Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So it has been a long time since I last wrote, partly because I have been in my village for the past month and haven’t been back in Kita since before Thanksgiving. A lot has happened since then; some good and some bad. I am thrilled to be back in town though, especially for the holidays. I will be celebrating Christmas with some friends in a town near Kita called Manantali, which I’ve been to before (there are pictures of said place in my photo album) but is definitely worth going back to because it is so relaxing. I hope to see hippos this time, because last time I was promised more wildlife but they failed to appear… jerks. New Years will be spent in Bamako, because although there is a nightlife scene in any large town in Mali, the capital has the most variety (including alcohol choices). I will eventually be back in my village after the holidays, but will spend some quality time with my fellow Americans in the meantime.
And since it has been such a long time since I last wrote, I wanted to post about various different topics. Don’t worry, they are separated into chapters for your reading leisure.

My Life in Mali
I believe there may be some confusion and questions as to my living situation in village. I live on my own, in my own little compound. There are three round little mud huts, about 7 or 8 feet long each way, with a thatch roof, like you would see at beach houses. I have a little cement block “nyegen” which is basically just a 4 foot by 2 foot block with a little hole I go the bathroom in and a space to take my bucket baths. There is a 5 foot stick fence surrounding everything, which keeps out the wandering goats, sheep, chickens and children. My schedule goes something like this:
Get up around 5:30 or 6, depending on how loud the call to prayer that morning is and whether the donkeys are braying outside my window. I eat all of my meals with my host family, which is convenient for me but gets kinda old, since most of my meals involve rice or corn mush balls with some kind of sauce. Although the meals are very heavy on the carbs, there is some nutrition involved in the sauces because they are made with different veggies (the lack of protein is a slight problem sometimes, however). I usually hang out with “family” for a little while after breakfast (which is usually some type of porridge made with millet or rice or corn) and then head to the clinic to check in on whats going on and what I can help with. Sometimes I wander off to other families’ houses to hang out or I head back to my own house to read or relax or wash clothes (I wash my own clothes by hand, in a large bucket of water. Its gives me a new appreciation for washing machines I never had before). I head back to the families’ house for lunch around noon, and then either do the same thing again: go home or hang out at the clinic or other peoples’ houses. I’m often invited to have tea, since Malians usually have tea after each meal. In the late afternoon I try to go out for an hour long bike ride, and after my ride I get water from the pump. The pump is about a hundred yards from my house, and so I tie a 20 liter jug to the back of my bike and bike over, and bike back. I surprisingly am able to get through my day with this amount of water, unless I’m doing laundry. I heat up my bath water (I only use a few liters. It is also surprising how little water one actually needs to get clean) and listen to the radio while I use a cup to rinse and wash myself. Get dressed, relax, and then head back for dinner. After dinner I sometimes hang around for tea, sometimes head home early and study a little while listening to more BBC. Because life is so exhausting, partly because I get up so early, partly because the environment is so different, partly because its just Mali, I’m in bed by 9, asleep or getting there. Most of my days are like this, with a few variations if I bike to another village to help out with baby vaccinations or head up north to meet with friends. Sometimes I head into the fields to help my family with their fields of peanuts, since it is harvesting time, but more often I spend my time floating around the village, trying to find something to do while practicing my Bambara. The days go by extremely slowly, and yet, one finds it hard to believe that its already been 3 months since we swore in as volunteers and over 5 months since we first arrived in country.

Thanksgiving in rural Mali
I chose to spend Thanksgiving near my village and not go off too far, partly because I spent the previous week away from site in Bamako. Thankfully my two girlfriends were planning a small Thanksgiving dinner at one of their villages, and invited me to come join. Between my mother (thank you Mom!) and my friend’s family, we had plenty of “Thanksgiving” food: sweet potatoes, stuffing, veggies and mashed potatoes. Since there are not many turkeys wandering around Mali, we bought two guinea fowl instead, which were freshly killed, plucked and cleaned for us that very afternoon (I did not watch). It was surprisingly delicious, better than real turkey, actually, and we had gravy to along with it. Luckily one of my friends’ also has a solar oven, which involves a large ceramic bowl in another ceramic bowl, which sits inside the metallic panels. It works extremely well, and for dessert we had brownies. Sadly, there was so much food at dinner that we could only finish half the brownies, and the next day they were too hard to eat. However, the leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner were just as delicious, and we had guinea fowl and potatoes and stuffing for both lunch and dinner on Friday. After Thanksgiving dinner we watched the Little Mermaid on a little DVD player, and for an hour and half we forgot we were celebrating an American holiday in Africa.

Biking
A quick update on biking in the Malian bush. I bike every other day now, sometimes only 5-10k, sometimes more. Thankfully the road linking my village to my two girlfriends is pretty straightforward and easy to maneuver; no large hills, or rocky paths. I finally made the long trip to my friends a few weekends ago, biking about 35k to one friend, spending the night, and biking back the next day. Although it was extremely tiring, I was actually surprised at my endurance, and it gives me hope that maybe one day, near the end of my service, I really can bike all the way from Goro to Kita. Or maybe at least from my friend’s villages; they’re a lot closer.

Tabaski, or as I like to think…. the slaughter
Two weeks after Thanksgiving, Muslims celebrated Tabaski, or the big party that comes two months after the end of Ramadan. I’m not sure still what the special significance is of having a big parties two moons after the last party, but who can say no to a party? I believe it is probably one of the largest Muslim holidays, because everyone in village was very excited and getting ready for days before. Women did their hair, got new outfits for themselves and their families, splurged on coffee and candies and other goodies.
Part of the special tradition of Tabaski (or Saliba, as its known in Bambara) is slaughtering lots of farm animals to eat, specifically goats, sheep and cows. So walking around my village greeting families I was more often than not met with people slitting some animal’s throat or starting to carve it up to cook. So there were goats and sheep heads everywhere, in other words, greeting me with vacant eyes (not that sheep don’t have pretty vacant looks to them when they’re alive). Most Malians, especially kids, found the whole process rather fascinating, but even though I have a pretty high threshold for these types of things, I chose not to watch most of the going-ons. I myself bought a few kilos of meat from a cow that had been slaughtered for the occasion for my family to eat, and it turned out to be enough for six meals (that’s right: I even ate cow for breakfast) over the two days we were celebrating. I can’t call it “beef” because our idea of what is edible and Malian’s version is a little different, and I’m honestly not sure what part of the cow I was eating at any point. However, this comes after I biked 70km in a two day period, so I was not about to get picky about protein. Even though chances are I was eating part of the liver or heart or other such organ, it was actually pretty good and extremely satisfying after two weeks of nothing but rice and corn. In all honesty, a filet mignon sounds great, but I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.
There was more to the day than slaughtering stupid farm animals, rest assured. In the morning the older men and women of the village went to a large open air space on the outskirts of the village, to pray and hear the Imam preach, Muslim version of going to church for the holiday. I went along, and sat with the women in the back of the crowd with my head covered. Although I couldn’t understand a word of what the sermon was about (in Bambara, not Arabic) it was interesting to experience and made my villagers very happy that I attended. After the prayer people headed home to eat and relax and wander to other people’s houses to greet and bestow blessings. It was a pretty relaxing day for everyone in village, as there was no school and no one went out to their fields; it was pretty much the same as every other day for me, except I got to eat meat. I feel like its very similar to Christmas, but a lot more simplified, with less presents.

Transport in West Africa
An inducement to my being able to bike from village to town is that transport here can be unreliable, uncomfortable and sometimes scary. Little vans leave my village three times a week, although sometimes some of those don’t show up. These vans are also extremely, extremely old, and extremely beat up; every time I am amazed when I reach the end of my voyage without some major breakdown. I must have some kind of transport luck, because only twice have I been on transport that had a major breakdown. The first was during site visit, and fortunately it was in the middle of the day on my way to Kita, and was resolved in a half hour. The second time I was on my way back to village with my friend Dave (whom I think responsible for the bad luck), four hours late, when the tire blew out and we were stranded for over an hour while they looked for a new one. At least it was a full moon that night, and I had brought along snacks.
More likely than not, traveling involves quite a bit of discomfort. My village is often the starting-point for the beginning of the voyage to Kita, and I am lucky enough to be able to choose where I want to sit for the trip. However, there are many more villages the van stops at, with many more people jumping on. They usually over crowd these things, because there is more fare that way, so an aisle that should sit 4 normally now has 5 or 6. Most likely someone has a baby or a chicken with them, and both will be in your face at some point, sooner or later. The baby will be trying to grab onto you (or pee on you) and the chicken will be trying to get through you to escape. And that’s on a good day. In reality, I know there is far worse to come, and that many of my fellow volunteers have far greater horror stories than mine, so rest assure d that there will only be more tales of traveling in Mali to come.

My most prized possession
Probably the most valuable item (s) I brought with me to Mali is my little radio and my music. I listen to my Ipod every morning, because it helps me get out of bed and face the world, and before I go to bed at night, as it helps me go to sleep (especially when there are donkeys or goats or children making lots of noise outside of my hut).
The other item that helps keep me from leaving Mali early and killing people is my little radio. There is no FM frequency where I am, so instead I tune into the shortwave frequencies. It is always interesting seeing what international channels I can get; some nights I’ve gotten programs from as far away as Venezuela and Asia (I couldn’t tell what country specifically). But I listen to the BBC and the VOA (Voice of America) every night, which helps my mental sanity and keeps me in touch with what’s going on in the rest of the world. I had never really heard of VOA before I came to Mali, but I am guessing that it is the national broadcasting station for the US, and what George Bush uses for his weekly radio addresses. They have a wide variety of programs, from the regular news to talking about some American landmark or city to playing American pop music. It is often harder to find than the BBC though, so most nights I tune in to hear what is going on in Africa, the daily rugby, football (that’s soccer to some of you) and cricket scores, and the latest disaster to hit the rest of the world, all in a charming British accent. I sometimes get a strange sense of a connection to the past, listening to these two stations. I think of how soldiers fighting in WWII would listen to the BBC or the VOA for news of home, when they were far, far away, and think of myself, so far away from home too.
Sometimes I can’t find either of these stations, and am left trying to find another English-speaking station that’ll give me the news, or at least some sense of comfort that comes from hearing your own language. Now, I don’t know why, but when going through these searches I can ALWAYS find a religious station or two. There has never been a time that I have not found a signal from Texas, or the southern United States, or maybe some random city in Europe or Africa, talking about God. Personally, I think there is some sort of conspiracy, but my friends have their own theories. At least its comforting to know, that even in the middle of the Malian bush, Jesus is looking out for me.

“Cold Season”
They tell us that it’s now wintertime in Mali, and just in time for Christmas. It is actually cold; however it is only cold at night. During the day it is still plenty warm, which only makes the cold feel that much colder. In reality, when I say cold, it’s probably only in the 60’s or 50’s, which is not very cold to many of you dealing with the freezing rain and snow. However, when you have been used to living in 90, 100o heat, one actually needs to wear long sleeves and socks to bed, and cuddle up with a wool blanket. We are all very thrilled with the change though, because we know the humid heat that was rainy season, and that it will get unbearably hot in another few months, and we love the relief the season brings. The other perk we’ve found is that there are less bugs, especially mosquitoes and flies, which I find to be an absolute blessing, seeing as how badly I am usually bitten. Unfortunately, the cold doesn’t seem to be everywhere, because here in Kita it is still warm, even in the middle of the night, and the mosquitoes are still breeding.

A List of Things that Keep Me Going
Long bike rides, listening to my music
English radio (God bless the British)
Little babies running to my arms
Pictures and cards from loved ones
Reading lots of books
Eating an American snack and a Mexican candy, one each every night
Seeing my fellow volunteers in the middle of a stint in village

Life and Death in Mali
Birth and death is a lot closer here in Mali than it is in the States; there is always someone giving birth in the small radius of my community, and just as often there is someone dying. For that reason, I feel like it is all the more celebrated, and all the less felt. I was painfully made aware of both, the happiness of a new baby and the suddenness of death, last week. A woman I knew from the village chief’s family had been pregnant since I arrived in village, and I was just waiting for the day she’d finally burst. We weren’t particularly friends, but I saw her every day on my way to greet the village chief and breakfast. I teased her about how big she was getting and how many babies she was having; she told me she was having twins. Although she was only 26, this was her 5th pregnancy, and her second set of twins. She went into labor last Friday around midnight, and when I came to the clinic that morning she had had a boy and a girl. Unfortunately, she was having problems expelling the placenta, and nothing the midwife and the trainee did helped. Eventually, the ambulance in Kita was called, which got to my village around mid-afternoon. She was loaded into the car with her husband and newborns, and the van sped away. By that time however, it was too late, and she had bled to death before she reached the hospital.
This isn’t my first experience with birth, or death, here in Mali, but it’s hit the closest to home. I knew her, I know her family, and if her babies survive I will know them, and watch them as they try to survive in this harsh environment. And I know it won’t be the last time someone I know dies while I’m here, and I know I’ll have to find a way to cope with being this close death, and birth, if I want to make it.

I’m sorry to end the posting on such a downer note, but I hope that everyone is at home getting ready to celebrate the holidays and enjoy time with loved ones. I’m thinking of everyone, and hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!