So. After the first day, which went SO well, no one showed up for the next two days. I was livid. I was like – money doesn’t grow on trees! I have to pay these Brothers Bagayogo by the day and I don’t have a lot of leeway funding-wise. Plus, it’s a waste of their time!
I was on the phone with Adama like every day. And I was like, I don’t know what to do. They don’t show up. I don’t speak Bambara so I can’t talk to Daouda or the village chief and I can BARELY even speak to the Bagayogos because the one doesn’t really speak French at all and the other one speaks a little more French than I do Bambara. One of the days, my homologue Drissa didn’t even show up. I was SO pissed. I was ranting about how if the village doesn’t want to work for the latrines, we will just pack these bricks into a sotrama and take them to Bamako and build something at Tubaniso. I was like, “it’s not me that has to live here for the rest of my life!!”
So Adama, bless his heart, is doing everything he can, calling people, explaining things, even on his day off. Adama is a top notch employee and Peace Corps would be in a sorry state if they ever happen to lose him.
So people didn’t show up Thursday for a variety of reasons the most compelling of which being that there was a death in the village. Another one, I mean. And this time the guy had actually died IN Tenezana. In his bed. So everyone was over there. I mean, anybody who was anybody was over there. It was at least 300 people or more. I went with the ladies who were still mourning at my neighbor’s house. We sat and a woman who appeared to be maybe the man’s daughter was crying (not wailing, but crying openly). He was an old man and died of something like old age. It was so crowded. But being the white lady, they gave me a chair. After a little while, they told me to stand up so I did. Everybody was standing up. And then about 5-6 men came out of the house carrying the body. It was wrapped in a white sheet and then rolled in a grass mat. They took it away to bury it somewhere. I don’t know where but they weren’t gone very long at all. I was like, “please tell me this burial site is a proper distance from the wells…”
So anyway. That’s why people didn’t show up on Thursday. Friday no one showed up either. I imagine this was partly because it was market day in Yelekebougou but also because they were still supposed to be mourning the deceased man but I have to walk by that house to get to the school and there was nobody there on Friday so I was kind of unwilling to take that as an excuse.
So anyway I was crying (not literally) about it to Adama on the phone so he was putting calls in to my host dad and my supervisor to talk to the village chief. This was the day Drissa didn’t show up either, and didn’t call or anything. So just as the Brothers Bagayogo and I are leaving the school to go talk to Daouda (my supervisor), the village chief rides up on his bike. The Brothers Bagayogo talk to him. He says people didn’t come because of the death and that they are villageois, it’s not like a city, and that we will have lots of workers tomorrow. I had to bite my tongue because I wanted to be like, “look if people aren’t going to show up due to a death or for ANY reason, they could at least send someone to TELL us, so that we aren’t sitting there stewing, wasting time.” But I just thanked him and went home.
On Saturday nobody showed up. I was SO PISSED. I told the Bagayogos if it happened again the next day, they could just go back to Bamako.
But then we went to the school and by some miracle people started tricking in (we had been at the pump where we were making bricks). Maybe they had been waiting until they saw us at the school, not realizing we were waiting at the pump. But all in all, there ended up being about 20-25 guys and they started digging the hole. I was like PRAISE ALLAH.
Again, everyone seemed in good spirits all day, working away. The Brothers Bagayogo made the tea, since digging a hole isn’t really specialized labor.
I had sent Drissa off to Kati early that morning to get the other mold, which Scotty had brought to her house from Bamako (thanks Scotty!). We were expecting him back early, like by 9 at the latest, because the Bagayogo in charge of bricks wanted to start making the exterior bricks that day. Yeah. Drissa didn’t show up until like almost 2pm. I was LIVID. And then when he got there, the insert to the mold didn’t fit. It was too small. This time I was like, “Adama!!” since it was Adama who had sent us the mold.
But they said they could fix it if they pounded the edges a bit to make it wider and that’s just what they did this morning when we started making the exterior bricks.
Today there were two groups of workers. There were about 20 guys at the pump, making bricks. Then there were about 12 people at the school, digging the hole. Apparently they had split up the work as such: everyone who lives on the same side of the road as the school would send their family member to dig the hole. Everyone who lived on the same side as the pump would send their family member to do bricks. In this way, the work was split up. Today I knew almost everyone who was digging the hole, because they were my neighbors. Some of them were even the chefs du famille! I think that just meant that they don’t have any sons of age or a younger brother to send. Yusuf sent his younger brother. Moussa (my host dad) sent his oldest son, Soumaila, who lives here. The guy who speaks Pular was there and the guy who lives in the same compound as him (I think they are brothers?). A couple of other guys I recognized, because they live near me. In fact this was the first group of workers I recognized ANYBODY in.
So after two full days of working on the hole it is only half the depth it needs to be, which leads to there being two more days of digging before the hole can start having bricks put in it.
Almost all the bricks are done but we ran out of sand so more is being delivered in the morning and they’ll make the rest of the bricks and hopefully start making the slab.
Today as we were doing bricks, a pickup truck pulled up and an African and a Chinese guy hopped out and started giving all my workers tree seedlings. There were two kinds. One is Eucalyptus and the other had a compound leaf which means it is nitrogen fixing (good for the soil). I’m not sure what the whole deal was but I think that this Chinese guy must work for some project that has a tree nursery with good agroforestry trees and when the seedlings get big at the beginning of the rainy season they go hand them out to people who then plant them. Hey – free tree! The dudes were pretty excited about it, I can tell you that much.
I got two eucalyptus trees for my family. Tomorrow I have to make sure they planted them.
So, barring any other incidents like our two day hiccup, I think things will move along swiftly at this point. I hope VERY swiftly, because I have to leave for COS conference (not my real one, it’s several months early to be mine, but since we won’t be getting one as transfers, we were invited to attend HBO’s COS conference, which is nice) in like a week from tomorrow. I really hate the idea of not being here to make sure everything is completed satisfactorily but at the same time I really don’t want to miss COS conference. Not only because it is at a nice hotel but also because there are lots of sessions I would really like to attend and this will be my only chance.
So, inshallah, we will be far enough along by the time I have to leave that I won’t need to worry. Inshallah.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Latrine Project Begins
So we started the latrine project today in earnest. Yay! They said they were going to start at 8am but I know Africa time so I finished reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and then went over there about nine. To my delighted surprise, they were already there working!
I was expecting disaster. Because, as with making movies, God also does not want your funded project to succeed (right, Rory?). I was expecting none of the villager workers to have shown up. I was expecting…I don’t know. Disaster. But that didn’t happen at all! The village workers were all there (I didn’t know any of them, either) and they had already laid out several sand piles and were mixing the cement into the first one. Within the first few minutes, they made the first brick!!
There were about 20 workers in all. They were all in pretty high spirits. Of course, right when I got there they told me they needed tea, so I sent Drissa to the boutique to get tea and sugar and there was one guy whose job it was to make tea all day. I told him to get them cookies too so they all had a biscuit snack as well. It cost me just under 1 mille franc, which is like $2.
One thing you can say about Malians is they don’t mind a hard day of work! Nobody seemed to be disgruntled that they were there (each of them was ordered to come by their family chief, who was ordered to send somebody by the village chief). They were working out in the hot sun all day in the hottest part of the year doing manual labor with no shade. And yet they were laughing and joking and everybody was working.
I was really happy.
The best part was that around ten, about six of the unskilled workers, after observing the Bagayogo brothers (skilled labor) making the first set of bricks, took the second mold (somebody brought a second mold – from where I have no idea, but it was awesome because they could work a lot faster), went to the next pile, and started making bricks themselves. One of the Brothers Bagayogo helped them some until they got the hang of it, but after awhile, the six of them were making all their own bricks. They were elated and giggling when they started making them right all by themselves. When they would slide one out of the mold perfectly they’d let out a satisfied and kind of surprised laugh. By 11, all the bricks were being made by the villagers with only supervision from the Brothers Bagayogo. You know what we call that in Peace Corps? Capacity Building. And it’s the goal of every single Peace Corps project – DIFFERENCE MADE!
So as noon was rolling around I started to get nervous because the lunch wasn’t there. I was like, here’s the next part where this project can go belly up. What if no lunch comes??? But then a few minutes after noon, one woman walked up with a big bowl of toh on her head and dropped it off with me in the shade. I thanked her and she walked off again, and I started scanning the area for more women with bowls (one bowl would not be enough for 20+ men). None came. I was like shit!! But then Drissa took off on his bike and was gone for awhile. When he finally came back, about one or a little after, he had bundles of bowls with him (to send food traveling, they fill the bowl, put the cover on it, and then tie it up in a piece of cloth so it can be easily carried, even on a bike). I was like thank God! I guess it was Drissa’s family and neighbors who were in charge of food today.
But that’s when I noticed that I was turning as red as a lobster. I mean, granted, I had forgotten to put on sunscreen this morning, but I was sitting in the shade all day! I took care to not be in the sun. But it did not help. I was painfully aware that I had given myself a wicked sunburn. So I showed Drissa the difference between my shin and my calf and he was like yeah…you should go home and get out of the sun. I mean, they have no concept of sunburn. They don’t GET sunburn. They think it’s funny that my skin reacts to stuff that’s normal to them in strange ways (like my mango rash…or heat rash for that matter). So I don’t know if he understood when I was telling him that it was going to hurt later and that it comes from the SUN, not just heat, but at any rate I had to go home. Which was kind of disappointing for me because I would have liked to stay for the whole workday.
At the rate they were working, it seemed like they might even get all the interior bricks done that day. Which would mean heading to the school to start digging the hole tomorrow, since we are waiting on a different mold for the exterior bricks.
So I’ll head out again tomorrow – this time having sunscreened myself – and hopefully we’ll be breaking ground at the school!
As I was sitting there watching them make the bricks, I felt like I used to feel on the set of my films. I worked hard and did all the preproduction and now my crew was putting it into effect, with a sense of urgency, quality and a good attitude. I guess the only difference is that I don’t have anything to do. I just sit and watch. But I guess it’s because my job came before today and will end after the latrines are fully standing and I close the project and do the paperwork.
Like I say, I work with my head, not with my hands. That’s why they’re so soft and pretty ☺.
I was expecting disaster. Because, as with making movies, God also does not want your funded project to succeed (right, Rory?). I was expecting none of the villager workers to have shown up. I was expecting…I don’t know. Disaster. But that didn’t happen at all! The village workers were all there (I didn’t know any of them, either) and they had already laid out several sand piles and were mixing the cement into the first one. Within the first few minutes, they made the first brick!!
There were about 20 workers in all. They were all in pretty high spirits. Of course, right when I got there they told me they needed tea, so I sent Drissa to the boutique to get tea and sugar and there was one guy whose job it was to make tea all day. I told him to get them cookies too so they all had a biscuit snack as well. It cost me just under 1 mille franc, which is like $2.
One thing you can say about Malians is they don’t mind a hard day of work! Nobody seemed to be disgruntled that they were there (each of them was ordered to come by their family chief, who was ordered to send somebody by the village chief). They were working out in the hot sun all day in the hottest part of the year doing manual labor with no shade. And yet they were laughing and joking and everybody was working.
I was really happy.
The best part was that around ten, about six of the unskilled workers, after observing the Bagayogo brothers (skilled labor) making the first set of bricks, took the second mold (somebody brought a second mold – from where I have no idea, but it was awesome because they could work a lot faster), went to the next pile, and started making bricks themselves. One of the Brothers Bagayogo helped them some until they got the hang of it, but after awhile, the six of them were making all their own bricks. They were elated and giggling when they started making them right all by themselves. When they would slide one out of the mold perfectly they’d let out a satisfied and kind of surprised laugh. By 11, all the bricks were being made by the villagers with only supervision from the Brothers Bagayogo. You know what we call that in Peace Corps? Capacity Building. And it’s the goal of every single Peace Corps project – DIFFERENCE MADE!
So as noon was rolling around I started to get nervous because the lunch wasn’t there. I was like, here’s the next part where this project can go belly up. What if no lunch comes??? But then a few minutes after noon, one woman walked up with a big bowl of toh on her head and dropped it off with me in the shade. I thanked her and she walked off again, and I started scanning the area for more women with bowls (one bowl would not be enough for 20+ men). None came. I was like shit!! But then Drissa took off on his bike and was gone for awhile. When he finally came back, about one or a little after, he had bundles of bowls with him (to send food traveling, they fill the bowl, put the cover on it, and then tie it up in a piece of cloth so it can be easily carried, even on a bike). I was like thank God! I guess it was Drissa’s family and neighbors who were in charge of food today.
But that’s when I noticed that I was turning as red as a lobster. I mean, granted, I had forgotten to put on sunscreen this morning, but I was sitting in the shade all day! I took care to not be in the sun. But it did not help. I was painfully aware that I had given myself a wicked sunburn. So I showed Drissa the difference between my shin and my calf and he was like yeah…you should go home and get out of the sun. I mean, they have no concept of sunburn. They don’t GET sunburn. They think it’s funny that my skin reacts to stuff that’s normal to them in strange ways (like my mango rash…or heat rash for that matter). So I don’t know if he understood when I was telling him that it was going to hurt later and that it comes from the SUN, not just heat, but at any rate I had to go home. Which was kind of disappointing for me because I would have liked to stay for the whole workday.
At the rate they were working, it seemed like they might even get all the interior bricks done that day. Which would mean heading to the school to start digging the hole tomorrow, since we are waiting on a different mold for the exterior bricks.
So I’ll head out again tomorrow – this time having sunscreened myself – and hopefully we’ll be breaking ground at the school!
As I was sitting there watching them make the bricks, I felt like I used to feel on the set of my films. I worked hard and did all the preproduction and now my crew was putting it into effect, with a sense of urgency, quality and a good attitude. I guess the only difference is that I don’t have anything to do. I just sit and watch. But I guess it’s because my job came before today and will end after the latrines are fully standing and I close the project and do the paperwork.
Like I say, I work with my head, not with my hands. That’s why they’re so soft and pretty ☺.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Up...then Down
So as it turns out the guys Adama sent to supervise the latrine building showed up sometime during the night last night. So they were here this morning when I got up. This led to a meeting at the village chief’s house between us, Drissa, Daouda and my host dad Moussa, who is also a member of what is basically the PTA.
So after lots of talking in Bambara and a few calls to Adama, it was decided that each family in the village would be asked to send one member of the family to work as unskilled labor. And since we have over 60 families, this means they can work in shifts – 20 or 30 people this day, 20 or 30 others the next. Which is nice.
It was also decided that this work would actually begin tomorrow morning. But today we went out to the school and measured the spot where the latrines will go and dug a perimeter. So it’s actually starting!!
They said the only thing that appeared to be missing is that we might need to buy another half-order of sand, and Adama has to bring out another brick mold because apparently this is going to take two kinds of bricks. Way less of a disaster than I was expecting.
But I still don’t think we’ll be able to close the project in time to get the pump done. Which sucks.
So after what felt like a productive morning I came home and cleaned up my house. My cat had managed to bring down the plastic sheeting that covers my ceiling and with it all of the dust and mud clots that had been collecting in it. Drissa tied it all back up, and higher this time so my house looks bigger! But I had a lot of cleaning to do after that. Had lunch (Frijoles Mexicanas aux Villageois!). Started to take a nap but was then awoken by the two guys who came to supervise. Who apparently didn’t even want anything, just to sit around and eat mangoes.
But as I was up, my first mom Seli called me over and told me that our next door neighbor had died. The father of Setu, who used to do my laundry. He died in Bamako. According to Yusuf it wasn’t the family chief, but the family chief’s younger brother (it isn’t uncommon for several nuclear families to be living together in one big family – in fact it’s more the rule than the exception), but I don’t really know many men, mostly women and kids so I couldn’t picture who the guy was and probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Yusuf said he died of diabetes. But I could have heard that wrong or he could have said the wrong thing.
So everybody was next door, sitting around real silent. Men in one area, women and kids in another. I didn’t know if I was supposed to go over or not but then one woman told me to go over so I did. And I just sat with everybody else, not saying anything.
Apparently the way it works is that Yusuf’s first wife Mamine, Yusuf’s younger brother (Wawa?), my second mom Abi, my host dad Moussa, Setu’s mother (Hawa? She’d also be one of the deceased’s wives, probably the first), and Alimatou (one of the women from the compound on the other side of theirs) went off to Bamako to take care of business. I guess there is a big cemetery in Bamako and that’s where they will inter him.
My first mom Seli and Sita are among a group who will cook at the mourners’ house tonight.
As I was sitting over there, more and more women would come by and sit. I recognized all of them from our club (our Tabaski clothes club that meets every Tuesday morning to give 100 FCFA apiece to save up for swanky clothes for Tabaski). Some of them are very close neighbors, others I’m not sure exactly which compounds are theirs. But it was actually a very beautiful display of community and support. Nothing to be said, just show the family you are there for them.
As it started getting later, I guess the word was spreading around the village and people I didn’t recognize started to show up. One woman I didn’t recognize walked into the compound and just started wailing. My grandma and another of the old ladies from our club had to drag her away into one of the houses but you could still hear her wailing. It brought tears to my eyes, and to most of the women who were sitting with me. One of them started crying and had to hand her baby off while she got ahold of herself. Nobody else wailed like that woman, though. It’s not really considered couth to show any emotion like that, except maybe just a glum face.
So then we started getting water. Like, GALLONS upon GALLONS of water. We filled a barrel and two huge pots, plus all the buckets and bowls. I was like…what are they gonna use all this water for? I hauled buckets from the well to the compound. Embarrassing moment: I spilled half of one just as I got into the compound and everyone saw. But no one laughed because it was a melancholy situation.
So we made a HUGE pot of rice and a big pot of sauce but I wanted a bath SO BAD before it was ready that I went home and bathed so I just ate what Setu had made for dinner.
I think they were surprised that I came to sit, but I think they appreciated it. I wish there was something more I could do.
So after lots of talking in Bambara and a few calls to Adama, it was decided that each family in the village would be asked to send one member of the family to work as unskilled labor. And since we have over 60 families, this means they can work in shifts – 20 or 30 people this day, 20 or 30 others the next. Which is nice.
It was also decided that this work would actually begin tomorrow morning. But today we went out to the school and measured the spot where the latrines will go and dug a perimeter. So it’s actually starting!!
They said the only thing that appeared to be missing is that we might need to buy another half-order of sand, and Adama has to bring out another brick mold because apparently this is going to take two kinds of bricks. Way less of a disaster than I was expecting.
But I still don’t think we’ll be able to close the project in time to get the pump done. Which sucks.
So after what felt like a productive morning I came home and cleaned up my house. My cat had managed to bring down the plastic sheeting that covers my ceiling and with it all of the dust and mud clots that had been collecting in it. Drissa tied it all back up, and higher this time so my house looks bigger! But I had a lot of cleaning to do after that. Had lunch (Frijoles Mexicanas aux Villageois!). Started to take a nap but was then awoken by the two guys who came to supervise. Who apparently didn’t even want anything, just to sit around and eat mangoes.
But as I was up, my first mom Seli called me over and told me that our next door neighbor had died. The father of Setu, who used to do my laundry. He died in Bamako. According to Yusuf it wasn’t the family chief, but the family chief’s younger brother (it isn’t uncommon for several nuclear families to be living together in one big family – in fact it’s more the rule than the exception), but I don’t really know many men, mostly women and kids so I couldn’t picture who the guy was and probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. Yusuf said he died of diabetes. But I could have heard that wrong or he could have said the wrong thing.
So everybody was next door, sitting around real silent. Men in one area, women and kids in another. I didn’t know if I was supposed to go over or not but then one woman told me to go over so I did. And I just sat with everybody else, not saying anything.
Apparently the way it works is that Yusuf’s first wife Mamine, Yusuf’s younger brother (Wawa?), my second mom Abi, my host dad Moussa, Setu’s mother (Hawa? She’d also be one of the deceased’s wives, probably the first), and Alimatou (one of the women from the compound on the other side of theirs) went off to Bamako to take care of business. I guess there is a big cemetery in Bamako and that’s where they will inter him.
My first mom Seli and Sita are among a group who will cook at the mourners’ house tonight.
As I was sitting over there, more and more women would come by and sit. I recognized all of them from our club (our Tabaski clothes club that meets every Tuesday morning to give 100 FCFA apiece to save up for swanky clothes for Tabaski). Some of them are very close neighbors, others I’m not sure exactly which compounds are theirs. But it was actually a very beautiful display of community and support. Nothing to be said, just show the family you are there for them.
As it started getting later, I guess the word was spreading around the village and people I didn’t recognize started to show up. One woman I didn’t recognize walked into the compound and just started wailing. My grandma and another of the old ladies from our club had to drag her away into one of the houses but you could still hear her wailing. It brought tears to my eyes, and to most of the women who were sitting with me. One of them started crying and had to hand her baby off while she got ahold of herself. Nobody else wailed like that woman, though. It’s not really considered couth to show any emotion like that, except maybe just a glum face.
So then we started getting water. Like, GALLONS upon GALLONS of water. We filled a barrel and two huge pots, plus all the buckets and bowls. I was like…what are they gonna use all this water for? I hauled buckets from the well to the compound. Embarrassing moment: I spilled half of one just as I got into the compound and everyone saw. But no one laughed because it was a melancholy situation.
So we made a HUGE pot of rice and a big pot of sauce but I wanted a bath SO BAD before it was ready that I went home and bathed so I just ate what Setu had made for dinner.
I think they were surprised that I came to sit, but I think they appreciated it. I wish there was something more I could do.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Rain!!
Dude, the rain REALLY helps with the heat. Yesterday evening it rained and then it rained off and on throughout the night. Obviously that made it impossible to sleep outside, but inside it was much cooler. I mean, I was still sweating in my bed, but not NEARLY as much as I would be without the rain. And this morning it was positively CHILLY outside which was great. And then the day hasn’t been so bad, I’ve spent a lot of it inside, aside from going to Yusuf’s for tea and shelling peanuts with grandma. Which would be totally undoable without the cooling effect the rain has.
And just now I heard a rumble of thunder so I went outside to look at the sky and the sky to the East looked positively formidable! Well, not THAT formidable, but pretty grim. So I skipped around the compound and said “san ji! San ji!” which means rain (I think san means cloud and ji means water…originally I thought they were calling it “sen ji” which would be farming water, which would make sense, but I think they actually have a word for cloud and they call it that: cloud water) and my family laughed at me and right when I was yelling “san ji!” it started to fall.
I helped a couple of the little kids catch two little goatlets that needed to be shut up with their mother during the rain. Oumarri let the rest of the goats into their house which is across from his. I guess animals easily get lost in the rain. Plus they don’t seem to like getting wet at all. The boys are probably out bringing the cows in right now. They are gonna be soaked when they get back.
But YES, blessed rain!!!! I was much more excited about rain in Guinea because it meant I had more water – for drinking, washing, doing laundry, everything – especially for bathing, but half the time if it started raining I’d just go out in my latrine and take my bath, grateful for the extra water to make washing my hair possible. I fondly remember sitting on my porch (bless that porch!! Great for watching storms and lightning!), catching rain in my five buckets, filtering them into my six 20L bidons, drinking a cocktail. It was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon, really. I don’t do that here, of course. Because I have an unlimited supply of water from the well, and I don’t have a porch, nor do I have any cocktail ingredients. Definitely makes me nostalgic for Guinea, where I loved watching the storms.
No, here the rain just signifies the breaking of the heat. And that’s enough.
And just now I heard a rumble of thunder so I went outside to look at the sky and the sky to the East looked positively formidable! Well, not THAT formidable, but pretty grim. So I skipped around the compound and said “san ji! San ji!” which means rain (I think san means cloud and ji means water…originally I thought they were calling it “sen ji” which would be farming water, which would make sense, but I think they actually have a word for cloud and they call it that: cloud water) and my family laughed at me and right when I was yelling “san ji!” it started to fall.
I helped a couple of the little kids catch two little goatlets that needed to be shut up with their mother during the rain. Oumarri let the rest of the goats into their house which is across from his. I guess animals easily get lost in the rain. Plus they don’t seem to like getting wet at all. The boys are probably out bringing the cows in right now. They are gonna be soaked when they get back.
But YES, blessed rain!!!! I was much more excited about rain in Guinea because it meant I had more water – for drinking, washing, doing laundry, everything – especially for bathing, but half the time if it started raining I’d just go out in my latrine and take my bath, grateful for the extra water to make washing my hair possible. I fondly remember sitting on my porch (bless that porch!! Great for watching storms and lightning!), catching rain in my five buckets, filtering them into my six 20L bidons, drinking a cocktail. It was a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon, really. I don’t do that here, of course. Because I have an unlimited supply of water from the well, and I don’t have a porch, nor do I have any cocktail ingredients. Definitely makes me nostalgic for Guinea, where I loved watching the storms.
No, here the rain just signifies the breaking of the heat. And that’s enough.
Phases
So I’m going through one of my food phases right now. While I could NEVER get sick of peanut sauce (in fact, I should challenge myself to this statement if it were available), I am fatigued with the food here at site. I mean, breakfast is always and has always been seri, which is a flavorless porridge made of millet. Some days I choke down a few bites but it’s just so BORING that most of the time I’d rather save myself the carbs than force myself to eat it. Lunch is toh, every day. And now that it’s rained some, it’s made with fresh baobab leaves rather than the dried store, but still…it bores me. Dinner is usually boro boro sauce or a tomato-based soup sauce, but the tomatoes are in such sorry condition right now, tomato season being over, that it is pretty tasteless. And I am absolutely disgusted by the “datu” (was in Guinea, too, but they didn’t use it much), which is this sticky black stuff that REEKS and is made of the seeds of the Nere tree, fermented. I mean it’s good that they eat it because it has some protein but when I smell it I am immediately turned off and lose any appetite.
So, due to my boredom with food, I’ve been eating a lot of my Easy Mac (yay! Actually, it’s Annie’s or Trader Joe’s individual microwaveable mac and cheese but who needs to be specific?), and started in on my dehydrated food again. This week it’s been pinto beans, tomato powder and half a small fresh onion (I use the word “fresh” lightly, I bought those onions almost seven months ago – but they’re still good!), boiled with a ton of taco seasoning, cumin and cayenne pepper, topped with a triangle of Laughing Cow cheese. I call it “Frijoles Mexicanas aux Villageois”. I even add some kick to my Easy Mac by sprinkling cayenne pepper on it. Yum. But I’m going to run out of ingredients pretty quickly. Laughing Cow, first of all, then onions, then Easy Mac, then beans, then spices. Which means I’m going to have to make a BKO trip pretty soon to stock up on Laughing Cow and onions. And write home for Easy Mac. I think I have enough beans and spices to last me until I get sick of this regimen.
So in addition to food-phases, I’m also going through my future-phases. I thought all this time alone in an African village would give me more insight on my future, but I am floundering now perhaps even more than I was a year and a half ago. For example, there are days when I’m like, “yeah, I might extend my service a couple of months in order to get the pump done if it doesn’t go through in the next month”. There are other days when I’m like EFF THAT, get me out of here as soon as possible! And still others when I’m like yeah, I want to COS on time but then get an expat job somewhere in Africa for another year or so.
And then I think about what I want to do when I get home. Some days I’m like, yeah, I am DEFINITELY going back to LA. And I’m going to live alone in Echo Park, close to John, Leggett and Caitlin. And other days when I’m like no, I definitely need to give NYC a try. But I guess on that front I’m only floundering between two options: LA or New York. I wouldn’t mind living in San Francisco, either, but not right now.
Sometimes I want to go to grad school, but I don’t know what for. Sometimes I really want to pick Yogi up and bring him back with me and other times I don’t, because in the entertainment industry, you never know how long you’re going to be away from home and dogs need attention.
Sometimes I really want to get my cat back from my Aunt Sue and other times I entertain the idea that she might be better off out there in the country.
Sometimes I think I want to get cable and other times I think – no, just internet, I can get all the shows I want to watch on the net and not have to pay for cable! Will I buy a PowerBook, an iMac, or both (how much of my readjustment allowance am I willing to give Apple?). Am I going to buy a car? I don’t want to buy gas anymore, but is it really feasible not to, yet? Am I willing to take out a loan to do so?
I guess I’m just having a tough time making DECISIONS. And sticking with them.
I think what I’ll do is I’ll probably apply to some jobs in Africa, but I’ll only take one if it’s an offer too good to pass up ($30k a year, one year contract – I could pay off all my student loans in one year if I took a job like that and lived cheap, which you can do out here). But if it doesn’t pay enough, or wants me to sign a contract for more than a year, probably not. Then when I get home I’ll probably apply to the DGA Trainee Program. I’ll probably apply to both the NY program AND the LA program, which I think would require me to take a trip to NYC to take the test, but that’s ok. If I’m not accepted (or even if I am), I’ll apply for jobs with National Geographic Channel, Discovery, Planet Green, try to get on some kind of location shoot in some random part of the world – hey, I have experience working and living in some of the poorest nations in the world and under extreme social, cultural, gastronomical and environmental conditions (did you know Peace Corps Volunteers are not allowed to try out for Survivor?)! Hire me!
I’ll finish post-production on Tempest and Travels (three years in the making!). I’ll make that documentary about my late grandfather (heck, I’ve already gathered all my elements). Actually make finished DVDs of Costello to send to my cast and crew (if Bates finishes the documentary!). I’ll start writing again.
I guess the only thing that I’ve definitively decided in the year and a half I’ve been in Africa is that I still want to work in the Industry. I just can’t see myself doing anything else. And don’t know that I have the skillset to do anything else, when it comes down to it!
So…I guess I’ll just have to see where the future takes me. Which is another phase. Because sometimes I think that way and other times I think – NO! I have to make my own future! Pick a goal and work towards it!)
Le sigh.
Well, in other news, the guy Adama originally asked to come to my site to supervise the building of the latrines never showed (he was supposed to be here last Thursday and no one can reach him), so instead he is sending two other guys, who should arrive this afternoon. We should break ground tomorrow, inshallah. And then hopefully by the weekend I can go to BKO and close out my project and turn in the pump project and by some Hail Mary and begging the pump diggers to do the pump on credit until the money gets here, get the pump done before the end of June. Which will open up all the doors for all the other projects I wanted to do that are pump-related (like the tree nursery). And then during rainy season I’ll probably do a soap-making training. That’s kind of all that’s on the books right about now. Maybe a World Map at the school. Except that paint is really expensive.
Oh yeah! Two camels walked through our compound today. For some reason there were two Touaregs in town (weird part of the country for them to be traveling through by camel, but, there you have it) and they both happened into our compound with their HUGE camels. I was shelling peanuts with one of the grandmas when they came through. And I was just like, “another day in Africa” and shelled another nut.
So, due to my boredom with food, I’ve been eating a lot of my Easy Mac (yay! Actually, it’s Annie’s or Trader Joe’s individual microwaveable mac and cheese but who needs to be specific?), and started in on my dehydrated food again. This week it’s been pinto beans, tomato powder and half a small fresh onion (I use the word “fresh” lightly, I bought those onions almost seven months ago – but they’re still good!), boiled with a ton of taco seasoning, cumin and cayenne pepper, topped with a triangle of Laughing Cow cheese. I call it “Frijoles Mexicanas aux Villageois”. I even add some kick to my Easy Mac by sprinkling cayenne pepper on it. Yum. But I’m going to run out of ingredients pretty quickly. Laughing Cow, first of all, then onions, then Easy Mac, then beans, then spices. Which means I’m going to have to make a BKO trip pretty soon to stock up on Laughing Cow and onions. And write home for Easy Mac. I think I have enough beans and spices to last me until I get sick of this regimen.
So in addition to food-phases, I’m also going through my future-phases. I thought all this time alone in an African village would give me more insight on my future, but I am floundering now perhaps even more than I was a year and a half ago. For example, there are days when I’m like, “yeah, I might extend my service a couple of months in order to get the pump done if it doesn’t go through in the next month”. There are other days when I’m like EFF THAT, get me out of here as soon as possible! And still others when I’m like yeah, I want to COS on time but then get an expat job somewhere in Africa for another year or so.
And then I think about what I want to do when I get home. Some days I’m like, yeah, I am DEFINITELY going back to LA. And I’m going to live alone in Echo Park, close to John, Leggett and Caitlin. And other days when I’m like no, I definitely need to give NYC a try. But I guess on that front I’m only floundering between two options: LA or New York. I wouldn’t mind living in San Francisco, either, but not right now.
Sometimes I want to go to grad school, but I don’t know what for. Sometimes I really want to pick Yogi up and bring him back with me and other times I don’t, because in the entertainment industry, you never know how long you’re going to be away from home and dogs need attention.
Sometimes I really want to get my cat back from my Aunt Sue and other times I entertain the idea that she might be better off out there in the country.
Sometimes I think I want to get cable and other times I think – no, just internet, I can get all the shows I want to watch on the net and not have to pay for cable! Will I buy a PowerBook, an iMac, or both (how much of my readjustment allowance am I willing to give Apple?). Am I going to buy a car? I don’t want to buy gas anymore, but is it really feasible not to, yet? Am I willing to take out a loan to do so?
I guess I’m just having a tough time making DECISIONS. And sticking with them.
I think what I’ll do is I’ll probably apply to some jobs in Africa, but I’ll only take one if it’s an offer too good to pass up ($30k a year, one year contract – I could pay off all my student loans in one year if I took a job like that and lived cheap, which you can do out here). But if it doesn’t pay enough, or wants me to sign a contract for more than a year, probably not. Then when I get home I’ll probably apply to the DGA Trainee Program. I’ll probably apply to both the NY program AND the LA program, which I think would require me to take a trip to NYC to take the test, but that’s ok. If I’m not accepted (or even if I am), I’ll apply for jobs with National Geographic Channel, Discovery, Planet Green, try to get on some kind of location shoot in some random part of the world – hey, I have experience working and living in some of the poorest nations in the world and under extreme social, cultural, gastronomical and environmental conditions (did you know Peace Corps Volunteers are not allowed to try out for Survivor?)! Hire me!
I’ll finish post-production on Tempest and Travels (three years in the making!). I’ll make that documentary about my late grandfather (heck, I’ve already gathered all my elements). Actually make finished DVDs of Costello to send to my cast and crew (if Bates finishes the documentary!). I’ll start writing again.
I guess the only thing that I’ve definitively decided in the year and a half I’ve been in Africa is that I still want to work in the Industry. I just can’t see myself doing anything else. And don’t know that I have the skillset to do anything else, when it comes down to it!
So…I guess I’ll just have to see where the future takes me. Which is another phase. Because sometimes I think that way and other times I think – NO! I have to make my own future! Pick a goal and work towards it!)
Le sigh.
Well, in other news, the guy Adama originally asked to come to my site to supervise the building of the latrines never showed (he was supposed to be here last Thursday and no one can reach him), so instead he is sending two other guys, who should arrive this afternoon. We should break ground tomorrow, inshallah. And then hopefully by the weekend I can go to BKO and close out my project and turn in the pump project and by some Hail Mary and begging the pump diggers to do the pump on credit until the money gets here, get the pump done before the end of June. Which will open up all the doors for all the other projects I wanted to do that are pump-related (like the tree nursery). And then during rainy season I’ll probably do a soap-making training. That’s kind of all that’s on the books right about now. Maybe a World Map at the school. Except that paint is really expensive.
Oh yeah! Two camels walked through our compound today. For some reason there were two Touaregs in town (weird part of the country for them to be traveling through by camel, but, there you have it) and they both happened into our compound with their HUGE camels. I was shelling peanuts with one of the grandmas when they came through. And I was just like, “another day in Africa” and shelled another nut.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Caution: Dangerous Rocks aka The Elephant Entry
So we took our trip out to Paul’s site to see the wild elephants. It was me, Corinna, Mark, Danielle, Scotty, Molly and Yik. So the trip out there was epic. I was with Molly, Scotty and Yik and we left from BKO. To begin with, we went to Gana Transport at 5am because we thought they had a bus out there but it turned out they didn’t have one until the next day. So we got another taxi and went across the river to Binke Transport. Where there was nobody selling tickets or providing info for like 2 hours. Oh wait, let’s back up. So it was Yik’s genius idea that we stay up all night the night before we were leaving since we had to go to the gare at 5am anyway and once it got to be 1 or 2am it didn’t seem worth it to go to bed so we didn’t. BAD MOVE.
So after waiting hours at the Binke gare, the bus finally leaves. And we have pretty good seats! Right by the back door and under an emergency exit hatch, which they keep open during the trip. There are no windows. This trip is supposed to take 18 hours on a good day. So Molly and I are pretty slap happy from not sleeping and we are laughing so hard about ridiculous shit that isn’t even funny to the point where our stomachs hurt.
So this bus breaks down in Segou, which is like 3-4 hours from BKO. Like, it breaks irreparably, which is really rare here. Usually they just tie some shit together with a strip of rubber and we go on our waybut not this time. So they send a bus from BKO to come get everyone. We end up stuck in Segou for seven hours. Awesome. We almost gave up and just went home. But we didn’t and we’re really glad we stuck it out.
After the new bus got there and we headed out, nothing really went wrong and we faded in and out of fitful, uncomfortable sleep all night. We finally arrived at Paul’s site at 7am the next day, and his counterpart Lelele met us as we were getting off the bus and took us to his place (he runs a small hotel), where Mark, Corinna and Danielle were already sleeping, having arrived a few hours earlier. We didn’t sleep. Just bathed. And had breakfast (sweetened Seri).
After lunch we piled into a Land Rover to head out into the desert and find the elephants! We drove all day. The elephants were really far out there at this time of year but Lelele was DETERMINED to find them and said he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if we didn’t find them. As the sun is going down, we make it to this big watering hole. You might even call it a lake. And what’s on the other side of it? ELEPHANTS!!! Dude it was so cool! I mean, yeah, we’ve all seen elephants in the zoo, but seeing them out there in their natural habitat doing what they do is amazing.
So we drove around the lake to get closer to them and took pictures and watched them until it got too dark. Or…until I noticed a big elephant coming towards us from our right and pointed it out to Lelele and he told us all to MOVE right away. Apparently that elephant was the chief and he had smelled us and was coming over to see what was up. Once we moved he went up to the water and bathed himself. It was cool.
Funny enough the chauffer was scared of elephants and once we got out of the car he drove away to safety. Heehee.
So then we set out to find a spot in the desert to make camp for the night. We found a place that looked good put our grass mats on the ground and watched the stars while waiting for dinner. We also ate a bunch of melted chocolate Scotty had on her (still tasty!). Lelele’s wife had made us couscous with chicken and sauce for dinner and it was DELICIOUS. I wished I could eat more when my stomach was full, it tasted so good.
We got ready for bed and laid down and chatted and watched the stars until we all started to drop off to sleep. The night sky is amazing out in the desert. You can see SO many stars and for some reason there was no moon so eventually we could even see the Milky Way. SWEET!
So at some point during the night I wake up and see Yik and Danielle standing up, pointing their flashlights out into the night. And I’m like, “what are you guys doing?” They say there’s a big animal out there, they can hear it moving around and after a second I hear it too in addition to a growling sound that sounded more like it should come from a lion than an elephant. Yik’s like, “I’m waking up Lelele!” So he wakes up Lelele and he bangs pots and pans to try and scare the elephants away so they don’t come step on us. This, obviously, wakes EVERYONE up. Eventually he thinks they have started to move away so we settle to go back to sleep. And then, from another direction, there is this loud trumpeting sound and a pounding of feet and we’re like HOLY SHIT they’re coming for us!! At first I was just going to sit up and get ready to run but then I see other people running to the car so I was like EEK!!! And got up and ran. Corinna is trying to get in the back of the car and Molly is pushing on her like HURRY UP!!!! I climbed on top of the car, followed by Danielle. Everyone else is at least on their feet. Except Paul. Who is still laying on his mat, covered by a blanket, hands twined behind his head. The chauffer says the elephants are fighting. Then Lelele says, “Get up!” So Paul begrudgingly gets up and we have to leave the vehicle to pack up our stuff because we are going to move camp.
So we move camp a hundred meters or so to this more raised ground that actually had softer sand and fall back asleep. I wake up to see Danielle standing up pointing her flashlight out into the night again. And I’m like, “what now?” I can hear something out there but it doesn’t sound nearly as close or as dangerous. I swear I nearly wet myself when I heard that elephant trumpet and start to charge. Lelele is up and he tells us it’s elephants again but they aren’t coming closer so we should go back to sleep. The next day he tells us it was jackals but that he didn’t want to say anything at the time because he didn’t want to scare us. I was like yeah. I am SO less afraid of wild dogs than I am of wild elephants, thankyouverymuch.
So in the morning we go try to find the elephants again but by the time we get to the watering hole they’ve already gone into the forest and it’s too dangerous to follow them in there. We go look at the elephant tracks around our original campsite and the closest tracks were like…half a football field away, if that. Too close!!! And sure enough there was one set of tracks that ended in a skid. That was probably the one who we thought was trying to charge us. He sounded angry.
So we saw a bunch of touareg herders who were all nice about pointing which way the elephants had gone that morning but ultimately it was fruitless. But we saw more camels!! Camels are sweet by the way!!
So we headed back to town which took several hours and went to Paul’s favorite bar where they have cold beer and good food.
The next day, we decide to go hiking out to the red dunes. The walk out there wasn’t so bad, and then we climbed the dunes and Mark threw himself down them several times. We got sand everywhere. There were these weird silver ants up there…I’m curious what they were! One of the coolest things was getting up on a ridge and stepping on the edge of the ridge which would cause a little avalanche of sand that lierally looked like liquid running down the face of the dune. Really cool. But any disturbances we made in the form of footprints or sandfalls were quickly washed away by the sand and wind.
The walk back was a lot harder. It was only like 10am but the sun felt like about 1. Molly was getting heat exhaustion. There were a few points when we didn’t even know if she would make it back. It seemed to take FOREVER, but we did finally make it back and then Danielle and I chugged cold Cokes at the bar.
The next day we went to the animal market to look at camels up close. They are the weirdest creatures!!! HUGE!!! And their back legs are so crazy. They are just totally weird looking. Like a cross between a giraffe and an alien.
That afternoon we caught a bus and went to Sevare, where we spent the night. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel, Mac’s Refuge, which serves an all-you-can-eat pancake and French toast breakfast for 1 mille for PCVs. Crazy good deal! And really good food.
So then we waited at the side of the road for a bus to the Carrefour that goes to Djenne, which is an entire city made of mud. You are not allowed to build with anything but mud in Djenne, by law. It is also the home of a huge mosque made all of mud that has been there over 100 years!! If anybody remembers the opening scene of Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey (why would you?), that takes place in front of the famous mud mosque.
So it was pretty cool to see all that and we had lunch with the PCV who lives there. Mark told us a story about a little building we passed called “The Tomb of the Young Girl” or something like that. Apparently, when they were founding Djenne (which was founded as an Islamic center but for some reason wanted to perform this animistic ritual – just in case), they needed to find a young virgin girl to bury alive to consecrate the land. So the story goes that all the eligible girls were put into a lottery except for the chief’s daughter, who was considered exempt. But she didn’t think that was fair, so she volunteered to be sacrificed. So they buried her alive under this tomb. And she cried for 30 days. Then they went and called in to her basically, “Look, we really need this site consecrated. You need to die or it doesn’t count.” So she stopped crying and died. Legend has it you can still sometimes hear her crying inside the tomb. Freaky, right?
So that afternoon we took a taxi back out to the Carrefour and right away a bus to BKO came by and picked us (me, Molly and Danielle) up. It was practically empty so we each got two seats and were able to sleep pretty well.
We made it back with no further problems. Except that we all ran out of money. Luckily, Peace Corps deposited our June allowances early this month so it should hopefully be there soon! That’s going to save my ass, for sure.
Anyway, all in all an amazing trip with amazing people and I knocked two more things off my “to do in Mali” list. Now it’s just Manantali (Fourth of July), Dogon (September or October), a Niger river trip in a pirogue and Tombouctou (Timbuktu)/time in the desert (after COS – it’s not allowed for PCVs). I’ve also decided that after COS I HAVE to take a trip actually out into the Sahara. I mean, to be this close and not do that would be a mistake I’d regret for the rest of my life! So I’m doing it.
Inshallah ☺.
Note: Caution: Dangerous Rocks refers to something Mark said when we were out hunting elephants in reference to the Touareg herders who see those elephants every day and in fact follow them because their herds eat the stuff the elephants drop. Mark was like, “To them they’re probably just like rocks…very dangerous rocks.”
So after waiting hours at the Binke gare, the bus finally leaves. And we have pretty good seats! Right by the back door and under an emergency exit hatch, which they keep open during the trip. There are no windows. This trip is supposed to take 18 hours on a good day. So Molly and I are pretty slap happy from not sleeping and we are laughing so hard about ridiculous shit that isn’t even funny to the point where our stomachs hurt.
So this bus breaks down in Segou, which is like 3-4 hours from BKO. Like, it breaks irreparably, which is really rare here. Usually they just tie some shit together with a strip of rubber and we go on our waybut not this time. So they send a bus from BKO to come get everyone. We end up stuck in Segou for seven hours. Awesome. We almost gave up and just went home. But we didn’t and we’re really glad we stuck it out.
After the new bus got there and we headed out, nothing really went wrong and we faded in and out of fitful, uncomfortable sleep all night. We finally arrived at Paul’s site at 7am the next day, and his counterpart Lelele met us as we were getting off the bus and took us to his place (he runs a small hotel), where Mark, Corinna and Danielle were already sleeping, having arrived a few hours earlier. We didn’t sleep. Just bathed. And had breakfast (sweetened Seri).
After lunch we piled into a Land Rover to head out into the desert and find the elephants! We drove all day. The elephants were really far out there at this time of year but Lelele was DETERMINED to find them and said he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night if we didn’t find them. As the sun is going down, we make it to this big watering hole. You might even call it a lake. And what’s on the other side of it? ELEPHANTS!!! Dude it was so cool! I mean, yeah, we’ve all seen elephants in the zoo, but seeing them out there in their natural habitat doing what they do is amazing.
So we drove around the lake to get closer to them and took pictures and watched them until it got too dark. Or…until I noticed a big elephant coming towards us from our right and pointed it out to Lelele and he told us all to MOVE right away. Apparently that elephant was the chief and he had smelled us and was coming over to see what was up. Once we moved he went up to the water and bathed himself. It was cool.
Funny enough the chauffer was scared of elephants and once we got out of the car he drove away to safety. Heehee.
So then we set out to find a spot in the desert to make camp for the night. We found a place that looked good put our grass mats on the ground and watched the stars while waiting for dinner. We also ate a bunch of melted chocolate Scotty had on her (still tasty!). Lelele’s wife had made us couscous with chicken and sauce for dinner and it was DELICIOUS. I wished I could eat more when my stomach was full, it tasted so good.
We got ready for bed and laid down and chatted and watched the stars until we all started to drop off to sleep. The night sky is amazing out in the desert. You can see SO many stars and for some reason there was no moon so eventually we could even see the Milky Way. SWEET!
So at some point during the night I wake up and see Yik and Danielle standing up, pointing their flashlights out into the night. And I’m like, “what are you guys doing?” They say there’s a big animal out there, they can hear it moving around and after a second I hear it too in addition to a growling sound that sounded more like it should come from a lion than an elephant. Yik’s like, “I’m waking up Lelele!” So he wakes up Lelele and he bangs pots and pans to try and scare the elephants away so they don’t come step on us. This, obviously, wakes EVERYONE up. Eventually he thinks they have started to move away so we settle to go back to sleep. And then, from another direction, there is this loud trumpeting sound and a pounding of feet and we’re like HOLY SHIT they’re coming for us!! At first I was just going to sit up and get ready to run but then I see other people running to the car so I was like EEK!!! And got up and ran. Corinna is trying to get in the back of the car and Molly is pushing on her like HURRY UP!!!! I climbed on top of the car, followed by Danielle. Everyone else is at least on their feet. Except Paul. Who is still laying on his mat, covered by a blanket, hands twined behind his head. The chauffer says the elephants are fighting. Then Lelele says, “Get up!” So Paul begrudgingly gets up and we have to leave the vehicle to pack up our stuff because we are going to move camp.
So we move camp a hundred meters or so to this more raised ground that actually had softer sand and fall back asleep. I wake up to see Danielle standing up pointing her flashlight out into the night again. And I’m like, “what now?” I can hear something out there but it doesn’t sound nearly as close or as dangerous. I swear I nearly wet myself when I heard that elephant trumpet and start to charge. Lelele is up and he tells us it’s elephants again but they aren’t coming closer so we should go back to sleep. The next day he tells us it was jackals but that he didn’t want to say anything at the time because he didn’t want to scare us. I was like yeah. I am SO less afraid of wild dogs than I am of wild elephants, thankyouverymuch.
So in the morning we go try to find the elephants again but by the time we get to the watering hole they’ve already gone into the forest and it’s too dangerous to follow them in there. We go look at the elephant tracks around our original campsite and the closest tracks were like…half a football field away, if that. Too close!!! And sure enough there was one set of tracks that ended in a skid. That was probably the one who we thought was trying to charge us. He sounded angry.
So we saw a bunch of touareg herders who were all nice about pointing which way the elephants had gone that morning but ultimately it was fruitless. But we saw more camels!! Camels are sweet by the way!!
So we headed back to town which took several hours and went to Paul’s favorite bar where they have cold beer and good food.
The next day, we decide to go hiking out to the red dunes. The walk out there wasn’t so bad, and then we climbed the dunes and Mark threw himself down them several times. We got sand everywhere. There were these weird silver ants up there…I’m curious what they were! One of the coolest things was getting up on a ridge and stepping on the edge of the ridge which would cause a little avalanche of sand that lierally looked like liquid running down the face of the dune. Really cool. But any disturbances we made in the form of footprints or sandfalls were quickly washed away by the sand and wind.
The walk back was a lot harder. It was only like 10am but the sun felt like about 1. Molly was getting heat exhaustion. There were a few points when we didn’t even know if she would make it back. It seemed to take FOREVER, but we did finally make it back and then Danielle and I chugged cold Cokes at the bar.
The next day we went to the animal market to look at camels up close. They are the weirdest creatures!!! HUGE!!! And their back legs are so crazy. They are just totally weird looking. Like a cross between a giraffe and an alien.
That afternoon we caught a bus and went to Sevare, where we spent the night. The next day we had breakfast at the hotel, Mac’s Refuge, which serves an all-you-can-eat pancake and French toast breakfast for 1 mille for PCVs. Crazy good deal! And really good food.
So then we waited at the side of the road for a bus to the Carrefour that goes to Djenne, which is an entire city made of mud. You are not allowed to build with anything but mud in Djenne, by law. It is also the home of a huge mosque made all of mud that has been there over 100 years!! If anybody remembers the opening scene of Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey (why would you?), that takes place in front of the famous mud mosque.
So it was pretty cool to see all that and we had lunch with the PCV who lives there. Mark told us a story about a little building we passed called “The Tomb of the Young Girl” or something like that. Apparently, when they were founding Djenne (which was founded as an Islamic center but for some reason wanted to perform this animistic ritual – just in case), they needed to find a young virgin girl to bury alive to consecrate the land. So the story goes that all the eligible girls were put into a lottery except for the chief’s daughter, who was considered exempt. But she didn’t think that was fair, so she volunteered to be sacrificed. So they buried her alive under this tomb. And she cried for 30 days. Then they went and called in to her basically, “Look, we really need this site consecrated. You need to die or it doesn’t count.” So she stopped crying and died. Legend has it you can still sometimes hear her crying inside the tomb. Freaky, right?
So that afternoon we took a taxi back out to the Carrefour and right away a bus to BKO came by and picked us (me, Molly and Danielle) up. It was practically empty so we each got two seats and were able to sleep pretty well.
We made it back with no further problems. Except that we all ran out of money. Luckily, Peace Corps deposited our June allowances early this month so it should hopefully be there soon! That’s going to save my ass, for sure.
Anyway, all in all an amazing trip with amazing people and I knocked two more things off my “to do in Mali” list. Now it’s just Manantali (Fourth of July), Dogon (September or October), a Niger river trip in a pirogue and Tombouctou (Timbuktu)/time in the desert (after COS – it’s not allowed for PCVs). I’ve also decided that after COS I HAVE to take a trip actually out into the Sahara. I mean, to be this close and not do that would be a mistake I’d regret for the rest of my life! So I’m doing it.
Inshallah ☺.
Note: Caution: Dangerous Rocks refers to something Mark said when we were out hunting elephants in reference to the Touareg herders who see those elephants every day and in fact follow them because their herds eat the stuff the elephants drop. Mark was like, “To them they’re probably just like rocks…very dangerous rocks.”
Friday, May 14, 2010
Help Me Fund My Village's Pump!!
So in addition to all the fun I'm having, I'm also (trying) to do work! Right now I am trying to get a water pump project funded at my primary school. We have only one school in my village, it serves grades 1-6. There are over 230 students and they attend school 6 days a week. The problem is, there is no water at the school. Teachers send students (usually girls, during instruction time) to uncovered, untreated wells hundreds of yards away to retrieve some water for drinking, but it's not enough and it's NOT potable (clean). So I'm trying to get the funding to put in an India/Mali style pump at the school, which will make potable water available right on school grounds year-round. I'm applying to Peace Corps funding for the bulk of the project ($10,000 - to dig the borehole), but still need to find another $3,000 somewhere.
Hence where you come in! At the bottom of this email I have included the address to my Peace Corps Partnership Program project. You can click, read a little about my project, and if you are so inclined, give a small donation. It's tax-deductible! I know nobody has a lot of disposable income right now but even $5 will help. I need to have this funded within the next three weeks so if you are able to make a donation, PLEASE do it ASAP. Also, please spread the word to any , friends or coworkers you think might be interested in making a difference in the lives of hundreds of poverty-stricken African children (guilt trip! :P).
Here's the website for my project:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-328
Hence where you come in! At the bottom of this email I have included the address to my Peace Corps Partnership Program project. You can click, read a little about my project, and if you are so inclined, give a small donation. It's tax-deductible! I know nobody has a lot of disposable income right now but even $5 will help. I need to have this funded within the next three weeks so if you are able to make a donation, PLEASE do it ASAP. Also, please spread the word to any , friends or coworkers you think might be interested in making a difference in the lives of hundreds of poverty-stricken African children (guilt trip! :P).
Here's the website for my project:
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-328
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Chick Rescue: Redux
So I am attempting to rescue another baby chicken. You may remember the chick I saved in training, which is probably dead by now, but…the point is I saved him at the time! And hopefully he got eaten by my host family, not one of those big birds that swoop down and steal little chickens (they call it an “eagle”, but it isn’t an eagle as far as I know).
So today me and Drissa were walking over to Yusuf’s to hang out and have tea. Just outside his compound I heard a chick chirping and looked down and saw one, tiny lone chick on the ground. I bent and picked him up. I looked around. No mommy in sight. I examined him a little further and saw that he had a sore on his head, probably from being viciously pecked by some mother hen whose coven (brood? What do you call it?) he was trying to join. Drissa says it’s possible he doesn’t have a mother hen at all (I wasn’t sure exactly how that would work, but…ok). Yusuf didn’t know anything about it and I didn’t see any mother hens with chicks about his size (he is only a day or so old). So I decided to see if I couldn’t keep him alive myself.
A name came to me rather quickly: Shamu. Like the whale. So if my naming instincts end up as usual, he will probably survive awhile.
Drissa and Yusuf were like, “you can’t raise that chicken! He’s going to die! Just leave him alone! What are you going to feed him?” I said, “millet.” Yusuf said he is too small to eat millet – he won’t eat it. And I was like well we’ll see. Either I leave him on the ground now and he dies or I take him home and try and he might still die, but probably more comfortably. Which is exactly what I said about Yogi when I took him in and he turned out fantastic! I told them this chick is going to end up being the biggest chicken in the village. They were like, “yeah right.” We shall see!!
Anyway, I remember in elementary school we used to hatch chickens in an incubator, no mommy hen required. But I don’t remember what we fed them… Or how long we kept them. But still – it CAN be done!
So I took him home and made him a house out of a USPS flat rate box. I boiled water and put it in a plastic bottle wrapped with a handkerchief to be a heat source/his fake mommy. And I mushed up some of this morning’s seri into a water bottle cap and put it in there. He loves the hot water bottle. He is always snuggling up to it because he is cold. I stuck his beak in the watered down, mushed up seri until he started eating it. We went back over to Yusuf’s and after a few minutes I looked in the box and he was eating the seri out of the bottle cap all on his own! So neener neener neeeeeeeener – he eats!
They said my cat is going to eat him but she appears to have no interest in him whatsoever. But I will still protect his box at night so she doesn’t think of him as a midnight snack.
So we’ll see how long he lives.
LONG LIVE SHAMU!!!
Lil Update: it’s dinnertime and he’s still alive. He LOVES the water bottle, always snuggled up inside there to stay warm. I fed him some more and he eats pretty good. I haven’t noticed him eating on his own, again, but I just feed him until he starts to struggle, which to me means he’s full. I don’t know how much he is supposed to eat. Everybody is laughing at me, of course, but let’s see them laugh when he gets served up for dinner!! “Oh, did you want some of this chicken that you said I couldn’t keep alive? Oh oops, I ate it all!!!!” Yeah, that’s probably a lie. If I raise him I prolly won’t be able to eat him…
Another note: my cat just caught the little lizard friend that lived in my bedroom window. THIS time she decided to play with him before eating him. I was like, “Magellan! JUST EAT HIM!” I could see the poor little guy hyperventilating and trying to get away. She finally ate him, back end first. The circle of life. RIP lizard friend.
So today me and Drissa were walking over to Yusuf’s to hang out and have tea. Just outside his compound I heard a chick chirping and looked down and saw one, tiny lone chick on the ground. I bent and picked him up. I looked around. No mommy in sight. I examined him a little further and saw that he had a sore on his head, probably from being viciously pecked by some mother hen whose coven (brood? What do you call it?) he was trying to join. Drissa says it’s possible he doesn’t have a mother hen at all (I wasn’t sure exactly how that would work, but…ok). Yusuf didn’t know anything about it and I didn’t see any mother hens with chicks about his size (he is only a day or so old). So I decided to see if I couldn’t keep him alive myself.
A name came to me rather quickly: Shamu. Like the whale. So if my naming instincts end up as usual, he will probably survive awhile.
Drissa and Yusuf were like, “you can’t raise that chicken! He’s going to die! Just leave him alone! What are you going to feed him?” I said, “millet.” Yusuf said he is too small to eat millet – he won’t eat it. And I was like well we’ll see. Either I leave him on the ground now and he dies or I take him home and try and he might still die, but probably more comfortably. Which is exactly what I said about Yogi when I took him in and he turned out fantastic! I told them this chick is going to end up being the biggest chicken in the village. They were like, “yeah right.” We shall see!!
Anyway, I remember in elementary school we used to hatch chickens in an incubator, no mommy hen required. But I don’t remember what we fed them… Or how long we kept them. But still – it CAN be done!
So I took him home and made him a house out of a USPS flat rate box. I boiled water and put it in a plastic bottle wrapped with a handkerchief to be a heat source/his fake mommy. And I mushed up some of this morning’s seri into a water bottle cap and put it in there. He loves the hot water bottle. He is always snuggling up to it because he is cold. I stuck his beak in the watered down, mushed up seri until he started eating it. We went back over to Yusuf’s and after a few minutes I looked in the box and he was eating the seri out of the bottle cap all on his own! So neener neener neeeeeeeener – he eats!
They said my cat is going to eat him but she appears to have no interest in him whatsoever. But I will still protect his box at night so she doesn’t think of him as a midnight snack.
So we’ll see how long he lives.
LONG LIVE SHAMU!!!
Lil Update: it’s dinnertime and he’s still alive. He LOVES the water bottle, always snuggled up inside there to stay warm. I fed him some more and he eats pretty good. I haven’t noticed him eating on his own, again, but I just feed him until he starts to struggle, which to me means he’s full. I don’t know how much he is supposed to eat. Everybody is laughing at me, of course, but let’s see them laugh when he gets served up for dinner!! “Oh, did you want some of this chicken that you said I couldn’t keep alive? Oh oops, I ate it all!!!!” Yeah, that’s probably a lie. If I raise him I prolly won’t be able to eat him…
Another note: my cat just caught the little lizard friend that lived in my bedroom window. THIS time she decided to play with him before eating him. I was like, “Magellan! JUST EAT HIM!” I could see the poor little guy hyperventilating and trying to get away. She finally ate him, back end first. The circle of life. RIP lizard friend.
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