It's not just the Work

It’s been a while since I have written an update. Things have been busy here in Koutiala.

Also it’s been 103 plus degrees every day for a while. The good part is that I have been waiting nine months for mango pancakes and finally along with hot season comes mango season. We eat mangos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I haven’t experienced anything like this since I was a kid in Hawaii.

As for my work I am still very busy. When I first came here there was no way I could see how I could help the people I was meeting. I didn’t know the language, the customs, the office politics, when the holidays were and I didn’t need to go to work. I barely knew how to buy and cook the food that was available.

Today months later the work is overwhelming. The bogolan artisans need to do some work to get export ready. The UAAK has asked for help with a literacy formation, the women at the NGO that does Gender and development would like to do a joint project and if that won’t keep me busy there is an NGO here that does AIDS/HIV work that has been wanting a volunteer for some time. (And all volunteers are supposed to be working on this issue.)

My schedule goes like this Monday’s I meet with Omar to speak English, Tuesday morning Omar and I do Jr. Achievement at a fifth grade class, Tuesday afternoon I go to the NGO for the women’s group, Wednesday I spend the morning at the Bogolan workplace, Thursday is market day here in Koutiala and language class, Friday morning is language class. In my spare time I visit the Union of Associations of Artisans of Koutiala and planned a formation on Shea Butter, wrote articles on Gender and Development for the Mali Rag (the volunteer newsletter), attended Gender and Development Committee meetings since I was elected as the Training/Research coordinator for the committee.

It isn’t just work, the people have found their way into my heart. When the women at the Shea Butter formation broke out into song I was almost in tears.

In my travels around the world I have searched for the words to express the joy found even in the poorest countries. Reading Thoreau’s Walden I found them;

However mean your life is meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as your are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring.

This sums up what I see in the poorest people of the world. Through what lenses is poverty defined and how do you know when something is acceptable and when it is intolerable.

International Women's Day

International Women's day is a big deal in Mali. Last when I arrived in Mali I remember seeing IWD fabric and promised myself that I was going to get an outfit for IWD 2009. So here is Koro my homologue and me in our matching outfits. In the morning Koro and I walked all around town buying food for the mid day meal. All the Malians kept commenting on us. The women where I buy my lettece all came up and spoke to us when we were ther to get some food. Koro and Awa cooked a feast for the mid day meal. We had chicken, salad, french fries and Mali Koolaid. After the mid day meal I went home for a short nap. It's been getting up to 98-100 degrees in the afternoon. We all went to the festival at the Women's Association of Koutiala. Most of the women were dressed in the IWD fabric, we listened to speakers including the Mayor of Koutiala. There were some Balafon instruments and we all danced until dark.
Music and dancing is an important part of any celebration here in Mali. Women dancing is a commen place event.
Even the girls get into the act


A good time was had by all.

Gender and Development (GAD)

It all started with a session during Post Service Training (PST) on GAD. The training left mes thinking. I started researching on the internet on what GAD means and what kind of activities people who work in development do to promote gender and development.

During In Service Training two GAD committee meetings were scheduled. Out of that came ideas and a plan to meet at least quarterly. This can be hard since many volunteers need a day or two to travel anywhere here in Mali and places to stay when they get to Bamako or where ever the meeting is going to take place.

Koro, my homologue attended one of these meetings and asked a volunteer who's Bamabara was good to explain what GAD was. When I got back to Koutiala Koro set me up with an NGO that does GAD work. So every Tuesday afternoon I go and attend a group that teaches women and leadership as well as dealing with some hard issues such as female excision and birth control.

When the announcement of a West African Gender and Development conference sponsored by Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal I emailed the Country Director right away to get on the list of participants. Here is a link to SeneGAD's website http://senegad.org/index.html. The conference had a lot of good information and stimulated a lot of ideas.

Peace Corps Mali has a long way to go to establishing a GAD committee but hopefully we have several dedicated volunteers that will see this project through.

One study I read is quoted as saying;

"The poverty reduction agenda, in particular, would benefit from paying attention to gender issues. One study (Klasen 1999, cited in World Bank 2001) estimates that if the countries in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa had addressed their gender gap in schooling similarly to East Asia—which began tackling the issue in 1960 and closed the gap by 1992—their income per capita could have grown by 0.5–0.9 percentage points"

Since Mali is in Sub-Saharan Africa this would apply to all of us doing Gender and Development work here. And it's true the educated people speak French and so far I have met very few women artisans who speak French, many can't read or write.

This work seems overwhelming so I try to look at the little things that seem to be making a difference and hope that I can contribute.

In Service Training Bamako

After three weeks in Bamako for an in service training. Back in Koutiala a cloud of dust has settled over the city and it hasn't rained in four months. The temperatures have ranged from 41 to 94 degrees.

The trip to IST started from Koutiala at 8:00 am in the morning. About mid morning the bus broke down and low and behold they did a break job in an hour and a half and we were on our way. This bus ride was a big improvement to our 20 hour bus ride going to Mopti. The bus from Koutiala to Mopti should takes six hours, we spent the night on the side of the road because the bus was broken down. Got to love West African transportation.

This is how my IST started. I met my stage (training group) at Tubaniso in January for more training. I call Tubaniso “Camp Peace Corps” because we stay in dorms three to a room, eat in a cafeteria, and our time is not our own.

The first two weeks we were there without our homologues. Small Enterprise Development has sessions on accounting Malian style, illiterate accounting, along with sessions on our sub-sectors of Tourism, Artisans, and Government. I work with artisans. There many field trips planned and I went to the National Tourist Artisan organization in Bamako and a radio station.

Several days I escaped to Bamako. Since I brought my bicycle this turned out to be real easy as well as a good way to get to the capital city. The first day I went in the same circle three times. Giving directions here is hard with virtually no street signs, people not wanting to disappoint you so they tell you how to get somewhere when they don’t necessarily know themselves. Finally realizing the med unit was close to the Niger River I headed that way until things looked familiar.

Many volunteers met during IST to start forming a Gender and Development committee and/or sector here in Mali. In February 2009 Peace Corps Senegal is hosting a Gender and Development conference that Peace Corps Mali has given me permission to attend. I am looking forward to this opportunity.

Koro, my homologue received a certificate for attending and I gave a speech at the closing ceremony. Now it is so good to be back in Koutiala, Home Sweet Home.

I have processed arrival

It only took six months. Mali now feels like home. Sickness doesn’t plaque me everyday. My homologue (Malian counterpart) is one of my best friends. Drinking tea with the Bogolan women is one of my favorite things, I like mine with a touch of mint. Malians are more interesting than hanging out with than PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers). A seasoned volunteer told me I was in the honeymoon phase when I told her I love living in Mali.

For Christmas I went on a three day hike with other volunteers up in Dogon Country. It was amazing. Being out up and down the cliffs, walking through villages, dancing with Malians at night and hanging out with other volunteers made my Christmas Holidays. It didn’t matter that the bus ride getting there took 20 hours when it should have taken six.

When I got home to Koutiala it felt like I had come home to my own bed happy to cook for myself again. The first thing I did was go around town and great the people I see everyday. I even went to the UAAK (my work place) and there were some of the people I see every day there hanging out, we were glad to see each other.

Currently I am at Tubaniso again for three week training on technical SED (Small Enterprise Development) and language. A week into it and I am home sick for Koutiala. I miss sitting around with the Bogolan women and drinking tea all morning, I miss going to the market and seeing “my friends” that I buy food from, I miss the boutiquie guy who helps with my Bambara and I miss Mali. Here at Tubaniso except for the few Malian trainers its all American, even the food is not all rice and sauce.

Training has taught me that I am right on track with my work. We had a whole day section on exporting. Many of us working with Artisans who want to export may only work at getting the artisans export ready, which matches some of the objectives I have been working on in Koutiala. Also many volunteers get restless because work here is slower that in America and people are intergraded in their work and social life. Talking with a second year volunteer she said that for the first year our work is 80% social and 20% work and at the first year mark that could change to as much at 60% social and 40% work depending on if the volunteer is in a village or city and what sector their in.

My day starts out with a bike ride followed by potato and eggs for breakfast. I take a fast shower before heading off to work. At work I hang out with the Bogolan women. Occasionally one of the three official employees asks for help with a computer problem or I ask them for information. My work is a lot of brainstorming with myself. Currently I am writing letters to a couple of small shops on Vashon it see if they will sell some of the bogolan the women I work with make. Junior Achievement is big here in Mali and would be a great secondary project for me. I visit a fifth grade class that to do an exchange with a fifth grade class in Bremerton Washington that Wise Schools has set me up with. Everyday I go to the market to get food since I don’t have a refrigerator. I take an after noon nap do the wash every three days. Now that dry season is here the dust is beyond your imagination. Doing domestic choirs here in Mali just takes a long time.

When I had my purse design made by the leather guy in the market I couldn’t find him the day he said it would be ready. I couldn’t figure out if he was not there or if I just couldn’t find him. I looked three days in a row. Monday morning he showed up at the UAAK with the finished purse. He knew where I worked and I never told him. Now Koutiala is a town of 110.00 and still it feels like living in a fish bowl as a “tobob”

Things that have been hard are both here and at home. My daughter broke her foot, her first broken bone and I wasn’t there to help her during this time. My dog Schooner just died, he had bone cancer. In the beginning I cried when I would just read the emails from home, this has gotten better. Adjusting to being here and feeling like a part of the community or that I even wanted to be part of the community took some soul searching. Being sick a lot didn’t help any of this. I had a lot of stomach stuff with fever, a cold with fever, and even a rash on my face with a fever. At a low point I had been sick for a week with no appetite going to the bathroom all the time the realization that I was loosing weight fast I started to force myself to eat. Fortunately my appetite is back and I have not lost any more than 23 pounds. The children chanting “tobob boo” as I walk down the street some days it’s OK some days it’s just too much.

Both me and my Malian friends and co-workers are learning to think outside the box. We are sharing our vision of the world through our eyes with each other. These are the golden moments. Cherished are the times my homologue and I are running between our houses to great and talk to each other, when the women (me included) are sharing tea, language class with Sadio one of my best friends in Koutiala or just wondering through the market saying to myself “Damn this is Afica.”.

Working In Koutiala

Many people have asked about the work I do. For the first three months the main objective to integration into the community and evaluate community needs.

Earlier I wrote about my experience on the last day of Ramadon where the events of the day clearly indicated that I was on the outside of my community. If Tabaski is any indication I have come a long way.

The morning of Tabaski I spoke with my host dad in my concession and asked if I could eat with them knowing that there would be a big feast after killing the two sheep that had been fattening up for weeks. Bocar my host dad told me to sit down served me eggs and tea. We talked for quite a while. He told me how he use to play in a band and perform in concerts all over Mali Mopti, Sagou and Sikasso. The last week I had been practicing Christmas Carols on my recorder and Bocar said he heard me. Bocar’s eyes lit up as he told me about his concert days and said that when he married Fatim he settled down and became a school teacher.

Fatim, my host mom, came out onto the front porch and told me to get washed and dressed. Lukily I decided to wear my Malian Complet because Fatim whisked me off to Mosque to pray on the highest Muslin holiday of the year. After the Mosque Fatim, her sister and I went around the neighbor hood and greeted many members of her family. I had no idea that her family was just blocks away from where I lived.

Just as we were entering our court yard the men were slaughtering the sheep that they had been fattening up for weeks. Fatim sat down and supervised the butchering. I took some pictures and she invited me to sit down, I said it would make me sick and went over to sit with the women cooking. As the afternoon went on I helped cook ate fresh organic sheep meat.

My homologue, Koro, came by around 4 pm and asked why I didn’t come over to ear with her. I had totally miss understood the conversation about the feast and her sheep. She said she was going to town now. I worried all evening that I had ruined my relationship with her. The next morning I went over to great her. Since I found out she lives just a couple of blocks from me I have been going over there a lot and she in return has been coming over here too. We had coffee and made plans to go great people from work. Koro told me I should wear my Malian Complet.

Koro and Awa showed up around 3:30 pm, punctual for Malian standards. We started out by going to the Broche’s house the RAC employee. I met his wife and daughter and I think a sister that lives with him. Then we went to the UAAK President’s house then the Le Chamber President’s house. After this Awa went home and Koro and I went to the Dugitigi of Medina Cora’s house. A Dugitigi is a leader who’s family has been chief of the village or area for generations and he works closely with the Mayor and other leaders in the community. Koro knows everyone. After this we spent many days going around town greeting people. Then Koro left for Corte Ivory for her brothers wedding.

A lot of time has been spent sitting around drinking tea with important people in my service. It is just what Malians do.

Other work has included showing Koro different bogolan websites which introduced new designs that we are going to present to the other bogolan artist. I also designed a purse that I had the leather guy in the market make.

Now my time will be spent finding other ways to help the whole of the artisans here in Koutiala. Many of them are very active.

A tour of Koutiala

My sister asked me several questions about where I live so I thought I would give you a tour of my way from work. This is the main road just off the road I live on. I bicycle to work every morning Monday thru Friday. The last couple of days it has been cold that for us here is 75 degrees and getting colder. On this day I took the long way to work.






This is the Bus Station where my host family owns a restaurant and I spent a lot of time at during my site visit in August.











This is the main highway through town. Koutiala is known as a trucking town and a main route from Ghana a sea port town and all locations in Mali. You can see my shadow at the bottom of the photo.









These are transports that Malians use instead of pickup trucks. One is a hand cart and the other is a donkey cart.


This is the place I bought my bed, which I had a hand cart transport it home for less then a dollar.










Here is a good example of what us volunteers call street food. In the morning they sell little millet floured pancakes or puffy rounds like unsweetened doughnuts. Later in the day they sell potato fries, regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. And fried puffy balls with a dash of flavored onion in them.
















Thursday is Market day here in Koutiala. This is what volunteers call a "Dead TooBob Store" it has used western style clothing. I bought two long sleeve shirts here because its getting cold.








I buy a lot of vegetables from this women. She's not pushy and has good prices.






Well that's it for now. If you have any questions about where I live let me know.