Life's Good, Nothing Much New

my host sister Sama, 15 months


Since I’ve been back from Segou, things have been going great. I’m keeping myself really busy, maybe a little too busy considering the pending hindrance of climbing temperatures. There’s also a bad cold going around that I have fallen victim to, and it’s wiped me out a bit. But aside from the occasional damper of exhaustion, I’m really enjoying myself here in Dombila. We are just beginning construction on our water and sanitation projects, I’m teaching a health curriculum to seventh and eighth graders, watching more and more babies get fat, planning an International Women’s Day Celebration with my closest lady friends of Dombila, and still running around all the time- with Shaka or the school kids in gym class. Mainly, I’m just proud of my village. Sure there are still annoying people who ask me to give them money, my stuff, or a ticket to America multiple times a day. Sure there are still plenty of moments that I feel like an outsider, and am nostalgic for the normal life I glimpsed just over a month ago. But those moments of progress and understanding are more and more frequent. The Water and Sanitation Committee decided on and planed a behavior change and sensitization component of the well project without my prompting- a nice change from our usual lamentations on money and who’s well will get fixed first. A group of women are coming together to promote women’s rights on March 8, even though there is no money backing this event. Our star community health workers visit the CSCOM more and more regularly to check up on malnutrition records. One even told me, “Aminata, I’m watching these babies in my village all the time- I think malnutrition is done here.” That might be wishful thinking but at least its positive thinking.
A lot of this is due to the time of year. The hot season is not in full swing, but the harvest is over. People have more free time and energy for community development. People are generally of good health too, and I’m sure when the rainy season comes again, that one village will indeed be seeing children losing weight because of malaria and diareal diseases. People motivated for health projects now will not find the time to come to meetings as they are planting grain all the time. But for now, things are good. It’s rather fun.

Segu and More

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.

Blogs coming soon...

I wrote a bunch of blogs and took a bunch of pictures, but will have to post them next time. I could blame it on Malian technology, but really, its just my own scatterbrain (forgot to save if off computer on to my thumbdrive). I'm in Kati now. I just came back from a huge music festival in Segou, which was amazing. Check out the website and I'll have pictures, recaps, and also updates from Dombila in another 2 weeks time.



I miss you all, and love you! Stay well, I surely am. Except for the heat beginning.

Back at it

I'm here in Kati now, only 5 days after returning to Dombila. Instead of having time to settle in, I was called by Caroline and Hunter to help with their latest project: Take your daughters to work day. 5 days actually. So far, it's going pretty well, and there are 4 fifth grade girls here from Dombila. Along with girls from four other villages, they're doing job shadows with professional women, visiting the technical high school in Kati, doing team-building, goal-setting and a little bit of sexual education (somehow I've become the Peace Corps go-to person for that). Besides all the disasters that happen doing a project in Mali, I think its going pretty good and it is well worth it for these girls to think about a future other than becoming housewife in the rural villages.

I'm not sure how I feel about being back. Adjustment was easier than I imagined, having plenty of friends to welcome me upon my return. But I'm thinking more, I'm confused. I walk down the streets of Kati and hear people yelling at me just as before, “Tubabu! Tubabu!” Normally, this would really bug me and I would think, “Why are they singling me out? Can't they just leave me alone? I'm only a person!” But this time I'm thinking, “Yeah, you're right. It is super weird for me to be here. I'm this little white girl pretending to be Malian. That is rather laughable. I speak your language and wear your clothes and pretend that I know what's best for you. But do I? What the heck am I doing here in this foreign land?”

I know this vision of being able to really feel satisfied and confident that I'm doing something worthwhile is never going to be a concrete realization. I still question why I'm here, and what effect it has on people. And at this point, I know I'll never know for sure. But what I do have is faith. And enough life experience to know that most times you don't realize the significance of what your doing until it's all said and done. And as long as I'm fueled by this faith, and by these little hints of progress, I'll keep on truckin'. For another 9 months. And then... ?

My star community health worker showed me the records he kept of the malnourished children when I was away. I saw one baby who was on the verge of death at my departure gradually gaining strength. My eyes bulged out of my head when the school director showed my how he organized the students to do the weekly sanitation chores. Though the hand washing stations are still broken, they are acting as large barrels of water to clean the latrines daily, and soap is sitting next to kettles of water being used by the students to wash their hands. What happened here? We're going on a shopping spree tomorrow and returning with two trucks of sand and 145 bags of cement to start working on the wells.

At least for now, it's good. It's good to be back.

A Departure

It's funny, at times I feel as if nothing ever really changes around Dombila, but when I came back I was suddenly faced with the biggest change of my Peace Corps service. After a warm greeting with the family, (Malians don't hug, but I couldn't help myself- talk about awkwardness!), I announced I was going to greet the people at the CSCOM.
“Irene's gone!” Shaka told me. I didn't believe him, they always like to joke around like that. “No really,” he insisted, “a car came yesterday to gather up all her stuff.”
Sure enough when I reached the CSCOM, I found Awa's daughter, Noellie, and all the crew. They're still here. Of course they're still here. But Irene was on her way to visit me, to explain to me why she had sent her things to Kati and was leaving Dombila for good.
Now Irene is someone who would pack up her things and leave over a quarrel or a big whoop-la or such, so I was glad to hear that was not the case. A relative of her was opening up a private health clinic in Kati. As head matrone, she'd make a better salary to support her kids, plus she'd be closer to all her relatives that reside in Kati. She couldn't turn it down. “I've been talking about leaving Dombila for a long time, but I really wanted to wait until your two years were up.” I assured her that I understood. It's best for her. Kati is not far, I can still visit. But I'll miss her. And boy will I miss little Noellie.
I went with Awa, Irene, and the kids to Dio where they would leave with the last of their things. We waited for a car and talked about how different things would be.
“You know what you're doing now, you don't need me to teach you any more,” she said. True, she's not really directly active in my projects, but she's always the first person I go to for advice, and her advice always seems to work.
“But who am I going to eat rice with at lunch?” I asked. Even though I can get sick of rice every day, if anyone can cook great Malian sauce, it's Awa.
“You could eat with Bouare, or you could even cook yourself! You've been watching me long enough. You should be able to do it.” Confidently, I bought a new pot that next Saturday at market. I showed the rice dish I made to my host mom and she was quite disgusted. She tried to feed the leftovers to the dog. The dog wouldn't eat it.
It wasn't too hard to shed a few tears. I could have held back but it was the only other way I knew to show my respect and affection. “I couldn't have done anything, nonetheless stayed in Dombila without your guidance.” She assured me we would still be in close touch, and that I would be the “denba” (god-mother type figure) in Awa's upcoming wedding. She better explain that role a little better to me because as I saw in that last wedding she took me too, it's quite confusing.
“Be good. Don't fight,” she said through the rusty car window. She knows I don't pick fights, but maybe that was the most motherly piece of advice she could think of to give me at the time.

A few days later a new woman came- Mariam Diokote. Middle-aged, strong and well-built, friendly and welcoming but somewhat reserved. She seemed very occupied with settling in to have any time to chat so I did what I could to help her- sweep up, take out the trash, little things. I have no idea what kind of relationship I am going to have with her, or how she is in the work-setting. Only time will tell. May it work out well for us here in Dombila!

A mouse in the house

Coming back from America, of course I had hit the jackpot of goodies. The kids and host family all got little presents. And as for me, well, I have a life-time supply of powerbars, some great flavored tuna, applesauce, stuff to make s'mores with my host family, calcium chews, extra toys to give to the kids at the holidays, you name it.

Now normally, I don't lock my door when I go out for a run. Why would I? I'm not gone long, everyone's around, and no one would dare sneak in my house anyway. What I have had before are mice. God I hate mice. I once shined my flashlight on one late at night in my kitchen chowing down on a potato. Actually, the only time I have let kids in my house is when there's a critter to catch. They're pretty skilled at that.

So returning from my first run back, I noticed the four bananas I had sitting in a bowl had become, in 45 minutes, two bananas and two bananas worth of peels. I showed my host mom. “Did someone come in my room?” I asked.

She looked at the bananas. “No, of course not. The kids all know not to go in your house.” She confirmed it with the girls pounding millet. No, no one could have possibly come in. “Are you sure you didn't eat them.”

Sounds like something I would do, but I was pretty sure that I didn't eat those two bananas. We concluded that the mouse was back. Pretty hungry mouse! Impressive. I went back inside and noticed my shelves were all messed up and a can of chicken salad was open on the table. I definitely didn't open that can. And I really thought I put it on the shelf too.

“Could a mouse do that?” I showed the can to my host mom, and of course had to explain the concept of canned chicken salad.

“I guess, if it really put it's body up against it and popped the lid.” Geez. This mouse means business. When Shaka and Cesalo heard about this, they offered their mouse hunting services. I asked them to give me a few minutes to clean up around the house (Ameriki goodies were sprawled everywhere as I was still in the process of unpacking) and then they could come in.

I picked up a bit, started cooking my dinner, and was noticing a few other weird stuff in my house. A couple of toys were perched on the window sill. Maybe they fell out of my bag? I did have to crawl through the window to get in at first, as my door tends to get stuck if you don't open it for a few days. I went and tidied up the boxes in the corner as it began to get harder to see in the afternoon dusk.

Then, I noticed something. Behind the gas tank. A large bundle of something Was it my sleeping bag? I touched it. Oh my gosh- I almost screamed. It's a dead body!! It moved, and sat up.

“Madu??? What are you doing here?” The scared 9-year old had been balled up in the corner for a couple of hours, dusty and whimpering.

“Nothing.”

“Why did you come in here?”

“I don't know.”

“Did you take anything.”

“No, I just ate some candy.” I look at the wrappers. Well, he definitely had his daily value of calcium today.

“Were you trying to get the toys out the window?”

“Yes.”

“Did you open that can?”

“Yes.”

“Did you eat the bananas?”

“No. You must have a mouse in here.” Darn it! God I hate mice.

“Madu?”

“Yeah I ate the bananas.” Madu was terrified to go outside, he knew he'd get in big trouble and most definitely get beaten. I tried to hide him for a little while, but it really became time for him to face the music and get out. I can't have him just laying here while I'm trying to cook dinner.

Meanwhile, Shaka and Cesalo are anxiously waiting to go hunt down the mouse. “Did you see it in there?”

“Yeah, I found it.”
“Well where is it?”
“It's here.”
“Did you kill it?”
“No.”
“Well, let it out!”
“I'm going to let it out later.”
“Why? Just let it out now!”
“If I let out the mouse, you have to all promise you won't trouble it, you hear?”
“Yeah, yeah yeah.”
“No one is going to hit it, no one is going to chase it, you'll just let it run away and not tell anyone. Promise?”

As they wondered why I was so protective of this mouse I went in and tried talking to Madu. “You gotta come out now.” And little by little I got him to stand up, go near the door, and there was this dramatic pause as I held the door open and the people outside waited for the mouse to come scurrying out. Finally Madu made his exit, directly to the wooden post outside my house where he immediately hid his face in his arms. Everyone's mouth dropped in a shocking silence.

Back to cooking dinner, I figured the whole situation was too funny to get mad at Madu. Besides, despite my bargaining, I knew he was going to get punished. He's just a kid. But now among the neighborhood, he is forever known as “the mouse.”

Getting Home

I remember sitting here July of 2008, just a few yards away from where I am now. Going through security at the Rochester International Airport was like crossing one of those laser-gel walls you see in scifi movies- it sucks you in spits you into a totally different place, to complete some mission, and doesn't let you go back until you've succeeded. All the wild emotional electricity jumping through my body was untamed and incomprehensible. Not quite knowing what to do with myself, I sat down to write. Just to quiet my thoughts, or at least streamline them on a page so I could attempt to make sense of what was happening to me.
Now 18 months later, I'm back on the same embarkment- Rochester to New York to Paris to Bamako and ultimately, Dombila. A lot has changed since then. But being home, immersed in loved ones, has made it clear that the countless blessings I have in my life are as steady, strong, and even more abundant as before.
I had only started counting down the days until my trip in the 50s. My anticipation was surely evident to the people of Dombila who had to listen to me announce “It's only 2 weeks and four days until I go to Ameriki!!” Then one night I was finally there, checking in to the Bamako airport, giving my last farewell blessing in Bambara and bouncing in my seat with excitement. My sister was to pick me up in Rochester and we would drive thought the sparkling snow to 1880 Hickory Lane where my dad would be tending to a wood fire, my mom making a warm, home cooked meal, and my dogs lounging on the oversized green cabin couches.
The picturesque moment was delayed by about 9 hours because of a series of adventures in transit. The Bamako- Paris plane was still delayed from the awful Paris snowstorms, and we weren't able to leave until an hour and a half past scheduled. This got me to the help desk in Charles de Gualle at 8:17 am for my 8:23 flight to New York.
“I think I need to change my flight,” I told the lady.
“Well, I can put you on a later flight, but you may be able to make it if you try. It's a little delayed and they're still boarding.”
Pumped with adrenalin, I saw some other folks running toward the gate. “New York?” I asked.
“Yep.” And I was soon running alongside folks. Relieved to reach the gate on find people still filing in, the ticket collector halted my approach.
“Wait,” he said and proceeded to explain that due to all the delays they were bumping in people from other flights. I watched the man in front of me skip gleefully into the boarding ramp with the last ticket to NYC. So then it was me and the Moores, an American family living in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire for the past 6 months. Not so bad- we got lunch vouchers and I savored my first meal in the Western World (a mozzarella/tomato/ pesto sandwich on hearty hone wheat bread with rich dark hot chocolate), went to the cleanest bathroom I'd seen in a long time, and exchanged living in Africa stories with the Moores and their 3 school-aged children. Snow, lots of bundled up white people, this is starting to look familiar.
We made it on a 12:00 flight out, sat on the runway for 2 hours, and 10 hours later arrive in NYC, well past 5pm EST. Expecting to be home at 2pm, I instead shared my first dinner in the states with another West African PCV I met on my plane- a scrumptious twix bar from the vending machine. Kara and I watched the conveyor belt for an hour and a half before an airport guy announced to the dozens of stragglers from the Paris flight, “Your bags aren't coming.”
He herded us to another line as I watched it get dark outside. I'm going to be spending the night in New York, I concluded. After finding out that I could call to report my lost luggage later, I left the scene of the crime to see what JetBlue could do for a lonely Rochester-bound girl.
You know what I was looking forward to the whole time? Being in a public place where I wasn't the only white person and everyone wasn't staring at me. Well, JFK is full of people of plenty of different races, but I felt that people were still staring at me. Among well-outfitted travelers with their trendy scarfs and jackets and oh-so-easily mobile luggage, here's this disheveled girl in dirty sneakers, prototypical blue medical scrubs and a tee-shirt nonetheless. Carrying- a cardboard box of awkward size and held together by a wrapping of an assorted tape. Its not a bomb, I swear. (It was mostly Caroline's shea nuts that I've been instructed to forward). My other bag, they told me, would be sent to my home in a couple of days. (I would be waiting for 10 days it later turned out, unsure if it was lost forever.)
This is the point that I just wanted to fall over and die. I don't even know how much time passed while I was waiting in the JetBlue line. Hours perhaps. Just packed with people. And they kept playing “I'll be home for Christmas” on repeat. Eventually, I thought. Months of transport hell has seasoned me to the annoyances of travel, but even so, I was completely exhausted, Outrageously sleep deprived I wormed my way through the check-in-line, giving my cardboard box a little kick every moment I crept forward. There's a guy calling upcoming flights so people can sneak in front and not be delayed and further. Compared to some of these weary travelers in my vicinity, I've had it pretty good. Blizzards everywhere the weekend before Christmas. Just our luck.
“Rochester,” he calls.
“Rochester!” I excitedly burst out, scooting toward the front. Only problem- I don't have reservations for the 8:50pm flight. After being sent here and there and hopefully watching as some guys typed away on their computers.
“There's one more seat.” He printed me out the ticket. “But you better hurry.” Easier said than done when you still have baggage check and security. Once through, I'm running again. I reach the gate. Empty. “Boarding for Rochester:” the screen reads, “CLOSED.”
My face drops.
“Has the plane taken off yet?” I ask the tired man who strolls to the counter.
“What is your name?” he shoots me a interrogating look.
“Emily Hurley!” I shove all of my documents at him and hold my breath when he exclaimed them.
“Miss Hurley,” he looks up, “Please make your way to the aircraft.”
I'm grinning as I run down the breezeway and eye seat 26A, the one empty place in the very back of the small plane. I take a deep breath. I'm Going Home.
My lucky break gave me a second wind that allowed me to chat excitedly about the homeland with Jeff, the guy next to me who reintroduced me to some great things like new cell phones and chewing gum.
Then it was the landing. It's Rochester. It's my adorable sister. Finally. It's a winter jacket. It's road signs and Christmas lights. It's Honeoye Falls. It's the driveway, the soft cabin lights. It's Mom. It's Dad. And Hudson and Lilly. It's a Christmas tree and a fire. It's a few tears.
It's home.