Feelin HOT HOT HOT

Remember that song? Hanging out by the lake- what I wouldn't give to jump in a lake right now!

I haven't been in the city in a while, and I wish that I could have keep some sharper updates on village life. Handwriten journals and I have never had lasting relationships- I've written some letters and promised to update my blog thoroughly on my next Bamako trip, but I've been staring at the computer all day and feeling a bit tired. So I'll give you the pathedic, hurried updates as they come out of my head.

PROJECTS:
- Handwashing stations are broken due to meanasing children and poor welding. Don't really know where to go from here. Is it worth reviving? No one in the community seems to be taking any action, despite my pushing. The director is terribly unmotivated, so so far we're at a standstill. Sorry to all of you donars, but only time and the good Lordy will tell if this will work. I'm doing my best.
- Malnutrition: We've had some great recoveries, including one mother who nobody believed could actually rehabilitate her child. We've become close personally and her son is now of normal weight. We also had a heartbreaking death two weeks ago that is making me and the CSCOM staff wonder how we can make our impatient program more accomidating (so far if you can't find a place to stay, you're out of luck).
-Wells: Came into Bamako to get the money to start the well project, which of course, is not in. Such is Mali. Meeting on Sunday with the very elusive water sanitation committe of Dombila who has not quite decided on the exact details of executing this project. Our well is done however, but now the water is kinda chalky looking... hmmm...
-Women's Soap: My women are still making soap every two weeks, experiementing with different shapes and sizes. They still do not make much profit, but we are looking at ideas on how to use our shea trees to get shea butter when the rainy season comes so we can lower our expenses.
-School: I started teaching sex ed at the school. Lord knows why. I was looking for something to do and they asked me to. We'll see how this goes...
-Computer: Our 1996 PC is fixed and I've resumed lessons with the CSCOM Doctor. We've learned important skills such as "home row" "copy paste" and of course, "Solitaire."
-Radio: Sunday night Dombila radio is "Health Talk" with your hosts Irene and Aminata. Aminata hardly says much (she has a weird accent), but Irene is quite talkative if you can get her to get out of bed and stay up until 10:00 (that's mainly my job)
-Informal: I think though what takes up the most of my time in village (or shall I say, what I am forced to fill my time with) is informal education. No one freakin wants to do anything seriously productive these days. I talk about starting a project, a committee, putting on a play with the youth, doing a big formation with community health workers... and I feel like I'm talking to walls. I seriously come up with some (so I think) break-through idea ever day- a small group smoking cessation project, a kid's malaria game night, a mural painting contest. But all anyone is really serious about is braiding hair and eating mangos. So if you can't beat them, join them. I've been doing a lot of braiding hair and eating mangos and sitting around with these bums. But in that sitting around, we talk. From water sanitation to baby nutrition to fruit drying, I feel like I'm starting to put some ideas in people's heads. I'm the first volunteer in a sleepy, rural traditional town. And while I can get jealous of my friends who are working with big Shea Butter Exportation projects with foriegn buyers or doing formations on pump repair, I feel like in my own way, I'm making a bit of a difference. Damn it I try my hardest, every day. And as an achievement oriented person, not seeing any results can drive me nuts. But you never know- things may be germinating beneath the soil. And maybe soon, we'll get serious about growin

VILLAGE NEWS:
- New mayor elected, not too sure about this guy. Not my host dad's candidate, but unlike our previous mayor, at least he is literate.

-I'm getting a site mate. An education PCV will be only 5k away from me starting this September. Don't know who yet. I hope they help us with the school at Dombila as well, (we really need it!) Let's also hope that its also the man of my dreams ;) (It's slim pickins out here- though I have a steady flow of marriage proposals I have yet to find a Malian man who meets my only two qualities: having all of his teeth and is against wife beating. Slim pickins for sure).

CULTURE:
-Village chief in Sidian Coro (3k away) died and the elder's secret society did a bunch of weird traditional ritual things. What did that mean for me? None of my mothers came into the CSCOM that day because "the road was bad". If you traveled on the main road, you might see one of the elders engaged in this secretive spiritual ritual. And if you see it, you die. No, they don't kill you, but they put a curse on you, which is just as bad.

-I also almost ate a mango from a cursed mango tree. Luckily about 12 kids came running to stop me before I even picked it off.

-After visiting one of the neighboring villages for vaccinations, I overheard a debate among some women on whether or not they thought my hair was real, or a wig. Malian women are super into fake hair that they braid into their real hair. So now not only do people ask me for money, my bike, and my watch, but I have people asking me for my hair. I don't know why they want it anyway- its a greasy frizz ball these days. Heck, we're all grease balls these days.

MY LIFE:
Newsflash: After some stomach rumblings, I've lowered my mango intake to 2-4 per day.

With the slow swing of hot season, I'm doing a lot of reading and thus a lot of thinking. I don't ever think I've thought so much in my life. Mostly about development, inequality, human rights, and poverty. The more I read and learn and question, the more I'm troubled by how difficult it is to render feasible solutions for the destitute people of our world. My head is exploding with questions that have no answers. I feel like I could write a book on all of my thoughts, but the book would essentially say, let's stop writing books. We've got enough books. What we don't have is enough people taking action. And why's that? Because action in it's purest form out here is as slow as a donkey cart.
Besides driving myself crazy pondering the troubles of humanity, I'm enjoying some QT on my new hammock (thanks Mom and Dad!)Some long runs with Shaka (who gives me the cold shoulder 50% of the time these days out of stupid things. I can't tell if he's over-protective or jealous but whenever I spend time with somebody that isn't him or the other boys, he gets mad. I'm learning to live with it unfortunately.) I've also started some Monday afternoon games on the soccer field with kids. Tag games, sprint drills, but mostly just messin around doing handstands and whatnot. It's quite a site, espcially when little Noellie, now at 13 months, staggers his newly found walking feet over to join the games.