WHHHAAATTTT?

Thanks to you all, there will be 35 improved drinking wells in the village of Dombila. The goal of $4,100 was recently reached, and I can’t thank you all enough for your donations. The project will begin January 2010.

Aw ni baaraji!!! (Thank you!)

Almost home

Some mornings I wake up and I can see my breath. Nevertheless, a few hours pass and the sun is in full force again. The cold season is easy living around here. Lots of fruits and veggies are in season, and I can actually stay in my hut for more than 10 minutes without sweating profusely. We just celebrated the Muslim Feast of Tabaski (“Seliba” as they say in Bambara, which means “big prayer”). I don’t know how, but joyously, I successfully slid by this year without eating any meat.

Some mornings I wake up and I can see my breath, and before I open my eyes I reach for my lamp on the bedpost and think about what cereal I’m going to eat for breakfast. And then reality hits, there is no lamp, just a mosquito net. And the sounds of my host mom pounding millet can only mean one thing- porridge…again.

No I’m not entirely delusional, I’ve just had my mind on December 19th. When a little plane will take me to Paris, a bigger one will take me to New York, another one to Rochester, where I will spend 20 glorious days in the home that I left 18 months ago. Home for the holidays baby. It’s about time.

Thanksgiving was nice. I spent it again at the ambassadors with a good old fashioned turkey dinner. I got to talk to the whole Hurley gang and get all the updates on the cousins’ moustache growing contest and the amusing remarks of my 88 year old grandfather. But unlike last year, I felt more of a sense of guilt than I did of comfort. I’ve missed two Thanksgivings in a row- that’s grounds for excommunication of the family. I’ve gotta go home. I’ve gotta reconnect. And oh how thankful I am that I will be doing just that.

But I’m keeping busy here at site, which is preventing me from driving myself crazy with fantasies of home. The solar drying project is finally gaining momentum, and I’m also putting together the in-service training for the new stage of volunteers on HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition work is still rewarding, especially now as community health workers become more and more involved. These are pictures from a recent community event in the small town of N’galamadiby, 10k outside of Dombila. It started 3 hours late because my bike broke down and I had to ride some random rickety old man’s bike. (The bike was rickety and old, and the man was rickety and old, just to clear that up).


As a matter of fact, I feel like all of my stuff is breaking, my phone, the windows on my house, my hammock, my radio, the equipment at the CSCOM, my computer… but that’s just life here in Mali. Things don’t break so much in America, do they? I don’t quite remember.

I’ve been traveling a lot to Bamako and back for various work. It’s exhausting to say the least. Travel here is not easy. America, America… travel is easy, isn’t it? I don’t quite remember.

The untold stories. There are dozens. Stories of children making miraculous recoveries, stories of scary experiences I’ve had, stories of people I’ve met and places I’ve discovered. Things I’ve never written in this blog. Things I cannot describe on a computer. The way the goats come trotting back to the compound every evening, the way the babies dance to traditional songs, the way the men drum in the fields each morning to drive the bird each morning. Some things that I know only my eyes will see. But to tell you- to sit down on a cold December day next to the Christmas tree, with a cup of hot chocolate and a blazing fire. Well, in two weeks I’ll be able to do that. And I can also hear about all the way you’ve grown and changed in the last 18 months. Ahhhhh….I’ll see you soon.