First few days in Muntugula

February 7, 2011


Rue the day that I thought I’d be sitting in Africa with paper and pen at 2:40 in the afternoon waiting to go to Bambara language lessons. I so badly want to rest but I have to write this stuff down before I forget any of it. Words will never do it justice. Hopefully by the time I am ready to post this I will have some pictures to go with it.

We left Tubaniso at 8:30 for our homestay villages. Homestay is where (all 64 trainees) will stay for the next 9 weeks. It is here that we will learn Bambara (or should at least be an intermediate level by then) and immerse ourselves into the culture and learn as much as we can about Mali before moving to the site where we will spend the next 24 months.

The 64 are split into 6-10 people and put in different villages around Bamako. We drove for an hour. There were 10 of us in a Pathfinder with about 1500 pounds of luggage piled on top. Prone to motion sickness luckily no one fought me about a window seat. Not shotgun but as close as I could get. There is basically one road thru Bamako/Mali that goes from one end to the other. It is nicely paved but the driving is absolutely atrocious. No wonder we are not allowed to drive while we’re here. Everyone drives a scooter and the bush taxis can’t even get out of their own way no less get out of these scooters way…and they only go about 35 miles per hour. I decided I will never be able to travel while in Mali if these taxis are the only mode of transportation. I want to go to Dogon Country but from here it’s 20 hours. I don’t forsee it happening, but let’s see how I feel after I’ve been here for a while.

I had to stop writing for a while. Since I’ve been gone I put together my water filter system, went to the pump for water, ate lunch of rice, fish and tomatoey stewy stuff. I went to language class for 2 hours, yalla yalla’d (walked around) the village, stopping by the other PCVs homes to see where each one lived, met most of the villagers along the way, took a bucket bath and ate dinner. I did more in the past 6 hours than I would do on my busiest day in the states. Oh yeah all the while the mosque calling out for A La…prayer time…loud through an intercom system.

Muntugula – back to my story:

The road into the village is unpaved and very bumpy and ditchy and seemed much longer than it actually was. Then we turned into what I would have guessed to be a walking trail. The walls and huts so close that I could have put my hand out the window and touched…we reach the center of “town”. There is a building with the village elders, the dugutigi (village chief) and one representative from each family waiting for us. They did introductions and blessings around the room…as if we could understand any of it, we presented the chief with a gift of 10 kola nuts and went back outside where we were presented with our Malila names, grabbed our luggage and headed “home”.

Home sweet home.

Sitan Kulibali – my new name.

After we drop off my stuff we go walk over to the market so I can meet my host family. It consists of Gaussu who is my host brother, 20, Sitan, my name sake sister who is 15 and Burama who is my younger 12 year old brother. And of course my host mom Moussu Cura. I assumed there was no dad but I will learn further in the week he lives and works at their new compound and garden being built about a 25 minute walk. Apparently they have money. Everyone is smiling and excited and so happy to see me and yet as all these wonderful things are happening in the heat of the day I can’t help but wonder what the HELL I’m doing here. There hasn’t been one day that I have physically felt OK, I now know what they mean by “Africa hot” (and hot season hasn’t even started yet), I can’t communicate with anyone, there is trash everywhere and I’ve never been dirtier and smellier than I am right now…although I will learn over the next two weeks that I can be dirtier and smellier than I was that day. But this is what I signed up for, right?

February 9, 2011

After dinner and sitting around going thru all the greetings every time someone came into the compound I finally excused myself around 9:15. Apparently no one else is tired. I listen to noise, talking, laughing, scooters driving the road behind my room and calls for A La for another 2 hours on and off as I drift in and out of sleep. I woke at 5:30, to pee, but ignored it as long as I could. It’s such a hassle and no one likes a nyegen…even the good ones are awful. My sister got me another hot bucket of water for my morning bath. I ate bread with peanut butter in my room and off to school. Yesterday my brother walked me over to the school. Apparently he thinks I know the way on my own already.

After 4 hours of class we get a 2 hour lunch. That seems to be the norm for most as it is the hottest part of the day. I’m the only one in my compound that actually rests. But I can’t stay up and socialize another minute with everyone throwing words at me and I guess expecting me to already understand what they are saying. Saying it louder and slower each time I tell them I don’t understand what I’m saying. No Matter how slow or loud you say it I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE F%$K YOU’RE SAYING. It must be nap time. I’m feeling really irritable.

Random exerts:

*The water we run through our filters is from the pump in the center of town. The water we use for bathing, the salidaga (portable teapot bidet and sink), washing clothes and dishes is from the well in our courtyard. The well is a hole in a cement platform (about 6 inches above the ground) with a hatch door…that’s never closed. You stand over the hole drop a rubber bag tied with a rope down the hole, which is about 30 feet straight down until it hits the water. Once it’s full you have to hike it back up again. Which is not easy. It’s at least a gallon. But hand over hand, the young, the old, the in between hike up bag after back. I tried it myself. Not only is it dizzying standing over the hole, but the bag is not light. I don’t know how they do it, bag after bag, day after day. When I pulled up the bag everyone cheered like I was a rock star. I feel like I’m begin patronized but I’m not sure. Surely they don’t think I am totally helpless and this really was a big thing that I did. No one cheered my sister and she had just finished pulling up 10 bags.

My host sister pulling bags of water.

*There is trash everywhere. Black plastic bags (similar to our grocery store bags) all over the place. They have no trash cans, trash system, landfills…something…anything. I know it’s a poor underdeveloped country but surely they can look around and see how wrong this is. The children are playing in trash, people are walking in trash…the animals are eating trash. Surely someone besides me has thought “Wouldn’t it be a lot more pleasant if we picked ONE spot for everyone to put their trash?” They have to walk to the pumps to get water, why not walk to the heap to dump trash?

*My host brother, Gaussu is nice and has been very helpful. But just for one minute that I’m home I would appreciate if he would stop snapping his fingers in my face pointing to stuff and telling me what it is. Then forcing me to repeat it over and over again. I’m trying to process what’s already in my head that we learned in school today.

*I have a cell phone!! There are two cell phone carriers in Mali. Orange (with a French accent) and Mali Tel. Between the two there is coverage over the whole country. Since we don’t know where we will be set up permanently yet, we all got a phone and a phone number and sim card from each carrier. This way we are covered no matter where we are. When I got to site I went to the butiki to buy some Mali Tel numbers since this is the carrier that works the area we were in. When I got back to my house I realized I only bought the Orange sim card. I was going to call the boys tonight. This makes me sad.

2 /9/11 still - Bitching up a storm

This is a very long day. Schol is OK. Of course it doesn’t help that we are outside in the sun. There is a hangar over us, but…it’s 100 degrees for goodness sake. We pushed thru 4 hours of class and then broke for lunch. I ate good. Couscous with peanut sauce and some kind of meat. Maybe goat. A small banana and piece of orange. My family really does take care of me well. Good food, plenty of water for bathing…twice a day they hook me up. No one would believe the way I bathe. Squatting down…naked…next to a bucket. Pouring water, sudsing, pouring water. In an outdoor, no roof on it nyegen. There is a wall around it but still. I used to shower with my pajamas on. No one gets hurt or goes blind. Now…outside…naked.

One of the other PCTs came by to get me on the way to school. She was pretty upset. She was in her room resting when her host dad told her to come out. Some of his friends were there and they just started throwing words out and questions and waiting for her to respond and laughing. Sometimes my family laughs but I know, I think, they are laughing with me. She not feeling it. She was obviously upset. If you have never been in a situation where the whole world is speaking one language and you can’t understand, answer, communicate, you can’t even begin to imagine what being here is like. Again, I know this is what we signed up for…we are tired, hot and filled with too much information. Sometimes you feel you could bust. And the whole village has been instructed to talk to us and chat us up. It’s relentless.

I keep trying to remember the bigger goal. How great it is going to be when I’m helping pregnant moms and babies. Going to schools to teach and not learn. In my own home cooking when I want and being able to sit outside without someone snapping and pointing. Alas, we have to go thru this to get to that. I have to go to dinner and then I will go to my room right after. Instead of pissing and moaning on paper, maybe I’ll bust out my Kindle and read. I downloaded a funny book for just such an occasion.

February 10, 2011

5:30am wake up call for prayer. They may as well have the intercom in my room. I guess that’s the point. Loud enough for everyone to hear and start the day honoring their god.

I think this whole experience is taking its toll on everyone. We’re cranky, we’re tired of our families parading us around like a leashed animals, we feel stupid and we’re just plain dirty. Although they say this 9 weeks is the worst, the one helpful thing we have is each other. Once we move in to our sites we will really be alone. The things we will be able to bring with us there that we don’t have now…language (the ability to communicate) and culture.

In the meantime, it feels like we’ve been here a month and it’s only been 5 days. One girl in my group is sure she won’t make it. She says it is not what she signed up for. I’m not sure what I signed up for right about now myself. I told them we need to cut ourselves some slack. 10 days ago we were in our comfy homes with our families, children and pets. We were hanging out with are friends, raiding the fridge when the mood suited, drink cold water and diet Dr. Pepper (what I’d do for a soda right now). Ever single person we passed in the street understood what we were saying and we understood them. We know and are retaining more than we think we are. When I took French I had a 2 hour class twice a week. We are in Bambara class 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Tough times girls, tough times.

I just finished my evening bucket bath. The one in the morning is a nice way to wake up feeling refreshed and clean. But the evening bath, right before dinner, I can’t even explain. You can feel the grit and dirt on you AND the stink. I never thought I’d appreciate a warm bucket of parasitic water in my life as I do right now.

Today I learned question words and connecting words/phrases. Who, what, when, why, where, and then, first, after, because, maybe…and we put some sentences together. We walked to the market and walked up to the sellers asking what’s this and what’s that and how do you say. Going through the whole greeting ritual with everyone we passed.

How many of you can say you ate out of the same bowl with chickens and goats today for luch. On the way back to school I had to stop for about 15 cows and steers to cross the road, walked to the pump for water and dodged a donkey cart. My day is full. AAAAAA LLLLLLLAAAAAA!!

During the culture session of the day we learned about “joking cousins”. Very interesting theory. There aren’t that many last names in Mali. Everyone a decendent of or current relative of everyone else. When you meet someone with the same last name as you or a member of your family right away you have this connection. You can say anything and joke with them and everyone laughs. They say things like you eat beans (we all know what that leads to…it’s nice to know farting is funny no matter what part of the world you’re in. Then you say your family name is the best and you are a donkey or pig and then make the animal noise. Since the inception of this, what appears to be, this hilarious tradition joking cousins continues across families and names. And since you are related and these “cousins” you can never fight. In Mali they believe this is why their country has never had any wars and they have always been at peace. Because they joke with each other. I walked around town today with my brother everyone asking my last name and when I would tell them it was Kulibali they would say I eat beans and make heehaw noises at me. They thought it was hilarious when I did it right back to them. To them this is the most fun you can have in a day. And apparently it never gets old. But again, if this is what has kept them from warring all these years, and they joke and no ones feelings ever gets hurt then praise be the “joking cousin.

*When we sit and eat I sit at a small setting (low bench around knee height and beach chairs) with my host brother (the eldest, 20). The rest of the family and any friends that happen to be around at lunch or dinner time sit and eat out of a separate huge bowl. In the bowl is usually rice and whatever stewy stuff for the day spooned over the top. Using only the right hand you scoop up some food and with your hand coming up from the bottom you slop it into your mouth shoving everything including your fingers into your mouth. Then every few bites my host brother licks his hand from the wrist to the finger tips and then, you got it, sticks that hand right back in the bowl. My host brother loves to make sure I got enough fish or potatoes or carrots so he will use that hand pick stuff up out of the bowl and hand it to me to eat. Double dipping takes on a whole new meaning. If I was in the US I would never eat another bite of food again. But here it’s all OK. I do make sure my brother washes his hands really good before we eat…of course that clean is shot to hell once he sticks that hand full on into his mouth.

*For those of you who know me best you know of my utter disgust of the site of lizards and frogs. Well they are plentiful here. I was attached by frogs in 4 different incidences the first night. Here in Muntugula there aren’t any frogs, that I’ve seen so far, but there are lizards and they are huge. The size of kamato dragons. As we know they love the hot cement. They love hanging out in the nyegen (bathroom). Thankfully they are quicker than I am. And they don’t come out at night. I was excited to hear Malians are afraid of frogs. So I fit right in.

Our class met over at the clinic today along with the Health Ed people from Jamina (a village down the street about 20 minutes). It was the first of the technical training sessions. Mostly we checked out the clinic compound, the different buildings and got to ask what we thought was a doctor questions. Apparently there are 2 health technicians in our village but no real doctor to speak of. We asked questions about family planning, or lack thereof, and diseases that are prelevant for the area. The problems of course for the clinics are the obvious, lack of staff, lack of supplies, no electricity for refrigeration, lighting or hot water…which all stems from lack of money. They have solar panels hooked to a water tank for hot water but those broke a long time ago. The mayor was supposed to get them a new solar panel for electricity and for the fridge to store vaccines but that never actually happened. They use a kerosene fridge. You can imagine the nightmare that is to make sure that stays running and cold. We saw the delivery room, recovery room, the offices for shots and to pay. In the recovery room (maternity ward if you will) there was someone who had just delivered the night before. She was resting on the floor while her mother was holding the baby on the bed. We see children all the time with horrible protruding belly buttons. I was explaining to the others in my group how the belly button is clipped after birth and it is left off until the remaining part of the cord falls off leaving a nice neat belly button. After holding this newborn baby I now know why all the kids have this belly button issue. They obviously cut and that’s it. This babies belly button was a terrible mess waiting to happen.

The delivery room is not to be described. I have nothing to say.

Delivery room...need I say more.

New baby that was just born.  I held her while mom rested comfortably on the floor.

We talked about family planning, not for the lack of trying, but it’s just not the nature of the beast. More children make more workers make more money. The men don’t want their women on birth control. The more babies the stronger the man, right? “Look what I can do.” So they are trying to instill “birth spacing”. So in 8 years have 4 babies instead of 8. I’m not so sure that’s catching on.

Malaria of course is their biggest threat. Their course of action is to treat it when they get it opposed to taking preventative profalaxis. The pills taken weekly are about 200 francs or 40 cents per week…per person. That doesn’t sound like much but when you have 8 people in your family and you only make $1 per day it’s the difference between eating…every night…or not.

I was surprised to learn they have a very low percentage of HIV/Aids. Only 1.5%. STD’s aren’t too bad either. They have high incidences of shistos which is a parasite you get after swimming in contaminated water…the Niger River. Especially after rainy season.

*Hot season is coming. March thru mid-May the temperatures during the day should be around 110 to 120.

*Donkeys SCREAM!! For no apparent reason. They do it a lot during the night. It’ll be nice and quiet, I’m sleeping and all of a sudden a donkey will scream. “When will the donkeys stop screaming Clarice?”

School pictures:

Abu, teaching us Bambara.

Class.

Walking home for lunch.

Studying under the tree after school.

What the hell is going on!?

Abu pulling tea at lunchtime.