Kassoum, Dao's oldest son, who went around the garden with me and told me the names of all the crops being grown. The garden looked pretty well established.
I'm still trying to figure out precisely what my role will be in the community. The previous volunteers helped out in the garden, helped the women's cooperative with cloth dying and soap making, and also helped out at the local maternity and a maternity in a neighboring town weighing children and giving vaccinations (though not the actual needle sticking part). There seems to be an endless number of things I could get involved with.
The next couple of days I spent meeting up with local volunteers Merv and Greg and with Amanda as well. On Saturday we took a trip to Koutiala, a city about 45 minutes-1 hour down the road that has about 100,000 inhabitants. I have a feeling I'll be going down there once every two weeks or so; we have a house rented out in a coupound downtown that we can spend the night in and there is a rather large market and a restaurant or two. We hung out Saturday night and returned to the M'Pessoba area around 1 pm the next day.
Now I'm back at Tubaniso, anticipating going back to Sinsina on Thursday. Most recent news: got one of the other volunteers to cut my hair for me and it is now back to the length it was when I was in Paris, a few inches above my shoulders. It feels good- lighter, and I'm sure it will be much easier to take care of. That's it for now, folks.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Home again home again at Tubaniso . . .
Just got back to Tubaniso yesterday morning after another week and a half in Sinsina. Things are going well; I'm feeling better settled in and am enjoying haning around with my host family a bit more. I think serious thoughts of going home kind of dissipated earlier this week, and it feels better to be committed to being here. There are still so many challenges ahead that make me a bit nervous, though. In particular, the coming week will be another transition period. We are all being sent out to our sites for a couple of days to take a look at things and meet the people we'll be working with there. I've been assigned to a site in the Sikasso region called Feremuna. It's a small village of about 550 located just off the main paved road between Segou ville and Sikasso ville. There have been two volunteers there before me already, so there are a number of specific projects already in the works for me to help out with, including working with the women's organization to get a bigger well dug for their garden and helping the young men's association with a tree nursury. None of which I have any expertise in, of course, so we'll see how that goes.
This week I'm just supposed to set up my bank account, have some time to work with my local language tutor, check out my living conditions, and meet people in the village. I'm pretty nervous about all of this, since my Bambara skills are still pretty low and being alone in my village without PC staff right nearby to help out feels like a lot to handle. Plus, I'm supposed to get myself back to Bamako with public transportation. However, I will have some help with all of this. Our "homologues," the people in our village who we're supposed to work directly with are coming in to Tubaniso tonight and tomorrow night. Mine is coming tomorrow- he's a veterenarian in the village and thankfully he speaks French. He'll travel back to Feremuna with me on Wednesday.
So, a lot to anticipate coming up. The last week was all pretty good. One of the first nights I was back there was a marriage celebration in the village and I went out dancing with Jeneba. The dances during the marriage begin early in the night with the youngest members of the community. People dance in lines facing each other- often the men in one line and the women in the other, and step forward and back for most of the song. It's not until the end of the night that the bride and groom might show up and dance. In general, in Malian weddings the bride and the groom are not present for the actual marriage celebration- marriage is seen as a union of the two families more than the two individuals. I only stayed at the party until 12:30 or so, however, so I didn't get to see if the bride and groom showed up.
Hm, other highlights of the week: biked into Sanagouroba, a bigger town nearby a couple of times for some exercise, which felt good, helped the little girls get water from the pump and learned to carry water (very slowly) on my head, and finally got my host mother to let me help with a little bit of food preparation/cooking.
Anyway, think I'm gonna wind this up right now. I'm in the process of attempting to upload some photos and short videos to facebook. You can check out my progress at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015655&l=5da43&id=10301328
This week I'm just supposed to set up my bank account, have some time to work with my local language tutor, check out my living conditions, and meet people in the village. I'm pretty nervous about all of this, since my Bambara skills are still pretty low and being alone in my village without PC staff right nearby to help out feels like a lot to handle. Plus, I'm supposed to get myself back to Bamako with public transportation. However, I will have some help with all of this. Our "homologues," the people in our village who we're supposed to work directly with are coming in to Tubaniso tonight and tomorrow night. Mine is coming tomorrow- he's a veterenarian in the village and thankfully he speaks French. He'll travel back to Feremuna with me on Wednesday.
So, a lot to anticipate coming up. The last week was all pretty good. One of the first nights I was back there was a marriage celebration in the village and I went out dancing with Jeneba. The dances during the marriage begin early in the night with the youngest members of the community. People dance in lines facing each other- often the men in one line and the women in the other, and step forward and back for most of the song. It's not until the end of the night that the bride and groom might show up and dance. In general, in Malian weddings the bride and the groom are not present for the actual marriage celebration- marriage is seen as a union of the two families more than the two individuals. I only stayed at the party until 12:30 or so, however, so I didn't get to see if the bride and groom showed up.
Hm, other highlights of the week: biked into Sanagouroba, a bigger town nearby a couple of times for some exercise, which felt good, helped the little girls get water from the pump and learned to carry water (very slowly) on my head, and finally got my host mother to let me help with a little bit of food preparation/cooking.
Anyway, think I'm gonna wind this up right now. I'm in the process of attempting to upload some photos and short videos to facebook. You can check out my progress at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015655&l=5da43&id=10301328
Monday, August 6, 2007
Sinsina
So I'm finally back within reach of internet! It feels good to have some time to catch up with things. We just returned from our homestay villages today. I've spent the last few weeks in Sinsina, a village of about 2000 people to the south of Bamako. The past week and a half has been quite an experience.
We got to Sinsina two Wenesdays ago. We were welcomed as we came into town by a line of men who shot off guns (with blanks) in our honor and a crowd of people who led us to the center of town, outside of the mosque. A group of musicians played Malian music on the balophones (a kind of African xylophone) and we were called to dance with the women of the village. Then we met with the dugutiki, the chief of the village, to offer him kola nuts. He and a number of the village elders made small speeches to welcome us and then we went outside for more dancing and to meet our hosts and be taken to our houses.
My host in Sinsina is Sine Doumbia, a technician at a television station in Bamako. My room is part of a compound where Sine lives with his wife, Kajatu, and seven children and one of his cousins and his wife. It took me quite a while to get everyone's names and associations down, as it's hard to remember unfamiliar names and people tend to come and go a lot. So far, I've hung out the most with Madan, my host brother who is a surly 19, and Jeneba, the wife of Sine's cousin, who is a very sweet and caring woman. Jeneba has five children, Cenigba, Ajara, Batama, Konimba, and Awo, ranging from 2 to 16 in age. Madan has six younger siblings, Ousmane, Drisa, Fatima, Bengay, Nanimba, and Seydou (who is a very cute 6 month old). The day that I arrived they gave me the honorary name of Alamako Doumbia, after Sine's mother who also lives in the compoud. I like my name; somehow it feels like it fits me pretty well, and I assume it will follow me throughout Mali for the next two years.
The training so far has been intense, although part of that was adjusting. Each day we have language training from 8 in the morning to 12:30, and then from 2:30 to 6 or so. I feel as if I've learned an enourmous amount of Bambara in that time, although I really have retained only a small amount so far. In the evenings, I go home and collapse. I eat lunch and dinner with Madan in my room, and for entertainment I'll play cards with the kids or go over and hang out with Jeneba. Everyone gets a ball out of hearing me speak Bambara (or try to speak Bambara) and trying to teach me to say things. The kids especially like playing the game of pointing at things and telling me the word (and watching me forget five seconds later). I learned a number of the body parts the first day through this method.
The first few days in town were pretty rough; I had a terrible bout of homesickness and really wanted to go home. It didn't help that I came down with a touch of something two days in and had some nausea and Mr. D for a day or two. I didn't feel like eating anything and they kept giving me meat (which I haven't eaten for the past year and a half). But I felt a bit better little by little and have been feeling pretty positive the past day or two, though I'm still feeling a bit bowled over by the idea of staying in Mali for the next two years.
It's good to be back in Tubaniso for a couple of days and not feel like everyone is constantly watching me and as if things I'm doing may be culturally incorrect and just to be able to understand everyone. I'm looking forward to collecting myself a bit and thinking about how to be positive and make the most out of my experience when I go back.
We got to Sinsina two Wenesdays ago. We were welcomed as we came into town by a line of men who shot off guns (with blanks) in our honor and a crowd of people who led us to the center of town, outside of the mosque. A group of musicians played Malian music on the balophones (a kind of African xylophone) and we were called to dance with the women of the village. Then we met with the dugutiki, the chief of the village, to offer him kola nuts. He and a number of the village elders made small speeches to welcome us and then we went outside for more dancing and to meet our hosts and be taken to our houses.
My host in Sinsina is Sine Doumbia, a technician at a television station in Bamako. My room is part of a compound where Sine lives with his wife, Kajatu, and seven children and one of his cousins and his wife. It took me quite a while to get everyone's names and associations down, as it's hard to remember unfamiliar names and people tend to come and go a lot. So far, I've hung out the most with Madan, my host brother who is a surly 19, and Jeneba, the wife of Sine's cousin, who is a very sweet and caring woman. Jeneba has five children, Cenigba, Ajara, Batama, Konimba, and Awo, ranging from 2 to 16 in age. Madan has six younger siblings, Ousmane, Drisa, Fatima, Bengay, Nanimba, and Seydou (who is a very cute 6 month old). The day that I arrived they gave me the honorary name of Alamako Doumbia, after Sine's mother who also lives in the compoud. I like my name; somehow it feels like it fits me pretty well, and I assume it will follow me throughout Mali for the next two years.
The training so far has been intense, although part of that was adjusting. Each day we have language training from 8 in the morning to 12:30, and then from 2:30 to 6 or so. I feel as if I've learned an enourmous amount of Bambara in that time, although I really have retained only a small amount so far. In the evenings, I go home and collapse. I eat lunch and dinner with Madan in my room, and for entertainment I'll play cards with the kids or go over and hang out with Jeneba. Everyone gets a ball out of hearing me speak Bambara (or try to speak Bambara) and trying to teach me to say things. The kids especially like playing the game of pointing at things and telling me the word (and watching me forget five seconds later). I learned a number of the body parts the first day through this method.
The first few days in town were pretty rough; I had a terrible bout of homesickness and really wanted to go home. It didn't help that I came down with a touch of something two days in and had some nausea and Mr. D for a day or two. I didn't feel like eating anything and they kept giving me meat (which I haven't eaten for the past year and a half). But I felt a bit better little by little and have been feeling pretty positive the past day or two, though I'm still feeling a bit bowled over by the idea of staying in Mali for the next two years.
It's good to be back in Tubaniso for a couple of days and not feel like everyone is constantly watching me and as if things I'm doing may be culturally incorrect and just to be able to understand everyone. I'm looking forward to collecting myself a bit and thinking about how to be positive and make the most out of my experience when I go back.
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