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.

How can you help?

VOTE NOW AND EVERY DAY UNTIL AUGUST 4th:

http://www.teenchoiceawards.com/nominees/dosomething/defaultdosomething.aspx

You get one vote per email address per day, you must enter a birthday between 1989 and 1995 for your vote to count.

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.