I Blame Dakar

So the last time I came back from Dakar (which was after my infamous root canal incident), I had “the fungus” on my back. We call it “the fungus” because lots of volunteers get it and I don’t think anyone knows the actual name for it, anyways. It looks like blotchy white spots on your skin. It doesn’t itch or anything. I’ve heard several rumors about how you can get it, ranging from bathing in well water to sharing towels. I was doing neither of these things in the med hut in Dakar but when I got back to Guinea, I had “the fungus”. You treat it by washing the affected area with dandruff shampoo. It makes your towel smell like sulfur for months after.

THIS time after getting back from Dakar, I am having a host of skin issues. First there was the obvious second degree burns around my eyes, but I can’t blame Dakar for that, only my own idiocy. Then there are the two sores that won’t heal – one on each heel, one of which has been there for like 7 weeks now. Can’t blame Dakar for those either. But I CAN blame Dakar for the multiple staph (maybe?) infections and the weird lump in my armpit that Dr. Dawn today told me I should start taking antibiotics for. Woo. Hoo.

I blame Dakar.

So only one of the staph infections is still rearing it’s ugly head, the others have all gone away pretty easily. This lump thing though? I started to notice a lump under my skin in my armpit as we were leaving Senegal. It has gotten steadily larger since then. And redder. And firmer. And more painful. Last night I was tossing and turning all night just trying to find a comfortable position. I woke up in pain several times throughout the night. I can’t really close my arm because it hurts and if I have managed to close my arm, opening it back up hurts, too. Lifting my water bucket hurts. Sitting around doing nothing hurts. So I finally texted Dr. Dawn and described the issue and she was like, “well, I’m going to see you on Monday (going to the dentist again YAY!!!), but you should start taking your erithromicin and put warm compresses on it 3x a day.” I’m like awesome.

I blame Dakar.

At least this erithro will clear up any other lingering skin issues that are still hanging on. So there’s something, at least.

I’m going to the dentist on Monday because my upper right molar, second from the back, is giving me sporadic pain, mostly when chewed on. I was just going to avoid dealing with it because ignorance is bliss, but I was already talking to Dr. Dawn about other stuff so I mentioned it. It has a crown. Which means it has been root canaled. Which means it shouldn’t be giving me any more trouble. So for a minute I’m thinking it’s suspicious, then I run my tongue up over my gums and I feel it. This tiny, grain-of-sand sized little bump. And it all comes flooding back. This has happened before. A tooth that I had root canaled years ago suddenly had this same little bump on the gum. The bump kinda grew and I kinda ignored it until I was in to see my dentist and she noticed it. And sent me to my root canal dentist. Who told me I had an abcess. Or something. Basically the root canal wasn’t done super good and an infection had been festering inside the roots for YEARS since I had it done. The bump was pus trying to get out. It was deteriorating my jaw bone. Gross. So there are three options for dealing with this: do the root canal again, cut open the gums from the top and clean it out that way, pull the tooth and get an implant. None of these are cheap. I ended up going with option A. Which did not have a guarantee of working. I don’t know if this is the same tooth or not, but I think this time I’m going to go with option C. And take my dental issues to a whole new level with an implant.

But hey, maybe that’s not what’s going on, here. If it is, they’ll send me back to Dakar. And we all know what happens to me when I come back from THERE.

Someday I’ll have a clean bill of health again. Someday.

But while I’m waiting, I’ll still blame Dakar.

Well, Happy February!

So I was gone for most of the month of February. I started in Segou, which is Corinna’s site, for Le Festival Sur le Niger, which is a nearly week-long music and cultural festival on the banks of the Niger river. It was really fun. Aside from there being a soft serve ice cream machine (!!), there was lots of music and dancing, traditional masks, Touaregs and all their jewelry and other wares, an awesome keke lady, cheap beer, fried egg pockets and plates upon plates of delicious, fresh seafood…or…riverfood as it may be. Oh, did I mention the swimming pool? That, too.

My favorite stuff had to be the various mask exhibitions, where dancers would wear the masks (and full-length costumes) from their region of Mali and do a traditional dance, often with women singing traditional songs. One had a giant monkey costume. It was crazy! Also the Touareg dancing was really cool. I didn’t really buy anything because festival prices are so inflated and there were TONS of toubab tourists around who are willing to pay those prices, but there was lots of awesome hand-woven fabric, jewelry, pre-sewn clothes, bags, carvings, art…you name it, somebody was selling it. I did get hosed on one bracelet I bought from a Touareg that I thought was pure silver but turns my wrist green and that was pretty much what turned me off from trying to buy anything else. So I spent my money on fish and beer. I’ll get to carry that around on my hips for weeks, at least!!

So after a fun week in Segou with Corinna and Mark (and the couple dozen other volunteers who filtered in and out), we headed to Bamako to catch the bus to Dakar, Senegal for WAIST (West African International Softball Tournament). The bus ride there really wasn’t that bad. I was on a bus that we had completely bought out, so it was all volunteers and shockingly it was a tame ride! Phil came from Burkina which was awesome. They ran out of homestays this year so we didn’t get to have a nice relaxing expat house to stay in, but we did get to sleep on foam mattresses on the floor of an empty Peace Corps-owned house with about 50 other Mali volunteers. Definitely better than paying for a hotel.

So I played on the Refugees, which was a team made up of Guinea and Mauritania evacuees and one orphan volunteer from Togo. So I got to see most of the Guinea transfers who stayed in West Africa (Benin – Mary and Scott, Senegal – Katie and Ian, The Gambia – Kris, Burkina Faso – Phil and John). We lost our first two games on the first day and then the second day we were playing one of the Mali teams and we decided to jettison the softball thing and play kickball with a volleyball instead. Most. Epic. Game. Ever! I’ve never laughed so hard. Between our water gun sniper shooting people getting to first base, the no-shoe rule, Mary on one of our teammate’s shoulders rounding bases while eating a hotdog and drinking a beer (they fell down on the way to third, but managed to save their drinks – the hot dog was an unfortunate casualty), kidnapping the other team’s runner on third, throwing a giant inflatable softball at the first base-man to prevent him catching the kickball for an out, running the wrong way around the bases, rushing the pitcher’s mound when somebody got a kick, yelling our rally cry (“we’re here, we’re homeless, get used to us!”), kidnapping the Mali team’s (Desert Kawboys) horse-on-a-broomstick mascot, and the real brilliance – our game opener – releasing a cage full of birds on the pitchers mound hoping that maybe some of them would make it back to our original Peace Corps homes, it was insanity.

We won rock to scissors. No one knew the score but the WAIST officials needed to say who won the game so the coaches went to the mound and played rock-paper-scissors for the win. At the end, the Mali team said it was the best game they could have asked for. Us, too.

Sports aside, I spent a lot of time at the American Club pool, taking hot showers, eating more soft serve ice cream, cheering on other teams (The Gambia won the tournament for the social league), eating nachos (!! With jalapenos!!!!), going out for dinners and attending all the WAIST-sponsored parties. Most nights I only got like 3 hours of sleep. But it was worth it!!

After WAIST we (me, Corinna, Mark, Danielle and Scotty) stayed in Dakar an extra day to go out to Goree Island which is an island right off the coast that was once a waypoint in the slave trade. The Maison du Esclave (where they kept the slaves before putting them on the slave ships) was a haunting place, but the rest of the island is really touristy and I didn’t feel much like sticking around. But if you want to have a nice dinner on the water and buy some cool African art, Goree Island is the place for you.

The next day we headed out to Toubab Djialah. Best decision I’ve ever made in my life. It’s just this small village on the beach about an hour or so outside of Dakar, but it was AMAZING. We stayed at this hotel called Sobo Bade. It is run by this old French lady who speaks English and costs $8 a night for dormitory-style accommodations (but since the dorm was full, me, Scotty and Danielle got a private three-bed room for the same price). It was right on the beach, had a quaint little restaurant, tons of cats (owner must like cats), an awesome deck that looked out to the water with nice lounge chairs, a good, cheap restaurant right down the beach where we ate several times (Chez Baby’s), and great seashell hunting. I spent most of my time lounging and eating. The shrimp was AWESOME at Chez Baby’s and so was the calamari we had there the first night. I am becoming quite the seafood connoisseur. The only bad things that happened were I lost my iPod Nano on the beach and the ocean stole my sunglasses. Oh, and I gave myself second degree burns by unwittingly pouring a bucket of scalding hot water over my head (don’t ask). But I was so happy I didn’t even care. It was a great way to end the vacation.

So then came the epic journey back to Mali. We left Sobo Bade at 1pm on Friday. We got to Bamako at 6am on Sunday. It was AWFUL. We will not be getting back on any long distance buses anytime soon. Most of the reason it took so long was that we blew a tire at 3am Friday night in the middle of NOWHERE and wouldn’t you know it, the spare didn’t work. So we were stuck there for SIX AND A HALF HOURS waiting for someone to bring us a tire. Ugh. And then once we were on the road again, for the next 24 hours we stopped at LEAST once an hour for various things, mostly people having to go to the bathroom. I was eventually like, “ok, we’re stopped – EVERYONE off the bus, squeeze out what you got because this is ridiculous we are NOT stopping again in 45 minutes!” But I said it in English so no one understood me.

But we made it back in one piece. So after getting in at 6am Sunday morning, we had to be at Amy’s wedding by 10am. It was at the mayor’s office in some quartier on the other side of the river. It was a PAGAILLE and it was HOT. Amy and Daffe got married along with this other Malian couple (they do it two at a time). I watched standing on the top of a bench. After the ceremony, we went to the party at Daffe’s uncle’s house down the road. Lots of music, dancing, food and traditional stuff. Amy looked GORGEOUS and we were all so happy for her and Daffe. The whole Guinea staff came up to see the wedding so it was awesome to see all of them, too. They brought us pineapples and grapefruits from Guinea.

The real party was that night at the club across the street. We danced it up, had some cake, ate more beef. We left not long after Amy and Daffe did because we were EXHAUSTED. We went back to Raven’s and CRASHED.

And now I’m back to site. Which is great because I get lots of sleep here. But hot season is definitely upon us so I sweat A LOT. I’m sweating right now! I wish I had a fan. And, like, electricity to run the fan. That would be sweet. Everybody’s doing good here and I got my table today (YAY!!!). One note of bad news, though, the petite who does my laundry, Setu, is in Bamako. I’m not sure if it’s temporary or not but sadface I will have to do my own laundry tomorrow. Although in all likelihood when they see me doing it they will laugh and assign me a new petite.

C’est la vie.

One Down, Who Knows How Many To Go?

So remember that time (yesterday) when I said I was expecting Magellan to kill mice and leave them on my shoes? Turns out he (she?) eats them whole.

So I was coming into my house after the sun set and I lit my lantern and all of a sudden I see Magellan shooting across the floor and catching something behind one of my suitcases. I was hoping he was fighting one of the big mice but when I saw how easily he subdued whatever it was I thought it was just another cockroach (which he has also been diligent about catching and eating – dude needs his protein). But then I looked over there, and hanging out of my little kitten’s mouth is a long tail on one side and a little mouse face from the other. It wasn’t one of the really big mice, just a small one, but he caught one!! It was still alive and squirming around so I just decided to let Magellan do his thing and went back to what I was doing. Then I heard the crunch crunch crunch and I’m like “gross” and I look back over and all that’s left is the tail, still whipping around on the ground. Which he promptly ate. The frigging mouse must have still been squirming around in his BELLY, he swallowed that thing so fast!

So. At least I know I’ve got a hunter on my hands.

Also today I wrestled the family dog. My family thought this was CRAZY and I was kind of regretting doing it because that dog is DIRTY and she wanted to play MUCH longer than I did (luckily my bath quickly followed this filthy foray). But it’s rare to see her happy with her tail wagging, so I just kept on wrestling her, sitting in my chair. That’s one thing I’ve always liked doing: wrestling dogs. Especially big ones. She is not particularly big or strong so I beat her soundly without ever getting out of my chair. But she has spirit!

I wonder how big Yogi is now. He was fun to wrestle even when he was small because he was such a squirmer. And such a happy dog. Sniff, tear – I miss that little monster.

Night Time

So at night is when a village really comes alive. Everybody’s done working for the day, everybody’s had their bath and their dinner and it’s time to just hang out.

I usually shut myself up in my house after my dinner, read or write for a little while and fall asleep early, when I can still hear little kids running around outside my house. So as I am doing this very thing, paging through The Kite Runner, I hear a bunch of clapping and singing. So eventually I was like ok, I gotta go see what these people are doing. I wish I had an invisibility cloak or something because whenever I go out there it causes a ruckus, especially at a time I am not usually around (like after dark), and I just wanted to watch. But as I have said before, never think you can just go somewhere and stand in the back as a silent observer. It pretty much never happens.

So some of the older women are pounding millet. Which is, like, an all-day, all-night activity around here. I took a few drives with the pestle but my hands are definitely not pestle-worthy, so the women always laugh and take the pestle away after a few strokes. The men are all gathered around the little TV hooked up to the car battery watching a soccer game. I don’t know who was playing, but soccer players are HOT…has anyone else ever noticed this before? Hmm. All the little boys were playing some sort of game and they all had sticks. I tried to teach them to high five but they weren’t getting it so I gave up quick. And then out by the well were all the young women and girls. Singing, clapping and dancing.

Right when I walked up I think they were just about to disperse but then somebody calls out “Oumou Diarra!” and everybody rushes back to the circle. They want me to dance but I’m not comfortable enough here yet to dance. I would have done it in Santou, but I had already lived there for 8 months. It’s one thing to make a fool out of yourself in front of people you consider your friends, an entirely different thing to do it in front of people who are still strangers. So I succeeded in being able to stand in the circle and just watch. One of Yusuf’s daughters was leading the singing, and then everybody clapped rhythmically based on the song she was singing. The two oldest girls were doing most of the dancing and kicking up such a dust cloud it could be seen even in the moonlight.

I stayed for a couple of songs, then wandered back to my house, where I swear I hear the high pitched chirp(?) of a mouse pretty much nightly. Magellan hears it too and is curious about it but has yet to get into a fistfight with said mouse. One of these days I’m gonna find one of those fat bastards laid out on my shoes in the morning, a proud Magellan standing watch over the carcass.

A girl can dream.

TERMITES!

So when I got back from BKO this last time I noticed that my PACA book (if you are a PCV, you know it well) had been munched on. I blamed this on mice. But just now, I finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and went to pick up The Kite Runner, and IT was munched on! Then I saw all the little white bugs crawling on the book. TERMITES!!! So I start picking up all my books and papers, which have been unceremoniously dumped in a corner. Half of them have been munched. Some to the point of actually affecting readability. So I cleared them all out and swept the area and the chickens had a field day with the feast of squirming termite bodies that landed outside my door.

One Hundred Years of Solitude might be the worst affected so I am reading that next to get the book OUT of here. I’m going to put the rest of the books in plastic bags and hope that deters the literary feast they have become.

So I’m already knowing that my two pieces of wooden furniture are not going to make it very long. But hey, if they can just make it another year, I won’t care.

But I do want them to stop eating my books.

RIP Philip

So my neighbor Yusuf, who I hang out with sometimes and drink tea with, came by this morning saying something about my other chicken, Philip, being sick. And that he wanted to buy him. Or something. So he was like how much? And the chicken was a gift from the chef du village so I didn’t feel right about taking money for him so I just said to give me some piment out of his garden and he could have him. And he was like no, you don’t understand, come over to my house, “she” speaks French.

So I go over there. And there’s this rather coiffured lady sitting in the chair there, making herself some coffee. This is what most of Yusuf’s clients look like. Usually educated, from out of town, well-dressed, well-fed, nice coiffure. See, Yusuf is the marabout, or, witch doctor, we would probably call him in America. And he’s like, KNOWN apparently, so people come from all over the place to have him do his thing for them.

So I thought the lady just wanted to buy my chicken for dinner. But after sitting there for awhile, while Yusuf was drawing out a benediction on this tombstone-shaped piece of wood, I was like, dude it isn’t right to sell this chicken when he was a gift from the chef du village and I could give it to my family and they could have some protein, right? I really didn’t want to take money for him and would REALLY rather have the family eat him.

So after Yusuf had caught the chicken and tied his legs (it was clear he was sick, he was dripping liquid out of his mouth and his top waddle was turning black), I told them I didn’t feel right about selling the chicken. And they were arguing with me for a minute and then she said she would replace the chicken. And I’m like well if you can replace him, why don’t you just buy a different one at the market?

So through all this confusion, she’s finally like, but I need a WHITE chicken, NOW. And I’m all like why the heck do you need a white chicken? And she was like, you don’t believe, I don’t want to tell you. And that’s when I realized they needed the white chicken to do whatever marabout ritual Yusuf was going to do for her. It HAD to be white, and mine was the best one around, being fairly large, male, and (unarguably) very pristine white. So then I was like OH. Definitely didn’t want to mess up the poor lady’s sacrifice. So I said, well, if you replace him you can kill him.

So Yusuf hung him upside down on his moto handles and hung his big knife next to him. I wish I had a picture of this. Then he gave me 100 francs and told me to go buy tea. And I was like do I look like a petite to you? I ended up giving it to a petite to go get the tea (and then I gave her a bon bon). Then Yusuf and the client got on his moto and went off into the bush with my chicken.

Sorry Philip. You would have died today anyways.

So when they got back Philip was all dead and she cleaned him and started to make food. I was like oh, so he’s going to get eaten after all. I had like three lunches. The first was the toh Yusuf’s (first) wife made, and she makes a pretty good toh sauce. I wouldn’t have eaten it at all if it wasn’t considered rude, though, because Sita was making BASI for lunch and I friggin love basi so I wanted to save as much room in my tummy as possible. So I ate a few handfuls of the toh. Then a petite brought the basi over and I started to eat that. Yusuf had a few handfuls of that and I was going to enjoy more of it but he took it away and told me I had to eat Philip with them. She (her name was Ami) had made this spaghetti dish with oil, garlic, onions, tomatoes, Maggi and black pepper, and then had cooked Philip up on top of that. So then I had to eat THAT. It was tasty. But I still looked longingly at my unfinished basi, which after all of that I was clearly too full to enjoy any more of. When we were done eating, the rest of the family got to dig into it, including the kids, so everybody got a little protein out of it anyway.

So the bottom line is I ate both of my chickens this week. But both of the families who feed me got some protein out of it, so a good sacrifice in all.

Petite Setu washed all my dirty clothes today, including my Dakar purse, which was FILTHY. So that’s good. Every time she washes my clothes, the girls ask to have certain articles. And I’m like look when I leave I will leave all my clothes for you guys. But for now, I need these clothes! Especially my swimsuit, which is the article they asked to have this time.

So I usually give her bon bons (candy) for doing the laundry because her mom won’t let me pay her. But today as we were hanging up the finished wash, she asked for “macaroni” which refers to any kind of pasta, really. And I was like I don’t have any, which is actually not true, because I do have one or two macaroni and cheeses hanging around but if she thinks I’m giving her a box of Trader Joe’s shells and cheese she is MISTAKEN. She says I can get it at the boutique. I ask how much it is and she says 350 CFA, which is like, less than a dollar. And I’m like fine, because I originally wanted to pay her like 500 CFA each time she did my laundry, so it’s still a deal! I tried to just give her the money but she was like no, you have to go with me and buy it, I guess because if I just gave her the money it would be like I paid her and she bought spaghetti with her earnings. This way I could just give her the spaghetti. So after we get the spaghetti she’s like come over to my house, let’s make it! And I’m like crap. I am SO not hungry right now after the mess of food I ate for lunch and I really want to take a nap and I have no desire to cook right now. Because at this point I am thinking she wants me to make an American sauce for it. But it turns out she didn’t, she did the cooking, she just wanted me to sit there with her while she did it and then eat with her.

So here’s how they make spaghetti: they put the “oil” (which I am now suspecting is shea butter) in the pot and let it melt. Then they mash up tomatoes with their fingers. Then they put the tomato skins in the oil, leave it for a minute. Then they put some water in, then the rest of the tomato stuff, then more water. They let that cook awhile and then they add the Maggi cube (MSG) and about a salt shaker’s worth of salt (I’m feeling the heart attack already). Then they break up the spaghetti into little inch and a half long pieces and put that in. It cooks in the sauce until it’s basically just lightly coated and has soaked up lots of salt and water. Then you eat it. It’s not bad tasting at all, but it sure as shit is not healthy. But the kids were all really excited about it.

That’s one thing: they do know how to share here. I mean, Setu earned that spaghetti fair and square, but instead of keeping it all to herself she shared it with like 10 other kids, plus me and her mom. I’ve noticed they do this with candy I give them, too. Like to the point of sharing a lollipop, which is gross, but hey, they’ve got the spirit.

I also taught all the kids sitting around watching us cook how to cover their mouths when they cough, because they kept coughing on me. I was like CUT THAT OUT I’ve got a big month ahead of me and I don’t wanna be sick for it!!

So we’ll see if that sticks.

Also, kind of a non-sequitor, but I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day and I had asked her to send me one of my textbooks from college that I had never read and she was like, “I don’t know how you got all those A’s, you never read shit.” And it’s true. I would be surprised if I even got through three of the at least a hundred books I was assigned in college (she also said it made her feel so good that she had spent all that money on those books – but in my defense, I didn’t KNOW I wasn’t gonna read them at the time of purchase). One I know I finished was for a class on violence vs. non-violence. It was called Remains by William Crapser. It was a firsthand account of the Vietnam War and a great book. But I couldn’t for sure name any others that I definitely got all the way through. Because I probably didn’t. I should have brought more of them to Africa with me, because I read all the time here. And then I could review my education and when I get back maybe put it to better use. Maybe.

Back in the Saddle

So I think many Peace Corps Volunteers could describe the apprehension one has when returning to one’s site. We all know that once we get there, we will be content. Kids will come running down the path to carry our stuff, babbling in a language we don’t particularly understand, huge smiles on their faces (how did they even know I got back??). We will slip right back into it, we will remember what we love about living alone in a small African village. It’s the pulling yourself away from your ExPat life that’s the hard part and that is exemplified by the simple packing your stuff and getting your ass to the taxi gare. Once you are comfortably (question mark?) seated in your taxi on your way home, you sigh a big breath of relief and resign yourself to the ride, where you have nothing but time to think. In fact, my taxi ride is even too short for my thought process now. In Guinea the shortest taxi ride I might feasibly take would be about 2 hours. But for the most part, I was looking at a 4-6 hour ride (if Allah decided to bless the taxi) or if I was truly lucky, a 12-14 hour stint. Which gives you a LOT of time to think. And I really enjoyed it. Guinea is such a beautiful place. To just sit in that taxi, thinking, looking out at some of the most beautiful sights I’ve had the pleasure of routinely experiencing in my life – that’s a blessing, my friends.

My taxi ride here is an hour to an hour and a half. Not exactly the same thing. I barely get that puppy grinding before I find I’m already home. It’s a relief and a disappointment, but mostly a disappointment.

And it’s a paved road. What’s with that?

Anyway. When I got back, Hawa was bursting to tell me that the three-legged puppy had regained use of his injured fourth leg. Both he and the grown family dog were there to greet me right when I got back and Gimpy just waltzed right into my house as soon as the door was open, like he owns the place. I thought maybe the little guy would have forgotten me, but no, his butt was wagging a million miles a minute when he saw me and the first thing he did after sniffing around for the leftovers bowl was plop down on his blanket and take a nap. I keep telling him, “you are not my dog! This is not your house!” Apparently he doesn’t speak English.

I haven’t gotten my cat back yet, though. That’s kind of weird. I hope Magellan hasn’t kicked the bucket like the last one.

So shortly after I got back, Drissa came by, and then the teenage boy who lives across from me who never speaks and whose name I don’t know came to the door holding my black chicken, Chester. He said that Chester is sick. But I didn’t know what he wanted me to do about it. I saw what he meant when he put Chester down and he sort of drunkenly wandered around, making weak cockadoodledoos constantly. That is not chickenlike behavior. So I told Drissa to tell the family to eat him for dinner. So we did. They originally brought his hacked up carcass to me in a bowl but I was like just put him in the sauce, dude. RIP Chester. I hope we all don’t get Mad Chicken Disease now. That would suck.

My first momma Seli brought me a big bag of peanuts in a 25 kg World Food Programme rice sack. I was like WTF. I think she said some woman sent them over as a gift to me but I will have Drissa and/or Khalifa confirm this story for me the next time they are around. I know I won’t eat the peanuts. I’d rather have them made into sauce. So tomorrow I’m going to give the peanuts to the family and tell them to make me a friggin na tiga dege (peanut butter sauce) with tomatoes. Since it’s tomato season.

So while I was living Life #2 in BKO this last week, Raven pointed out some Moringa trees that were seeding and so I hopped out of the car and proceeded to do seed collection along with a much taller counterpart (I would have collected like a third as many pods without his help). Then we made Ousmane help us sensibilize the locals who were watching me like I was a crazy person about Moringa, it’s uses and benefits. Our (non-Peace Corps) friends looked at us like we were crazy while we were sensibilizing. But that’s my f-ing job and I am sooooo putting that on my quarterly report. DIFFERENCE MADE.

My plan is to create a tree nursery with these seeds and then go around to all the compounds and plant 2-3 in each one and explain why they should protect it and let it grow and then USE it. Gotta find a good spot for a pepiniere. If I get them open-root planted before I leave for the Segou Music Festival they should be a decent size when I get back. And I could start outplanting them in March. Go me.

So Drissa is going to put together a meeting to decide what kind of latrine we want to build at the school and I will get that proposal written while I am in Segou. My pump proposal was accepted by the PC authorities and forwarded to the funding authorities, so here’s crossing my fingers for funding.

Gimpy wants to spend the night in here. But he is farting like nobody’s business so I might have to kick him out. He’s so much bigger than he was a week ago!! Nowhere near as beautiful as Yogi, though. Just saying.

Meeting. Projects.

So today there was a big meeting between the Chef du Village and all the Chefs du Famille at the dugutigi’s house. It was to discuss what projects they want me to undertake in the light of the fish farm being very difficult and facing the problem of water.

So they decided they want to have a pump at the school and also a latrine. I think these are great projects. I think we’ll do the latrine first because it is a lot easier and cheaper. The pump is going to be hard. Expensive. Haoua said she sent me past budgets/proposals for these types of projects so I will have a jumping off point.

They want to get started working on it like right away, like next week, and I had to explain that if I have to find money for it, getting the money is going to take a little bit of time. Especially for the pump, because it will be so expensive I will have to do a PCPP project for it and that usually takes like 4 months to get enough donations. Then another month or two to actually get the money. THEN we can dig the pump. Le sigh.

But the latrine I think we can start pretty quickly. I mean, they can at least dig the hole, even if we have to wait a bit to get the money to buy the concrete and whatnot.

They haven’t entirely given up the idea of the fish farm, though. So…we’ll see what happens with that. Drissa also said there are a bunch of wells that are broken, and we can definitely do something about that so I’m going to push to get started on that maybe while we are waiting for the money to come in for the pump.

Hey, look, I might actually get some projects done!! Fancy that.

I’m headed back to Bamako tomorrow to look over the aforementioned project proposals and also to meet with Chris about a potential Water & Sanitation video he has the idea to shoot. And I’m totally going to make nachos. Or SOMETHING I can put sour cream on. I haven’t had sour cream in ages.

I also cleared my February vacation plans with my homologue and my supervisor, and Haoua, so that’s ready to roll. Have I mentioned these plans before? I’m going to the Segou Music Festival aka “Le Festival Sur le Niger” Feb 3-7 and then hanging out for a day or two before it’s time to head to Senegal for WAIST. Then we are going to stay a few extra days in Senegal and do some touristy stuff before coming back and hitting Amy’s wedding. So I will finally start using some of my accrued vacation days. Haven’t even used one yet and I’m almost 14 months in.

Huzzah!

Baseball Comes to Africa

So we had another crayon party before lunch. I still don’t get why they all feel the need to fight over crayons and paper – there is plenty for everyone. In the course of one of these fights, the first crayon got broken. I’m actually surprised it took this long!

So after the crayon party I was explaining to Drissa that I am going to Senegal next month to play in a softball tournament (WAIST). He had no idea what I was talking about. Then it occurred to me that among the things that were sent to me from Guinea, I had two baseball gloves and two baseballs! So I busted out the gloves and a ball and after spending five minutes trying to teach Drissa how to put the glove on, we played catch! The kids thought this was really weird. I think Drissa might have thought that catch was baseball. He said he has never seen it before, not even on TV. But he was having fun. Every time one of us would drop the ball there was a mad fighting scramble amongst the children to recover the ball and throw it back to us. I would let them play with the ball and gloves when we are not using them, but the ball is hard and somebody would definitely get hurt. And they’d probably find a way to destroy the gloves.

Like they destroyed my cards. Word to the wise: bring at least 2 decks of cards with you to Africa. One you can lend out to the kids, because they will ask you EVERY DAY. The other you keep for yourself to play solitaire or to play with adults – DON’T LEND THIS DECK OUT! You will regret it.

We had to stop playing catch when a ball I threw hit the screen on my door and separated it from the doorframe, leaving a hole that tomorrow I will try to patch with duct tape.

It was really windy today and the dust was coming into my house like WHOA, so I put up the door curtain and one window curtain that I had had made in Guinea (also made it here and I didn’t even ask for them!). I had never gotten around to putting them up in Guinea because what I wanted them for was to keep petites from looking in my door and windows at me all the time but Yogi proved to be way better than any curtain because with Yogi around they never even dared come past the gate. Problem solved.

The puppy is always wanting to come in my house now. Only two things I don’t like about it: he pees on the floor and he is always trying to eat out of the cat box. Just a fact of life: dogs like to eat poo. Also since his leg is messed up I can’t give him a bath. As soon as his leg is healthy or at least not hurting him I am giving him a bath. With the doggie shampoo my grandma sent me. Speaking of his leg, it is getting better. It used to be that if you touched it at all or if he sat on it he would yelp but now it has to be bent in a certain direction for it to hurt. Of course just as I write this I hear him screaming from out in the courtyard. Somebody must have hit him. In the leg. I don’t really want him to make my house his home but at the same time I’d rather let him stay here until he is healed so they can’t hurt him so easy. Poor little guy. He just tried to crawl through the hole I made in my door screen today. Dude really wants to live here.

Yogi's Alive!!

I just talked to Ousmane II! He was in Telimele so we had a good connection this time. The first thing I asked is how is Yogi??? Apparently he was in Telimele getting him his rabies shot. What a champ. Shows you who your real friends are.

Whenever I hear Ousmane’s voice (this is only the 2nd time now), I miss Guinea so much. He is a real friend and it took having to leave before I really realized that. The fact that he is taking such good care of Yogi is testament to that. I think he might have said he might bring Yogi up to me sometime but if not he said I have to come and get him before I go back to America. Not that he wouldn’t keep him if it turned out I couldn’t take him home with me. I wonder if he’s still just as hyper. I wonder if they’ve let him go free in the village and if so how many beatings he has received.

He said that they are doing his marriage to Lundi next week. In true West African fashion, this is about 2 months late (the original idea was it would happen last November). I’m really sad I can’t be there.

It just reminds me how hard it was to make real friends and that by the time I manage to make any real friends here it will be time to go. And there really aren’t too many options for friends since nobody speaks French and my Bambara sucks. This is a very lonely experience.

Anyway it’s really good to know Yogi is still kicking and that he is happy. I really miss that monster.

Another Guinea-fabulous thing that happened today was Adama (trainer) came to my site for a check-in and brought all my stuff that came from Guinea. FINALLY! My big green trunk, two suitcases and a giant rice sack. My family must think I am the patroniest patron because I have so much stuff. And it IS a lot of stuff, comparatively. I am actually myself shocked at the amount of stuff I have acquired here in Africa. I showed up here with 4 bags (2 checked suitcases, a carry-on and a small backpack) and have since acquired what seems like an excessive amount of stuff. How did this happen? Have I really received so many packages from the States? How did I end up with all these clothes? I have like 4 sets of sheets – how did THAT happen? It just occurred to me that Daffe did NOT send my American pillow. Rats!! That’s ok, Scotty gave me a big fluffy pillow she didn’t want. But you know what he DID send? MY MAGIC 8 BALL!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I’m going to go through the clothes and give a big pile of it to my family. They don’t have a lot of clothes so they will probably appreciate some additions, even if they happen to be a little oil or bleach-stained. At least they’re not ripped! That’s a plus!

Oh and my grandma sent crayons, which came with all the stuff today so after giving everybody Werther’s (also courtesy of grandma), I busted out the crayons and some paper and about 20 kids went CRAZY. They were fighting over crayons and I’m like guys…there are 64 crayons and only 20 of you, there’s plenty to go around! But they don’t speak English so the only thing that worked was holding the crayons over my head and doling them out to each little hand one-by-one. Hawa took over being crayon-tigi aka nazi and by some miracle of the universe all 64 crayons ended up back in the box when everyone was done drawing their trees, huts and cars. AND none of them were broken. How about THAT? One kid even drew something and then wrote OBAMA on it. Everyone wanted me to look at what they drew, even if it was just scribbles and give them a personal “a kanyi!” (that’s good!) at least three times. I wonder if I will ever get them to be creative about what they draw. I think they learn to draw a tree, a hut and a car at school so that’s all they think they can make. We’ll have to work on this. In smaller groups. But anyway, grandma, the crayons were a big hit!!! I’ll send you pictures.

Want to know what’s a good diet? Giardia! Or whatever it is that is currently giving me gastro-intestinal distress. You have no appetite! So that fits in well with my goal of shedding a few pounds before WAIST, where I know I’m just going to put it all back on. This illness reminds me of what I had that week in Guinea when I thought I was over-bleaching my water. The first night, especially. Because I vomited all night and had to curl up into a little ball in order to get just a tiny bit of relief. That’s what it was like all week last time. Now I just have no appetite. And my tummy/intestines are always rumbling. And my burps smell like Cheerios (weird, right?). Whatever it is, it’s not from over-bleaching. And I’d put money on it having come from those raw tomatoes I ate those two days that Setu (the petite who does my laundry) brought over. They were already all sliced up and in some sort of dressing, so I just ate them. Don’t tell Traian. Well, he’s not my doctor anymore, so it doesn’t matter what you tell him. Don’t tell Dr. Dawn. But I’m one of those people that just rides stuff out so I don’t have to take any medicine so if it goes away on its own (which giardia can, but amoebas evidently can’t) I consider it a coup.

Oh yeah, so the family puppy? Somebody (not going to name names but momma Seli said it was one of the younger boys) either kicked him or threw him on the ground and his hind leg is all messed up. He hobbles around on three legs with the injured leg pulled up tight and kind of off-looking. Like maybe it is out of its socket or something. But I don’t have the guts to jerk it straight and see if it pops back in. He whimpers. If he falls or accidentally touches that leg to something he screams. He came to my door this morning and pushed it open and just came inside. Probably because I sometimes feed him what Magellan doesn’t eat. I gave him some food (and water, which he drank like he’d been trekking through a desert all day, then proceeded to pee it onto my floor like 3 times) and put the Peace Corps-issue blanket on the ground (which I’ll never use because THIS is cold season and a sheet suffices) and laid him on it. He spent most of his day sleeping on the blanket or trying to eat the cat poop out of the cat box. He wandered out about 4 or so and hasn’t been back. I haven’t named him, I just call him Puppykins. This probably means the family will kill him when I am out of town if his leg doesn’t get better. It won’t be any use to tell them three-legged dogs do just fine in America. Oh well. The circle of life, right?

Anyway. It’s nice to have my stuff, nice to hear Ousmane II’s voice, and nice to know that Yogi is doing well. It definitely could have been a worse day. Except that I had no appetite to eat the peanut sauce momma Setu made for dinner – RATS!

Cats. Fish

So Seli is making me give Leif Ericksen back. She gave me a black cat and he was immediately exploring everywhere and quite a nice cat, so I named him Magellan. Then he cried all night long. And all of the second night. I had to get out of bed at like 5am because he was clinging to the window screen, screaming. Had to get him down. Turned out there was another cat outside, which is what was driving him crazy. Another cat that looked just like him. His brother (sister?). In the interest of getting another hour of sleep, I opened the door and waited for the second cat to come inside so they would shut up. He (she?) did come inside. And they immediately shut up. I named him Leif Ericksen.

Well apparently Leif was supposed to be Seli’s cat, and when she found out they were both in my house, she asked for one back. I’m like but they’re so happy together! They’ll just scream for weeks, pining after each other! But my Bambara sucks so I couldn’t explain any of that and told her I’d give one back tomorrow. It’s going to be Leif. Because he’s more skittish. Magellan already likes to purr and sit on my lap while I read, so he stays. It makes me realize how freaking feral that last cat was. I’m not really sad he’s gone.

I think our dog might be pregnant. But I could be totally wrong. If she is, I know I am going to want a puppy. Sigh. Freaking animals!!

Not much else has been going on. I biked around with Drissa yesterday looking at potential sites for this fish farm they want to build. I’m shaking my fist at our APCD and trainer for showing this fish farming stuff to our homologues because now they want to do it and it’s a really expensive and complicated project. And they’ve got their hearts all set on it but the one problem they apparently didn’t think about with any of these potential sites is: water. Where are they going to get the water? This basically cistern is going to need to have its water changed regularly. And that’s a lot of water. Adama (trainer) is coming to my site on Monday so I’m going to discuss it with him. Like if we just dug a well next to it and set up a simple pump maybe we could do it. Have it drain into a soak pit. I don’t know. Personally I don’t think this is a good idea, but it’s the one the village came forward with and the cardinal rule of a Peace Corps project is to do whatever project the village wants to do. If you try to force a project on them, it’s probably not going to be successful. So maybe Adama can help me with this on Monday.

I finished the third Twilight book. I seriously hate Bella. What do Edward and Jacob see in her??? She’s freaking obnoxious and needy and weak and indecisive and insecure and I just want to SLAP her. I blame Stephenie Meyer (the author). Bella doesn’t have to be this awful to still have the same dynamic. I mean, I’m not even rooting for her! UGH! Luckily there is only one book left. Which I will HAVE to read since I’m all sucked into it now. Maybe the movies won’t be as bad. I don’t remember hating Bella that much in the first movie. But that could also be because I like Kristen Stewart. Hmm.

Half-way Point

So I have a sixth sense about animals, much in the way I do about babies. My original Malian cat, I think I mentioned, ended up dead when I came back from IST/Christmas. Today, as I returned from my New Years celebration, one of my moms, Seli, presented me with a new kitten. I never named the old cat because I just had a sense he wasn’t going to last. And he didn’t. That’s why he was called kitty. This cat, I have already named. His/her name is Magellan. Because he/she is an explorer and the first thing it did when I put it down in the house was explore everywhere, including finding food, water and the litter box. So I think this cat might stick around awhile.

Today marks 13 months in Africa and is the halfway point of my 26-month commitment to Peace Corps. It both seems like it’s flown by and taken forever. And it seems both like there is so long and not enough time until I get to go home again.

Double Life

So one thing that is not really touched upon in many Peace Corps blogs or other writings is the double life we lead as PCVs. There’s your village life, which is the one everybody talks about because it’s so profound and life-changing. And then there’s your expat life, when you spend time with other Americans/expats. Which isn’t very profound at all, but lets you blow off some steam and get your feet clean.

An easy way to distinguish between one’s village life and one’s expat life is a simple evaluation of wardrobe. In my village, I’ve got nobody to impress. So I wear my Macabi skirts or pagnes or my crappy, oversized ripped up dirty jeans (which as I have mentioned before elicits lots of “heeeeeeeeeey!”s from my village). On top, tank tops, stretched from the washboard, occasionally bleach-spotted or oil-stained. And occasionally, if I’ve got one on hand, a complet made of African fabric.

On the other side of my double life, I’ve got my expat clothes. My bedazzled, more fitting jeans (which I plan to de-dazzle tomorrow), cute tops, strapless bras, dresses. All of which I have left at Raven’s house in Bamako because I will never have occasion to wear them in my village so why haul them around?

Another telling sign: prevalence of hair on legs. I always shave my pits but NEVER my legs in my village. But once I’m in expat territory? I bust out the razor. Deodorant, too. I have taken to not wearing it in my village but can’t live without it otherwise. Hair conditioner. Even in those rare moments I wash my hair at site, there’s no way I’m going to use conditioner. Another item I have left at Raven’s.

Entertainment. Site: books, iPod, kids, animals. Expat world: laptops, televisions, internet, movies, iPod on speakers, dancing.

Food. Site: millet. Expat world: pizza and fried chicken burgers with bacon…and a strawberry milkshake.

In Guinea my experience in the expat world was extremely limited. I lived a two day hike away from Conakry (unless I happened to be able to catch the twice-weekly direct car which took 12 hours or so). In Conakry the only luxuries available were Chinese food, so-so ice cream, shawarma and beach bar pizza (accompanied by cold Guiluxe or Skol – well, sometimes cold). I never once went dancing. Nor did I ever go over to the Marine house. Half the time our VCR or DVD player in the house would be broken. But there WAS air conditioning. And hot showers.

Here in Mali, Bamako has a lot more to offer. Not only are there a slew of Chinese places, but there’s the Broadway Café which serves amazing strawberry milkshakes and pretty much whatever diner food your local mom-n-pop serves. There’s Appaloosa, a sub-par but better-than-nothing Tex-Mex restaurant. The Thai place (like heaven on a plate). Daguido’s Italian (quite good). Tons of real bars with beer on tap. Dance clubs. Internet cafes in spitting distance of wherever you’re standing. I’ve never been to the transit house but I bet there’s air conditioning and hot showers. I assume most of these things have sprung up and been successful here due to the sizable expat community. I mean, it’s no Dakar (Senegal), but it ain’t Conakry either.

I think the disparity between these two lives we lead is one reason some people end up ETing (early-terminating). In one sense, you do need it to blow off steam and get away from your village and be an American for a minute, but on the other hand I think some people get too caught up in it if they’re immersed in it too long and they are afraid to go back to their villages or they remember how fun and easy life was in America and just go back. Which is why Conakry was kind of the perfect balance. It had those elements of relaxation and indulgence you need every now and then but not so much that you wanted to stay there forever. When I came back after almost a month in Dakar on med hold, I was afraid to go back to my village, I remember. I was afraid I didn’t know how to live there anymore and that it would be like starting over and that all the tastes of Western delectability I’d been bubbling in for the last month had cooked me to a different consistency, but of course this turned out not to be true. I also thought this the other day as I was coming back from 3 weeks in Bamako. Which also turned out not to be true. You forget how easy it is to slip back and forth between these two lives.

So just remember that, future volunteers: just go back to your site. You won’t regret it.

On another note, Drissa told me today that the first project our chef du village wants us to work on is pisciculture, or fish farming. I was like awesome, that’s the one session I didn’t pay attention to because I was like yeah right. There’s no water. How are we gonna raise fish? Turns out there is some sort of river 5k away that in the rainy season has lots of fish that just pass us by and the dugutigi wants to harness this resource. So. When I get back from New Years and Tiken Jah, on va commencer.

Back at Site...briefly

Is it weird to say I missed toh? I was out of my site for three weeks – two weeks for in-service training (my third, awesome) and nearly a week to celebrate Christmas with the other Guinea transfers in Bamako. In that time, there was rice and sauce to be had for lunch at IST (though not particularly delectable versions of said delicacy), but no toh. Even more, I missed basi. Which has yet to make an appearance since my re-emergence in my village.

Yesterday I arrived back at my village in a good, old-fashioned bush taxi. I find bush taxis much more comfortable than the “bashi” mini-buses, since you get to sit facing forward with windows open and can see what is going on in the world outside.

I had kind of been dreading returning to my village (a feeling I never had in Guinea but attribute to my desire to always get back to my dog ASAP – god I miss my dog!!). I hadn’t had a lot of quiet time in the last three weeks, being constantly surrounded by Americans, dinners, running water and a flat screen television. I knew I wouldn’t get any quiet time when I got back, either. And I haven’t. True to form my family has wanted me to be out and around all the time and all I really want to do is catch up on my sleep.

Though I am ITCHING to start a project so when I get back from celebrating New Years I am going to get Drissa on a concerted search for a project the community wants to do. My clock is ticking, I’ve only got a year (and a month) left. Let’s get this show on the road.

So while I was gone there appears to have been a host of birthing activity. There are at least three new cows. Either they were purchased, or they were birthed over the last three weeks. The sheep that was born shortly after I got here is HUGE (at least twice as big as he was when I left for IST). There is also a puppy. And two kittens (my cat apparently died…who knows the circumstances? I reserve the right to use the name Macguyver for a different animal). There are a ton of new chicken chicks. But the one goatlet whose mom was sick right before I was leaving looks kind of sickly (I’m pretty sure the mom died cause I haven’t seen her) and the other goatlet doesn’t hang out with him anymore. Way to shun an orphan, geez! Oh AND there is a baby donkey!!!! Cutest thing ever. I want to touch it. But he’s skittish.

Also, the family dog healed just fine. I was worried her nasty wounds were going to get infected and go septic and kill her because she insisted on laying in the ashy dust of the kitchen hut, pressing the open wounds right into the ground, leg all swollen, but she’s got fresh skin over all the wounds and her leg is a normal size again. So that’s good.

I have two huge mice who think my house is their house. Today I was laying on my bed reading in broad daylight and there they were just frolicking and chasing each other all around the house. I almost threw my book at them.

The family wants me to take one of the new kittens (where did they get them??), but they seem just as feral as the old one was so I don’t know how well it will work out.

So my mom sent me three People magazines from incredibly different periods of time (how did you manage that?) and those were a bit of a hit with everyone, including the kids who insisted on fighting over them which seems dumb because they have all the time in the world to peruse them one at a time if they each want to get a really good look at every single picture. The spread that was the biggest hit was three of those Dancing with the Stars chicks in their underwear talking about how they stay fit. Racy shots. Shocking for the villageois.

So for anybody who was wondering, I spent my Christmas Eve at Raven’s in Bamako, enjoying chicken “Caesar” salad and baked potato bar with a bunch of Guinea transfers. Christmas Day was spent at an Expat house in Bamako, which meant electricity, TV, air conditioning, a real kitchen, etc... It was actually a pretty good Christmas. I’d venture to say the food was better than last Christmas and the not having to avoid falling bullets made it slightly calmer. Slightly.

So I’m headed back to Bamako on Thursday to go to the bank and celebrate the New Year. Then I am going to stay for the Tiken Jah concert on the 2nd (gonna be AWESOME!) and Paul coming into town on the 3rd since he was not around for Christmas. Then I’ll be back again for a month before the Segou Music Festival, WAIST (in Senegal!) and Amy’s wedding! My second bridesmaid-ship (dad’s wedding was first). And I get TWO outfits out of it because African weddings involve costume changes.

4 months until I’m 26. Scary. I’m thinking about celebrating by jet skiing on the Niger River. And making nachos. Or burritos. And margaritas…ok now the wheels are turning.

Cougar for Breakfast aka Happy Anniversary

Today is my one year anniversary of living in Africa. One year ago, I arrived at the Conakry airport (having just vomited in the airplane bathroom) and made my way with the rest of my 29-person stage to the Conakry bureau compound, bursting with anticipation, excitement and queasiness. I remember being struck by the filthiness of Conakry – all the trash and dirt and ramshackleness of the whole place. And I remember arriving there a few months later after my MedEvac to Dakar and as I wove through the Conakry night, thinking the word, “home”.

A year later, I now have a whole new home to adjust to.

Today I arrived in Bamako. I went to the Chinese place by her house for lunch and perhaps due to my presence they put on a France 24 in English and among other (sometimes enraging) stories, I found out that Dadis Camara (Guinea’s de facto president and leader of the CNDD) was shot yesterday by the head of his presidential guard (who is accused of being responsible for the Sept. 28 attack in the stadium that left at least 157 dead). Other sources said he was taken to Morocco for medical care by a Burkinabe airplane dispatched from Senegal. Some are convinced he is dead. After all, Conte was dead for about a week before his actual death was announced. Some wonder if Dadis (even if he is alive) will be allowed to fly back into Guinea.

France 24 made it sound like “a flesh wound!” but I don’t know. The problem is that the only information journalists get out of Guinea comes from the filter of the CNDD so no one really knows what’s going on there other than maybe observant, semi-connected Guineans living in the capital.

I don’t know what will happen to Guinea. It depresses me.

Today when I arrived at Madina Marche I was overwhelmed and trying to find a taxi to where I was going and at some point in the mix a Malian police officer waved me over to him. In Guinea, I would have pretended not to see him and hastily walked the other way. But here, I went over to him and he gave me directions to where I was going. Very nice guy. I also ended up eating my Chinese food next to two Malian police officers, one of whom was originally from Guinea, who were very nice. It’s amazing what an effective governing body can do.

So if you were wondering, “cougar for breakfast” refers to Raven’s boyfriend Ousmane’s inability to pronounce “Quaker” (as in oatmeal), so in the morning he will ask “Are we having Cougar for breakfast?” And Raven responds, “only if you go catch it!”

Anyway. Happy Anniversary to me (as melancholy as it may be).

Once Again A Fowl Owner

So my family left me alone today. I don’t know if they sensed my hyperventilation yesterday or what. But Setu knocked on the window to give me my bath water at 6:15ish and I went out and got it. I didn’t sleep very well because I kept hearing dogs fighting in the night, the loser yelping for mercy and it not sounding like they were getting it, and I was just imagining that it was our dog who was being ripped apart, already in her weakened state. A couple of times I almost got out of bed and went outside to make sure she was ok. In the morning she was in the same state as last night so at least she didn’t get in any further fights (although today somebody told me it was a person who hurt her yesterday, not a dog; I’m going to investigate this further).

So after my bath they brought me breakfast which was the millet rice type thing with tomato sauce. Then I spent time in my house reading a new book (finished Obama’s book and am now on an inherited book called Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins). Drissa came a little after nine to go over to the village chief’s house. He made me change out of my pants into my Obama wrap skirt. This still annoys me but I go with it.

So we went over to the chief’s house and basically spent four hours sitting around staring at one another. Luckily there was a puppy. So I spent most of my time with the puppy sleeping on my lap or playing with him, or with a small baby in my arms. We had toh for lunch, and I actually had what I believe to be a corn-based toh, first time for that. I gotta say, I kinda think all toh is the same, having had three different kinds. But the sauce was good because it was spicy. Now THERE’S a lady who’s not afraid of piment!!

So after countless shots of tea and lunch and everyone asking why I am not married and will I marry someone from the village (to which I reply if I can have 4 husbands sure, I could waste one on a villager – they find this hilarious), we decide to take our leave. I am gifted two chickens. One white one from the chief and one black one from his younger brother. They are both cocks but I guessed wrong at first and everyone laughed because I couldn’t tell the difference. So the black one is named Chester and the white one is named Philip. My family thinks it is weird that I named them but they are used to my affection for animals now so they weren’t really surprised. My dad tied purple strips around their legs so everyone will know they are my chickens. Luckily this time they don’t have to live in my house!!

So when I got home my family said my phone had been ringing and I had 6 missed calls from 3 different numbers: my dad, a private number and some number I did not recognize. Soon after I got back the private number rang again and guess who it was: Ousmane II! The connection REALLY sucked so I did not get to talk to him at all really other than to say “ca va???” I really wanted to ask how Yogi was but in the three times he tried to call I couldn’t really understand him at all. Nor did I get a number for him so I couldn’t call back. Maybe he will try again another day and I can get a number for him.

But anyway that means two things. First, that Daffe has been to my site and gotten my stuff and delivered my letters (which is how Ousmane II would have gotten my number). This means I might get my stuff at IST! Yay! Second, it means the envelope I gave to the Mali driver who said he would give it to the Guinea driver the night before the last Guinea staff went back to Conakry did so and they gave it to Yama as I had indicated so some of my last requests and the notes for Ousmane II and Balde got out to them (with pictures!) plus the rubber bone I sent for Yogi that I had received in a package from my grandma that was delivered to me here in Mali after evacuation.

So Ousmane II is now the proud owner of whatever stuff he got out of my house, and I hope he listened to what I said in the letter and gave some stuff to Ousmane and Aissatu Bah but who will ever know.

I really want to go back to Guinea, even just to say a real goodbye and bring people pictures and buy some fabric I never got around to (forestier fabric and leppi, the fabric of the Fouta) and one of those little pestle and mortars you can get outside of Mamou. So if it doesn’t reopen before the end of my service, I might go down there after I COS since Peace Corps can’t tell me what to do after I COS :P.

I still go back and forth on whether or not I want to retake possession of Yogi. I just don’t know if it would work if I brought him back to the States, but if I did everyone would say how beautiful he was and ask what kind of dog was he and think it was really cool that he is from Africa!! In my fantasy they would, anyway. So I don’t know. I guess I will do the research to figure out if I’d be able to take him back to the States with me, anyway, and then cross that bridge when it comes time that I can go back down there. If he is still alive.

So I think I am going to try to go to Bamako on Friday or Saturday to spend some time with Raven and Amy to talk some stuff out and have an opportunity to eat some Chinese food and sour cream (not at the same time) before I have to report to IST.

We’ll see how it goes.

Awful Day

Tabaski is like Chanukah: it goes on forever and I don’t get any presents.

Tabaski started on Friday when the sun went down. People stayed up all night. It then went on to Saturday, which was when I thought Tabaski was and thought the whole fete would go down. I mean, that’s when they killed Mr. Sheep. But no. It went on today, too. And I am informed we will continue through tomorrow and that there will be no market in Nossombougou so my plans to buy piment, have keke for lunch with a frozen baggie of bissap juice and spend the afternoon reading over a glass of red wine at the Auberge, flirting with the possibility of the English-speaking Bible Study folks showing up again has been thwarted. This was the first bad news of the day.

So I made a valiant effort today. I got up at 6:30ish, took my bath, and went out into the courtyard with the last 50 pages of Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” unread under my arm. I proceeded to sit out there with the family, do the mass breakfast thing at about 8 with everybody (rice with peanut sauce – SCORE – turns out that was the best part of my day) and stay out there hanging out with the grandmas and stuff until like 1pm. Then mom #1 Seli tells me we are gonna go hang out with the ladies. And I’m like ok fine. It can’t be for that long because lunch is at like 2 (during Tabaski. Normally it is at 12). So we go hang out. I have to take off a little before 2 because I have to go to the bathroom and when I’m done it’s time to eat. But it is disappointing because it is this giant, football sized tuber that is absolutely tasteless all cut up and cooked with stuff (I dunno what) so I don’t eat very much and think longingly of peanut sauce. Or even toh. So then I decide to do some work in my house. I was like, I’ve put in my time today! And I know there’s something going on later because I have a complet for it.

So I go to do dishes and clean up my house and try to get my cat to come down and eat (he does not so I throw pieces of gross meat/fat up to him so he doesn’t frigging starve to death). So just as I’m finishing this mom #2 Abi comes over and tells me I have to come out, NOW. So I’m like ok.

I go out and there are a bunch of ladies sitting around in Moussa’s part of the compound. I was kind of confused at first. They all got up and shook my hand. And they gave me half a rice sack of something (turned out to be peanuts). Turns out they were the ladies delegation sent over from the village chief’s house to saluer me and gove me peanuts. Cause the chief evidently does not make house calls, especially not to see a woman. Seli makes me go put on my complet. Everybody tells me how “a kanji” (pretty) it is and scolds me for not being able to wear the headwrap which is the same freaking size as the skirt. This annoys me. As do the kids trying to get me to pay attention to them by telling me I am ugly (a game that got obnoxious about 5 minutes after it was originally initiated). Yusuf makes some comment about how NOW I am a woman, because women wear skirts, not pants and wearing pants is “a manji” (bad/ugly) which gets on my nerves because I am of the belief that anyone should be able to wear whatever they want whenever they want if it makes them comfortable. In Guinea everyone thought my jeans were “jolie”. I miss that.

The ladies make an appointment for me to go over to the chief’s house and hang out with him tomorrow. Luckily Drissa is going with me for that.

So then I have to walk them out like halfway to the road because that’s polite and this is when Drissa drives up on his dad’s moto and tells me there is no marche tomorrow, which I had REALLY been looking forward to. So I’m all like DAMN! And on the way back to the compound I’m thinking I am going to go relax in my house a little bit and get over the no market thing. But no. There is a new group of ladies waiting to saluer me. This time it is my language tutor Khalifa’s mom and her groupement. And I desperately want to be polite and interesting but I am getting SO SICK of not understanding Bambara and my clothes being pulled left and right and assessed by everyone and their mother (literally) and the kids still calling me ugly and men poking and pulling on me and saying that I am now a woman and I should never wear pants. And I am biting back tears as hard as I can. I have a smile completely frozen on my face. A pained smile. Just trying to get through it.

Bless these ladies they don’t hang around too long either so I walk them out and have to go through saying all the goodbye greeting thingies Seli and Abi are feeding me to say and I am so annoyed with it at this point but I have to say it or I’ll be rude and everyone will be mad. So then I have to go back because two OTHER ladies have come to saluer me.

It was the afternoon of the saluer. Seriously.

So this is Drissa’s mom and another lady (I think). Seli, bless her heart, always says stuff really slow and clear to me to try and help me understand Bambara but sometimes she repeats it even after I understand it and I’m like yes, I get it. Also, if someone calls my name, I can’t just look at them to show them they have my attention. They will repeat my name until I give a verbal indication of my attention. I hate this. And I still want to cry. And there are moments where I almost do, or I get that feeling in my chest like I just want to RUN to my house and slam my door. So they don’t stay very long either and I have to walk them out and THEN there is another party going on with the groupement and Seli makes me go and I want to punch somebody and the only thing that saved me was I said I had to get my water so I had about 2 minutes alone inside my house to do some measured breathing to calm down enough to not cry in front of everybody.

So I go to this next thing. Everyone is all dressed up. Kids everywhere. Tea being made. I try to cheer myself up by making faces at kids.

I don’t generally feel like this unless I am PMSing. And according to my pill pack, I am not. I attribute it to stress.

So eventually I decide I want to go back to our compound for just a few minutes to kind of decompress or see what other people are doing or whatever. So I go back and I sit with the grandmas for five minutes, check out the soccer game a bunch of the younger men are watching on tv, then I go over to pet the dog, because the dog is my friend. As I walk up to her she is laying on the ground panting. I didn’t think this was too strange until I see she is covered in blood. And I’m like WHAT HAPPENED TO MY DOG.

Turns out she got in a fight with some other dog and I hope the other dog looks worse!! A lot of her wounds are minor but she has a couple of really nasty chunks taken out of her and she can’t use one of her legs and I am so sad and angry and I just walk back to my house and get a bucket of water, a bandanna and some soap and go back over to her and try to start cleaning her up. The men laugh at me. I ignore them. She decides she doesn’t want to be cleaned up right this second so she doesn’t let me get much done before she hobbles away on three legs.

So I stand up, get my bucket together, and go back to my house. Where I promptly shut the door and lock it. About 30 seconds later I hear Seli outside calling my name. I hide. She walks toward the court, probably to ask where I am.

When I am satisfied she is gone, I sit on my bed. That’s when the tears come. Not the loud sobbing I was expecting to experience or felt like experiencing today but just some slow pained tears. I get my volunteer handbook to see if it has the number for the whereabouts phone in it because I decide I am going to try and go to Bamako and see Raven tomorrow so she can talk me down. I find the number but just as I do Hawa comes to my window and tells me to come eat. I just grunt at her. She goes away. I pull myself together. Send Raven the text asking if I can spend the night there tomorrow night. Go back over to where the ladies are now sitting around big plastic bowls of spaghetti, the tuber thing and meat. I share a little stool with one of my grandmas. Somebody hands me a baggie of fresh ginger juice with a sprig of mint in it. Somebody hands me a bucket of water and I wash my hand, then we start eating. Seli sees me and comes over. She says that she had gotten together a bowl of food to send over to my house. She looks really understanding, like she saw the dog and knew I would be upset. I just said it was ok and I would eat here, which I did. And after enjoying my ginger juice, silently got up and went back home.

Where I took out all my braids, which had been itching my scalp for days. As I was coming back from a brief tourney of the compound as I was taking out my braids, I see the slow fat mouse. I get really pissed at him and grab the broom. And as he is right by the door I take a swat at him, never expecting to hit him, expecting him to wiggle out under the door. But I DO hit him. So I scream. Mostly from the horror of actually hitting him and seeing a wet spot on the ground and him squirming and twisting on the ground. So I didn’t really want to kill him but kneejerk reaction, I hit him again. Because a quick death is better than a slow one and I would hate to have fatally injured him but then have him die a slow painful death. On the second blow he gets up and skitters away. At my scream the boys outside had come running to the door. They see it is a mouse, and he is hiding between my stove’s gas tank and the wall. I don’t want to hit him again. One of the guys (it might have been Oumarri) comes in with a block of wood and we try to find the mouse, who has now hidden under the gas tank. When I tip the gas tank up he runs out and into my bedroom where Oumarri lunges after him and I hear the crack of the wood on the floor. But when I wheel around and look in, he has missed and the mouse has disappeared down that dang hole where they are getting in and out. Mouse survives. At least for now. Who knows, when I hit him I might have given him a brain hemhorrage or something. He at least “had his bell rung real good” as my dad would say. Maybe he will decide it’s not worth it to keep coming into my house. Maybe his brain is tiny and he’s going to forget all about it before the night is through.

Eventually I had the blessing of a bath with a hair washing. Then I had a laugh. Because when I got back from my bath, the cat was laying on the edge of the plastic so I put a pile of clothes under it and flipped his butt out of the ceiling! VICTORY! I laugh because he looks so shocked every time it happens. He hasn’t climbed back up yet. My bet is he will hang out down here until the sun starts coming up. Which is good, because he’ll scare any mice that come in, and I can rest assured he has had an opportunity to drink water and eat.

So all things considered, I feel better now that I’m going to bed. And I don’t know if I will end up heading to Bamako tomorrow or not. It would be after my hang out session with the chief. I guess we’ll see how I feel after that.

Tabaski 2009

Well I just saw my first sheep slaughter. It is actually almost surprising that I have avoided seeing anything larger than a chicken killed since being here. I almost missed it because the kids called me over to see two dogs having sex. But then when I walked back I saw my host dad and his oldest son holding the sheep down, having just slit his throat. So I missed the slitting part, which is often the worst part because that’s when you see the animal fighting for his life, not wanting to die. Which to me is the most awful part of death: seeing something or someone struggle for life in the midst of dying. So they slit his throat pretty thoroughly and he was bleeding on the ground. There was no fanfare, I was the only one even watching. I thought he must be dead but then he started to kick and his body shook and his torso still moved up and down as though he were breathing or some great wave were going through him. His head hung limp and lifeless but his body still fought. It took a couple of minutes like that for him to actually die. Then they strung him up by his back legs to drain out the rest of his blood. I thought I was fine but then I felt sick to my stomach and almost like I might vomit so I went back to my house. Where I was promptly interrupted with the daily invitation to go have tea from Yusuf. I’ll go over there later.

So I don’t even want to see a cow slaughter. I can’t even imagine. There are volunteers who want to actually kill a cow themselves. I’m not going to name names but you know who you are! I don’t have that in me. I mean, in the States I am a freaking vegetarian. I don’t think I could even stand to watch a fish flip around on the deck of a boat, struggling to get back in the water. When I find mice struggling for their lives in a bucket of water, I have an uncontrollable urge to scoop them out and save them, even though I hate them thoroughly when they treat my house as their own all night. I am sometimes even sympathetic to ants or spiders who run for their lives when I start killing their friends.

So basically, I don’t know how much of our Tabaski sheep I will be able to stomach eating. That’s another thing I have fleetingly thought in the past: if you couldn’t kill it yourself, you shouldn’t eat it. It’s almost like cowardice in a way. I don’t know. I never had to deal with these moral dilemmas in the States because I didn’t so much as eat gelatin or lard (no marshmallows – imagine life without marshmallows! I have lived it…and still am, there are no marshmallows in Mali).

Anyway. Last night they stayed up pretty much all night. Yesterday evening as I was sitting by the cook fire reading my Water and Sanitation training manual (no, seriously, I was reading it – I am sooooo the model volunteer), I started to feel a little bit of a sore throat. I was like GREAT. And then remembered I don’t have so much as a vitamin C supplement, let alone Echinacea, Emergen-C or Elderberry (the things I rely on to keep me from getting sick when I start getting the first signs). That’s all in Guinea. There aren’t even oranges here. So I went to bed at 9ish or so but then got up at midnight to see what was going on, which wasn’t much – it was just people watching TV, listening to cassette tapes, sitting around fires, and cooking. The kids were all sleeping. So I hung out for like 45 minutes and went back to bed. And was then woken at 4:30 in the morning by a flashlight through my bedroom window and someone yelling at me to come eat. I am not very receptive to being jarred awake, A. B. I hate it when people look in my windows or try to talk to me through my window. C. I am sick (sore throat just kept getting progressively worse all night). D. I am tired because even the sleeping I HAVE done hasn’t been good because of all the radios and chatter. So I put my sheet over my head and told them to go away in English. Which they eventually did, after discerning that I was “full” and not going to come eat. Then a couple of minutes later I dragged myself out of bed because I told myself I should at least go see what was going on, even though there’s no way I could have eaten that early anyway. So I got dressed and went outside and it was completely deserted. I have no idea where everybody was, doing this eating. So a little annoyed, I just went back to bed and got up at my usual 6:30am when my bath water arrived.

It was a sort of riz gras for breakfast with a big chunk of meat (I think beef), a piece of bread and a cup of ginjam (ginger juice, which I am not a huge fan of but hot it was nice on my throat). A lot of people were bringing bowls of food over and putting them in one of the grandmas’ rooms. Soon after that, the most part of the women’s group came over and everybody ate again. I was full, so I didn’t eat, though I would have if there had been some basi or peanut sauce to be had, but it was all the riz gras-like thing I had just eaten so I abstained.

So then I just hung out while people were pounding millet and cooking and whatnot and that’s when they killed the aforementioned sheep. Then I went to my house for a little while but one of my moms came and got me and said we were going somewhere ELSE to pound millet. I’m not entirely sure what this was about, but the whole groupement went to this person’s house and pounded millet and pulled water. And it wasn’t even like it was a poor family, or a family that didn’t have enough women, it was just some family.

Of course right when we walk in I see their dead sheep hanging from it’s feet from their shade hangar. A man and a teenage boy are cutting its skin off. GROSS. Then they cut its head off. Then they start gutting it. And of course the chair they have sat me in is facing this whole display. Then they decide that I am sitting in the sun and need to go sit under the hangar so now I have the distinct privilege of sitting right next to the being-chopped-up sheep. Poor guy.

So after this we all go put on our first complets so we are dressed for lunch and after lunch we go hang out with the groupement and make tea and whatnot.

I don’t know, it actually wasn’t that eventful of a day. But I suppose it’s how they might see our Thanksgiving or Easter: you get a new outfit and go to Church on Easter (well, some people), you hang out with your friends and family all day and don’t work, and you eat a ridiculous amount of food ensemble. Kind of the same thing. Without the football. Actually, come to think of it, there WAS some soccer watching going on!! So holidays are basically the same thing everywhere.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope yours was more eventful than mine. I spent the day all on my own prerogative, reading Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope”, learning to make basi with Sita (they call it “cous-cous” but I call it millet sawdust with a delicious bean sauce made of water, beans, peanut butter, Maggi cube and salt – could definitely be made more nutritious with some tomatoes and onions but hey, it’s got protein!), eating basi (after the sheep spilled all my sauce while I was washing my hands and getting a piment), napping, cleaning my house, cutting my toenails, picking up my Tabaski clothes from the tailor (I am SHOCKED he got everybody’s clothes done, he is the only tailor in town and pretty much EVERYBODY wants at least one new outfit) and the coup de grace: enjoying a packet of Easy Mac and a tootsie roll pop.

I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do today, like have to entertain people or study Bambara. So in that sense it was a holiday. But I did not end up making a holiday meal and I am going to bed with a stomachache. Christmas better be more exciting.

Yesterday my cat decided to shimmy up one of the big tree trunk poles holding my roof up and camp out in the black plastic ceiling. You can tell where he is because it makes the plastic dip down. But he makes me angry because he scratches holes into the plastic and can’t get down so he meowed all night last night, yet wouldn’t let me help him down. This morning he was sleeping on the edge of the plastic above where I hang my purse, so I opened the purse and let it hang open and then flipped him out of the plastic and he just happened to land in the purse, looking very confused, then rocketed onto the bed where he got stuck in the mosquito netting. All of which was very amusing for me. When I got him loose, he hid and ate and then I watched him climb back up into the plastic! Where he currently still is. If he starts complaining that he can’t get down tonight I am going to poke him with the broom. Also the mice he is supposed to be scaring off are NOT scared off and one particularly fat one has been spotted for the last couple of days. Cat not doing his job. I think he will probably disappear when I am at IST anyway. So I am not going to name him unless he is still around when I get back (why waste a good pet name?).

ANTS!

So I have an ant problem at my house. They are always all over my stove, even when my stove is clean (which I now have to be very meticulous about and do several times a day to keep the ants to a minimum). They are also just generally all over the place, but I don’t care if they are on the walls or the floor, I only care when they get into my stuff.

Like my water filter. Tonight as I was filling my water bottle I noticed little black things coming out of the filter along with the water. I held the bottle up. Sure enough, a couple dozen dead ants were swirling around my bottle. I opened the filter. Dozens of dead ants floating around in what would have been my nice clean water. So sometime between last night and tonight they all found their way in there. The only way to get into the clean part of the filter is through this little tiny hole near the top that is there to relieve the pressure as water exits the bucket. It is evidently large enough for an ant to get in. Or several dozen. Who then plunge to their watery deaths. In my clean water.

So I am pissed because I was all ready to brush my teeth and settle down under my mosquito net with Cormac McCarthy’s “Suttree” and instead I have to clean out my water filter, wait for it to dry (which I did not really do, I just dried it with a towel and told myself I would bleach in the bottle for a little while), put it back together and refill it. And for some reason, this filter takes FOREVER to filter the water. Which is weird because the candles are brand new. In Guinea, with new candles, my filter (same brand) would finish a whole top bucket in like 15 minutes. This one takes like an hour. Or more. I don’t even know because I never stick around to see how long it takes because it takes so frigging long. And I can’t brush my teeth and get all settled because I don’t have any clean water to do it with, it is currently being filtered at a snail’s pace.

DAMN YOU ANTS!!!

So next time I am in Bamako I am going to see if one of the ex-pat stores carries ant traps. Ants aren’t cute. So I don’t mind murdering them like I do mice.

Who don’t come into my house anymore thanks to my loud, mean but very cute cat. Who I still have not named. Right now his name is kitty.