Nenajeke (celebating)

A lot has happened since Thanksgiving- the refining and selling of our women's shea butter in Bamako, Eid, Christmas in Dogon country (near Bandiagara- check it out on a map), and New Year's with my initial homestay family a hour south of Bamako. Of course, I would love to go into detail about every moment, but alas, a brief summary of the events will have to do for now.

Daily life (the random stuff that everyone asks about)

I've begun eating and liking a lot of things that I refused to touch in the states, including cucumbers (see ginormous example below), watermelon, and oatmeal. These are to supplement my normal meals of to (ground up millet gelatinized patty thing) and fish sauce, seri/moni/bagan (corn/rice/millet porridge), and the occasional rice dish. My village has started to work extensively on their gardens since harvesting season is over and I'm more than excited for the upcoming influx of delicious vegetables or nakofen in Bambara, meaning things from the garden. Spending time planting has really peaked my interest in the possibility of doing a formation on garden improvements, such as pumping techniques, better seed varieties, and introducing new plants. AND it gets me to thinking about what I might want to plant in my own garden... mmm... if only berries grew in Mali. Here are two pictures of the inside of my house. I didn't want to include my second room just yet because I'm in the process of getting an actual bed-- I had done without until now, but figure that I'm here for the long run and might as well really move in! Make this house my own! The pictures and letters on the wall have only increased in number since this photo was taken, so thanks! They make fantastically readable wallpaper. The first picture is your entry into my house, the window covered in the back by my "skurtain" as I like to call it-- haha-- just an old skirt that was a little too short for Mali that cut in half, perfectly made two curtains for my house. My table is wonderful, thanks to the previous volunteer, but I am hardly ever in my house to use it since I eat every meal with my host family. The table on the right hand side in the second picture is my kitchen with my two burner gas stove that I use pretty regularly for cooking pasta, tea, rice, oatmeal and other goodies.

One day in December, my village borrowed a large scale from a neighboring village to weigh our cotton crop from this year. I found this generally intriguing since (a.) never really seen cotton grown before, and (b.) all of the work I did on the farm bill and cotton subsidies while working with the Africa Faith and Justice Network (check out the movie Bamako if you're interested... it's in French and Bambara, just fyi). Supposedly my village didn't produce a great crop this year (over 6,000 kg seemed like a lot to me!) and they're still in the midst of paying off a loan taken out last year... I'm not quite sure that I understand it all yet, but hopefully we'll figure it out.

Seliba.Eid.Tabaski

I appreciated Seliba more after my homologue (coworker in village) explained the significance: that it is the celebration of the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of a ram instead of his son. For two days we ate a lot of sheep, greeted, played soccer, greeted/gave blessings, took pictures, got dressed up, ate more sheep (I was actually kind of frustrated with the amount of meat I was given).

My friend Ami and I got "uniforms" made for Seliba. When greeting people on Seliba, you walk around the village with your friends and people give you small change if they like your blessings/hair style/outfit. It kind of reminded me of Halloween and trick or treating in that sense.The henna that my homestay sister did for me. It was really pretty.Okay, I love this picture. You probably can't really tell everything that's going on, so that's why I'll tell you: My little homestay sister is in the foreground in her snowsuit, haha. I always think that's so ironic. It was probably in the low 70s at this point. In the midground on the right hand side is the shadow of another host sis last-minute braiding someone's hair the morning of Seli. Finally, in the background the guys are in the process of slaughtering a sheep... another thing I had never seen before, and probably could go without seeing ever again. But that's when I think of how sterile our lives are in America and the distance we are from the reality of such processes. We often take for granted the steak that somehow ends up on our plate in restaurant. Then again, I don't really mind so much not having to see my meat alive one minute and not alive the next.
So, the festivities of Seliba continued well into the next week for some communities, including the next village over (1km from my village). They had invited sigui dancers to come and join in the celebration. The Sigui are the traditional masked dancers from different regions of Mali. Each mask represents a different animal or concept. This was my first taste of the stereotypical "African" dance and ceremony, but it was good because it was REAL-- not like a show that was being put on for me, as I often feel is the case. Everyone had come out to watch... and I mean everyone, including the mayor and the dugutigis from a lot of the surrounding villages. The first picture is an action shot and then I tried to include a video-- we'll see if it works out.

Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays, except Mali
Thanks to everyone who sent holiday e-mails, wishes, packages, letters, calls, thoughts, facebook messages, etc, my first Christmas away from home didn't feel all that away from home. I think that this also had to do with the fact that I was with an amazing group of PC Volunteers, hiking the cliffs of Dogon. Absolutely gorgeous! It's amazing to me the diversity that Mali has to offer-- from the lush greens of Sikasso region to the stunning rock formations in Mopti, which isn't including the variations in cultures, languages, and religions. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas just relaxing before heading out on our 3 day hike.

The Tellem people once inhabited the cliffs of Dogon, but since have left. The Dogon people's villages are not built into the cliffs, but are rather at the base of them.

Just a few from the top of one of the cliffs on our descent back into the sandy desert.

The Dogon sigui (see above). Very colorful and entertaining. I have a video of this, too, but it was too big to add here. Later. And check out the guy on stilts in the back.

A current day Dogon village at the base of a cliff (still on the sideish) in order to save the flat/non-rock ground for farming. Quite a trek down to get water daily.
This last picture is another view from the top. There's a lake (not a mirage, I promise) and a village in the bottom left corner.

For New Year's, I headed back to my intial homestay and celebrated with the fam. We ate well and then headed out to the donkeyoro (dance place), which is mostly a concrete-fenced in area with a covered stage. We danced to DJed Malian music until midnight and set off some sparklers. All in all, a good time.

Well, that's about it. In-service training begins in a week. I'll be headed back to our training village outside of Bamako for three weeks of cross-sectoral and technical training so that we can get things moving! I'm excited to be learning, but know that three weeks of sitting will make me more than ansy. And then Grant comes! :-)

Hope that your holidays were just as enjoyable.