One year ago today, my plane landed in Mali. Little did I know what difference a year would make in my life.
Now, I am going to be honest and say that I have been having a rough go of things lately. I am going to make this post honest, and hopefully "honesty" will not turn into too much of a synonym for "negativity". But, consider the following statement:
"This country is not a country where you can dream."
A complete stranger with whom I struck up a conversation on a bus made this statement to me. It's not entirely inaccurate, as much as I wish it were.
Fact: Mali is a developing country. All the adorable children and funny dance moves you see here don't change that. They certainly make this experience more enjoyable, but they don't erase the reason why I am here. Most of the population of Mali is what your average Joe would consider "poor" and are in need of a lot of help. There is no room for dreaming when all your efforts to make a living never seem to be enough. You get by, but barely.
There is poverty in America, certainly. (And let me just say, this last year has certainly made me more patriotic. Not in the "protect and serve" way, but in a "being here has made me realize how lucky I am to have been born in a country like the United States" kind of way. After really seeing life here, I am unabashedly grateful to be American.) There is inequality and suffering in each of the 50 states, yes, but most Americans also grow up with the understanding that if you work hard and take school seriously, you can move yourself in any way your heart desires. Money (or lack thereof) doesn't need to be the definition of who you are. Here it often is.
It's easy to get annoyed with the strangers and friends who ask for money, food, or the clothes you happen to be wearing that day; but can you really blame them? When developed countries have spent billions of dollars on foreign "aid", is it any wonder that Malians see in us white folks a chance to score a free meal or toy car? The Malian higher-ups (government officials, those employed by NGOs; both of these types live in my small village) rake in money from Western countries to spend more or less as they see fit; it's not part of their job description to encourage the average Malian to get creative in improving their own lives. Rather, they must build things and have meetings. (Really.) I can't say I blame them for not trying. Every day I attempt to inspire someone is a frustrating one.
My homologue refuses to be involved in any projects that are not funded by Peace Corps or me, privately. (Small victory: after a recent tearful two-hour argument, at least she understands the difference between those two money sources.) The village chief will not allocate space for a trash pit; all he has to do is point to a spot on the ground and a team will do the rest...and yet, nothing. And what a surprise it is when the sweeping initiative I started (meaning, village sanitation) is abandoned by the women. "If we got paid, we would sweep more!" Work ethic skyrockets when money is involved; the project is suddenly much more beneficial if the participants are getting paid.
When things like this happen, I can't help but think that I am failing at my job. My inner monologue goes something like, "If only I spoke Bomu better, or visited my friends' homes more often, or read more health texts, I would be a better development agent. People would listen to me more. I could communicate my ideas better." And so on and so forth. But really, look what we are up against. Years of money pouring into Mali and dozens of other poor countries, and not much to show for it. Now, I still believe that development is a career worth pursuing (and indeed I intend to, at least at this point), but unfortunately not because this experience has shown me "what a difference one person can make" and inspired me to change more lives. Moreso because I see that the system is inherently flawed and needs people to improve it.
The children of Mali don't need some 23 year-old American coming into their classroom to teach them about malaria. (Well, I take that back. They do. People still think it is transmitted by eating from dirty dishes.) But what they need more is a government to invest in their education. They need teachers who care and don't just think the children can't learn; they need to be in classes smaller than 120 students (really, even 50 per class would change things drastically). They need a government that is realistic about how bad things really are. If they had this, maybe our town mayor would not have spent money to build an (expensive) wall around his office instead of hiring an additional teacher. They need development agents like World Vision to understand why it makes no sense to build a new school building when there are no teachers to fill the classrooms. They need health center staff who do not refuse to counsel the mother of a severely malnourished baby because "they don't offer that service on Wednesdays." None of this is okay. And at this point, I feel like there is nothing I can do about it.
I am certain that my life here would be easier if I "cared" less or thought about things less. If I just went ahead and gave my village what they ask for. I could apply for PC funding to build a vaccination hangar. (And don't get me wrong; I am not saying that PCVs who do funded projects are in the wrong or don't care!) But let me clarify: a vaccination hangar would not improve the quality of services. The vaccinator (with whom I work with every Wednesday) would not treat the women better, and he would not roll his eyes any less when I tell him, "This woman's child is underweight. She needs someone to counsel her in infant nutrition". This is why i don't budge. I will not apologize to anyone for not doing what PC considers a "real" project, ie one that involves money. When I ask the health center staff about the biggest problems affecting their community and they reply malaria; when I ask them what kind of projects they would like us to do, they ask me to pay for a sign for the center or to fund the construction of an unnecessary hangar. Again, see their expectations? After five years of Peace Corps Volunteers in my village, the same problems persist.
Despite all this, at least for now, I have not given up hope. Let me justify my recent pessimism: in recent memory my illnesses have included strep throat, intestinal parasites, severe dehydration, food poisioning, and a debilitating cold. A house that gets dirty ten minutes after you clean it. Endless laundry to be done by hand. Heat (hot season is over, thankfully), getting peed on by a cat in my sleep (yep), my wallet getting stolen, and my neighbor cutting down my tree while I was out of town. And this is the stuff I can deal with. It's tough being sick or robbed, but I can deal with that at the end of the day. It is a lot harder to accept feeling like all your efforts are falling on deaf ears.
I am still trying to figure things out. Although I don't think two years will change much in little old Fangasso, I am hopeful that things are generally heading in the right direction. This last year has flown and dragged, and along the way I am have met some of the most wonderful people I know (and here I am referring to Americans). This group of wonderful misfits are doing good work, and I hope that I may be considered one of them. Your thoughts are welcome, as always.
I continue to miss my family and friends. And food! Although, if Chipotle could write me a letter every once in a while telling me how it is doing, maybe it wouldn't be so hard. I miss a comfortable lifestyle. But, despite everything, please believe me when I say that I am happy here. Not going anywhere. Really! See you in Septmber 2012.
Virginia
PS: Photos from a Christmas hike to Dogon country in northern Mali:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.930452787992.2432333.124748&l=4606440b20
and
general photos from 2010:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.774174485962.2391758.124748&l=5ced82671c
More to come soon! Both links are public; no Facebook login required.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Creatures of the Night, Part II
Knew it was too good to be true, right? Of course there were more nighttime terrors in my future; it seems that I doomed myself from the beginning by titling that post “Part I”…So, there have been two mice in my house since I moved in and they had been pretty harmless until recently. I could hear them scurrying around at night, but they rarely appeared during the day, so I decided to leave them be. Then they started getting brave, not even bothering to avoid me during the day. Then they chewed through my sunglasses case. And then my toothpaste. And then I decided they needed to die. So I bought some rat poison at market (it’s just pure zinc that comes in a paper packet; you mix it with peanut butter and let the creatures choose their own adventure). I set it out in the morning and went mouse hunting later that afternoon only to find nothing, feeling sad that it didn’t work, because these mice had become to bane of my existence. Then, that evening after getting back from dinner at Maimouna’s house, I put on my headlamp to set up my bed stuff (I sleep outside but bring the mattress and net in every morning to keep it clean), and my light happened to flash across IT: the dead mouse. It was GROSS. Really. It was just lying there spread-eagled in the corner of my bedroom with its eyes open. So I went outside to grab some straw from my hangar (under which I sleep) to fashion some chopsticks and also a plastic bag to get the mouse out of my house. Had it been daytime, I would have given it to a child to pay with—they love that stuff. Whenever anyone catches a mouse, the kids go crazy. Once, my favorite little boy, Sounké, ran up to me excitedly with a handful of dead mice, expecting me to share his enthusiasm. Needless to say I did not. So my mouse, I threw it in the latrine and tried not to be too grossed out to sleep. I never found the second mouse. I don’t know if that’s better or worse.
A second scorpion bit me last month. Got me on the stomach. At night again. I have since switched mosquito nets, so hopefully this will never happen again.
In other news, it is REALLY, INCREDIBLY hot here. Hot season has most certainly officially arrived. I’m guessing it’s about 115 degrees now, and getting worse. It unfortunately also seems that the food situation at Maimouna’s house has also gotten worse along with the weather. I don’t understand this correlation. But we have been eating a lot of toh (boiled millet paste) lately—sometimes twice a day four days a week, with other meals being tasteless rice. I paid Maimouna 10,000cfa (about $20) recently for food for her family, so I hope some of that finds its way to me. In the beginning I paid her 5,000cfa a month (a lot of money around here, I swear) to feed me, but I stopped for some reason and regret it. I just cannot help but feel uncomfortable knowing that I cannot give enough money for everyone to be eating the same foods that Maimouna would prepare for me (as in, I might get pasta while almost everyone else eats toh). But her family is huge! I don’t even know her relation to more than half the people she lives with.
In other news, all the first-year volunteers in San and Segou just got back from our regional in-service training (not to be confused with our in-service training held back in December). We spent three days with our homologues in sessions in Segou. However, Maimouna (my homologue) did not come, and I was sick the entire time. (I had strep throat! Didn’t know that adults really suffered from that.) So I got absolutely nothing out of the training. Although it seems as though even the volunteers who did participate didn’t get much out of it, either. Such is Peace Corps life. But on the last day we went to another volunteer’s village to do a session called Participatory Action for Community Analysis, which is essentially a way to find out what villagers need without really asking them straightforwardly or telling them that Peace Corps will help them try to make their dreams come true. At the end of the session the villagers are asked to identify their hopes for the village and then vote on them to find their priorities, but this unfortunately usually just turns into an expensive wishlist. It did in this case. But the session was helpful to see nonetheless because I think I would like Peace Corps come host a session in Fangasso.
Mali is a terrible place to be sick, by the way. I was stuck at the Catholic Mission of Segou (where our sessions were being held and where we were sleeping dorm-style) in a very hot room without nutritious food (carbs, carbs, carbs for breakfast lunch and dinner) and couldn’t sleep for the heat. Things seem to be fine now, though. Thankfully!
Back in village, things are going…well, they’re going. I am still trying to impart my clearly superior Western wisdom on the masses, but in a good way! I taught a round of malaria lessons (which went relatively well) and am now on to a round of HIV/AIDS lessons. I am teaching with the middle school students here. We have six classes (two each of 7th, 8th, and 9th) that have open free time each week. (Before, they had this open time because there were only three teachers (or sometimes four, which I never understood) for the six classes, meaning half the kids were just sitting around at any given time. Now, however, they have a lot less free time because we now have seven teachers in Fangasso! I hope this continues for the school years to come.) So the kids’ free time now comes from a built in “study hour” they have each week. So I show up at talk health. The malaria lessons were fun because I could walk around the classroom pretending to be a mosquito, but the kids didn’t really understand malaria even though everyone they know has had it at some point (themselves included). They also study it in school. It’s disheartening, but the education system here is in shambles.
Most kids here grow up learning Bambara. Some, like my Bomu babies, also learn a minority language as a mother tongue. But school is in French. They study it as its own subject and all classes are also taught in French. But the classes are so big that most kids can “graduate” 9th grade without really having a grasp on basic French. Try to talk to a 14-year old in French in most places in Mali and you likely won’t get far. I taught my lessons in French because I didn’t have a Bomu script and still don’t feel confident enough in my language to improvise, but they seemed to have gotten the just of what I said. They teachers were happy that I came, but mostly because they knew there would likely be question about malaria on the end-of-year exams and the kids needed a refresher.
I’ve done four HIV/AIDS lessons so far. I showed up to the school only to discover that a man from an organization called Right to Play (they use sports to teach kids about health) happened to be in town that week. So we co-taught the lessons and he taught me a lot about ways to interact with a classroom so large. He spoke in Bambara when it was clear the kids really weren’t getting it, which was helpful. But one of Maimouna’s family members, a 7th grader, after the lesson, asked me, “Mougnoussi, why did you come to our class today?” I didn’t really know what to make of that question.
I will hopefully finish the HIV/AIDS round this week (all alone; I’m a little nervous!). I may be able to get in another round on hygiene before the end of the year, but the staff is a little hesitant because they want the kids to study. In any case, after the lessons are over we are having a mural contest with the kids. They are (hopefully!) going to design a mural related to a health topic. The teachers will select the best drawing and we will turn it into a full-size mural at the school! I am very excited to see what the kids come up with. I hope someone participates!!
In other news, I have had a baby named after me! The night I got back to Fangasso from Senegal I went over to Maimouna’s house for dinner. I noticed that Bebe, her second son’s pregnant wife, was absent. So I figured this meant she had given birth recently. (Because Malian women really aren’t allowed to rest except for the few days after they give birth. Ridiculous.) So, after dinner, Maimouna brought me into her house and brought me over to Bebe and her new bundle of joy (I was right, the Sherlock that I am). I was excited right off the bat because Bebe’s son, Sounké, is my favorite boy in all of Mali. I know that any baby she ever has will be awesome. Including this one, obviously. But when Maimouna told me that they had decided to name the baby after me, I got a little teary. You’re not allowed to cry in Mali (although for Americans they would probably let it pass a little) but it was dark so I don’t think anyone saw me!
Soon I think I am going to start planting moringa trees (the miracle tree that could “save Africa” with its vitamins and whatnot) and start giving them out to people and teaching them about moringa and its benefits (nutrients, mostly) and how to properly care for the tree (pruning, fertilizer, etc.). I really don’t know what else to do with my time. I want to start some sort of summer girls’ group, but this is just an idea I have.
I will sign off for now, sorry for the incredibly long delay in posts. Life just seems, well, not-so-newsworthy, here. I still like writing letters and hearing news from home (of course). I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well in all of their endeavors. Happy Easter!!!
A second scorpion bit me last month. Got me on the stomach. At night again. I have since switched mosquito nets, so hopefully this will never happen again.
In other news, it is REALLY, INCREDIBLY hot here. Hot season has most certainly officially arrived. I’m guessing it’s about 115 degrees now, and getting worse. It unfortunately also seems that the food situation at Maimouna’s house has also gotten worse along with the weather. I don’t understand this correlation. But we have been eating a lot of toh (boiled millet paste) lately—sometimes twice a day four days a week, with other meals being tasteless rice. I paid Maimouna 10,000cfa (about $20) recently for food for her family, so I hope some of that finds its way to me. In the beginning I paid her 5,000cfa a month (a lot of money around here, I swear) to feed me, but I stopped for some reason and regret it. I just cannot help but feel uncomfortable knowing that I cannot give enough money for everyone to be eating the same foods that Maimouna would prepare for me (as in, I might get pasta while almost everyone else eats toh). But her family is huge! I don’t even know her relation to more than half the people she lives with.
In other news, all the first-year volunteers in San and Segou just got back from our regional in-service training (not to be confused with our in-service training held back in December). We spent three days with our homologues in sessions in Segou. However, Maimouna (my homologue) did not come, and I was sick the entire time. (I had strep throat! Didn’t know that adults really suffered from that.) So I got absolutely nothing out of the training. Although it seems as though even the volunteers who did participate didn’t get much out of it, either. Such is Peace Corps life. But on the last day we went to another volunteer’s village to do a session called Participatory Action for Community Analysis, which is essentially a way to find out what villagers need without really asking them straightforwardly or telling them that Peace Corps will help them try to make their dreams come true. At the end of the session the villagers are asked to identify their hopes for the village and then vote on them to find their priorities, but this unfortunately usually just turns into an expensive wishlist. It did in this case. But the session was helpful to see nonetheless because I think I would like Peace Corps come host a session in Fangasso.
Mali is a terrible place to be sick, by the way. I was stuck at the Catholic Mission of Segou (where our sessions were being held and where we were sleeping dorm-style) in a very hot room without nutritious food (carbs, carbs, carbs for breakfast lunch and dinner) and couldn’t sleep for the heat. Things seem to be fine now, though. Thankfully!
Back in village, things are going…well, they’re going. I am still trying to impart my clearly superior Western wisdom on the masses, but in a good way! I taught a round of malaria lessons (which went relatively well) and am now on to a round of HIV/AIDS lessons. I am teaching with the middle school students here. We have six classes (two each of 7th, 8th, and 9th) that have open free time each week. (Before, they had this open time because there were only three teachers (or sometimes four, which I never understood) for the six classes, meaning half the kids were just sitting around at any given time. Now, however, they have a lot less free time because we now have seven teachers in Fangasso! I hope this continues for the school years to come.) So the kids’ free time now comes from a built in “study hour” they have each week. So I show up at talk health. The malaria lessons were fun because I could walk around the classroom pretending to be a mosquito, but the kids didn’t really understand malaria even though everyone they know has had it at some point (themselves included). They also study it in school. It’s disheartening, but the education system here is in shambles.
Most kids here grow up learning Bambara. Some, like my Bomu babies, also learn a minority language as a mother tongue. But school is in French. They study it as its own subject and all classes are also taught in French. But the classes are so big that most kids can “graduate” 9th grade without really having a grasp on basic French. Try to talk to a 14-year old in French in most places in Mali and you likely won’t get far. I taught my lessons in French because I didn’t have a Bomu script and still don’t feel confident enough in my language to improvise, but they seemed to have gotten the just of what I said. They teachers were happy that I came, but mostly because they knew there would likely be question about malaria on the end-of-year exams and the kids needed a refresher.
I’ve done four HIV/AIDS lessons so far. I showed up to the school only to discover that a man from an organization called Right to Play (they use sports to teach kids about health) happened to be in town that week. So we co-taught the lessons and he taught me a lot about ways to interact with a classroom so large. He spoke in Bambara when it was clear the kids really weren’t getting it, which was helpful. But one of Maimouna’s family members, a 7th grader, after the lesson, asked me, “Mougnoussi, why did you come to our class today?” I didn’t really know what to make of that question.
I will hopefully finish the HIV/AIDS round this week (all alone; I’m a little nervous!). I may be able to get in another round on hygiene before the end of the year, but the staff is a little hesitant because they want the kids to study. In any case, after the lessons are over we are having a mural contest with the kids. They are (hopefully!) going to design a mural related to a health topic. The teachers will select the best drawing and we will turn it into a full-size mural at the school! I am very excited to see what the kids come up with. I hope someone participates!!
In other news, I have had a baby named after me! The night I got back to Fangasso from Senegal I went over to Maimouna’s house for dinner. I noticed that Bebe, her second son’s pregnant wife, was absent. So I figured this meant she had given birth recently. (Because Malian women really aren’t allowed to rest except for the few days after they give birth. Ridiculous.) So, after dinner, Maimouna brought me into her house and brought me over to Bebe and her new bundle of joy (I was right, the Sherlock that I am). I was excited right off the bat because Bebe’s son, Sounké, is my favorite boy in all of Mali. I know that any baby she ever has will be awesome. Including this one, obviously. But when Maimouna told me that they had decided to name the baby after me, I got a little teary. You’re not allowed to cry in Mali (although for Americans they would probably let it pass a little) but it was dark so I don’t think anyone saw me!
Soon I think I am going to start planting moringa trees (the miracle tree that could “save Africa” with its vitamins and whatnot) and start giving them out to people and teaching them about moringa and its benefits (nutrients, mostly) and how to properly care for the tree (pruning, fertilizer, etc.). I really don’t know what else to do with my time. I want to start some sort of summer girls’ group, but this is just an idea I have.
I will sign off for now, sorry for the incredibly long delay in posts. Life just seems, well, not-so-newsworthy, here. I still like writing letters and hearing news from home (of course). I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well in all of their endeavors. Happy Easter!!!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Ma faama
"Ma faama!" means "Long time, no see!" in Bomu. It sure has been awhile. In the last three months, I left site for our training center, Tubaniso, for two weeks for our in-service training. Maimouna, my homologue came for a week and we really did nothing, to be quite honest. From there I went back to San and then on to a 3-day hike in Dogon country (3 hours north of San, with really beautiful cliffs, photos to come). We spent Christmas evening in another volunteer's village. Her friends put on a play for us in Bambara (so I didn't even pretend to pay attention, but it was the thought that counted). From there I went back to San and then over to Segou (another regional capitol) for New Year's. The bus ride took forever, so I ended up spending less than 24 hours there. Not really worth the travel, but it was good to see everyone. I finally got back to site and got back to work! It feels good to be doing something.
I've abandoned my hopes for my water tower project because it seems that World Vision is going to pay for it (and they well should, they spent 60,000,000 cfa on the tower and are now begrudgingly willing to pay to fix it). I have decided that for the time being, I am not going to be doing any funded projects in Fangasso. My villagers are far too dependent on foreign aid, and I worry for the day that World Vision leaves (2013) and when there are no more volunteers (likely within 3-5 years), and they are left on their own with no outside help and no knowledge of how to raise their own funds for village improvement projects. So for now I am working on free projects that will help the community see that they can help themselves instead of waiting for someone else to help them. Thus far, we've done two health activities, soap-making and mosquito repellent making. Both were successful (although sometime soon I will write another post about the soap-making; it involves burning the skin off my hands); people were interested in learning about how to make the products and in receiving the finished product, but I am worried that no one will ever take the initiative to make them on their own.
I have also done five animations (lessons) on malaria at the middle school, teaching the kids the symptoms and treatments of malaria, and, most importantly, ways to prevent it. THere is a tree that grows everywhere in Mali called the neem tree, whose leaves are a natural mosquito repellent (you mis them with shea butter to make a cream that you can use like any Western product; you can also burn the leaves). One student was interested in making it, so I know I'll be doing another animation once I get back to site.
Other than that, I just got back from SENEGAL! It was fabulous. Had a few near-death experiences involving the ocean (oops), but the vacation was amazing. More on that soon. For now, I sign off to let another volunteer use the only computer at the PCV house in Bamako.
Fo maani! (See you soon!) And write letters! : )
I've abandoned my hopes for my water tower project because it seems that World Vision is going to pay for it (and they well should, they spent 60,000,000 cfa on the tower and are now begrudgingly willing to pay to fix it). I have decided that for the time being, I am not going to be doing any funded projects in Fangasso. My villagers are far too dependent on foreign aid, and I worry for the day that World Vision leaves (2013) and when there are no more volunteers (likely within 3-5 years), and they are left on their own with no outside help and no knowledge of how to raise their own funds for village improvement projects. So for now I am working on free projects that will help the community see that they can help themselves instead of waiting for someone else to help them. Thus far, we've done two health activities, soap-making and mosquito repellent making. Both were successful (although sometime soon I will write another post about the soap-making; it involves burning the skin off my hands); people were interested in learning about how to make the products and in receiving the finished product, but I am worried that no one will ever take the initiative to make them on their own.
I have also done five animations (lessons) on malaria at the middle school, teaching the kids the symptoms and treatments of malaria, and, most importantly, ways to prevent it. THere is a tree that grows everywhere in Mali called the neem tree, whose leaves are a natural mosquito repellent (you mis them with shea butter to make a cream that you can use like any Western product; you can also burn the leaves). One student was interested in making it, so I know I'll be doing another animation once I get back to site.
Other than that, I just got back from SENEGAL! It was fabulous. Had a few near-death experiences involving the ocean (oops), but the vacation was amazing. More on that soon. For now, I sign off to let another volunteer use the only computer at the PCV house in Bamako.
Fo maani! (See you soon!) And write letters! : )
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