"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what (the day)will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea." - Jonas Salk
Murphy's law has taken effect again. The expensive converter/adapter that I bought before coming here no longer works. So I couldn't recharge my phone. It died today before I borrowed Andrew's to recharge it. Hopefully this issue is resolved soon.
Mieko is holding a party on Saturday for us and our NGO partners. I'm looking forward to it. Coumba told the guys they were only welcome to bring their girlfriends if they did not have wives. Wow. (Just for more info she is a doctor, obviously feminist and less obviously married for 9 years, who consults with both Projét Jeune and ASDAP.)
We've noted how laidback Malians are about religion. They are Muslim and they are also open to other's religions. Katie says they would be most concerned if you didn't believe in any God. During our security briefing, Daley said that during the Dutch cartoon riots someone called for a riot in Mali and only 10 people showed up. Dana lived in Senegal for two years and says the Muslim influence seems more prevalent there. Coumba says yes they all walk around fingering their prayer beads saying nothing; The Sengalese bluff a lot. Then she tells us a story about an American in Senegal who wanted to buy a crocodile so a Senegalese painted up a lizard to look like a crocodile and sold it to the man for lots of money; Always bluffing Coumba says.
Instead of meeting at ASDAP this morning we met at the National Museum. Once again I was the first on ready to leave the house in the morning. What's up with that? I live with guys... On the grounds of the museum we saw two men filming a guy in traditional dress dancing and singing. For one second I was puzzled and then I realized they were filming one of those cheesy African music videos which will probably include a screen split into 16 parts post-production.
Inside the museum we learned about the artifacts, culture, and textiles of Mali. There were symbols for fertility and rain, and Madonna and child icons as well as of the first couple Adam and Eve. We looked at mudcloth and tie dye styles. Mudcloth is usually black and white, or brown and white. Mud and water are mixed and fermented and then added to cloth in patterns. The darker parts are where the mud stained the cloth. The intricate tie dye patterns are made from plain cotton that is embroidered then tie dyed. The designs are very distinct and very detailed.
Mali's Dogon tribe is possibly the most well-known out of them all. During the time of slave raids, they moved away from the Niger River, where slave raids regularly took place over a period of 400 years, and into the inhospitable cliffs of the desert. From that vantage point they could see any intruders from far enough away to stage an attack. They were also very sophisticated with their astronomy. They focused specifically on Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and somehow accurately described its orbit and knew that it had a companion dwarf star although Western astronomers were not able to see the companion star using technology until the 1900s or prove its existence through photography until 1970.
After the museum Coumba said she would give me a ride. A huge open-backed truck full of police went down the street and I got out my camera and then asked Coumba if she thought I could take a picture. She said sure but by the time the lens was ready the truck was gone. We backed up and headed out of the lot and there was the truck again. This time we were alongside it. I snapped a photo and at least five police officers jumped out.
One came up to the car and demanded my camera. I flipped to display mode, reviewed the photo and deleted it immediately. Coumba and I both said that I erased the picture. Thank God for digital cameras. He reached into the car and grabbed the camera. I grabbed it back and we were having a tug-of-war during which I put my arm through the camera's strap saying all the time I erased, I erased. He said something to Coumba and she told me that he wanted me to get out of the car. I let go of the camera and followed him to five feet away.
He asked me to show him the picture I took of the police. I flipped through my pictures of the museum grounds. He said what's after that. I came back around to pictures from my graduation. I said these are my graduation pictures from the US. I deleted that picture. He asked where I was from and then he said never do that again and gave my camera back. When I turned Coumba was right behind me. She had parked her car on the side of the road, left the door open, and come to where we were. We didn't say anything until we were down the street. She asked where you scared? I said yes where you? She said no, they bluff a lot like the Senegalese.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Orientation
"Solitude and meditation gave me an awareness, a perspective which I have never lost: that of solidarity with the rest of mankind." - Vicente Aleixandre
Each morning we head for orientation by hailing a taxi on our road. Monday and Tuesday we went to ASDAP headquarters where I met President Madame Traore Fatoumata Toure in person after reading about her, and the organization she created, on the internet a few months ago. We have working sessions with Dana who is here from One World for only a week and Malian young leaders Coumba, Namory, Ousmane and Amadou whom they call Coulibaly (his last name).
The harrowing taxi rides take 15 minutes through motorbikes, buses, other taxis, people walking, vendors sidestepping cars to sell to passengers and beggars doing the same. The motorbikes are the preferred method of transportation and I have seen it all from women riding with babies strapped to their backs, to 3 grown people riding at the same time, to people transporting HUGE bundles, to women dressed nicely and in heels riding them. I have only seen 2 helmets in all this time. It is every man, woman and child for himself on the roads.
We have a morning breakout session and we break for tea and what looks and tastes like empanadas. Then we go back in for more discussions, brainstorming and activities and then break for lunch which they serve. We usually have salad and some sort of rice, potatoes or couscous with either chicken, beef, or fish. I was warned not to eat salad but for some reason I felt this was ok and I must be right because I have not gotten sick. I do not drink the water though. The first day I thought they would provide water so I did not bring a bottle. But they of course provide tap water. I was so thirsty that I thought I would just bite the bullet and drink it. Instead I had sodas. I have drank more sodas in the past few days than I have had in the past few years though mostly I stay with my bottled water. I actually have been sick but not with one of the various issues one might expect. I traveled 6000+ miles to catch a common cold. The constant switch from sweltering heat to AC is doing me in. I'm almost over it though.
I speak French the best out of our group. Andrew has been struggling, probably more than he thought he would, because his Haitian French is more of a patois. Rodney speaks a bit but has been studying avidly every day. Every day without fail Andrew says it is hot and that he is tired. He nods off in class sessions and goes to sleep as soon as we get home. Today was cooler in the evening as it got cloudy so I had more energy to go out when we got back but he did not. I wonder if he has anemia or if the situation will subside once he starts working at his placement.
Today we went to the US Embassy with Mieko and met with Daley, the Asst Security Advisor to talk about safety in Mali. Our meeting was particularly interesting since he is a Jamaican who lived in the US for a time. After the required talk about not opening ourselves up to petty thievery he told us that what we are doing is very important and also that there are great restaurants and places to go out dancing here and that he would take us out before we left. Andrew was very excited to meet Daley as he is also Jamaican, and Haitian. They both spoke in Jamaican patois while Daley escorted us down to the lobby.
Afterwards we went to Projét Jeune offices and World Education (WE) offices. WE talked about their success in creating sustainable community projects surrounding education. I was particularly interested in their projects in the distant northern regions of Mali bordering Algeria which may harbor extremist activities. Apparently the State Department sees their educational successes there as critical to our defense efforts.
Then we had a presentation from ASDAP and another from a group representing female rights with regards to the law. Earlier this week Namory and Coumba were going back and forth. Namory said that women and men in Mali already had equal rights; Coumba said they didn't. The presentation resolved the issue. If a woman's husband dies and he has designated a guardian of his estate, the woman has to collaborate with the guardian to make decisions about the children and the household. Property is not allowed to pass from father to daughter or husband to wife. A man must always take possession of the property and 'safeguard' it for the woman, a way to keep women from having power or say. Until 2002 a woman had to have her husband's permission to obtain contraception. Coumba also said that many times a husband will give his wife money each day to buy food and things for household needs and if it is not enough to feed the children, the onus is upon the wife, not the husband, to find a way to get more money.
After the presentation I asked Namory how he could have said that women had equal rights, no matter how well he treats his own wife. I said human rights provided the right to control one's own body and destiny and women were humans were they not? Later he asked a very poignant question on the premise of my argument. During another conversation Namory asked me if I liked Mali. I said yes. He asked me if I liked it enough to stay here. I said that I was used to freedom, rights, and power, as a person... as a woman, and that once someone had experienced freedom they would never be happy with less than that.
Coumba invited me to a Malian wedding. Obviously nothing I have to wear will do and so she said she will look into me having something made. Mieko's friend Katie said she had a strapless dress made for a US wedding for the equivalent of 4 USD, not including the fabric. Oh that I could be so lucky.
Each morning we head for orientation by hailing a taxi on our road. Monday and Tuesday we went to ASDAP headquarters where I met President Madame Traore Fatoumata Toure in person after reading about her, and the organization she created, on the internet a few months ago. We have working sessions with Dana who is here from One World for only a week and Malian young leaders Coumba, Namory, Ousmane and Amadou whom they call Coulibaly (his last name).
The harrowing taxi rides take 15 minutes through motorbikes, buses, other taxis, people walking, vendors sidestepping cars to sell to passengers and beggars doing the same. The motorbikes are the preferred method of transportation and I have seen it all from women riding with babies strapped to their backs, to 3 grown people riding at the same time, to people transporting HUGE bundles, to women dressed nicely and in heels riding them. I have only seen 2 helmets in all this time. It is every man, woman and child for himself on the roads.
We have a morning breakout session and we break for tea and what looks and tastes like empanadas. Then we go back in for more discussions, brainstorming and activities and then break for lunch which they serve. We usually have salad and some sort of rice, potatoes or couscous with either chicken, beef, or fish. I was warned not to eat salad but for some reason I felt this was ok and I must be right because I have not gotten sick. I do not drink the water though. The first day I thought they would provide water so I did not bring a bottle. But they of course provide tap water. I was so thirsty that I thought I would just bite the bullet and drink it. Instead I had sodas. I have drank more sodas in the past few days than I have had in the past few years though mostly I stay with my bottled water. I actually have been sick but not with one of the various issues one might expect. I traveled 6000+ miles to catch a common cold. The constant switch from sweltering heat to AC is doing me in. I'm almost over it though.
I speak French the best out of our group. Andrew has been struggling, probably more than he thought he would, because his Haitian French is more of a patois. Rodney speaks a bit but has been studying avidly every day. Every day without fail Andrew says it is hot and that he is tired. He nods off in class sessions and goes to sleep as soon as we get home. Today was cooler in the evening as it got cloudy so I had more energy to go out when we got back but he did not. I wonder if he has anemia or if the situation will subside once he starts working at his placement.
Today we went to the US Embassy with Mieko and met with Daley, the Asst Security Advisor to talk about safety in Mali. Our meeting was particularly interesting since he is a Jamaican who lived in the US for a time. After the required talk about not opening ourselves up to petty thievery he told us that what we are doing is very important and also that there are great restaurants and places to go out dancing here and that he would take us out before we left. Andrew was very excited to meet Daley as he is also Jamaican, and Haitian. They both spoke in Jamaican patois while Daley escorted us down to the lobby.
Afterwards we went to Projét Jeune offices and World Education (WE) offices. WE talked about their success in creating sustainable community projects surrounding education. I was particularly interested in their projects in the distant northern regions of Mali bordering Algeria which may harbor extremist activities. Apparently the State Department sees their educational successes there as critical to our defense efforts.
Then we had a presentation from ASDAP and another from a group representing female rights with regards to the law. Earlier this week Namory and Coumba were going back and forth. Namory said that women and men in Mali already had equal rights; Coumba said they didn't. The presentation resolved the issue. If a woman's husband dies and he has designated a guardian of his estate, the woman has to collaborate with the guardian to make decisions about the children and the household. Property is not allowed to pass from father to daughter or husband to wife. A man must always take possession of the property and 'safeguard' it for the woman, a way to keep women from having power or say. Until 2002 a woman had to have her husband's permission to obtain contraception. Coumba also said that many times a husband will give his wife money each day to buy food and things for household needs and if it is not enough to feed the children, the onus is upon the wife, not the husband, to find a way to get more money.
After the presentation I asked Namory how he could have said that women had equal rights, no matter how well he treats his own wife. I said human rights provided the right to control one's own body and destiny and women were humans were they not? Later he asked a very poignant question on the premise of my argument. During another conversation Namory asked me if I liked Mali. I said yes. He asked me if I liked it enough to stay here. I said that I was used to freedom, rights, and power, as a person... as a woman, and that once someone had experienced freedom they would never be happy with less than that.
Coumba invited me to a Malian wedding. Obviously nothing I have to wear will do and so she said she will look into me having something made. Mieko's friend Katie said she had a strapless dress made for a US wedding for the equivalent of 4 USD, not including the fabric. Oh that I could be so lucky.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Coincidence?
"Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.” - Emma Bull
1. Years ago my friends Jean-Marie and her husband Morris gave me a 2 ft. x 2 ft. piece of an ornately carved wooden door. Morris said it was from somewhere in Africa or so he had been told. It was beautiful so I kept it. It was very heavy though so I was afraid to hang it lest it tear down the wall. So I stood it in the corner as decoration for years until I moved from NYC to California. The door was indeed heavy, ridiculously heavy even, and with a limited budget I chose to give it away rather than pay to have it shipped all the way to my new home. Now that I am in Mali, I have learned that the door was created either by those in the Dogon area of Mali or by those familiar with their techniques.
2. I was assigned to work with Projét Jeune this summer. As a part of our orientation week we toured their facilities today. They have a lot of activities on their site to attract young people, and while they are there they can get reproductive health counseling, materials and health checkups. Among the activities they have is a court for soccer and - of all the sports in the world - volleyball, the sport I have been playing competitively since age 13. Playing it in this weather is another story though.
3. On our first full day here when we had the miscommunication with Rodney, he wandered the streets with very little money while he waited for us to get home. (He had the key to the outside door but not the second door which we locked). A man on a moped offered him a ride and it turned out the man was our next door neighbor. Apparently other people told him they had seen his new neighbor wandering the streets sweating and he should go check up on him. With no more info than just that and the direction Rodney had set out in, he found him.
4. The more we discuss the specific situations of public health and education in Mali, the more it becomes apparent that youth in Mali and youth in US communities of color are experiencing the same issues. I did not expect that parallelism but is is more than striking. It hits you over the head. Overcrowded, underfinanced public schools with inconsistent curricula and quality; under-educated parents who cannot or do not know how to advocate for their children; a shortage of teachers, in general, and qualified teachers specifically; the general lack of access to resources; the lack of awareness and the prevalence of stigmas surrounding AIDS; unequal footing for power and negotiations for all but particularly for women and for the young, the need for immediate action...
What does it mean if Mali, a country where donkeys, goats, begging children, mansions, and cyber cafes share the same street, experiences the same problems that are experienced in the US with all its resources? It offers wonderful opportunities for international collaboration, coalition-building, strategy-sharing, yes, but does it mean there is no hope?
1. Years ago my friends Jean-Marie and her husband Morris gave me a 2 ft. x 2 ft. piece of an ornately carved wooden door. Morris said it was from somewhere in Africa or so he had been told. It was beautiful so I kept it. It was very heavy though so I was afraid to hang it lest it tear down the wall. So I stood it in the corner as decoration for years until I moved from NYC to California. The door was indeed heavy, ridiculously heavy even, and with a limited budget I chose to give it away rather than pay to have it shipped all the way to my new home. Now that I am in Mali, I have learned that the door was created either by those in the Dogon area of Mali or by those familiar with their techniques.
2. I was assigned to work with Projét Jeune this summer. As a part of our orientation week we toured their facilities today. They have a lot of activities on their site to attract young people, and while they are there they can get reproductive health counseling, materials and health checkups. Among the activities they have is a court for soccer and - of all the sports in the world - volleyball, the sport I have been playing competitively since age 13. Playing it in this weather is another story though.
3. On our first full day here when we had the miscommunication with Rodney, he wandered the streets with very little money while he waited for us to get home. (He had the key to the outside door but not the second door which we locked). A man on a moped offered him a ride and it turned out the man was our next door neighbor. Apparently other people told him they had seen his new neighbor wandering the streets sweating and he should go check up on him. With no more info than just that and the direction Rodney had set out in, he found him.
4. The more we discuss the specific situations of public health and education in Mali, the more it becomes apparent that youth in Mali and youth in US communities of color are experiencing the same issues. I did not expect that parallelism but is is more than striking. It hits you over the head. Overcrowded, underfinanced public schools with inconsistent curricula and quality; under-educated parents who cannot or do not know how to advocate for their children; a shortage of teachers, in general, and qualified teachers specifically; the general lack of access to resources; the lack of awareness and the prevalence of stigmas surrounding AIDS; unequal footing for power and negotiations for all but particularly for women and for the young, the need for immediate action...
What does it mean if Mali, a country where donkeys, goats, begging children, mansions, and cyber cafes share the same street, experiences the same problems that are experienced in the US with all its resources? It offers wonderful opportunities for international collaboration, coalition-building, strategy-sharing, yes, but does it mean there is no hope?
Monday, June 4, 2007
Culture and Commonality
Sunday we had a cross-cultural exchange with young Malian leaders where they talked to us about customs and the process of elaborate greetings depending on the time of day. They told us that if Americans come to an office for service and saw someone busy with paperwork they wait and do not say anything. In Mali they say Bonjour and it is the sign for the person to look up from their work and acknowledge another’s presence.
After our discussion we filed into the bathroom to wash our hands and sat down on a large mat and ate fish and rice out of three communal bowls with our hands. They were being polite telling me to go first but I told them I needed to see what exactly it was that we were doing so I could copy. They reached with their right hand and took a small handful and rolled it and shaped it in their right palm until it was a solid piece and popped it in their mouth. I tried but never got a single solid piece and instead grains of rice scattered every time I put something in my mouth. I felt bad when I saw Mieko sweeping up so much where I had been sitting. Rodney got the hang of it but he had been putting his left hand in the bowl which they told him was a no-no. He apologized profusely. It’s like being a child, vulnerable, and having to learn everything over again.
When you are full you excuse yourself from the mat and get up, which is rude by our standards. I noticed that the Americans were the last to get up from eating. I wondered if that was because it took us longer to eat with our hands or if we ate more than they did or if we were being greedy. And I wondered what they thought of us. Talk about feeling self-conscious.
We went to an ATM so I could get cash, a little envelope with 70 USD having mysteriously disappeared from my bag. As a former New Yorker I hesitate to say I was pickpocketed (my pride will not let me.) I actually think it happened when they sent all our bags through the scanner upon arriving in Bamako and rather than watching to see if bags were being picked up at the other end, they simply kept the runner going. So all the bags, including mine, piled and crushed up at the other end and a few fell off the table. A book fell out so it’s possible that the envelope could have as well. Well the ATM only accepted Visa. My debit card is Mastercard. And I do not have my checkbook here and I did not bring travelers checks. Again with focusing on the wrong things. We figured an elaborate scheme involving bank transfers and paypal to get money from my account to Mieko so she can write and cash a check for me at the Embassy.
Meanwhile Rodney had to go to the bank today. We got there at 3:45 and they close at 4 but the teller refused to serve him. Rodney called me over to assist. The man said he had to close up at 3:45 so he could leave at 4 and we should not have waited until the last minute. I said I understood but was it possible for him to change the money since we had traveled a long way and we would have no Malian money between us if he turned us away. He said we should have come in the morning. I told him we had been in class in the morning (which we had) and we came as soon as we could. He relented and changed the money. I laid it on thick and said thanks to him we could eat tonight and God would bless him.
Our class today was a session at ASDAP between the Malian and American young leaders talking about human rights and development. We came up with our own definition of development and talked about the importance of communities governing themselves, or at the very least having input into the process, and controlling their own resources. There is a school of public administration here and they talk about sustainability just like we do at SPPD. We partnered off to introduce each other and then broke up into two groups. They gave me a Malian name: Fanta Cissà pronounced Cee-Say. I noticed that when I was in a group with Ousmane and Namory (two men) they mostly looked at each other while talking not me. They gave the various reasons that I should take notes, one indeed did have a swollen finger and the other claimed poor handwriting…hmmm. I sneaked a look and saw that the other group had the only other woman, Coumba, taking notes too. Surprise, surprise... but we did seem to have some good contributions as a group.
Namory said when schools are built the West often suggests that concrete is used but he has a group that builds the schools with local materials for half the money and the buildings do not attract heat like cement does plus it promotes the value of local materials. They said some schools are so overcrowded that teachers have 240 students, 120 in the morning for 4 hours and 120 in the evening for 4 hours, all of the children are about eight. Obviously not quality education. They said unmarried women must live at home until they are married so they go from being under the rule of their father to the rule of their husband. They were somewhat shocked when I said I was not married had no children and had not lived at home for more than 10 years.
Funny thing: we were talking about human rights, but the slide in the powerpoint presentation accidentally used the word for fingers as the words sound the same in French. Droits (dwoah) vs Doigts (dwoaht). Yes let us discuss human fingers...
After our discussion we filed into the bathroom to wash our hands and sat down on a large mat and ate fish and rice out of three communal bowls with our hands. They were being polite telling me to go first but I told them I needed to see what exactly it was that we were doing so I could copy. They reached with their right hand and took a small handful and rolled it and shaped it in their right palm until it was a solid piece and popped it in their mouth. I tried but never got a single solid piece and instead grains of rice scattered every time I put something in my mouth. I felt bad when I saw Mieko sweeping up so much where I had been sitting. Rodney got the hang of it but he had been putting his left hand in the bowl which they told him was a no-no. He apologized profusely. It’s like being a child, vulnerable, and having to learn everything over again.
When you are full you excuse yourself from the mat and get up, which is rude by our standards. I noticed that the Americans were the last to get up from eating. I wondered if that was because it took us longer to eat with our hands or if we ate more than they did or if we were being greedy. And I wondered what they thought of us. Talk about feeling self-conscious.
We went to an ATM so I could get cash, a little envelope with 70 USD having mysteriously disappeared from my bag. As a former New Yorker I hesitate to say I was pickpocketed (my pride will not let me.) I actually think it happened when they sent all our bags through the scanner upon arriving in Bamako and rather than watching to see if bags were being picked up at the other end, they simply kept the runner going. So all the bags, including mine, piled and crushed up at the other end and a few fell off the table. A book fell out so it’s possible that the envelope could have as well. Well the ATM only accepted Visa. My debit card is Mastercard. And I do not have my checkbook here and I did not bring travelers checks. Again with focusing on the wrong things. We figured an elaborate scheme involving bank transfers and paypal to get money from my account to Mieko so she can write and cash a check for me at the Embassy.
Meanwhile Rodney had to go to the bank today. We got there at 3:45 and they close at 4 but the teller refused to serve him. Rodney called me over to assist. The man said he had to close up at 3:45 so he could leave at 4 and we should not have waited until the last minute. I said I understood but was it possible for him to change the money since we had traveled a long way and we would have no Malian money between us if he turned us away. He said we should have come in the morning. I told him we had been in class in the morning (which we had) and we came as soon as we could. He relented and changed the money. I laid it on thick and said thanks to him we could eat tonight and God would bless him.
Our class today was a session at ASDAP between the Malian and American young leaders talking about human rights and development. We came up with our own definition of development and talked about the importance of communities governing themselves, or at the very least having input into the process, and controlling their own resources. There is a school of public administration here and they talk about sustainability just like we do at SPPD. We partnered off to introduce each other and then broke up into two groups. They gave me a Malian name: Fanta Cissà pronounced Cee-Say. I noticed that when I was in a group with Ousmane and Namory (two men) they mostly looked at each other while talking not me. They gave the various reasons that I should take notes, one indeed did have a swollen finger and the other claimed poor handwriting…hmmm. I sneaked a look and saw that the other group had the only other woman, Coumba, taking notes too. Surprise, surprise... but we did seem to have some good contributions as a group.
Namory said when schools are built the West often suggests that concrete is used but he has a group that builds the schools with local materials for half the money and the buildings do not attract heat like cement does plus it promotes the value of local materials. They said some schools are so overcrowded that teachers have 240 students, 120 in the morning for 4 hours and 120 in the evening for 4 hours, all of the children are about eight. Obviously not quality education. They said unmarried women must live at home until they are married so they go from being under the rule of their father to the rule of their husband. They were somewhat shocked when I said I was not married had no children and had not lived at home for more than 10 years.
Funny thing: we were talking about human rights, but the slide in the powerpoint presentation accidentally used the word for fingers as the words sound the same in French. Droits (dwoah) vs Doigts (dwoaht). Yes let us discuss human fingers...
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The Hustle
"We are witnessing the hustle here." Rodney, my suitemate
Rodney still had his watch set to the time zone in South Africa, where he has been living for a year so when he took a walk that morning he thought he had more time than he actually did to return and meet us. In his midday travels, and near heat stroke, he learned a lot about the neighborhood. There is a lot of construction in the area and most of it, he says, is being done by the children of people working in France. The parents send money home and the children construct near mansions from the ground up with it, complete with pools and elaborate terraces and balconies etc.
Rodney says he feels like people who come from places like Mali and are used to hustling are better able to take advantage of the rich resources in places like South Africa, which has seen an influx of immigrants from other African countries who do well while citizens of that country continue to struggle. I said this is no different from immigrants moving to the US or New Yorkers moving to places with slower paces such as the West Coast or the South.
Bamako reminds me of a small Southern US town in that it is dusty with low buildings and at first glance appears sleepy. But the traffic and the energy is definitely not small or Southern. The city stretches across and down the Niger River, which unlike the ocean does not offer a breeze. To get to our place we tell the taxi to go to the Baco DjiCoroni neighborhood past the bakery, make a right at the no name gas station painted blue and white and then we look out for the green mansion just before our place to tell him to turn in the driveway just after it. I do not know any of the street names and neither do most people.
I feel like I was worrying about the wrong things coming here. I could have brought my computer, my watch, or more jewelry with no problem. What I definitely should have brought though is all the things I was laughing at Andrew for having, especially since both his bags were overweight: an iron, a can opener, toilet tissue, paper towels, matches, dish soap, canned tuna and salmon,... Everytime I think of something we need this former Eagle scout has it already: Thank God.
Everything here is a paradigm shift for me. If I had known part of what we were doing would be like camping and being creative with resources I could have been better prepared. But everything I planned for was with the mindset of Western resources. There are unpredictable power outages. The tank of water for our house runs out daily. The dust is cloying. The heat is insufferable 100 degrees in the shade and 93 in my room with the air conditioner on. And that is life. And it is beautiful.
Rodney still had his watch set to the time zone in South Africa, where he has been living for a year so when he took a walk that morning he thought he had more time than he actually did to return and meet us. In his midday travels, and near heat stroke, he learned a lot about the neighborhood. There is a lot of construction in the area and most of it, he says, is being done by the children of people working in France. The parents send money home and the children construct near mansions from the ground up with it, complete with pools and elaborate terraces and balconies etc.
Rodney says he feels like people who come from places like Mali and are used to hustling are better able to take advantage of the rich resources in places like South Africa, which has seen an influx of immigrants from other African countries who do well while citizens of that country continue to struggle. I said this is no different from immigrants moving to the US or New Yorkers moving to places with slower paces such as the West Coast or the South.
Bamako reminds me of a small Southern US town in that it is dusty with low buildings and at first glance appears sleepy. But the traffic and the energy is definitely not small or Southern. The city stretches across and down the Niger River, which unlike the ocean does not offer a breeze. To get to our place we tell the taxi to go to the Baco DjiCoroni neighborhood past the bakery, make a right at the no name gas station painted blue and white and then we look out for the green mansion just before our place to tell him to turn in the driveway just after it. I do not know any of the street names and neither do most people.
I feel like I was worrying about the wrong things coming here. I could have brought my computer, my watch, or more jewelry with no problem. What I definitely should have brought though is all the things I was laughing at Andrew for having, especially since both his bags were overweight: an iron, a can opener, toilet tissue, paper towels, matches, dish soap, canned tuna and salmon,... Everytime I think of something we need this former Eagle scout has it already: Thank God.
Everything here is a paradigm shift for me. If I had known part of what we were doing would be like camping and being creative with resources I could have been better prepared. But everything I planned for was with the mindset of Western resources. There are unpredictable power outages. The tank of water for our house runs out daily. The dust is cloying. The heat is insufferable 100 degrees in the shade and 93 in my room with the air conditioner on. And that is life. And it is beautiful.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Bienvenue a Bamako
"Casablanca is to a refrigerator what Mali is to an oven." ~Me
To put it bluntly, it is HOT here. I used to joke about things or places being "Africa hot" but I had no idea what I was talking about.
If I had to sum up my arrival in West Africa I would use the word 'intense.'
Everything about being here is intense, the heat, the tones people use when bargaining, the crush of bodies, the crowded markets, the open sewers that run along the streets, the children that sidle along open car windows at stoplights and beg. Nothing could have prepared me for this, not that I am unprepared... It's just that in all my imagination of what this trip would be like, I would never have imagined all of this.
We arrived at 3 in the morning and it was still hot (which should have been a warning) though there was a slight breeze. Once we got through customs there were so many hands reaching for our bags to help us until we got out to the car. Dana, who has done this many times before, was like a mother hen saying No thanks, we're fine, we won't pay you for helping so it's your choice, St. Jude will bless you for your kindness, No thanks, It's ok and Andrew and I were following behind her like little ducks. Outside of the airport we were swarmed by potential taxi drivers. Mieko, our country coordinator picked us up along with Rodney who had flown direct from South Africa.
Our house is a neat little place in the "Baco dji Coro ni" neighborhood. We live on the second floor. The first is a garage and front door. The garage is more like a large foyer as there is no separation. Then after a locked door you can access the staircase to the terrace. After another locked door you can access our place. There are 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a small kitchen and a big living room area very separate from the kitchen. We have AC and ceiling fans and while they initially offered relief, once I cooled off from hustling my bags up the stairs I realized that it was still hot in my room even with both on and, yet, hotter still in the hallway. I lucked out by being the only girl as I got the biggest room with a bathroom inside.
After a rousing game of Uno, I went to unpack my room. As I put away my one pair of jeans I wondered how anyone could wear them in this heat but I have seen several since. I finally fell asleep at 6 am. In the dark it appeared as if our place was surrounded by abandoned buildings and shacks but as early as 6 the dirt road started coming alive with motorbikes, mothers walking with baskets on their heads and children on their backs, cars, and shopkeepers opening up stores that they had shuttered down for the night. Framed in the purple sky I could see a huge stucco house with high walls and gates down the street from us.
In the morning I rose groggily in a pool of sweat (the Ac is on a timer apparently). The shower is a spigot 3 feet up on the bathroom wall with a handheld spray attached. I never figured out how to use the spray. I was happy enough once I figured out how to get the water on, doing all types of contorted positions to soap up and rinse off under the meager stream. Towels were not on our packing list as they take up a lot of room and can be bought in at the market and apparently I'm the only one who heeded that note. With the heat it doesn't really matter.
Mieko came to pick us up at the agreed upon time and we couldn't find Rodney when we were ready to leave the house. More importantly, he took the only key to the front door when he left and locked us in. I felt like Rapunzel calling down to Mieko over the terrace to tell her this. We finally figured out how to exit using the bolted garage doors and not the front door which was locked from the outside with a key we did not have. We know because we dropped all our keys down to Mieko to test them. We couldn't lock the garage door from the outside so we settled for locking the door to the stairs and the door to our place and our bedroom doors and we left Rodney after waiting 45 minutes.
Mieko's friend Katie, a former Peace Corps volunteer in the country and current teacher, showed us how to take the green buses to the market and what words to use. The buses remind me of the Flatbush dollar vans in Brooklyn. They pack them to the hilt and then off you go down the street sweating and leaning in to each other. But they are cheaper than taxis, about 30 cents a ride, and a good way to learn the lay of the land.
We bought sim cards to make our phones work here although they appear to still need to be decoded. While we were outside with the sim card vendor trying to figure out how to make the phones work we were approached by an aggressive beggar with a cane who had a girl in tow. He was mostly speaking Bambara so I didn't know what he was saying but the gist was he wanted money. Mieko told him "Akine" which is a polite no and then "Non" and then got more aggressive herself. Still he stayed repeating his request over and over. She took to ignoring him. So I turned away too. I felt a tug on my skirt mid-thigh (we were up on an elevated sidewalk and he was below on the street). I turned to say something and before I could open my mouth a group of men who had been sitting and chatting in the shade ten feet away verbally lit into the man for touching me and he hurried away.
We stopped at a grocery store but it was closed from noon to 3 for the midday heat so we stopped back at our house to see if Rodney was there. He wasn't there but he had been there since the door that had been locked from the outside was now open. He didn't leave a note though so we left again for Mieko's place where we met with our potential help.
We decided not to have her cook just to have her come twice a week, once to do laundry and clean and another time to clean and go to the market. She sniffed that the pay was not enough, even though she had originally expressed interest, that she would need more and pay for transportation as well, like Mieko's help. Mieko told her that she worked for the Embassy but we don't so the situations are different. We said we couldn't give her more. She insisted and we said ok we will just do it ourselves. We thought this was something that would help us and you at the same time. It's up to you. Andrew asked if she had a job already and she said yes. I told her that she had a job but we did not. That we were volunteers with a budget for our time here and that we could not afford to go over it. We were getting ready to show her out and just like that she agreed and said it would be "un cadeau" (gift) for us.
To put it bluntly, it is HOT here. I used to joke about things or places being "Africa hot" but I had no idea what I was talking about.
If I had to sum up my arrival in West Africa I would use the word 'intense.'
Everything about being here is intense, the heat, the tones people use when bargaining, the crush of bodies, the crowded markets, the open sewers that run along the streets, the children that sidle along open car windows at stoplights and beg. Nothing could have prepared me for this, not that I am unprepared... It's just that in all my imagination of what this trip would be like, I would never have imagined all of this.
We arrived at 3 in the morning and it was still hot (which should have been a warning) though there was a slight breeze. Once we got through customs there were so many hands reaching for our bags to help us until we got out to the car. Dana, who has done this many times before, was like a mother hen saying No thanks, we're fine, we won't pay you for helping so it's your choice, St. Jude will bless you for your kindness, No thanks, It's ok and Andrew and I were following behind her like little ducks. Outside of the airport we were swarmed by potential taxi drivers. Mieko, our country coordinator picked us up along with Rodney who had flown direct from South Africa.
Our house is a neat little place in the "Baco dji Coro ni" neighborhood. We live on the second floor. The first is a garage and front door. The garage is more like a large foyer as there is no separation. Then after a locked door you can access the staircase to the terrace. After another locked door you can access our place. There are 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a small kitchen and a big living room area very separate from the kitchen. We have AC and ceiling fans and while they initially offered relief, once I cooled off from hustling my bags up the stairs I realized that it was still hot in my room even with both on and, yet, hotter still in the hallway. I lucked out by being the only girl as I got the biggest room with a bathroom inside.
After a rousing game of Uno, I went to unpack my room. As I put away my one pair of jeans I wondered how anyone could wear them in this heat but I have seen several since. I finally fell asleep at 6 am. In the dark it appeared as if our place was surrounded by abandoned buildings and shacks but as early as 6 the dirt road started coming alive with motorbikes, mothers walking with baskets on their heads and children on their backs, cars, and shopkeepers opening up stores that they had shuttered down for the night. Framed in the purple sky I could see a huge stucco house with high walls and gates down the street from us.
In the morning I rose groggily in a pool of sweat (the Ac is on a timer apparently). The shower is a spigot 3 feet up on the bathroom wall with a handheld spray attached. I never figured out how to use the spray. I was happy enough once I figured out how to get the water on, doing all types of contorted positions to soap up and rinse off under the meager stream. Towels were not on our packing list as they take up a lot of room and can be bought in at the market and apparently I'm the only one who heeded that note. With the heat it doesn't really matter.
Mieko came to pick us up at the agreed upon time and we couldn't find Rodney when we were ready to leave the house. More importantly, he took the only key to the front door when he left and locked us in. I felt like Rapunzel calling down to Mieko over the terrace to tell her this. We finally figured out how to exit using the bolted garage doors and not the front door which was locked from the outside with a key we did not have. We know because we dropped all our keys down to Mieko to test them. We couldn't lock the garage door from the outside so we settled for locking the door to the stairs and the door to our place and our bedroom doors and we left Rodney after waiting 45 minutes.
Mieko's friend Katie, a former Peace Corps volunteer in the country and current teacher, showed us how to take the green buses to the market and what words to use. The buses remind me of the Flatbush dollar vans in Brooklyn. They pack them to the hilt and then off you go down the street sweating and leaning in to each other. But they are cheaper than taxis, about 30 cents a ride, and a good way to learn the lay of the land.
We bought sim cards to make our phones work here although they appear to still need to be decoded. While we were outside with the sim card vendor trying to figure out how to make the phones work we were approached by an aggressive beggar with a cane who had a girl in tow. He was mostly speaking Bambara so I didn't know what he was saying but the gist was he wanted money. Mieko told him "Akine" which is a polite no and then "Non" and then got more aggressive herself. Still he stayed repeating his request over and over. She took to ignoring him. So I turned away too. I felt a tug on my skirt mid-thigh (we were up on an elevated sidewalk and he was below on the street). I turned to say something and before I could open my mouth a group of men who had been sitting and chatting in the shade ten feet away verbally lit into the man for touching me and he hurried away.
We stopped at a grocery store but it was closed from noon to 3 for the midday heat so we stopped back at our house to see if Rodney was there. He wasn't there but he had been there since the door that had been locked from the outside was now open. He didn't leave a note though so we left again for Mieko's place where we met with our potential help.
We decided not to have her cook just to have her come twice a week, once to do laundry and clean and another time to clean and go to the market. She sniffed that the pay was not enough, even though she had originally expressed interest, that she would need more and pay for transportation as well, like Mieko's help. Mieko told her that she worked for the Embassy but we don't so the situations are different. We said we couldn't give her more. She insisted and we said ok we will just do it ourselves. We thought this was something that would help us and you at the same time. It's up to you. Andrew asked if she had a job already and she said yes. I told her that she had a job but we did not. That we were volunteers with a budget for our time here and that we could not afford to go over it. We were getting ready to show her out and just like that she agreed and said it would be "un cadeau" (gift) for us.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Casablanca
"I will never tell my son to be still and sit down!" ~a woman on the plane
Our flight sat on the runway for 3 hours before leaving NYC. I was starving and thirsty and only had light snacks. I was excited though about having a seat with tons of leg room until I saw all the kids around me. My seat kept rocking with all the fuss going on behind me.
When my seatmate asked the kids to be considerate and not kick the seats, their mother chimed in from the row behind them that the request was unreasonable. They were kids and if we didn't want to be kicked we should have requested a seat with no one behind us. Then she suggested we give up our prime seats to the kids so they couldn't kick us. We suggested instead that she switch with the kids so they could kick her. She refused, of course.
We settled for asking her to tell her son (who was old enough to know better) that he should be mindful of our request. She said she could never tell her son to be quiet and sit still. Cultural? If she can't tell him that, who can? Why purposefully raise a child (male or female) not to mind anyone, least of all yourself? Well I had enough of going through her and after asking him a few more times to stop kicking my seat, the next time he jolted me awake, I abandoned English and hissed in French "Stop it, now!" That did it. He stopped. And he also started crying. Uh oh! Didn't mean for that to happen but the mother had ample opportunity to weigh in. Funny that she only became concerned about the situation then..."
Casablanca is a beautiful city that reminds me of Redondo Beach area in Southern California and Andrew of Montego Bay in Jamaica. There are beautiful stucco houses behind high stucco walls with ornate gates, modern buildings, lean-tos at the market, businessfolks, women in veils and robes and modern dress, the smells of diesel fumes and the ocean.
There are no left hand turn lights. The lefthand turners just get critical mass and keep inching out across the lanes 3 and 4 cars deep until the oncoming traffic has to stop. Craziness!
We saw a huge mosque with inlaid tiles and ornately carved doors that rolled shut vertically electronically and whose arched walkway and steps reminded me of paintings down in the Renaissance of Italian universities. I wonder which came first...
We were searching for a bathroom there and I asked a woman where to find one, but I used the term VC which is the proper term in French. She gestured that she didn't understand and began to walk away. Dana shouted toilette after her and she turned around and said oh yes toilette and took my hand and walked me across the square, down some steps and through a hallway until we got to the restroom. She literally did not let go of my hand until I was at the stall door.
Dana and Andrew took a picture of her leading me away by the hand. I will upload it as soon as I can. Andrew said he was worried when she came out of the bathroom without me. LOL. Turns out it was a Turkish toilet and I got an opportunity to place my feet on designated spots and squat over a hole. It actually wasn't that bad and is even a tad more ergonomically correct. The thing is though, if you squat over a public toilet and you lose your balance, you hit the seat, dirty though it may be. If you squat over the end of a pipe in the ground and you lose your balance...
We went shopping/sightseeing in the kasbah, drank mint tea at a cafe (a must) and then headed back to the hotel so we could get our flight to Bamako. Dana had said the dusk and night mosquitoes are the ones that transmit malaria and when we returned to the taxi we rented for a few hours it was full of mosquitoes. Everyone else appeared unconcerned but I know how mosquitoes love me (and my Deet repellent was in my checked baggage) so I set about slapping at them until I had killed them all. I didn't realize what a spectacle I must have been making of myself until I smashed a particularly hard to reach one in the back window and turned around to see Mustafa, our driver, looking wide-eyed at me in the rearview mirror. I didn't get any bites though...
Our flight sat on the runway for 3 hours before leaving NYC. I was starving and thirsty and only had light snacks. I was excited though about having a seat with tons of leg room until I saw all the kids around me. My seat kept rocking with all the fuss going on behind me.
When my seatmate asked the kids to be considerate and not kick the seats, their mother chimed in from the row behind them that the request was unreasonable. They were kids and if we didn't want to be kicked we should have requested a seat with no one behind us. Then she suggested we give up our prime seats to the kids so they couldn't kick us. We suggested instead that she switch with the kids so they could kick her. She refused, of course.
We settled for asking her to tell her son (who was old enough to know better) that he should be mindful of our request. She said she could never tell her son to be quiet and sit still. Cultural? If she can't tell him that, who can? Why purposefully raise a child (male or female) not to mind anyone, least of all yourself? Well I had enough of going through her and after asking him a few more times to stop kicking my seat, the next time he jolted me awake, I abandoned English and hissed in French "Stop it, now!" That did it. He stopped. And he also started crying. Uh oh! Didn't mean for that to happen but the mother had ample opportunity to weigh in. Funny that she only became concerned about the situation then..."
Casablanca is a beautiful city that reminds me of Redondo Beach area in Southern California and Andrew of Montego Bay in Jamaica. There are beautiful stucco houses behind high stucco walls with ornate gates, modern buildings, lean-tos at the market, businessfolks, women in veils and robes and modern dress, the smells of diesel fumes and the ocean.
There are no left hand turn lights. The lefthand turners just get critical mass and keep inching out across the lanes 3 and 4 cars deep until the oncoming traffic has to stop. Craziness!
We saw a huge mosque with inlaid tiles and ornately carved doors that rolled shut vertically electronically and whose arched walkway and steps reminded me of paintings down in the Renaissance of Italian universities. I wonder which came first...
We were searching for a bathroom there and I asked a woman where to find one, but I used the term VC which is the proper term in French. She gestured that she didn't understand and began to walk away. Dana shouted toilette after her and she turned around and said oh yes toilette and took my hand and walked me across the square, down some steps and through a hallway until we got to the restroom. She literally did not let go of my hand until I was at the stall door.
Dana and Andrew took a picture of her leading me away by the hand. I will upload it as soon as I can. Andrew said he was worried when she came out of the bathroom without me. LOL. Turns out it was a Turkish toilet and I got an opportunity to place my feet on designated spots and squat over a hole. It actually wasn't that bad and is even a tad more ergonomically correct. The thing is though, if you squat over a public toilet and you lose your balance, you hit the seat, dirty though it may be. If you squat over the end of a pipe in the ground and you lose your balance...
We went shopping/sightseeing in the kasbah, drank mint tea at a cafe (a must) and then headed back to the hotel so we could get our flight to Bamako. Dana had said the dusk and night mosquitoes are the ones that transmit malaria and when we returned to the taxi we rented for a few hours it was full of mosquitoes. Everyone else appeared unconcerned but I know how mosquitoes love me (and my Deet repellent was in my checked baggage) so I set about slapping at them until I had killed them all. I didn't realize what a spectacle I must have been making of myself until I smashed a particularly hard to reach one in the back window and turned around to see Mustafa, our driver, looking wide-eyed at me in the rearview mirror. I didn't get any bites though...
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