Carols in Latin

Christmas was the realization of how I've visualized it to be since childhood. All of the festivities leading up to it were completely heart-warming. I had a blast at the annual junk-from-your-attic yankee swap gift exchange with the Chards, the Christmas Eve cocktail party with the O'Connells, and of course dinner with the relatives at Grandpa's and a peaceful midnight mass. Yet it all led up to Christmas evening in our house, with the candles flickering on the mantle over a soft stone-hugged fire. With Christmas hymns on the stereo and the sparkling tree ornated with memories spanning the generations, we remembered our blessings.
Traditionally, after the chocolate mousse and wine, I play a few Christmas tunes on the piano, and our small group of 10 gathers to sing. I excused myself from dinner early to practice a bit (18 months in Mali left me a little rusty on the ivories). It wasn't long before my grandpa wandered in. Always a bit embarrassed about my mother's rule for Christmas attire- pajamas- I smiled when he arrived sporting black-and-white crossword puzzle flannels.
He began singing over my shoulder. He can carry a tune for sure, complemented by old-fashioned vibrato and the distinctive whistle in his voice. “I was in the boys' choir at St. Something-Or-Others'” he reminds me every year, which is why he knows most of the Latin text.
The small window of which I know my grandpa spans this short frame of his life. But suddenly I found myself longing to know the entirety. What I've come to realize lately is the cliché, “respecting your elders' is not rooted in pity or obligation, but in the value of someone who has seen and lived and learned through a great deal more than you have.
I paid him a visit after New Year's, and we talked more than I ever remember us having before. Family, religion, the quest for the American dream in this century and the last...all over some photo albums and a jigsaw puzzle- (as far as I can remember, I've never seen him without one). This is my heritage, I thought, everything that happened in my grandfather's life is amazingly significant to my existence, my upbringing, and my identity.
In Mali, news about my grandfather usually comes like “He's doing well” but “he's getting old” or “he's slowing down.” At 88, most of his friends have passed before him. And when it gets harder and harder to get out of an empty house and enjoy his favorite pastimes, I suppose we always worried that he didn't have enough to keep him going. I learned though, as I spend the holidays with him, that he has not checked out yet. On the contrary, he seems to be enjoying life even more these days. I never knew he walked for exercise or still goes to mass twice a week. What I always knew, was how proud he is of his family- not in a haughty but in a fatherly-nod-of-approval kind of way. He raised an impressive one- eight amazingly successful children, fifteen smart and promising grandkids, and one adorable grandchild.
Year after year we'd hear him say, “I won't have many Thanksgivings left” or “This could be my last Christmas.” None of that this time. Leaving him back last year was unsettling, so you can imagine my joy when my “I'll see you next fall” was followed by a strong, affirmative hug.
“Absolutely,” he said.

A December Morning in Mali

The nights deep silence never broke with the morning.
The village gathered and sat.
The man under the sheet was not at all old,
his wife kneeling on the crumbling floor.
Incense fills the room, a shawl covers her empty gaze.
Dont cry, they tell me.

It was that same night another struggled
to release a new life into the world.
Its called labor
where life should begin, here it has ended for both.
Dont cry, they tell me. Crying is bad.

Seven months old shes brought to me
is it too late for you?
Your fragile body folding up as I held it.
Your only chance is to leave this village.
Take her now, theres no time to loose.

A December morning in Mali
the sun doesnt come out all the way.

I want to cry.
I do.
And they laugh at me for it.

Is it funny?
And they laugh harder.
I know its not funny.
Youve just cried out your cry.

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.

Pictures from Tabaski

1. A teenager praying on his prayer beads
2. Three of my neighbors on the way to morning prayer
3. Kids sporting some Barak Obama gear and sweeet sunglasses
4. Denisie and I (disregard hair-do please!)
5. My new site-mate, Lauren, and I in our holiday outfits

Dombila fights HIV/AIDS

These are pictures from the World AIDS Day Celebration (Dec. 1) in Dombila.

Since school started in early October, I have been training a group of peer educators in whats called the "Life Skills Program". It is an international Peace Corps initiative, recently translated into Bambara, aiming to teach HIV/AIDS basics to youth while helping them develop communication, relationship, and decision making skills. Much better than my previous attempt as sex education, this program is active and focused on real youth issues. I had about 15 volunteer 7th, 8th, and 9th graders who met after school once a week for about two hours. Of course, we had stumbling blocks: getting the girls confident enough to speak in front of their peers, disruptions from younger kids, etc. But in all, it was a really positive experience and I've enjoyed so much getting to know these kids. I conducted post-interviews with all of the participats, to find out how the Life Skills Program can be improved for future volunteers. Yes it was disheartening to see that many of the girls dropped out of the group. But I knew that it was worth it during my interview with one of my favorite kids, Keleke.

"What did you like about Life Skills?"
"I liked the skits, the games..."
"What didn't you like about Life Skills?"
"Ehhh Aminata!" he laughs as he shakes his head, "I liked it all!"

Through games, skits and other activities, these youth have become local HIV experts and tell how their friends have asked them about a number of adolescent issues. The group put together an awareness day for December 1st. As I have also become a gym teacher at the high school, we naturally incoporated running and had a big relay race announced on a loudspeaker for the whole village to watch. In between the boys and girls races, the Life Skills participants performed two skits on HIV/AIDS and good decision making. We then had a showing of a film, followed by discussion questions at the CSCOM. My sitemate Lauren estimated that over 250 people showed up for the event. All of this was done by villagers pitching in and helping out- no outside funding. Yay Dombila!

The Day I Took Off My Shoes

“I kera Bamanan yere yere ye” (You’ve become a real Bambaran). I hear this phrase more and more often these days as my community notices the small changes I continue to make to become cozier in the culture. It’s the way I tie my head-wrap, or the unexpected slang expression I whip out, the stubbornness in bargaining, or my acquired addiction to strong, sweet, local tea. No, I am still never going near toh, and you don’t have to worry about me walking around shirtless, but even after 18 months I’m making small adaptations and feeling more and more comfortable living this once strange life.

I’ll again thank those of you who sent running shoes to my pose of boys last February. The gifts were embraced and appreciated, not just for their usage but as a sign of support for their running. But here is the truth: the boys’ mothers felt that the shoes were too nice to be worn running around the village and insisted they be saved for the big Muslim holidays when everyone gets dressed up. After I begged them, they allowed the excited boys to run in the shoes. So we went on a run, and something was just not right. The boys were stumbling and uncomfortable, and the high tech shoes were weighing down their otherwise effortless stride. It wasn’t long before the shoes took their rightful place, and the boys got many complements as they proudly strutted around the village during the holiday gatherings.

I still run with Shaka and he still runs barefoot. He still politely trots a few steps behind me during 10, 11, 12 mile runs, but lets loose and kicks my butt in sprints down the soccer field. My parents recently sent me a package and in it they included an article about the benefits of running barefoot and a couple new issues of Runner’s Worlds. There was a blurb in one about this guy who does all his running barefoot. I remember he said something like, “if there is a pebble or even a piece of glass, I just relax and let my foot mold to it.”

Hmmm, let your foot ‘mold’ to it. Maybe that’s Shaka’s secret. On a solo run one morning, deep in the millet fields where no one was watching, I decided to give it a try. It reminded me of the day I secretly jumped in a mud puddle in hopes of escaping the fact that my high class feet need new $100 running shoes every 400 miles. One step, dozens of pebbles, another step, more pebbles- ‘mold’ to it darn it!- a third step, I’m on the ground. Falling is not an uncommon occurrence during my runs. At least once or twice a week I get scraped up as a result of the uneven terrain of the savannah. Sheepishly, I put my shoes back on and ran back to my hut.

The next day, I asked Shaka if he likes running barefoot and if it was easy. “Of course,” he replies. I asked him to teach me. This time we went on a smoother terrain of soft dust. The pebbles weren’t too bad and I managed 5 minutes. I always thought barefoot running was reserved for strides on carefully groomed soccer fields after a properly shoed-run. I now take off my shoes frequently, much to the amusement of the villagers, and have built up to about 2 miles. I tell Shaka I’ll do the run to Dio one day barefoot. If I do, n beke bamanan yere yere yere ye. (I’ll have really really really become Bambaran!)