Lots got done today. Our survey is completed and we got some interesting information back. While overall, project participants seem to be doing what they can do stay healthy, many individuals are still not sleeping under mosquito nets. When asked why, a lot of them said that they are only free for pregnant women and children, so they don’t want to spend the money or don’t think it’s worthwhile for other family members to use them. In essence, we found that there is an inherent risk in giving away free stuff to people with limited incomes.
We found a few other important things – people don’t always know when (and more importantly WHY) to use soap, most everyone has a trashcan that gets emptied regularly, but they almost never have lids, and people are still throwing waste water into the street. These are not all critical issues, in particular comparison to the mosquito net issue implicated above, but it’s all good information to have. We are going to start working with this to improve the current program as we try to revamp it. In the meantime, we’re still planning with the CHAG.
That’s it for work news today. Other than that, I had a great little walk through the back of Sikoroni and had some good pseudo-Bambara conversations with the people I met along the way. Nothing particularly special, but it was nice to just feel comfortable walking around and being able to say hello to everyone. So I did. And now, after that time in the sun, I’m ready for a nap.
X Adama X
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Tuesday, 7/1
Today was Katie and my second-ever screw “Screw Sikoroni Day” and we had a great time. We did some work in the morning renumbering participants’ houses, nothing too strenuous, then basically had the day off. We decided to go see another free movie at the French Cultural Center (again, toubabou central, but that’s not always a bad thing). They were playing L’Auberge Espagnol, which as a fun distraction in the A/C for two hours. Though perhaps a better highlight was the taxi ride over, which we got from a man who claimed he was the only unimportant member of his family, but that shouldn’t lead us to believe that taxi drivers are stupid. All of this came out totally unprovoked and he basically proceeded to brag about his family and his intelligence for 15 minutes in between leaning out of the window to yell at “bad” drivers that happened to always be swerving around us… When he started playing with the brakes, we realized we were in a bit of a predicament. Luckily we arrived in one piece and he even gave us back the change from our bill, which he informed us that we actually owed him, but because we were intelligent like him, he would give us a treat. What a sweetheart.
The strangeness of the night only arrived once we left, though. Remember Youssouf, the overzealous Malian man who asked me to translate letters to his friends for him? Well guess whose crazy eyes were fixed dead on me as soon as we got out of the theater? Youssouf just happened to be there watching the movie and as soon as he saw me, he pounced. He told me he had tried calling me over and over again (I could never understand him when he did, so I just stopped answering), which made me feel relatively awkward to see him in person again. Then he told me that he had really tried to make good on his offer to invite me over to his family’s house for dinner by just preparing a big meal and calling me multiple times. As you probably guessed, he just figured I would be able to decipher his messages and agree to attend, so they all thought I was coming but when they all sat down for the big meal, I wasn’t there! At this point I am feeling extremely awkward and sheepish.
Until Katie walks out of the bathroom and I realize that Youssouf is actually grabbing my shoulders and his eyes are bloodshot as all hell and for all intents and purposes, he looks like a crack-smoking crazy man. And then I start to realize I need to leave. Pronto. So I explain we have an obligation and have to leave, but I accidentally let it slip earlier in the conversation that we found out the movies are free on Tuesday, so he told me he’d see me next week (yikes!). Furthermore, he tried to catch up with us and explain that he has a friend in Boston who needs to send him a Japanese book and if we could kindly find his address when we return to send it to Mali, that would be a huge help. Now life is officially strange.
No, the strangeness transcended into hilarity when we leave the CCF and a young Rasta man comes over to ask me about my kippah. I explain that I’m Jewish and he tells me he’s heard about my kind before, seen us in movies and stuff, but that I’m the first Jew he’s ever met. He thinks I’m super cool and wants to be friendly with me and I’m all into the cross-cultural exchange… until Katie coolly informs me that he’s probably super high and doesn’t seem to get the message that we were in the middle of a conversation. When I try to explain that we’re in a rush, he thought I was sketched out. And I was, only because I was beoming cognizant of the fact that we were two white people with computers in our backpacks walking down a busy street late at night alone… and we suck at speaking Bambara (let alone French).
We ended up getting away and Katie decided to perk up the evening by taking me to a nice little pizzeria she found in Lost Planet that was only a few blocks away. That having been said, being toubabous in the dark in Bamako, it took us an hour and a half to find it. But let me tell you, when we did, it was SOOOO nice to sit down to this super-hole in the wall gourmet restaurant with gruyere thin-crust pizza and a breadbasket. The whole meal cost less than going to Applebee’s, but it was such a delicacy. Wow. What a nice treat. I had no qualms about spending that money, not that day.
Katie and I also had a great conversation about our expectations of the summer and what we were hoping to learn. We both arrived at the conclusion that we were getting much more than we bargained for and that we had a lot to consider after this experience in terms of career choices and options. In conjunction with some good advice and kind words from family members recently, this is just one of many conversations that have helped in alleviating some brooding stress I’ve had around professional aspirations in the last year. It’s nice to let some pressure out of that dialogue and start reassessing. That having been said, I have no new ideas what I want to do and I don’t even know that it’s not this, but it’s definitely been helpful to step back and realize that there’s more than one way to evaluate my options. ☺
X Adama X
The strangeness of the night only arrived once we left, though. Remember Youssouf, the overzealous Malian man who asked me to translate letters to his friends for him? Well guess whose crazy eyes were fixed dead on me as soon as we got out of the theater? Youssouf just happened to be there watching the movie and as soon as he saw me, he pounced. He told me he had tried calling me over and over again (I could never understand him when he did, so I just stopped answering), which made me feel relatively awkward to see him in person again. Then he told me that he had really tried to make good on his offer to invite me over to his family’s house for dinner by just preparing a big meal and calling me multiple times. As you probably guessed, he just figured I would be able to decipher his messages and agree to attend, so they all thought I was coming but when they all sat down for the big meal, I wasn’t there! At this point I am feeling extremely awkward and sheepish.
Until Katie walks out of the bathroom and I realize that Youssouf is actually grabbing my shoulders and his eyes are bloodshot as all hell and for all intents and purposes, he looks like a crack-smoking crazy man. And then I start to realize I need to leave. Pronto. So I explain we have an obligation and have to leave, but I accidentally let it slip earlier in the conversation that we found out the movies are free on Tuesday, so he told me he’d see me next week (yikes!). Furthermore, he tried to catch up with us and explain that he has a friend in Boston who needs to send him a Japanese book and if we could kindly find his address when we return to send it to Mali, that would be a huge help. Now life is officially strange.
No, the strangeness transcended into hilarity when we leave the CCF and a young Rasta man comes over to ask me about my kippah. I explain that I’m Jewish and he tells me he’s heard about my kind before, seen us in movies and stuff, but that I’m the first Jew he’s ever met. He thinks I’m super cool and wants to be friendly with me and I’m all into the cross-cultural exchange… until Katie coolly informs me that he’s probably super high and doesn’t seem to get the message that we were in the middle of a conversation. When I try to explain that we’re in a rush, he thought I was sketched out. And I was, only because I was beoming cognizant of the fact that we were two white people with computers in our backpacks walking down a busy street late at night alone… and we suck at speaking Bambara (let alone French).
We ended up getting away and Katie decided to perk up the evening by taking me to a nice little pizzeria she found in Lost Planet that was only a few blocks away. That having been said, being toubabous in the dark in Bamako, it took us an hour and a half to find it. But let me tell you, when we did, it was SOOOO nice to sit down to this super-hole in the wall gourmet restaurant with gruyere thin-crust pizza and a breadbasket. The whole meal cost less than going to Applebee’s, but it was such a delicacy. Wow. What a nice treat. I had no qualms about spending that money, not that day.
Katie and I also had a great conversation about our expectations of the summer and what we were hoping to learn. We both arrived at the conclusion that we were getting much more than we bargained for and that we had a lot to consider after this experience in terms of career choices and options. In conjunction with some good advice and kind words from family members recently, this is just one of many conversations that have helped in alleviating some brooding stress I’ve had around professional aspirations in the last year. It’s nice to let some pressure out of that dialogue and start reassessing. That having been said, I have no new ideas what I want to do and I don’t even know that it’s not this, but it’s definitely been helpful to step back and realize that there’s more than one way to evaluate my options. ☺
X Adama X
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
A NOTE ON WORK
So one question I’ve gotten from a few of you is, “So now I now a lot about your introduction to Malian culture, but what about all that healthcare outreach business you kept talking about all Spring?” As it turns out, the answer to that question is simultaneously difficult to answer and answerable in two words: very little. Since I’ve been in Bamako, I haven’t been having the daily meetings and tight schedule I had anticipated before leaving in order to get this project done. I thought this internship would be something along the lines of coming to Bamako meeting with the trained local professionals (e.g. statisticians, doctors, nurses) to find out the actual healthcare situation and then using this information to create a sustainable healthcare system. As it turns out, it is really only our job to use our respected social position as toubabous to collect information and bring it to the CHAG, who then makes any important decisions and does all the necessary work to launch the program. We meet with professional people (most of which we have already met with) to determine what the community should need based on recent reports then meld this information with the first-hand knowledge of the CHAG to create a new outreach program that serves the community best.
Consequently, all of the work required to design the peer health education cards that the CHAG uses in their training sessions are designed by the CHAG members themselves, as is most of the text, though we provide the scientific facts from health manuals. They decide everything from what should go on a poster to advertise the new clinic site to how to conduct a new survey in the community – our only job is to facilitate their work as a community-based think tank. Let me say, as a control freak, it is hard to have a job where I get to make none of the decisions; however, I am also entirely in favor of this arrangement so the program can run independently of our presence as Western “leaders”. As frustrating as it is to feel like I am doing nothing, it is actually the best possible outcome, since the program is still moving forward and it’s due entirely to the CHAG’s hard work.
In concrete terms, one project we are working on this summer is evaluating the current education program, which cannot be done by the CHAG in order to avoid self-biases. We are looking at how effective the current education materials are at getting people from information (e.g. mosquitoes transmit malaria) to actions that can prevent diseases (e.g. using a treated mosquito net every night). This survey has already been designed and is being conducted starting tomorrow. Aside from that, we are just keeping on keeping on and enjoying watching the CHAG do its thing. And honestly, after three weeks of confusion not knowing how I was supposed to be making a difference, it’s nice to finally realize that seeing the CHAG be productive IS being productive.
All that having been said, I have now come to terms with the fact that this summer will not result in a final product. I have a few select concrete tasks to perform to make this project work, but I will not see this project be resolved before I leave. So… I’m just taking this summer as a cultural immersion experience in Mali. I’m walking around the neighborhoods, practicing my Bambara, going hiking, and traveling. As long as the CHAG is getting their work done, I’m getting my work done. And it’s really nice to have that pressure-cooker top off of this entire experience. FINALLY!
So to all of you who wanted to know exactly what I’ve been up to, I hope this helped some. I know it may just sound like I said, “I’m supervising.” But I think that maybe that’s not a bad analogy and even if I didn’t know I was signing up for it, I did. It’s a strange experience and a great one, despite all of its frustrations from time to time. And I’m glad I’m here to experience it all.
P.S. If you have specific questions about the project, just let me know – I have purposely steered clear of details so as not to bore a mixed audience. Some of you want to know about the project and some of you just want to know I’m alive and happy. I’m eager to answer questions from any audience members. ☺
X Adama X
Consequently, all of the work required to design the peer health education cards that the CHAG uses in their training sessions are designed by the CHAG members themselves, as is most of the text, though we provide the scientific facts from health manuals. They decide everything from what should go on a poster to advertise the new clinic site to how to conduct a new survey in the community – our only job is to facilitate their work as a community-based think tank. Let me say, as a control freak, it is hard to have a job where I get to make none of the decisions; however, I am also entirely in favor of this arrangement so the program can run independently of our presence as Western “leaders”. As frustrating as it is to feel like I am doing nothing, it is actually the best possible outcome, since the program is still moving forward and it’s due entirely to the CHAG’s hard work.
In concrete terms, one project we are working on this summer is evaluating the current education program, which cannot be done by the CHAG in order to avoid self-biases. We are looking at how effective the current education materials are at getting people from information (e.g. mosquitoes transmit malaria) to actions that can prevent diseases (e.g. using a treated mosquito net every night). This survey has already been designed and is being conducted starting tomorrow. Aside from that, we are just keeping on keeping on and enjoying watching the CHAG do its thing. And honestly, after three weeks of confusion not knowing how I was supposed to be making a difference, it’s nice to finally realize that seeing the CHAG be productive IS being productive.
All that having been said, I have now come to terms with the fact that this summer will not result in a final product. I have a few select concrete tasks to perform to make this project work, but I will not see this project be resolved before I leave. So… I’m just taking this summer as a cultural immersion experience in Mali. I’m walking around the neighborhoods, practicing my Bambara, going hiking, and traveling. As long as the CHAG is getting their work done, I’m getting my work done. And it’s really nice to have that pressure-cooker top off of this entire experience. FINALLY!
So to all of you who wanted to know exactly what I’ve been up to, I hope this helped some. I know it may just sound like I said, “I’m supervising.” But I think that maybe that’s not a bad analogy and even if I didn’t know I was signing up for it, I did. It’s a strange experience and a great one, despite all of its frustrations from time to time. And I’m glad I’m here to experience it all.
P.S. If you have specific questions about the project, just let me know – I have purposely steered clear of details so as not to bore a mixed audience. Some of you want to know about the project and some of you just want to know I’m alive and happy. I’m eager to answer questions from any audience members. ☺
X Adama X
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday 6/29
As I’ve been sleeping off the last of this sickness, I’ve been having a rare and beautiful chance to dream (and I’m not even on mefloquine!). If I don’t write down my dreams immediately, I often forget them and even if I remember to write them down, by the chance I can, they are sometimes already lost. I just woke up from a strange and fascinating mid-morning nap that provided me with (as strange as it sounds) one of thematically cohesive dreams I have had in a while. To provide some context, the book I just started reading What is the What account of a Sudanese refugee’s experiences in the Darfur conflict, though I also see much of my own recent life experience in the dream too. This is what my mind tells me:
---------------------
I was in a place like Bamako, though it was much more open. The ground was unkempt and muddy in patches, pickup trucks and other machines lined the one road we were following downhill. I do not know why, but I feel I was in Ethiopia. A small group of us was being led against our will down the hill, but we were free to walk as we pleased. Wherever we were going, we were being prepared for the first and most basic level of firefighter training, something that both excited and terrified me. I remember thinking to myself, “but what if I freeze inside and can’t move to fight the fire at all?” I can picture myself in that thought just slowly being enveloped in flames, my skin starting to crack in the heat. And then I come to and step forward, starting to take down the fire, one room at a time. I know I can do it, though I have never had to before, and I know that this is not the last time I will fight for my life. I know I will survive.
This brief daydream evaporates and I am still walking down the hill to basic training. As we walk, I realize I am carrying basic but very heavy firefighter’s gear and that everyone else around me on the hill is already suited up and around my age. We seem to be child soldiers of some sort, but no one is rebelling. I realize that there is no point in escaping and actually wonder if it is even worthwhile, so I offer to help a group of women firefighters that we pass along the road. I don’t have time to help – we’re in a rush. But I think the man in charge, wherever he is, will see this and appreciate my eagerness to help. I recognize one of the girls as a Brown student I know who is a brilliant pre-med student, carrying impossibly heavy objects to her own fire truck, which is actually just a hollowed out van (like a mobili). She declines and we keep walking.
When we pass her van, the scene changes. We are entering a warehouse, sliding under a propped open cargo bay door. I am rushed under first and immediately, six foam mattresses fall on me from some unknown location. It doesn’t hurt – it’s just bizarre and jarring. The inside of the warehouse is humongous and there are young boys scattered around at office desks, each smoking and casually feigning a resemblance of work. They immediately tell me to move the mattresses, which I do. And no sooner have I moved them to one place, they tell me they need to be organized and removed. And it is in this moment that I resign, that I realize this is my new life: I am a slave. But strangely, no more than a split second later, I make a new discovery that changes that: In a desk drawer near where I am, there is a small piece of folded up paper with two decrepit dolls made from trash scraps that I recognize as being mine. And then I remember: I have been here before. These were mine. And I escaped. And I just keep walking. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I am going to escape. And somehow the knowledge of that appeases me enough to accept this life as my own with pride. Because I am NOT a slave – I am a master.
-------------------------------------
In so many ways, it was an amazingly empowering experience to have this dream. I don’t often bring it up, but I’m a pretty strong believer in energy and dreams and being flippantly Freudian about it, I do see dreams as a source of strength and knowledge. As I’ve been struggling here, this dream was a great message for me and one I am proud to have contained, even if only briefly. One of my big challenges in life has been running from things that scare me and inherently embedded in that is the fatally flawed believe that I know what I need in any given moment. As I have grown up, it has taken time and a lot of patience to truly admit that I rarely know what I want, let alone what I need. Therefore, all I can do is love what I have and trust that it’s exactly what I was supposed to find all along to get wherever I am going next. Thus, I’m actually quite proud to have had a dream of submission and furthermore, a dream in which I derive power from that submission. It is a way that I try to live my life day to day and after two years of trying to make it work, this is a beautiful sign that it is becoming integrated into my being. What a great gift – not only in the global sense, but also as a sign of the remaining month or so in Sikoroni. All I have to do is the same thing I ever have to do – release my expectations and desires of my current situation and just embrace it.
Last night I came home and danced in the rain. I broke in my new yarmulke, just getting pummeled by torrents of wetness and finally, for the first time in a week, felt like I could breathe again. We played word games and laughed. We went to the only Tex-Mex restaurant in Bamako and told funny stories about our college roommates for hours. We met South African Jews who greeted me in Hebrew and we sat next to Russian whores who worked the brothel in the backroom. It was a surreal night and it was delicious. And for the first time in a week or so, I’m looking forward to many more delicious nights just like it.
X Adama X
---------------------
I was in a place like Bamako, though it was much more open. The ground was unkempt and muddy in patches, pickup trucks and other machines lined the one road we were following downhill. I do not know why, but I feel I was in Ethiopia. A small group of us was being led against our will down the hill, but we were free to walk as we pleased. Wherever we were going, we were being prepared for the first and most basic level of firefighter training, something that both excited and terrified me. I remember thinking to myself, “but what if I freeze inside and can’t move to fight the fire at all?” I can picture myself in that thought just slowly being enveloped in flames, my skin starting to crack in the heat. And then I come to and step forward, starting to take down the fire, one room at a time. I know I can do it, though I have never had to before, and I know that this is not the last time I will fight for my life. I know I will survive.
This brief daydream evaporates and I am still walking down the hill to basic training. As we walk, I realize I am carrying basic but very heavy firefighter’s gear and that everyone else around me on the hill is already suited up and around my age. We seem to be child soldiers of some sort, but no one is rebelling. I realize that there is no point in escaping and actually wonder if it is even worthwhile, so I offer to help a group of women firefighters that we pass along the road. I don’t have time to help – we’re in a rush. But I think the man in charge, wherever he is, will see this and appreciate my eagerness to help. I recognize one of the girls as a Brown student I know who is a brilliant pre-med student, carrying impossibly heavy objects to her own fire truck, which is actually just a hollowed out van (like a mobili). She declines and we keep walking.
When we pass her van, the scene changes. We are entering a warehouse, sliding under a propped open cargo bay door. I am rushed under first and immediately, six foam mattresses fall on me from some unknown location. It doesn’t hurt – it’s just bizarre and jarring. The inside of the warehouse is humongous and there are young boys scattered around at office desks, each smoking and casually feigning a resemblance of work. They immediately tell me to move the mattresses, which I do. And no sooner have I moved them to one place, they tell me they need to be organized and removed. And it is in this moment that I resign, that I realize this is my new life: I am a slave. But strangely, no more than a split second later, I make a new discovery that changes that: In a desk drawer near where I am, there is a small piece of folded up paper with two decrepit dolls made from trash scraps that I recognize as being mine. And then I remember: I have been here before. These were mine. And I escaped. And I just keep walking. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I am going to escape. And somehow the knowledge of that appeases me enough to accept this life as my own with pride. Because I am NOT a slave – I am a master.
-------------------------------------
In so many ways, it was an amazingly empowering experience to have this dream. I don’t often bring it up, but I’m a pretty strong believer in energy and dreams and being flippantly Freudian about it, I do see dreams as a source of strength and knowledge. As I’ve been struggling here, this dream was a great message for me and one I am proud to have contained, even if only briefly. One of my big challenges in life has been running from things that scare me and inherently embedded in that is the fatally flawed believe that I know what I need in any given moment. As I have grown up, it has taken time and a lot of patience to truly admit that I rarely know what I want, let alone what I need. Therefore, all I can do is love what I have and trust that it’s exactly what I was supposed to find all along to get wherever I am going next. Thus, I’m actually quite proud to have had a dream of submission and furthermore, a dream in which I derive power from that submission. It is a way that I try to live my life day to day and after two years of trying to make it work, this is a beautiful sign that it is becoming integrated into my being. What a great gift – not only in the global sense, but also as a sign of the remaining month or so in Sikoroni. All I have to do is the same thing I ever have to do – release my expectations and desires of my current situation and just embrace it.
Last night I came home and danced in the rain. I broke in my new yarmulke, just getting pummeled by torrents of wetness and finally, for the first time in a week, felt like I could breathe again. We played word games and laughed. We went to the only Tex-Mex restaurant in Bamako and told funny stories about our college roommates for hours. We met South African Jews who greeted me in Hebrew and we sat next to Russian whores who worked the brothel in the backroom. It was a surreal night and it was delicious. And for the first time in a week or so, I’m looking forward to many more delicious nights just like it.
X Adama X
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