Kounandy

Kounandy my name sake was born September 2, 2009. Koro didn’t even know that Awa was pregnant I suspected but during training was told that Malian women don’t talk about pregnancies so I never said anything besides Awa never did get big so I shrugged my suspicious off. When Kounandy was born she was the smallest baby I have ever held. I worried that she wouldn’t make it.

I hold her everyday at work while her mother does bogolan. They fitini Kounandy and beleble Kounandy that’s little Kounandy and big Kounandy in Bambara. Kounandy has pissed on me, thrown up on me, and shit on me as well as laughed with me, slept in my arms, and blown bubbles at me.

The name Kounandy was given to me during training by my mom who named me Kounandy after her grandmother. Kounandy means lucky person in Bamabara. I feel it is a privilege to be named this and a privilege that Awa named her baby girl after me. The name is not as common as Fatamata, or Salamata; Kounandy its perfect for me

The worry I have for Kounandy’s well being comes from the fact that Mali’s infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. Mali is in sub-Saharan Africa one of the regions making “insufficient progress” towards improving an infants life.

The following are some rankings on infant mortality. These figures show that the situation is getting worst in Mali not better even with all the NGO’s and Peace Corps work. What is the answer I don’t know. I don’t even know what the answer is for this one infant my name sake.

2006 figures

USA ranked 33 under five 7.8

Iceland ranked number 1 under five 3.9

Mali 191 Under five mortality rate 199.7

Haiti 136

CIA’s 2009 estimates

Singapore 1 2.31 out of a thousand babies die within the first year

USA 46 6.26 out of a thousand babies die within the first year

Mali 217 102.05

Here in Koutiala, Mali the public hospital just received funds from a Belgium NGO to improve children’s nutrition in the region. This came out of stats that showed Koutiala as a high risk area for children’s nutrition.

UNICEF says that child survival programs are inexpensive, basic interventions that save the lives of children under five from the leading causes of child death and promote healthy and productive families and communities.

Today, almost 25,205 children under age five will die mostly from preventable or treatable causes. This is a loss of over nine million children each year. A majority of these child deaths are from everyday conditions. Pneumonia, treatable with 27 cents’ worth of antibiotics, accounts for almost one of every five deaths among children under age five each year. Diarrhea, treatable with 6 cents’ worth of oral rehydration salts, causes 17 percent of young children’s deaths. And more than one third of child deaths result from complications related to birth, a cluster of causes that includes tetanus, which is preventable with a $1.20 tetanus vaccine for the mother during pregnancy.

Kounandy is only one face of all the infants at risk, she is the one that has touched my heart.

Mali Notes

You know those days the mind is wondering and your on automatic pilot going in the direction of the usual routine when you meant to go somewhere else. I had a morning like that. Saturday I left my house for my morning bike ride a little later than usual and started taking the turns for work. This just confirmed what I had been thinking. Everything has gotten routine.

Sitting at my favorite street food vendor at the market I noticed for the first time in a while that there was the usual dirty water and trash in the walkway and it didn’t take my appetite away any more.

It seems that I can still make the children cry. The other day sitting at work a young girl who was babysitting a baby for someone in the tailor school got sight of me grabbed the baby and ran into the tailor class. Awa the Bogolan apprentice saw the whole thing and started laughing. As I laughed I drew up my hands in a boogie man pose wrinkled my face and said mean toubab (technically a white French person its used for all white people today).

Koro is my best friend.

Road protocol still puzzles me when my daughter was here she told me I scared her every time I crossed the street. I have learned to think of the road in small sections to be navigated as opportunity presents its self and not wait for the whole way across to be cleared. This has been a especially useful in Bamako, the capital city. When making a turn either on a bicycle, moto or in a car you can actually give a hand signal and anything on the road will respect that and let you take small spaces of the road over to your destination. Another maneuver for turns is that you go across the road when the opportunity presents its self and ride on the shoulder on the wrong side of the road until your turn comes up. This scares me when I do it and when someone else does it.

Maybe it’s just that food is plentiful now but my cuisine repute has gotten better. The list includes French toast, Thai peanut sauce, Russian beet salad, and a variety of salad dressings. Today I even su su’ed something to cook. That’s a process using a big mortar and pastel thing made of wood and smashing vegetables to use in sauces.

My Malian name is Kounandy Diallo. Kounandy means privlidged one or lucky one. It was given to me by my home stay mother during training. I kept that name and changed my last name to Koro’s which is Diallo. Diallo is a Falani name, Falani’s herd cattle and many are still nomads in the northern regions of Mali but there are Falanis all over West Africa. Awa at work had a baby in October and named her daughter after me. She is so cute. At work I hold her so Awa can work when I am not busy.

With routine came homesickness. I miss my friends and family. Fortunately I can skype (internet phone service) and people back home can even call me. On New Years day I talked to my bicycling group in Marysville Washington. The internet has made the world a very small place.

BILAN D’ACTIVITES DE LA VOLONTAIRE DU CORPS

Introduction :
Dans le cadre du renforcement de sa collaboration avec l’Artisanat du Mali, le Bureau National du Corps de la Paix du Mali met à la disposition de l’Union des associations d’Artisans et de la Chambre Consulaire de Métiers de Koutiala, un ou une Volontaire du Corps de la Paix. Ce dernier appuie et accompagne les OPA précitées en leurs apportant son expertise et son savoir faire. Pour la facilitation de l’exercice de ce travail, les OPA (UAAK et CCMK) fournissent deux homologues représentatifs de chaque Structure. Ceux-ci sont chargés de guider, d’introduire et de traduire au volontaire les idées de la conversion avec les artisans.

Ainsi un plan de travail couramment appelé Plan d’Action est établi et exécuté chaque année conjointement avec les présidents de l’UAAK/CCMK et d’Associations.

Ce présent rapport sans pourtant être exhaustif tente de ressortir les grands axes des activités réalisées au titre de l’année 2009.

I. Activités organisationnelles

1. Auto organisation :
La volontaire a assisté à plusieurs réunions mensuelles de bureaux et AG des Associations.
Les ateliers d’artisans visités ont bénéficié de son conseil en matière d’organisation de travail au sein de l’atelier.

2. Au niveau de l’UAAK/CCMK :
Définition d’un programme de travail avec les deux organismes (répartition des jours de travail entre homologues). Participation aux jours de séances de travail et aux réunions de l’UAAK/CCMK.

II. Activités d’appui aux associations et entreprises

2.1. Activités promotionnelles et commerciales :
Diagnostic des besoins de formation des Associations et Ateliers :
Chaque visite d’ateliers ou d’associations donne occasion à la volontaire de faire l’état des lieux de la situation trouvée sur place. Les difficultés élevant du cadre général c'est-à-dire communes aux ateliers sont traitées et traduites en besoins de formations ou de conseil. Certaines difficultés se résolvent en réunions d’échanges d’idées et d’informations entre personnes concertées et d’autres par formation.

Dans le cadre promotionnel :
La promotion du Bogolan :
Dans ce domaine contact a été pris avec un salon revendeur de bogolan de Ghana lors d’une mission de visite de Ghana de la Volontaire et Korotimi Diallo. De futures relations de partenariat sont en cours.

Une exposition de gammes de bogolan suivi d’explications sur ce que c’est que le bogolan a été faite par la volontaire en juin dernier en USA dans la Ville de Vashon.

De nouveaux modèles de sacs à main ont été confectionnés par la volontaire, un artisan tailleur a été formé sur la confection de ces sacs.

Une cliente fidèle de l’Association Bogolan de Koutiala du nom de Haoua Check a été rendue visite par la Volontaire lors de son passage à Oregon aux USA.

2.2. Activités de formation :
Les actions de formation de la période allant de janvier à ce jour portent entre autres sur :
- L’Extraction du beurre de karité : trente six (36) femmes issues des Associations d’artisans et des femmes rurales de onze (11) villages ont pris part à la dite formation. L’action de formation a porté sur la méthodologie d’extraction de beurre de karité de qualité et sans odeur susceptible d’être exporté hors du Mali.
- L’Alphabétisation : trente neuf (39) artisans de treize (13) Associations membres de l’UAAK et CCMK ont été formés aux méthodes d’écriture, de lecture et de calcul niveau i de la langue Bamanakan. La presque totalité de ses artisans ne savaient ni lire ni écrire dans aucune langue.
- Journée de travail avec la présidente de l’Association des Teinturières : la visite rendue à la présidente a permis à la volontaire et à son homologue de l’assister dans une séance d’imprégnation de support tissu (Bazin). Le travail de production de Bazin teint a été assisté durant toute la journée.
- Le renforcement de capacité des membres du bogolan : les membres de l’association bogolan de Koutiala a sur facilitation de la volontaire à participer à un atelier d’apprentissage de nouvels Design à Ségou pour cinq (5) jours. Hormis les matières d’œuvre et les frais d’hébergement et de transport la formation a été dispensée gratuitement.
- Développement de produits : un artisan tailleur partenaire de bogolan a été initié aux techniques de confection d’un nouveau type de produits (sacs à main).

2.3. Infrastructures et Equipements :
Le projet de Galerie des artisans de Koutiala a été revu et discuté avec les présidents de l’UAAK et CCMK. Un partenariat de collaboration a été établi entre ces Organes et l’Université d’Oregon aux USA. Des projets de plan de Galerie ont été faits à l’UAAK/CCMK
L’Atelier de l’Association bogolan a bénéficié de la part de la volontaire de petits matériels de travail.

III. autres Activités desfemmes :
La volontaire a participé à la célébration des festivités des journées de huit (8) mars et 31 juillet, journées de femmes travailleuses et Panafricaines.

IV. Difficultés rencontrées :
La principale difficulté rencontrée reste celle de la langue car la plupart des artisans et artisanes ne comprennent pas le français ni l’anglais, la volontaire également ne maîtrise pas la langue locale le Bamana kan.
L’autre difficulté demeure celle de l’offre de prestataires sur place. La plupart des prestataires résident hors de Koutiala ce qui contribue à élever souvent le coût de des formations.
V. Perspectives :
Elles portent sur :
- La finition et la recherche de partenaires au financement du projet de Galerie des Artisans et du Centre multifonctionnelle des femmes d’Alliance Couture.
- La formation en Alphabétisation Bamana Kan pour doter les artisans de compétences afin de pouvoir tenir l’administration correcte de leurs ateliers
- Une session de formation en lobbying à l’endroit des leaders artisans de Koutiala afin de renforcer leurs capacités de négociation avec les partenaires et l’administration publique
- L’organisation d’une Exposition vente de produits des artisans pour la consolidation de leurs marchés et la découverte de nouveaux clients





La Volontaire de Koutiala



Maridee dite Kounandy DIALLO

A LUNCH IS NOT JUST A LUNCH

A LUNCH IS NOT JUST A LUNCH

After 17 months here in Mali I am stepping back and reflecting on what went on and looking at things beyond my work here. When I first arrived I surrendered to what ever came my way. At the time I thought I was doing it to help me to learn the language to and live here but in reflecting surrendering helped take in the deprivation of the culture that I would be living in for 27 months.

The food is the fist thing we Peace Corps volunteers realize has very little variation. Rice and sauce and rice and sauce for lunch and dinner as for breakfast there’s tea or coffee and French bread. The markets where we end up living don’t offer much variety either. If a volunteer is up north it is even worst, they get tô three times a day everyday. The first year I lost over 26 pounds some from being sick and some from just trying to figure how to eat nutritiously here in Mali. The Malians suu suu all their ingredients so even if there are vegetables in the sauce they have been pulverized and cooked into non recognizable form. When rainy season hit here in Koutiala and everyone went back to their village to farm there was hardly a tomato in town let alone some lettuce. Most of the packages I get from home have some kind of food in them. My food cravings started with a ceasar salad and ended with things I never eat at home like ham sandwichs. Going back to America for a month got back my appetite and some of the weight I lost.

Everyday I surrendered to what ever cames my way. If I was offered African tea I drank it, if I was to watch a sheep being slaughtered I watched it, if I was asked to walk miles around town to greet people I walked miles. I wear skirts that I would never wear back home. All that I could do to keep going everyday was to go along with what other people had in store for me, not my usual way of doing things.

All that I knew was different even my role as a volunteer. Peace Corps Mali handed me a card during training with the expectations of a Peace Corps Volunteer here is what it said

1. Commit for 27 months
2. Share/Learn skills
3. Be flexible expect hardships
4. Build trust integrate
5. You are on duty 24/7
6. Respect and cooperate with Malian partners
7. Work within Malian & US laws and rules of Peace Corps
8. Be responsible, protecting your health and safety
9. Bring Mali back to the US.

This seemed like a tall order and still does most days. On those days that it is too over whelming I just hide out in my house. Over whelming comes when the children yell Toubob boo, toubob boo over and over again where ever I go gets to me, when I can’t remember a word in French or Bambara, Its been months since I did something for myself (this being very American), maneuvering in another culture has exhausted my mind and body, I can’t face cooking tomatoes and onions for another meal and during hot season there is always the heat and the list goes on.

A big splurge was buying a broom with a handle on it. Others are when I have some else do my laundry because the thought of doing them by hand stooped over gives me a back ache just thinking about it, going over to Koro's for a meal and I don't have to cook or do the dishes or go shopping for that matter. Malians are so much better a cooking here then I am.

Recently I went to a photo show in Bamako the 8^th Bamako Encounter with the theme of Boarders this year. The deprivation that came through in the photographs brought tears to my eyes. The show reinforced the deprivation that I feel here in Mali everyday. This deprivation covers all parts of live, food, politics, health you name it Mali and Africa as a whole comes up short. I have tried to keep my blog on a positive note to show my love of Mali and it’s people but I do want to give people a glimpse of the hardships, of the deprivation endured by everyone in Mali. Yet I wouldn’t have missed this experience for the world.

The Face of Poverty

Historically the world has been trying to “relief” poverty for many centuries. The three concepts used to define poverty since the 1880’s include subsistence, basic needs and relative deprivation. In a collective where I worked for four years we debated the difference between wants and needs every time we processed our pay. The debate became heated every time. How do you define wants and needs and how would you measure substance, basic needs and relative deprivation which in some form have been and still is at the center of defining and measuring poverty. Do your own experiment when you are out with friends start a discussion on what each person believes are their needs as opposed to their wants.

Today alternative perspectives have refocused the concept of poverty as a human condition that reflects failures in many dimensions of human life – hunger, unemployment, homelessness, illness and health care, powerlessness and victimization, and social injustice; they all add up to an assault on human dignity. Working against any aspect that assaults human dignity is why so many development organizations focus programs on gender and development as it relates to poverty. Measuring only subsistence, basic needs, and relative deprivation without looking at social needs is inadequate particularly when measuring gender inequality. As Peace Corps volunteers I believe one of our biggest impacts is on the social needs of our communities both where we work and back home. Poor people are not just the victims of a misdistribution of resources but, more exactly, they lack, or are denied, the resources to fulfill social demands Looking around in my community of Koutiala I am aware that most of the women in affluent families have more freedom to have a career, choose their husband, and are able to meet more social needs then their less advantaged counterparts. In doing gender and development work our main goal is to relief poverty by giving women the ability to meet social needs for a full and happy life with opportunities. Thus the means of giving women access to meet social needs leads to the end of poverty for the whole community. Working to end poverty needs a multiplicity approach to the solution.

In asking the question what is poverty we need to ask the question, “What is Income?” In my home town of Seattle many people do bartering for a lot of their needs and have little income. There was a time that I helped start a food coop, a women’s health clinic, and day care center to improve the lives of people in my community. As an active member of these organizations I did not pay for healthcare which I could not afford, I got a discount on the food I ate, and even though I didn’t have children at the time a woman in my household was included in my family and got a discount on her child care. My income was way below the poverty level for 1974 America. Yet I had access to health care, was well fed and since I lived in a collective house hold I had very good housing. Thus poverty can not be determined by income alone but by some other means.

Let’s look at International Development and how it addresses the issue of poverty. In the new millennium development theory has gotten so complex and some call sophisticated that the United Nations has developed a program called the Millennium Campaign with eight goals to end poverty to be accomplished by 2015. These goals are measured by 48 indicators. They never mention the views of poor people and what poor people consider poor or talk to them about what they have, what they need or what they want. The agencies defining poverty include the United Nations and the World Bank. My questions to the development businesses are; How will development end poverty; Who sets the standard for what is developed; If the developed world keeps raising the bar how is the rest of the world going to catch up; When are you going to empower the people.

When a good friend of mine died several years ago because she lacked access to health care I wondered what poverty looked like in America. In the US there are people who can hardly read, live on minimal wages and don’t have access to health care. Today in America we are all faced with the question of who has access to health care. Access to health care is one component in measuring and defining poverty the world over. We throw the rhetoric around but what is poverty and what does it look like, is it different in the US than in other parts of the world. Since coming to Africa this question of poverty is on my mind everyday.

Some Peace Corps volunteers made comments during training that started me thinking about what influences us as Americans when we define poverty. One volunteer who lived in a good size house with a single mother of four, all girls, made the comment that the family would be on welfare if they lived in America. Another volunteer said that his family just didn’t have much money. The first volunteer’s family had the best food of all our families, the oldest daughter was in higher education and hoped to get a job in a bank, all the girls were well dressed, the family had a TV, and nice living room. The second volunteer’s host parents were school teachers; one son was in nursing school. They were building a house for retirement. This started me thinking, as Americans by what standards do we see and define poverty.

Another incident that got me thinking about what is poverty came one evening in Abidjan as I was sitting around the court yard with four Africans most of them Malians. We talked until the wee hours of the night. One person was a teacher of physics, one a law student, one a bogolan artist and one was unemployed. We sat around on wooden benches in a courtyard cluttered with kitchen utensils and crowded with people. These people were not at the bottom of the scale of have’s and have not’s in Africa. As we talked the rats ran in the urinal, through the kitchen and where else I don’t know. Thirty people lived in this court yard habitat all of them related in some way. I was visiting here for several days with Koro, the bogolan artist, we are good friends.

I don’t know if any of the people I work with here in Mali would fit the UN’s or World Bank’s definition of poor but when I go to Koro’s house just blocks from where I live and she has no electricity, no running water and her and her husband live in two rooms with minimal furniture I am aware that she has none of the conveniences of the Western World.. I eat over at Koro’s several times a week and am well fed. I even went to the hospital with Koro when she had a bad cut on her foot; she recovered but paid for the visit out of her pocket. Most of the children I know don’t have toys; run around in minimal clothing; and are not getting a very good education. But I ask myself on a daily basis are these people poor.

So far I have not come up with the answer of “What is Poverty.” But where would you draw the poverty line? Would you look at family income, at the nutritional intake, the clothes they’re wearing, what furniture is in the house, do they sleep in beds or on the floor, can they read or write, are they healthy. How would you separate out your western conceptions of the “good life” from what is needed and what is wanted?

The Niger River

Its been a hole year that I have waited to take a boat up the Niger River here. Coming from the Northwest I miss the water, the boats and the reflections the sun rises on the water.

The Niger River brings mythical images of ancient times. Whether things have changed much over the last several centuries. Many of the boats have motors. You can see western dress on some of the people although many are dressed in traditional clothing from their regions.

The connection to Timbuktu just fed the imagination. Many people think Timbuktu is a mythical place that does not exist. When you tell someone you’re going to Mali they get a blank look on their face and ask where is that. I respond by saying it’s the country where Timbuktu is.

The culture and language gets more diverse as you head north. Bambara the dominant language of Mali is hardly spoken up there. In Dogon Country alone there are hundreds of dialects with each village having their own. That's just the gateway to the northern regions of Mali.

The boat we took was a little more upscale then I had envisioned but the landscape and the people were amazing. We left in the dark with a bustle of people, animals and goods being loaded for the voyage. Our accommodations did not include anything but a deck on board the ship. We fortunately took a scenic spot where river life unfolded starting every morning with the first light becoming muffled every night.

Every morning I woke with the first light then witnessed the sun rising over the lush green flood plain of the Niger River. Even thought it hadn’t rained in several weeks the water ways this far north flooded out into seasonal lakes stocked with an abundance of animal and plant life. People took a back stage living with the bare minimum of land.

How the captain navigated through the main channel is beyond me. Most of the water ways are shallow yet we only came grounded once. We were heading to the boundary of the Sahara Desert surrounded by water and green as far as the eye could see. This is not the Mali I live in. How refreshing to see another side of a great country.

Photography Malian Style

Mali has a long history of photography. The pinhole camera is an important part of that history. Lani and I found a man on the street in Mopti that had one. The best we could tell he mostly did passport photos for Malians. He displayed one photo of other tourist posted on his camera.

We sat on the bench poised waiting fascinated by every move he made. First he mixed the developing chemicals in little plastic bottle bottoms and placed them in the camera. The whole process would be done in the camera by feel. The camera took pictures and became a dark room for developing the photos.

He set the lens on the focusing mode looked through the black fabric at the back turning the lens just right. He put the lens cap back on turned the lens setting to the right exposure took the lens cap for just the right amount of time. He got busy with both hands in the camera through the black fabric so we could only conclude that he was developing. What he came out with was a negative print of us. He placed the negative on a holder set the lens to the focus mode followed by setting the lens with an exposure mode and again developed some photos. This time the photo came out a positive.

The pictures here are copies this one of the negative and the other a copy of the copy of the negative. We paid our 1,000 Cfa (about two dollars) for each print. We got two prints one for each one of us and he through in the negative for free. As a photographer that was the real treat.

Another photo phenomena is the photo studio, the portraits at weddings, holidays, and baptisms. Koro took me to met Photo John during our meet the artisans of Koutiala marathon. Photo John has a big studio at a major intersection in town. He has an automated printing machine, a computer that he showed me some incredible touching up jobs on old photos. Photo John invited me and Koro next to his portrait studio. He tried several back drops before settling on the one he thought would be the best. Several days later Koro showed up with some prints for both of us. Months later as we waited for the bus to Ghana a man started talking to us he spoke somewhat good english and said he was from Ghana and going to Ghana. He recognized us from our photos on the wall at Photo Johns where he worked. Again this is a copy of a print didn't turn out too well did it.

As a photographer I did not give the art of photography here in Mali the scholarly attention it deserved. In neither an art history context nor as an anthropology cultural phenomenon. Photography here in Mali has been shaped and reshaped in order to fit into the local fabric of imaging and imagining. People are at the center of Malian life so it makes sense that the art of photography centers around people and major events in their lives. I caught myself between the art form, the technology and the culture. We have a saying in Peace Corp "Cross Cultural." Cross cultural studies is a major part of our training. How to apply that in everything we come across depends on our outlook and understanding. And as my outlook and understanding expands so does my ideas of things I run across in my everyday life here in Mali.