Then There Were Five...

Yesterday was a sad day for our group. Anne Marie, one of our classmates, had to go back to the United States because of a family emergency. We are really upset… since there are only six people in the group, losing one is a hard blow. I wish only the best for her and for her to have a smooth reentry.

After a somewhat exhausting week, we are finally done with classes! Monday we depart for the grand excursion, a trip around the country that lasts two weeks. I am very excited. Exams were a bit of a pain, but they were all take-home which was nice. I’m just relieved to be done. Today, for the last day of class, we had a musical performance by a group of griots. They performed songs for each of us individually, as is done at weddings and other events, and we each had to get up one by one and dance… humiliating as usual.

We did go on one interesting excursion this week to Save the Children. The organization’s tiny office is on the top floor of an apartment building in a newer quartier of Bamako. The director, an Irish American who has lived all over the world but started his travels in Mali when he was in the Peace Corps 20 years ago, had a lot to say about working for an NGO focused on development – so much to say that we were there for over two hours. He was great, though, and gave us a lot of helpful advice about living and working abroad.

Aside from that, the week was filled with homework, lectures, and feeling sticky and hot. The cold season is right around the corner, and I can’t wait.

Back to the Grind

This has been a very long and somewhat trying week.

Unfortunately, my feelings towards my schoolwork have continued to plummet. Not only do we continue to have lectures that insult our intelligence, but we also have a multitude of assignments due in the next week, which adds another level of stress to the situation. I began the week with the idea of spending the pointless parts of school working on my Bambara, which has been pretty successful and I’ve actually improved significantly! I’m planning on continuing with that this week. I shouldn’t say that all parts of school have been pointless – I still absolutely adore my French professor. Every day he comes to class with a stimulating topic to discuss, usually making up for our painful morning lecture. Examples of topics we talked about this week are dowries in Mali (which are common; Ousmane was surprised that they essentially do not exist in the United States) and Mali’s import and export economy. The best day was when Ousmane asked us to explain the game of baseball, as he said that when he was in the U.S. he could never manage to comprehend it. Sitting around a table in Mali and explaining the system of “three strikes and you’re out” in French class was bizarre but made me feel oddly patriotic. It also made me realize that this will be the first year in a long time that I won’t be watching the World Series. Sad.

Aside from a frustrating week at school, we did go on some interesting excursions. We visited the APDF, a Malian feminist organization, which was bittersweet. The women that work there are truly incredible, but they are up against some really big odds. One of their programs is to eliminate female circumcision in Mali, which they do by showing informational videos or giving talks on the dangers of excision to communities where it is still prevalent, and by training the women who base their livelihoods on circumcision to perform other income-generating tasks.

We also visited a vocational training center for adolescents that did not attend secondary school. The program begins by teaching literacy in Bambara; the students must complete two levels before their vocational training. Then, each student can choose what they wish to specialize in. Choices include tailoring, hair dressing, plumbing, electrical work, masonry, making food such as yoghurt and degue (a porridge-like substance, made with millet and milk and served cold – I eat a lot of this), and wood working, among others.

We visited a similar vocational training center called the Centre Aoua Keita, but this one is only for women and specializes in hospitality. The highlight of that trip was getting two freshly baked madeleine cookies…

Outside of school, on Wednesday night, a bunch of us went out to dinner with an Egyptian man that Jessie had met, Ahmed. He was excited to meet someone that spoke English (he doesn’t speak a word of French, and doesn’t really want to learn), so he invited us out to a restaurant. He even got his driver to come out to our neighborhood and pick us up. Ahmed works for an internet company and is stationed in Bamako for three months. At this point, he’s been here for two and a half. He brought us to a restaurant where expats frequent, telling us he eats there every night. Exchanging stories with him made me realize how utterly different our experiences are. He is essentially living the least Malian life he can: he goes out to eat at two restaurants, his driver takes him to and from his house, he spends all of his time with his coworkers, he does not know a word of French (not to mention Bambara), and he essentially just doesn’t care. We were trying to explain why we chose to come here, and he could not wrap his head around it. Coming home that night, I relief to be coming back to my host family. I understand that Mali is not an easy place to live, but his utter lack of curiosity was distressing.

On Saturday we got a special treat. Jessie’s parents are visiting Mali for the week, and we got to go to their hotel, swim in the pool, and were treated to a beautiful lunch. Her mother brought us homemade cookies (chocolate chip and sugar) and we got to benefit from the hotel’s free wifi. After seven weeks in Mali, it was lovely to be with her family.

On Saturday night, I got to accompany my sister to a baptism.  We were driven there by one of our neighbors, and on our way there we picked up another woman. When we arrived at the baptism, which took place under a large tent outside of the new mother’s home, I was struck by all of the colors the women were wearing. The evening’s festivities are only for the women; Aka explained to me that the men have a separate ceremony in the morning. We approached the tent and found a place to sit on the ground. As soon as I sat down, I heard someone singing extremely loudly. When I looked over, I realized that it was the woman we picked up on the way there. Aka explained to me that she is a griot, very well-known and respected in the community. Griots, essentially bards, are a huge aspect of Malian culture, where history is mostly oral. About six griots essentially led the baptism, presenting gifts on behalf of the gift-givers and singing. I was most taken aback by the magnitude of the gifts presented. They consisted mostly of pagnes (cloth) or money. By the end, Fifi (the new mother) had received over 60 new pagnes and more than 500,000 FCFA (over $1,000). I was really shocked by people’s generosity. Aka told me that this is the norm at each baptism; some new mothers received even more money.

Today was our last Monday at school. Only one more week of classes! Then we spend two weeks traveling, followed by a month-long Independent Study Project. Things are definitely looking up! I just have to make it through this week.

Out of the Sticks

            Well, I have returned from my week in Sanankoroba, a village right outside of Bamako. “Village” is a weird term for the place, since it’s on a road that leads to Bamako and has a population of 12,000, but it definitely felt light years away: it is exponentially quieter (except for the sound of roosters crowing at 2 in the morning), cleaner, and the pace of life is much slower.

We got to live with our homestay families in pairs, which was fortunate because most of the family members didn’t speak French.  My partner Maddie and I were with the Coulibaly family, which consists of Sounkalo, our grandfather, Awa, our grandmother, and a bunch of cousins (who were completely adorable). The family is quite untraditional since most of the grandchildren are being raised by their grandparents while their own parents live and work in Bamako. The kids stay in Sanankoroba because schooling is less expensive than in the city. It was a little difficult to figure out what exactly our family members do for a living, but our 20-year-old cousin Abdulaye (our only French-speaking relative) told us that our grandfather’s main job is to run the village mosque. It was also clear that the family farms millet and raises animals (chickens, sheep, and a cow), but I’m not sure whether that’s for subsistence or commerce.

I absolutely loved village life. Each family has its own compound, composed of a collection of mud huts, an outdoor area for cooking, and a negen (outhouse). I still don’t really understand who lives in separate huts – I believe that in traditional families the children stay with their mother while their father has his own– but in our case, Maddie and I had our own hut that belonged to a family member that was out of town. We slept on the ground on mattresses that we brought. At night when it cooled down, we kept the door open (which was a bit scary because of all of the animals outside) which made sleeping much easier and cooler than in Bamako, even though we had no fan. It was so wonderful being somewhere that had a gorgeous view of the stars.

Our family was great. Since there were no parents in the compound and the grandparents are pretty old, neighbors come by and bring them dinner every night. Our cousin Abdulaye prepared our meals for us – the first (and probably only) time I’ve seen a man come even close to cooking in this country. We ate a lot of fried eggs which were very oily but at least we knew they were fresh since we ate our meals next to the chicken coop! It was also really adorable to see the children’s relationship with their grandparents. Every morning, our grandmother would put Fatoumata, our 2-year-old cousin (who was actually quite sick – it was really sad to see), into a bucket and give her a bath. She would spend the rest of the day following her grandmother around or tied to her grandmother’s back. If Awa walked away for even a minute, Fatoumata would start crying.

Aside from spending time with our family, we did some really fun things as a group. On Tuesday we visited the SOS Village that is located in Sanankoroba. SOS Villages were created by an Austrian philanthropist and are now located in 131 countries around the world with the goal of housing and schooling orphans. I was extremely impressed with the set-up – each orphan is placed in a family with nine others and two caretakers: an aunt and a mother. They go to school from nursery through high school and are also provided some vocational training. Currently 150 orphans live there; a lot of them started out in the orphanage we visited in Bamako. We got to visit one of the houses and talk to one of the “mothers.” The facilities were very impressive, especially in the school, which has 800 students, both orphans and other children that live in Sanankoroba.

We visited the regional CSCOM, a public health center, which was a little upsetting simply because it doesn’t even have its own laboratory. The doctor was clearly frustrated by having to make diagnoses for malaria without a blood test.

On our last evening, we had a dancing lesson by local women. Overall it was pretty humiliating since we gathered quite a crowd and the women insisted on taking us up one-by-one, but fortunately we all had a sense of humor about it. It’s definitely something I’ll remember fondly...though I really wanted it to be over while it was happening.

I was (and still am) sad to leave Sanankoroba. It was really, really great get out of the city and to experience village life. Considering 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas, it was necessary to experience Malian village life, which was completely different from life in Bamako. I do wish I could have stayed longer!

Funteni Be (It's Hot)

Happy October! (October, really? But it’s 90 degrees out!)

Life in Bamako is getting easier and easier every day. I finally feel like I understand the basic layout of the city which simplifies a lot in terms of getting around. I am not completely lost when my family bickers in Bambara, nor when they speak to me in French in their very not-Parisian accents.

We also did several things in school this week that (finally) felt great and worth my time. On Wednesday after school we visited an organization called the Groupe Pivot Santé Population in Hippodrome, a neighborhood in northern Bamako. The organization is essentially a collective of NGOs in Mali that focus primarily on healthcare. The purpose of the Groupe Pivot, which is financed primarily by USAID but also by other bodies, is to provide funding, assistance, and coordination to Malian NGOs. Our meeting with the leaders of this organization was great; the director spoke to us about the challenges he faces (such as resistance to family planning and illegality of abortion) and how the organization attempts to handle them. Overall, it appears that this organization does important work in an efficient and successful way, which is truly refreshing in a country where efficiency is certainly not an important factor.

On Thursday, we visited the country’s one public orphanage. I was very nervous about this excursion. Orphanages are by their own nature depressing places, and visiting one in a country that does not have high standards of hygiene or a great deal of funding for public institutions made me very anxious. However, I was really, really happy with the visit. The orphanage only holds babies younger than about a year and a half and handicapped children of all ages. The building itself was quite nice – very clean and painted colors you would expect for a nursery school. I was most struck by how well staffed it was; at least two women were in every room, holding and playing with babies. However, it was upsetting that most babies were lying in their cribs or on the floor when they really need to be held. When we talked to the directors about adoption in Mali, they said that most adoptions occur internationally (as I mentioned before Malians are wary to adopt because they care so much about family lineage), and that it is Mali’s law that a couple prove their sterility prior to adopting, which I found distressing. They equated this law to the fact that in Mali, couples marry to have their own children, and if they adopt a child along with having children of their own they will most certainly give less care to the adopted child. Thus, the directors believe that the only cases of Malian couples loving their adopted children to the fullest extent are when they biologically cannot have children of their own. I really don’t know how true that is.

Friday after school we had Kara, our beloved van driver, drop us off at the Grand Marché downtown. It is a crazy, crazy place. A huge amount of traffic, people, and tons of stalls selling food, cheap plastic backpacks and sandals, hand-me-down T-shirts and stuffed animals from countries like the United States, and traditional medicine (which includes some very unappetizing things such as monkey skulls) crowd up the streets. There are so many noises, smells, and near-death experiences crossing streets that it is really overwhelming. However, we did visit the Artisanat, an indoor market selling beautiful handcrafts, which was exciting, though I had to exercise my bargaining skills which is not my favorite thing. (Ask my mother who saw me break down in tears multiple times in the souk in Morocco.) After that overwhelming experience, we were able to decipher the map in my Mali guidebook and find a charming Thai restaurant on a shockingly quiet street near the river. What a treat! Though it was a bit pricey (by Malian standards), it was worth every penny for spring rolls and vegetarian curry. We arrived quite early since we were so hungry; by the time we left we looked ridiculous covered in dust and dried sweat, since all of the patrons around us were toubabouw (white people) sipping wine and wearing their finest. Where do all the white people come from? I very rarely see them, except when I go to one of the three grocery stores in the city. However, I know there are tons of them here – Bamako is a dumping ground for foreign aid.

Tomorrow we depart for our village homestay, which lasts until Saturday. I’m very excited to get out of Bamako, but a little nervous about some aspects (namely the food). I won’t have internet access all week, but I will write about how it goes next weekend!