Inside the hut

Upon Dad's request...







From bottom to top:
1. This is where I sleep, though I put the mosquito net down at night. And whoops, I left my underwear out hanging to dry. My host mom washes my clothes but its not really right to give someone your own underwear to wash, so I do that myself and it dries out of the view of the public eye.
2. My bookshelf and pictures of all you guys.
3. My desk and my "closet" (a large piece of plastic and some nails. I also have a small trunk where I keep shirts and stuff
4. Here is my kitchen/ storage area.
5. My kitchen counter table. It is covered in plastic. The big white thing is my water filter, and the small white box is my stove. I carry water in from the well in the large green bucket and dump it in periodically when I need water, then I treat it with bleach. The purple bucket is fresh peanut butter I buy at the market.

Now the home didn't come furnished mind you. All tables and shelves were handmade by carpenters in Kati, transported the 18 miles to Dombila by brush bus and donkey cart, compliments of my awesome host dad, Daramane

I spared you pictures of the "negen". Think hole-in-the-ground and there you go.
Not the fanciest of homes, but I like it. I actually don't spend too much time inside, but rather take out my chair or mat and sit under my hanger.

Thanksgiving Pictures

1. Dinner at the Ambassador's house!
2. Me and Chirs with his festive thanksgiving shirt fashioned by a Malian tailor
3. The regional group laughing over some pictures
4. My teammates Caroline, Dave, and Hunter

So Thankful

So Thanksgiving has arrived, and it still feels like mid-summer here. Until I really stop to think about it, things like apple cider, pumpkin pie, and colorful foliage (I guess even snow now I hear?) easily slip my mind. But as I sit here in my teammate Caroline’s hut, I am hit with the nostalgia of all these things. Simple things really, that I am missing now. But nonetheless, there is no lack of things, simple and great, that I can be thankful for today.
I am thankful I have found a place in my community. I am thankful that I have really gotten to know the Malians on a personal level.
I am thankful that my homolouge makes rice everyday for lunch instead of To, like most of her neighbors.
I am thankful I have stayed healthy- physically and emotionally- in a new and strange environment.
I am thankful for the fields to run in, the multitude of stars at night, the packages and letters from home. I just got a whole slew of letters today, and it embarasses me that I haven't been able to write everyone back in a timely manner.
I am thankful I can talk to my family once a week.
I am thankful that people back in the states are doing such honest and dedicated work to make the world a better place. Especially FACE AIDS Geneseo. If you haven’t checked out their amazing work this semester, you can see it here . Dec 1 is World AIDS Day, and there are tons of events going on, including the premier of “The One Who Speaks” a play that I adopted from and interview of an amazing Ugandan girl.
I am thankful that I grew up with the world of opportunities at my feet. My country, my community, and especially, my family, not only taught me but showed me that I could do anything I wanted to do, that I could be anything I wanted to be. And I see out here in the villages, there are people of such wisdom, talent, and potential, that were never offered piano lessons, were never taught how to use a computer, or even how to read and write, never had sports or theater or all of these other amazing things I had. I am thankful I went to a good school, I am thankful I have seen and learned about the outside world. I don’t know how I got so blessed.
I am thankful that people are actually starting to understand my Bambara.
I am thankful that the Troure twins, once severely malnourished, returned to the CSCOM healthy and plump. They are the first to officially graduate from our program.
I am thankful for the friends I have made here. My teammates Hunter, Caroline, Dave and Chris, have become like a family to me.
Going off of that, I am thankful I am safe. A scary experience, which I will spare you the details, occurred last week involving me loosing my way on a moonless night. With the help of friends, friendly strangers, and angles, I was guided to a safe harbor.
I am thankful for the support back at home, the eagerness to help, and the prospect of doing good work in Dombila off of your contributions.
Granola bars, new socks, calcium chews, whole grain cereals, protein powder, Gatorade or propel water powder, baby wipes, disposable razors, face wash, and pictures from home. I will be thankful for these things immensely, that is if anyone decides to send a couple in a Christmas package hint hint. The Malians also really liked almonds and Welch’s fruit snacks. And as I said before that big packages were hard to transport… well I can make it work…
Alright, enough for being greedy. This is a day to be thankful. And though my plans changed, it looks like I will still have quite an amazing Thanksgiving here in Bamako. If all works out, I will be attending Thanksgiving dinner at the ambassador’s house. Though it will be no clover lanes, no sunset bulavard, no aunt sue’s bread and jokes at the kids table, it may be nice. I can’t even begin to say how much I am going to miss home on thanksgiving night. But as for now, I am not dwelling on this. I am thankful. So thankful. That I have a loving home in Rochester New York, full of loving, amazing people that have showered me with support. I am thankful that I have now also found a loving home in Mali.

Humbled

Lately, I’ve been searching for humility in this town. As I get more and more comfortable with my job, I worry about outshining my counterpart or becoming too affirmative about my ideas. Still worshiped by the local children, I worry about jealously and such things. I am not anything special, I just have different color skin than you. And the fact that so many people are eager to befriend me, I have realized, may indeed be because they are looking for money. I still get asked everyday if I will give away my bike, my watch, and my two younger sidekicks, Cesalo and Amadou, with beg for candy if they ever find me alone.

So I live for humbling moments. I live for instances when I see that a person can do something remarkable on their own, something I cannot do, something I cannot help them with. It was, of course, Shaka. Our runs together have become less and less frequent as my work has picked up at the CSCOM. And if Cesalo and Amadou come, they are slow and interrupted. So the other night, I was lucky to squeeze in 5 miles with him in the evening. After 5 he said he was tired and we should go back home. It seemed unlike him, but perhaps his body was exhausted from working the fields all day. So he went to his house, I went to mine, got a quick sip or water, and headed out for another couple of miles before nightfall.

And we caught each other. I found Shaka on the road. Running like I have never seen him before. Bulleting through the dusty fields. He had snuck out to run faster, but did not want to embarrass me by saying so. The next evening, I asked him as we slowly jogged through the fields. “Shaka, do you run by yourself a lot?”
“Yes.” I figured he just kind of waited for me to run, and just did normal 12 year old kid stuff on his own.
“A lot?”
“Yes.”
“When you run by yourself, do you run faster than this?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.” He looked embarrassed, and almost ashamed, but when I gave him the encouraging look, he picked up the pace, little by little, so as I could follow. “Can you pass me Shaka?” And then he did it, he just flew by, with the most beautiful form I’ve ever seen, leaving me huffing and puffing, putting more and more distance on me until he graciously slowed down to wait for me to catch up. I haven’t run this fast in a while. And as I think I have a pretty respectable running resume, here I am, completely winded and dusting by a 12 year old boy. I’m humbled, and honestly, it feels great.
“Why don’t you run like that when we run together?”
“You are my teacher, it would be wrong to run faster than my teacher.” I explained to him that this was not correct, and that my running teacher was an old man who would drive his car next to us as we ran. Shaka proceed to answer my questions. He runs quite a bit on his own, and usually has already run earlier in the day when we go out together in the evening. He runs fast and far for two weeks, and then slow for two weeks. Not the most sophisticated training plan I have ever heard, but the fact that he has one, that his is systematic and consistent is above and beyond what I expected of him.
“Are you running with me to the market tomorrow?”
“Maybe.” He says with a smile, and I know he had already planned to run there, but to wait for my slow pace was not on the agenda.
“You want to run fast don’t you?” He nods with an embarrassed smile. And I explain to him that if I find an odemeter for my bike, the first thing I want to do is time him in a 5k.
And all my dreams for him came rushing back. I had been ignoring them for a while, thinking my work at the CSCOM was first and foremost priority. Which it is, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t really search for a means for this kid to shine. Its hard though, my homolouge and host family disapprove me spending so much time with him. My homolouge is convinced he is going to steal something from me one day, and I see how the other village kids are jealous. Something is drawing me towards him though. This kid is meant for something bigger than the millet fields of Dombila.
“What do you want to do when you grow up Shaka?”
“Oh I don’t know.” He thinks for a while. “I want to go to America and be a teacher. I want to teach Bambara to Americans.” I give a slight chuckle at his precious naivite.
“Americans don’t really study Bambara in America. But you could work for the Peace Corps one day in Bamako and teach Americans like me how to live in Mali and speak Bambara.” He agreed that that would be pretty cool.

The Mysterious Vegetable

Arriving at Tomba again, I was pleased to see that many of the babies there have been gaining weight. Yaya Coulibaly informed me proudly that he had been encouraging them all the cook ameliorated porridge. A few were still on the dangerous end, so I invited them to the CSCOM where we are launching off a new program for malnourished children starting November 30. At the end of my presentation on treating wounds, one of the women in the crowd came up with a brilliant idea. “Oh! We should show Aminata my garden!” Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea. So after the baby weighing session, a crowd of Malians led me excitedly to a garden. It looked like just any other old garden. Cabbage. But in the middle was this large weird beet thing. It was tan and bigger than my head, happily growing in the soil. “What is this?” The owner of the garden asked me. This tends to happen a lot. Malians quiz me on the names of things, especially food. “I don’t know. What’s it called?” Over and over they asked me. You don’t know? She doesn’t know! And everyone burst out into laughter. Ok, my horrible Bambara isn’t that funny.
“This doesn’t come from your country?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
More laughter. “Well we don’t know what it is either!” Turns out some white people (an agricultural NGO from Germany, I later found out) came and planted it as part of a project to introduce new foods into the community. One result: a large weird beet head thing sitting in the middle of this women’s garden, which people young and old would come and look at. And they were so excited when another white person came who could tell them what it was. What in God’s name is this thing? They said again to themselves. And I just had to laugh with them.

Death in Dombila

I’m feeling great lately, health wise. I’ve been eating well, exercising a lot, sleeping great and staying cool. My body is really adapting to this place. It knows the rhythm of things, it awakes with the rising of the steaming African sun, it rests as the moon comes out. It’s found its place in nature- I find nutrients in the leaves of trees hidden in the fields to cook in my dinner. I never worry about getting lost in the vast espace of rolling hills because the sun guides me home.

As my own self has been refreshed and renewed under Dombila’s sky, this peace has been clouded by the poor health of my neiighbors. For some reason, a lot of people died this week. It began with a phone call to my homolouge. Her close, middle-aged friend had fallen sick and died unexpectedly. As she cried outside her home, no one really comforted her. Malians don’t hug, as I have written before. And though I wanted to put my arm around her, I settled with giving blessings and leaving her be. She left town for the rest of the week.

Shaka and Amadu, two of my three sidekicks, experienced the death of their grandfather. I had met the guy, old yes, but still in tact with things. The funeral was quite strange. No one really did anything. The men sat in a clump together, the women sat together, some chatted, some gave blessings. We ate. We left. And I still felt awkward, I still felt strange that no one was showing any major reaction to this death. Shaka seemed fine the whole day. But as we went for our afternoon run, he took me by his grave, and we stopped to look at the mound of fresh dirt. There are many ways to say “I’m sad” in Bambara. He chose: “Aminata, my heart is angry.” We took it slow and jogged back home. I spoke of the day my grandmother died, and how I felt. We agreed it was ok to cry, that he is not suffering anymore, that he is with God in heaven.

I can understand when an old person dies. It is tragic, but I can accept it. But when a child dies, good God.
This is hard for me to write right now. I am almost hesitant in publishing my feelings here, but I have to at least write them down. Vaccination day- the head nurse had left for another village, my homolouge was gone at her friend’s funeral. It was just me and the vaccinator and a few helping hands to deal with 30 or so screaming babies. It’s become customary to hand over the malnourished kids to me, because I have taken on the rehabilitation program as one of my projects, and weighing babies is one of the simple tasks I can handle now. Most of the children getting vaccinated were 3 months old, and their mothers tried to listen to my demonstration on ameliorated porriage over the cries of squirming children.

“Aminata, look. Here’s a malnourished child. Put him on the program.” Now most of the children in the program are around 1 years old. This kid was 6. I took one look at him and the first thought that shot through my head was “He is going to die.” His mother tried to feed him some porriage, and he could barely keep his eyes open. At 11 kilos, he was less than 60% of his peferred body weight. Less than 80% is considered malnourished. I’ve never seen a skinnier, sicker looking child. And here, they handed him over to me. “Give him some of the rehabilitation food packets.”

So what do I do? Alright, I measured him, I weighed him. I checked for dehydration, body swelling. I went through the motions and then I just realized, God, there is nothing I can do for him.

“I think this child is really sick. We should send him to the hospital.” The vaccinator came to look at him, “Yes, you’re right. But we can’t do that without the head nurse. He needs to write a referral.” He send the woman home, who had already walked 5 miles with this 6 year old child on her back, and instructed her to come back in the morning.

I’m not a doctor. Even if I was, there is no equipment here to work with. I have no car. Even if I did, there are no reliable roads, no ambulance. Perhaps tomorrow, we can call for a car. When the nurse gets back, we have to send him to the hospital. Yet the urgency I felt was not reflected in my company. The boy’s mother, the vaccinator, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to say they didn’t care. But what can they do?

I told the nurse of this situation the next morning. And I waited and waited for their return. By lunchtime, I asked the vaccinator why they hadn’t come back. He turned to another man who had come from his village to ask of his whereabouts. “Oh he died,” he responded casually. When? “Last night.” And that was it.

And I went into the empty maternity by myself, the same place I had examined the boy, and tried to straighten out his crippled body over the measuring board. I had held him just a few hours before his death. And my anger came from every direction, I was looking for someone to blame but truthfully, the thought that haunted me was that there was nothing we could have done. I came here to help in someway, but there are children dying in front of me, and all I know how to do is hand them a package of “Plumpy Nut” and write their weight on a sheet of paper, only to stuff it away because usually, the babies we see come once and never return again.

There is a long way to go. A long way. Another PCV came to visit for a few days to look at the water sanitation situation in Dombila. Anxious to get the projects going, he gave me great advice. “You can’t feel guilty about not doing work in the first three months.” It’s true. The first three months are for assessment purposes and our projects are to start after our mid-service training in January. But how can I not feel guilty when women are coming up to me, explaining symptoms of a pinched siatic nerve, or a stomach ulcer. And I know what’s wrong. I know there are medicines to treat this. But none that they can access, afford, or find someone qualified enough to administer them. So I hesitantly say, “I’m sorry, I’m not a doctor.” They understand. But they tell me when I go back to states, I should become one, and then return to help them again. Do you want to learn how to make ameliorated porriage?

Belly Laughs

The guard at the CSCOM is one of my joking cousins. And as my language is improving, the jokes are getting more and more elaborate. This guy and his wife remind me of my neighbors back on Hickory Lane, the Bonivillas. They are just hysterical, and have made me laugh more than I ever have in Dombila before. Binot, the guard, wears camlefloge every day. He shaves his head, has a gotie, but really, he doesn’t do anything but sit around, drink tea and smoke cigarettes. I’d like to take this opportunity to document some of his comments to me. The translation is not direcet, but I’m trying to get the full effect here.

“Aminata- when you play guitar, you sound like you are crying” He then imitates me wailing and playing a ballad on the guitar. “You cry and cry- you really need to just rock it and dance around.”

“You can’t even find a husband Aminata. I’m gonna go to the Peace Corps office and pay someone to get you a husband. You’re worth about $1.”

“Nah, I don’t like her. She’s too skinny. I like women with some meat on them. They gotta be fat. Like this woman over there. She’s fat. But I don’t like her, because he mind is totally gone.” (He’s refering to my homolouge’s daughter, who I am learning day by day really is a little wound up in the head)

“I’m going back to America with you.” (Now, everyone says this to me, and it’s usually followed by “I’m gonna make a lot of money”)
“What are you going to do in America Binot?”
“I’m gonna be Barak Obama’s body guard. I’m gonna wear cool sunglasses and ride around in a big, sweet, black car, and if anyone messes with Barak, I’m gonna pound them….. And I’m gonna make a lot of money.”

His wife shows up at the maternity. “Aminata, it’s time for my prenatal counsel.” “Oh really! I didn’t know you were pregnant!” “Yup. Quadrupulets.” She points to four places on her stomach and I hear the roaring laugh of her husband in the background.

It’s the Malian version of the Bonavillas!

PICTURES!

1. My hut! The first door on the left goes to by bedroom. The next door goes to my “negen” or little hole in the ground where I poop. And on the right is my kitchen/ storage area.
2. Bakary, the vaccinator, waiting for baby vaccinations to start in one of the distant villages
3. My homologue, Irene, shucking peanuts
4. Me and my homolouge’s daughter, Denise
5. Me and Irene
6. My host brother, Pacho, goofing off as always
7. Working in the peanut fields. That’s my host dad in the teal shirt and red hat brewing up some tea
8. Me outside the door of my hut

Change has come

He said that it hasn’t come yet. He said there is a long road ahead. But I truly believe that last night, we won back the respect of the global community. We are serious about change, and we chose the man who can bring us there. And I know I will return to an America in two year that is better than the one I left. Yes we can.
Last night because of the time difference, we did not start watching the election coverage until 10pm. Our first stop was the home of UNICEF’s medical director. Our peace corps director told us that she was having a party and man was it amazing. The house was incredible, and we watched the votes come in on a big screan projector under the Malian starry sky.
At about 1:30 we went to an American bar near the Peace Corps office. Because it looked like we weren’t going to hear any results for a while. I went back to my hotel with a teammate to take a quick nap at about 3am. We set our alarms for 4:30, roamed the halls of the hotel looking for the small bar in its ground floor. One of the Malian janitors looked at us like we were crazy and asked us where we were going. Tired and groggy, he understood none of our Bambara- we want to watch the election in the bar… nothing. It wasn’t until my teammate uttered the name “Barak Obama” that the janitor grew a huge smile on his face, motioned us to come with him, and showed us the little television in the lobby. We saw Chicago, and a large text banner on the bottom “Barak Obama est la 44eme president de les Etas-Unis”! And we cheered with the Malians.
Going back down to the American bar a little before 5, we arrived just in time to hear the historic speech. Americans from all over the country, some Malians, were all sitting eyes glued to the television- people were sitting on each other’s laps, holding hands, embracing, some shedding tears, as we listened to the words of the next president.
This morning, I walk out of my hotel to the office, and a Malian man yells at me down the street- “BARAK OBAMA!” and I turn to throw my fist in the air in victory along with him. Yes we can.

Hanging out with the wrong crowd

Doing my baseline survey, I get to meet a bunch of interesting people around the town of Dombilia. One girl, strikingly pretty and energitic, was particularly interested in talking to me and I returned a few days later to play the guitar with her family, talk and hang out. Her name is Sugaglo, she is around my age, and she called me toward her hanger in the market on market day to drink tea with her friends. After chit-chatting, I spotted Irene’s bold eyes as she motioned for me to come by her side.
“Aminata,” she says, being extra careful to pronounce a simple, simple Bambara so that there would be no misunderstanding, “Do not drink tea with just everyone. You can drink tea and the health center, or with your host family. Only. Nowhere else- do you understand?”
I suppose she’s right, but since coming to Dombilia, I’ve never really been concerned about safety. Yet for some reason, seeing me drink tea with my friend was alarming to Irene.
The next night, I was out in my cornfield sweet-spot- the only place I get cell phone reception in town. As always, a group of kids comes swarming by, wanting to know who I am talking to. I dismissed them, only to see that amongst them was Sugaglo. She had come over to talk to me and I had told her crowd to leave me be. Apologetic and embarrassed, we talked for awhile and I walked her a bit down the road (which is customary when a friend is leaving).
Feeling bad for not being around to talk with Sugaglo, I was surpised to return to my compound to an angry host family and a group of angry neighbors.
“Aminata! Where were you?”
“On the phone?”
“Sungaglo came over and wanted you to chat. Were you going over to her house?”
“No, she had come here to talk.”
”Do not go over there, do you hear?”
What followed was the first time I had really felt discordance among the villagers in Dombilia. My trio of little runner boys- Shaka, Mahamadu, and Cesalo are always very possessive of me and get angry when I hang out with other people. But here was some true resentment. She is a prostitute. She has AIDS. She has many men. She is sick and you shouldn’t be going over there at night.
I explained I was not planning on going across town at night, I know better than that. But she befriened me and I enjoy talking to her. The adults agreed it was fine to chat during the day in the market. But do not take her tea (apparently they are afraid she puts drugs in it… seemed fine with me but I’ll stop anyway) and do not go over at night. They must have repeated these things a million times, and couldn’t say “I understand" enough.
A few days later, I paid a visit to Sungaglo again. Yes, she is my friend. And if it is true that she has AIDS and that the villagers resent her, even better to start a positive relationship with her, so maybe one day, I could help start to ease some of the tension. We went out and picked sweet potatoes in her field, and she sent me home with enough to feed me for a month. Not on the road for two minutes, I saw my trio of side-kicks- Shaka, Mahamadu, and Cesalo, questioning me like parents to a teenager that just got caught from sneeking out at night.
“Where were you?”
“The field”
“WHO’S field”
“My friend Sungaglo.”
“She is not your friend. We told you not to speak to her again.”
I gave them the lecture that I keep having to repeat. Be kind to everyone. Yes, I am going to greet everyone. Yes, everyone in Dombila is my friend. No, I won’t wander around at night, but I am going to chat with everyone. Thinking they were only being stubborn and possessive I dismissed the “Aminata, you’re bad” “Yeah, you’re bad” “We’re mad at you” and went back home. That night, as I was talking on my phone in my sweet spot, little Mohamadu finds me again. Eight years old, he sometimes calls to me in my window at night, asking for bubblegum or peanuts (which always freaks me out hearing this little child whisper to me at night). But tonight, he is upset. Really upset.
“Aminata, you’re bad” I think he is going to follow up with a complaint about me not giving him peanuts or something, but when I ask him what is the matter, he refuses to tell me. Finally, he brings his chin up, and I look into his eyes watering up. “Aminata, if a stranger gives you candy, don’t take it. If a stranger gives you tea, don’t take it. Some people are bad people.”
This just ripped my heart open. The ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ talk from an eight-year-old in the middle of Africa. I have always felt safe in Dombilia, always. Even when my language tutor tells me that there are very resentful and bad-intented people, if they want express their hatred toward somebody, they go to a witch doctor and do an offering to an evil spirit. To a Malian, this is serious stuff, but as for me, I’m not worried about anyone seriously hurting me. Accepting me and respecting me perhaps, but I am in good hands here. It’s not my safety I am worried about, it is the dynamics of this community. Underneath the surface, there is gossip, there are old rivalries, and there are indeed untouchables. Like any community I suppose. So where do I fit into this picture? How can I call myself a volunteer for peace if I turn my head when the wrong people greet me? So I’ll greet Sungaglo, I’ll visit her from time to time and sing with her family and the children of her compound. I may even go help her in her sweet potato field… in daylight. And just in case, I’ll pass on the tea.

I've never...

…seen such excitement over an airplane.
A airplane flew close to the ground the other day, and it was the most hysterical site ever. People young and old stopped everything they were doing to watch. Children screamed at the top of their lungs, yelling to the big thing in the sky, running circles of glee around each other. Women kept repeating “Beleebeleeba!” the Malian word for “that’s freakin huge.”

…had my barf cleaned up so easily.
Got sick again for a morning. May have eaten too many peanuts. In any sense, I did not make it to the “negen”, and threw up all outside my hut in front of my host family. Embarassed about making a mess, I started to get some water to wash it out. “Stop Aminata,” as my host mother comes over with a shovel full of dirt. She dumps it over the mess and batabing- it’s cleaned up. Hmmm, maybe it’s good I didn’t make the negen.

…seen a snake with huge teeth about to devour a huge frog.
I think it was a cobra, but whatever it was, it was pretty freakin scary. Luckily, it was more scared of me, than I was of it, and abandoned its prospective meal to scurry into the bushes.

…been so happy to play the piano.
Yes! I found one! Election night, we arrived at the home of the head of the medical devision for UNICEF Mali. An incredible place, a great gathering of Americans and Malians alike. And yes, she had an electric piano. They keys stuck terribly, but I was still able to make a sound. My fingers have never been so happy.

…known my bellybutton to be so funny.
There’s no such thing as an “innie” in Mali. My three sidekicks- Shaka, Mohamadu, and Cesalo, caught a glimpse of mine as we were stretching before a run one day. They could not stop laughing and pointing.

Tomba

I’ve started a baby-weighing program in the small neighboring village of Tomba, about 6k away from Dombilia. After seeing the malnourished children during a vaccination trip and listening to the mothers say how hard it is to walk to Dombila for weighings, I decided to go out there myself. Knowing my lanuage would be a barrier in doing an ameliorated porriage demonstrated, I relied on the relay Yaya Coulibably, to help translate and run the show. relay, to help translate and run the show. . (A relay by the way, is a villager who goes around and calls people for special events, like vaccinations). And Yaya is everything the name Yaya would suggest- crazy, giggly, a little off his rocker but very sharp in his own sense. Together, we recorded the weight of 25 babies, discovered 4 moderately malnourished, and 1 severely malnourished (this one we sent to the health center). Not a great starting percentage, but we worked with the women to teach them how to make ameliorated porriage, and went over with them the basics of nutrition and child weaning. It was probably my most rewarding experience in Mali yet. These women were really listening, really understanding and I could tell as I counseled at least two of the mothers of the sick children that they were really going to take my word to heart, and were really alarmed as I told them that they need to change what their doing, or their baby is going to get worse. The problem usually is, you’ll have a baby, 10, 11 months old, still living on breast milk only. Sometimes breast milk and to or rice- plain grains that cannot be ingested in high quantities, and contain minimal protein and vitamins. Amelorated porriage can be made simply with sugar, peanut powder and a grain, and can really help combat malnutrition in a sustanible and inexpensive way. I praised the women for their work, shook the hand of Yaya and promised to return the next week to see if the women had gained weight.

The next week I returned, but I was late- even by Malian standards. There are not really hours here too much- there are four times- “Morning” “Midday” “Afternoon” and “Night”. I said I would come in the morning. It was Sunday, so I went to church first thing in the morning (which lasted longer than usual), hit the road by 10, got lost and ended up in another village, found a familiar face who directed me to Tomba. Arrived at 11- yup it’s Midday now. I’m late. I went to Yaya’s house, whose wife told me he was waiting for me all morning and had gone out to the field. I told her I was sorry, and got lost. I felt so bad, but the woman was kind. She brought me some water (which I can’t drink unless I filter it at my house) and some To, my favorite (I’ve never successfully digested it). “I’m sorry. I’m full.”
“I don’t understand you. You come here late, you don’t drink our water, you don’t eat our food. What do you want from us? Why have you come?”
And I couldn’t hold my tears in.
“Look, she’s mad now,” one of the women said.
“No, it’s just sweat. I am hot.”
“Well why don’t you please drink some water then?”
I excused myself to the negen, to get myself back together. It was like coming into Dombilia for the first time all over again. They do not understand me, and I am a million miles away from home. What am I doing here? Well, I am here, and there is no getting out of this now. It’s either put on a happy face or loose the respect of a whole village in need.
Damn, I should have at least eaten that To.
I emerged, composed, and perked up when Yaya came back from the fields. He was understanding of my tardiness, but still dressed himself in his best to go to the vaccination site and call the women. “I think we’ll have to reschedule, everyone’s already gone out in the fields for the day.”
I agreed and promised to return another day. He did tell me though, that the women were keeping up with their porriage and that he was checking on the 5 malnourished children regularly. That’s great. That day, three women did show up for the weighing. One, who’s mother is the most enthusiastic in all of Mali, and whose baby is freakin FAT. I think she just likes to show off to the other mothers. She gleamed with joy as I told her, yes her baby did gain weight in the past 6 days. What a feat.
The other two approached me with sick children. One with burns all over her body, the other with symptoms of malaria. And these women looked to me like I could save them, like I had all the answers. If there was any point I wish I had a medical degree, it was now. I’m not a doctor, I told them. But I think he has malaria, you should take him to Dombila, and I think you should clean and cover those wounds. And by the way, this one is malnourished, you can make ameliorated porriage. Haha, my one specialty. The one thing I can really explain in Bambara. So, might as well throw that out there too. It can’t hurt. Dooni, dooni.

The Brusse Romance Letters

You send me letters to the Malian post office. But the real Malian postal system is “en brouse”. If you have an important message and you happen to be literate, all you must do is find someone going in the direction of your letter’s destination, and instruct them to pass it on. In a country of low development and infrastructure, it actually works quite well. So, when spending the night in Kati, I learned of a romance or sorts budding between two of my teammates. The girl entrusted Hunter (my teammate in Kati) and I to try and send a letter to the guy via brusse post. Excited to be playing cupid, Hunter and I hopped on our bikes upon my departure for site, and arrived at a sort of bus/ taxi station just outside of Kati. We approached the area where the vehicles were loading up passangers and announced in the middle of the chaos: “Who is going to Falaje?” We found a group of young men, and also a crowd of very curious on lookers as we took the letter out of our bags.
“You are going to Falaje”
“Yes”
“You know ----name----? He’s a white guy, you can’t miss him.”
“Yes, I have seen him. He works in the mayor’s office”
“Yes! Can you bring this letter to the mayor’s office? It is very important!”
Now there is a social rule in Mali that if someone of a higher age or status tells you to do something, you must do it. No questions or complaints. Malians are happy to serve their elders. I am even sent to the local store for Irene every now and again, being her minor. And I send Shaka to climb up the maringa tree and gather leaves for my dinners all the time. So the young teenager was more than willing, even somewhat frightened to be entrusted with this ever so important task.
We rode our bikes away, giggling with delight. A few days later, we discovered that the guy had successfully sent a letter and a small package of Oreos through the 60 kilometers to her site. An African” Message-in-a-bottle”. I love it.