So, yes, the new stage has been here for almost a month! I can't believe it, and I'm sure they can't either. They are really great - a lot of fun to be around. They are working hard and learning Bambara, French, Fulfulde, Dogoloso and Tomokan like its their job. Which it is. Because we're the most fun sector, we are also growing gardens. Their gardens are doing really well. We planted rice sack gardens a week or so ago, and they are doing sort of well. One or two of them are doing really well. Mine are doing great! Except we seem to be having a tomato rot thing going on, and a caterpillar problem. Boo caterpillars. But I'm growing container potatoes, which is fantastic, and they are really starting to come up now! I'll describe the process in detail sometime, because it is amazing. But I feel it deserves some pictures, and it is raining outside right now, so I'm not going to go out and take them. Later, though.

That's not me, it's Moussa and Audrey. But apparently all the other old pictures of the rice sack gardens are in my camera, which is in my hut, which is not only through the rain, but on the other side of the mudroad that in the dry season is the driveway into Tubaniso. Moussa is a great gardener, exect that he keeps burning all our little lettuce seedlings with rabbit manure. But see the little bag? I planted lettuce in that and we are letting it go to seed, but it is huge!

Hippos (=Mali in Bambara)

This is one of the Hippos we saw in Manantali.

You can't really tell, maybe, but she has two wee bebes behind her. We kept our distance.

And have I mentioned that, yet? That "mali" is the Bambara word for "hippopotamous?" And "bamako" means "crocodile river."

Long time coming

I see it has been a couple months since the last time I posted on this blog. In fact, I was chatting with Ryan the other day, and he very pointedly said, I see you haven't posted anything new on your blog... Well, I've been meaning to sit down and write a really nice entry, but it's been a busy time, and now it's been so long since I've written anything that I lose my momentum after just a little while. So instead of writing you a really nice entry, I'm just going to give you a really quick overview. But there is good, good news. My mother tried to teach me how to resize photos a little while ago, and I didn't really learn, but then necessity forced me to really learn it afterall. So now I know how to resize photos, and that will make it much easier to upload them. So I will do that sometime.

I did, indeed, go to America, and it was fantastic. America really is a great country. And I'm not only talking about the concrete and the steel, though that is a good thing, too. It was really crazy while I was home - had to graduate people, marry other people off, and drive all around the country and then the state. And I had to go to Kennywood. Which was fantastic. I went on almost every single rollercoaster and didn't even cry once!

But now I've been back in Mali for over a month. Wow, I didn't even realize that. Good for me. And I've been busy here, too, even though some of you think, yeah right, all you do these days is be online. Well, yeah, there's been a lot of being online, but that is because I have set up shop at Tubaniso. You see, our new trainees are coming in tonight. Alyssa said this morning "I couldn't sleep last night. It was like the night before Christmas and all I could think was 'Santa is bringing me friends!'" So we are excited about them getting here, but it turns out that organizing and preparing for a training like this is a HUGE ordeal, and we have been working our little fingers and other things off since I got back from America. Hopefully we are ready for them. And if we aren't, hopefully they are forgiving.

I did get to go back to my site for about a week during all this, and it was nice to be back. It actually wasn't great, because our well ran dry. A manye dat! There was still water in town, just not in our concession. I went with Adissi and Abi to go get water, because we had to go to the neighbors and pull it out of their well and put it on our heads and bring it back and put it in a big barrel in our concession. So they carried these giant twenty gallon jugs on their heads. I, on the otherhand, carried a salad bowl half full of water on my head. I tried to convince Addisi that I could carry a salad bowl entirely full of water on my head, but the one time she let me try I spilled three-quarters of it and ended up with less water on my head than when I started. So she went back to only letting me carry half a bowl full. Despite the fact that I was useless more than helpful, everybody seems to have been quite impressed and very appreciative. Hmm.

And then, as you know, we had the dual occurance of the death of Michael Jackson and the Fourth of July, so I got another weekend off for that. Michael Jackson dying was pretty funny in Mali, (sorry, that sounds harsh now that its out there), because while it didn't really affect us volunteers all that much, it seems to have devastated a lot of Malians that it didn't devastate us. They are curious folk. So we went to a place in Mali that isn't really very much like Mali for the Fourth of July. It is called Manantali, and the thing that sets it apart is that it has a nice, large, German-built hydroelectric dam. The electricity, of course, is sold out of country. But it was beautiful. And downstream of the river is the frequent haunt of hippos! So I saw some hippos. Hippos, if you don't know, are extremely dangerous and could kill you if they cross you and are very, very fast runners, but actually prefer cabbage to people. I know all this because I read Congo. We played cards, dressed in red white and blue, looked at the hippos, and roasted and then ate a pig. It was a lovely celebration of independence.

Independence Day was interesting here, because the Malians were shocked that we had to have one, too. They were shocked, but I think they were impressed. I think it made them feel like I had a little more legitimacy. So those were some interesting conversations.

Oh, and we got lucky enough to go to Manantali from Bamako in a Peace Corps vehicle, so it took us about five hours or so. We had to take public transport back, though, and it was a more than ten hour journey. Aahh, Mali!

Scary, scary

One of my last days in village before going "en vacance" to, Inshallah, Ameriki, Inshallah, I was caught in a little miniature cattle stampede. Little and miniature because it was just me and one cow. But still. Now I was taking a - shall we say "creative"? - path home, mainly because I have yet to make it all the way from the garden to my house by the back channels without getting lost. But every time I am more adept at getting myself un-lost, so at least there is progress. Anyway, there I am on my bike, and its very sandy, which is very hard to ride in, and this cow, with no provocation, just starts chasing me! I figure he must have someplace to go in a hurry, so I take a quick (slow, wobbly, and slidey) turn and continue on, assuming my troubles are over. But when I look behind me (just to make extra-special sure) he's followed me around the corner! So the race is on, with me, panicked, pedaling as fast as I can without risking losing control in the sand - because if I do lose control and fall off, he'll come up and trample all over me, pop both my kidneys and my gallbladder, and then I'll really be goners - and he's chasing behind me, snorting and shaking his great big curly horns. Even at this point I still think maybe I am just extraordinarily unlucky and I just happen to still be on his pre-chosen path of rage, but then I double back around somebody's house (to the great delight of the family on the other side of the low wall) and he's still there so I know that for whatever reason it really is me he's after. So I'm looking around for anything familiar, thinking to myself that if it comes down to it, I can probably pull one of those jump over really tall wall moves that rodeo clowns sometimes do, when they don't just get gored, instead. But it doesn't come down to it and eventually I do know where I am and I turn into out courtyard, leap off my bike, and slam the gate shut. And my host family is curious and I say "there's a great big beast out there trying to kill me," but panic Bambara not construct good and all I really say is "Cow Is!" And their eyes say to me, "sometimes we're not sure how your country got to be so powerful," but all I can think is, "if one cow with crooked horns is that frightening, how scary must it be to be caught in an elephant stampede?"

Koutiala shea formation

This last week my teammate Maridee and I hosted an improved shea butter training in Koutiala that was both successful and inspiring. It had been a frustrating journey up to the launch - we didn't feel PC gave us the support we needed and our host service had visions of aid money piled on their tables. So, instead, we pulled it off on our own and had an incredible learning experience, and we explained in a way that I think was understood about the rules of this game preventing over-inflated budgets. Maybe. But regardless, half-way through this project I swore I would never do anything like this again, but my community just approached me with a valid need and a genuine interest, and armed with these lessons I'm ready to start again.

It was an interesting group of women we had in town for the training. We had originally budgeted for 15 women from Koutiala and 15 from the brusse. This is interesting in itself: half the city women who were slated to come failed to show up. Their slots, however, were filled by the plethora of brusse women who just appeared. The first day they were nervous around each other; the city mice dress, hold themselves, and speak differently than their country mouse counterparts. Maridee and I despaired a little that 5 loud and bossy voices would monopolize the whole training and the shyer ladies weren't going to get their bit out of it. But luckily, by the afternoon, a couple of boisterous country voices had prod their sisters into participation and there was a good dynamic in the room.

The morning of the second day, which does involve a bit of standing around as water is boiled out of the butter, I overheard a conversation that went something like this: We have a lot of nuts but we don't really process them; if you give me your phone number, I'll be in touch and we can arrange for your village to buy our nuts to process. Warms my little heart.

Oh, yeah, and I got a boyfriend. His name is Mamidou and he's probably about 3 and he sat on my lap and wore my sunglasses and didn't even pee on me. He thinks I'm awesome and isn't even afraid of my skin. We have a lot in common, and his mom offered to give him to me, but I 'm afraid the timing might just not be right, what with him being only 3 and all. Oh, well, its good to see that quality men are, in fact, still out there.

Malian trainers - well, this is just another one of these lessons from this that I am in the process of learning. I know that I'm from a different culture, but if I were treated like that by a trainer, I would stand up and leave. Maridee assures me that it is appropriate, and that the women like being yelled at and belittled. They don't look unhappy, so I guess its just another one of those things that I'm not sure I'm going to learn to understand.

After the end of the formation, it was incredible. I had at least three different people come up to me and say, hey, I want to have a formation on this, or I want to teach a formation on that. I love to see them interested in learning new skills. I would love even more to see them interested in applying the new skills they've learned to better the lives of themselves and their children. But that, I believe, is something that people have a lot of trouble with in the States, too, so if anybody has any ideas, I'm all ears.

If you're in the Peace Corps, I can't emphasise enough that the most important lesson I learned doing this is: Do it with a partner your first time!

Rain Gardens

This is one of the coolest things I've seen in nine months. Wouldn't work in Mali, and might not work in Colorado, but would be a great project to try.
http://www.kidsgardening.com/Dig/DigDetail.taf?ID=2140&Type=Art

Lots doing!

We did accidentally hit three cows on the way into town. Actually, we only hit one, then that one hit another, and the second hit the third. However the hitting happened, at the end there were three cows down, but only a teensy little dent in the bumper. So, alls well that ends well?

Been a busy time in Koury. As busy as it seems to get in the Peace Corps, anyway. My homologue and I (read, Kelly with Ami Sanou watching) built a mud stove. Mud stoves are great, actually, because if they are done correctly, they use less cooking wood. Less cooking wood is great because women either have to spend less money buying it, or they have to spend less time out in the bush cutting it and then carrying it back on top of their heads. Less cooking wood is also great because we must always be ware of the encraoching sands of the Sahara. Ooooh. Imagine scary haunted house music here. But it is for real. Ooooh. This one looks great, and works well, too. It works especially well as a drying rack. Who knew that mud stoves were the African equivalent to excercise bikes? Well, the deal was, we build a mud stove in her concession and then she is responsible for pointing it out to women who come over, and if they are interested in building one for themselves they get sent over to me. So far, no takers. Except Ismael (little Ismael my host brother) who wants to do everything I do. He said (brace yourself, this was actually enough to make a Peace Corps Volunteer go into her house and cry because she felt like maybe she wasn't wasting her time afterall) "I want to learn everything that you are doing, because then when you leave, if people have questions, then they can still come here, and they can keep building them even if you are gone." So we are going to build one in our gabugu.

But first, Ismael and I have many other projects going on. I gave a demonstration about natural pesticides in the garden the other day. It was because some of those poor ladies' gardens are getting the snot eaten out of them. And when I say poor I mean it twice. The women who can afford chemical pesticides have beautiful plants, nary a bug in sight. So this will hopefully turn into an interesting efficacy experiment - if there are no untreated plots, which will the bugs preferrentially destroy, chemical or natural? I fear the answer may not be what I want it to be. Cross your fingers that the bugs will simply move on to bigger and better things - flowering trees, cow poop, things like that. Anyway, Ismael was my sounding board, and directed me to some very important Bambara phrases (a ka nafa ka bon - that means it is very important) and helped me practice my speech, and then we applied the extra pesticide to our own nursery. Which, by the way, is growing EXCELLENTLY! We have trees that are almost a foot high, and only one looks like it is suffering tremendously. But that is not the only garden project we have going on. We are in the process of trying to build a "keyhole" garden. Which is really cool, and you all should go on the Send a Cow website and look at them, because you can build one at your own house even if your house is in America, and it would be a really good thing, especially if you learned a little about companion planting and planted correctly - you will be amazed at how much vegetable matter you can cultivate in a tiny little space and how easy it will be. Ismael is taking the most pro-active role in this endeavor I have ever seen out of a Malian. Of course, Malian pro-active means we've been working on it for two weeks and have nothing to show for it, but we do have inquiries out to the community about the availability of some of the material we need. So hopefully soon, we will have a keyhole garden. And Ismael also really wants to build a garden with a trellis, because he saw a picture of a climbing pumpkin plant, and I think he thinks that'll attract the ladies!

Speaking of attracting the ladies, I think my dear cousin Marie may be suddenly without a suitor. I told Ismael the other day that American men cook for themselves, and if he goes to America he can't just assume that some woman is going to cook for him. And I think that was the final straw, and he has decided he is going to stay in Africa. Except when he thought about taking a Malian woman with him, because she'll have to cook for him even if she is in America, which just made me mad, so I don't know how that line of thought ended up. But what started this process of the disenchantment with America was an innocent disaster initiated by me.

It was my birthday a week or so ago, and for my birthday I made American lunch. I made spaghetti with tomato sauce. The cooking was funny, because they kept coming around, looking at my pots, and for the spaghetti boiling in water, they wanted me to add oil, and for the sauce, they thought I used an aweful lot of tomatoes. In fact, for the next couple of days, random Malian ladies would stop me in the street and say, "Did you really use bisegin of logo?" (approximately eighty cents worth of tomato paste) And I would say yes, and they would reel away from me like drunks due to the shock. Well, anyway, I had bought onions, garlic, tomatoes, and - these just happened to appear in the market that day - a zucchini, and so I had them in the sauce, and I'll tell you what! I made one fine sauce! Well, I put it all together, and we sat down to eat. Two of them seemed to enjoy it. Another choked it down - it was tough, but he overcame. Two of them refused to eat more than one bite. One spit it right out on the ground, and one other refused to even touch it. Which worked out for me, because then I had delicious Ameriki spaghetti for lunch AND dinner! But so that led to the discussion about how if this is what American food is like, they were absolutely not going to go to America. "Are you sure there isn't to in America?" "Nope, no to in America." America may have money, but they sure have lousy food!

Speaking of money, I don't know if I already mentioned this one, but it was really funny, so I'm going to go ahead and write it again. We were talking about poverty. Good, solid PC conversation. "There is no poverty in America," they said, "everybody there is richer than all of Africa combined!" "No, that's not actually the case, there are poor people in America, too." "Really?" - I heard - "Is there Fanta in America?" Fanta, of course, is orange flavored soda. Funny conversation, but, you know, these things happen. "No," - I later found out I was mistaken about that, anyway, and we do have Fanta in the US - "we don't have Fanta, but we do have Coca-Cola and Sprite." Coca-Cola and Sprite are the other American drinks we have here. They looked at me funny. I looked at them funny. "You have Coca-Cola?" "Yes, many people drink Coca-Cola." "What about Fanta?" "No, we don't have Fanta." So now my host mother breaks in, "Umm, I think you think we said is there Fanta in the US." "Yes, that's what I think you said, is that not what you said?" "No, we said is there fantanya in the US." "Fantanya, what's fantanya?" Fantanya is poverty. Now, all of a sudden, that conversation makes a lot more sense.

Back to Ismael coming to America. He is also disheartened because he thinks I am trying to limit his prospects. Although there is MUCH confusion about whether there are actually black people in the United States, there is also much discussion about Barack Obama. For instance, every morning I get greeted, Good morning, how are you? How's your family? How are your children? How is your husband? Do you have a husband? Will you take me as a husband? Why not? Well, will you give me your watch instead? No? How about your bike? No? Well, how is your family? How is your mother? How is Barack Obama? So the lesson that any child can become the president has sunk in here in a big way. Ismael says to me one day, "I think, maybe, I'm going to be the president of the United States." "You can't be, you aren't American." "But Barack Obama is, and he is black." "Yeah he's black, but he's also American." "Well, no matter, I can still be the president." "No, because the president of America has to be American." "No, he doesn't." "Yes, he does." (I wonder what would have happened if we had elected a woman president. I wonder if they would have simply expelled the Peace Corps from the country as an organization run by an irresponsible country.) "No, he doesn't. ATT isn't Malian, and he is the president." "But he's the president of Mali, and not the president of the United States. And the laws are different in the United States." "But ATT did it." "But that's different." We didn't get anywhere with that line of reasoning, and Ismael got mad.

So, Ismael is not coming to America. Which is good, because he's going to have my work to finish when I leave. My other project that I've been working on is one that is near and dear to my own heart. My Tante Charlotte makes this delicious stuff called Morgenbeere, or something like that, jam. It is wonderful. What I make doesn't even come close to comparing, but I am now the crazy white woman who walks around town with a jar and a spoon trying to trick people into eating something. I've been making jam. Jam, though it has a high sugar content, I believe is a good vehicle for nutrients. And nutrients or not, it is a good use of excess fruit that this town has lying around during the mango season, and if done correctly, could be a good source of income as there are indeed parts of Mali where mango trees do not grow. So, papaya jam was a huge hit. I ran out in two days and was afraid to venture out in the open for the angry Kourians who wanted more jam that I was withholding from them. Banana jam, on the other hand, seems to have the look of the devil about it, and few souls are brave enough to try it, and they quickly warn the others off. If I were a baseball player 500 would be a good average, right? And mango season is about to commence, so cross your fingers and hope and pray for me that this one will be delicious. Personally, I liked the banana jam, too!