"Doni Doni" is Bambara for "Little by little". It is our motto- we use it when the native people get frustrated with our lack of understanding, when we get frusterated with ourselves when the way we have known the world lacks the viscosity for everyday functioning. But "doni doni" also means progress. And of course, we are making progress, however slow it may be.
So here it goes, more than you ever wanted to know about the first 12 days of homestay...
I arrived at the small village of Satinebougu about two weeks ago. There was a gathering of people in the center of town and some villagers singing, dancing, and playing their indigenous idiophones. Nothing spectacular, though, this was hicksville Africa- but it was incredibly charming. The two other trainees, our Language/Cultural facilitars (Malians who tutor us in langugage and act as liasons to our family and community) and I sat through the ceremony and offered the traditional gift of cola nuts to the village dugutiki (chief).
My new family showed me to my hut on their compound. I finally have my own space, however small- a bed, a bucket, a lantern... They then gave me the name "Aminata Samake" which though I was named after my host grandmother, it is fitting that "Ami" is short for "Aminata" which kind of sounds like "Emy," a name my parents used to call me as a child in the U.S. We are the first volunteers in the village, and the community members were genuinely excited.
My host family is wonderful. Samba Sako is the grandfather. He is really old, walks with a cane, and prays to Mecca five times a day from his house. He still works in the fields everyday and coughs a lot. But he doesn't hang around much so I don't know too much about him, except that his grandchildren claim he is 100 years old. Could be.
His wife, Aminata, is old and just loves life. Despite being a little hard of hearing, she is my main conversation partner because she is so patient. She gets really excited when I say something that makes sense and laughs and claps all the time. She always gives me all these blessings. I don't understand them, but I know they are blessings because they always start with "Allah". So I simply answer "Amiina" (Amen) and she is pleased. She listens to the radio a lot, and the other day was listening to an English lessson (it was a French- English lesson so I doubt she understood any of it because only a couple people can speak French here) and told me she wanted to come visit America. I can just picture it- her traditional garb, her strong but aging figure, her stick cane, hailing a taxi and cracking up on the streets of New York.
Their son, Moribu, lives on the compound with his wife Rokia. Moribu is a hard-working farmer, and is kind to me, but often gives me that pitying smile and laugh, trying to cover up the fact that he thinks I'm totally clueless, which I am. Rokia, I discovered, is only 20 years old. She works really hard cooking and washing all day, but I don't feel like I have too much of a relationship with her yet. She brings me my water and my food and talks to me intermittenly. But I get the feeling like she is very tired all the time, often not feeling well, and a little weary of life. Doni, doni, maybe I can help relieve some of her duties. The other day, I went to the well to draw my own water- and felt like I was gonna fall over carrying it on my head back to the compound. (The women in the village really got a kick out of it). Rokia has two children- a 2-year-old, Jenabu, who likes me well enough. She's cute but always filthy and cries quite a bit. Then there is Kajatu- 4 years old and absolutely edible. She is always smiling, laughing, running, dancing, looking over my shoulder when I'm doing my homework. She's the little tag along with the older girls but really does do her share of work with the farming and cleaning. Quite amazing.
Then there's the other Aminata and the other Kajatu- two cousins who also live on the compound. Why, I haven't quite figured out. I didn't want to ask in case something tragic happened to their parents. They are 10 and 13 and they work out in the fields and pound millet like nobody's buisness. I think I'm in good shape and I try to help them. After 5 minutes, I'm wiped. And they do this all day- hours upon hours. Just in general, there are seven year old girls who carry their two year old siblings on their backs all day. Children work hard, but they always seem to be happy and to be doing alright. It's their life.
Speaking of being wiped, the first 5 days of homestay were among the hardest I've ever experienced. After eating "Toh"- a millet mush- with oily green sauce with my hands out of the communal bowl the first night, I woke up to violent vomitting- all over the floor of my hut. With some soapy water and a wicker broom, I was able to get the Toh that my body rejected out of my door. Our donkeys noticed, hobbled over, and enjoyed a midnight snack. I lost count of how many times I threw up after that (into my bucket this time) but it got to the point where all I had left to give was air.
Trying to get my family to understand why I couldn't eat breakfast, lunch, or even dinner the next day was no easy task. And thus started the beginning of the biggest cultural misunderstanding that is still a struggle for us now- food. Night #2 was alright, because I had nothing in my system. But after eating a little on day 3, I again spent the night with my bucket. The Peace Corps brought me some medicines and gatorade, but I only made it two more days in the village before I had to go to Bamako and spend some time recouperating in the Peace Corps Medical Center. That 5th night, my family thought they would make me oiled cassava roots instead of Toh, which was a nice thought, but my intense nausea and dehydration was enough to keep me from even being able to sit up. The other trainees came to my aid, called the med truck, and I spend the next 24 hours on strong antinausea medication, gatorade, and food from a real live Toubab-(white person)-style grocery store.
I returned to the village with a Malian nurse who had lunch with my family, talked to my mother about properly cleaning off the rice so it didn't have rocks and sand in it, and giving some more variety in my diet. My family tries, they really do. They make me eggs sometimes, and oily spagetti. My host dad brought me some bananas at the market town one day and if they see that I don't eat, they send one of the girls to buy me some bread. But it was the tubab groceries and some protien bars and peanut butter from the US really got me through.
I feel great now, I've gained back the weight I lost, and I'm able to stomach the food a little better- my family is doing their best, and the Peace Corps gives them a daily food allowance so that they can do so. It's just difficult because we are a half hour walk from the next town which is the only place I could buy food (besides bread at the town butiki). And even that is just a market town, so most of what is sold is not yet sanitary enough for our consumption (except for the mangos :)).
So excuse my "war stories" (you knew they were coming) and if you're still with me, I'm on to the more romantic side of village life. In between our language classes (6 hours a day), I enjoy drinking strong Malian tea with the villagers, going for 5-7 mile runs through the dirt roads, watching the crazy thunderstorms and amazing starry sky. But most of all, we dance. Children from the little town of Satinebougu area always at my door begging "guitari! guitari!" And I bring out my guitar and we all dance the night away. We've taught them the macareana, and they've taught us some of their dances, which we are terrible at. These little girls can really move their bodies! Everything everyone has ever told me about the peace corps is true- one minute you want to die because you're puking your guts out- the next minute you're on top of the world because you're a local rock star and the whole village has put on their best outfits so they can gather around you and dance to your music. And they clap and cheer, and it is humbling.
And the villagers are so welcoming- they get a kick out of us, when we try to greet them with our terrible accents, when we wear our pagnes wrong, or when I go for my nightly run. It's quite a strange thing- people sit out and watch me, kids follow me, and once I get to the edge of town, that's when I have it, some time to myself.
What else? I take bucket baths twice a day. I can now sort of talk to my family about America- they were shocked to learn that yes, there are actually black people in America. My family has a small TV (battery operated, black and white) that a handful of villages (mostly teenage boys) come over to watch this cheezy Brazilian soap opera dubbed in French. I get quite a kick out of it. The first day when I was showing my sisters pictures of friends and family back at home, they kept pointing to Meghan Nolan saying "Tina! Tina!" After failing to find Tina in my English-Bambara dictionary, I realized later that night that Tina was a character from the soap opera. "There's your friend!" they told me "Tina!"
Back at the training center for a few days, I've eaten more than I've ever eaten in my life, talked to 75 AMERICANS in ENGLISH! (2 trainees have already terminated and went back to the states), and even played some sand volleyball (not quite like Hickory lane, but it was fun). The internet was down yesterday, but I got to talk to my family on the phone. I realize how much I really do miss home, friends, and family and how that is going to be really hard for me. I have the best support network and think about you guys all the time. I read your letters for inspiration, I pray for you, I feel terrible that I'm missing out on your lives. But in all sincerity, I think a lot of the hard part has passed. Though more is to come, at this point I'm still sincerely excited about my work, I'm still in love with this culture, and I still feel like this is what I have been called to do. Doni doni :)
Pictures take forever to upload, but I'll give it a try tomorrow.
-Emily aka Aminata
