Friday, May 30, 2008
Photos
Just posted a dozen or so new photos under the link titled "My Home" on the right sidebar. Enjoy:)
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Latest and greatest
Hey people,
I thought I better throw a message out to the world while I’m around an internet connection.
Things here in Mali are going pretty well— I’m still healthy, happy, and enjoying life. The last couple months have been super hot—probably around ninety-five degrees in the shade—but the fact that I have a refrigerator at my house (unlike ninety-nine percent of volunteers) probably means that I can’t complain a whole lot. Ice cold water is a beautiful, beautiful thing—don’t forget that.
I still help out with English classes at both the elementary school and high school in my town, which continues to be a lot of fun. I am also still giving private English lessons to two young guys a couple days per week. They have actually become pretty good friends of mine, which is nice. Almost the entire community of Bafoulabé (my town) knows me by now, but most of the connections I have with people are based primarily on a daily exchange of greetings and small talk—not much else—so it’s great to have some closer friends that I can actually spend time with and get to know on a more personal and deeper level.
I recently painted a large, colorful mural of Mali inside my house (sorry—I forgot to take a picture!) and it gave me the idea to get five or six young students together in the near future to paint one or two murals in a public space at the elementary school. I would like to do the same thing at the high school, also. I think a huge world map would be interesting, and would help the kids learn more about this wonderful world we live in. We will probably also do a huge hippopotamus (Mali means hippo in the national language of Bambara, and the animal is particularly famous in Bafoulabé—there is a huge hippo statue in the center of town).
My good buddy Ryan Shaw, who lives about six kilometers from me, recently taught me all about the magic of using urine as a fertilizer for crops. Our bodies expel tons of nitrogen and phosphorous through our urine, and both are what many vegetables, grains, and fruit trees need in order to grow big and strong (and produce lots of good food for us to munch on, of course). A decent bit of Ryan’s excitement about the concept rubbed off on me, and I am now about to begin the process of teaching the benefits and the application process to locals in my community, and helping them get set-up with the correct urine-collection equipment. My goal is to begin with a group of about ten people and then expand the project to many more once that first group begins to see an increase in their yields and starts to spread the word about it. Considering the fact that around seventy percent of economic activity in this country is agricultural, it seems to me that any new technology or technique has the potential to benefit a huge number of people (which makes me believe that every volunteer, regardless of which sector they are in, should focus some sort of energy and attention towards agricultural work). We’ll see how it goes. Should be fun.
A few days ago, I had a meeting with my homologue (a local Malian man that I work closely with) and some other community members in order to begin planning a large sanitation project that I am initiating and will be a part of. Our goal is to construct a soak pit for three-hundred different families. Right now you have no idea what a soak pit is, but you will in a quick minute. Read on.
Inside every Malian family’s walled concession is a “bathroom” which stands alone about thirty or more feet away from the house, and consists of a small room enclosed by four short mud or concrete walls. There may or may not be a door and/or roof. Inside the “bathroom” is a small hole cut into the floor (usually about a six-inch square) that acts as a toilet would, and waste drops down into a huge space (usually a couple meters long and wide, and a few meters deep) underneath the floor, where it sits and slowly decomposes. It functions like a port-a-potty does, except that it is never emptied with a pump.
Also inside this “bathroom” is where a person washes him or herself with water from a small bucket (running water inside of a family’s concession does not exist in rural towns and villages). Because of the frequency that Malians bath, it is not possible to have bath water run into the same large hole that human waste is deposited into, because it would fill up quite quickly. So, in the absence of any type of sewage or plumbing system, dirty water from bathing drains out of the “bathroom” through a tiny hole or short pipe and into the public street outside of the family’s concession (as most “bathrooms” are constructed on the perimeter of the walled concession). The result, as you can imagine, is an ever-present and ever-growing amount of disgusting, stinky water that sits stagnate on nearly every street in town and becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes and, unfortunately, a water source for a variety of animals to drink from. It is quite a terrible sight. Now, a soak pit is a large hole (usually around one-meter cubed) that is constructed directly outside of the “bathroom” where the dirty bath water exits onto the street, and simply acts as a way to catch that dirty water and trap it underground, where it will filter through the earth and become clean once again. Each soak pit is filled to the top with rocks (which provide structural support to prevent someone who walks over the pit from falling in, and to prevent the walls of the pit from eroding into the hole), and a small pipe attached to the wall of the “bathroom” allows bath water to drain into the center of the pit. Each pit is then covered with two layers of thick plastic tarp and covered with dirt. So the finished soak pit is completely hidden from view and effectively traps all of the dirty bath water that exits the “bathroom”. It’s a pretty simple, inexpensive solution to a very wide-spread problem.
A majority of families in Bafoulabé do currently have a soak pit, but nearly none of them are covered, so as a result, they are all filled to the top with mud and garbage, which renders them useless—bath water drains into the street as though the soak pit didn’t exist. And imagine the scene during rainy season when it pours rain nearly every day and the streets are flooded with a mixture of rain and bath water.
So the project that I am initiating will involve the re-building of three-hundred soak pits over the span of three or four months. Working with community members, we will employ a small team of four Malian men who will actually do the physical work that each soak pit requires. Each family that decides they want to be a part of the project will be required to dig the hole, obtain the rocks (by either purchasing them or gathering them from the outskirts of town) and actually putting the rocks in the hole. The work team will then come along and attach the pipe with a bit of concrete and cover the pit with plastic and dirt. By the time the project is completed, we expect that quite an improvement will have been made in the appearance and cleanliness of the town. NOTE: If this project sounds like a worthy cause that you might like to contribute to, well, you’re in luck! A portion of the funding will come from a program called Peace Corps Partnership, which is fully supported by donations made online by ordinary (I mean, extraordinary) people just like you! Once I submit the proposal (hopefully within the next month), my project will be put up on the Peace Corps Partnership website, and I’ll post a direct link to it on this blog. Check back soon!
Thaaat’s about all for now. Oh, a few highlights for the months to come: For the Fourth of July, over one-hundred volunteers will be getting together to celebrate and have some good times—fishing, swimming with the hippos, playing with wild monkeys, eating good food, and making some good memories. I’m excited. And for two weeks in late July, I’ll be going on vacation to Ghana (an English-speaking country—wooo-hoooo!) and the Ivory Coast with three friends. Should be a blast!
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope you are healthy and well. Take care.
I thought I better throw a message out to the world while I’m around an internet connection.
Things here in Mali are going pretty well— I’m still healthy, happy, and enjoying life. The last couple months have been super hot—probably around ninety-five degrees in the shade—but the fact that I have a refrigerator at my house (unlike ninety-nine percent of volunteers) probably means that I can’t complain a whole lot. Ice cold water is a beautiful, beautiful thing—don’t forget that.
I still help out with English classes at both the elementary school and high school in my town, which continues to be a lot of fun. I am also still giving private English lessons to two young guys a couple days per week. They have actually become pretty good friends of mine, which is nice. Almost the entire community of Bafoulabé (my town) knows me by now, but most of the connections I have with people are based primarily on a daily exchange of greetings and small talk—not much else—so it’s great to have some closer friends that I can actually spend time with and get to know on a more personal and deeper level.
I recently painted a large, colorful mural of Mali inside my house (sorry—I forgot to take a picture!) and it gave me the idea to get five or six young students together in the near future to paint one or two murals in a public space at the elementary school. I would like to do the same thing at the high school, also. I think a huge world map would be interesting, and would help the kids learn more about this wonderful world we live in. We will probably also do a huge hippopotamus (Mali means hippo in the national language of Bambara, and the animal is particularly famous in Bafoulabé—there is a huge hippo statue in the center of town).
My good buddy Ryan Shaw, who lives about six kilometers from me, recently taught me all about the magic of using urine as a fertilizer for crops. Our bodies expel tons of nitrogen and phosphorous through our urine, and both are what many vegetables, grains, and fruit trees need in order to grow big and strong (and produce lots of good food for us to munch on, of course). A decent bit of Ryan’s excitement about the concept rubbed off on me, and I am now about to begin the process of teaching the benefits and the application process to locals in my community, and helping them get set-up with the correct urine-collection equipment. My goal is to begin with a group of about ten people and then expand the project to many more once that first group begins to see an increase in their yields and starts to spread the word about it. Considering the fact that around seventy percent of economic activity in this country is agricultural, it seems to me that any new technology or technique has the potential to benefit a huge number of people (which makes me believe that every volunteer, regardless of which sector they are in, should focus some sort of energy and attention towards agricultural work). We’ll see how it goes. Should be fun.
A few days ago, I had a meeting with my homologue (a local Malian man that I work closely with) and some other community members in order to begin planning a large sanitation project that I am initiating and will be a part of. Our goal is to construct a soak pit for three-hundred different families. Right now you have no idea what a soak pit is, but you will in a quick minute. Read on.
Inside every Malian family’s walled concession is a “bathroom” which stands alone about thirty or more feet away from the house, and consists of a small room enclosed by four short mud or concrete walls. There may or may not be a door and/or roof. Inside the “bathroom” is a small hole cut into the floor (usually about a six-inch square) that acts as a toilet would, and waste drops down into a huge space (usually a couple meters long and wide, and a few meters deep) underneath the floor, where it sits and slowly decomposes. It functions like a port-a-potty does, except that it is never emptied with a pump.
Also inside this “bathroom” is where a person washes him or herself with water from a small bucket (running water inside of a family’s concession does not exist in rural towns and villages). Because of the frequency that Malians bath, it is not possible to have bath water run into the same large hole that human waste is deposited into, because it would fill up quite quickly. So, in the absence of any type of sewage or plumbing system, dirty water from bathing drains out of the “bathroom” through a tiny hole or short pipe and into the public street outside of the family’s concession (as most “bathrooms” are constructed on the perimeter of the walled concession). The result, as you can imagine, is an ever-present and ever-growing amount of disgusting, stinky water that sits stagnate on nearly every street in town and becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes and, unfortunately, a water source for a variety of animals to drink from. It is quite a terrible sight. Now, a soak pit is a large hole (usually around one-meter cubed) that is constructed directly outside of the “bathroom” where the dirty bath water exits onto the street, and simply acts as a way to catch that dirty water and trap it underground, where it will filter through the earth and become clean once again. Each soak pit is filled to the top with rocks (which provide structural support to prevent someone who walks over the pit from falling in, and to prevent the walls of the pit from eroding into the hole), and a small pipe attached to the wall of the “bathroom” allows bath water to drain into the center of the pit. Each pit is then covered with two layers of thick plastic tarp and covered with dirt. So the finished soak pit is completely hidden from view and effectively traps all of the dirty bath water that exits the “bathroom”. It’s a pretty simple, inexpensive solution to a very wide-spread problem.
A majority of families in Bafoulabé do currently have a soak pit, but nearly none of them are covered, so as a result, they are all filled to the top with mud and garbage, which renders them useless—bath water drains into the street as though the soak pit didn’t exist. And imagine the scene during rainy season when it pours rain nearly every day and the streets are flooded with a mixture of rain and bath water.
So the project that I am initiating will involve the re-building of three-hundred soak pits over the span of three or four months. Working with community members, we will employ a small team of four Malian men who will actually do the physical work that each soak pit requires. Each family that decides they want to be a part of the project will be required to dig the hole, obtain the rocks (by either purchasing them or gathering them from the outskirts of town) and actually putting the rocks in the hole. The work team will then come along and attach the pipe with a bit of concrete and cover the pit with plastic and dirt. By the time the project is completed, we expect that quite an improvement will have been made in the appearance and cleanliness of the town. NOTE: If this project sounds like a worthy cause that you might like to contribute to, well, you’re in luck! A portion of the funding will come from a program called Peace Corps Partnership, which is fully supported by donations made online by ordinary (I mean, extraordinary) people just like you! Once I submit the proposal (hopefully within the next month), my project will be put up on the Peace Corps Partnership website, and I’ll post a direct link to it on this blog. Check back soon!
Thaaat’s about all for now. Oh, a few highlights for the months to come: For the Fourth of July, over one-hundred volunteers will be getting together to celebrate and have some good times—fishing, swimming with the hippos, playing with wild monkeys, eating good food, and making some good memories. I’m excited. And for two weeks in late July, I’ll be going on vacation to Ghana (an English-speaking country—wooo-hoooo!) and the Ivory Coast with three friends. Should be a blast!
Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I hope you are healthy and well. Take care.
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