The End!

... and how relieved I am. As much as I love hanging out with my fellow volunteers and learning about child malnutrition, I am ready to get back to my own little world and be in my little village again. After 4 months here now, we have started to think of our sites as our home, strange as that sounds. Although I'm not going back riiight away... I think a little traveling around with friends is well-deserved after this. And so I go, back to Kita, and then on again, and this time, I will be the one traveling with chickens on my lap.

Ten small baby chicks, in a cardboard box, for 3 hours, to be exact. I am integrating well, I think.

What are they learning now?!?

So a few people asked, and I thought I’d explain what exactly we’re doing here in Camp Peace Corps again, 4 months after we left. The first three months while we were at site was basically us getting to know our village, including what they had going for them and what they were missing, and what they would like to happen (realistically speaking). The past three weeks of training have us going more in-depth into our respective sectors, and finding out more about the possible projects we can carry out in our villages. Sometimes the classes are relevant, sometimes they are not; since every village is different, my needs and expectations are different than everyone else’s. Which leads to a lot of skipping, sometimes. But it gives an opportunity to find out what we can do to solve some of the pressing issues at our sites, and more ideas of other things we can do. Because the nice (and bad) thing about Peace Corps is that things are flexible and volunteers can choose what or what not to do. So although my primary responsibility here is to improve maternal and child health, work on malaria prevention and other health education projects, if I so choose I can teach English in my school, show people how to make mud stoves or raise chickens differently, or teach the women small income-generating activities like knitting and jewelry making. There are thousands of options, and we are not required nor expected to only work in our own sectors. Which means that although I’m not going to be starting a garden anytime soon, I can work on other environmental issues in my village that need to be addressed, or water sanitation, or small business. In reality everything is connected, and if we want to see a result in one area it often means tackling another issue or two in another area. For example, I am working on reducing malaria cases in my village, which includes pushing people to sleep under their mosquito nets and taking other steps to avoid getting bitten. But unless I also work on reducing the standing water that comes from people’s nyegens and where mosquitoes breed, then people will keep getting malaria. Most of our jobs come from educating our villagers, and pushing them to try doing things differently in the hope that even small changes will make their lives healthier and wealthier. Because Peace Corps is focused on self-sustainability and capacity-building, we try not to create lots of projects that require money; rather, we try to show people that you don’t need an NGO throwing you a lot of money to create a big fancy whatever to get ahead in life. A lot of problems in village can be solved simply, if people work towards a solution. That being said, sometimes if there is a big project that requires materials and funds, then we can ask for money from Peace Corps to finance it. The catch is that at least a third of the projects’ total cost come from the community; this means they can either donate food, labor, materials or actual money. This helps us in that the community proves they are serious about the project and not expecting a free hand-out. The projects are as varied as they come, just like our other objectives; we can fund something to be built or improved, like a school or new well, or support an AIDS/HIV learning day, or create a training session where, for example, women can learn to make better shea butter (the south of Mali has LOTS of shea butter) that they can then use for themselves or sell for a better price. I do not have any projects as large as that planned as of yet, although as I get to know my village better and what their real needs are, and what can be accomplished while I’m there, I will probably start planning on doing something large and grand.

The Malian School System

Since people asked… I am going to be talking about the Malian education system. Its actually pretty sad, because although elementary school is compulsory, its hard to follow through; classes are REALLY overcrowded and teachers are often poorly trained; and (in my personal opinion) the school system is not one where children learn, because the system stresses repetition, and not individual thinking and questioning.

Not all the villages in Mali have a school, and so many kids have to walk a few kilometers every day, which is the case in my village, which does have a school. The education system is broken up into several levels. The first stage, or cycle in French, goes from 1st to 6th, and then the second stage goes from 7th to 9th grade. After that it’s high school, and after that, university. However, most students only make it through the first cycle, or sometimes the second cycle. Because of the over-crowding and the poor teaching, very few students make it to high school, and even fewer make it to the university level. It is worse for girls; although there is an equal balance between the genders during the first stage, after that there is a drop-off in female students, until the classes are made up of mostly men. There are several reasons for this: partly because women get married so early in rural areas, partly because girls are less likely to speak up in class, answer questions, etc. Unfortunately the level of education is so bad that even if they do make it through elementary school, it is not guaranteed that they can read or write very well, if at all. I have several little girls who like to show me what they learn, and even at 8 or 9 years old can’t write their numbers correctly.

I have been told that school is free; however, I think that also depends on the school and the location. I believe (because I can never be sure I understand everything that’s told to me in village) that there is a small fee to pay if children want to go to the school in my village. Supposedly pens and notebooks are provided free of charge as well, but I don’t think that is necessarily the case where I am either. There are no textbooks, and so teachers just write the day’s lesson on the board, and then the children copy it down (in red and blue pens only). They study a wide variety of subjects, supposedly, from Bambara and French to the sciences and math.

So although the Malian government is trying to push education, right now its pretty much a system that’s failing the population.

An additional note: I wrote the above earlier, and then I attended a session on education in Mali. So, some statistics to highlight/stress what I wrote:

• Although Mali is 1st in the world in education spending (32% of gov't budget) it ranks 173rd out of 177 on UNDP's Human Development Index and 8 out of 10 for reading mastery by the end of primary school in Francophone countries
• 23% of boys and 10% of girls can read a simple French sentence by the end of 4th grade
• Adult literacy in French is estimated at 29%

Obama Fete!

As we all know, Obama was finally inaugurated on Tuesday as America’s President, and everyone (Malians and Americans both) here was very excited for it too. The American Club in town threw a party for all their members (including former PCV’s who happen to be living in Mali, working for other organizations or the US gov’t now) and us. So about 80 current volunteers, a dozen expats and their assorted hubbies of different nationalities, and various children piled into two rooms with two large screen TVs, and toasted the new Presidency. It was actually really exhilarating, because even though we are thousands of miles away, we all cheered for Obama as he took his oath and gave his speech (side note: the oath Obama and Biden took was the same as the one we volunteers took. Needless to say, they did much better than we did).

And then we celebrated some more, with alcohol from across the pond (Jose Cuervo, because, after all, I’m still half-Mexican) and cake. There is a huge sense of excitement here, and relief. Since the majority of volunteers are in the 21-30 year old range, most voted for Barack back in November, and people are very expectant of what he will do for the country now that he is President. I am a little sad that I will be missing the first two years in the States with him as President, but it should be interesting seeing how he does from over here, in the bits and pieces I will get from radio and internet. And of course, there are huge hopes for him among Malians (and I expect Africans in general), in that he will remember this continent once in a while, and really help lift people out of poverty and disease. Realistic or not, I think many people over here have as high of hopes for him as I do.

Of Vampires and High Schoolers

During one of my more boring sessions today, I started to think about trends and pop culture, and what filters through to the rest of the world and what stops. What will I miss in the next two years, in the middle of the bush on my own? What will I stay current on? I’ve had my fellow volunteers, the ones that have already been here two years, ask me who these Hannah Montana and High School Musical kids are, and I wonder how much of American pop culture I will remain clueless; and yet, what gets through?
The reason for this introspection was that I have been reading the Twilight series (if you are even more clueless than a Peace Corps Volunteer, it’s a 4 book saga, written for the teenage set, about a human girl that falls in love with a vampire. Don’t judge me.) And I am not the only one. I have had several conversations already with my fellow, mostly female, volunteers here about the books and the movie that just came out a few weeks ago; although there are only a few copies of the books floating around, people are going through them like hotcakes. I know we are a few months behind on the trend, but still, we are thousands of miles away here, reliant on relatives and friends and small tidbits of pop culture to know whats big. And so I wonder that if otherwise ambitious, serious, intelligent volunteers can get excited about a teenage vampire love story, what else will trickle over to this side of the pond.

We reached the 6 month mark!

Currently I am in Tubani-So again, with the remaining 67 of my fellow volunteers (in the past 6 months, we have lost 8). We are now doing lots of in-depth training; in my field, that consists of talking about STDs, HIV, malnutrition and various other health-related topics in greater depth. I have not seen most of my fellow teammates for the last four months, so it has been great catching up and sharing stories and experiences. In a way, it is a relief hearing about other volunteers’ villages and lives, and realizing that they are having just as many problems and cultural confusions as you are. I’ve also come to realize that all of our experiences are also unique, and different, depending on our location, our language and most of all, our outlook on what’s going. It’s also reassuring talking to volunteers that have been here a year or two, and have gotten through it, and exchanging ideas on what we can do to get through ourselves and how to make our villages a little better. I will be online regularly for the next 2 weeks, so if there is anything specific you would like to know (help me out! What are you dying to understand?) tell me and I’ll write on, in depth. Otherwise, I’ll just keep rambling on about how random my life is. Really.