Wednesday, 6/18

Wednesday, 6/18 So yesterday work began. We met with Niang for approximately six hours between all of our projects and we basically outlined everything we need to get accomplished this summer. As it turns out, my project proposal is actually quite close to what we need to do this summer (actually a big surprise) and furthermore, most of the work has already been done. I was planning on orchestrating a big medical training to teach the CHAG members how to diagnose diseases in situ, but apparently, since Caitlin last met with them, this has already happened. They even got first responder training, so basically here is the outline for the summer:


1.) Evaluate how effective the current education and diagnostic programs are by conducting both group discussions among participants and having each CHAG member educate a family in our presence. This information will be used for making each existing program more effective 2.) Check to see what diseases have nationally funded treatment already available and make sure that our CSCOM (clinic) is taking advantage of them. If it isn't, add these diseases to the education curriculum and diagnostic criteria. 3.) Check out what diseases are priorities within the community and discuss which ones need to be added explicitly to the education curriculum. 4.) Combine the two programs and do a CHAG retraining session. Start out a test pilot and evaluate it monthly.


In short, we have our work cut out for us. I have meetings set up all this week and next, but I'll keep you posted as news comes in.


In other news, Caitlin went to a friend's and picked up a precious new kitten for her host family's house. Her only fear (a legitimate one) is that it will be stolen and sold for food… how deliciously scandalous. It's adorable and while it doesn't have a name yet, we're calling it the Bambara name for cat: "jakuma".


While we were there, I also found a friend who can crochet me a new yarmulke! My old one from my first trip to Israel is totally falling apart and I need a new one, so she offered to knit me a gorgeous crimson yarmulke for 1000CFA ($2.50!!!). When it's done, I'm taking it to the tailor and getting him to add a beautiful trim and accoutrements I have already found. I am TOTALLY stoked to get myself a Malian souvenir that I will not forget.


Last night we all went to the local theatre (which was actually SUPER impressive – can we say A/C?) to see a Malian film called Farou (The Queen of the Waters). It was an interesting rendition of a northern Malian folktale about a town that fears the vengeance of the god Farou when an expatriated tribe member returns to the village from his life in America to find and kill his father. In all honesty, I was super wiped and slept through a few significant scenes, but I still appreciated the movie. And furthermore, when Caitlin and I were outside waiting for our friend Adama, I had a Malian man randomly come up to me and ask me to translate two letters into English for him. While I considered asking him to pay, he only had a small amount to offer (20c or so), so I just told him to let me translate them and when I'm done, he can get them back from me and we can go hang out together. Better a new friend than a new income source, right?


Also, I finally got to get into the market today to get "les necessaires": some fabric for new clothes, a woven sleeping mat for my mattress to lay on, a fifala (hand fan), and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the makings of my very own thrifted hammock! I bought this industrial sized cargo netting and some rope and now, from the limb of a mango tree in the courtyard, is the new official family hammock. It's only big enough for one person at present, but I intend to go back to get more netting to weave in and make it bigger. I'm so excited! It's so nice to lay there in the shade during the hot hours of the day. WHEW!


That's all for now. I have to run to Bambara lessons with the wives! More updates soon.


X Adama X

Monday, 6/16

Today was a very easy and extremely luxurious day.


First of all, let me do my best to explain to you how ridiculously excited I was that it was NOT impossibly hot today (at least for most of the day). The temperature hovered just under 95 and it was absolutely delicious. When I woke up in the morning, I almost wondered why it was so cold. And then I realized I was still in a pool of my own sweat. Regardless, it was a beautiful way to wake up given my recent battles with perpetual hot flashes.


Today was also good on two separate but great levels. First of all, I had an absolutely wonderful bonding session with some of the other interns today. We went to Caitlin's house around 11 for chai/hot coffee (both a luxury afforded by Caitlin's hot water boiler, affectionately known as the "chauffe-chauffe"). We essentially sat around for a five hours discussing our personal lives and histories and having some great laughs. We eventually met up with the others and took a taxi over to the grand marche. Now when I was with the first homestay family and went to the grand marche, I was pretty overwhelmed by their smelly fish head stands and second-hand clothes as compared to the other markets in town. However, I have since come to realize that I actually only explored the outermost layer of approximately 33,000 and that the grand marche actually covers a significant portion of Bamako. We ventured in today with Caitlin to get the essentials, which for me included: 1.) FINALLY changing my money, 2.) a cell phone, 3.) a FAN for my new room in Niang's, and 4.) multiple baggies of delicious tamarind and ginger juice concoctions.


One thing that's funny about Bamako is the meaning of the phrase "black market." In the US, I feel this phrase connotes a covert operation in a nonexistent liminal location that includes the trade of at least two of the following: natural resources, human organs, child sex slaves, bootleg DVDs, and/or personal affects from Ruth Simmons' estate. However, here, the black market is an every day phrase and very real place that is specifically good for trading money. In our case today, we actually had a bit of trouble finding anyone who would give a better rate than the national banks, but I must say, Caitlin's Bambara is tremendously impressive. It gives me such great pride and a tickle of pleasure to see her flip her her in the angry "no you didn't, girlfriend" way and tell six macho Malian men in perfect Bambara, "395CFA? No way, guy - if I wanted the bank's rate, I would get money changed at the bank. Give me 415CFA to the dollar or I walk." It may sound harsh, but I have also come to realize that it's how business works here. In short, Caitlin is quite the businesswoman. :)


After our market tour, we came back for more mangos (totally still loving the fact that we have three vendors 50 feet from our house!) and then went to our second Bambara lesson with Doudou. We are still learning greetings, but they are already proving useful. I've learned enough of the conversation to be polite in most greeting situations and even learned to form a few critical sentences like "Can I...", "Thank you for..." and "I'm sorry." Beyond these basics, I've also picked up some fun phrases, some from Caitlin and Niang's family and some from bits and pieces of Doudou's lessons. For example, from "How is your wife?" comes "All of them are my wives." That made for some fun in the marketplace as I explained my harem to two Malian men over a baggie of ginger juice. Another favorite is "Farafina! Farafina!", the equivalent chant of "Black person! Black person!" that serves as a sassy but not altogether impolite response to "Toubabou! Toubabou!" The Bambara is relatively easy to learn and it's a great library of sounds to experiment with. My current favorite word is "denw" (children), which is pronounced something akin to a very nasal "dayou." I sound silly, but I smile every time I say it.


After a long day, Caitlin, Cari, and I returned to Caitlin's for a roadside omelette sandwich (super greasy but delicious) in the dark with a bottle of Coke and watched an episode of House, MD on Caitlin's laptop. It was a really good time.


Tomorrow we are meeting all day with Niang about our project goals and getting started - FINALLY! I'm really looking forward to getting started on Sigida Keneyali and getting his input on its development. With that in mind, I'm off to sleep early.


X Adama X

Meditations on getting my luggage and other things that make me smile

So yesterday and today were amazingly good day for multiple reasons.

First things first - MY LUGGAGE CAME! This is an ironic gift in that I had actually just recently convinced myself that I could actually just survive off of the one pair of shorts (one mine, one borrowed) and used Malian t-shirts all summer. It was actually becoming quite nice - I knew exactly which cargo pocket contained what essential tool (extra glasses, wallet, water purification tablets, etc.), just like a travelling suitcase. Oh well. A minor inconvenience for the tradeoff of clean clothes.

As of yesterday, I have moved to my new (and permanent) homestay with the family of Modibo Niang, MHOP's Malian Co-director. I am living with Cari for another two weeks then she'll head off to live with Siriki and I'll live with Katie, my co-coordinator for health programming. As described earlier, this homestay happens to be the more comfortable of the two, though the room is relatively small and is for two people. Despite this fact, having the mango shade and being approximately 15 minutes from the internet cafe is totally worth it. To give you an idea of Sikoro, here is what I see when I walk out the door:


(By the way before I start, I just want to point out that I started to write this and went to visit the door to find out exactly what I see and when I returned to write, Mama asked me if I found what I was looking for, having no idea why I was over there. When I told her, she insisted that someone take me on a tour of the marche and the block so I would have better writing material. That's Malian hospitality for you!)

The door is a galvanized steel, but you can't tell because it's been nicely painted gray against the whitish walls of the courtyard. This clean brightness becomes immediately apparent when you open the door and are greeted with the ruddy powder's glow on the road outside. Across the way about twenty feet or so is a small shack made of aluminum siding and aged wood planks - a radio is blaring something about So-and-so Coulibaly and this lanky man is sprawled out on bench, not extremely concerned about attracting customers to buy whatever it is he's selling. It's hard to tell since it's packed away in second- and third-hand boxes from objects that were removed long ago, but he seems to know and so does everyone else. To either side is more road with scattered piles of broken cinder blocks, the sides lined with the dirtied white walls of other houses. To the right, more neighborhood. To the left, down about fifty feet, is the main road leading deeper into Sikoro. At the corner is a small group of women in the morning sun, each one hunched over a brightly colored basket, deliberately but casually washing clothes, talking and laughing together. At this corner, you can either continue walking up Sikoro's hill into the heart of the neighborhood or turn left into the marche.

The marche is a madhouse, in short. The entire place is only about 200 feet long, but there must be at least 50 stores on each side lining the street. Most sell sad little vegetables of sorts, a few sell dried fish and fruits, maybe a large stack of dried herbal leaves or a baggie of spices. Everything is lined up on small makeshift tabletops - old crates, wooden planks - usually covered by an umbrella of sorts. This scene extends at least 15 carts deep, though I have yet to explore the interior. Vendors don't have to sell their food to you, really - this is the only place to get fresh vegetables that I know of so far and everyone needs to feed their families. I've seen more zaban fruits and mangos, medium-sized piles of okra pods, both cut and whole. The cut okra pods look like baby starfruit slices, but they dry so quickly in the incredibly hot sun, they almost look more like potpourri than food. There is also a standard assortment of desiccated fish heads, still peppered with greedy flies. In the background, there is lot of Bambara chatter going on, ranging from standard greeting and bargaining to vendors talking to pass time to the typical cries of "Toubabou!" Everyone who is shopping tends to line the side of the streets, since motorcycles and cars are forever trying to forge their way through the 8-food wide corridor of customers. Most of them honk and maintain speed without any concern for whether you actually move or not, so it's best to stay right up against the storefronts.

On the other end of the market, the street opens back up and across a small, flat 10-foot bridge is the rest of the stores. An internet cafe store, a small pharmacy, even a relatively large bakery, though it's interior is still being built. Beyond this is no longer Sikoro but the road back to l'Hippodrome, where I was before.

One part of the transition from l'Hippodrome (a richer area of Bamako) to Sikoroni has been the loss of a shower, which is welcome. My new bathroom is a small open room with a hole one side for the toilet and you just bring in a bucket. You just cup your hands to throw water on yourself, lather up, and do your best to scrub down. In all honesty, it takes much more patience than a shower and a bit more time, if you actually try to use soap instead of just getting wet (sounds a lot like my early childhood dream), but the repetition is actually pleasantly meditative. Yesterday we had our first group Bambara lesson with our teacher Doudou. He is a brilliant man who works to teach Bambara to Peace Corps volunteers year-round outside of Bamako and he speaks not only impeccable French and Bambara, but also quite decent English. It's strange to have the lesson conducted in three languages, but also quite nice. I actually started finding it easier to take notes in French than English after a bit of trying. In all honesty, he is the most ambitious and confident language teacher I have ever and I feel confident I will be able to speak decent Bambara by the time I leave (just in time, right?). In the meantime, it is quite nice to have a confident response to "Toubabou!" of:


"Initile, ce! Initche! ka kene? Imuso? I denw?" "Good afternoon, mister! Thanks for asking! How are you doing? And your wife? Your children?"


That shuts most of them up. And those who just respond back in faster Bambara.... well, I can always run away!

Today we had a delicious mango breakfast with one the family (29 children with co-wives at last count...) of one of the community health action group (CHAG) workers - Aminata Keita. These workers are the people I will be training all summer, so it was great to meet one of them. She lives in one of the far corners of Sikoroni that is primarily inhabited by the Dogon people. They are known for living in the cliffs and true to form, her house was a baby hike up what may be the tallest of Bamako's few hills. I have to say, from her house, the view of Bamako was absolutely stunning. You could see the market at Sikoroni where I live, the soccer field and trash dump where the future MHOP clinic is going to be built, and l'Hippodrome, all at once. It was quite stunning.

To show our gratitude for Ami(nata) Keita and her family, we picked up 17 amazingly ripe mangos at the local street vendors. Pause. Let me say that again. Seventeen mangos - all ripe, all delicious, all for us to eat and share with the Keita clan. Needless to say, it was an absolutely delicious breakfast. And true to Malian djiatigui form, she insisted we eat (or at least politely sample) lunch before we leave. It was quite a show. We played an empty paint cam drum (Caitlin can drum, girl!) and got a small dance performance from Ami and some of her kids. We also got to climb a humongous and very climbable tree in her courtyard and be monkeys for a bit. In short, it was great.

I have also decided I will take on a few arts and crafts projects this summer. First and foremost, I will be making myself a traditional Malian footstool. They are super handy for crouching down to cook food around the fire (a woman's job here, but if they ever let me, I'm set on trying to help). They're about a food long and maybe eight inches high, made of wood scraps. So, I'm going to the Sikoroni market (tomorrow maybe?) to ask a carpenter to let me apprentice him for a few hours to I can learn the craft (in brief) and make myself a nice stool to sit on. I'm also trying to make myself a hammock. If I can find a feasible way to weave it, I will; however, I am also not above just pirating used cargo netting and giving it a thick underlying rope structure for support. We shall see.

Niang, my Malian brother/daddy is getting married mid-July, so I also need to get myself a traditional boubou (business gown) made for the occasion. This means not only do I need to get a move on with picking out deliciously beautiful fabrics for sarongs and room decorations, but I also need to pick up a pangue of textile fabric to be embroidered and tailored. Exciting! Along the same lines, women here usually get henna tattoos (interestingly enough, made with bastardized black hair dye kits, not natural herbs...) before wedding ceremonies and I intend to as well. The Malians love to see Toubabous cross gender norms in fun and friendly ways, like me asking to cook or do my own laundry. So, in that vein, I also plan on spending $5 or so to get an entire henna sleeve on my arm with a partial breast plate to match. It's going to be intense - and hilarious, simultaneously.

Not much else to do today - it's too infuriatingly hot. We tried to go shopping for fans at the big marketplace, but most vendors who can afford to sell those things close at noon on Sunday, so the voyage yielded only two new foam mattresses. Today is the sort of day where you can take as many bucket showers as you want and never be cool and drink as many gallons of water as possible and still not pee - the only thing we have done today besides breakfast is SWEAT. Along those lines, time for another bucket shower. I'm drenched.


P.S. I find it necessary to share that one of the djatigui guidelines is to always provide more food than your guest can eat (it's impolite to eat all that is offered since it shows they are poor hosts to not provide enough), but between all of the offerings we've had, Niang has noticed my insatiable appetite and taken to calling me his gourmand (food-lover, to be polite). Along these lines, when Caitlin tried to relate this comment to a traditional Malian dance about shaking your rear end that literally translates as "fat ass", I received a new nickname.


X Grosses Fesses X

MALI: An Introduction and Explanation in 10 Words or Less, 6/14/08

NOTE: I am writing as often and as much as possible - I never know when power will go out, dust will ruin my computer, or I will die (kidding). Therefore, this entry is long - I apologize, but I have done my best to break it up into sections so you can read snippets and come back to the next as you have time.


ON ARRIVING AND CULTURE: My first few days in Bamako have been a strange but altogether, rather delightful. As a college student, it's become second nature to live life from one devoir (task) to the next. However, here I am not only relieved of all responsibility but I am actually forbidden by my host family to accept do anything for myself. Needless to say, it is strange for me (particularly as an anthropology concentrator and a culturally oversensitive Brown student) to have my black host family insist on tending to my every desire; however, as I have come to learn, it is an honor for them to fulfill this cultural expectation of hosts, a concept known as "djatigui."


I remember stepping off the plane and thinking to myself, "this is where you kiss the ground after three day of travel and say something dramatic (preferable in my limited Bambara)," but I was in fact stifled by an overwhelming humidity and odor of smog. I wasn't expecting it, but Bamako is in fact an extremely polluted place. So much so, in fact, that the swarms of mend and women riding their motos (local slang for motorcycles) can often be found wearing the Royal Air Maroc eyecovers as makeshift respirators. My first day in town, in fact, the first smells that I can remember other than the air were the unmistakable stench of dried, rotting fish in the market sun and the absolutely intoxicating aroma of fresh pastries at a local market. In all honesty, I'm not sure I've ever smelled baked goods that fine before. In fact, it was right around this bakery that I had my first major Bamakois milestone: receiving my Malian name.


This name business requires a bit of explanation. It is, in fact, a HUGE deal to have a Malian name while in the community. While receiving this title is often quite informal - I received mine from a smelly man selling SIM cards and cigarettes on a dirt road - its consequence is quite large. Family names in Malian culture are rarely an indicator of status or importance, but they are referenced in almost every conversation that occurs between Malians. Upon introducing myself, it is imperative that I indicate my full name - Adama Diarra - so my new friend can understand whether or not our families love eachother, hate eachother, or simply make fun of one another for farting excessively. I was lucky enough to be given a name that is uncommon, yet not a common target of general jokes. Julie, on the other hand, is a Coulibaly. And let it be known - not only do the Coulibaly's LOVE to eat beans, they also love to share their last meal with everyone they meet with loud and boisterous farts. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Julie has quickly had to learn how to take fart jokes from complete with strangers and, as best she can, come back with her own familial insults. In fact, when I received my family name Diarra, I was instantly informed that I was my namegiver's family slave. Luckily for me, he spoke fluent French and I was able to inform him:


Il faut faire attention aux esclaves, mon brave, pour c'est nous qui preparent tout ce que vous mangez! (It would do you well to take care of your slaves then, friend, since we're the ones who prepare your food!)


In short, the family insult name game has been quite a source of comic relief as we attempt to brave the heat. On another culturally interesting note, I have noticed TONS of signs of globalization (one past intern actually found a t-shirt from her high school shopping at the grand marche!), but also some interesting remnants of traditional Mande culture. In addition to the family name game, I have also seen a handful of young children running around naked wearing strange sort of twine belt. Today, I discovered that this belt is believed to secure children (and older women) to their souls and protect them against local sorcerers. Interestingly, when I asked what happens when a sorcerer is found, I was told by one woman that her best girlfriend was in fact a witch and she didn't care. I wasn't clear how strongly Malians actually believe in these old traditions, but regardless, I have seen a handful of spirit belt-clad children running around.


On another note, I have yet to receive my luggage. Therefore, I'm surviving on Cari's loans and, as of tomorrow, whatever I can scrounge up at the local thrift shop. These tables, at the nearby grand marche (a large open air market), have everything from locally handmade cloths and second-hand clothes to fish heads and exotic fruits, including this one delicious mix between a pomegranate and a mango-flavored Sour Patch Kid called a zaban. Apparently, Caitlin has only ever seen it in Mali and it is absolutely delicious - I concur.


ON LIVING AND EATING: Since my arrival, I have been living in a local family's house that often temporarily houses Toubaboux in transition. They charge a whopping $5 per night (2500CFA in local currency - actually kind of expensive, but it's totally worth it) and I am one of 8-12 people floating around at any given time. The two main players are Barou and Ami, brother and sister, respectively. They speak fluent French and have been so much fun to talk to. In general, I try to help out around the kitchen or cleaning up, they refuse and tell me to be a good Toubabou and let my djatigui take care of me and then we get into a good conversation. Last night, Ami asked me if I had heard of weed. It was so funny to watch her elaborately describe how she knows a few people that have done it before and it must have been super potent: their eyes got red, they got very hungry and tired, and they started to faire des betises ("goof off"). I had to hush a chuckle as I thought to myself, "Ami needs to visit Brown on any normal weekend!"


Like I already said, my djatigui LOVE to take care of Cari and me. Every mealtime, they plop a big ol' covered bowl of something in front of the TV and tell Cari and me to eat. It's cultural tradition for djatigui to provide more than their guests can eat, but between Cari and me (OK, particularly me), we always seem to clean the plate. Last night, we had a traditional meal of beans - where's Julie when you need her?! - and a sweet oily onion sauce which seems to be a staple here. For dessert? At least five freshly peeled and cut mangos - YUM! This morning, we woke up to a bowl of a sweet white porridge concoction (sqri in Bambara) that, with a few sprinkles of powered milk, is DIVINE.


Around lunchtime today we headed over to Sikoro to visit with Caitlin's adoptive mother, this zoftig and oh-so-sassy woman who was only too pleased to feed her new summer chickadees. Here we finally got exposed to the Malian tradition of communal eating, which was extremely fun. Apparently, I am told I am a robust and fun eater to watch, perhaps only since I was starving by the time I could eat. We ate a traditional sticky peanut mush called tigadqgq xah. To eat this meal (and most other communal dishes) requires a strict observation of the right-hand rule (seeing as the left often serves as toilet paper in the ubiquitous Muslim community here, this is a rule I follow strictly), a desensitized palm (for shaping the bolus of food), and a sense of adventure. In short, you scoop a small bit of food into your hand, squeeze it into a ball, then lick upwards so it rolls into your mouth as you look into your host mother's eyes with a smile.


As much as I actually did enjoy that experience, I have no problems conceding that the meal left something to be desired, but G-d was it fun to do. I look forward to two months or so of communal eating. In fact, I got to visit the two homestays we will have for the months we are in Sikoroni and I'm SO excited. One host family is that of Modibo Niang, the main go-to guy for MHOP in Mali. His house is like a miniature paradise in the middle of the poorest part of Mali. There is a small courtyard with three enormous mango trees growing (they'll be ripe and falling in a month!) with a well-aired out toilet hole/shower area and plenty of room to string up a hammock (my personal arts and crafts project for the summer is to make one out of rope and fabric). Conversely, the other homestay looks like it was imported from mid-1990's Kosovo and is a more representative living situation of the Sikoronian lifestyle. It does, however, have a TON of amazingly cute children and a wide-open roof space that overlooks a fair bit of the neighborhood. Caitlin has assured us that whoever lives there will have an amazing time sleeping on the roof during hot summer nights. I don't care where I live, but either way, I'm getting my hammock in Niang's courtyard!


ON BEING WHITE: While there have been a few Toubabou ("white person") hotspots around Bamako, we have carefully done our best to avoid them. To give you some idea of the local perspective of Westerners, the Doctors Without Borders group who had a clinic in Sikoroni once upon a time are affectionately referred to as "medecins sans pieds" (doctors without feet"), since regardless of distance, they drove EVERYWHERE. Most other Toubaboux are either rude and/or cliquey or the typical gift-giving tourists that leave every Malian child thinking that I am rich and a coin-filled pinata for their pleasure and benefit. Needless to say, EVERY taxi that passes us on the street honks from three blocks away as if to say, "What are you doing, Whitey? Don't you know you don't have to walk?" It gets old waving them off (in addition to the swarms of SIM card and watch/sunglasses salesmen) and, in Caitlin's case, declining politely in Bambara. This trick is particularly useful in response to the children who cry out "Toubabou, cadeau!" (Whitey, gift!) - it's so funny to watch their faces turn from expectation to amusement as they hear Caitlin say no thank you and casually ask about their families in traditional Malian fashion. Honestly, Ms. Caitlin is absolutely amazing.


ON BEING CLEAN: However, one thing I had not necessarily anticipated, on the note of being white, was how visible every speck of Malian red dirt is on my body. While, for the most part, I stay clean (save buckets of sweat), I often take off my sandals to enter a home and am amazed to discover that my new sandal tan is actually just a temporary dirt tattoo. This gets to be pretty important as Toubaboux are expected to be impeccably clean (Why? Because we do nothing but eat, sleep, and bathe, clearly!). With all this in mind, I have come to enjoy rediscovering the pseudo-orgasmic power of a shower at the end of the day. I am lucky in that my first homestay, I actually have access to a Western shower(!) and toilet(!!!). Let me tell you, after the travel experience I have already described and a day or so in Bamako heat getting accustomed to my new home, that first trickle of water down my back (it's only ever a trickle, but it's more than adequate) was ... breathtaking. I actually made an audible noise of pleasure. Wow. So much for taking simple pleasures for granted!


ON ENDING THIS POST BEFORE I FALL ASLEEP AT THE INTERNET KIOSK: Time for sleep, guys. I'm exhausted and I have a delicious shower to look forward to before I abandon the luxury of flush toilets to move to Sikoroni tomorrow. I'll write soon.

In case you didn't have the patience to read the whole post, know that I am safe, happy, and loving my new Malian lifestyle.


X Adama X