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!!!
Saturday, April 23, 2011
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! : )
Friday, November 26, 2010
Creatures of the Night, Part I
Hello!
Hopefully this will be a one-part series, if I am careful from now on...Let me set the scene: It’s midnight. Pitch black in Fangasso. Quiet night all around. I’m sleeping outside on my mattress (with my mosquito net, like al good PCVs and literally every person in Fangasso), and am awoken by something crawling on my arm. This happens sometimes, during sleep time and otherwise. You just brush them off. So I brushed this one off in my half-asleep stupor, and I can feel that it’s quite a large something based on the weight against my hand. And immediately my hand starts to hurt. Whatever this bug was just bit me…I find my headlight next to me, turn it on, and my suspicions are confirmed: A SCORPION GOT INTO MY BED. He had the nerve to just sit there as I flashed my light on him, knowing I was too scared to kill him. I called our PC doctor to find out approximately how long it would be before I died from the poison.
As it turns out, Malian scorpions are only slightly (and not fatally) poisonous, to my relief. So I moved inside to finish the night in peace, and when I woke up in the morning it was like nothing had happened, not a mark. I went outside to put away my outside sleeping stuff, and the little guy was still inside my net. I felt that his brazen presence merited death by flip flop. Then I threw him in the latrine just in case he wasn’t all the way dead. I wasn’t taking any chances. Then I found another one inside my house that afternoon…Is nothing off limits? Guess I’ll be dealing with those for a while.
In other news, Tabaski was last Wednesday. Tabaski is kind of like Malian Thanksgiving, since we’re probably all still in the Thanksgiving mood. Tabaski is a celebration 70 days from the end of Ramadan in which many Muslims gorge on sheep (it us called the féte de moutons—festival of the sheep—in French) in honor of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. I spent three days going from house to house eating delicious food. The first day I spent with the chef de poste (main doctor at the CSCOM, who, as it turns out, isn’t actually a doctor) and the vaccinator. There is also a Mauritanian family in Fangasso who brought us some of the most delicious rice and sauce I’ve had in Mali. I had been having really bad food cravings for American food the last few weeks, but Tabaski kind of helped to squash those for the time being. During the last few weeks, I have had dreams about Oreos, frosting-covered Oreos (which don’t even exist, to my knowledge—my brain is now just inventing foods that I can’t have in order to torture me even more), walking around a grocery store and looking for ice cream and dried fruit, hitting a buffet, and eating dinner at Chipotle. But those have been gone for now.
We also ate a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. The San PCVs met at the house and ate what was pretty close to an American dinner: guinea fowl (aka Malian turkey; not really, but it was as close as we could get), stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin, salad, cornbread, pumpkin pie and cake. All homemade, organic, and fresh. Yummy. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Hope you all enjoyed spending time with their families and friends and ate as well as we did.
Other than that, site work has been going well. I’ve been working, not so diligently, at my baseline surveys, going around asking as many villagers as possible a series of health-related questions. We’re encouraged to do about 30-50, according to our materials, but I’ve done 5 so far. The results are “due” on the 6th. But Maimouna told me she was no longer interested in doing baselines with me, so I’ve kind of been working on my own for the last two weeks. It’s hard to do it without her, because she knows everyone in village whereas I know so few people, and she also served as my translator. I can do some of the surveys in French, but even then it’s still hard to ask a near-perfect stranger to talk to you about their health habits. I’ve tried doing them in Bomu, and people have a hard time understanding me without Maimouna there to clarify. All volunteers are also supposed to do food security surveys, but those are long and complicated; I’ve been doing them in conjunction with the health baselines, and I’m afraid people will start to get sick of my questions. We also have to do assets surveys, interviewing people like the CSCOM workers, mayors, sous-prefets, teachers and school directors, etc. Those I have enjoyed because I can do them all in French and they have been proving a good way to meet the so-called “important people” in village and see what their opinions are on the state of health in Fangasso.
These surveys have led me to an idea for my first project. Fangasso has a small water tower that provides clean drinking water to the village from a series of pumps. World Vision funded the tower, but it is not, predictably, in working order. They are not interested in funding a repair of the well (which is fair, but still angers me when I consider the amount of money they have spent on projects recently that have, from what I observe, have had very little effect on Fangasso). It’s nearly impossible to regulate the usage of a public utility like a water source, but the village has hopes of setting up some sort of payment or savings system for all people who use the water so that the next time it breaks there will be adequate money to fund any repairs. I obviously want to get the tower fixed as soon as possible, but I have no idea how to start. I want to make sure that whatever system is set up will last and will not be subject to the corruption that is also unfortunately present in Fangasso (long story). I had a meeting with the mayor that was canceled when I called him the day we had agreed upon just to confirm, and he had left town). So hopefully next tie we agree to meet both parties will be interested. I stopped by once to say hi, and said that I hoped I wasn’t bothering him, to which his response was, “You’re not bothering me at all. Don’t forget that I’m the one who requested you to be here in Fangasso.” That seemed nice at the time, but now rings a little false. But meetings get cancelled all the time here because people with means to travel do so often, so I’m trying not to take it personally.
Interesting facts about Fangasso:
Our school: grades 1-9, more than 700 students…and 6 teachers.
Our CSCOM serves 29 villages and only has a staff of 3 for illnesses and three for maternity-related work. (I’m staring my work with the maternity next week, updates about that soon!) The Malian government pays for all vaccines for children and adults, but does not pay for the paper that that records are kept on, so each woman with a child has to pay 400 cfa (about 80 cents) for the paper and the rest is taken care of. To give birth at the maternity, a women pays $2.
There was also what can maybe only be described as a tribal war in a neighboring village last week. The Fulani people of West Africa are oftentimes nomads but have settled in many places in Mali. They tend to have a lot of sheep and goats (still herders at heart) and also tend not to tie them up…So they get into neighboring fields and eat crops. Apparently some Fulani sheep ate a large amount of another villager’s crops, and somehow resulted in 4 serious head injuries inflicted by farming tools, and a series of village meetings on how to solve the feud. This didn’t happen in Fangasso, but the injured parties came into our CSCOM for treatment so we got to see some of the aftermath. They mayor had to get involved. Bad news!
This is all for now. Back to village for a week before heading to Bamako for more training. Love to all! Happy holidays!!
Hopefully this will be a one-part series, if I am careful from now on...Let me set the scene: It’s midnight. Pitch black in Fangasso. Quiet night all around. I’m sleeping outside on my mattress (with my mosquito net, like al good PCVs and literally every person in Fangasso), and am awoken by something crawling on my arm. This happens sometimes, during sleep time and otherwise. You just brush them off. So I brushed this one off in my half-asleep stupor, and I can feel that it’s quite a large something based on the weight against my hand. And immediately my hand starts to hurt. Whatever this bug was just bit me…I find my headlight next to me, turn it on, and my suspicions are confirmed: A SCORPION GOT INTO MY BED. He had the nerve to just sit there as I flashed my light on him, knowing I was too scared to kill him. I called our PC doctor to find out approximately how long it would be before I died from the poison.
As it turns out, Malian scorpions are only slightly (and not fatally) poisonous, to my relief. So I moved inside to finish the night in peace, and when I woke up in the morning it was like nothing had happened, not a mark. I went outside to put away my outside sleeping stuff, and the little guy was still inside my net. I felt that his brazen presence merited death by flip flop. Then I threw him in the latrine just in case he wasn’t all the way dead. I wasn’t taking any chances. Then I found another one inside my house that afternoon…Is nothing off limits? Guess I’ll be dealing with those for a while.
In other news, Tabaski was last Wednesday. Tabaski is kind of like Malian Thanksgiving, since we’re probably all still in the Thanksgiving mood. Tabaski is a celebration 70 days from the end of Ramadan in which many Muslims gorge on sheep (it us called the féte de moutons—festival of the sheep—in French) in honor of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son. I spent three days going from house to house eating delicious food. The first day I spent with the chef de poste (main doctor at the CSCOM, who, as it turns out, isn’t actually a doctor) and the vaccinator. There is also a Mauritanian family in Fangasso who brought us some of the most delicious rice and sauce I’ve had in Mali. I had been having really bad food cravings for American food the last few weeks, but Tabaski kind of helped to squash those for the time being. During the last few weeks, I have had dreams about Oreos, frosting-covered Oreos (which don’t even exist, to my knowledge—my brain is now just inventing foods that I can’t have in order to torture me even more), walking around a grocery store and looking for ice cream and dried fruit, hitting a buffet, and eating dinner at Chipotle. But those have been gone for now.
We also ate a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. The San PCVs met at the house and ate what was pretty close to an American dinner: guinea fowl (aka Malian turkey; not really, but it was as close as we could get), stuffing, mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin, salad, cornbread, pumpkin pie and cake. All homemade, organic, and fresh. Yummy. HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Hope you all enjoyed spending time with their families and friends and ate as well as we did.
Other than that, site work has been going well. I’ve been working, not so diligently, at my baseline surveys, going around asking as many villagers as possible a series of health-related questions. We’re encouraged to do about 30-50, according to our materials, but I’ve done 5 so far. The results are “due” on the 6th. But Maimouna told me she was no longer interested in doing baselines with me, so I’ve kind of been working on my own for the last two weeks. It’s hard to do it without her, because she knows everyone in village whereas I know so few people, and she also served as my translator. I can do some of the surveys in French, but even then it’s still hard to ask a near-perfect stranger to talk to you about their health habits. I’ve tried doing them in Bomu, and people have a hard time understanding me without Maimouna there to clarify. All volunteers are also supposed to do food security surveys, but those are long and complicated; I’ve been doing them in conjunction with the health baselines, and I’m afraid people will start to get sick of my questions. We also have to do assets surveys, interviewing people like the CSCOM workers, mayors, sous-prefets, teachers and school directors, etc. Those I have enjoyed because I can do them all in French and they have been proving a good way to meet the so-called “important people” in village and see what their opinions are on the state of health in Fangasso.
These surveys have led me to an idea for my first project. Fangasso has a small water tower that provides clean drinking water to the village from a series of pumps. World Vision funded the tower, but it is not, predictably, in working order. They are not interested in funding a repair of the well (which is fair, but still angers me when I consider the amount of money they have spent on projects recently that have, from what I observe, have had very little effect on Fangasso). It’s nearly impossible to regulate the usage of a public utility like a water source, but the village has hopes of setting up some sort of payment or savings system for all people who use the water so that the next time it breaks there will be adequate money to fund any repairs. I obviously want to get the tower fixed as soon as possible, but I have no idea how to start. I want to make sure that whatever system is set up will last and will not be subject to the corruption that is also unfortunately present in Fangasso (long story). I had a meeting with the mayor that was canceled when I called him the day we had agreed upon just to confirm, and he had left town). So hopefully next tie we agree to meet both parties will be interested. I stopped by once to say hi, and said that I hoped I wasn’t bothering him, to which his response was, “You’re not bothering me at all. Don’t forget that I’m the one who requested you to be here in Fangasso.” That seemed nice at the time, but now rings a little false. But meetings get cancelled all the time here because people with means to travel do so often, so I’m trying not to take it personally.
Interesting facts about Fangasso:
Our school: grades 1-9, more than 700 students…and 6 teachers.
Our CSCOM serves 29 villages and only has a staff of 3 for illnesses and three for maternity-related work. (I’m staring my work with the maternity next week, updates about that soon!) The Malian government pays for all vaccines for children and adults, but does not pay for the paper that that records are kept on, so each woman with a child has to pay 400 cfa (about 80 cents) for the paper and the rest is taken care of. To give birth at the maternity, a women pays $2.
There was also what can maybe only be described as a tribal war in a neighboring village last week. The Fulani people of West Africa are oftentimes nomads but have settled in many places in Mali. They tend to have a lot of sheep and goats (still herders at heart) and also tend not to tie them up…So they get into neighboring fields and eat crops. Apparently some Fulani sheep ate a large amount of another villager’s crops, and somehow resulted in 4 serious head injuries inflicted by farming tools, and a series of village meetings on how to solve the feud. This didn’t happen in Fangasso, but the injured parties came into our CSCOM for treatment so we got to see some of the aftermath. They mayor had to get involved. Bad news!
This is all for now. Back to village for a week before heading to Bamako for more training. Love to all! Happy holidays!!
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