ALIVE AND WELL

For those who have been wondering what happened to me for the past few months—why I haven’t posted anything here—let me put an end to your worries: I’m alive and well. Now you can sleep better at night. You’re welcome. :)

Unfortunately for both of us, there is no internet connection in my village or anywhere nearby—the only time I can get online to give you new exciting stories and photos is when I travel to the closest large city, which doesn’t happen very often; probably every few months. Sorry.

I’m away from village for the next three or four weeks, so if you would like to send me an email or message, I should be able to reply fairly quickly. Here’s an update of the past five months in Mali:

FÉLICITATIONS!
For the first two months after arriving in Mali (on July 20), I lived with a host family near the capital city of Bamako and attended a variety of training sessions—language, health and wellness, safety and security, cross-cultural and technical education—intended to prepare me for the next two years of service. During this time, I was constantly among other trainees (our group began with seventy-two—a dozen or so have since gone home) and Peace Corps staff, and the days were very scheduled and full. Finally, on September 21, pre-service training came to an end and I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The swearing-in ceremony, which was held at the United States Embassy, felt a bit like high school graduation. Our host families came dressed in their nicest outfits, clearly proud of their newest sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters for having made it through such an exhausting and difficult time. Speeches were given, tears were shed, plenty of photos taken, and a few hugs were even exchanged—something very rarely seen in Mali. The only thing missing was the diploma. Emotions were mixed: among the strong sense of relief, excitement, and accomplishment remained a feeling of unease in knowing that we would soon, in a few days, be leaving the company (and comfort) of each other—fellow trainees—and venturing out to our respective villages, where we would once again face many of the struggles we had recently endured, only this time without the support of those to whom we had grown the closest. Nevertheless, it was a time of celebration. We made it!

LA VILLE
On September 23, I left Bamako and the other volunteers and made the fourteen-hour trek to my new home: Bafoulabé. The town itself is located in the western Kayes Region of Mali—the hottest in the country—not too far from the Senegal border. Bafoulabé is the capital of the Circle of Bafoulabé, a collection of seven communes (each of which consists of a few dozen small villages), so although the town is fairly small (the population is around 3,200) there is electricity available throughout, and many houses—maybe around half—are made of concrete, as opposed to the mud brick huts that are found in most small, rural villages. While nearly every family here eats rice with sauce for lunch and dinner each day, there is a nice supply of fruits and vegetables year-round—bananas, mangoes, apples, watermelon, oranges, papaya, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, eggplant, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peanuts—thanks to the Senegal River, which lies at the edge of town (a five-minute walk from my house).

Bafoulabé has an elementary school (which serves around seven hundred students, ages seven to sixteen), a high school (of several hundred students), a small public library, bank, small outdoor market, a few dozen tiny boutiques (a couple of which sell fabric and small hardware; most of which sell food), a hospital, hotel, a few small restaurants, a bar, a post office, two mosques, and two small Christian churches. The main religion of Bafoulabé (as well as Mali as a whole) is Islam, which is practiced by around eighty or ninety percent of the population. Christianity is practiced by less than ten percent (one of the Christian churches, operated by two Norwegian missionaries, has a regular Sunday attendance of around twenty adults), and Animism by only a few.

LA VIE COLLECTIVE
As you may guess is the case in a communal society, everyone in Mali lives, eats, and socializes together at pretty much all hours of the day—it is fairly rare to see a Malian alone. It is common to find two or three generations of the same family—brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, nieces, nephews—all living in two or three houses within the same walled complex, sharing space, time, food, clothing, and resources, and all referring to each other as “brother” and “sister”. The dynamic at my house is similar—I live with two Malian families within a large walled compound, and sharing is pretty much mandatory (which has taught me that sometimes when you make a big batch of delicious peanut butter chocolate cookies or caramel candy, it isn’t necessary to tell anyone else about it—there are just too many mouths to feed!).

The communal way of living is nice—it’s comforting to always have people around that you know are willing to share in friendly conversation, laughter, food (usually rice, which I will probably never eat again after leaving Mali!), tea, and life.

LA ROUTE: LONGUE ET LENTE
Before leaving the United States, I had a certain (perhaps slightly romantic) vision of traveling to another culture and quickly (and somewhat easily) beginning to help—starting my work shortly after arriving and seeing positive results not long after that. My destination was Mali, West Africa, and I was going to make things better for the people there—to bring new ideas, perspectives, creativity (which is in serious short supply here), resources, and inspiration.

But after being in Mali for a few months and learning more about both the Peace Corps and development work in general, it is now clear that, in contrast to my initial beliefs, change (which is, to some extent, necessary for improvement) is a very slow-moving, difficult process which is not uncommonly resisted, to some degree, by those that you are working with and for the benefit of. Because in order for development to be effective and successful, it must be sustainable—able to continue on in the hands of locals long after outside aid and resources are gone—and so the focus must be on encouraging behavior change (perhaps something as small as convincing a family that washing their hands with soap before eating will reduce the risk of becoming sick) and building the capacity of locals—that is, getting them to recognize and truly believe that they already possess the skills, knowledge, and creativity needed to make improvements in their lives. Neither of these is by any means an easy task.

Perhaps the largest roadblock, as I see it, is communication—speaking and understanding the local language well—but beyond that, there is a host of other hurtles that threaten to slow or even bring to a halt the process of improvement.

Superstition, for example, keeps many Malian families from washing their hands with soap, as they firmly believe that it will rid their lives of good fortune and luck, and long-held family values keep the process of “washing” one’s hands before eating unchanged (and unsanitary)—each person rinses his or her right hand in a bowl of water before passing it to the next, who does the same. This routine, done before each meal, is thought by some to help keep the family together, and any significant deviation is seen as threatening. But as you can imagine, the practice is anything but sanitary—in a large family of eight or ten, the last few to dip into the bowl may be doing themselves more harm than good. Did I mention that Malians eat meals—mostly rice and sauce—from a large common bowl with their right hand? (Note: the left hand is used for cleaning one’s self after using the bathroom, and should never be used for eating or greeting).

The refusal to sign any official paper document, for fear of it somehow being used against them by a mal-intentioned person in some unknown (and probably non-existent) way, prevents some men from opening a bank account that could allow them to save money and greatly help themselves and their families in times of sickness or misfortune (which, I’m pretty sure, are not a result of washing your hands with soap). The examples go on.

But enough about hurtles and roadblocks—life is challenging no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to during the past three months in village, and what I hope to accomplish in the next two years:

CAISSE D’EPARGNE
The local leaders of Bafoulabé originally requested a Peace Corps Volunteer in order to help them re-launch a small, informal bank—savings and credit—that has been out of operation for quite some time, thanks to the former president stealing and running away with everyone’s money—not nice.

Although this now non-functioning institution isn’t the only one in the community (there is a formal, corporate bank here), its small size and informal structure make it extremely valuable to locals, who would benefit greatly from its return. Here’s why:

A large number of rural, working Malian men and women live day-to-day with very little money and virtually no savings. They earn, spend, and loan to friends small sums of cash each day, often without keeping track of any of it—personal money is mixed up with business funds, profits are not calculated, and spending happens whenever there is money in one’s pocket. There is little to no consideration for the value of saving money, and so people often don’t do it. In fact, some do not even understand the simple idea that if you save a small amount of money each day for a certain period of time, you will, by the end of that period, have accumulated the sum of those savings—possibly a substantial (and very useful) amount of money. And so this daily “earn some, spend some, save none” routine continues, and the reason it does so is because, for the most part, it works—people take care of each other, free food is readily available from countless neighbors, friends, or family members, and expensive luxury items, which would require saving money in order to afford, simply don’t exist in many rural towns and villages.

But what does exist, unfortunately, is sickness, drought, flooding, low crop yield, death, and a number of other unexpected occurrences that demand large amounts of money—money that those who earn some, spend, some, and save none do not have. I saw an example of this several weeks ago when a friend of my landlord asked if I could loan him 10,000CFA (equivalent to about $20) because his young son was very sick. This man didn’t have $20—the problem is not that he doesn’t work (he’s an electrician and handy-man) but that he doesn’t save.

So the value of saving money can be huge, especially during emergencies or other sudden, unexpected times of need, but people don’t do it on their own—the presence and guidance of a savings institution is necessary to convince individuals to begin saving and encourage them to continue into the future. But the high account activation fees and required minimum deposits (and account balances) that are standard at most large, formal banks make such institutions useless to the many who cannot afford such charges and demands. The small, informal bank (like the one I will be working with) allows one to create a savings account free of charge (or for a very small activation fee—much less than the larger bank requires), deposit any amount of money as frequently or infrequently as wished, and even receive small loans, despite possibly not having a great deal of cash in the bank. The benefit to one family can be substantial—multiply that by a few hundred and you have the potential to improve the lives of many by the simple act of saving money.

PARLEZ-VOUS ANGLAIS?
Shortly after arriving in Bafoulabé, with everything (and everyone) around me being new and unknown, I naturally gravitated toward the familiarity and comfort of English. I visited the local high school and elementary school and learned not only that English is taught at both, but that the teachers at each school were excited to have me here for the next two years, and wanted me in the classroom with them soon. For me, it would be a great opportunity to work with kids, which is where a lot of my interest is, and to more quickly become known in the community—somewhere around forty percent of the Malian population consists of children under the age of fifteen, and regular visits to both schools would definitely help me integrate into the community. For the students, it would be a chance to hear English from the mouth of a native speaker—something that doesn’t happen very often (I am the only American here, and the only native English speaker—there are two Norwegian missionaries who speak some English as a second language, and the English teachers at both schools are Malian).

So for the past five or six weeks, I have been in class at the elementary school three days a week, for an hour each day. So far, I haven’t really done much—the students learn very basic vocabulary and sentences, and there isn’t an opportunity for me to play an active role in the class—but I believe that my presence along encourages the students to make more of an effort to speak well, and they clearly enjoy having me in class with them. One young student, whose motivation and intelligence inarguably sets him apart from his eighty-or-so classmates, asked if he could have one-on-one tutoring with me a couple days a week to further improve his (already impressive) English speaking and comprehension. We now meet at school for a couple hours every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

At the high school, where the students speak and understand a decent amount of English, I come to class on discussion days—every couple weeks—and spend the hour talking (very slowly) to the students and encouraging them to ask questions and contribute to the often one-sided (mine) discussion. An unfortunate aspect of communal society, as I see it, is that people have a fear of standing out among others—of an individual spirit—because of the way they may be perceived by the community: as radical, rebellious, or just simply weird. And so often times the norm—the (perhaps only) established way of doing things—is accepted and taken up by the entire population, which is generally unwilling to experiment with, much less accept, any deviation. In English class, silence is the norm, and the alternative—speaking, asking questions, contributing to discussion—is not often attempted by many. Nevertheless, a handful of students do eventually speak up and begin asking questions (although perhaps not about the day’s topic. How old are you? Why are you here? Are you married? Do you want to be? Do you love Malian women? Are there a lot of jobs in America? Can you take me back there with you?).

The high school currently does not offer computer access to students—few even know how to use one—but they do have a closet full of about fifteen dusty computers, which, with my help, will soon be used to create a large computer lab. Once the room is ready and all the machines are up and running, I will begin teaching the staff and students how to navigate a computer, and about the benefits and uses of various programs.

AVEZ-VOUS L’ARGENT?
Although the primary goal of Peace Corps work is to help build the capacity of locals and to encourage them to utilize their own thoughts, creativity, and resources to improve their lives, the truth is that the one thing which prevents a large number of projects from becoming a reality is a lack of money. Fortunately, Peace Corps Volunteers have access to a few different potential sources of funding that can be used for a variety of much needed construction projects: latrines, hospitals, schools, wells, gardens, fences, etc.

The Mayor’s Office in Bafoulabé has already identified a few dozen such large construction projects that the citizens of various villages within the commune would benefit from—within the next few months, I am hoping to identify the most important of these and begin exploring the idea of making it happen.

LES AUTRES CHOSES
Aside from the small savings and credit bank that I was sent here to help repair and bring back to life, any other work that I do during my two years of service (and the Peace Corps encourages a lot) is completely undefined and will be shaped by my own areas of interest, the needs of the community, and the willingness of local citizens, businesses, and organizations to work with me.

As of right now, I am interested in exploring the accomplishments and needs of the local health center to see if there is an appropriate place there for me (perhaps helping with vaccination campaigns, general health and sanitation education, or even baby-weighing).

I also plan on looking into fruit and vegetable dehydration—possibly teaching some locals how to build a dehydrator and package the dried goods. During the months when crops are largely done producing and food is in shorter-than-normal supply, it would be great for families to have a stockpile of dried fruits and vegetables to rely on.

A few weeks ago, I was told that a volunteer in a nearby village recently started a project to build a school, but is about to reach the end of her two years of service and will soon be leaving. Another volunteer and I are apparently going to be taking over the project for her. Should be fun.