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!
