Pancakes Round Two

Spent my last day at Fanta’s and I’m really going to miss my Sundays there. Not because every moment of Fanta’s was a respite from Sikoroni-it wasn’t at all. It was a house filled with screaming babies, and older siblings who reciprocated with their own yelling and striking. It was a house where I never truly had a moment’s peace. When we would pass time in the salon, in front of the massive wide-screen TV Nabu, the chubby second daughter would always have her hand on me, trying to claim my attetion. I couldn’t set down my book without one of the younger kids rifling through it. What stressed me out the most was that not even my water bottle was safe. The baby constantly picked it up and I don’t even know how many times he probably licked the top or sneezed on it when I was out of the room. The kids took every opportunity to parade me to their friend’s houses or to introduce me as their cousin. Even when I spent the night, I would be interrupted starting at five in the morning with a series of Fanta’s children checking on me as I tried to sleep. But even though I continued to be a spectacle at their house, they were truly concerned about me. Even though the overwhelming attention and the pushing of food towards me at every shared dinner was exhausting, they were genuinely excited to see me every Sunday morning when I arrived, and I think their house is the one place in Mali I will truly miss.
We spend yesterday afternoon making pancakes. The kids fought over who could flip them- there was no spatula, but it was still an honor to turn the “beancakes” over. The kids- there’s always a different number of them there- devoured them right off the pan. They claimed that the rice cakes that people sell on the streets of Sikoroni are sort of like pancakes, but I don’t believe them. My amoebas have taken away any faith I had that decent Malian street food exists.
We went to see Nabu, the second daughter, play basketball at a sports celebration. Like most events I’ve been to this summer, it started over an hour late, because someone couldn’t find the microphone. There was an entire procession of the different basketball and karate teams of the town. Karate is a huge deal in Mali- apparently there will be a pretty sizable Malian karate team competing in Bejing next week too. Who knew? The karate demonstrations in the middle of the basketball court under the scorching sun were pretty amazing. The teams were announced, and then a series of twenty-minute games were played.
Fanta convinced me to spend the night, and this morning Yatouré (one of the coonskins, I think..) took me to the Grand Marchée. Yatouré is twenty-eight, but just hangs out at the house with the kids most of the time. She said she works in the dress-making business, but apparently work is difficult to find during the summer. She was amazing to shop with- she took me directly to the center of the artisans market and was already friends with most of the jewelers, so she helped me pick out presents at real prices, not tubabo prices.
Leaving Bamako on Wednesday night.

Unhappilly Full of Amoebas

Had brochettes de capitaine and ginger-zabon juice today at a really nice Malian restaurant for a send-off lunch for Caitlin. Not really sure why you would choose Malian food when you are paying a lot to eat, but the skewers were actually pretty good. In other news, I have amoebas. We’re pretty sure (Caitlin’s diagnosis). I’m on metranidozole for a week, but just have been pretty uncomfortable (diarrhea, etc.) since the trip up to Dogon country.
We’ve been working on writing Clinton Foundation grants all day. The grant writing process is so crucial to learn, but so painstaking and so frustrating to revise continuously.
I spent the morning working on the survey results for the Sigida Keneyali baseline. The survey asks basic questions about family size and then about the frequency of diseases like malaria, fever, and diarrhea, as well as use of local clincs. The surveys took forever to go through, because a lot of the responses were undecipherable: How many women are in your family? Response: 8 or 10. How many children have been vaccinated? 10 or 14.

Dogon Buses

More on Dogon country to come, but for now just the bus ride back:

I was definitely the despised tubabo on the busride back. We took a Ghana Transport bus, and since the bus was only half full when we got on, Ben and I lucked out and got seats by the two windows on the bus- windows that only open half way, but provide the only respite from a stifling 15 hour bus trip. I was content. Two hours later, my luck changed because the bus conductor suddenly decided he had the power to assign seats and he placed a serious-faced man carrying a leather briefcase in the seat next to me. I should have known by his look that he was cold, and he took his transport seriously. As soon as he sat down, he reached across me and shut the window. The twelve hour window battle had begun. I almost laughed and slid open the window immediately. There were plenty of other seats of the bus, I told him, that were far from the window. He frowned and zipped up his windbreaker (yes, windbreaker at 4 in the afternoon in Mali). He tried to cover his face with the windbreak to indicate that I was being horrifyingly insensitive and freezing the poor man. He pretended to shiver and I ignored him.
I held on to my window control for as long as possible. He would periodically shiver and look miserable, glancing around him in hopes that other passengers would see what a window tyrant I was being. Yet, when it got dark, windbreaker man thought he could be more devious. Every time I began to close my eyes, he would stealthily try to reach the window and slide it silently shut. I would not give up my territory, but soon I was too tired to put up a fight, and as the night progressed, I gradually allowed the window to be shut halfway. Windbreaker man has probably diagnosed himself with hypothermia by now.

The Wedding, Chapter 6: The Konyoso

The Konyoso
For week after marriage, according to Malian tradition, Massi and Niang had to move (they moved across the courtyard, kicking Papye out of his own bedroom) and follow a strict series of rules. This was no honeymoon, especially not for Massi. Massi and Niang both had to dress completely in white for the entire week. But that was the only similarity in their requirements. Massi was confined to the bedroom, where she sat, uncomfortably idle, under a mosquito net. She wasn’t allowed to leave except to visit the bathroom, and at those times she had to be completely veiled. She had no radio, TV or books with her. After the first day, I found out she had visitors, so I would go in and talk to her, bringing her pain au chocolates or cold Cokes. She was on a special diet as well, provided by a Grand Dame or mananmugo, a woman hired by the family to cook food especially for the bride. She was given only seri (rice porridge) and chicken, weak food that was supposed to ensure her submissiveness.
Niang had to follow strict rules of the Konyoso as well, but the male version seemed like a more acceptable honeymoon. He was confined to his courtyard for the three days following the ceremony, but he had a constant stream of visitors. While Massi sat, bored and hot, inside all day, he would lounge in the courtyard, playing cards and sipping tea with a group of friends.

Niang's Wedding Tales

Niang’s Wedding Tales

Chapter 1: Henna!

We called Mama’s favorite artist in for henna on our feet. With surgical tape and a razor blade (which made me very nervous before I saw how graceful with it she was) she sliced little strips of tape into beautiful designs on my feet. Then she coated my entire food in a cakey henna mixture and tied up my feet in the small black plastic bags that unfortunately cover on the streets of Sikoroni. She was an artist who wouldn’t even allow herself distracted by her little infant crawling around, getting henna on his forehead, and attempting to distract her the entire time. She spent about an hour on each of us- Caitlin, Julie, Cari, and I- and wouldn’t stop for a break or even eat the food Cari bought for her. After being incapacitated for a few hours, with plastic bags on our feet (Caitlin and I watched Sense and Sensibility), we began the long process of pulling off all the tape and scraping off the henna. The artist had wanted us to put on the second chemical after the natural henna- the dye that all the Malian women use so that their henna appears black. But according to the Peace Corps Volunteers, the black dye is also used for rat poison, so we all went with the natural henna color. All the Malian women that see my henna stop me and ask me why the jaba (henna) looks so orange. It’s just not worth trying to figure out how to explain in Bambara that I was trying to avoid poisoning my feet.

Chapter 2: The Cortège

At eight o’clock, the morning of the wedding, all the preparations were still in progress. The massive orange tent was still being lifted up by a group of teenagers to cover the entire street in front of the house, at least a dozen women were cooking rice in the largest iron pots I’ve ever seen in the field to the side of the house, and Mama was entertaining early arrivals without even having changed into her dress outfit. More and more family members and friends decked out in their most ornate Malian prints kept pouring into the courtyard, and Mama served everyone breakfast. She smiled and tore everyone off a chunk of bread, to be eaten with spoonfuls of mayonnaise, and handed out cups of coffee Malian style; lukewarm, intensely sweetened milk, with a small spoonful of Nescafé stirred in.
Suddenly, every one began filing out of the courtyard and packing into waiting cars, motos and sotramas (green buses) lined up outside the house. Niang had ordered a car for us, and since it came with two drivers for some reason, the five of us piled in the back seat. We were close behind Niang’s car, a massive white SUV, so we had a pretty coveted spot in the cortège. As soon as everyone had managed to pack themselves into a car or hop on the back of a moto, the cortège was off, honking and almost causing several accidents along the way. The line of cars drove through the Sikoroni market and about two minutes past the market, to Masi’s family home. In following the tradition of avoiding any pretence of privacy, we had only gone about a quarter mile but had managed to cause traffic jam and alert everyone in the quartier of Niang’s wedding. In Mali, double-checking the guest list is imperative, by nine o’clock that morning, everyone who somehow had’nt noticed the gaudy orange tent in the street had finally seen the cortège and realized they were missing out on the wedding of the summer.
At Massi’s, everyone tumbled out of the cars and into her family courtyard. No one really knew where to go (or at least I didn’t), so we sort of all packed into the courtyard to wait for Massi, and people began handing out sodas, until Massi was ready to hop into the white SUV and the cortege took off.

Chapter 3: Town Hall- A Place to be Seen

Five different corteges converged and the town hall, and the guests of five different weddings piled into the Salle des Fêtes (party room) of the mayor’s office. Five brides lined up, five veiled women wearing sparkling white gowns alternating with five beaming men in Western suits. The families crowded around them, but closest off all were the griots. Each wedding party came equipped with about four of them, and they began to get a little competitive in their singing when confronted by such a large and eager audience. The griots began to sing praises almost aggressively, and would elbow guests out of the way, pressing forward to almost shout their congratulations in the faces of the newlyweds.
The town hall was full of the most amazing brows and hairstyles I’ve seen in Mali. This was the chance to flaunt your hairdresser’s skill in creating a peacock-like sculpture on your head, and at the same time block everyone else’s view of the ceremony. A lot of women had their eyebrows painted in to match the color of their hair weave (purple was a popular choice) and others had gotten even more creative, adding sequins or tiny star jewels to their eyebrow design.

After about an hour, everyone began to grow tired of the griots, and the marriage processions all filed out of the hall. I think every single bride was sobbing as she walked out. Our cortege did a few laps around the mayor’s office, and finally our driver took us back to Masi’s, where one party was starting with dancers and koura players, and finally back to Niang’s.

Chapter 4: Back at Niang’s

I was relieved to see Mama was in her full splendor, in a flowing bessin complet, with an elaborate headdress to match by the time we had returned. (I think this means that she missed her son’s wedding in order to get dressed up.) When we had arrived back at Niang’s all of the chaos of the morning had disappeared. The guests flowed out of the sotramas, and immediately two dancers began to perform under the orange tent.
We were given fluorescent looking frozen plastic bags of pineapple juice. Normally, I never would have eaten something that probably will make my liver glow-in-the dark, but it was so hot, that anything frozen was amazing. We sat in tiny metal chairs that were dispersed through the courtyard, and watched the Senegalese dancers. Soon, the riz au gras (fried rice) began appearing in massive metal bowls from behind the house. The rice supply seemed endless, and a long line of women kept handing bowls through the crowd. Each bowl was enough food for about eight guests, so instead of having assigned seats at wedding tables, it was more like choose your own rice bowl, and bon appetit.

Chapter 5: The Real Party at the Boulangerie

Niang called Caitlin, and told us all to come down the street, to the newly opened boulangerie. To call it a boulangerie is an overstatement. Although the building has paintings of baguettes, croissants and delicious looking patisseries, it only serves one item-Malian style baguettes that are decent compared to most Malian food, but are essentially just Wonder Bread trying to masquerade as French bread. Anyway, the boulangerie has been under construction all summer, and I was dying to go in. There was definitely some miscommunication along the way, because there was no wedding cake, but we walked past the kitchen of the boulangerie, and in the courtyard, found the real wedding party. Behind the façade of the Boulangerie Moderne there was a courtyard with a dance floor, a DJ, and hundreds of chairs surrounding it. The entire courtyard was covered by straw canopés, and was filled with all of Niang and Masi’s young friends. Apparently, we had spent most of the day at Niang’s family party and had almost missed the real dancing and the party the bride and groom actually enjoyed themselves at.
Niang’s younger friends started breakdancing and as we sat and watched, we had dessert. Who needs wedding cake when you can have popcorn and prawn chips?

Chapter 6: The Konyoso

Back from Dogon

Spent last week in Dogon country, doing some trekking with Ben. 12 hour bus ride up to Mopti, and the way back took even longer since we had to turn go back for Ben's passport at the hotel. We got back to Bamako at 4 yesterday morning but lovely Fifi hadn't left our door open for us as promised so we had to try to curl up outside in the courtyard...
Sort of delirious right now, and have grants to write for MHOP, but longer update with pictures coming.

Presidential Lair and Office Space, Bamako Style

This week we had a meeting with Dr. Ina Togo at the Ministry of Health. She was the first woman in Mali to get a medical degree (from a French school). She grew up in a remote village in the Dogon country and somehow financed her education by selling shoes on the street. Caitlin is good friends with her son, so she agreed to get us a list of the equipment needed for the new clinic. The ministry’s offices were up on the hill next to the presidential compound. The president seems to have designed his compound after watching several James Bond movies- its set up exactly like the Goldfinger lair. You can approach the hill in a taxi, but after a certain checkpoint, taxis are no longer allowed. After charging us exorbitantly (tubabo tax) the taxi driver refused to go further, so we had to call Togo. She sent down her chauffeur to pick us up and he arrived a few minutes later, listening to Akon, in a tie-dye boubou in the nicest car I’ve seen yet in Mali.
The streets on the way up the hill were like the wide boulevards of Florida and lined with palms. There were no motos and just a five minute drive from the polluted Marché de Medine, the air seemed much cleaner. When we finally got to the top of the hill, the ministry buildings all looked like brand new versions of seventies style Floridian mansions. The parking lots were filled with sparkling SUVs and the ministry itself was almost chilly from the excessive air conditioning. It was surreal and even more suprising when Togo had the document we were looking for in hand when we arrived.
Unfortunately, Togo doesn’t exemplify typical Malian bureaucracy. After the visit on the hill, Togo sent us with her chaffeur to a regional health office to make sure the dossier registering the new clinic was on file (to ensure that the government will pay fifty percent of the cost of the new clinic and include it in the 2008 budget). Caitlin had the dossier number because apparently files in Mali aren’t organized by name or subject, but just by long 12 digit numbers. It took us three hours and the chauffeur’s amazing patience driving back and forth between two different regional health centers to finally find out that the woman with the correct file had just returned from an extended vacation and needed until at least Monday to put her hands on the file. At one point, Ben and I were sitting in the lobby of the center waiting for Caitlin to find the file. We saw her following a succession of three different secretaries up and down the stairs, and along the corridors, stopping in a series of offices to track down the file number. No one really seemed fazed by the search for the missing dossier. It was just another quest for another nameless file…

A Typical Miscommunication= Wedding Invitation and Strawberry Ice Cream

Caitlin and I were sitting in Broadway the closest American style café (the only restaurant where I would ever order a veggie burger and absolutely love it). After we ordered, Caitlin chatted in Bambara with her biggest fan, a smiling waiter, who doesn’t really understand French. Caitlin asked him how his work was going and then she explained to him that Niang (the director of MHOP) had just gotten malaria. She told him that she was worried that he wouldn’t be feeling better by this weekend (the wedding is tomorrow!). He sort of nodded and seemed confused and then began asking for details about the wedding. Thinking that he was just really concerned about Niang’s situation, Caitlin told him that the wedding party was meeting at the mayor’s office at 9 am on Sunday. The grinning waiter seemed relieved- Sunday was his day off and he agreed to meet us at the mayor’s office.
Doudou hasn’t yet taught us the correct Bambara to uninvite someone after unintentionally inviting them to a wedding, so we just decided to be surprised on Sunday morning and see if he shows or not. The waiter was clearly flattered and beamingly sent us over strawberry ice cream cones after our dinner. Apparently, this has become a trend for Catilin at Broadway, and every time she goes there, even if she goes there to get a chocolate cone, the waiter sends her out with another cone, tirelessly strawberry. I’m pretty sure the next strawberry cone Caitlin gets at Broadway will have an engagement ring on top or at least be accompanied by a proposal.
Went to the Hogon last night to see live koura playing- it was amazing and the dance floor was filled with these ridiculous Senegalese knee dancers (name is self-explanatory- they basically have elastic knees).

Quest for Desserts

The rest of Saturday- cooking for Mama’s invité party which was supposed to earn a lot of money for her, but ended up being canceled due to the rain. (As was today’s Bambara lesson…Rain is the perfect excuse for everyone to stay in and watch Friends dubbed in French, even DouDou, our Bambara teacher apparently). Then got a ride to Fanta’s. Wedding with Fanta and Mama in the morning, but we spent all morning waiting for the bride and groom to get to the house. A griot was at the wedding party, singing praises to everyone. She was dressed like all the other wedding guests and at first I didn’t know that she was actually a griot and just thought she had an exceptionally musical voice. She was standing in a group with other wedding guests, and then would suddenly break out in to song. I was half expecting a full musical to break out in the massive, underfurnished white marble living room. But then she moved from her circle, and revealed that the other guests were just as musically ungifted as I was. One woman took my elbow and told me that the griot adored me (because I was a tubabu).
After waiting and being served amoeba juice- the plastic bags filled with different colored juices that were probably the cause of Carrie’s amoeba infection- Fanta finally got bored and left. Mama and I waited around for a while more, but then left too, bringing with us a massive bowl of same- riz au gras- which Fanta and the kids devoured. After we left, the wedding party was going to drive together to the uncle’s house to continue the celebration. This is why every Sunday it’s impossible to drive through Bamako- apparently every bride wants to get married in July, so there are impossible traffic jams every Sunday afternoon as the entire wedding party follows the groom’s car from house to house.
Spent the afternoon hanging out with the kids- Fanta had another wedding and a baptism to go to. We had much anticipated plans to bake a cake. I had forgotten that Malian kitchens (a series of different sized metal pots in the courtyard) never included ovens. So our coconut “cake” was actually fried coconut dough balls in palm oil. Mmmmm because I wasn’t ingesting enough palm oil already.

Today after dinner, we were craving dessert. We asked Papé, Niang’s sixteen year old brother what he ate when he wanted something sweet. He rattled off his list: honey, and oh, sweetened condensed milk. Apparently, there really aren’t any dessert vendors in the markets of Sikoroni.. We scoped out the nearest grocery for anything sweet. The stickers on the freezers of ice cream bars are just for show, and the best thing we found were Marocain cookies (read: stale vanilla wafers, the kind they buy for preschoolers because no one can possibly be allergic to them since they are so bland) and a chocolate-peanut spread. Not exactly satisfying, but slightly more so than sweetened condensed milk I imagine.

Mosquito Net Treatment

Saturday was the first day of impregnation for the rainy season. Impregnation= a biannual mosquito net treatment, in which each family brings their nets to get treated with mosquito repellent. It was also the first time that I felt that I was really contributing to the organization. The fact that Ben and I, two tubaboes were at the treatment site, attracted herds of curious children, pushing their way through the crowd to see what was going on. Finally, we were putting the spectacle of being tubaboes in Sikoroni to good use. All of the bloq (the chemical for the treatment) was used within the first few hours, and the rest of the treatments for the other sectors of Sikoroni will happen in the next few weeks. Each tablet of bloq that we used came with a brochure of how to handle the treated nets (not to keep them in direct sunlight, bring them back to get retreated within 6 months, etc). Ben and I handed out the brochures to the crowds of children, most of whom didn’t speak French and had no interest whatsoever in proper mosquito treatment. Yet, the brochures became an item to fight over. By handing them out, we had given these condescending didactic brochures Sikorni street value. Children pushed their way forward, and begin to tap my shoulder pointing at themselves to get the next brochure. They didn’t ask or bother with attempting to get my attention with the little Bambara I understand. Instead, they just crowded closer and closer together and began to gesture more and more frantically. Some of the more precocious children began hoarding them, and it wasn’t until after I realized that I gave one boy multiple copies of the brochure that I realized that mosquito net treatment cards were the Pokeman of the summer.

Fifi looking friendly on her way to a wedding.

I'm not gonna lie, I really want to borrow this outfit, but I'm too scared to ask.

No this is not a crêpe. It's an American Pancake and we keep the recipe hidden the lot box.

Never been more excited about the 4th of July. But today we made banana pancakes in the morning (which required a great deal of effort to find ingredients) and we’re heading to a BBQ at the American Club for food that doesn’t involve a giant bowl of rice with a fish bone sauce poured on top.

Speaking of being an American… So far the cab drivers have been the most politically interested people I’ve met in Mali. After the not-so-subtle questions about who I’m traveling with and who else might be here in Mali, (translation are you married) they always ask how I feel about Obama. After I confirm that I’m a fan, they loosen up and start talking about how disappointed they are in the US dollar.
We took a sotrama (green bus filled with flies and about 20 Malians) to visit the Grand Musee yesterday. Even though the concert we were trying to go to ended up being canceled, we got caught in an amazing rainstorm and had baobab juice (just like le petit prince!) at the museum.

I thought Fifi was reaching out to me...

Fifi (Niang’s sister) and Batouma came for a bedtime chat the other night- this was the first time Fifi actually reached out to me in any way. Under her frighteningly high eyebrows painted in henna, I thought she was finally loosening up and was ready for a gossip sesh. I asked her about the guy I saw her talking to the other night. She told me that he was just a friend, showing her how to use computers at the Cyber Café down the street.
Finally, she broke into the exciting story and began to tell me about the policeman she was engaged to. I was completely surprised, but she continued nonchalantly about how their engagement wasn’t going to be announced until mid July, because her fiancé was extremely busy with police training right now. I bought every word of it and was effusive in my congratulations. I was thrilled that Niang's judgmental sister was finally ready to tell me about her petit-ami and fill me in on the Sikoroni gossip. Only after our conversation had finally drifted to other things did she relent that “Je me blague”- that she had been joking the entire time and that there was no such gendarme that existed.
What turned out to be true, however, was that Batouma was leaving at the end of June (tomorrow). She is going to return to her home town, not for a visit, but permanently, to get married. Fifi laughed, telling me the man was extremely tall and very big. I asked his name, but neither of them new it. It was to be an arranged marriage, the man had been chosen by Batouma’s father. I asked Batouma and Fifi to show me where Batouma’s hometown was on a Mali map from my guidebook. Neither of them knew where to look, only confirming the permanence of Batouma’s move. She is going to escape from Fifi’s glaring eyebrows only to find herself the captive of her anonymous fiancé.

Birthday Cake and the Rainy Season

Dominike! -Niang’s description of Sunday’s in Mali was exactly how Sunday’s should be spent universally- going to friends houses, sitting around the courtyard to causer (chat), drinking tea, and sharing the Sunday meals. Spent another weekend of visits across the river. Before the CHAG meeting on Saturday, I visited Adama and his family, and then spent another Sunday at Fanta’s. On the cab ride over, the cab driver asked me if I was married. I’m getting used to the unabashed, personal questions constantly posed to me by complete strangers, but it’s still really hard to keep a straight face when I’m telling a random Malian cab driver about my husband.
Celebrated Fanta’s second daughter’s birthday. It seems like forward questions were the theme of the day, because as soon as daughter #2 saw me, she asked me where her present was, joking (but not really) that if I had forgotten, she would never speak to me again. It’s always hard when you don’t remember the name of one of your cousins, especially since last week I already used the let’s-practice-Bambara-and-ask-each-other-really-obvious-questions-like-our-names trick. It’s even worse when you have to sing happy birthday to your nameless cousin, but I tried to avoid that by just singing Bon anniversiare à toi without a name… I had picked up a gateaux aux raisins for the birthday along the way. Mama (daughter #1, short for Fatouma) and I tried to hide the cake in the fridge, but daughter #2 is well acquainted with every object in the fridge so it wasn’t long before she found the cake, and had swung it over her shoulder asking me where I found it.
I loved the start of the hivronage (rainy season) because it means that each morning you’re granted a few hours of cool weather before you realize that it’s just a morning thing and begin sweating profusely again. This morning I was comfortable for the first time since I’ve been in Mali but Fifi and Batouma were both shivering under their large fleeces. But even the rainy season has its downfalls, and recently discovered this weekend were the elusive holes in the ceiling right above my net. Not sure how I didn’t notice them until this weekend, but Niang promised to find someone to patch them up tonight. Listening to the rains at night is amazing- I never thought that the dust cloud that seems to perpetually float above the streets of Bamako would be capable of the torrential downpours that last for hours each night. The rains are spastic and unpredictable. Last night, after the usual prelude to rain- the five minutes of intense dry wind that seem to always be there to give warning to those brave enough to sleep outside under nets- it poured for about thirty seconds. The comforting sound of slamming against the tin roof over head was suddenly interrupted by a bizarre silence. It was as if some mistake had been made- the rainpour had been started prematurely and the weather conductor, realizing this, quickly silenced the anxious percussion, who finally couldn’t bear the excitement anymore, and burst, suddenly into a torrent that was even more forceful than before.

Vote for Caitlin!

Caitlin Cohen (Brown '08) has been named by FOX's Teen Choice Awards and Do Something Inc as one of the top 9 youth activists in the US! Online voting will determine if she wins $100,000 to build a health system in a slum in Mali, West Africa. One in four children dies before his or her fifth birthday and a full 93% of urban Malians live in slums.

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The Trash Dump where the New Clinic is Going to Be Built

Even the Duggutiggi has a Cell Phone

Met with the duggutiggi today- an old ancient, chief looking man wearing a respectable blue bessin and a white flat-topped hat of the village elders. In the middle of Niang’s <-Djenaba (Julie) et moi

Bambara translation to him, his cell went off, and he reached into the giant boubou to answer his obnoxious ring tone. We presented him with cocoa beans and other gifts and he seemed pleased. No information was gained, but we had officially greeted him, so he was content.
After Bambara lessons, we were planning on eating here at Niang’s, but they hadn’t had enough time to prepare, so we got street food. Tonight’s attempt was much more successful than yesterday. Yesterday, I stopped at a stand for an egg sandwich, and the grinning Rasta-Bambara restaurateur cracked an egg into a sketchy jam jar, and then poured in the same amount of palm oil. So the recipe for an egg sandwich: equivalent parts egg and trans fat= fried deliciousness on a sandwich. Tonight’s meal was much better- pasta, potatoes, and beans for CFA 200 (about 40 cents).

A Few Rendez-Vous

Yesterday, we had three meetings with different political people involved in Sikoroni.
1)Mayor’s office sanitation rep.- really unhelpful and completely infatuated with Julie because she was a Koulibali. He took an extensive cell phone call in the middle of the meeting (there were six of us in there meeting with him).

2)Mayor’s health rep- the largest guy I’ve yet to see in Mali- he was at least 6’6” and easily 3 times the size of a typical Malian. His office was strewn with papers on every surface. The ivronnage (rainy season) had finally started with weekend, so he told us matter-of-factly that he was simply drying out all his important documents. He told us the government was already taking care of a trash truck for Sikoroni (one of our projects is a sanitation project to clean up all of the plastic and all the other refuse that lines each city street), something which the sanitation guy had failed to mention. He reassured us- everything in Sikoroni was under control completely, and we only had to wait until mid-July before the city streets would be instantaneously cleaned up- as his official documents fluttered across his desk on to the floor.

3) Director of the CAMs organization for orphans in Sikoroni. We walked down the muddy streets of Sikoroni, completely destroyed by the first rains of the season past a few mango stands, and open gates, revealing courtyards where dinner was in different stages of being cooked. The road was only a short distance from the chaos of the Sikoroni market, and the sounds of the motos and the general bargaining over CFA had not yet faded. We turned right down an unpromising road (now just a massive puddle) and found CAMS. It was a tidy courtyard of protection from the unkempt city streets and garbage. We were confronted by a somewhat startling Tele-tubbies mural as we walked in which invited us into a yard full of foosball tables (Bamako style, in which the soccer players look like large wooden blocks instead of people), board games, and enclosed by bright murals lining each wall. A group of beaming young men greeted us, and invited us in to meet the director, a solemn man, with a heavily lined face though not more than thirty, with a short, pious beard. After we introduced ourselves, he began to speak thoughtfully and slowly about his organization. He opened his courtyard not only to orphans, but to all the children of Sikoroni- it was the only place which they had to play with games instead of picking through the garbage-strewn streets to find things to play with. He worked with about 80 kids, he recruited children to the center and helped prepare them to enroll in school. Once they were enrolled, he followed up with them consistently, making sure that they attended school, got along with their teachers, and most importantly, that they were healthy enough to continue their studies.
Since malnutrition is such a prevalent issue, the center provided one large meal every day. Each educator who worked there would donate a large dish to create a midday feast that was shared each day with each child who needed it. This way, they could take their lunch break from school at the center, and return for their afternoon classes. The director told us matter-of-factly that the food was not donated by any organization, but that it was always out of his own pocket, and that it was for the orphans who needed it.
Last night, Ben and I went to the French cultural center (tubabo center of Bamako) to see a movie, and then got dinner after at the restaurant at the French center with a few other Tubabos. Taboleh in Mali was delicious- its great to have an occasional dinner without worrying that a fish head will appear unannounced in the next spoonful of rice.

Around the Courtyard

Did laundry this weekend- got yelled at by the grandmother in the house for wasting water and money. Malians have a special technique of washing which requires you to completely soak yourself because you have to scrub so vigorously. I’m pretty sure I completely failed at the scrubbing technique so now its sort of hard to walk around because all my clothes are extremely stiff since the Sebenike (laundry soap) is impossible to get out.


<--Aba helping grind the millet in our courtyard with Batuma, the bonne (my favorite).






I had successfully convinced myself that in Mali, lizards completely replaced rats and mice. I was completely assured that even though lizards scuttle in the same way that rats do across the courtyard, they are much cleaner and are the sub-Saharan version of rats. And, I was completely wrong. Rats most definitely exist, especially in Sikoroni and more startling, even when I’m taking a bucket shower in the nyegen (outdoor bathroom), I’m not even truly alone because there are plenty of cockroaches for company.
This morning I helped Batuma- the bonne (servant), who Fifi treats more like a slave- prepare rice for lunch. We sifted through an entire bucket of rice, searching for the elusive grayish looking grains that apparently weren’t good quality. Since everything is going to be covered in a gumbo (okra) sauce (which looks like a greenish-grey baby food, but possibly more stringy) anyway, I don’t exactly understand the purpose of spending hours sifting through the rice. But Fifi had plenty of comments to make, and she frowned over our shoulders, literally pointing out little grey spots in the rice that we had missed.

Tubabos can't dance like Sikoronians

After I got back from Fanta’s I went with Niang’s son Papé down the street to a huge engagement party. There was a DJ in the middle of the dusty street surrounded by hundreds of kids of all ages. The DJ was hysterical and would call up either girls or guys to dance for each song- there was never a song that had co-ed dancing. The girls danced to the Boboraba (Bambara equivalent of Sirmixalot) and when the guys had their turn in the center of the circle, they did the most ridiculous break dancing I’ve ever seen. They would put any MTV dancer to shame, and in their Timberlands and their huge jeans, they could still dance in the middle of that dusty road in the oppressive heat like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
I danced with Niang’s sister Fifi for a song, and as the DJ was inviting all the girls to come to the center to dance, he had to announce tubabo, tubabo (because no one noticed before that I was the only tubabo there..)

Sunday at Fanta's

I spent Sunday at Fanta’s house again, hanging out with her kids and helping them practice French plays they had to put on for school. Fanta always tries to overfeed everyone and we had haricots (beans) for dinner, as usual Malian-style, with the entire family sharing the dish (right hands only). She kept pushing the massive chicken towards me and was unsatisfied when I told her that I was content with everything else. First, everyone in the family helped me with my eating technique (you have to roll the beans together a little and then use some palm action to eat). Fanta was still upset that I wasn’t eating the frightening chicken in the middle of the platter, so I told her that when I lived in the states, I was a vegetarian. It was a Big Fat Greek Wedding moment, because she was immediately concerned and asked me why I hadn’t mentioned that before, and served up a huge chuck of beef on top of the dish of beans.
As with most Malian families, Fanta’s family is so big that it’s unclear how each person is actually related, especially since Malians call their friends brothers and cousins all the time as well. But seven of the entire family decided to pile into the massive, white pick up truck to drive me home after dinner. I couldn’t tell if they were just really curious about where I lived, since Sikoroni is known to be a really poor neighborhood, or if this was just a family outing in a ridiculously tripped out car. I had forgotten that Mali’s soccer team had just won against Sudan 3-0, and that the entirety of Bamako was celebrating. I’m really glad they didn’t let me take a taxi home, because for the entire ride home, I was terrified- hundreds of kids were screaming and running into the streets to celebrate. When each car passed, they would try to tap the ground right in front of the car so we would just swerve or honk really loudly to scare them out of the way. This just confirms my feeling that the biggest threat to my health here isn’t malaria or contaminated water but the insane motos and cars which completely disregard any pedestrians. Motos will drive at full speed directly through the most crowded parts of the market, just expecting that the women balancing massive platters of fish or baskets of mangos will duck out of the way.

Sikoroni!

Finally moved to Sikoroni today!

Tried running a few times already, but it's unclear if I'm just doing more harm than good because it sort of feels like I'm running directly behind a truck exhaust pipe even if I'm not on the main roads. Everyone at my house thought it was hysterical that I was trying to excersize and laughed at Julie and I doing our stretches in the courtyard.

I never thought this would happen but I had fromage soja- tofu- last night at the Piano Restaurant, one of the Chinese restuarants in the Hippodrome. Never thought I would be eating tofu the day after I had a guinea fowl served for breakfast..

I already have a favorite tailor in Sikoro- we bought Malian fabrics at the Marchée de Médine and then I got a tailor to make a few Malian peignes made on the street. There are tailors on ever street corner, and even mobile tailors that ride around on bikes with sewing machines strapped to the back. You can design your own outfit, and they'll have it ready for you the next day. I thought wearing Malian clothes might lessen the frequency of the tubaboe calls, but it hasn't actually made a difference yet.

Floyd

So Julie and I went out last night to explore a little bit of the Hippodrome. We went to BlaBla and then Floyd. Floyd is exactly what it sounds. A balding French guy (who else?)owns the place. It’s a zebra painted building on one of the main roads in the Hippodrome. There’s a pretty nice French restaurant in front, and in the back there’s a hilarious bar where he projects Pink Floyd videos with synchronized laser light shows. I think he's really entertained by the fact that he has laser shows in Bamako so it doesn't really faze him that most of his clientele were his own staff, just hanging out.
Living in a Malian compound is like going to a huge family Thanksgiving at your aunt’s house and then instead of leaving after dinner, everyone just making a mutual decision to move in to the same house permanently. There is absolutely no semblance of privacy. Everyone knows every detail about each other’s business, and can guess who might be calling each person’s cell phone. Whenever you come in or leave the compound you are absolutely required to go through a serious list of greetings to everyone, most importantly the grandmother who I have never actually seen move from her seat in the middle of the courtyard where she can observe EVERYTHING.
Coming back late at night is not just a matter of sneaking in through the basement door, but sneaking through a courtyard where the matron of the house and all of the older women are sleeping outside under mosquito nets. So literally, you can’t make a wrong step or else the two snoring goats will wake up and then the entire household will wake up and start teasing you in Bambara.
Last night when we came back from Floyd, Julie and I crept by all the sleeping grandmothers and children to our room. What I hadn’t realized was that the main house, where the bathroom is, was going to be locked. So not only was there no privacy, there was no access to a bathroom. There was no backyard or any woods next to the house either, because they lived in the middle of a really crowded area. So I had to sneak out of the compound a second time and find a street corner (hopefully out of sight of Ousmane’s brother who was pacing on the other side of the street). So I’m the tubabou who pees on the street now apparently.
Heading out to see Indiana Jones tonight dubbed in French!

Ohhh and breakfast this morning: guinea fowl on top of a few fried plantains.

Beginning Bambara

We had our first Bambara lesson in Sikoro yesterday with DouDou (short for Mamadou) who is the Peace Corps language teacher. The first thing he taught us was that CFA time was not American time (CFA=Malian currency). Our lessons are going to be 3 times a week at 19h, but for him, that means at some time around 19h he'll begin thinking about trying to make it over to Sikoro. Even though we only learned a few phrases so far, it's already really entertaining for Ousmane's entire family. Ousmane, our host, lives in a compound with 17 kids, lots of grandmothers, and apparently only 1 man who works and supports everyone else. Ousmane isn't planning on working any time soon either- he plans on staying in school as long as possible and getting a PhD in la gestion (management). All the grandmothers especially find it hysterical when 2 tubabou (white) girls attempt to speak Bambara. The women all sit in the courtyard at night, braiding hair, or watching Malian TV while the men sit outside on the side of the road, talking and drinking ridiculously sweet green tea. Julie and I asked Ousmane's sister's to give us Malian dance lessons, so last night the grandmothers had a great time laughing at the tubabous trying a dance which in Bambara means big booty.


I spent the day with Mamadou Cisse's family. He's not on CFA time (he picked me up promptly at 9:30 this morning) and he had a strict schedule because we had A LOT of family to meet. He arrived in his auto-ecole car (he still runs a driving school) which had no seatbelts in it, but he was very strict about pulling over to the side of the road everytime he had a cellphone call. We first went to Mamadou's house (where I met one of his two wives), then we visited his cousin Assiata (Lady) and then spent the rest of the day with Fanta, his sister. At Fanta's I had the best food I've yet to have in Bamako- ris au gras/fried rice - with actual vegetables in it. Even though there was only a crumbled up side of spinach , it was the first green thing I've eaten here so far.

Fanta's children are adorable. We spent the afternoon watching Senegalese fashion shows on TV and then visiting every single one of their friends' houses. They introduced me everywhere as their cousin, and more people laughed at me when I greeted them in Bambara... We stopped by a balani where DJ Cool was playing traditional Malian music on huge loudspeakers. Apparently at night the balani turns into a street discotheque. Fanta's house was really fun, and her kids were really patient with my attempts at French and Bambara, so Mamadou said he would take me there every Sunday to spend time with Fanta and co.

Beinvenue a Bamako!

We're in Bamako!!! Got in at about 3 am last night and Royal Air Maroc lost 8 out of 10 of our bags... So I only have my carry on. We reported our missing bags along with about 20 other people and airline people seemed pretty uninterested. The only thing I'm really going to miss is my malaria meds, so I have to find those in Bamako today. We might get back to the airport at some point to search for them, but for now its just frustrating since I spent so much time searching for presents for my host families and Niang's wedding!
So after we left the airport, and finally bargained a taxi to take us into the city, the five of us piled in. When we were about 10 minutes away from the Hippodrome, the taxi got a flat. So at about 4 in the morning we climbed out, and our driver began the slow process of changing tires. He blamed it on us because we had too much weight he said... But it was hard to be annoyed because then the muezzins started calling. It was nothing like what I expected. At first it sounded like a coyote from the distance, but other voices joined in, and soon it was a beautiful song, waking up the entire city with its call to prayer. I had no idea the muzzeins woke up that early, but apparently most people just wake up and then go back to sleep for a while at least.
We finally got to the Hippodrome and crashed at Rebecca's house, Caitlin's friend who works for an education NGO in Bamako. She has an amazing house in the expat neighborhood. So we have wifi here, but won't for a while probably because we're meeting our temporary homestay families today. Heading to the patisserie where we'll figure out where we're staying for the next 2 weeks.

Fresh Figs and Mint Tea

Spent yesterday in Casa- we got a chance to walk through the ancien medine- the central bazaar- which was an amazing maze of vendors selling everything from tea sets to escargot to pain au chocolat. Didn't get a chance to do to much shopping (hopefully on the layover on the way back..) but we walked over to la grande mosquee, the 2nd biggest mosque in the world, which was just built in the 80s. The minarets towered over the city and it was right on the water, overlooking a gorgeous kornaic school.

We met up with Caitlin's friend and tried fresh figs with creme fraiche in her apartment which had a great view of the city. We went out for Morrocan bean stews (I even tried some camel tajine- a tomato sauce stew of dense camel meat and egg) and delicious mint tea. Every street corner cafe is crowded with men languidly sipping the overly-sweetened tea and not a single woman was in any cafe or restaurant.

The city looks nothing like Humphrey Boggart's Casablanca. Apparently, Rick's Cafe was an invention for the movie too, but they just built a Rick's which is apparently a tourist trap.
Royal Air Maroc put us up for the night since our flight was so delayed, so now we're just waiting for the other two interns to get in from JFK, and our flight to Bamako is tonight! Today we're going back into Casa to go to the beach and possibly a hamam (Turkish bath).

Off to Rick's...

So, my opinion of Royal Air Maroc just completely changed. I had an impossible time buying tickets from them (the best deal from JFK to Bamako). BUT, the layover is in Casablanca, and Caitlin just found out that we have a 24 hour layover there because of delays. So MHOP will be in Casa for a day- apparently the airline takes us into the city and pays for a hotel so we can drop our stuff and run immediately to the beach.

Fundraiser

Thanks to everyone who supported MHOP last night!! The fundraiser was a huge success, and we made over $5500! Caitlin put on an awesome slideshow. Mom, Dad, Biff, Cam- thank you so much for helping set it all up and making it happen!

Since MHOP spends less than 6% of its budget on organizational costs, this money will be used directly in purchasing critical supplies for the new clinic and paying for the training and education campaigns of CHAG (the Community Health Action Group).

Heading Out Monday

I've heard countless stories about Mali over the years and grown up in a household full of hints of Mali- in the colorful fabrics and furniture around the house, the music that would come up on shuffle, and the visits from all my parents' Malian friends. Finally, I'll get the real Bamako experience this summer, complete with goat-roasting, Bambara, and dancing to Salif Keita! I'll be there for two months, working for a small public health NGO, the Mali Health Organizing Project (MHOP). I'll be working on the Maternal and Child Health Program which strives to get residents of the Sikoro slum representation by the local government.

I'll be working closely with elected community health action leaders who are each responsible for about 160 families in the slum. The program is based on the Partners in Health accompagnateurs model- the health leaders (all local Malians) recruit women to bring in their children to get vaccines, health care at the clinic, and malaria nets. I'll also be working on expanding the clinic to serve the needs of 25,000 people. Not entirely sure what I'll be doing on a daily basis, but I will be attending at least one wedding (the director, Niang, is getting married in July) so I will definitely need to learn Malian dancing and bring over wedding presents!

My dad just got an email from Mamoudou Cisse, the best man in my parent's wedding:

Objet : Préparatifs du séjour de Katie au Mali

He asks for details about my visit (!) and:

6. J’aimerais savoir si elle sera intéressée à visiter quelques sites touristiques au Mali comme Djenné et le village Dogon.

So hopefully I'll get to visit Dogon Country with Mamoudou and his sister, Aissata Toure, aka Lady.

Mamoudou visited New York a few summers ago. He was planning on staying for about two weeks and ended up staying for more than three months. He used to sit with Cam and Forrest and I and help us practice our French. Once he realized that my dad commuted into Manhattan every day, he began his own commute. He would breakfast with us, and then hop on the train, bound for 125th street, where he had a few cousins to visit. That's where the epic of Tata, the Malian hair-braider comes in... (Coming later.) I'm excited to have people to visit in Bamako, and Lady sounds like she's pretty politically active in Bamako.

All day today= baking oatmeal raisin cookies, Parmesan crisps, and cheese platter shopping. Fundraiser is tonight and Caitlin, the MHOP co-founder and director is coming down from Vermont to speak for a bit and show a few slides. Then packing for the rest of the weekend. Oh, and relearning French.