trash day YAY

Nothing like picking up trash to bridge cultural differences. I think it’s gross, you think it’s gross, but we’re both all about getting our hands dirty to clean it up.

Today was Sikoroni’s first ever Journée de Salubrité, organized by MHOP, a youth group, and several local GIEs – unions of trash collectors, sort of. The plan was to get everyone together in the morning and get rid of as much garbage as possible in a central location. We wanted to raise awareness and enthusiasm about picking up trash – all as part of Cari’s project to put a functional waste management system into this town.

Frankly, I thought it would flop. I expected only a few people to show up, and didn’t foresee much enthusiasm. I was pleasantly surprised! In all there were about 20 of us, going from house to house and taking their trash to a central dumpster via wheelbarrow and trash-moto (think motorcycle with a pickup truck bed in the back). We also used shovels and rakes to clear up a couple random trash piles in the area. By 1pm, the dumpster was almost full and people were still coming with buckets-o-trash.

What pleased me most about this event was the mish-mash of people coming together for the same cause. There were a bunch of GIE guys. Most of them were pretty badass, especially this one who would move piles of lord knows what kind of waste – with his bare hands. Some teenage boys and girls came with CAMS, the youth group. A bunch of MHOP’s health committee members showed up… as did two microfinance committee women Nasuru and Maimouna.

These two were great – they came decked out in nice outfits, jewelry, and handbags. Don’t ask me why. (I suppose the microfinance committee ladies are a little more educated than most in the town, and like to keep up a good appearance?) I took one look and mentally gave them 10 minutes before they’d head home. There was one initial episode of slime spilling on Maimouna’s dress. She was not happy about this, and tried to rinse it out with water. Soon, though, they got really into it and proved me wrong. They kicked ass, handling shovels and lifting wheelbarrows like the GIE workers. I have wonderful photos of this, and will post ASAP.

Other people who helped out: Niang, of course (MHOP’s director). Me, the token tubabu. Finally, and to my surprise, a lot of unaffiliated neighbors lent a hand! One guy took my shovel and got right into it. Women and kids practically flocked to the dumpster with buckets of garbage on their heads. The event became a real community effort, and I couldn’t shake Obama’s catch-phrase “Yes we can!” from my mind. Cheesy, but true.

It all put me in a really good mood, and I felt very integrated with the community. We were all trying to do the same thing – there was an unspoken understanding between everyone. Afterwards, we exchanged lots of “A ni baara” ‘s and “A diara!” ‘s. The first means “to you and your work.” The second means “that was super fuckin great, yo!”

the sikoroni zaban

Yo, wow, it’s down to my final week in Bamako. I’m the only one left! Four of the five US summer volunteers have returned to our beautiful homeland. Cari was the last to depart, last Wednesday night. Not gonna lie: at first I felt pretty lonely here. The first few days were rough. But now I’m finally getting into the swing of things, totally owning this city. I spend a lot more time with the fam. I go to the market when I want to, only stopping in the butiki’s where I need to stop. I speak ONLY in French and Bambara – and the thing is, I barely even notice that I’m not speaking English! Clearly the past 2.5 months have made me more comfortable with new languages. In fact, one of the homestay moms just complimented me on the Bambara. I don’t think I can do an exact translation, but she said something like “Your Bambara is finally landing.” Or “starting to land”. Or something. (This is in direct contrast to the cyber café matron, who regularly tells me that I don’t speak French well enough. Don’t even get me started.)

I’d like to revise my previous assertion that Sikoroni is akin to a kumquat. Yes, kumquats are small. They’re nice. But they’re just too exotic and classy for this place. Instead, I venture to say that Sikoroni is like a zaban. What, pray tell, is a zaban? It’s a fruit that, as far as I know, only exists in Bamako. It looks really grody from the outside, but when you crack it open there are tons of delicious sweet/sour (think Warhead) seeds to eat. Similarly, the Siks is indeed grody to look at. Mud, dust, trash, dirty stagnant water, etc. I saw a kid peeing in the middle of the market’s main drag this morning, for example. My house has one bathroom for 30 people, and its courtyard has a dirt floor. Every time I try to enjoy a mango, zillions of flies come and swarm my personal bubble.

Deep down, though, Sikoroni definitely has charm. Once you get past the unappetizing shell. First of all, it has great views of the city. Climbing to the top of the main hill, you can look out on everything and see the Niger river. Secondly, the people couldn’t be more friendly. (That is, excluding the “tubabu”-yelling children. We don’t talk about them.) I’ve befriended a woman who lives in the neighborhood, Sita, who showed me how to make “to” one day. (“To” is a slimy, disgusting Malian food made out of mushed up grains.) She just called me over and said “Hey, you, we’re going to make to tomorrow morning. See you at 9am.” I couldn’t really say no. Since then, I’ve stopped and chatted with her several times. She speaks French, but mostly insists on communicating in Bambara. She’s only 32 but has 4 kids. Anyway, point is that people here are always friendly, always in a good mood, always ready to sit around and chitty-chat. A third thing: culture. Part of me dreads heading back home to strip malls, MTV and consumerism. I’m finding it hard to describe how it’s so different here – maybe it’s that funerals last a week+, involving less caskets and flowers but more gathering, mourning, and laughing together. Maybe it’s that everyone knows which family group their last name derives from, AND the clan’s history. (They use this information to crack jokes at members of other, “rival”, families.) Maybe I’m just exoticizing what I see here, calling it more culturally rich than America because it’s so different. Whatever. But it counts as a tasty seed of the Sikoroni zaban.

a week in the countryside

Hi hi, everyone!

Apologies for the utter lack of communication coming from my end. Cari and I spent the last week exploring outside of Bamako. Since I was living out of my backpack, I thought it best to leave the computer behind. (I did, however, bring my USB key with me. Aaand just realized that it is still in a lovely internet café…in Ségou. Oops.)

Otherwise, our trip was GREAT. We travelled east, stopping one night each in Ségou, Djenné, and Bandiagara. From there, we hiked three days in Dogon Country, a super-isolated and super-beautiful region of the country. Yesterday we bit the bullet and took a 10-hour bus ride all the way back to Sikoroni. Our reward: cheeseburger and banana split at Broadway Café, the one authentic American restaurant here.

I am so happy to have seen Mali’s “bush”, if only because I realized how little there is to see. The bus would go hours and hours passing nothing but fields, grass, dirt, and trees. When it encountered villages it would stop, and people selling snicky-snacks would pile on advertising their wares – “shi be! gateaux be! ji be! shefan be!” a.k.a. shea fruit, sweet bread, water, hardboiled eggs. Not exactly a Mickey D’s off of I-95, but it definitely had a similar feel.

In Ségou we took a boat ride, in Djenné we saw the world’s largest mud structure (a big fat mosque), but the Dogon hike was definitely the highlight of our adventure. We hired a guide, Hamidou, who walked us from village to village along a magnificent cliff side. In some of them we met the dugutigi, giving him a couple kola nuts as a sign of respect. At night we stayed in campements, little tourist lodgements in each town. Very rustic and mostly all outdoors, including sleeping arrangements – which consisted of a foam mattress under a mosquito net. (Catch that, Mom?) Everything was so different from Bamako. Fewer people, fewer – like, zero – stores, less electricity…although at one campement there was a shower-from-above arrangement, instead of the standard bucket bath!

This paragraph clearly does not suffice to describe the trip. I’m having a hard time deciding what to write about. Hopefully these photos will help.

So yeah, now it’s back to BKO for 2 weeks. Crunch time for the microfinance project! I have to finish drafting an info sheet about other microfinance orgs in the city, finalize the borrower profiles, and print out 50 literacy/math workbooks. I was supposed to put together education materials for an entrepreneurship course, but it definitely won’t get done before I leave. Either way, I plan to start on it. There are tons of other little things to finish, and I’m a little intimidated looking at it all. Kind of looking forward to a busy couple weeks, though. Can’t believe I’ll be home so soon!!

Mali-love to you all,

Djeneba

more photos yayy!

Foot henna! From the wedding a couple weeks ago. Most Malians, when they have this done, put some sort of rat poison on top of the normal henna to make it turn black. Preferring not to rub that shit into our skin, we did without.




This is me trying to show you what my living quarters look like. The first room is where Cari and I sleep (note my mosquito net, Mom). The second room is where we keep all our stuff, so we can lock it at night. Just in case. Each is about the size of a Keeney double, if that means anything to anyone.


I like to think that this captures some of the aforementioned Macarena dance party. Front and center is Kadya, one of the family's more francophone children.

Mamuso, Macarena, and microfinance

This is my family’s resident grandma, or Mamuso as we like to call her in Bambara. I like her so much, even though I can never understand what she says thanks to the language barrier – and her dentures.

Cari and I taught the Macarena to our homestay sibs the other day. Best idea EVER, because it’s given us endless amusement since. The kids want to practice all the time, and I see the younger ones doing it by themselves when they think no one is watching. What’s more, kids who I don’t even KNOW approach us from next door like little zombies with their arms out in front of them, wanting to know which move comes next. Apparently word travels fast.

As my summer adventure hits its halfway mark, my to-do list is growing. Yipes! I’m realizing how little time I have left, and how much I want to get done. For example…

Tomorrow morning I’m going to coordinate two random volunteers to help paint our logo on the side of the “multifunctional center” in which many MHOP-related activities take place. Should be a party. In the afternoon I have a Skype-date with the founder of a nonprofit called Global Grassroots. It teaches courses about social entrepreneurship, and we want to potentially form a partnership with it.

Before Tuesday I have to design and print little advertisements for the microfinance center, because we’re going to resume giving out loans this week. These ads are actually really cool, conceptually. They’ll be little slips of paper (think tableslips) that the microfinance committee will distribute in the Sikoroni marketplace. Because most people there are illiterate, we can’t put much written information on them. Instead, they’ll show our brand new logo (yay!!) that depicts a group of women accepting money from a big hand coming from the sky. Looks less ridiculous than I made it sound. I’m only going to print 100. Committee members will explain the slips to whomever they hand them to, and then the news will travel by word of mouth to exponentially more women all over town. American advertising methods take so much for granted – like literacy. (Another publicity option we discussed was employing the town crier. Yeah.)

We’d paused loan-giving because the committee finished selecting the 20 pilot loan recipients, and wanted to make sure the system could run smoothly before expanding. Ten new women will definitively get loans in the next month. I’m hoping that, within that time, we can put into place a system to make loans on a consistent basis. I’ve been playing with numbers on Excel charts and emailing back and forth with finance-guru volunteers back in the States – not to mention talking with Niang, the Malian director – trying to figure out the best plan. Only now, looking at the hard accounting, is it immediately clear why microfinance organizations find it so difficult to be sustainable. It’s possible for us, but we need a lot more start-up funding (i.e. donations). So, forgive this little plug, but if you want to donate a loan it’s only 37500cfa or $93.75. Checks can be made to MHOP, sent to PO Box 20, Westminster Station VT 05159. Credit cards work from the website, www.malihealth.org.

I’m sorry, enough already. Stay tuned for less self-promotion and more exciting stories!

...wait, wasn't she supposed to be WORKING in mali?

I promise, I actually have been doing things related to microfinance here. My life in Mali is not just rock-climbing adventures and homestay family interactions. Let me explain…

MHOP is made up of a bunch of smaller projects, each thought up by a committee of 12 local activists that we call the Community Health Action Group (CHAG). The microfinance branch is one of them, and it was set up last summer by another American volunteer. My job now is to get a handle on how it’s been running and make adjustments as I/the committee see fit. The list of things I could be doing is INFINITELY long, but I’ve narrowed it down a bit and am trying to get through a good chunk of it this summer.

I spent the first few weeks putting together rough profiles of some of our borrowers. Members of MHOP’s microfinance committee (separate from the CHAG; they take loan applications and keep tabs on borrowers) took me with them to visit their 2-3 charges, and I informally interviewed about 7 of them. I asked about their business, how the loan had impacted it, what they would change about MHOP’s operations, etc. The information I got was good, but kind of sparse. I wish I had done something more formal…but I still can! And if I don’t get around to it this summer, I’ll put it on a to-do list for the next microfinance volunteer.

Here’s one profile:

Djeneba Poudubu sells firewood and cold water, and has done so for a long time. She buys the wood from little villages outside of Bamako. She took out a loan to build up her business funds. She claims that it has worked: “mainentant ca va; avant ca ne va pas.” Before, she gained 2,000 cfa from each trip to the country. Now she can get 4,000 cfa. She puts the 2,000 cfa extra in a little box, which she uses to pay her reimbursements. Djeneba wants to take out a bigger loan, with 5,000 cfa more.

When I got here, the director Niang said he was waiting for word from last summer’s volunteer (Mike) before giving loans to the last 8 applicants whom the committee accepted. I asked Mike about this via email, and he said he thought he told Niang to give them out a long time ago. Unfortunately, Mike’s French is TERRIBLE so the point didn’t get across. So I passed word onto Niang, and the remainder of loans were given out a couple weeks ago (see photo below).

Since then we have re-vamped the application form and plan to begin taking them again for at least another 10 more loans. We want to advertise around Sikoroni with illustrated handouts to give people in the market, and with a sign in front of the office – making these is another project I’ll coordinate.

Finally, I’m gathering basic information about other microfinance centers in the area. I’ll get their interest rates, loan sizes, borrower composition, etc. Then I’ll put it into one simple Excel sheet. The idea is to have our center not only give out loans, but give out information about getting loans to women in the area. Hopefully I can start planning informal business courses/consulting, too. That might be another one for the to-do list, though.

Definitely more than enough to keep me busy on the microfinance front. If you’re curious about the other projects, there’s some info on MHOP’s web blog (http://malihealth.org/ht/d/Blogger/pid/211) and on the other volunteers’ blogs.

I have so many ideas for blog entries!! I have to tell you about the food, show you photos of my fam, describe the WEDDING I went to this weekend…it will have to wait.

KEEP VOTING!!! www.dosomething.org/awards!!!

adventures

Ahhhh yes it’s finally raining again! We just had a 2-3 day spell of unbearable heat, and we’ve been desperate for a downpour. And it’s happening at this very moment – I’m watching it out my window.

The heat brought with it several adventures. One, a couple days ago, was a late-night wedding dance party. Right outside my house, 30-40 neighbors were gathered around drummers and a woman singing into a microphone. They all sat on chairs around a circle, except those who were dancing in the center. Anyone could jump in whenever, and Caitlin, Ben, Cari and I definitely took part. I might not have – I might have been too shy, had the singer not come right up to me. She beckoned me out, and then I believe started singing a song about me. What?! I know heard a bunch of “Djeneba Coulibalys”. So bizarre. This D.P. lasted until almost midnight, at which point they brought out bowls and bowls of beans and started eating. I wasn’t hungry, but I was incredibly tired so I just went to bed.

The next day (yesterday), Ben and I went on a hike to end all hikes. We wanted to explore the area, so we started off heading towards two little hills at the edge of town. Before we got there, we encountered an unfamiliar stream running through a neighbourhood. Intrigued, we decided to start following it to see where it came from. We passed people doing laundry, lots of donkeys, and some landmarks like a bridge going halfway across the water. Ben called it a “bridge to nowhere”, which reminded me of the song Miles from Nowhere. Rachers put it on a mix for me (represent, yo) and I had it in my head for the rest of the day. Not a bad choice.

We stopped twice: to find food – we ate rice and sauce (what else) at a side-of-the-road stand in who knows where – and to play soccer with some boys who were following us. Groups of children trailing behind you are NOT rare here, and yesterday Ben and I decided to refer to any such group we came across as “the Experience.” Like, “Oh look, the Experience is coming,” or “Damn it, I’m tired of this Experience!” It’s fun to talk about them in English when they’re right next to you, because they don’t understand! Hah! Take that, Bambara!!

One such Experience:

Two and a half hours after our departure we found ourselves in Djaraconodi (or something), a town that seemed EXTREMELY rural compared to our beloved Sikoroni. Open spaces, farms, trees everywhere. We found an awesome rock structure and explored it for a while, climbing up some really cool inclines. (I’ve done a few spontaneous rock-climbing stints here – it’s so fun!) Eventually we got tired and decided to head back to Sikoroni. We were exhausted and sweaty by the time we got home and I took the most satisfying bucket bath ever.

In other news, I’m almost done watching season 2 of Lost. Miraculously, a previous volunteer left DVDs of both seasons 2 and 3 here! So it’s easy for me to get my American pop culture fix when I need it.

Have you voted yet today?

Love to everyone!