Blog from Feb. 10
Without a solid chunk of time in Dombila, of course the usual site guilt hit me when I skulked out for 5 days. Yes, these couple days have been work and meetings in Bamako. But I also had a fantastic getaway to the riverside city of Segou. The annual “Festival sur la Niger” was Malian culture at its finest, an event that I promised myself I wouldn’t leave Mali without experiencing. All the best Malian musicians performed over a span of 4 days, with cultural events like dancing and traditional puppet shows during the day, art exibits, vendors with all kinds of fascinating crafts, great food, and a lively atmosphere with interesting people from all over Africa, Europe, and beyond. We even saw a pirogue (fishing boat) race on the river. Different villages entered teams, almost like Malian version of crew. Who ever thought that I’d get to see something like this?
So I must admit, when I first came to Mali, I didn’t immediately fall in love with the music. Traditional xylophone has an unsettled, disharmonic sound, and the Malian vocal style is not for the passive listener. But after seeing them live, I’m hooked. Here are some artists that you should definitely take a look at:
Nahawa Doumbia is one of the divas of Malian vocalists. Her big hit, which I can’t for the life of me find out what its called, is one of my favorite Malian songs. It’s a duet she sang with her daughter, who got the crowd on their feet with her surprise guest appearance.
Salif Keita- The crowd goes crazy for this vocalist, traditional guitarist and 2000 Grammy Nominee. He is also an albino, and his rise to fame has been generated acceptance for this often ostracized sub-population of Mali. At the end of his performance, he called all of the albinos in the audience onstage (about 25), and they all got their dance on, proud as can be.
Tinariwen is a toureg group. They are popular in the West for their acoustic, eclectic sound. I really enjoyed their music, but also thought it amusing that I was seeing them at this big rock venue, complete with huge speakers and colored lights. Picture your typical concert, your typical lead singer with his typical acoustic guitar. Now picture him in a blue desert robe and his face hiding in a white turban!
Things at site are going well, but I’m anxious to get back and get rolling! Here are some recent updates:
- The Take Your Daughters To Work Camp was a huge success, thanks to the great organization from Hunter and Caroline. I also felt like I got to contribute with daily “Life Skills” lessons, to give the girls a chance to talk about the risks of early pregnancy and to practice refusal skills. It closed with a candle lighting ceremony and inspirational talks from female role models. I walked back from Dio, a good 5 miles, with the girls afterwards, and sensed that they had really turned over a new stone of personal confidence. “I’ll never quit school, ever,” says Agnes Diarra, a quiet, obedient 4th grader who dreams of being a secretary. She gets up before sunrise and walks to school with her brother everyday from Durako, over 4 miles away. “We walk, and walk and walk until my feet bleed!” These girls will always be in my heart and I hope to God they can somehow get a basic education here, and continue on up to achieve their dreams.
- The Well Project is up and going but really stressful. I’m a lot more stressed out than my villagers, worrying about keeping track of the money and keeping people and materials organized. But when we went to do preview work on two wash areas, I started to get really excited. In addition to the 35 well repairs, we are also building wash areas and drainage systems for the two pumps in village in order to reduce standing water, mosquitoes, and malaria.
- The school is growing on me, and I’ve partnered with the biology teacher to do weekly health lessons in the 7th and 8th grades. We’re going to finish it out with a community mural project, and hopefully expand in other villages.
- We’ve started solar drying. Right now, its in the demonstration phase, and hopefully we’ll get people to buy into it.
- My new homolouge is great. I do miss Irene and her family though. But I think Mariam is really motivated and will be fun to work with. Things have been busy at the CSCOM trying to help her get oriented. She’s focused in her work, sweet and understanding. She’s also a big woman, most matrones tend to be, but she’s even tempered and very approachable to patients. She doesn’t quite fully understand my role, but we are developing a good, though still undefined relationship. What she does want to do is to teach me how to give births. I try to explain to her that its not allowed for us volunteers, that our supervisors are scared we’ll contract a disease or something. “Just wear gloves!” she says. “Learning how to give birth is very important. You’ll never know when you’ll be out in fields or the brush one day, passing along on your bike, and you come across a woman in labor. You should always be prepared. Aminata, I’m going to give you some advice- never go anywhere, anywhere without gloves!”
- The kids and host family are doing great. We have about 10 Honeoye Falls/ Dombila pen pal pairs. It’s a bit of work with all the translation, but it’s great to get the kids connected with pictures, drawings, and greetings. The “mouse” somehow got his hands on my ipod. I got it back, pretty scratched
- Lauren’s parents are in town- and were greeted with xylophones and chanting children and their made their way into Koyan! Now they’re off for a family vacation in Spain! We also got together a big group of volunteers for Hunter’s birthday in Kati. We pooled together money and hired a DJ and had a regular hoppin’ Malian dance party. Ages 3 to 93 were all getting down with us white kids. It was a blast.
