One Full Sky and One to Go

Last week, exactly a year after our July 9th arrival, I returned to Bamako in preparation for the new stage of Peace Corps trainees. Along with the help of some of my best PCV friends, our Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) and others, I will be co-facilitating some training sessions for the 2009-2011 Small Enterprise Development volunteers. We will be back at the training center, Tubaniso, again and also visiting the trainees in their homestay villages in order to provide the best mixture of structured and experiential learning. Although I can hardly believe that I have completed one full sky (the Bambara word is the same for “year”), I am more than excited to share my experiences with the hope that all can benefit, including myself. Our group has brought along a refreshing outlook that will provide me with inspiration for reevaluation one year in.

Mali’s north country
Since I last wrote, I have spent most of my time either in my village or traveling around Mali. My trip to the northern part of the country was amazing- I got to visit some of my fellow volunteers and their actual work places in addition to the more touristy hot spots. It seems that every time I leave site I am stunned by the phenomenal diversity of Mali. Before arriving a year ago, I honestly never expected to experience such a vast variety of peoples, cultures, languages, beliefs, or environments. And then here I am, traveling through the Sahara, the largest and most well-known desert on earth. (FYI, Mali is 65% desert or semi-arid desert, who would have known!) Regardless of where I was in Mali, I was able to greet at least a few people in Bambara, allowing me to feel very welcome and a part of something larger, like the trade network that has been established throughout West Africa since who knows when. That might sound somewhat ridiculous, but this connection was reinforced when part of my original homestay family from my first months as a trainee, who moved out to Gao over 20 years ago, came to meet and greet me as I waited for my bus back to Bamako.

This is the "Dune Rose" located just outside of Gao. Since the Niger River is so low at the end of the hot season, we walked a good distance on the dry river bed before being able to take boat across. We hiked to the top, like at the Michigan dunes, but this dune is so absolutely gorgeously pink that it almost looks like a fake background, n'est-ce pas? The city of Gao is far in the distance behind us and you probably wouldn't be able to tell. Lots of little villages line the Niger (like the one in the background to our left) and some are only accessible by water. I hope to someday travel at least part of the Niger by boat.

Now I've been to both the equator (when in Uganda) AND the prime meridian (out in Gao).

We drove by the "Hand of Fatim" which is a rock structure that juts strangely out of the desert. Some people like to rock climb there, but I just enjoyed seeing the strange formation in Hombori, between Douentza and Gao.

If you want to check my travels out on a map, I made it out to a city called Gao in the northeastern part of the country. I passed through Mopti to Douentza to Gao. I really enjoyed the feel of the northern cities, although I prefer the lushness of Sikasso’s flora. Of course I believe that I could have survived well had I been placed up north a year ago, but I cannot be more thankful for the community that I have become a part of where I now live. My friend (who soon will be moving to Bamako for the next year!) and I rode back the 18ish hours from Gao to Bamako together. For the most part, I would describe my travels as “remarkably mishap-less”—no buses broke down, got flat tires, or had any ridiculous riders to disturb the voyage. I’m thinking about asking some of the engineers here to explain just how roads are built on and next to the sand dunes of the north. Two weeks away from my real host families made me anxious to return to my Bambara-speaking home.

I ni faama, sa! (It’s been a while)
With the shea season and rainy season officially underway as of recent (it has actually been a little late, which has delayed the beginning of planting and field work in my community), the groups with whom I have been working decided it would be best to focus on planning rather than developing infrastructure. The women’s association is communicating with the communities surrounding my village that were also trained at our formation in April. At one point I biked over 200 km in a week to visit and do follow-up trainings in 6 additional towns. Some of the trainings went much better than others, with attentive and active participants who asked lots of questions. It is my village’s hope that they will be prepared when the time comes to buy either well-processed shea nuts or butter from the communities in an attempt to refine and then sell their higher quality product. Again, the difficulty lies in properly sun drying and then storing the boiled nuts during the unbearably humid and wet rainy season.

I went si tomono (shea fruit picking) with two of my younger host sisters. It is their daily Easter egg hunt with only green and brown eggs-- either shea with the fruit still on or not. If the fruit is still on, it makes a nice snack for when you want to take a break. This picture is only of the smaller container that they can carry by balancing on their heads. For the women my age, picture them steadying a flat bottomed punch bowl full of golf balls with one hand, all the while squatting to pick up two or three more golf balls and throwing them on top. Each time I see them returning from the forest (sometimes three times a day), I am astonished. It is truly an extraordinary feat.

While at my site, I assisted a few groups to complete basic feasibility studies for the activities they are looking forward to pursue (i.e. chicken raising, matron training and building a maternity). It was interesting for me to participate and act as a consultant for these meetings, with the members appreciating my feedback, but taking it with a grain of salt considering that they are the experts (literally) in the field. My recommendations related more to the organizational and business aspects of their propositions and I was able to prod for the answers to various questions they either did not think of or did not (initial) see the value in asking.

For a few days, I also sat with the secretary and treasurer of our women’s association to develop a method of accounting that they themselves can understand and continue using to track their shea activities and savings. At first, I was somewhat frustrated with the fact that providing them with an example for their notebook would not be providing them with the methodology. I had thought “Here is a perfect layout for basic accounting!” and had wanted to just give them the paper without an explanation. At that point I was afraid that the process of teaching them would be seen as a vote of “no confidence” in their abilities. But then I recognized how simply delivering a piece of paper could have been the worst way to convey an idea. Giving a piece of paper is not sharing knowledge. I came here to transfer skills, which means more than that—it means teaching with patience to someone who honestly desires to learn. Although I myself have never done such accounting in my life, my high school and university education provides me with the tools to share these concepts with the secretary and treasurer, who absolutely LOVED learning! They could not get enough.

Mo Rocca in Mali
In addition to being in village, I biked a few times (okay, many times) to my banking town in order to plan and prepare for some shows on the radio. Ah! With the help of the radio technicians and DJs (who have amazing amazing radio skills and voices), we did a half an hour live show and recorded two others to be played in my absence. There will be plenty to say about radio during the upcoming months, because I hope to hold the same slot every week. Many PCVs have come to value radio as an ideal medium for sharing their American culture with lots of people. I won’t go into detail now, but want to mention that doing radio well is much more difficult than I anticipated. Coming from a theatrical background, I usually exaggerate facial expressions and body motions for the performance. Radio is completely different and demands more attention to pronunciation and breathing techniques, analysis of audience needs and their reactions. In order to best employ mass media, much research and follow-up is necessary. It has been fun exploring appropriate themes to write shows on, practicing and recording the shows, and then talking with people in the area who might have heard the show.

Although my language skills reflect my continual effort for the past year, I am much more aware that I still speak with an “American” accent. Think about any of your friends whose first language isn’t English, but who have been speaking English for years. Many of them will still have an accent, regardless of how remarkable their grammar or vocabulary knowledge is. My American accented Bambara is now much easier for many Malians to understand (my homologue re-translates my Bambara less and less), but I am continually looking for local phrases to improve my speech. For example, phrases like “gonna, cuz” or “like” honestly advance how natural the language flows—usually we won’t even think about these phrases and even write them off as too informal.

Malians commented after the show that some did not even know I was a “toubab” on the radio until after the introductory show was finished and they repeated who I was (might have been a slight exaggeration). It’s a fantastic compliment to my language tutors and my host families and the patience they have shown me over the last year. I’ve given myself the studio name Mo, which is a nickname for my Malian name and what they call who I am named after. It reminds me of two of my radio idols, Mo Rocca and Todd Moe, not that I’ll ever get to their level—it’s still hard for me to wear the earphones and listen to myself speak!

The first show was an introduction to myself and Peace Corps. They asked me to play some American music, but the only two tapes I had brought with me were Eric Clapton and Ace of Base. It was fantastic. The show aired on July 3rd, so I explained the American holiday of July 4th- what we do (fireworks, parades, travel to historical locations, where flag colors), what we eat (mmm… ice cream and barbeque), and why (because America has been around for over 200 years!). I truly enjoyed remembering my middle school history classes and any number of Independence Day celebrations. This year I celebrated in my village. Sitting in the middle of town, I played even more American music gave out an Ameriki bonbon or an American treat if anyone asked me a question about America. The opportunity for cross-cultural exchange expanded when others asked about their own Independence Day and history and our conversation continued on that. We each sang our national anthem a few times and ended the night with popcorn (wish it could have been apple pie).

P.S. The braiding didn't hurt as much as they said it would... the problem was after two weeks, my head began to itch. Next time- new style.